FEMA Trailers Optimizing Formaldehyde Exposure
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 02.28.07
If a designer of emergency housing set out to expose climate refugees to as much formaldehyde as possible, what would he do? First off, he might cover as much interior surface area as possible with particleboard and composites heavily laced with urea formaldehyde resins and glues: building envelope, doors, flooring...even furniture. Then, he would increase the internal wall surface area to volume ratio as much as possible: like in a trailer. Park those trailers out in the southern sun, where the heat will “bake” off formaldehyde gas at the highest possible rate, and you have a recipe for optimum exposure. Well…almost optimum. To get it absolutely as high as possible, you want to ensure that the residents of said trailers are going to spend as much time as possible inside: dislocated persons without jobs would be perfect. Per an article in The Nation, this goal has already been achieved by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): “Along the Gulf Coast, in the towns and fishing villages from New Orleans to Mobile, survivors of Hurricane Katrina are suffering from a constellation of similar health problems.
They wake up wheezing, coughing and gasping for breath. Their eyes burn; their heads ache; they feel tired, lethargic. Nosebleeds are common, as are sinus infections and asthma attacks. Children and seniors are most severely afflicted, but no one is immune… The people suffering from these illnesses live in trailers supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Administration.”
“An estimated 275,000 Americans are living in more than 102,000 travel trailers and mobile homes that FEMA purchased after Hurricane Katrina…The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified formaldehyde as a human carcinogen”. Here’s the killer quote:- “Scientists and housing experts believe that the materials used to fabricate the FEMA trailers may have been imported from countries that produce high-formaldehyde-emitting particle board and composite woods”.
We highly recommend you take the time to read the full and well-researched article in The Nation. But before you go there, let’s see if we can flip the worst case to the best case in trailer design. If you could be on a FEMA advisory board, what design elements and materials would you incorporate in a basic emergency shelter, with the goal of making them as cheaply and quickly as possible? We thought of a few ideas (below). Comment away with your suggestions. Maybe someone in Congress is watching?
How about using standard cargo containers as the base unit? Then, instead of contracting a company to assemble them in a far northern state, bring the cargo containers to a staging area closer to where they will be deployed and hire local people to complete the assembly tasks.
For a green roof:- vacuum-molded roof pans with roll-out pre-seeded beds made of shredded wood and mulch. Gray water and AC condensate discharge is pumped up into the roof pans for evaporative cooling and to water the plants.
For better air circulation and in lieu of air conditioning: a whole-trailer ceiling exhaust fan pulls fresh air in through side windows and doors.
Because the hurricane zone is largely subtropical in climate, insulation requirements can be downplayed and an entire wall can be filled with windows to provide natural light, with solar gain reducing coatings or shades.
Image credit: David Metraux
This is ridiculous! With all the great designs for Hurricane Katrina victims that came gushing out right after the tragedy, you woulda thunk FEMA could have found something better.
What a tragic failure.
As someone who has worked for FEMA I can tell you that it would be nice if the alternate housing could have been approved. The system is not set-up to be the best for the victims, it's set-up to be the quickest to get out there. The trailers are not made special for FEMA, they are straight off the production line of the manufacturers and rushed to central areas for dispersal. If there is to be change then it will have to come from outside the current organization. To many political and retired military personal without any disaster experience. Stop the political hacks and you can improve FEMA.
Now do not just Blame FEMA for this The US congress and US house of representatives also had a roll in this.
During 1984 the idea was kicked around to cut FEMA's budget and they did so. Durning the Bush administration they combined FEMA with Homeland security and provided no funding for FEMA what so ever. Then they put Mr Brown in charge. He is someone with no firefighting, Rescue, or even so much as medical training to lead this organization. Then the storms came Katrina and Rita. These storms affected the area roughly the same size as the UK in volume.
Getting to the victims to help was problem number 1
Getting Food, water, clothing to the victims was problems Number 2,3,4 respectively.
problem number 5 was lack of leadership from anyone in charge.
Then the hastily designed and fabricated shelters came by the train loads. and it was not enough to shelter all those affected by the disaster. Our insurance agency's only made matters worst and antagonized the situation. keeping these people in these hastily designed "shelters" longer than they should be. Most of these folks have little to no money to rebuild in New Orleans, and the poorer parts of Missouri. Now the news out of these areas Is trickling down to a small whisper that no one can hear over the anna nichole smith dogma. The only good news i have heard out of these areas is Anglia Jolie and Her Brad Pitt have bought a house in New Orleans and are hosting a sustainable Design contest.
This type of work needs to speed up and get it right this time and next time.
D~W
===author's response follows ====
All valid points D.W.
My main point is that there are fast, inexpensive ways around the problem. It's not as if this was the last hurricane. There's time now to come up with a better design and start building them. About 5 months to be precise.
My concern is that the existing FEMA contracts are set up to crank out more of the same and the dominant mobile home makers may either be unwilling or unable to implement a better design, stuck in a chip-board based, cookie cutter business model. Only Congressional oversight can turn this around.
Perhaps they could make the trailers using fluff. Fluff is made from recycled garbage, it safe and eco-friendly. WasteAway is the company that does the processing.
You don't need to invent a new product to meet the criteria for save, affordable, temporary-convertible-to-permant housing.
ShelterUS utilizes steel and styrofoam panels (no formaldehyde) that can easily survive hurricane, flood, earthquake and fire. In Guam, structure built of this material survived, without serious damage, a 250 mph typhoon followed weeks later by an 8.2 Richter earthquake. Can you get anyone in FEMA or NOLA to listen? Does a stone have ears?
Not suprisingly no further comments on the FEMA trailer fiasco since March? For all the talk about changes, the rhetoric builds nothing new. Same old, same old.... The old song, WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN? "They" do not want to. Just line the pockets with gold, the eternal mantra.
Good piece. THere's a nice article with some things to look out ofr if you've had formaldehyde exposure here:
http://www.docgurley.com/2008/02/18/toxic-femaldehyde-what-now/
Despite ever growing evidence that the toxic FEMA trailers where making hundreds of people sick, the agency did nothing to protect trailer residents until outside pressure. FEMA's Office of General council stated that testing the trailers “would imply FEMA’s ownership of the issue." As a result toxic FEMA trailer residents spent months, and in many cases years, being poisoned by formaldehyde fumes.
Despite ever growing evidence that the toxic FEMA trailers where making hundreds of people sick, the agency did nothing to protect trailer residents until outside pressure. FEMA's Office of General council stated that testing the trailers “would imply FEMA’s ownership of the issue." As a result toxic FEMA trailer residents spent months, and in many cases years, being poisoned by formaldehyde fumes.