Can FEMA be trusted?

Can FEMA be trusted?

Long Island Newsday: Relying on the Federal Emergency Management Agency can be hazardous to your health. That’s the troubling reality for 39,000 people languishing in temporary trailers more than two years after losing their homes to Hurricane Katrina. High levels of the carcinogen formaldehyde have been found in some of the trailers FEMA provided, causing breathing problems for their unfortunate residents.

FEMA officials said they’re immediately relocating anyone in a trailer who voices health concerns.

Information, please

The agency is also providing information on the health risks and ways to mitigate exposure, such as ensuring adequate ventilation. Its goal is to move everyone in trailers into more permanent housing by year’s end. That sounds good.

But only if you ignore both the agency’s scandalously slow and incompetent response after Katrina in 2005 and the sad reality that FEMA officials have known of the formaldehyde concerns for more than a year. That prompts two questions: Why has it taken so long to resolve this? And given FEMA’s less than stellar record, why should anyone believe what officials promise now? FEMA’s got a lot to prove to regain the public’s trust. Quickly and efficiently getting these Katrina victims out of harm’s way would help.