A few choice bits from internal FEMA emails.
Marty Bahamonde, regional FEMA director for New England to FEMA Director
Michael Brown, Aug. 31, 11:20 a.m:
"Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical. Here some
things you might not know. Hotels are kicking people out, thousands
gathering in the streets with no food or water. Hundreds still being
rescued from homes. The dying patients at the DMAT tent being medivac.
Estimates are many will die within hours. Evacuation in process. Plans
developing for dome evacuation but hotel situation adding to problem. We
are out of food and running out of water at the dome, plans in works to
address the critical need.
Sharon Worthy, Brown's press secretary, to Cindy Taylor, FEMA deputy
director of public affairs, and others, Aug. 31, 2 p.m.:
"Also, 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 (sic) 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.
This reminds me, of course, of the following:
MONSEIGNEUR, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held
his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur
was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of
Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without.
Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could
swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few
sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France;
but, his morning's chocolate could not so much as get into the
throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four strong men besides
the Cook.
Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration,
and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold
watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set
by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's
lips. One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred
presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little
instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented the
favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the
chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with
one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place
under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon
his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only
three men; he must have died of two.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
