(CNN) -- Tons of household chemicals that were once stored safely in garages, bathrooms and kitchen cabinets along the Gulf Coast pose a potential environmental threat after being scattered by Hurricane Katrina and its twin Rita.
The storms destroyed or damaged some 160,000 homes and left an estimated 22 million tons of debris in their wake. That's enough to cover 200 football fields with a 50-foot pile.
Buried in the mess, like toxic needles in a haystack, are paint cans, bottles of chlorine bleach, drain cleaners and other contaminates.
"We calculated that there's as much as 5 million gallons of that particular waste stream," said Chuck Brown with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. [Read more - CNN]
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