High-tech text message notes FEMA fumble

Benjamin Grove and Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, Oct. 24, 2005 | 7:52 a.m.

Federal Emergency Management Agency employees did heroic work following the levee breach in New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina in August, but overall the agency did not do its job, a FEMA employee told a Senate panel Thursday.

Marty Bahamonde, who was in the Superdome as it housed thousands of storm victims, said the government didn't understand how bad the situation was.

Bahamonde released 22 e-mails where he described the dire conditions just before FEMA employees were told to leave.

His messages, mostly sent from his handheld BlackBerry, describe waist-high water and hundreds of sick and injured people. They show an urgent but calm tone, until former FEMA Director Michael Brown's press secretary Sharon Worthy sent this message at 2 p.m. on Aug. 31:

"It is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner. Gievn (sic) that Baton Rouge is back to normal, restaurants are getting busy. He needs much more that 20 or 30 minutes. We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you."

Bahamonde responds to other FEMA employees but not to Worthy at 2:44 p.m. the same day.

"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, but instaed (sic) I will hope her wait at Ruth Christ (sic) is short. But I know she is stressed so I won't make a big deal about it and you shouldn't either."

HEARD ON THE HILL

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Monday opened his remarks at a press conference by noting a conversation he had with fellow Searchlight locals Judy and Dick Hill.

The Hills, longtime friends of Reid whom the senator occasionally mentions in speeches, visited him at his home earlier this month. They mentioned in passing that they were spending at least $500 a month for gasoline, in large part because Dick commutes 80 miles a day roundtrip to Laughlin.

The Hills didn't know Reid was going to mention that in his remarks at a Capitol Hill rally on energy issues, but they hardly mind.

"I did bring up the price of gas," Judy Hill told the Sun. "I know he's trying to do something. I wish someone would do something."

Reid said the Hills were just one example of a family that now has to factor high gasoline prices into their budget. "That's the way it is all over America," he said.

SENATE: NO PAY RAISE

Senators voted 92-6 Tuesday to skip their annual pay raise. Lawmakers have a salary of $162,100, and the cost-of-living pay raise under consideration was for an additional $3,100 next year. Nevada's senators voted with the majority against pay hikes.

Reid suggested that federal fumbles, including the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, made it unseemly for lawmakers to increase their salaries. "That debate can come another year," Reid told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. "This is not the year."

The matter is not entirely settled however: the House has not taken the same action.

SENATE RACES NOT CHEAP

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has $2.1 million in the bank for his 2006 re-election campaign, which might seem like a lot for someone who doesn't have a declared opponent yet. (President Carter's son Jack has said he was mulling a run for the seat.) But Ensign's war chest doesn't even put him in the Top 10, which has a $4 million threshold.

Leading the Senate grab for cash: Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., $13.8 million; Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., $7.7 million; Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, $7.3 million; Rick Santorum, R-Pa., $6.6 million; and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., $6.5 million.

CHEERS FROM THE D.C. CITY COUNCIL

In response to the drunken driving arrest of a woman who had one glass of wine with dinner, the Washington, D.C. City Council this week relaxed the city's so-called "zero tolerance" drunken driving law.

The council responded to a public outcry after the Washington Post wrote about the woman's arrest. She had a blood-alcohol content of 0.03.

The council voted to set the legal limit at 0.05. (Most laws, including Nevada's, are at 0.08.)

After the vote, council member Jim Graham told the Post, "We need to send a clear and unequivocal message that you can come to the District of Columbia, have a drink and not end up in the slammer."