Emails From the Edge of Disaster

Time to drown the Bush administration!

Emails From the Edge of Disaster:

"Washington - On the day Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, a former US senator who had become a registered lobbyist was trying to get the nation's top emergency manager to schedule a meeting to complain about a no-bid contract that was heading to his client's competitor.

'I am certain you are overwhelmed by the situation regarding Hurricane Katrina. I apologize for bothering you at this critical time and for going directly to you about this,' wrote former Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.) 'I would very much appreciate being able to bring the President of Blu-Med Response Systems, Gerritt Boyle, in to meet with you as soon as your schedule permits.'

The email message to Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, arrived only hours after the devastating storm first made landfall in the Gulf Coast, pummeling Louisiana and Mississippi with Category 3 hurricane winds.

While many residents were awaiting rescue from rooftops or wading through toxic floodwaters, it was business as usual in the world of money, power and government inside the Washington beltway. Hutchinson's note was among more than 900 pages of Brown's email released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Public Integrity. "