“This Is Just Not Going To Happen”
Marty Bahamonde, a FEMA regional director, told a Senate panel investigating the government’s response to the disaster that he gave regular updates to people in contact with then-FEMA Director Michael Brown as early as Aug. 28, one day before Katrina made landfall.
In most cases, he was met with silence. In an Aug. 29 phone call to Brown informing him that the first levee had broke, Bahamonde said he received a polite thank you from Brown, who said he would check with the White House.
[snip]
Later, on Aug. 31, Bahamonde frantically e-mailed Brown to tell him that thousands are evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that “estimates are many will die within hours.”
“Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical,” Bahamonde wrote.
Less than three hours later, however, Brown’s press secretary wrote colleagues to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. “He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes,” wrote Brown aide Sharon Worthy.
“We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you.”
Remember what Michael Brown said when he “stepped aside?” How he was gonna go home and have a margarita and some yummy Mexican food ? Y’know, I think he may have a heckuva eating disorder. The poor guy.
But let’s not dwell on the past, shall we?
Meanwhile, at a separate hearing, lawmakers considering Louisiana’s request for $32 billion for Gulf Coast rebuilding were told that Mississippi would need tens of billions of dollars of its own to restore its coastline.
Gulf Coast lawmakers and state officials have been pushing for vast infusions of federal aid since Katrina hit Aug. 29, killing more than 1,200 people and forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate.
“It will be in the billions, with a ‘b,’ level, it may be in the tens of billions; it won’t be in the hundreds of billions,” William W. Walker, head of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, told a House transportation panel.
But Rep. John J. Duncan (news, bio, voting record) Jr., chairman of that panel, earlier had said flatly that Congress cannot afford Louisiana’s request. “This is just not going to happen,” he said.
Got that?