More well-spent FEMA dollars at work

[Speck Tater]

FEMA sends truckloads of ice to NOLA and then sends it to Maine for storage. Will this madness never end?

http://www.wbir.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=28746

The trucks started arriving this weekend, and they're expected to keep coming through Sunday.

City officials in Portland, Maine say they have no idea why the trucks are here, only that the city has been asked to help out with traffic problems.

But truck drivers say they went all the way down to the Gulf Coast with the ice -- stayed for a few days -- and then were told by FEMA they needed to drive to Maine to store it.

[Suich]

1. This is just mind-boggling!

Are they going to be sent back to the Gulf Coast or Texas?

Why were they sent all the way to Maine in the first place?

Oh, never mind.......

:banghead:

[Speck Tater]

3. They're going to truck the ice to Alaska

and sell it to the Eskimos. Who knows what these FEMA idiots are thinking.

[indepat]

4. What don't the neocons do that doesn't boggle the mind?

[NYC]

2. They don't know when or if ice will return to Gulf Coast.

...No one driving the trucks has any idea when, or even if the ice will go back to the Gulf Coast...

At the very least, shouldn't they have kept it in the area? Possibly, it could be used for Hurricane Rita. If nothing else, all that gasoline consumption and pollution from driving were unnecessary. How much did it cost to drive the ice to Maine?

[NYC]

5. FEMA offers explanation for storing ice in Maine.

http://www.wbir.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=28764

The federal government is spending thousands of dollars every day by bringing and storing ice in Maine. The government originally ordered the ice for hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

They ordered 169.4 million pounds of ice. Now, thousands of pounds of that is sitting in Portland.

Some of the drivers who are now waiting to unload their trucks have been on the road for the relief efforts since the day before the storm hit.

They're in Maine because FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, realized they had too much ice on their hands in the gulf and decided to store it in case of another disaster.

...ice is worth millions of dollars, and the truckers are getting paid by the day to haul it around even though it hasn't been delivered anywhere useful.

...FEMA says the ice is in Portland so it will be readily available in case of another hurricane - like Rita.

The Army Corps of Engineers...does not have an estimate of how much it will cost to transport all this ice, but ...will hold on to it and store it here in Maine at least until the end of the hurricane season.

Truck drivers coming into town Tuesday were told it will be about three days until they can unload their truck, as only four trucks can unload at a time. While they wait they are being paid 800 dollars a day. Once they unload, they are able to pick up other contracts and leave Maine.

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At the very least, why not store it closer to the hurricane area if they are keeping it throughout the hurricane season?

[RepublicanElephant]

6. those must have been halliburton trucks...

...it's amazing they had anything in them at all!