In a congressional hearing yesterday, a supplier of the “FEMA trailers” used after Hurricane Katrina admitted that the company has known for years that the trailers contained dangerous levels of formaldehyde. But the chairman of Gulf Stream Coach said his company failed to disclose to Hurricane Katrina evacuees or the government its internal findings that formaldehyde in some units exceeded a federal health standard by as much as 45 times in 2006 [Washington Post].
Gulf Stream received over $500 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for 50,000 trailers that housed displaced Gulf Coast residents after the devastating 2005 hurricanes. But Gulf Stream chairman Jim Shea deflected blame for the evacuees’ chemical exposure to FEMA, saying that the agency turned down the company’s offer to conduct thorough tests on the trailers.
