Ice storm victims warned not to eat peanut butter

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Officials on Thursday warned victims of last week’s ice storm not to eat peanut butter packets from emergency meal kits distributed by the federal government because they had been recalled for possible salmonella contamination.

The kits were shipped to Arkansas and Kentucky to help feed some of the 1.3 million people left without power for days at the height of the storm. No illnesses have been reported and recalls were ordered out of “an abundance of caution,” said Jay Blanton, a spokesman for Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear.

Beshear had eaten some of the peanut butter while touring storm damage and said Thursday he felt “pretty good.”

But people still in shelters because of the storm weren’t so positive.

“You look foward to them helping, and they’re handing out things that are making it worse,” said Rebecca Schmelz, who was at a shelter in downtown Greenville with her 6-month-old and 6-year-old sons.

She said her family had eaten several emergency meals but she did not believe any contained the peanut butter packets shown on a Federal Emergency Management Agency flier warning people about possible salmonella.

“I’m glad that my kids don’t eat peanut butter, that’s for sure,” she said.

The salmonella outbreak is suspected of sickening at least 550 people across the country, eight of whom have died, and led to recalls of thousands of consumer products. A Blakely, Ga., peanut-processing plant that produces a fraction of U.S. peanut products is being investigated in the outbreak.

According to an internal FEMA briefing document dated 8 a.m. Thursday, FEMA has delivered 959,000 meals to Kentucky in the aftermath of the ice storm, with 490,000 more on the way over the next few days.

Arkansas received 468,864, and no more were expected. State emergency workers there identified four trailers containing the food kits but said the kits had not been distributed.

FEMA Acting Director Nancy Ward said during a visit to Kentucky Thursday that the agency learned about 10 days ago that some of its stockpile of meal kits included peanut butter affected by the recall. It sorted through national inventories and pulled out about 10,000 meals, she said.