Letters Show FEMA Knew Response 'Broken'

Letters Show FEMA Knew Response 'Broken':

"FEMA realized its response to Hurricane Katrina was 'broken' and braced for rioting over woefully low supplies in Mississippi in the days just after the storm, according to new documents released Monday.

The correspondence among Federal Emergency Management Agency officials, provided by a special House committee investigating the government response to the storm, follows the release last week of more than 100,000 documents by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. Taken together, the details from both states provide evidence that FEMA was unable to provide fast help at disaster sites — even when the needs were obvious.

'This is unlike what we have seen before,' William Carwile, FEMA's former top responder in Mississippi, said in a Sept. 1 e-mail to officials at the agency's headquarters. He was describing difficulties in getting body bags and refrigerated trucks to Hancock County, Miss., which was badly damaged by the Aug. 29 storm.

'I personally authorized Hancock County to buy refer (sic) trucks that had been carrying ice becasue (sic) the coroner was going to have to start putting bodies out in the parking lot as his cooler was getting full,' wrote Carwile, who has since retired from FEMA. 'Still lots and lots of bodies out there.'

The next day, in another e-mail to headquarters about substandard levels of food, water and ice being distributed in Mississippi, Carwile reported: 'System appears broken.'

In a Sept. 1 exchange, FEMA regional response official Robert Fenton warned headquarters that the expected levels of water and ice being sent were far below what was needed.

'If we get the quantities in your report tomorrow we will have serious riots,' Fenton wrote.
.................

The special House committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., released eight pages of e-mails. While some Democrats are participating, their party leaders have asked lawmakers to boycott the inquiry that they believe should be done by an independent commission."