Frightening fact... arsenic contaminates hurricanes path.
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
United States
February 9, 2007 8:10am CST
The rubble of the Katrina hurricane has been found to contain large enough amounts of arsenic to truly impact and perhaps even kill people who come in contact with it. The water may end up contaminated if something isn't done to rid the area of arsenic around the hurricane's path it could truly end up being another thorn in the side of the survivors.
The arsenic seems to be coming from CCA treated wood, from old telephone poles, treated lumber and such.
What a scary thought! You survive the hurricane, finally are able to rebuild and start your life again and find that your area is contaminated from the rubble!
3 people like this
4 responses
@lifeiseasy (2292)
• United States
9 Feb 07
I have not hard about this perticular problem after katrina but thansk for sharing it with me ....I have heard all all sorts of things like we have had a terrible epicdemic of colds and flu this season ..about 5 different types of flu in fact and the doctors are saying it form alot of people that have come from La. , Ms.,and have spread here in Fl ...it all quite scary in fact ...I think the molds with all the damp wood and sheetrock is causing problesm as well with allergies and so on ...
We will be years trying to straighten all the mess out ...here in Fl . we have alot under control but we still have some problems yet... I remember the huge landfills we had here they uised one of our parks to dump rubble in ...now does that sound unhealthy for the kids and people that are going to use them again once all the rubble is burned or hauled offf ...Doesn't to me ...why in the heck would they use a park ...some of the problems we have caused ourselves ,as everyone was just in shock and where to put all the trash and rubble left in the aftermath ... hopefully if this ever happened again we have learned what to do and not do ...
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
9 Feb 07
Yes, sometimes the aftermath takes literally years to even come out. The arsenic info was on a science news site that I check out once in a while. I was pretty amazed to learn this and even more amazed that nobody in the press has even remotely mentioned it!
@emeraldisle (13138)
• United States
9 Feb 07
I know I should be surprised by this but I'm not. I know here in Florida they had to redo all the playgrounds due to the sets being made from wood treated with arsenic so I'm sure there were other things treated that way as well. When you have massive destruction like what happened there you are going to have objects that normally don't interact with other objects intermix. Things that normally wouldn't go near the drinking water are now floating around in it etc. I don't know what I'd do if I lived in that area. I'm sure many would be thinking about leaving for good or at least until things are back to semi-normal.
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
10 Feb 07
Its so sad to think that they went through all they've gone through and STILL have worries like this! How horrible to literally be forced from your home. They're pretty certain that it's going to at some point effect the water. I can't say as I'd want to move back too quickly if I were from there.. but that's a lot easier said when you aren't from there!
@shywolf (4514)
• United States
9 Feb 07
That is really scary! I had no idea that rubble could contain things like arsenic. It makes me wonder again how many things we are pumping into our atmosphere on a daily basis in small amounts that we don't even realize we are breathing right now, let alone when something comes along and unearths bigger amounts of it like this. It's really not a happy thought.
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
9 Feb 07
I never gave it a second thought either. Mold problems and such were sort of obvious... but arsenic from treated woods... never even occured to me!
