No more ice for hurricane victims, govt says

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - U.S. hurricane victims will have to find another way to cool their drinks.

The U.S. disaster agency will no longer hand out ice to people in storm-ravaged areas, its top official said on Wednesday.

"It's not a life-saving commodity," David Paulison, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando.

Hundreds of people routinely line up for bottled water and ice dispensed from the back of tractor trailer trucks in the days following a hurricane or other major disaster.

The sight of convoys of the trucks carrying tons of ice and other supplies into disaster zones has become commonplace and emergency managers are frequently criticized if the trucks don't show up quickly.

But in recent years, disaster managers have been debating the wisdom of certain kinds of aid because it seems to create dependency.

Officials tell Americans they must be prepared to fend for themselves in a disaster and to have at least three days worth of food, water and other supplies on hand during hurricane season.

But when Hurricane Wilma hit south Florida in 2005, thousands of people clamored for emergency bottled water from federal officials even though tap water was still flowing and safe to drink.

"That was an embarrassment to me," said Paulison, a former disaster manager in Miami.

Only those with specific medical needs will be able to get ice from FEMA, he said.

"I don't know how FEMA got into the ice business," he said. "It should not have been in the ice business."

(Reporting by Jim Loney, editing by Jane Sutton and David Wiessler)