BAKER — At a rowdy public meeting Monday, officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention restated the agency’s earlier call for Hurricane Katrina victims to be moved out of government trailers and mobile homes as soon as possible because already high levels of formaldehyde in the units could spike in the summer heat.

Photo by PATRICK DENNIS/The Advocate

Michael McGeehin, right, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects, answers questions from people living in FEMA trailers Monday after a presentation in Baker. Representatives from FEMA and CDC met with residents to discuss the formaldehyde found in trailers.

The CDC said it has also recommended that a detailed census of past and current trailer residents be taken to better track the health effects of the formaldehyde, and said it has urged the federal government to help state health systems deal with people who develop medical problems from breathing the gas.

The meeting at Baker City Hall was the first of 14 forums the CDC is holding across the Gulf Coast to explain the results of its formaldehyde testing of FEMA trailers and mobile homes.

Michael McGeehin, director of the CDC Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects, said testing found that FEMA’s tiny travel trailers had statistically higher levels of formaldehyde than the agency’s larger park units or mobile homes.

“Travel trailers were not designed for long-term residency,” McGeehin told the audience of a few dozen hurricane victims.

McGeehin was besieged at the podium with questions by angry trailer residents and an attorney who represents many of them in a class-action lawsuit against trailer manufacturers. Many of the residents have criticized FEMA’s renewed push to move trailer residents into hotel rooms and apartments in light of the formaldehyde test results.

Trailer resident Ganice Reid said she gleaned small pieces of information about formaldehyde in trailers from news reports but attended the CDC meeting to learn more details about the gas.

“I’m concerned about my health,” she said.

Reid said after the presentation she planned to move into an apartment as soon as possible while the final repairs to her New Orleans home were completed.

Formaldehyde, a preservative commonly used in construction materials, can lead to breathing problems and is also believed to cause cancer.

The CDC said levels of formaldehyde in all travel trailers and mobile homes were about 77 parts per billion. Breathing that much formaldehyde over time at this level can affect health, the CDC said.

McGeehin said the highest level detected was 590 ppb in a travel trailer.

The highest level detected in a mobile home was 320 ppb and the worst in a park model trailer — slightly smaller than a mobile home — was 170 ppb.

Gauging the health effects of formaldehyde is more difficult than detecting the gas.

While there are occupational standards for formaldehyde, there are no standards for indoor air levels of the gas for residences. McGeehin said there is little scientific data on formaldehyde’s effect on children because most studies have been on occupational hazards.

McGeehin said FEMA has so far heeded the CDC’s recommendations. He said the CDC is following through on its promise to meet face-to-face with the residents of the 519 FEMA units that were tested. More than 400 have already been given their results, he said.

FEMA last week said other trailer residents will have the chance to have their units tested for formaldehyde if they want.