Dan's Papers - August 1, 2008

A big item in the news about a month ago was FEMA's decision to permanently cease bringing trailer-loads of perishable food to Long Island at the beginning of the hurricane season. This food had, for many years, been stored in large refrigerated warehouses for when a hurricane hit. Last year, the food didn't show up, but the local authorities attributed it to just a regular FEMA foul-up. Now, it was June again. Local officials called Washington to find out when the trailers were coming. They weren't.

FEMA had made the amazing decision to stop sending emergency rations to Long Island in anticipation of an emergency. Of course, there WOULD be perishable food available, but it would be at a facility at the Stewart Air Force Base in upstate New York. FEMA said that if a hurricane hit, the power went down and the downtowns got flooded, to just give them a call and they'd get that food into the back of some trucks and get it down to us in, oh, maybe a day or two. Or a week or two. You never know what with paperwork and the flood conditions and so forth and so on. But hang on. They'll get it there.

As FEMA explained, the decision to make this change was to save money. They could save quite a bit if they only had one central refrigerated facility in the state where they stored everything instead of the 12 facilities they'd had before. There'd be only one cooling bill, only one team of guards to keep it all safe so it is there for the emergency.

As you might imagine, this did not sit well with the powers that be here on Long Island. Indeed, they were so upset about it that they went down to Washington to meet with the FEMA officials, who, sometimes, are actually at their desks in the big FEMA building there, to give them a serious talking to.

Didn't FEMA stand for Federal Emergency Management Agency? Isn't the idea that if you're backing up the troops in a foxhole somewhere with boxes of ammunition and there's a whole lot of shootin' going on, it is better to have the ammunition in the foxhole rather than in, for example, Wisconsin?

Of course, FEMA responded by pointing out their magnificent record in rushing in to take care of everybody during a disaster. They've won all these awards and trophies for how they handled New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. They knew what they were doing.

In the end, of course, they caved. And when they did, they decided that not only would they provide disaster supplies in the location in Nassau County where they had put them before, but they would put some of them in Suffolk County, too!

One could almost hear the FEMA people walking around saying, Damn, what have we done? The hell with the budget! People were more important than a budget! We'll figure it out!

And so, the politicians and spin doctors set up a press conference on Long Island last week. Present were Congressman Tim Bishop and Senator Charles Schumer from this area, and also Suffolk County Emergency Director Joe Williams.

Bishop lavished praise on FEMA. Then he had this to say:

"As we have seen in the past, proper disaster preparedness is essential for Long Island. And that is why, at the request of Suffolk County, I joined with Senator Schumer in personally pressing FEMA officials to commit to delivering these supplies. I will continue to work with local and federal officials to ensure that Long Island is prepared for any coming storms or other emergencies."

The supplies being sent to Suffolk are not perishable food items, but they are helpful other items. "This is a start," said Williams. The supplies consist of four trailers filled with canned goods, tents, generators and flashlights and so forth that can be easily distributed to about 2,000 people in an hour or so from the depot at the Brookhaven National Lab in Calverton. The perishable food, as before, will be stored in the bi-county refrigerated facility in Mineola.

All we can say is, when the food arrives, knowing what we know about FEMA, check the expiration dates on the cans.