This is my first diary, but it does cover a subject that seems to have slipped under the (admittedly cluttered) radar over the last few days.
While thousands in Texas remain without power in the wake of Hurricane Ike, FEMA dumps thousands of pallets of ice on an airfield runway while claiming (from the San Antonio Express-News via chron.com):
"That ice is surplus ice from the original requests from state, county and local authorities before the scope of the hurricane was known," said FEMA spokesman Richard Scorza. "We try to anticipate the needs for various commodities. The good news is it addressed the immediate needs of the population and there are no shortages."
That's bad enough, but it gets worse:
FEMA officials and security personnel at the airfield, an annex of San Antonio's Randolph AFB, refused to allow reporters onto the property, and initially objected to a reporter standing on a public road near the fence to try to interview truckers inside the fence.
When some truckers consented to an interview, a man wearing a FEMA shirt arrived on a golf cart within moments and threatened to have the truckers fired.
"This conversation is over," he told the truckers. "Or you guys will not be here any longer."
A security guard at the gate said the truckers had all signed an agreement not to speak to news media.
If the ice really was surplus, then why bar the press and threaten the truckers? On the other hand, given the number of comments to the article from people without power who (a) are in desperate need of ice and (b) were never told that thousands of cubic yards of ice had been deemed "surplus" by FEMA and were being dumped, then the press blockade becomes perfectly clear...as long as you're part of a government that prizes secrecy over assisting its citizens in need and, of course, NEVER makes mistakes.
With everything else that's going on right now, is there any room for an ongoing human-interest story involving the usual FEMA crap?
UPDATE: The San Antonio Express-News and KENS TV Channel 5 have a video up http://www.mysanantonio.com/... stating that the state of emergency has been lifted in Galveston.
Does this mean that Galveston no longer qualifies for federal aid? If this is true, then what does constitute a state of emergency?