Abstract
Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005. More than 1800 persons died, and the disaster stands as the costliest in U.S. history. Over 200,000 former residents of New Orleans continue to reside elsewhere. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) emergency housing program, and specifically the design, manufacture, and deployment of its travel trailer housing units, remain the subject of controversy. The FEMA travel trailer program is critiqued, as is recent empirical evidence on the deleterious health outcomes experienced by many trailer occupants. The results of a pilot investigation are reported, whereby the post-occupancy assessments of a group of occupants of single-site FEMA trailer installations were compared to a group residing in two FEMA trailer park communities in New Orleans. Among the findings, the travel trailer unit was assessed by occupants as difficult to personalize to occupants’ preferred patterns of use, inadequate in size, affording few site amenities, and little overall privacy, and the unit itself functioned as a source of chronic environmental stress. The findings are translated into a theoretical/operative model of person-environment interactions, to assist in further research on this subject.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In the IMC study, surveys were conducted in parks with more than ten emergency housing units, and a total of 578 households were contacted. The survey instrument consisted of 134 questions, centered on demographics, basic survival needs, domestic and sexual violence, security concerns, and overall health status, i.e. flu-like illness, stomach viruses, common colds, diabetes, hypertension, and heart and kidney disease. Additional questions focused on mental health, morbidity, access to health care, substance abuse, and questions on one’s IDP status and one’s pre- and post-disaster self-perceived social status.
A household was defined as “people sleeping and eating under the same roof or same structure.” The interviewer (this author) interviewed a male or female household member (aged 18 or older), and the session lasted on average 25 min. Each interview session was conducted in the most private setting possible. Interviews were conducted during daylight hours only, and volunteers were solicited for participation in the study. A similar solicitation protocol was employed as in the prior IMC study: the head of household was interviewed, 18 years of age or older, in as private a setting as possible. All responses were strictly confidential and no names of occupants were revealed at any point. Each interview was conducted one on one (by this author), and lasted on average one half hour. The diagrammation procedure lasted another 15–20 min on average.
In January of 2007 a health advisory was issued by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the 44,000 families still residing in FEMA travel trailers 2.5 years after the catastrophe. This advisory declared that the presence of potentially harmful levels of formaldehyde was found to exist in a significant number of units, based upon hundreds of field assessments conducted by CDC staff. Subsequently, the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA’s parent agency, issued a joint policy statement with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to relocate all occupants who wished to be relocated to other temporary housing. Thousands opted to relocate to hotels within the immediate disaster strike zone. However, the local housing market could not absorb the many thousands of twice-uprooted trailer occupants. This soon caused an upwardly spiraling ripple effect on rent rates throughout the New Orleans housing market. The unintended consequence of this policy was that it exerted further pressure on an already tight housing market. Second, with hotels and apartments already scarce, persons suffering from health problems due to exposure to trailer-induced toxigens were in some cases being relocated to hotels outside (even many hundreds of miles away from) the disaster strike zone. This only exacerbated the challenges faced by citizens coping with the inherent problems encountered in rebuilding their homes and personal lives. As for the trailers themselves, tens of thousands sat unused, decaying in rural settings in Arkansas and northern Alabama.
References
Babington, C. (2007). FEMA slow to test toxicity of trailers. USA Today, 21 July 4. Retrieved 1 November, from http://www.usatoday.com.
Barnett, J. (Ed.). (2007). Smart growth in a changing world. Washington, DC: APA Press.
Barnett, J., & Beckman, J. (2007). Coastal cities face rising seas. Planning, 54(8–9), 47–57.
Barrow, B. (2007). Firm’s push for profits blamed for delays. The Times-Picayune [Electronic version]. Retrieved 12 November 2007, from http://www.nola.com.
Baum, A., & Valins, S. (1977). Architecture and social behavior: Psychological studies of social density. Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum.
Booth-Thomas, C. (2006). The storm lingers on: Katrina’s psychological toll [Electronic version]. Time, 74, 56.
Borenstein, S. (2007). Rising sea predicted to reshape U.S. coasts. The Milwaukee Journal, October 8, 4A, 4G.
Bourne, J. (2007). New Orleans: A perilous future. National Geographic [Electronic version], 112(8). Retrieved 30 October 2007, from http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0708/feature1/.
Brunker, M. (2006). FEMA trailers—Toxic tin cans? Rising from ruin: Two towns rebuild after Katrina. Retrieved 23 July 2007, from http://www.risingfromriun/msnbc.com/2007.
Bullard, T. (2007). Katrina cottages go up. Fox News Eight Online. Retrieved 1 November 2007, from http://www.fox8live.com.
Burkhart, B., & Hunt, D. (2000). Airstream: The history of the land yacht. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2003). Second national report on human exposure to environmental chemicals: Results. (Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; NECH Publication No. 02-0716).
Eaton, L. (2007). Katrina victims find a solution: Modular homes. The New York Times, January 6, 2007. Retrieved 1 July 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com.
Evans, G. W. (Ed.). (1982). Environmental stress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fothergill, A., Maestas, E. G., & Darlington, J. D. (1999). Race, ethnicity and disasters in the United States: A review of the literature. Disasters, 23(2), 156–173.
Frank, L. D., Engelke, P. O., & Schmid, T. L. (2003). Health and community design: The impact of the built environment on physical activity. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Hester, R. T. (1998). Site planning by archetypes and idiosyncrasies. In Hester, R. T. (Ed.), Planning neighborhood space with people (pp. 135–167). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Hsu, S. (2007). FEMA knew of toxic gas in trailers. The Washington Post, July 20. Retrieved 12 September 2007, from http://www.washingtonpost.com.
Institute of Medicine. (1993). Committee on the health effects of indoor allergens, Division of health promotion and disease prevention. Indoor allergens: Assessing and controlling adverse health effects. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
International Medical Corps. (2006). Displaced in America: Health status among internally displaced persons in Louisiana and Mississippi travel trailer parks—A global perspective. (Santa Monica, CA: International Medical Corps). Retrieved 12 September 2007, from http://www.imcworldwide.org.
Jason, A. (2006). The center for public integrity’s “Katrina watch” from 30 August 2005 until 25 May 2006. Retrieved 1 November 2007, from http://www.publicintegrity.org.
Jones, R. (2007). Relationship between environmental stress and cancer elucidated [Electronic version]. Science Daily, 12, 7–9.
Kaplan, S., & Kaplan, R. (1983). Environment and cognition: Functioning in an uncertain world. New York: Praeger.
Kaplan, S., & Kaplan, R. (2003). Health, supportive environments, and the reasonable person model. American Journal of Public Health, 93(9), 1484–1489.
Keim, B. (2007). A heckuva job: FEMA gave toxic trailers to Katrina victims, then rigged the science. Wired Science [Electronic version]. Retrieved 20 July 2007, from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience.
Kinsey, M. (2006). Suicide, depression skyrocket in Katrina trailer parks. Depression News, 12(3), 5–6. Retrieved 7 September 2007 from http://www.medeicalnewstoday.com/articles.
Klein, N. (2007). Disaster capitalism: The new economy of catastrophe. Harper’s, 93(10), 47–58.
Kronenburg, R. (1995). Houses in motion: The genesis, history and development of the portable building. London: Academy Editions.
Kuo, F. E., & Sullivan, W. C. (2001). Aggression and violence in the inner city: Impacts of environment via mental fatigue. Environment and Behavior, 33(7), 543–571.
Levine, J. N., Esnard, A. M., & Sapat, A. (2007). Population displacement and housing dilemmas due to catastrophic disasters. Journal of Planning Literature, 22(1), 3–15.
Lipton, E. (2006). Over 11,000 FEMA trailers sit unused in Arkansas. The New York Times [Electronic version]. February 14. Retrieved 14 November 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com.
McDowell, C. (2002). Involuntary resettlement, impoverishment risks, and sustainable livelihoods. The Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, 12(2), 21–34.
Moos, R. H. (Ed.). (1977). Coping with physical illness. New York: Plenum.
Newman, O. (1973). Defensible space: Crime prevention through environmental design. New York: Macmillan.
Noji, E. K. (2000). The public health consequences of disasters. Prehospital Disaster Medicine, 15(4), 147–157.
Sack, C. (2006). New Orleans: 1 year after Katrina [Electronic version]. 29 August. Retrieved from http://www.socialistaction.org.
Saegert, S. C., Klitzman, S., Freudenberg, N., Cooperman-Mroczek, J., & Nassar, S. (2003). Healthy housing: A structured review of published evaluations of U.S. interventions to improve health by modifying housing in the United States, 1990–2001. American Journal of Public Health, 93(9), 1471–1477.
Samet, J. M., & Spengler, J. D. (2003). Indoor environments and health: Moving into the 21st century. American Journal of Public Health, 93(9), 1489–1493.
Seligman, M. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development and death. San Francisco: W.W. Freeman.
Smith, E. (2007). Katrina cottage followup. Inhabit. Retrieved 6 April 2007, from http://www.inhabit.com.
Spengler, J. D., Samet, J. M., & McCarthy, J. F. (2000). Indoor air quality handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Thompson, J. W. (1996). Hester’s progress. Landscape Architecture, 86(4), 74–79, 97–99.
Tomea, A. K. (1969). Empirical considerations on the problem of social integration. Sociological Inquiry, 39(4), 65–76.
Verderber, S. (2003). Compassionism in the design studio in the aftermath of 9/11. Journal of Architectural Education, 56(3), 48–62.
Verderber, S. (2008). Delirious New Orleans: Manifesto for an extraordinary American city. Austin: University of Texas Press (forthcoming).
Warner, C. (2007). People still moving into New Orleans. The Times-Picayune, A-1, 10. 13 November 2007.
Zeisel, J. (2006). Inquiry by design: Environment/behavior/neuroscience in architecture, interiors, landscape, and planning. New York: W.W. Norton.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Verderber, S. Emergency housing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: an assessment of the FEMA travel trailer program. J Hous and the Built Environ 23, 367–381 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-008-9124-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-008-9124-y