Excerpts from e-mails among Federal Emergency Management officials during Hurricane Katrina: (Note: All times CDT)

_Bahamonde to FEMA Director Michael Brown, Aug. 31, 11:20 a.m.

"Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical. Here some things you might not know.

Hotels are kicking people out, thousands gathering in the streets with no food or water. Hundreds still being rescued from homes.

The dying patients at the DMAT tent being medivac. Estimates are many will die within hours. Evacuation in process. Plans developing for dome evacuation but hotel situation adding to problem. We are out of food and running out of water at the dome, plans in works to address the critical need.

_Sharon Worthy, Brown's press secretary, to Cindy Taylor, FEMA deputy director of public affairs, and others, Aug. 31, 2 p.m.

"Also, it is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner. Gievn (sic) that Baton Rouge is back to normal, restaurants are getting busy. He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes. We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc.

_Bahamonde to Taylor and Michael Widomski, public affairs, Aug. 31, 2:44 p.m.

"OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! No won't go any further, too easy of a target. Just tell her that I just ate an MRE and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants. Maybe tonight I will have time to move my pebbles on the parking garage floor so they don't stab me in the back while I try to sleep.



     

hopw fast does a dead horse run??

What were Bush's priorities at the same time? Vacation? Fundraisers? Photo opportunities with country music stars?
Brownie obviously looked and Bush and thought "I want to be just like him" - and succeeded admirably.

doesn't mean he didn't have his fingers crossed.   These guys went to a lot of effort (or their parents did) to keep from having to eat MREs when they were young enough to serve in the Army, and now that they've wormed their way into the top of the food chain, why should they miss a good dinner now?

So what if a major national disaster is in progress?  Surely you don't expect the responsible agency director to rearrange his schedule.  That's like asking him to be "some sort of superman" and actually pay attention to his job.

Look, patronage is the promise that you'll never have to say you're worried.  Dubya did not appoint him to this job to work - it's just a class bonding exercise.

The issue isn't a dead horse, because it is indicative of the administration's outlook as a whole.  The only reasons people would think it is a dead horse is that Brown has been scapegoated and Bush stopped riding him and got off, so it is dead to the R's...but not the people in Louisiana, among others.

an 8 year old BJ.

Did you know that of the 450,000 applications for FEMA emergency funds for Katrina-related disaster relief for construction projects by local contractors, less than 100 have been processed so far, at an average disbursement of $80,000. But in Lafayette, Halliburton has been given a contract worth some $800 million to build new shelters and high-density housing for the 35,000 new permanently relocated residents who used to call New Orleans Ninth Ward their community. Long time residents of Lafayette have been overwhelmed by the huge increase in the load being borne by local infrastructure. Even a small portion of that $800 million would more than compensate for the extremely difficult situation happening in Lafayette, with similar scenarios in Baton Rouge and Shreveport.

My question becomes... why are we still obsessing over Brown and the failures of the administration? We should learn the lessons of this intense Federal clusterfuck so that it doesn't happen again.
Sadly, if history is any kind of teacher, it WILL happen again.
Meanwhile, all the political dumbfucks and their assigned pundits are too busy pointing fingers, or spinning whitewash to notice their whole house of cards is coming down.

to coin a phrase: Politics..... feh.

and one of the legitimate reasons that conservatives/Republicans hate "gummint" that bureaucracy has built-in limits that are expensive (every transaction costs both time and money that isn't solving the problem directly) and especially obvious in disasters, where there is the most legitimate demand for common services.

The Repubs have obviously made it no better, probably worse.  OTOH, the Dems need to understand that "perfect is the mortal enemy of good enough".

Politics is a necessary evil, unfortunately.

-- Modified on 10/23/2005 1:41:41 PM

us shareholders have no say until '08 as the majority on the board of directors are his subservient cronies...Didn't Dubya say that he intends to govern as a CEO? Alas, he's apparently a disciple of Ken Lay.....

-- Modified on 10/23/2005 2:33:34 PM

Dubya seems to be very conscious of how management can manipulate a corporation.

-- Modified on 10/24/2005 8:42:53 AM

is that it allows, or maybe even encourages more of the same.  Government as we know if would disappear if people (at all levels) were held accountable for their actions, or lack thereof.

gov't would collapse without sovereign immunity.  Ie, if they were held to usual private civil standards, they'd be in bankruptcy in minutes.

As it's been said here, if Shrub was the CEO and I was a stockholder, there'd be a change...

had the resources to shove a shareholders' action down their throat.

Unless you mean you'd cut your losses and sell.

But if Shrub were a CEO anywhere, I think the market would be telling him what they thought he was worth.

Either a shareholder action, or a major thorn in his side.  If all else failed, I could sell and run.  The problem with him running the country is that I'd have to move.

Unfortunately, since the lion share of the blame should go with the Dems that run the state, I believe this is an issue the left should be droping...