"A warming planet is creating a booming and loosely-regulated disaster restoration industry fueled by immigrant labor. Without protection, workers are exposed to lethal toxins making them sick long after the cleanup."
"Standing before a two-story house on the coast of Fort Myers Beach, Florida, where Hurricane Ian unleashed a seven-foot storm surge two weeks earlier, Marcos looked at the structure, shredded beyond repair.
Wearing a paper mask and gloves, the 54-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant walked inside. He could see and smell the mold, dark and pungent, blooming in the walls. Marcos spent the day ripping out soggy insulation — first with hammers and later, his hands. The dust coated his clothes and skin.
Marcos, a construction worker for 25 years, was no stranger to grueling labor. But after Ian devastated a 47-mile swath of Southwest Florida in September 2022, Marcos found himself on a worksite rife with hidden hazards. His eyes swelled, and his skin grew itchy. By day’s end, his breathing had become strained — an ailment that would linger.
“Everything was falling apart,” Marcos said in Spanish, describing how he had to throw away his clothes every day he worked on the post-Ian cleanup, after spending hours exposed to toxins. (Columbia Journalism Investigations and the Center for Public Integrity are not publishing the full names of immigrant workers interviewed for this story to protect their identities.)"
Advertisement 
