NIOSH personnel provided assistance in a variety of areas in the days immediately following both disasters. NIOSH Commissioned Corps Officers assisted Houston-based health officials in dealing with broad occupational and environmental health issues at shelters in the greater Houston area. Their activities included:

• Health surveillance of worker and evacuee injuries and illness.
• Radiation safety.
• Building ventilation.
• Direct measurements of indoor air indicators of comfort.
• Institutionalization of infection control measures, to name just a few.

NIOSH also deployed a team of eight industrial hygienists and medical officers to New Orleans from September 9-27. Two industrial hygienists from this group conducted visual assessments to identify worker exposures at a variety of work sites and provided the Army Corps of Engineers with recommendations to reduce their potential exposures while working to repair the levees.

Occupational safety and health issues are important in the hurricane disaster response, and the importance of these issues will likely increase in the months ahead. In the short-term, NIOSH is focusing on:

• Performing hazard assessments.
• Developing and disseminating concise and timely information and guidance regarding worker protection and health.
• Establishing collaborations with our federal, private sector, and labor partners.

In addition, NIOSH has highlighted a topic page entitled, “Hurricane Response: Storm and Flood Cleanup” (www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/flood/).
NIOSH regularly updates this site with new information and guidance documents. To date, NIOSH staff have developed 12 guidance documents for this response and two have been translated into Spanish.

These guidance documents will be updated on a regular basis to adapt to changing risk. A profile for rescue, recovery, and eventually, reconstruction workers is posted on the redesigned NIOSH homepage www.cdc.gov/niosh/ .