EMMITSBURG, Md. — They’re clean, shutterless and decorated with a rainbow of beige hues. They’re mobile homes built for future disaster victims and, so far, have safe levels of formaldehyde.
The six newly designed mobile homes were rolled out Thursday by federal officials to replace the much criticized travel trailers used after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Many people said living in the earlier models made them sick.
The mobile homes, including one travel trailer, were built as part of a program to develop disaster-housing solutions for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
After Katrina, 1 million people lost their homes. FEMA sent thousands of mobile homes into the region only to learn later of high levels of formaldehyde, a chemical used in the glue for building materials that can lead to breathing problems and is also thought to cause cancer.
