I guess this is one way to assure we will never again see ice trucks aimlesslycriss-crossing the countryduring a hurricane response.
FEMA says they are done with ice…
TAMPA – Ice is no longer part of the government’s response to hurricanes.
Federal Emergency Management Director R. David Paulison made the announcement
at MacDill Air Force base Thursday, in conjunction with the release of
the 2008 NOAA hurricane forecast.“It
takes a tremendous amount of resources, and it really doesn’t
accomplish much, other than making people feel good because they have a
bag of ice,” Paulison said.Paulison went on to say his agency is focusing on delivering essentials, such as food, water, bots, blankets, and tarps.
“Ice is more of a comfort thing,” he said.
Paulison explained that people with special needs will still get ice, but only if it is medically necessary.
A comfort thing?
A fucking comfort thing?
Sweet jeebus, will January never get here?
Jude…yeah that’s what I thought. Ice the new comfort food.
I see the American Can Do spirit just melting away
Yeah, because having ice to keep stuff cold when the power is out for months or to help keep one cool in the middle of a sweltering summer w/o power AFTER a hurricane shuts it all down, let alone to let melt a bit for drinking – yeah, how effing elitist of victims…
Feck FEMA!
Elspeth
It also reminded me how unnecessary it was back in ’04 for Jeb and George to have their photo op of handing out ice to victims of Florida hurricanes…
Well, at least ‘bots are considered essential, probably because they can help with the cleanup. [rim shot]
Seriously, hurricanes are basically heat machines and they don’t consider ice essential? Geez …
Uhhhh, won’t the drinks at Pat O’s be too warm, then? Ice for our Hurricanes!!!
I am comforted by the idea of his being replaced next year, if not sooner.
Ice? That’s what we put the bodies on.
Heh.. not anymore. No more coddling of the cadavers in the flood zone. Don’t they know they shouldn’t die below sea level?
FEMA: No ice, but plenty of dumb looks.
I bet the FEMA workers in a disaster zone will have ice.
God, I hate these people. Isn’t ice also important for keeping meds cool? Like insulin? There has got to be a special level of hell that even Dante had never discovered for these bastards. And I hope President Obama can at least get them started down the road to it with criminal trials.
Well, FEMA will certainly never be short of ice holes.
What, didn’t you people seeJohnny Dangerously?
I suggest we stake Mr. Paulison out on a black roof in August for a few days, just a couple of inches away from a cooler full of ice, to see if that might alter his opinion.
This just shows how completely out of touch Washington is. By day 12 after Katrina with no electricity I would have KILLED for ice.
this is a republikkkan answer to a problem. WHY did you drive ice over the country?
I see, they ended up driving ice all over hell and back because they were too effing stupid to figure out that you stage supplies along I-20 and then go South after the storm is passed and you figure out what roads are open to the areas that were hit.
They ended up with massive amounts of ice because they didn’t/couldn’t deliver what they had, and kept ordering more when officials and the media noted there was no ice [or anything else] in the affected areas.
I was working 18 hour days sawing up trees after Ivan [and Dennis and Erin and Opal…] and the only reason I’m not dead is because I could stop every so often and apply ice to my head and neck to reduce my temperature.
You don’t let a crew go out to do any kind of manual labor down here without an excess of ice and water because heat stroke and heat exhaustion are just around the corner.
When the heat index gets above 105 you can’t do much of anything without a way to cool off.
You can’t recover if you can’t work hard, and you can’t work hard without a way to cool off.
During the Katrina debacle ise was shipped all over, left to melt, never arrived, etc due to the fact that there was no competence or organizations to the efforts put forth by “Heckuva Job” Brownie.
Now, once again, it seems expeditious to penalize us for the lack of planning on the part of the entities set in place to protect the public needs. Typical middle management stuff: do something to show that you are doing something and that your paycheck is a “needed” expense. Whether that something has nasty ramifications down the line or not has no impact on the decision.
November cannot come soon enough, we need leadership before this country completely disintigrates.
The no ice decision shows Brown was not the only FEMA official that is out of touch with reality. His replacement is no better. I live 100 mi north of MS Coast and was out of power for 14 days. No power and 100+ heat indexes require ice for survival. I would like to see if he has the same opinion living in our shoes. I had 15 people staying at my house evacuated from the coast. Try feeding and hydrating that many people without ice. We could not go out and buy ice because no stores in Laurel were open they did not have power either.
Who chooses these people and puts them in charge, when they have no idea what is neccessity and what is luxury.
Finally did he not hear about the man that shot his sister over a bag of ice somewhere around Hattiesburg?