85M Pounds of Ice Going Down the Drain (purchased by FEMA after Katrina)

[sabra]

Source: ABC News

After Katrina hit, victims needed everything, including ice. The hurricane knocked out electricity, and ice was needed to preserve perishable food.

After a slow start, FEMA trucked in more than 200 million pounds -- way too much, as it turned out.

Stuck with the unused ice, FEMA put it back on trucks and sent it to storage centers all over the country -- even to far away Portland, Maine -- and paid storage costs, hoping to use it in a future disaster.

Now, two years later, FEMA has decided it may be contaminated, and will finally dump it.

"Their own regulations required that they dispose of the ice after three months," said Ryan Alexander of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a longtime critic of FEMA. "They could've tried to sell it on the open market. But to ship it around the country and spend money, the taxpayers' money, on two years of storage fees seems like the epitome of mismanagement and waste."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3379974&page=1

[whistle]

1. The ice manufactures and cold storage lobby strikes again!

....ReThuglicon waste and fraud over and over and over again.

[HonorTheConstitution]

2. Your Tax $$$ at work - What a f@#$%* administration! And they tell us that we are safer!

[Janice325]

3. This was already discussed a couple of days ago, here on DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1336730

and this "little bit" of further info, posted under the above link:


IanDB1 (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-15-07 12:20 AM
Response to Reply #1
8. Article is wrong. It wasn't that the ice wasn't needed. It WAS needed. They turned it away ANYWAY
Truckers say hurricane relief shipments turned away
The Norman Transcript

CNHI News Service

CUMBERLAND, Md. ? Bill Lutz and about 100 other truck drivers not only are lost, but also in some ways are becoming victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The truckers have been hauling ice and water as part of the relief efforts but the problem is, they haven't unloaded their first freight that they picked up last week.

"One hundred of us are lost," Lutz said. "Yes, we're totally lost."

He and several other drivers arrived at the Federal Emergency Management Agency's staging area in Mexico Farms on Wednesday. The drivers are working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Unable to receive permission to talk to the truckers on that county land, some of the truck drivers were found at Rocky Gap Lodge -- Golf Resort where they were taken for showers Thursday. Allegany County school buses assisted in shuttling the drivers.

"I sound angry and I am but I hate inefficiency," Lutz said as he talked about the relief effort.

More:
http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_2...
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The fucking ice was turned away!!!!! :argh:
No snark or offense to your post, sabra. :hi:
I just hate it when the "MSM" and FEMA don't give all the information.
Thanks for the post!!!!

[Acadia Blue]

4. I did not have electricity for 6 weeks. Had to buy ice every single day.

They did not come to north St. Tammany parish. I could have used that ice. lol

[LeftHander]

5. Bring the troops home...

Buy 100,000 kegs of beer and lets party with that ice in every stadium in America....