FEMA homes ‘unsafe,’ litigant warns

LITTLE ROCK — The mobile homes that the Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to offer Arkansans displaced by the Feb. 5 tornadoes contain dangerously high levels of toxic gas, an attorney suing the manufacturers of the mobile homes said Wednesday.

Texas attorney Tony Buzbee said his firm commissioned a team of scientists to randomly sample formaldehyde levels in the mobile homes stored in Hope on Jan. 15 and 16.

All 54 mobile homes tested had formaldehyde levels that exceeded the 0.008 parts per million maximum for long-term exposure set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. One of the mobile homes registered a formaldehyde count of 0.052, which exceeds the agency’s limit on short-term exposure to formaldehyde.

FEMA is preparing to ship some mobile homes from the fleet of 6,351 at Hope to house displaced tornado victims in Arkansas and Tennessee. The first mobile homes could leave Hope as early as today.

“I think they are unsafe,” Buzbee said. “I’d tell these people, if it’s their only option, to get as many fans as they can get, keep the doors open as much as possible and stay in those things as short an amount of time as they can. “I’d make sure it’s my absolutely last resort, based on the test results I’ve seen.”

FEMA denies that the mobile homes contain dangerous formaldehyde levels.

Arkansas’ U.S. Sens. Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln said Wednesday that they’ve seen no evidence that the mobile homes are unsafe.

It’s the smaller travel trailers that FEMA stores at Hope that may be dangerous, said spokesman James McIntyre. None of the travel trailers are being sent to the tornado victims.

FEMA has halted shipment of travel trailers nationwide pending the results of a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those results are scheduled for release today.

The mobile homes, which are about 64 feet long and contain two or three bedrooms, are manufactured according to standards laid out by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Those standards control for formaldehyde emissions.

That makes the mobile homes stored at Hope no different than the thousands of other units already in use by millions of Americans across the country.

McIntyre said media reports suggesting that the mobile homes are unsafe do a disservice to the tornado victims. “We’ve got people now who’ve lost their homes and have nowhere to turn,” McIntyre said. “Then we turn around and create this concern to go along with the fact that they’ve already lost everything. We, as an agency, don’t like to do that.”

“We have mobile homes built to HUD standards that we believe are safe for people to live in until they can recover from these tornadoes. Let’s not add to their misery now. We are here trying to help these people.”

Formaldehyde is a colorless, flammable, pungent-smelling gas that can be mixed with water and converted into a chemical to manufacture building materials. It’s present in wood products such as particleboard and plywood, in glues and adhesives and in some insulation materials. Many regulatory agencies recognize formaldehyde as a possible carcinogen and have created standards that set limits on exposure.

Quickly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, displaced residents along the Gulf Coast started reporting formaldehyde as a problem in the travel trailers and mobile homes issued them by FEMA. The agency bought about 125,000 of the units after the floods and gave thousands to refugees in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Many of those people filed legal action against the manufacturers of the mobile homes and travel trailers, claiming that the formaldehyde levels made them sick.

In January, Democrats in the House of Representatives, who had launched an investigation related to formaldehyde, claimed that FEMA “ignored, hid and manipulated government research on the potential impact of long-term exposure to formaldehyde.”

About that time, a federal judge in New Orleans consolidated all formaldehyde claims into one federal lawsuit. More than 10,000 residents of mobile homes and travel trailers are participating in the case.

The judge appointed committees representing the plaintiffs and the defendants to build their cases. Buzbee serves on the plaintiffs’ committee. That committee hired Mary DeVany, an industrial hygienist, to sample formaldehyde levels of occupied and unoccupied FEMA travel trailers and mobile homes.

DeVany testified in July before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on formaldehyde issues. She tested a random sample of mobile homes in the Hope storage center in January. The mobile homes had never been occupied, were built between 2003 and 2004, and were made by eight different manufacturers. DeVany said her findings keep her from saying the mobile homes are safe for tornado victims to live in. “In fact, just the opposite,” she said. “[The test results] are very disturbing, and frankly, disappointing.”

Daisy Carmouche, 75, lives in a FEMA mobile home with her 82-year-old husband in Kiln, Miss. Carmouche said Wednesday that she and her husband have grown ill since moving in. Both developed breathing problems and rashes that won’t go away, even while running two separate air purifiers. Carmouche said she’s had the formaldehyde level in the mobile home tested twice. One result said the level was unsafe. The other said the formaldehyde level was safe. Carmouche wants FEMA to test the mobile home and give her a definitive answer. “I don’t know for certain if its the formaldehyde, but we are having problems,” she said. “I want to know what the answer is.”

Becky Gillette, a Eureka Springs resident who has coordinated the Sierra Club’s investigation of formaldehyde in FEMA mobile homes and travel trailers since Hurricane Katrina, said Arkansas residents should at least have the mobile homes tested before moving in. “Don’t live in it unless it’s been tested,” she said. “Too many people have gotten sick and died.”

Lincoln and Pryor said Wednesday that they have no reason to believe the mobile homes are unsafe for Arkansans. Both said they base their opinions on information they are getting directly from FEMA.

They said they’d question the agency again about the mobile homes in Hope. “I don’t want to ask for anything that will be harmful to the people of Arkansas, but I’ve been given every indication and assurance that the mobile homes are OK,” Lincoln said.