Worker Tells of Response by FEMA - New York Times

Worker Tells of Response by FEMA - New York Times:

"Oct. 20 - It was on the day before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, after thousands of people had packed the Superdome, that the lone FEMA worker in New Orleans sent his first plea for help.

'Issues developing at the Superdome,' the official, Marty J. Bahamonde, wrote in an agency e-mail message released Thursday by Congressional investigators. 'The medical staff at the dome says they will run out of oxygen in about two hours.'

Mr. Bahamonde sent a series of messages as the hours and days passed, desperation growing. Most startling, he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, was that his supervisors in Washington did not seem to understand. In a series of e-mail messages in which he warned of worsening problems, he was told that the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency needed time to eat dinner at a restaurant in Baton Rouge, La., and to have a television interview.

'It was sad, it was inhumane, it was heartbreaking, and it was so wrong,' Mr. Bahamonde said of the conditions and the response. 'There was a systematic failure at all levels of government to understand the magnitude of the situation.'

A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, William R. Knocke, said Mr. Bahamonde was a respected official and did not contest his testimony. He said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was also frustrated at the response that Mr. Bahamonde was reporting."

PDF of emails - http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20051022_FEMA2.pdf