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| July 14, 2010 |
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Ignoring
Clint Eastwood's advice in "Dirty Harry" that
opinions, like certain body parts, are best kept to
yourself.
| FEMA
Trailers back in the news |
 I
was reading an article in "Mother Jones" about how
some of the 120,000 FEMA trailers are being resold, and
people still have their undies in a bunch over the
formaldehyde issue:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/07/femas-formaldehyde-trailers-are-back-gulf
The article says "new car smell" is
formaldehyde, and nobody complains about that, and I'm
thinking, here I am sitting in my 26 year old Tioga
motorhome this fine July morning, and the "new
motorhome smell" is long-gone, where did it go? So, I
did a little googling and it turns-out that it isn't just
the FEMA trailers that have this problem, if you want to
call it that, it is pretty-much all recreational vehicles
right up to and including those ones that go for hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
This website evaluates RV's
for formaldehyde:
http://rv.org/p17837.htm
and has some interesting reader comments from people
concerned about the issue ( one guy even had his blood
checked for levels of the stuff ). But, in amongst all the
negative comments, was this one from a guy suffering from
common sense:
I purchased a 2008 Fleetwood
Discovery and it was loaded with formaldehyde. I had to
drive it home with all the windows open. I then
decontaminated it. It only took a week with an ozonator
-- using it in the proper fashion.
The
facts are that if the (FEMA) trailers were opened to the
atmosphere and left that way for a while the normal
ozone in the air would have cleansed it (the
formaldehyde fumes) from the trailer. Good 'ole fresh
air will do the trick also. It just takes longer. |
 FEMA
spent $2.7 billion for 120,000 trailers to provide emergency
housing, that's $22,500 each. Assuming they sheltered a
family average of 4, we're talking about emergency housing
for about a half-million people in an efficient manner. Many
thousands of others were lodged at motels with room service,
and some are still there, not feeling up to moving on with
their lives. FEMA also paid for mental health services long
after the storm was over.
What could the government
have done with the $22,500 per-trailer expense to help these
people? Those trailers, neat and clean with air
conditioning, showers, comfortable beds and efficient
kitchens provided safe and adequate emergency housing. But,
for the same amount of money, we could have sent them all to
Europe for a few months, like this family:
Maybe
that would have been a better idea, you think?
Global
Air Aviation Referral Service
I welcome
responses, and will be glad to post them here. Email your
remarks to
ron@global-air.com |
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