Posted on 09/09/2005 6:42:53 PM PDT by WestTexasWend
US federal emergency officials are directing hurricane-aid supplies to areas where they aren't needed, according to a US Air Force official.
This has caused delays that have left international aid shipments for Hurricane Katrina victims sitting at an Air Force base in Arkansas.
Civilian truck drivers hired to transport goods to Louisiana and Mississippi have been diverted to areas that don't need the items they're carrying, said Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Bret Archbold, who oversees the transfer of international shipments onto the trucks at Little Rock Air Force Base, in Jacksonville, north of Little Rock.
"We're backlogged now because the trucks are supposed to run two missions a day, but most of them have been down there for two days and haven't come back yet," Archbold said.
A fenced off area on the base is filled with pallets of emergency food rations, some of which came from Russia, Italy, Spain and Britain.
Customs officials have also held up emergency food supplies specifically from Britain, which arrived on a Russian cargo jet on Wednesday, citing concerns about beef safety, Archbold said.
He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is awaiting US State Department approval before allowing the British supplies to be sent to Louisiana.
In London, the Defence Ministry said that US authorities had specifically requested the ration packs, and it was up to US officials whether they distribute the food.
"We have complete confidence in their safety and nutritional value," said a spokeswoman. She said the packs were drawn from stockpiles used to supply British soldiers.
Those truck drivers who have returned, describe frustrating journeys through hurricane-hit areas searching for relief workers willing to accept their supplies.
One trucker who make it back to the base for a second run, two days after her first, was Cheryl Neal of Jacksonville, Florida. She said she was directed from Camp Beauregard in Alexandria, Louisiana, to Gonzales, Louisiana, just west of New Orleans, with meals ready-to-eat - only to find they already had plenty. She said she went to two more stops before finding an abandoned Kmart in New Orleans that had been commandeered by the American Red Cross.
"You know the things they're saying about FEMA," Neal said.
"What I saw was FEMA people haven't been able to establish mobile phone contact with the people it's going to."
Despite the crisis caused by Katrina, Archbold described the scene at the air base as "lull status" because of long delays caused by waiting for trucks that failed to return on schedule.
"When you have 90,000 square miles (233,000 square kilometres) to cover, there are going to be some challenges, no question about it," said Butch Kinerney, a FEMA spokesman in Washington.
Kinerney said he didn't have any specifics about the trucks from the air base in Jacksonville, north of Little Rock.
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