Jul 11, 2008 9:09 pm US/Eastern
Nelson: FEMA's Inaction "Unacceptable"
Senator Nelson and several House members challenge FEMA's "plan"
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
A CBS4 I-Team investigation has uncovered troubling questions about your safety and shelter in the event a major hurricane was to hit Florida.
The I-Team obtained letters from local Congressional leaders calling into question FEMA's plan to provide temporary housing after a hurricane hits.
I-Team Investigator Stephen Stock first broke this story earlier this year, and he reports that little progress in catastrophic disaster planning at the federal level has been made since then.
FEMA officials insist they have a plan, but local congressmen are not convinced.
One FEMA source told Stock that if a big storm hits, victims will have to live in contaminated travel trailers... or be stuck quote "...living in tents."
The hurricane seasons of 2004 and '05 left about 20 thousand Floridians homeless statewide. They were left to live in temporary housing such as mobile homes and RV travel trailers. Anyone driving around the state saw dozens even hundreds of these trailers as they became a common site around the state.
Now, in letters to FEMA, three of Florida's congressional leaders raise serious concerns about whether there would be enough similar safe, temporary housing units for storm victims should another big storm like a Charley, Wilma or Katrina hit.
Florida Senator Bill Nelson puts it this way. "FEMA hasn't done its job," Senator Nelson told the CBS4 I-Team.
And that has the Democratic Senior Senator fuming.
In a letter to FEMA director David Paulison dated July 10th, Senator Nelson says "the agency has refused to comply" with requests to come up with an acceptable housing plan.
Florida's senior senator called FEMA's inaction "..unacceptable."
"Now they're saying its late August that they're going to come up with a plan just for this year," Nelson said. "When in fact they were supposed to have a plan for all of FEMA that we've been trying to get for the last two years."
Congressman Alcee Hastings agrees. "The letter that we wrote a year ago was not responded to at all," Hastings told the I-Team. Hastings is a Democrat representing parts of Browad, Palm Beach, Martin, Saint Lucie and Hendry Counties.
After raising this issue a year ago, both Congressman Hastings and U.S. Representative Tim Mahoney, a Democrat from Stuart, fired off a second letter to FEMA, dated June 27, 2008, which raised their concerns anew: "We remain extremely concerned that FEMA has not provided another interim housing solution..." the letter to FEMA Director David Paulison states.
And the letter goes on to express Congressmen Hastings' and Mahoney's "...grave concerns..." about plans "to resume the use of travel trailers for emergency housing."
Congressman Mahoney represents eight counties including Port Charlotte, where Hurricane Charley hit and Palm Beach and St. Lucie Counties where Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne hit, all in 2004.
Those are the same travel trailers with formaldehyde contamination. Trailer used after Hurricane Katrina hit. Trailers deemed by FEMA's owner director Paulison to be unfit for storm victims. Tests show that some of those trailers carry 40 times the acceptable levels of formaldehyde.
"That's crazy! To put people in facilities that we know are likely to harm them," Representative Hastings told the CBS4 I-Team.
In fact, earlier this year FEMA director David Paulison insisted that no storm victims would have to live in these formaldehyde contaminated trailers.
That now appears to have changed.
A FEMA spokeswoman directed the I-Team to a web page that said quote "FEMA's top priority remains the safety and well being of disaster victims."
That is not enough to convince Senator Nelson or Representative Hastings.
"If the big one hits and the big one is a category four or five hitting a major urbanized part of Florida on the coast, then we've got a serious housing problem. And I don't see FEMA's plan that's ready to take care of that," Senator Nelson said.
A spokesperson for Florida's Department of Emergency Management agrees the temporary housing shortage remains a huge issue.
"Everybody is going to have to do some giving here," Mike Stone said. "Does that mean everybody will get a trailer? It may not be."
Senator Nelson said that FEMA pledges to have a plan in place by the end of August or early September. But Florida's Senior Senator tells the I-Team that could be too little too late if a storm hits first.
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