Washington – FEMA struggled to locate food, ice, water and even body bags in the days after Hurricane Katrina, a frantic effort punctuated by bureaucratic chaos, infighting and concerns about media coverage, according to memos obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
“Biggest issue: Resources are far exceeded by requirements,” wrote William Carwile, the top Federal Emergency Management Agency official in Mississippi in a Sept. 3 e-mail to a state official. “Getting less than 25 percent of what we have been requesting from HQ daily.”
The memos underscore how FEMA was overwhelmed and underprepared for Katrina. The e-mails – 25 pages in all – represent a partial response to a request for documents by a House panel investigating the government’s slow response to the storm.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is to appear in front of the House panel at a hearing today. FEMA is an arm of the Homeland Security Department.
Five days after the storm hit on Aug. 29, Michael Brown, then FEMA director, e-mailed an aide saying there had been “no action from us” to evacuate storm victims using planes that airlines had made available.
“This is flat wrong. We have been flying planes all afternoon and evening,” FEMA deputy operations director Michael Lowder e-mailed in reply less than 30 minutes later.
A day earlier, a FEMA official in Mississippi received an e-mail asking for Brown’s satellite phone number so a senior Pentagon official on the Gulf Coast could call him. “Not here in MS (Mississippi). Is in LA (Louisiana) as far as I know,” Carwile e-mailed back, seemingly uncertain on the whereabouts of the government’s point man for responding to the disaster.
