Federal agencies need to move more quickly to determine if Chinese-made drywall poses a health risk to home-owners, Sen. Mark Warner urged Thursday.

The wallboard has been the focus of complaints in several states, including Virginia. Home-owners say it emits a corrosive gas that damages household electrical systems and causes respiratory illness.

"I fear that we're just at the tip of an iceberg of what could be a... national disaster, that is both a health care disaster and for many families is going to be a financial disaster," Warner, D-Va., said in a Senate hearing on the drywall issues.

Warner asked officials from the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Environmental Protection Agency to send field agents to conduct tests in homes in Virginia built with the wallboard.

Warner also urged officials to publish information for home-owners on how to deal with the drywall while legal and regulatory agencies work on a resolution.

"It's stunning to me that we have people... having symptoms just from going into these homes to do these tests," Warner said. "And we're leaving the homes and then saying to the homeowners, 'Hang in there.' That's outrageous."

Senators from Florida and Louisiana have called on Congress to include $2 million in an appropriations bill to help federal agencies perform tests on the drywall.

At least 100,000 sheets of Chinese-made drywall - enough to build more than 300 homes - were imported to Hampton Roads in 2006 by a Norfolk-based distributor, Venture Supply Inc.

This week, after the Norfolk City Council voted to ban the drywall, the company began the process of disposing of its remaining 55,000 sheets of the wallboard, said Sam Porter, the company's president.

Venture distributed the wallboard between March 2006 and December 2008.

The drywall since has been found in housing developments in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Williamsburg and northeastern North Carolina.

Several lawsuits concerning the drywall have been initiated locally, including one by five homeowners filed in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.

The suit seeks class-action status and damages in excess of $5 million from a local developer, a distributor and a Chinese manufacturer of the drywall.

Earlier this week, the EPA revealed that tests on Chinese-made drywall showed high levels of sulfur and strontium, which is used in acrylic paints. The agency performed the tests on wallboard taken from two Florida homes.

Those materials were not found in high levels in samples of American-made drywall also tested.

Colleen Nguyen, a Virginia Beach resident who discovered Chinese-made drywall in her home, attended the hearing Thursday and later met with local congressional representatives.

"To hear our words coming out of Warner's mouth, it made us all tear up and made us think someone was finally listening to us," Nguyen said. "He was after the personal side of this: What are they going to do with their mortgages?"

Jason and Lisa Dunaway learned a couple of months ago that Chinese-made drywall was used in their Courtland home.

"We came here today to find out more about what is in the drywall, find out more about the health issues we've had," Jason Dunaway said.

The Dunaways built their home in the early months of 2007 and since have spent nearly $20,000 replacing air-conditioning coils, televisions and computers. The family has fought nosebleeds, fatigue and watery eyes.

"It gave us a ray of hope that our representatives are standing up for their people," Jason Dunaway said. "It's felt like it's been falling on deaf ears."