Emergency mismanagement

Say what you will about them, FEMA has certainly proven that they don’t need an emergency of Hurricane Katrina-calibre to screw things up. In fact, even with no emergency whatsoever, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency managed to pour $43-million-worth of stockpiled food straight down the gaping drain of incompetence.

According to agency officials, in the hopes of avoiding being ill-prepared again, FEMA decided to ready a huge supply of food, water and ice in the southeastern U.S. for the 2006 hurricane season. What they didn’t consider was the fact they hadn’t adequate storage for the supplies.

“We didn’t want to run any chance of running out,” explained FEMA deputy director Harvey Johnson. The agency loaded up on what Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said was enough food to feed a million people. Then they let it spoil.

The meals, commercial versions of the U.S. Army’s “Meals Ready to Eat,” can last up to three years when stored in 80F temperatures. Temperatures inside many of FEMA’s trailers clocked in at over 120F, which have been shown to reduce the meals’ lifespan to under a month. Some 279 truckloads of food were lost.

by Scott Saxon