Ike inspired the good folks over in Texas to figure out what FEMA stood for – and the news that the “F-word” is blaming some of its failure on over-eaters in Louisiana inspired me to dig up the Texas story and dish it out.
When I made a quick stop by the Houston Chronicle to see how the Louisiana story was playing there, I found no indication of any coverage of over-eating in Louisiana – but I did find what happened to a lot of the ready-to-eat meals intended for Ike victims.
It took a hurricane for most Houston’s citizens to learn that Mayor Bill White has a temper.
After all, he not only rarely raises his voice in public, he rarely changes tones.
But those who have worked with him know him to be a man whose patience is short and who is more than ready to express his annoyance when people have not done the job he thinks they should have.
Some were surprised, however, to learn that he had used language unfit for Sunday school to express his anger last Tuesday at finding trucks loaded with ice, water and food sitting at the Reliant Center while thousands of people waited in lines for the supplies for hours at Points of Distribution (PODs).
White staffers were unapologetic for their boss’s use of crude language to two women from the Georgia Forestry Commission here to help distribute the food, ice and water.
Having been to POD sites and seen long lines of people waiting, then to Reliant and seeing long lines of 18-wheelers sitting, White said something to the effect of “You need to be getting these (expletive) trucks out of here.”
White’s office produced a log of deliveries showing that, two hours after opening, nine of 11 PODs had received no water or food, and only five had received ice.
After White’s outburst, things picked up.
“Maybe it was worth a word or two that rhymes with truck,” said White spokesman Frank Michel — thereby settling a discussion in at least one city office as to exactly what the word was.
But while the outburst may have had some impact, Michel and other city officials admit that the major difference came when White called County Judge Ed Emmett, who used to work in the trucking industry, and asked him to go to Reliant and take charge…
Emmett is a Republican, White a Democrat. That is relevant only because other local Republicans had been discussing what they saw as White’s misbehavior, and at least one Republican official mentioned it to a reporter.
In addition, somehow the Republican governor of Georgia got worked up enough to send a complaining letter to the Republican governor of Texas, Rick Perry — though not to White.
Perry wrote an unctuous letter of apology back and released it — something that could possibly be seen as an early move in a possible governor’s race between Perry and White.
But any political advantage sought by publicizing White’s behavior seems to have backfired.
…Even a contributor on lonestartimes.com, a blog associated with Houston conservative talk radio station KSEV-AM, wrote: “Are we to believe that the governors of Texas and Georgia have nothing better to do than waste time sending letters and investigating this supposed ‘abuse?’ Lethargy in response to natural disasters is not acceptable, and we applaud Mayor White for trying to get people moving.”Perry and the other Republicans should have anticipated that response….(all emphasis added)
Well, naturally, trucking FEMA couldn’t tell Governor Jindal all the trucks went to Texas to get in line for Ike. So, what did FEMA offer the Governor of Louisiana as an excuse for the shortage after Gustav? As translated by who -could-say-it-better-than Editilla hanging the story on the Ladder, trucking FEMA’s excuse goes something like this
FEMA decries flooded Louisiana as Glutton for MREs, zayz: Let them eat Crabcake
Read the story and you’ll have to admit, the Editilla got it right.
Nearly five months after Hurricane Gustav, the public relations battle between Gov. Bobby Jindal and FEMA continues over who was to blame for the exasperating depletion of emergency food and water supplies soon after the storm.
At stake is a clear understanding of how to prepare for disasters.
FEMA’s argument, contained in a retort to comments made by Jindal last week, is that basically the responsibility for the problem lies with the storm victims of Louisiana, who gobbled up food and water at an “extraordinary” rate after Gustav swept through.
The federal agency said it worked closely with state officials to pre-position what was believed to be an adequate supply of Meals Ready to Eat packets, water bottles, ice and tarps, but the actual demand was far greater and resupply efforts stumbled.
“FEMA brought up this same assertion during the storms, and the governor made it clear that it is nutty to tell the people of south Louisiana that we are simply eating too much and are choosing MREs over our terrific local cuisine,” Jindal’s spokeswoman Melissa Sellers said.
The renewed flap apparently started when Jindal on at least two occasions in the past week brought up the post-Gustav supply problem.
Obviously Jindal didn’t make his point with the force of Mayor White; but, to his credit, he certainly didn’t try to pull a Governor Perry and blame it on the democrats.
“FEMA took too long to replenish the MREs, the water, the tarps that were in desperate need by our people,” Jindal said Wednesday at the grand opening of the National Guard Readiness Center in Reserve. “Victims should not have to worry about delays in FEMA shipments of food, water and emergency supplies.”
Materials were kept at storage sites and delivered to points of distribution, or PODs, with the Louisiana National Guard managing the operation.
“FEMA and the state met on a daily basis to determine what the requirements were and made decisions on resources as partners,” the FEMA report said.
“The reality is that the state was urged to push out our pre-positioned supplies in the first few days, with the promise that they would be replenished quickly by FEMA,” said Sellers, Jindal’s spokeswoman. “Instead, there was a significant lag before FEMA supplies arrived, and during that time the state paid for private contractors to set up camps to cook for people in communities still without power.”
For each person, the distribution sites were anticipated to hand out two 12-pack cases of MREs, 48 bottles of water, two bags of ice and two tarps. The requests and consumption by the distribution sites reached 3.6 million meals from Sept. 3 to Sept. 6, FEMA said. That amount would represent supplies for about 150,000 people, if FEMA’s assumptions about distribution were figured.
“The rate of distribution exceeded the stored and reserve quantities of meals that were in the distribution pipeline, requiring expeditious action to resolve this shortfall,” the FEMA report said. “This extraordinary burn rate caused FEMA to place additional large orders for shipment to the staging areas.”
By Sept. 25, FEMA had supplied Louisiana with 10.5 million meals, 10.6 million liters of water, 6.6 million pounds of ice, 540,882 tarps, 92,062 blankets and 30,272 cots.
The problem seems to be rather obvious – trucking FEMA doesn’t have a clue or, apparently, anyone calculating the projected need who had children. My two boys would have eaten a 12-pack each – at least half before I had everything unloaded.
Jindal has been pressing for an overhaul of FEMA policies.
“We also arranged for nonprofit groups to cook meals for citizens throughout South Louisiana without needed supplies,” Sellers said. “This is why the governor has said he looks forward to working with Congress and the incoming Obama administration to pre-position a greater amount of supplies along the Gulf Coast and to contract with private entities who can often provide meals quicker and at a lower cost, to better respond to future disasters.”
Given the choice of an MRE or Louisiana-cooked meals, the best policy would be for FEMA to send Jindal a check and let him oversee the feeding of hurricane victims.
A hat tip to Merlin’s blog for Ike the forgoten diaster and the link to the first Texas story. Be sure to stop by and read the post – and while you’re out, don’t miss the other story on the ladder: FEMA, state at odds over new -zone maps:
Bay St. Louis, Miss., recently encountered a similar experience with its FEMA maps but was able to resolve its differences with the agency and improve its flood-zone designations…
Trucking FEMA.