Katrina Coverage

As buildings are gutted in New Orleans, mold spores are released into the air. Just wearing a mask might not be enough:

"The outdoor mold spore concentrations could easily trigger serious allergic or asthmatic reactions in sensitive people," said Dr. Gina Solomon of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The indoor air quality was even worse, rendering the homes we tested dangerously uninhabitable by any definition."

The group tested 14 sites in the New Orleans area for mold spores over a three-day period in mid-October, some six weeks after Hurricane Katrina flooded large parts of the city.

They reported spore counts as high as 645,000 spores per 1 cubic meter (35 cu ft) inside a building in the badly flooded Uptown area, and levels up to 102,000 spores per cubic meter in the air.

Solomon said a normal level would be about 25,000 spores per cubic meter, and the National Allergy Bureau views outdoor mold counts above 50,000 as "very high."

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