'I Am a Fashion God'
On Sept. 1, 2005, the Louisiana Superdome was overflowing with Katrina victims waiting for evacuation. Brown resigned as FEMA director on Sept. 12.
(By Phil Coale -- Associated Press)
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Hundreds of pages of e-mails released as Congress investigated FEMA's response to Katrina earned scorn for Michael D. Brown and some aides. The e-mails showed them apparently unaware of the magnitude of the disaster and focused instead on their image in the media.
The ridicule was difficult to take, but many are still working at the agency. "I still feel very strongly for the mission of FEMA -- it's an incredible job," said Cindy Taylor, who was deputy director of FEMA public affairs during Katrina and still holds that position. "I work with pretty awe-inspiring people."
Michael D. Brown
Then: FEMA director
Now: Disaster preparedness consultant
Memorable e-mail message:
"I am a fashion god."
Marty Bahamonde
Then: Regional external affairs director New England.
Now: Same job. Bahamonde was the only FEMA employee in the Superdome and on the ground on Aug. 29, and his desperate messages to FEMA higher-ups won him a heroic reputation -- including online efforts to draft him as president. He said yesterday from Wisconsin, where he is working on flood relief, that he still loves his job: "I think that we've seen over two years that there has been a lot of change in emergency management, and I may have contributed in some small little way."
Memorable e-mail message: "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," he wrote in a Sept. 3, 2005, e-mail to FEMA spokeswoman Cindy Taylor.
Sharon Worthy
Then: Brown's press secretary.
Now: Spokeswoman at the Labor Department (since November 2005).
Memorable e-mail message: "In this crisis and on TV you just need to look more hardworking . . . ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!" Worthy wrote on Sept. 4, noting that even President Bush "rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow."
Cindy Taylor
Then: FEMA's deputy director of public affairs.
Now: Still at FEMA.
Memorable e-mail message: "My eyes must certainly be deceiving me. You look fabulous -- and I'm not talking the makeup" in an e-mail to Brown at 7:10 a.m. local time on Aug. 29, 2005.
