Aid still not getting to hurricane survivors, but there is plenty of frustation

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


According to the Mirror, hundreds of tons of food shipped from Great Britain for Hurricane Katrina survivors have been blocked from distribution. The NATO ration packs, which have been declared unfit for human consumption, are in a warehouse in Little Rock, Arkansas, according to the newspaper. The packs, which cost millions of dollars, are the same ones British soldiers eat in Iraq, and they have been approved by NATO for consumption by members of the American military.

Food from Spain and Italy is also being held by the FDA, which is supposedly trying to work out a plan to distribute more of the donated food.

It is unknown what, if any, FEMA’s role is in the British rations situation. Ice, however, is another matter. On August 29, Cool Express, a Wisconsin company, was asked by FEMA to haul ice for hurricane relief. Seventy-five trucks were loaded and sent to the Gulf Coast, but their drivers were then sent to places like Idaho and Pennsylvania to await instructions. Late last week, the trucks were still scattered across the country, while FEMA continued to order ice.

On September 9, FEMA also ordered 970 wire crates from PetsMart to help rescue starving animals. Over the next four days, the agency changed the order, cancelled it, reinstated it, put it on hold, and then demanded the shipment. When PetsMart tried to deliver the cages to a New Orleans naval base, it was turned away. Eventually, the driver was admitted, but he drove 152 miles around the base, all day long, trying to find someone who would accept the order.

To this day, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco is wondering what happened to the 500 buses promised by FEMA right after the storm hit New Orleans.

FEMA officials failed to show up last week for a meeting with the citizens of Slidell, Louisiana. The next day, they also failed to show up for a meeting with the citizens of Mandeville. In that case, however, they sent a contractor from Texas. Mandeville citizens stood in line for hours, waiting to fill out applications. Later, they were told that the applications were invalid and that they should go home and apply to FEMA by phone or online.

This morning, a FEMA representative said that the $2,000 grant promised to all hurricane victims may not actually be a grant, but could turn out to be a loan. Hundreds of applicants have already had their requests for the $2,000 turned down because they had returned to their houses and therefore “were not displaced.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate