Hurricane Katrina Cleanup Costs
What happens when you have government bureaucracies involved in the hurricane cleanup business?
You get loads of contractors and subcontractors ripping off the taxpayers.
Since this is Lousy-ana, I guess this kind of thing is to be expected.
“If this is ‘normal,’ we have a serious problem in this country,” said Benny Rousselle, president of Plaquemines Parish, a hurricane-ravaged district downriver from New Orleans. “The federal government ought to be embarrassed about what is happening. If local governments tried to run things this way, we’d be run out of town.”
What is it with these people? Could it be something in their drinking water? Run out of town, my foot! Your idiot mayor and governor screwed up royally during the whole hurricane fiasco, and you haven’t run them out of town. Do locals get a free pass?
For example, one company hired as an ice vendor owns no ice-making equipment. Landstar Systems Inc., a $2 billion Florida company placed in charge of the bus evacuation of New Orleans, is a transportation broker that specializes in trucking and has no buses of its own. In 2002, the company was awarded a $100 million contract to provide emergency transportation services for the federal government during major disasters. The contract, which is administered by the Federal Aviation Administration, was expanded in the fall to a maximum $400 million. Landstar declined a request for an interview.
Thousands of New Orleanians had been stranded in the Superdome for more than 48 hours by the time FEMA issued the first order for a bus evacuation early on the morning of Aug. 31. The order was passed to Landstar, which then turned to other companies to locate buses, according to an official chronology prepared by the Department of Transportation. Landstar hired Carey International Inc., of Washington, which then hired the BusBank, of Chicago, and Transportation Management Systems of Columbia, Md. Bus Bank and TMS called private charter-bus companies — some from as far away as California and Washington state — asking them to send buses and drivers to New Orleans.
Why can’t people understand that big business will always do jobs more efficiently and for less money that the government. Doesn’t the sorry state of our public schools show them that?
