Thursday, September 17, 2009
Inside a FEMA trailer (photo: Patrisha Walker)
Opening testimony presented this week in the civil trial over toxic trailers provided to victims of Hurricane Katrina was marked by tearful testimony from a former government expert and a rather questionable response from the head of the trailers’ manufacturer.
The lawsuit has been brought by a dozen plaintiffs who lived in trailers made by Gulf Stream Coach and provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its contractor, Fluor Enterprises, following the hurricane that devastated New Orleans and parts of the Gulf coast in 2005. Tests later revealed that the portable housing units contained unsafe levels of formaldehyde, causing respiratory problems and other ailments.
Dr. Christopher De Rosa, formerly an expert with the federal government’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, fought back tears while testifying at the trial about the health problems people experienced from living in the trailers. De Rosa was allegedly retaliated against and demoted by his superiors for warning them of an “impending public health disaster” because of the trailers.
Later in the trial, Gulf Stream Coach’s chairman, Jim Shea Jr., told the jury that his company’s advice to people living in the trailers was “to turn on the air-conditioning full blast and open the windows” if they were sensitive to the formaldehyde fumes.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
1st Trial over FEMA Trailer Fumes Opens in La. (by Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press)
Comic Relief in FEMA Trailer Trial (by Sabrina Canfield, Courthouse News Service)
Dramatic Testimony Concludes First Day of FEMA Trailer Trial (by Sabrina Canfield, Courthouse News Service)
Marion Alexander, et al v. Fleetwood Enterprises and Fluor Enterprises (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana)
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