Help me to understand

For the last several days as I've pondered the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina I keep coming back to one specific incident that I've been unable to resolve in my mind.

Aaron Broussard, president of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, related a truly incredible incident while he was a guest on Meet The Press on September 4th. The day before, September 3rd, FEMA had cut the Parish's emergency communications line with the outside world. The Parish Sheriff had to send armed deputies to reconnect the line and then he ordered them to remain as an armed guard to physically prevent FEMA from cutting the line again.

Can anyone explain this incident to me in a way that at least plausibly shows how this action by FEMA was merely ineptness and not some kind of deliberate sabotage?

I mean... surely it had to have been stunningly self-evident to even the most ignorant adult that cutting an emergency communication line during an emergency would be extremely inappropriate. Yet FEMA did precisely that. Why? What plausible reason could they have had for this action?