MIAMI – Wanted: A charity with lots of freezer space. Or a town in need of flooding.
Neither scenario is likely to rescue the Florida State Emergency Response Team from the peculiar dilemma imposed by last year’s dearth of hurricanes.
The agency has almost 9 million pounds of ice cubes worth $1.8 million – bagged, bundled and costing the state $90,000 a month in storage fees. It was bought and positioned for distribution during electricity outages that never happened.
Water, like most consumables, eventually runs the risk of spoilage, and Florida’s ice overstock is due for disposal before the June start of the 2007 hurricane season. That approaching use-by date prompted the appeal last week from emergency planners for any nonprofit group eligible for government donations to take the ice off Tallahassee’s hands.
The ice is packaged in plastic-wrapped pallets of 360 bags each, so that is the minimum amount the state will part with. Delivery is included, but only if the recipient will take a whole truckload of 22 pallets, or almost 40,000 pounds of ice.
“It’s a one-time issue predicated on the very positive fact we did not get hit” by a major storm in the 2006 hurricane season, said Mike Stone, spokesman for the Division of Emergency Management.
A repeat of the overflow won’t occur because emergency officials are getting out of the ice storage business, Stone said. The government now contracts with private suppliers throughout the state, like major grocery-store chains, to have sufficient quantities on hand through hurricane season and available for state purchase.
But last year’s leftovers are a problem.
What will happen if the demand for ice continues to flag through the winter?
“Eventually, at some point, we would find a way to return it to the earth from whence it came,” said Stone, noting state officials are casting about for a drought-plagued corner of the Sunshine State in which to melt away their problem. “On one level, it would be the ultimate recycling project.”
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