Again, FEMA fails miserably

Criticized for housing disaster victims in formaldehyde-oozing trailers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has finally issued a draft report on how to fix the problem.

Among the recommendations:

Continue to use trailers with low formaldehyde levels, but only as a last resort and for no more than six months at a time.

Appoint a task force to come up with something better.

The FEMA draft report was supposed to address this and a number of other deficiencies exposed by the agency’s handling of hurricane disasters of 2005, Katrina and Rita.

It is a year overdue. It includes seven blank “annexes” — portions that are supposed to address highly specific issues such as rehabilitating rental housing. It fails to solve the most controversial problem — the use of trailers containing the dangerous toxin. It pushes all these issues and more onto a yet-to-be created task force.

Why one more study?

What’s the task force going to do that FEMA couldn’t have done — if it had had the gumption?

Optimists point out that the draft report does advance the issues a bit further. It also gains points by being made available for public review — whereas outside advice wasn’t considered while the draft was being put together.

And yes, the problem of mass homelessness created by large-scale disasters is a daunting one.

One million people were displaced in Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005; thousands ended up in the little travel trailers, provided by FEMA, that later were discovered to contain formaldehyde.

FEMA thought it could move people out of the trailers into better housing relatively quickly. The agency failed miserably.

So maybe — just maybe — trailers could be a short-term emergency solution in future.

If, as FEMA says, the trailers made available contain only the lowest possible levels of formaldehyde.

If people are moved out of them quickly into better housing.

If, if, if …

Problem is, FEMA lost its credibility in 2005-06.

And this month, when it released an incomplete report with incomplete solutions, it forfeited an opportunity to regain some of that credibility.

Can we rely on FEMA to safely house disaster victims in formaldehyde-preserved trailers?

We should not be too quick to trust.