WASHINGTON ( CNN ) -- The director of Federal Emergency Management Agency on Sunday defended giving away an estimated $ 85 million in hurricane relief supplies , blaming Louisiana officials for turning down the stockpiles . A New Orleans charity keeps goods in trash bags in an empty church . FEMA never told it about the free items . `` We still have quite a few left if Louisiana needs those , '' David Paulison said . `` But we did find out , we did ask Louisiana , 'Do you want these ? ' They said , 'No , we do n't need them . ' So we offered them to the other states . '' A CNN investigation revealed last week that FEMA gave away 121 truckloads of material the agency amassed after 2005 's Hurricane Katrina . The material was declared surplus property and offered to federal and state agencies -- including Louisiana , where groups working to resettle hurricane victims say the supplies are still needed . Paulison told CNN 's `` Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer '' his agency distributed more than 90,000 `` living kits '' to people in Louisiana whose homes were destroyed or damaged by Katrina . The kits included cleaning supplies , mops , brooms , pots and pans . After CNN reported on the giveaway , Louisiana officials asked that the supplies be redirected to the state , which originally passed on them . John Medica , director of the Louisiana 's Federal Property Assistance Agency , told CNN he was unaware Katrina victims still needed the items because no agency had contacted his office . Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana , an outspoken critic of FEMA 's response to the hurricane , told CNN the supply giveaway was `` just a shame . '' `` It 's just another example of the failings of the federal bureaucracy , '' said Landrieu , who wrote Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff last week to request an explanation . `` We 're still trying to fix it . It 's going to take a lot more work . '' Paulison said much of the stockpile included `` things we do n't normally store -- refrigerators , stoves , coolers , diapers , things like that . '' States , meanwhile , were requesting those items , he said . `` It did n't make any sense for FEMA to sit on this much stuff and supplies we normally do n't even keep . We have plenty of supplies in place if we have another disaster . We can duplicate that type of commodities and get them for people in need , '' he said . The agency 's chief spokesman , James McIntyre , had declined a request for an on-camera interview and told CNN the giveaway was `` not news . '' Paulison said the story `` just really missed the mark '' -- that the supplies given away were not exclusively for Katrina victims , but were `` donated from disasters all around the entire country . '' But e-mails from McIntyre and from the General Services Administration , which manages federal property , contradict Paulison 's account . In an e-mail sent in April , McIntyre told CNN `` in many cases , items were purchased in the field by FEMA . '' And in a phone interview with CNN , McIntyre said , `` That is property that was purchased in response to Katrina . We purchased most of that equipment because of the catastrophic nature of that disaster . '' General Services Administration spokeswoman Viki Reath wrote the supplies given away were `` surplus from the Katrina and [ hurricane ] Rita disasters ... some purchased by FEMA , some donated by foreign countries and federal government agencies . '' McIntyre said FEMA 's storage costs were running more than $ 1 million a year , and that GSA officials wanted to tear down the Fort Worth , Texas , warehouses in which the stockpiles were being kept . CNN 's Abbie Boudreau and Scott Zamost contributed to this report .
NEW : FEMA chief : Louisiana said it did n't want the supplies . CNN story revealed last week that FEMA gave away 121 truckloads of supplies . Katrina supplies were declared surplus property , offered to federal , state agencies .