Is My Drywall Chinese? - HB Litigation Conferences

companies, the homeowners, and the cities – so we can devise and agree upon a true fix.
We need to be confident the market will accept these homes as fixed when the
remediation is complete so families can move back in and willing buyers in the future
will be confident in their purchases.
Third, we need to make sure the process of rebuilding from this “silent hurricane”
does not cause more problems. What are the health risks to construction workers? What
are the disposal requirements to make sure cities and local governments do not become
dumping grounds for toxic material that would be better shipped back to China? How are
the building departments to inspect the remediation process to ensure integrity and
transparency? When do we truly know a house is fixed?
If the Federal government and the stakeholders in this process do not respond
with a greater sense of urgency, entire city blocks, subdivisions, and municipalities will
be destroyed for years as homeowners abandon their property and the cities are left to
pick up the mess. Unfortunately, because most of the big lenders are not responding to
the cries of the homeowners, the shelf life on patience and hope is measured by the next
month when families sit down around their kitchen table to decide whether or not to pay
the next month’s mortgage on a destroyed home.
We know we will rebuild because we have always picked ourselves up. We have
the same hope that was tested by the victims of Katrina and other natural disasters.
Sadly, those same victims are tested again because some of their homes were even rebuilt
with this toxic drywall. We, as Americans, always come through times of challenge even
when it is a national disaster. We see neighbors offering available rooms in their homes
to those who have nowhere else to turn during this time of crisis. We see subdivisions
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