[StBernard] St. Bernard Stuck With Unneeded Terror Equipment

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Stuck With Unneeded Terror Equipment
TheNewOrleansChannel.com

CHALMETTE, La. - St. Bernard Fire Chief Thomas Stone has a load of millions
of dollars in high-tech gear -- only he can't do much of anything with it.
Soon after Hurricane Katrina, Stone said, the Homeland Security Department's
Prepositioned Equipment Program sent him a shipment of the equipment -- so
much, in fact, that it has a 14-page inventory. "Some of it was very useful
for us after it got here," Stone said. 

But much of the shipment was terrorism equipment. The DHS Web site said the
PEP consists of standards equipment sets that are prepositioned in selected
geographic areas to permit rapid deployment to states and localities whose
jurisdictions have become the target of terrorism. 

"It's very expensive, but to me, it's useless," Stone said. 

He said he asked for help but didn't need all the equipment. However, he was
told to either take the entire shipment or get nothing. 

Now, 18 months later, he's still stuck with it all because it's considered a
grant valued at $2.2 million. 

"That's why we're trying to give it to other agencies," Stone said. 

He's trying to give it away quickly, too, because he's losing storage space.


"FEMA wants these trailers back immediately, so we have some trustees from
the sheriff's office unloading these trailers so FEMA can get them," Stone
said. 

A spokesman from the DHS was quoted in a story on CNN as saying that "while
the stashes contain some items like generators, much of the gear would not
be useful in the circumstances faced by the Gulf Coast region." 

Stone received his shipment two weeks after the CNN interview. 

Sen. Mary Landrieu said it's another example of inadequate response by the
federal government. 

"Chief Stone will be credited for getting that from the federal government.
The federal government will say, 'We don't know why you can't build up your
parish. We sent you $2 million worth of equipment.' Of course, they sent
wrong equipment -- they sent equipment he doesn't need -- but that gets
charged against us. So, it's our fault that this equipment arrived at our
doorstep when we didn't ask for it, we didn't want it, and we didn't need
it. So, I'm going to help Chief Stone. But this is now another example to
waste to taxpayer dollars," Landrieu said. 

A spokeswoman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington said
she'd try to find out more about the situation.