Want to haul for FEMA? Maybe later

I'd like to add a little of my experience with the Katrina/FEMA debacle;
I live on the so.west side of Lousy-anna, and heard plenty of stories about the big dollars O/Os could make. Having my own authority, I was approached by two good friends, also O/Os, with the lucrative plan of transporting building materials from a supplier in Houston, TX. to New Orleans. One friend had political connections that would get my company on the fast track to the approved list because at that time they were desperate for supplies to be brought in. I called my insurance agent to discuss "leasing" my friends enabling them to run under my authority, and she put me in touch with a couple of locals who were already involved. I was told to expect settlement time of 90+ days, no clear plan of action from officials, continual re-routes, and waiting for days to be offloaded, and be sure you were self sufficient as you would get very little or no help from the disaster people. In other words, it was a disaster in itself, (being government run, that wasn't a surprise).

I was also contacted by someone who asked if I had any reefer units to rent out, to store all the dead bodys they were expecting to find in the rubble.

This is just a small picture, and after gathering more information, my friends and I decided it wasn't worth it. A couple of years later, I was surprised to find that some people were still waiting to be paid for their services- (not just the transportation part of it).

 

Do you remember the FEMA ice follies?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9369937/

 

Why are we going to spend BILLIONS yet AGAIN to rebuild a diseased crime ridden infested swamp land !?

 

Some people dont learn the first time

 

Well at this point in time there is no other reason but being just cause we can... I guess when we finally go broke they will think perhaps we should of not wasted money like that.. Then again it is our government so they would just waste it somewhere else...

 

IMHO, one of the better ideas was to "move" New Orleans to the Baton Rouge area, then to finish destroying the levees, allowing the old N O to go under water; adding to all the other problems, most of that area IS below sea level.
Of course the moving idea really upset the Baton Rouge area people. I really think most of the state would be happy if we could just give New Orleans to our neighbors; "New Orleans, Mississippi";.... kinda has a nice ring to it, eh?

 

I read where FEMA has paid out over three billion dollars for motels and aptment for N.O.La. evacuyees and they have a March dead line WTF Some did not get anything after Rita but helped their selves.

 

I think FEMA still has 1000's of new trailers just sitting around the US. I used Google Earth to spot some of the lots with the biggest I found being the old airport in Hope, AR.

If you want to see something amazing, put the co-ord's....
N33° 43.102', W93° 39.713' into Google Earth's "fly to" search & then zoom around.

 

Maybe unused but not new . I hauled some of them from IN in early '05 . A lot of times they were pulled through salt covered roads during snow storms . They were never washed , just parked . Frames , floors , and brakes were coated with salt . Then there's the formaldehyde issue . The Fleetwood plant in KY was producing as many as they can and shipping them to storage in Cumberland , MD . A few months later a nearby Fleetwood plant in Cumberland , MD started producing identical units and shipping them to TX . Gee , if they had their act together and had both plants making them at the same time I could have hauled from KY to MD , then hauled from MD to TX .