Saturday, October 22, 2005
I think it was the arrest
* - for ADW, believe it or not.
Tales from the Superdome
By now, I don’t think there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind that the response of FEMA to Hurricane Katrina was an absolute failure. Not only did they fail to respond efficiently and effectively, but every shout for help was ignored as FEMA dug through paperwork and denied access to both public and private organizations that wanted to render aide to those in need. Enter Marty Bahamonde. Good ol’ Marty has been working for FEMA for a number of years. When Katrina was getting ready to lay the smackdown on New Orleans after earning a degree in Disruptology, FEMA decided to send Marty to New Orleans to be the sole representative of FEMA. I have no idea how many natural disasters Marty has been involved in (from a humanitarian aide perspective), nor what his track record is, but I do know that if someone who has been working for FEMA for over a decade becomes so angry that his writing gives the impression that he would have gotten up from his post and left --- if it weren’t for the fact that he was surrounded by sick and dying people who needed help --- you know that it’s time to reorganize the entire agency.
An assistant to Michael Brown was one of the many who Bahamonde was in contact with while stuck in the Superdome. After informing Bahamonde that Brown would have to find a place to eat dinner, fight traffic, and put up with slow service, Bahamonde shot back with one of the greatest responses in e-mail history.
“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.
Does that sound like a man who is in love with the job that FEMA is doing? It doesn’t to me, and this e-mailed response should give you a better understanding of what Bahamonde came to realize as he sat in the Superdome, waiting for help to arrive as he punched away on his Blackberry.
“The leadership from top down in our agency is unprepared and out of touch. ... But while I am horrified at some of the cluelessness and self concern that persists, I try to focus on those that have put their lives on hold to help people that they have never met and never will. And while I sometimes think that I can’t work in this arena, I can’t get out of my head the visions of children and babies I saw sitting there, helpless, looking at me and hoping I could make a difference and so I will and you must to.”
This tells me that we have lived through the demise of an entire agency, an agency which could have helped people but failed at that task miserably as it tripped over it’s own bureaucracy, paperwork, and ego. In other words, FEMA turned into what the UN become five seconds after it’s origination. As mentioned, I don’t know Bahamonde’s record, and I’m not going to put him on a pedestal for being a perfect human being. What I do know is that he was doing his best --- being the only representative from FEMA who was sitting in the Superdome, sleeping in what could easily be someone else’s feces, and eating MRE’s that taste like dried sawdust --- and by doing his best, he was talked down to by an assistant who declared that finding Michael Brown a restaurant was more important than the lives of anyone in that entire city.
Michael Brown isn’t the President of the United States. He’s not the Vice President, and he’s not the Secretary of State. He (was) the director of FEMA, which as far as I can tell by his credentials, does not mean you have to be a tried-and-true law enforcement officer of 20 years, a military general with experience cleaning-up nations, nor a state emergency management officer. What it does tell me is that he was a prima donna who believed his name on the FEMA letterhead was the most important thing in the world, far surpassing the lives of those in New Orleans, Mississippi, and any future location to be affected by a natural disaster.
In other words, he didn’t care about his job requirements, he simply cared about taking advantage of what the job could offer.
FEMA succeeded in tripping over it’s own bureaucracy. Instead of allowing WalMart to bring in supplies, they were turned away because they did not fill out the proper paperwork. Private medical teams were turned away --- or sent from state to state on a wild goose chase --- because FEMA did not know what in the world was going on, nor what to do about what was happening. It’s another case of reading Section 2, line 18 to find out the protocol for what was described in Section 17, line 18, part (a) --- but only if the circumstances do not fall within the realm of Section 25, line 31, parts (a), (c), or (f25) --- in order to take action. And then, of course, it’ll have to be approved by the District Supervisor, who is on vacation, and cannot approve the shipments of penicillin needed by those who have miserable bacterial infections.
But hey, if it’s not by the book, then someone might get fired. Oh wait, that already happened to Brownie. Therefore, I leave you with another part of the e-mail from Bahamonde to Brown, which must have been lost after his POP3 server decided to mysteriously erase all of his incoming e-mail.
“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.
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.