On Aug. 31, Bahamonde e-mailed Brown to tell him that thousands of evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that “estimates are many will die within hours.”
“Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical,” Bahamonde wrote. “The sooner we can get the medical patients out, the sooner we can get them out.”
A short time later, Brown’s press secretary, Sharon Worthy, wrote colleagues to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. “He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes,” Worthy wrote.
“Restaurants are getting busy,” she said. “We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you.”
Seriously, this deserves to go down in history right alongside the famous encapsulation of epic, detached cluelessness in the title. I’d go on for quite a while about how horrifically this shows how little those in charge cared about the thousands of (black/poor) people suffering and dying, when it was their job to protect those people…but really, what can I add? This speaks for itself.
—
(/) Roland X
Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more disgusted…
Robin
Robin Phoenix (formerly Roland X, they/them): A lifelong liberal/progressive, I’m proud to be part of the struggle for environmental, social, and economic justice. As a mixed race, non-binary neo-pagan, I’m also a living progressive Bingo card. *g*