In the Midst of Disaster, One Man Never Lost Sight of His Blackberry
The Center for Public Integrity (something we’re in favor of in an abstract sense, but probably wouldn’t recognize if we saw) got their hands on 900 pages of Michael Brown’s emails during the Katrina disaster. We think a lot of the juicy stuff’s been left out or redacted, but there’s a hell of a lot to sort through, so who knows. Feel free to take a look yourself, and send us anything particularly interesting, but we think the tenor of the thing can be summed up by this one:
(Also fun is the exchange that begins with an email on page 723 with the subject “REDEEM YOURSELF BY SAVING THE ANIMALS IN THE GULF!!” — Brown, a genial sort, responds enthusiastically, leading one to wish someone had emailed him with the suggestion of saving the people there)
Emails From the Edge of Disaster [CPI]
READ MORE: disaster, emails, fema, femail, foia, katrina, michael brown, new orleans
Every time something like this comes out related to Katrina, I get angry all over again. He wanted to do an air drop into Bay St Louis, not because people were in need, but because it would improve FEMA's image. The wanton disregard for people in desperate circumstances all through these documents/emails. At it's most basic level, this massive failure has to be traced back to Dubya. He's the one who's big on transferring rights and responsibilities to the states as unfunded mandates. From Brownie's comments, it seems like they were transferring sole responsibility for natural disaster response to the states and leaving FEMA with a "coordination" role. Something on the scale of a major hurricane overwhelms the resources of a state or county. There HAS to be the capability for the resources of the country to kick in.
by Terry in Silver Spring on 05/10/06 03:42 PM
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