And the hits just keep coming.
After years of government officials feigning ignorance on just how harmful FEMA trailers were for Katrina victims, Democrats investigating the formaldehyde levels in these trailers have found out that the companies who sold us these "toxic tin cans" knew all along how poisonous they were. Their own employees were suffering many of the same symptoms that have been found in Katrina victims who have used these trailers as housing while trying to rebuild:
nose bleeds, shortness of breath, dizziness and bleeding ears. One employee told investigators that there was a foul odor throughout the plant.
For years, we've allowed these companies to poison our own people, all the while throwing billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to do it. And as usual as the depths of the moral depravity of companies like Gulf Stream Coach, Inc come to light, House Republicans are working hard to make sure justice is served- for the trailer manufacturers.
While the poor in Mississippi and Louisiana struggle to put their lives back together and rebuild their homes, fighting with greedy insurance companies, trying to avoid shady contracters, scraping together what they can in a crashing economy, many who live in FEMA trailers have also had to fight debilitating illnesses. For years, the horror stories have been out there:
The couple said that even though they had a friend air out the Cavalier trailer and run the heater before they arrived, the smell when they walked in was overpowering. And Melody said she had a nosebleed the first night they stayed in it.
"(The smell) was really bad, but we went and ahead and went to bed," she said. "Within hours, I woke up to the smell – it was that strong – and I was gasping for fresh air. I ran to the window."
The couple continued to ventilate the trailer and also tried removing composite wood panels from beneath the bed and table bench and replacing them with solid wood, but nothing seemed to help.
"When it was hot out it would be worse," Brown says. "I'd come home from work and walk in and it would irritate my eyes; they'd be running. I'd raise up all the windows and go outside for 20 minutes. When I called FEMA to come out about it, they'd say, 'That's just the fumes from the trailer.'" Her husband Tom, 50, is a city worker and has had health problems since they started living in the one-bedroom facility, which is parked on their front lawn on Palm Street. "My husband has had a cough and gets nosebleeds." Brown's 6-year-old granddaughter, Ndeya, has asthma; Ceolia decided to keep her out of the trailer as much as she could. She called FEMA several times about getting out of the trailers but says no one ever called back. The only time they did hear from the agency was when the floor in the bathroom fell in on Ceolia. The Browns were given another brand new replacement trailer--one every bit as full of fumes as their first one.
And for years, the government has dragged it's feet and deliberately kept trailer residents in the dark about the dangers of living in the trailers. While employees of these trailers were having their own medical emergencies, FEMA played cute with the issue, with one spokesman telling Katrina victims to open the windows. House Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee had the nerve to compare formaldehyde levels in a Congressional office space to the living quarters where people live, sleep, and eat every day. But if that analogy doesn't set your outrage meter off, maybe this one will.
Representative Mark Souder (IN-03) is reported to be against this investigation telling the AP,
no company would agree to cooperate with the government if this is the outcome.
Yet another reminder of the mindset of Republicans. "We have to let them poison you, people, otherwise these businesses won't take your money."
For years families in Louisiana and Mississippi have been paying the price while these companies profit. And now that it's out in the open that these manufacturer's knew all along that they were producing poisonous products, the GOP wants to shield them from any accountability. Any doubt who the Republicans are working for?
The party of family values, my ass.
Update: as ttmiskovsky points out below, the Republicans aren't just wailing that people should appreciate their poisoned trailers for fear that Big Business will get their feelings hurt, the party of "the Free Market does great job regulating itself" is blaming the government for not having more regulations on the trailer industry.
Wrap your heads around that.