Update on Katrina Aid Sent to State Agencies

Leaders of nonprofit organizations in the Gulf Coast hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are dismayed over reports that supplies intended to help Katrina victims instead went to state agencies, reports CNN.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency stored $85-million worth of supplies in warehouses for two years, CNN reporter earlier. Those were parceled out to federal agencies and states after they were declared by FEMA to be surplus early this year, the network reports.

Several groups that CNN interviewed had been unaware that such items were available.

“We work so hard to help people in our community when the government is holding back stuff that we can use to give people,” Glenda Perryman, director of United Hearts Community Action Agency, in Biloxi, Miss., tells CNN.

Kym Wiggins, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi agency that oversees surplus items, said nonprofit groups had to have met federal guidelines and register with the state. She said no groups were registered with the state’s surplus agency.