FEMA looking out for FEMA — not evacuees — from toxic trailers.

Thinkprogress:

Last year, a report found that 94 percent of emergency housing trailers for Katrina victims contained “hazardous levels of formaldehyde.” CBS News reports that while “50,000 families along the Gulf Coast” are still forced to live in these trailers, FEMA has prohibited “its own staff from even briefly stepping inside trailers once residents have moved out” because of safety concerns:

In an Oct 19 email, a worker asks if there is “any safety reason you know of that says we can’t go into a [deactivated or previously used] trailer quickly to shut a vent.”

The response from the director of the Baton Rouge office, Jon Byrd, said, “the issue is formaldehyde.”

Then, on Oct. 22, this final answer from FEMA’s head of safety in Washington, David Chawaga: “Please reinforce … FEMA employees do not enter stored TTs until further notice…”