E-mails reveal FEMA's failure during Katrina

The e-mails contradict some of the former director's claims.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the midst of the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, a Federal Emergency Management Agency official in New Orleans sent a dire e-mail to Director Michael Brown saying victims had no food and were dying.
No response came from Brown.
Instead, less than three hours later, an aide to Brown sent an e-mail saying her boss wanted to go on a television program that night -- after needing at least an hour to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge, La., restaurant.
The e-mails were made public Thursday at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing featuring Marty Bahamonde, the first agency official to arrive in New Orleans in advance of the Aug. 29 storm. The hurricane killed more than 1,200 people and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate.
Failure
Bahamonde, who sent the e-mail to Brown two days after the storm struck, said the correspondence illustrates the government's failure to grasp what was happening.
"There was a systematic failure at all levels of government to understand the magnitude of the situation," Bahamonde testified. "The leadership from top down in our agency is unprepared and out of touch."
The 19 pages of internal FEMA e-mails show Bahamonde gave regular updates to people in contact with Brown as early as Aug. 28, the day before Katrina made landfall. They appear to contradict Brown, who has said he was not fully aware of the conditions until days after the storm hit. Brown quit after being recalled from New Orleans amid criticism of his work.
Brown had sent Bahamonde, FEMA's regional director in New England, to New Orleans to help coordinate the agency's response. Bahamonde arrived Aug. 27 and was the only FEMA official at the scene until FEMA disaster teams arrived Aug. 30.
Senators on the committee were dismayed.
"We will examine further why critical information provided by Mr. Bahamonde was either discounted, misunderstood or simply not acted upon," said GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who heads the committee. She decried the "complete disconnect between senior officials and the reality of the situation."
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