Common Heroes and FEMA Villains

Shamanic over at simianbrain has some stories of heroes of the Katrina relief effort.

From Marsha Barbour, wife of Gov. Haley Barbour, going out on looter patrol in Gulfport after riding in with the initial aid convoy, to mayors 'procuring' industrial stoves from shuttered businesses to feed homeless citizens, to Senator Trent Lott crafting non-legislative workarounds to bypass FEMA and get aid into hard-hit areas, Katrina's aftermath proves that we in the south have not forgotten that we are always America's forgotten.

And then, there are the people. Here's a local-guy-done-good, who drove through the night from Boston where he's a professor back to his boyhood neighborhood of Turkey Creek, in Gulf Port. He got a county supervisor on cell phone to find out how he could help:

In every town, Evans stopped for supplies. By the time he reached Tuscaloosa, Ala., he had rented three trucks and nearly maxed out his credit cards to the tune of $20,000. He was towing six generators, a 28-inch chain saw, pallets of food and water, and tarps to cover roofs. In Tuscaloosa, he and a friend stayed up all night outfitting a trailer to carry gas. When they arrived in Gulfport, they had 600 gallons.

Along the way, he says, "We were passing FEMA trucks along the side of the road."

Heroes, every one of them. The ordinary and the powerful, for a moment aligned to save their communities.

And, via No Capital, here's another hero - and a villain or two:

In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn't registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I begged him to let me continue," said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. "People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.

"I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn't be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave."

Dr. Perlmutter and two colleagues didn't admit defeat, finding State officials who were able to get them credentialled "in seconds" and then going on to do some wonderful work setting up emergency facillities and treating victims. Read the rest of the report, its worth it.

But the Doc says:

He also returned with a sense of outrage. "I have been trying to call Sen. Arlen Specter (of Pennsylvania) to let him know of our experience.

"I have been going to Ecuador and Mexico (on medical missions) for 14 years. I was at ground zero. I've seen hundreds of people die. This was different because we knew the hurricane was coming. FEMA showed up late and then rejected help for the sake of organization. They put form before function, and people died."