Gustav-related e-mails reveal disorganization

• By MICHELLE MILLHOLLON
• Advocate Capitol news bureau
• Published: Nov 9, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Problems in the response to Hurricane Gustav went beyond a lack of showers at shelters and long lines for food stamps, e-mails among Jindal administration officials show. 

At a shelter in Monroe, 100 patients — some in need of dialysis and breathing treatments — sat on a bus soiling themselves the day the hurricane hit because wheelchairs and adequate medical staff were not on hand.

“These people … have wet themselves and need medical attention,” a state worker wrote in an e-mail at 4:37 a.m. on Labor Day as Hurricane Gustav came ashore near Houma. 

A review of several thousand pages of e-mails obtained by The Advocate from the state Department of Social Services also points to problems with delivering evacuees to shelters and returning them home. 

The head of DSS resigned following criticism by Gov. Bobby Jindal over the agency’s response to the hurricane.

But the e-mails appear to show failures by other state agencies — specifically, the state Department of Transportation and Development and the state Department of Health and Hospitals. Both those agencies are run by cabinet secretaries Jindal personally recruited from other states.

The e-mails also give a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the fallout that resulted at DSS when the agency waited to submit a purchase order for showers at four shelters.

The issues discussed in the e-mails include:

--Evacuees who were brought to Jefferson Parish instead of their hometowns of Lake Charles and Abbeville after the storm passed.

--Confusion in directing buses to shelters, resulting in evacuees rolling up to shelters that were full — often after sitting on a bus for hours. 

--Bus drivers given vague instructions — such as the New Orleans area — on where to take returning evacuees.

--Complaints that ill, elderly people arrived at shelters smelling of urine because buses had broken toilets and drivers refused to stop for restroom breaks. 

The state Department of Transportation and Development was responsible for many of the buses used to evacuate residents. DOTD Secretary William D. Ankner did not return multiple phone calls and e-mails requesting comment about the situation during a week-long period. His spokesman, Mark Lambert, referred all questions to DSS.