Mississippi Residents Not Deterred By First Toxic Trailer Trial

A federal jury ruled last week that a FEMA trailer manufacturer was not responsible for the health problems of a New Orleans family. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports on what the verdict means for the thousands of Mississippi residents involved in similar lawsuits.

Last week’s ruling that the trailer manufacturing company Gulf Stream Coach Inc., was not responsible for exposing the New Orleans family to elevated formaldehyde levels was a blow to the thousands of Louisiana and Mississippi residents who lived in similar FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina and who plan to bring their cases to trial in the coming months. Cindy Martin, a nurse from Diamondhead, is one of those Mississippi residents who will take part in upcoming trials. She blames the death of her ten day old granddaughter on the elevated formaldehyde levels found in the FEMA trailer that her son’s family lived in,

“All the information that we have seen, people that have spoken about it, have reported that the formaldehyde is a carcinogenic and very dangerous particularly to small children and particularly in vitro as we experienced.”

Thousands of Mississippians are expected to take part in lawsuits against FEMA and trailer manufactures alleging that they were unknowingly exposed to elevated levels of formaldehyde. Becky Gillette, with the Sierra Club, says while this first ruling is disappointing, the campaign is not over,

“Anybody who went into these trailers that had these high formaldehyde levels was immediate overcome by the fumes, and so we just have to do a better job next time in getting across how wide spread the problem was This is totally unacceptable that people be exposed to this type of toxin.”

Government testing requested by FEMA last year, showed that there were elevated levels of formaldehyde found in some of the trailers. Cindy Martin, hope facts like those will help in future cases were FEMA is listed as one of the defendants,

“All we can do is follow it, and not quit and keep on.”

The next bellwether trial will take place in December.