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FEMA - now paying truckers Thousands


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Guest BlackJesus

[i][b][color="red"]Looks like FEMA is now up and running great :wacko: :whistle: [/color][/b][/i]




[quote][u][img]http://www.eagletribune.com/04/pix/s2050920.jpg[/img]
Frozen FEMA fiasco: Truckers stuck with ice meant for Gulf Coast 
By Patricia Cronin
Staff writer
Gloucester Daily Times
[/u]

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of ice meant for the Gulf Coast arrived yesterday not in storm-ravaged New Orleans or Mississippi but in Gloucester, where almost two dozen tractor-trailers spent the day parked on Rogers Street with their engines running.

Hundreds of truck drivers from Minnesota, Alabama, Georgia and even Massachusetts have been crisscrossing the country since the beginning of September, moving loads of ice from storage facility to storage facility and earning big bucks from the federal government to do little more than sit in their cabs and not unload their precious cargo.

As 18 truckers waited on Rogers Street just before noontime yesterday, many wondered aloud why the shipments were coming here and not being sent to those in need after Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast.

"I still don't understand what we're doing here," Ron Johnson said as he stood outside the AmeriCold Logistics storage facility, waiting to drop off 84,000 pounds of ice yesterday. "We're going around in circles."

Johnson said he picked up an oversized load of ice in Sandwich last Tuesday. From there, he drove to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., where he spent eight days waiting to unload. All the while, his truck's engine continued to run in order to keep the ice from melting.

And after those eight days — he made around $900 per day, with some truckers earning in excess of $2 per mile — Johnson said he got the news his load was needed in Gloucester.

"I guess they sent us up here because of the big ice crisis you're having in Gloucester," said Dan Hanson, who picked up his 44,000 pounds of ice in St. Paul, Minn., before traveling to Maxwell and spending "eight days and seven minutes" waiting.

"I can understand having ice staged up and down the seaboard where disasters can hit, but to me, it's like putting bad money ahead of good," he said. "My boss is just disgusted with the government's spending at this point. I think the country deserves an answer."

Kathy Cable, FEMA spokeswoman, said the trucks were redirected because too much ice was ordered for relief efforts since many of the devastated regions were evacuated.

"Sometimes we have more ice and water that was ordered than is necessary," she said. "The drivers are then redirected to various mobilization centers across the country. If these centers are full, which sometimes happens, they are sent to another storage facility. Unfortunately the truckers don't quite understand that. We know that they want to help."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is organizing the ice and water transport mission under the direction of FEMA. According to the Army Corps Web site, 211 million pounds of ice were ordered for relief efforts.

"As the commodities were being prepared and shipped ... projections of needs changed frequently as mass evacuations took place, and many people moved out of the disaster area," a statement on the Army Corps Web site says. "A number of truckloads of commodities are currently staged in the Carolinas, Virginia and elsewhere for possible use in response to Hurricane Ophelia."

Since Sept. 5, no new ice or water shipments have been ordered.

Mayor John Bell's office was notified by AmeriCold on Friday about the trucks, but officials at the office did not have an exact number of trucks expected. Initially, the number expected was more than 100.

AmeriCold employees refused to comment on the shipments.

Truck driver Paul Kite said he never would have agreed to pick up the ice had he known it was a job for FEMA, because government orders on shipments often change, he said.

"Once you pick up a load from FEMA, you're stuck," he said. "We've done jobs for FEMA before, but never to this extent where you sit and sit and sit. I just drove 1,300 miles to dump ice in Gloucester. This has to be the stupidest thing I have ever done."

Kite and his wife, Sharon, picked up their load of ice in Newburgh, N.Y., Sept. 2 and planned to make their delivery in Carthage, Miss., later that week.

When they arrived in Carthage, 60 other trucks were ahead of them waiting to unload. All of those trucks were told to bring their loads to Maxwell Air Force Base, which is 750 miles away, Kite said.

"It cost them $90,000 to move that ice 750 miles," he said.

A frustrated Kite — only 200 miles from cities that he said were on television nightly pleading for help — offered to pay $1,500 for his load of ice so that he could drive it down to the Gulf Coast himself, he said. The offer was refused by FEMA, he said.

Three weeks later, Kite's truck is still carrying the same load of ice.

"Every man standing here will tell you," he said. "Yes, we're enjoying the money we're making. But, it's (expletive)."

Kite said AmeriCold will charge 30 cents per square foot to store the ice. But Scott Memhard, president of Cape Pond Ice, said the trucks normally hold 22 containers of ice called pallettes. Each pallette can cost $30 per month to store.

Memhard said his Gloucester company tried to send ice to hurricane-ravaged regions after the storm but could not get permission from FEMA.

"We've been on the Internet and on the phone talking to as many people as we could," said Memhard. "We haven't succeeded in getting on the A-list yet."

Trucker Paul J. Guza, who picked up his frozen load Sept. 7 and then spent nearly nine days waiting at Maxwell AFB before coming to Gloucester, said he has tried to make the best of the situation by using his time in the city to sample his first bite of lobster. He didn't like it.

But Dan Hanson was in seafood heaven.

"I had scallops for breakfast, shrimp for lunch and got to go on a whale watch. Thank you, Uncle Sam," he said.[/quote]

[url="http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/05/gtstory.pl?-sec-Pageone+fn-fn-gice-20050920-+page_0"]http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/05/gtstory....0050920-+page_0[/url]

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Guest bengaljet
No comments. "Your" tax money being used wisely. Moving ice is "hard work". Another feather in the cap for this administration-they do everything so well.
Hey "flockers" who you going to blame for things like this......me? [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/26.gif[/img]
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