Katrina ice being melted after two years

[Ian David]

GLOUCESTER, Mass. -- Thousands of pounds of ice originally sent to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts are being melted after being stored in Gloucester for two years.

A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman told the Gloucester Daily Times that the ice held at Americold Logistics and at 22 similar facilities nationwide is being melted to dispose of it for health reasons. The cost of storing the ice at all the facilities since Katrina is $12.5 million.

The ice was originally sent south to help Katrina victims, but in September 2005 the ice was sent back north by the federal government, and some of it ended up in the Gloucester.

<snip>

FEMA contracts required disposal of the ice three months after purchase. But FEMA spokeswoman Alexandra Kirin told the Times that the agency decided to keep the excess ice for the 2006 hurricane season. With fewer storms than expected, the ice was not needed, and the agency decided not to save the ice for the 2007 season because it couldn't determine if the ice was safe for human consumption.

More:
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO57388/

[Webster Green]

1. Heckuva job..

as always

[Ian David]

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_260011812

[pitohui]

9. you are correct, the ice was badly needed, they simply didn't distribute it

in jackson mississippi, well north and inland, where katrina was only a cat 2 and the effects were wind damage rather than flood, but because of tree falls there was 98 percent loss of electricity, a man shot another man at a location where there was only one bag of ice left, what is there to say about new orleans or the mississippi gulf coast where the lack of electricity/water/ice was so dire that it went on for weeks (months in some neighborhoods) and no one would dream of shooting anyone over a bag of ice because it was too big and it was too much and everyone was in the same soup

[justgamma]

16. I'll never forget. They turned it away on purpose.

Brownie testified before the Congressional hearings that " I don't think the government should be supplying ice for their beer" I was furious! He thought they were having a big old party down there.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. I remember that.

The idea that a diabetic's insulin needed to be kept on ice--AMONG MANY OTHER MEDICAL USES--completely skipped his pea brain. This was THE most unprofessional group of government appointees EVER.

Michael Brown needed to be tarred and feathered--and then run over by a truck. Where is the little asshole now, anybody know?

[rubberducky]

2. You have got to be kidding!! This is beyond a mere screw-up.

[defendandprotect]

17. New Orleans, Iraq and all of America is being TORTURED by this president --

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. What a waste of taxpayer dollars.

[SmokingJacket]

4. send it to the north pole!

maybe we can shore up the crumbling glaciers.

[Ian David]

11. Twinkle and Turquoise use that much ice in their margarita's every week

Twinke and Turquoise hit the town, teenage soldiers die horrible deaths
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2004/08/twinke-and-turquoise-hit-town-teenage.html

[bluedog]

20. Iraqi People could use it

[SoCalDem]

5. Shame on FEMA.. all that energy wasted keeping it frozen for 2 years

and why not just order ice made within the state.. I think Louisianans have the recipe..

[jmowreader]

14. The recipe is water and electricity

If one is contaminated and the other doesn't exist because the lines between the substation and the ice plant are down...no ice.

[SoCalDem]

15. Surely neighboring states make ice.. There was NO reason to truck

ice all around the country..especially when it never even GOT there..and then to "store" it fot TWO YEARS..

[jmowreader]

19. Actually, there's a perfectly good reason to do it

When I worked Hurricane Andrew, we got a lot of ice from the northeast. Why? asked I to the clueless FEMA woman in our compound, why would we bring ice from Pennsylvania when ice is made in Georgia? She explained that it was easier to get ice from a Pennsylvania plant than from a Georgia plant because, in August, it's easier to talk a Pennsylvania ice company (or any northern state, of course) into selling great quantities of ice to the government than it is to talk a Georgia ice company into doing the same thing.

Oh, humorous war story about our rows of portapotties. President Bush (the one who was elected, not the one we have now) came to town to have lunch with children at our refugee camp. They chose OUR refugee camp because there was a school across the street from it for the photo opportunity, and because our camp was just so spiffy and squared-away because we had interrogators running it. Our battalion commander decided he didn't want any soldiers in the camp when the president was there, so he sent us all back to our tents and told us to go inside where they couldn't see us. (We had US Marshals and Secret Service guys in our camp the whole time we were running it, and one of the Secret Service guys commented that the president was disappointed because he wanted his press delegation to see soldiers helping real Americans.) Our idiotic colonel stayed in the camp because, of course, he wanted his picture in the paper next to the president. So in comes the president's Secret Service Detail, followed by Poppy Bush. Ol' Colonel Bob placed himself strategically next to a line of shitters. When Bush came within view, Colonel Bob jumped out and stood there with his hands on his hips like fucking Superman. The Detail didn't know who the fuck he was, so two of them drew guns and another two grabbed Colonel Bob, threw him in a shitter and shoved it over with the door facing down so he wouldn't pose a threat to their principal. Bush's retinue collected up the children he was going to eat with and retreated to the school, and a handful of us went to get the colonel out of the shitter. We got it upright and opened the door. Naturally, Colonel Bob was covered in non-precious bodily fluids that had been made specially foul by prolonged exposure to Florida sunshine. In our battalion was one Infantry captain who hated Colonel Bob--and Colonel Bob hated him equally. The Infantry captain took one look at our shit-covered fuehrer and said, "yeah, that's how to impress the president."

[alphafemale]

21. "yeah, that's how to impress the president"

:yourock:

[HeeBGBz]

6. Um, gee, thanks

We could have used it a couple of years ago, einsteins.

Here's a thought. THIS years hurricane season is fixin to kick in big time. Why not wait and see if another storm hits? This time you could truck it all to Wyoming.

[pitohui]

10. yeah that too

my other thoughts on this stupidity are up thread but as you point out, the hurricane season for the gulf coast area will not be in full swing until late july -- after spending all these millions why not spend a few dollars more in case there is another disaster and the ice is actually needed?

i would wait and dispose of the ice in november, we are just now getting into the time where it could actually be useful again -- gulf coast and florida will be at risk august and september, i'm guessing florida and east coast will be in risk in october

[Ian David]

12. It will probably be bottled by Halliburton and fed to our troops

Halliburton is the poster child for waste, fraud, and corporate abuse in Iraq, and for good reason. Allegations levied against Halliburton {and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR)} by former employees, soldiers and their families, as well as Pentagon and Congressional investigators, include feces in the soldiers’ water, blood on the mess hall floor, 45 dollar cases of soda, expired and substandard food, and embroidered towels for twice the cost.
http://www.warresisters.org/win/Fall2006-Halliburton.shtml

[nam78_two]

7. K&R.nt

[EFerrari]

13. G03^%$#.

:nuke:

[Octafish]

22. Don't forget, ROVE was put in charge of the reconstruction.

The ice must've fallen through the cracks.

Who's in Charge? Karl Rove!

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, September 15, 2005; 12:00 PM

All you really need to know about the White House's post-Katrina strategy -- and Bush's carefully choreographed address on national television tonight -- is this little tidbit from the ninth paragraph of Elisabeth Bumiller and Richard W. Stevenson's story in the New York Times this morning:

"Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort."

Rove's leadership role suggests quite strikingly that any and all White House decisions and pronouncements regarding the recovery from the storm are being made with their political consequences as the primary consideration. More specifically: With an eye toward increasing the likelihood of Republican political victories in the future, pursuing long-cherished conservative goals, and bolstering Bush's image.

That is Rove's hallmark.

Rove, Bush's long-time political adviser and the "architect" of Bush's ascendancy, was rewarded after the 2004 election with a position at the White House with overt policy responsibilities. But whereas in some previous White Houses, governance took precedence over campaigning once the election was safely over, Rove has shown no sign of ever putting policy goals above political ones. (See my Rove profile.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/09/15/BL2005091501098.html

Perhaps we can still get something out of the lost $12.5 million icemelt by waterboarding certain unelected officials.

[merh]

23. As someone who stood in line for hours

and that had to drive from relief site to relief site to find ice for weeks until power was restored, I can attest to the fact that the ice was needed. We were limited to a bag a person in the household, sometimes just two bags per vehicle.

That money spent to house the ice until now, that $12.5 million, sure could help some folks today in their rebuild efforts.

:argh: I can't stand these criminals.

,

[Ian David]

24. That money DID help to re-build. A few executives to to build new summer cottages.

Lovely McMansions somewhere, I'm sure.

[merh]

25. Or at least, the air conditioned garage for their mercedes and lexus.

x(

.