Star-Telegram.com | 10/13/2005 | Truckers growing impatient while waiting on FEMA

Star-Telegram.com | 10/13/2005 | Truckers growing impatient while waiting on FEMA: "Posted on Thu, Oct. 13, 2005

Truckers growing impatient while waiting on FEMABy BOBBY WHITE
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

FORT WORTH - Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Rita smashed into the Gulf Coast, Fort Worth remains a key staging area for trucks carrying tons of ice and water that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will use for relief.

Before Rita hit landfall, the Texas Motor Speedway served as an area where about 500 trucks parked waiting to receive orders.

As of Wednesday, about 50 trucks sat idle at the Speedway. It was three times that number earlier in the week, one trucker estimated.

'When the request for aid dies down is when we will no longer need the Speedway as a staging area,' said Mike Sweet, a FEMA spokesman. 'Until then, trucks will continue to go there.'

The Federal Depot in south Fort Worth is the main location where truckers gather to wait for shipping orders. As FEMA prepared for Ritas landfall, tractor-trailers from across the country made their way to the depot. By Sept. 23 about 800 trucks had staked out the Depot, so many that FEMA called around the region to find a satellite location. The Speedway donated the space to the agency for free.

While trucks continue to move along Interstate 35 to and from the Speedway, the enthusiam among some of the truckers has subsided and some have grown impatient and frustrated.

'We wait here but conditions bad,' said Ulises Pineira through a thick cuban accent. "


73 fer nw,
Bob N5IET

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