"Thousands of pounds of ice originally sent to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts are being melted after being stored in Gloucester [Massachusetts] 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.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged at the time that it had ordered too much ice due to faulty estimates by local officials. Truckers received up to $900 a day to move the ice to storage sites around the country.
Gloucester received 118 truckloads of ice in September 2005, but 99 of those were sent to Florida in October 2005 to help with relief efforts after Hurricane Wilma. By November 2005, only four truckloads, weighing between 40,000 and 84,000 pounds each, remained in Gloucester.
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."
In the first few weeks after the hurricane hit, $127 million was raised by Habitat for Humanity International. They have been concentrating on rebuilding homes in St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, and Orleans parishes. However, since 2005, only 50 homes have been completed with 70 under construction. This is because only $29 million of the $127 million raised went to the project. About $15 million has been spent with $14 million left to finish what has been started. Habitat’s goal was to construct over 1,000 homes throughout the Gulf Coast, but so far only 100 have been completed or in progress.
Meanwhile, some would-be beneficiaries of PA [public assistance] grants fume about the slow delivery of help. Among them is Nicholas Felton, president of a union for New Orleans firefighters, who five months ago complained loudly about lack of progress in securing millions of dollars from FEMA for repairing uninhabitable firehouses that are plagued by sewage backups and rodents. "We have not seen any movement, any money, from federal, state or local officials," he said. "We have only been successful enough in repairing fire stations with generous donations from people around the city and country, and with firefighters putting in the work. I wish I knew where it (rebuilding money) is so that we could go tell folks to let it loose."
Officials in Nagin's administration who handle PA paperwork, including Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Cynthia Sylvain-Lear, say little, "other than they're working on it, and they're trying to get it. But it's been almost two years and we haven't gotten anything," Felton said. Sylvain-Lear...blamed the lack of progress on a broader problem: Project Worksheets prepared by FEMA that estimate repair or rebuilding costs using figures that are far too low, forcing the city to ask for an amended Worksheet. Without the use of higher figures, the city is forced to find money elsewhere in its budget to fill the gap, she said."
Senator [Ted] Stevens’ [R-Alaska...yes, that Ted Stevens] suggestion came after listening to frustrated Louisiana officials recount their problems with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) they said has stalled thousands of projects. "We need a new Marshall Plan for that -- not just FEMA," said Stevens during a subcommittee hearing.
Disaster Recovery Subcommittee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, agreed, saying if the reconstruction of France and Germany was conducted on a project-by-project basis like in the Hurricane Katrina recovery, "We would still be rebuilding Europe." She described some of the problems as "a nightmare." The subcommittee hearing this week focused on problems encountered with about $10 billion of the $110 billion Congress approved for public works projects such as canals, water and sewer projects, schools, and other public facilities.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin leveled criticism at FEMA for underestimating the reimbursement to localities for projects, which he described as their "biggest obstacle." He and others also criticized FEMA for rotating its officials to the hard-hit areas, many of whom were inexperienced, and disputed project estimates previously approved by other FEMA personnel.
Hurricane Katrina nearly swept away the jazz traditions of New Orleans along with the rest of the city, but native son Harry Connick Jr. says the danger of losing that legacy still hasn't subsided even though the storm waters have. As Connick Jr. gets set to take his "My New Orleans" tour to the Montreal International Jazz Festival on Saturday (June 30), he admits the hurricane has given added significance to his work. "Performing is a lot more meaningful after Katrina," he told a news conference in Montreal on Friday. "If only because there seems to be so much attention focused on what's going to happen with this music, mainly traditional jazz music."
Connick Jr. is concerned that with so many musicians fleeing the city in the aftermath of Katrina, that distinctive New Orleans sound would be lost. "It's very difficult to get the city back on its feet when nobody lives there anymore," he said. "The traditional jazz scene wasn't doing particularly well before the storm. After the storm, everybody's gone."
Looks to me like nothing much is happening there either. At least it's not all bad news:
[Texas] State officials say more than $500 million for 22 southeast Texas counties is now beginning to make its way to thousands of people 21 months after the storm. State and federal officials say the delay is partly because of their determination to avoid the waste and fraud that plagued assistance efforts for Louisiana residents after Hurricane Katrina.
Unlike Katrina victims, Rita victims had to fill out detailed financial reports including information from family members, landlords, churches and others, proving they weren't getting substantial money from any other sources.
I would be remiss if I failed to credit the many charitable organizations and churches and such doing smaller recovery projects away from these federal and mainstream activities; they should not go unmentioned, as those volunteers (for the most part) are giving their time, money, and effort to aid their fellow man in his time of need, a quality far too rare in times such as these. So to those NoLA volunteers out there, I salute you. If you would like to plug your organization here, feel free; let us know where we can direct people who want to aid physically, financially or otherwise, as I'm sure there are still those out there willing to help, and from the looks of it, there is no shortage of need for private aid.
To the federal and local politicians keeping the people tied up in this endless bureaucratic rigmarole due to your ineptitude and tedium, shame on you.
2 comments:
Well, as an employee of Reddy Ice, Inc., I would be remiss to not disclose that we pick up great business with hurricanes. We hold a giant FEMA contract and we're feeling the lack of severe storms so far this year. For us, disasters equal great business.
Disasters equal great business for us in TV News too. People love to see other people's lives in jeopardy....just another example serving to support my thesis that TV news is as much an entertainment program as anything else on TV, but that's another post for another day (and days past).
As for the ice itself, I was more concerned that they kept it for nearly 2 years when they are supposed to dump it after 3 months, finally deeming it unfit for human consumption. Either their standard is ridiculous and it can last beyond 3 months, or there is no excuse for keeping it as long as they did.
I'm sure you're hurting from the lack of storms, but global warming in general has to be creating more summer customers for the ice business, no?
Post a Comment