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Timeline shows the depths of callousness Bush & Co. displayed after Katrina hit
By Jackson Thoreau (about the author) Page 3 of 3 page(s)
MORNING - FIVE TOP FEMA OFFICIALS HAVE ALMOST NO EXPERIENCE IN HANDLING DISASTERS, MEDIA REPORTS: "Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative." Brown, who reportedly lied on his resume, was hired at FEMA for the $149,000 post "after a rocky tenure as commissioner of a horse sporting group by former FEMA director Joe M. Allbaugh, the 2000 Bush campaign manager and a college friend of Brown's." Allbaugh, now a private consultant, was in the Gulf Coast "looking for contracts for his private clients [Washington Post, Newsweek]."
EVENING BROWN REMOVED FROM HURRICANE EFFORTS: "Brown, whose agency has been criticized for imposing bureaucratic obstacles to relief efforts even before the winds and rain died down, was being sent back to Washington from Louisiana, where he had been the top on-scene commander of the federal operation.....The secretary said Brown was needed at the helm of the agency to prepare for future hurricanes [Los Angeles Times]."
Monday, September 12
MORNING - RESCUE OPERATION ENDS AS IT BEGINS, IN CHAOS: "The relief operation was ending almost as shockingly and incompetently as it had begun two weeks ago.... [Soldiers] left the corpses on the streets, and yesterday the death toll remained hopelessly confused. It could be in the hundreds - the latest official figure is 347 dead in five states - or it may reach the thousands. On Thursday and Friday alone, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 500 new cases of parents looking for their children or vice versa, bringing the total on its database to 1500. Of these only 258 have been resolved. With 400,000 refugees from the area now scattered across 13 US states, it will be weeks, perhaps months, before the final death toll is known. At first it was as if nobody dared to count the dead, and then that nobody seemed to care. Bodies were left rotting in the sun for days as troops and rescue workers waited for orders, ate sandwiches and landed helicopters around them. The bodies were sprinkled with chemicals to keep down the stench, covered with blue tarpaulin, marked and abandoned. Here and there, a discolored hand or foot protruded. The explanation from a soldier idling alongside dozens of troops, was: 'We're too busy to pick them up.' The dead were not only being neglected, they were being insulted.... A national guardsman from Arkansas gave a tour of the dead. 'That's a kid,' he said, shining a torch on a small figure under a white sheet. 'There's another in the freezer, a seven-year-old [The Australian Sunday Times].'"
AFTERNOON - BROWN RESIGNS IN 'BEST INTEREST OF THE PRESIDENT,' BUSH CLAIMS TO NOT KNOW BEFOREHAND: Brown said he resigned as FEMA head "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president," signifying a political decision. But Bush claimed to not know anything about it beforehand. "Maybe you know something I don't know. I've been working," Bush said in Gulfport, Miss. "There will be plenty of time to figure out what went right and what went wrong," Bush added [AP].
This is a greatly expanded version of the American Progress Action Fund's Katrina timeline at thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline .
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