Hurricane relief road trip ends at Fremont company

The iceman finally cameth — to Fremont.

Mark Kostinec, a driver for Universe Truck Line of Omaha, never thought he'd unload in Nebraska when he picked up 20 tons of ice destined for the hurricane relief effort.

But after 17 days on the road and thousands of miles on the odometer, that's exactly what he did.

Kostinec was driving Sept. 2 near Canton, Ohio, when his company received orders from the Army Corps of Engineers to send the driver and his truck to Greenville, Pa. There, he was to pick up 40,000 pounds of cubed ice and haul it 1,300 miles to an underground storage facility in Carthage, Mo.

Kostinec said his company was reluctant to let him go, but corps officials persisted and the Omaha trucker and his frozen load were on the road to Carthage by Sept. 3. Arriving near midnight, Kostinec learned plans for the ice had already changed. He was to haul it on to Maxwell Air Force Base near Montgomery. Ala.

On Sept. 4, he left Carthage taking a designated 720-mile route through Memphis, Tenn. and Tupelo, Miss., to the Alabama base.

Weight and speed limits were lifted for trucks bearing yellow corps tags, Kostinec said.

He arrived at Maxwell just after midnight Sept. 5 to find a camp set up for drivers hauling supplies to relief camps.

"The Corps of Engineers was very organized," he said. "They had portable showers, portable toilets and buses running into town for food."

But because so many trucks had arrived at Maxwell, there was no room to put them all.

Some drivers were told to move on. On Sept. 6, Kostinec and his load of ice were sent 250 miles to Camp Shelby, an Army National Guard installation near Hattiesburg, Miss.

Driving a refrigerated truck which averaged 6 miles per gallon, Kostinec was advised to keep the tank at least half-full and to expect oil shortages.

But he had no problems, he said.

"Surprisingly, $2.70 (for diesel) was the highest price I paid," he said. "In Mobile (Ala.), it was around $2.65."

Companies received $3.10 per mile for their trucks, Kostinec said, to compensate for the fact they'd be coming back empty from the Gulf region and compensation for detention time — when companies were hauling for the government — ran between $25 and $35 per hour.

On the way to Hattiesburg, Kostinec saw numerous trees sprawled across power lines. He estimated 200 pines alone had fallen in the two-mile stretch leading into Camp Shelby. Arriving there, he was directed to a lot run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The difference between the Corps of Engineers camp he'd just left and the FEMA-run camp "was the difference between night and day," he said. "There were people who didn't know what they were doing. There were no lights. There were 150 trucks in the camp. I showered holding a flashlight."

On Sept. 7, Kostinec was sent to the Hattiesburg Convention Center where he learned after a four-hour wait that organizers there only needed two of the five truckloads of ice that had been dispatched.

Kostinec went back to Camp Shelby where the hurricane had cause significant damage.

"About one-fourth of the base had power," he said. "They did the best they could for us. They couldn't feed us. They had so many trucks there, and still more coming in." Late that evening, Kostinec and his ice left for Selma, Ala., and the Craig Air Force Base.

"Now, we were getting farther away from the disaster," he said. In some stricken areas, Kostinec said his company received dispatch orders from the Corps of Engineers. In others, FEMA had control.

"It seemed they would wait for faxes from the powers that be," Kostinec said, before sending truckers on their way.

On the 220-mile road to Craig AFB, Kostinec saw an "impressive" number of trees downed along the interstate. He saw trucks hauling large generators and heavy equipment.

"I saw a convoy of over 100 Indiana state troopers in their cars," he said. "I saw law enforcement officers buying ammo at Wal-Mart. They're dressed in their fatigues and buying ammo."

By the evening of Sept. 7, Craig had become a relief-truck haven.

Kostinec estimated 400 semis were parked on closed runways when he went to sleep that night. By morning, another 100 had arrived, prompting base officials to close another runway. Eventually, Kostinec said, at least 600 trucks were parked on the base.

"And this was just at one location," he said. "This was happening everywhere."

The base supplied water to the drivers and busses shuttled them to discount stores for food and to the YMCA for showers. On the morning of Sept. 9, Kostinec and 300 other drivers were sent 735 miles to a large truck stop in Emporia, Va., where, said Kostinec, "we sat while (Hurricane) Ophelia did her drunken dance out in the ocean."

Saturday, a week after arriving, the driver learned he'd been dispatched to Fremont.

"The guy said, ‘Do you know where that is?' I told him I'd graduated from high school there," Kostinec said.

The 1983 Fremont High School alum left early Saturday, driving 1,252 miles to arrive late Sunday evening at Americold Logistics, where he finally unloaded his ice.

The same ice he'd picked up more than two weeks before in Pennsylvania.

The same ice he thought he was hauling to victims on the Gulf Coast.

He isn't frustrated by the situation.

"Truckers are used to waiting,' he said, "and they're used to getting lied to."

Kostinec has a theory about the cause of his ill-fated trip.

When estimating supplies for the hurricane-stricken area, he said FEMA included the residents of New Orleans — approximately 600,000 evacuees who were eventually taken to other places.

"Orders go out, trucks get loaded and sent out," he said. "But there were half a million people, maybe, in that area, who no longer needed ice."

Kostinec doesn't think federal officials deserve the criticism they're taking.

"I hear all these people complaining the federal government didn't do enough, fast enough," he said. "Granted, maybe they're not extremely organized. They could do a little better on logistics. But it was impressive. Down there, you see what they're trying to do."

Corps employees Tim Brennan and John Troust worked at Americold Logistics Saturday and Sunday to receive 108 truckloads of ice ordered stored at the facility.

Brennan said the ice, which belongs to FEMA, will stay at the site until it is needed at another location.

"It's an ideal place, the heart of the Midwest, near I-80," he said. "The South is not a good place to store ice if the power goes out."

If another need for ice arises, Brennan said, FEMA will be prepared.

"One day, you'll see the trucks back up here, and (the ice) will be gone," he said.