PORTLAND – The Federal Emergency Management Agency spent nearly $274,000 to store thousands of bags of ice in Portland that were initially bought for hurricane relief efforts more than 1,500 miles away.

In a letter to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a FEMA official said the agency stored 250 truckloads of ice at Americold storage facility in Portland after it was determined that the agency’s supply of ice exceeded the demand after Hurricane Katrina.

The agency said it was able to later use the ice for Hurricanes Ophelia and Rita, which came ashore after Katrina made landfall in late August.

By the time the ice was totally removed from the Americold facility in late October, FEMA had spent $273,942 for storage fees, according to the letter from Michael Lowder, deputy director of FEMA’s response division.

Collins, who is chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has raised questions about the ice during hearings into FEMA’s preparedness for and response to Hurricane Katrina.

“FEMA has such a poor logistics system that 250 truckloads of ice for hurricane victims ended up in Maine, some 1,600 miles from those who might need it, and costing taxpayers nearly $274,000 in storage and handling costs,” Collins said. “And this is likely the tip of the iceberg since FEMA stored additional ice in other states far away from the affected region.”

Soon after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, trucks loaded with millions of pounds of bagged ice were diverted hundreds of miles to cold storage facilities in New England and elsewhere around the country.

FEMA had ordered nearly 200 million pounds of ice delivered to staging areas in the South to help in hurricane relief efforts, but ended up with more ice than it could use, forcing it to direct the trucks to freezers nationwide.

In his letter to Collins, Lowder wrote that approximately 40 percent of the ice was distributed to hurricane-damaged areas, but that the ice demand was lower than anticipated because so much of the affected area was evacuated.

When the ice was brought to Portland, several truckers complained that diverting the ice so far seemed like a waste of money. The drivers said they were getting paid $2.50 a mile while driving, and $800 to $1,000 a day while waiting at a location to be loaded.

Lowder’s letter to Collins did not estimate the cost to transport the ice, only to store it.