No ice for you!

The first high-level response here [in Mississippi] to FEMA's dictum that it will no longer fund ice deliveries to the public after a hurricane came Monday from U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor [D], who called FEMA officials "buttheads," and said he intends to officially express his annoyance with the federal disaster response bureaucracy. ...

The Sun Herald was unable to get comment on Taylor's statement Monday from the agency's Washington headquarters. However, a spokesman at FEMA's Mississippi Coast offices in Biloxi said the agency was expected to respond to Taylor's no-ice protest, although not to his precise choice of words. ...

FEMA officials recently kicked off the beginning of hurricane season by announcing they consider ice a luxury item that people do not need after living through major storms such as Hurricane Katrina. The storm and its high winds and 30-foot surge destroyed thousands of homes and businesses here in 2005, taking lives and causing widespread power outages that lasted for days and even weeks in some areas.

Survivors were left in primitive conditions with extreme humidity, toxic mud, insects, a lack of food and water and temperatures in excess of 90 degrees. Tons of ice, food and water distributed by the National Guard and other agencies are widely credited with saving countless lives, particularly among the ill and elderly.

Even more crazy here.


posted by Quiddity at 6/12/2008 12:44:00 AM