FEMA Uses Firefighters As Props: Where’s the Accountability?

A few days ago President Bush said that FEMA director Michael D. Brown was “doing a heck of a job1,” even in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary.  That evidence just took a turn towards the revolting.  

First, the Los Angeles Times reports that "Hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina have instead been playing cards, taking classes on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's history and lounging at an Atlanta airport hotel for days.”  Hundreds of experience firefighters flown in from all over the country are doing nothing while fires are raging through New Orleans Warehouse and Garden districts.  

But the misuse of the firefighters gets better, because The Salt Lake Tribune reports one of the first teams of firefighters to actually get moved out of Atlanta was sent to act as a backdrop for the President.  “But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.”

Firefighters are flown across the country, made to wait for days, and then when a tiny number of them are used, they’re used as props for a photo op?  This is an outrage, and so is the President’s inability to see it.