"Issues developing at the Superdome"..."It was sad, it was inhumane"

[dajoki]

NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/national/nationalspecial/21response.html?th&emc=th

Worker Tells of Response by FEMA
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: October 21, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - It was on the day before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, after thousands of people had packed the Superdome, that the lone FEMA worker in New Orleans sent his first plea for help.

"Issues developing at the Superdome," the official, Marty J. Bahamonde, wrote in an agency e-mail message released Thursday by Congressional investigators. "The medical staff at the dome says they will run out of oxygen in about two hours."

Mr. Bahamonde sent a series of messages as the hours and days passed, desperation growing. Most startling, he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, was that his supervisors in Washington did not seem to understand. In a series of e-mail messages in which he warned of worsening problems, he was told that the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency needed time to eat dinner at a restaurant in Baton Rouge, La., and to have a television interview.

"It was sad, it was inhumane, it was heartbreaking, and it was so wrong," Mr. Bahamonde said of the conditions and the response. "There was a systematic failure at all levels of government to understand the magnitude of the situation."

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Bastards!

One can only hope that Brown and the other BushCo. clowns involved find themselves on the receiving end of a natural disaster someday.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. There was a systematic failure at all levels...

Not quite right.

It was a systematic REFUSAL at all levels of government to understand...

[dajoki]

3. "one lone FEMA worker"...

during a national disaster. is this stupid or just plain coldhearted?

[rman]

4. malicious intent if you ask me.

it sure looks like it's deliberate.

[pitohui]

5. it means Brown perjured himself before Congress

Brown testified that he had an entire FEMA team, including medical staff. In reality, this man was the only person on the scene.

THis is front page of the Times-Picayune (New Orleans) paper today:

WASHINGTON -- Immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans area, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's lone official in the city e-mailed agency leaders warning of a desperate need for medical help, oxygen canisters, even food and water.

Marty Bahamonde, a FEMA public affairs official with 12 years of experience in disaster areas, on Thursday told a Senate panel investigating the disaster that for reasons he still can't quite comprehend, most of his pleas for help got little or no response.

His testimony, and the printouts of his e-mails to FEMA colleagues, give the clearest indication to date of the chaotic federal response to the disaster. They also directly contradict statements by former FEMA Director Michael Brown that he wasn't aware of the grave conditions in the city for days after the hurricane, as well as his claim in recent House testimony that he had assembled a team of FEMA officials, including doctors, before Katrina made landfall.

"There was only one (FEMA) person there, and that was me," Bahamonde said.

Brown is a perjurer and likely guilty of misappropriations and negligent homicide as well. Incompetency cannot be a defense for crime. I support New Jersey Senator Lautenberg's request that Brown be investigated for perjury. I'm not sure if our Gulf Coast senators are in position to make such a demand, since they need to be fighting to get us appropriations for re-building. But Brown needs to pay for his proven criminal behavior.

[dajoki]

6. that is exactly what it means n/t