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FEMA Incompetence: Michael Brown's Background Was Not Disaster Relief
Paula Zahn: How can it be that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of victims have not received any food and water more than 100 hours after Katrina hit
I will tell you this though, every person in that convention center, we just learned about that today. And so I had directed that we have all available resources to get to that convention center to make certain that they have the food and water, the medical care they need...
A clearly pissed Paula Zahn: Sir, you're not telling me, you're not telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today did you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?
FEMA's Brown: Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/
From failed Republican congressional candidate to ousted "czar" of an Arabian horse association, there was little in Michael D. Brown's background to prepare him for the fury of Hurricane Katrina.
But as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brown now faces furious criticism of the federal response to the disaster that wiped out New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. He provoked some of it himself when he conceded that FEMA didn't know that thousands of refugees were trapped at New Orleans' convention center without food or water until officials heard it on the news.
"He's done a hell of a job, because I'm not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm," said Kate Hale, former Miami-Dade emergency management chief. "The world that this man operated in and the focus of this work does not in any way translate to this. He does not have the experience."
...
Following are excerpts of some of Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown's remarks about Hurricane Katrina:
_"The federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today (Thursday). ... And I - my heart goes out to every - even if they chose not to evacuate, my heart still goes out to them, because they now find themselves in this catastrophic disaster. Now is not the time to be blaming."
_"I think the other thing that really caught me by surprise was the fact that there were so many people, and I'm not laying blame, but either chose not to evacuate or could not evacuate. And as we began to do the evacuations from the Superdome, all of a sudden, literally thousands of other people started showing up in other places, and we were not prepared for that. We were, we were surprised by that."
_"We pre-positioned all the manpower and equipment that we could prior to the storm making landfall. And I think once the storm made landfall, it was still at a Category 5, and the devastation became so widespread that it moved further inland and geographically wider than we expected. And so now we're having to work our way inward from a lot further out than we anticipated."
_An exchange with Ted Koppel on ABC's "Nightline":
Brown: "The people in the convention center are being fed; the people on the bridges are being provided with water. ..."
Koppel: "With all due respect, sir, the people, the people in the convention center are not being fed. Our reporters. ..."
Brown: "I misspoke. The people in the, the people in the Superdome. I'm sorry, you're absolutely correct. We're getting the supplies to the convention center now. But the people in the Superdome have been being fed, that supply chain has been working, and that has been moving along and those evacuations have been continuous."
_On CNN:
"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans."
"Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans - virtually a city that has been destroyed - that things are going relatively well."
"I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot or, you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that."
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/12554958.htm
In President Bush's other Gulf war, Michael Brown is his field commander, struggling with the reality of Hurricane Katrina relief and the apocalyptic images from the South.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency — once a lone agency, now part of the Homeland Security Department — has been slow to answer the crisis in the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
City and state officials, Republicans and Democrats have assailed FEMA in an unrelenting barrage. Brown, 50, a soft-spoken Oklahoma lawyer, has tried to oversee the hurricane damage repair as well as manage the political damage control — with limited success.
On Friday, shortly after Brown contended that "people are getting the help they need," President Bush offered a different assessment, saying the level of relief was unacceptable. Later, the president praised Brown during a tour of Alabama, telling him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Brown, the director of FEMA since April 2003, conceded that all the resources that the agency had positioned before the storm were overwhelmed and that he did not anticipate the total lack of communications.
Friends of Brown defended the job he has done and argued that the unprecedented magnitude of the hurricane and its aftermath are far more daunting than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or previous natural disasters.
Others point out that in the past, the FEMA director answered directly to the president, but as one of 22 agencies and departments in Homeland Security since 2003, Brown must work through the department's secretary, Michael Chertoff.
FEMA took a battering for its sluggish response to Hurricanes Andrew and Hugo. After President Clinton took office in 1993 he revamped the agency, placing James Lee Witt, the former Arkansas emergency service chief, in charge.
The agency later won praise for its vigorous reaction to Midwest floods and the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles.
In March of this year Witt told the National Hurricane Conference, meeting in New Orleans, that placing FEMA under the Homeland Security Department has hampered its ability to deal with hurricanes and other disasters.
The arrangement "has minimized their effectiveness in responding, in planning and training, the national hurricane program, everything," said Witt, directed the agency from 1993 to 2001.
He said placing the agency under another department has reduced direct communication between FEMA officials and top government leaders and created problems sending funding where it is needed.
More
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/09/03/national/w115236D15.DTL
FEMA Head Forced Out Of Last Job
by Joe Gandelman
When you read this Boston Herald piece you have to think: "Gee, it's so nice to know that this administration looked for the 'best and the brightest' in filling a vital, life-and-death post such as FEMA chief....and perhaps that has something to do with the quality of job performance so far":
The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.
And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.
The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster.
``I look at FEMA and I shake my head,'' said a furious Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday, calling the response ``an embarrassment.''
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1125772483.shtml
Ted Koppel interviewed Michael Brown, head of FEMA on Nightline. He had no interest in the spin, and began at least five questions with "With all due respect Mr Brown, but..." Koppel is leading the growing chorus of speaking truth to power. (At last.)
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/861
I will tell you this though, every person in that convention center, we just learned about that today. And so I had directed that we have all available resources to get to that convention center to make certain that they have the food and water, the medical care they need...
A clearly pissed Paula Zahn: Sir, you're not telling me, you're not telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today did you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?
FEMA's Brown: Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/
From failed Republican congressional candidate to ousted "czar" of an Arabian horse association, there was little in Michael D. Brown's background to prepare him for the fury of Hurricane Katrina.
But as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brown now faces furious criticism of the federal response to the disaster that wiped out New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. He provoked some of it himself when he conceded that FEMA didn't know that thousands of refugees were trapped at New Orleans' convention center without food or water until officials heard it on the news.
"He's done a hell of a job, because I'm not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm," said Kate Hale, former Miami-Dade emergency management chief. "The world that this man operated in and the focus of this work does not in any way translate to this. He does not have the experience."
...
Following are excerpts of some of Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown's remarks about Hurricane Katrina:
_"The federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today (Thursday). ... And I - my heart goes out to every - even if they chose not to evacuate, my heart still goes out to them, because they now find themselves in this catastrophic disaster. Now is not the time to be blaming."
_"I think the other thing that really caught me by surprise was the fact that there were so many people, and I'm not laying blame, but either chose not to evacuate or could not evacuate. And as we began to do the evacuations from the Superdome, all of a sudden, literally thousands of other people started showing up in other places, and we were not prepared for that. We were, we were surprised by that."
_"We pre-positioned all the manpower and equipment that we could prior to the storm making landfall. And I think once the storm made landfall, it was still at a Category 5, and the devastation became so widespread that it moved further inland and geographically wider than we expected. And so now we're having to work our way inward from a lot further out than we anticipated."
_An exchange with Ted Koppel on ABC's "Nightline":
Brown: "The people in the convention center are being fed; the people on the bridges are being provided with water. ..."
Koppel: "With all due respect, sir, the people, the people in the convention center are not being fed. Our reporters. ..."
Brown: "I misspoke. The people in the, the people in the Superdome. I'm sorry, you're absolutely correct. We're getting the supplies to the convention center now. But the people in the Superdome have been being fed, that supply chain has been working, and that has been moving along and those evacuations have been continuous."
_On CNN:
"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans."
"Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans - virtually a city that has been destroyed - that things are going relatively well."
"I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot or, you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that."
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/12554958.htm
In President Bush's other Gulf war, Michael Brown is his field commander, struggling with the reality of Hurricane Katrina relief and the apocalyptic images from the South.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency — once a lone agency, now part of the Homeland Security Department — has been slow to answer the crisis in the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
City and state officials, Republicans and Democrats have assailed FEMA in an unrelenting barrage. Brown, 50, a soft-spoken Oklahoma lawyer, has tried to oversee the hurricane damage repair as well as manage the political damage control — with limited success.
On Friday, shortly after Brown contended that "people are getting the help they need," President Bush offered a different assessment, saying the level of relief was unacceptable. Later, the president praised Brown during a tour of Alabama, telling him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Brown, the director of FEMA since April 2003, conceded that all the resources that the agency had positioned before the storm were overwhelmed and that he did not anticipate the total lack of communications.
Friends of Brown defended the job he has done and argued that the unprecedented magnitude of the hurricane and its aftermath are far more daunting than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or previous natural disasters.
Others point out that in the past, the FEMA director answered directly to the president, but as one of 22 agencies and departments in Homeland Security since 2003, Brown must work through the department's secretary, Michael Chertoff.
FEMA took a battering for its sluggish response to Hurricanes Andrew and Hugo. After President Clinton took office in 1993 he revamped the agency, placing James Lee Witt, the former Arkansas emergency service chief, in charge.
The agency later won praise for its vigorous reaction to Midwest floods and the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles.
In March of this year Witt told the National Hurricane Conference, meeting in New Orleans, that placing FEMA under the Homeland Security Department has hampered its ability to deal with hurricanes and other disasters.
The arrangement "has minimized their effectiveness in responding, in planning and training, the national hurricane program, everything," said Witt, directed the agency from 1993 to 2001.
He said placing the agency under another department has reduced direct communication between FEMA officials and top government leaders and created problems sending funding where it is needed.
More
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/09/03/national/w115236D15.DTL
FEMA Head Forced Out Of Last Job
by Joe Gandelman
When you read this Boston Herald piece you have to think: "Gee, it's so nice to know that this administration looked for the 'best and the brightest' in filling a vital, life-and-death post such as FEMA chief....and perhaps that has something to do with the quality of job performance so far":
The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.
And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.
The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster.
``I look at FEMA and I shake my head,'' said a furious Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday, calling the response ``an embarrassment.''
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1125772483.shtml
Ted Koppel interviewed Michael Brown, head of FEMA on Nightline. He had no interest in the spin, and began at least five questions with "With all due respect Mr Brown, but..." Koppel is leading the growing chorus of speaking truth to power. (At last.)
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/861
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defending the U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argued Saturday that government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur.
But in fact, government officials, scientists and journalists have warned of such a scenario for years.
Chertoff, fielding questions from reporters, said government officials did not expect both a powerful hurricane and a breach of levees that would flood the city of New Orleans.
"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said.
He called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."
But engineers say the levees preventing this below-sea-level city from being turned into a swamp were built to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes. And officials have warned for years that a Category 4 could cause the levees to fail.
Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane when it struck the Gulf Coast on August 29.
Last week, Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN his agency had recently planned for a Category 5 hurricane hitting New Orleans.
Speaking to "Larry King Live" on August 31, in the wake of Katrina, Brown said, "That Category 4 hurricane caused the same kind of damage that we anticipated. So we planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing it."
Brown suggested FEMA -- part of the Department of Homeland Security -- was carrying out a prepared plan, rather than having to suddenly create a new one.
Chertoff argued that authorities actually had assumed that "there would be overflow from the levee, maybe a small break in the levee. The collapse of a significant portion of the levee leading to the very fast flooding of the city was not envisioned."
He added: "There will be plenty of time to go back and say we should hypothesize evermore apocalyptic combinations of catastrophes. Be that as it may, I'm telling you this is what the planners had in front of them. They were confronted with a second wave that they did not have built into the plan, but using the tools they had, we have to move forward and adapt."
But New Orleans, state and federal officials have long painted a very different picture.
"We certainly understood the potential impact of a Category 4 or 5 hurricane" on New Orleans, Lt. General Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Thursday, Cox News Service reported.
Reuters reported that in 2004, more than 40 state, local and volunteer organizations practiced a scenario in which a massive hurricane struck and levees were breached, allowing water to flood New Orleans. Under the simulation, called "Hurricane Pam," the officials "had to deal with an imaginary storm that destroyed more than half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents," the Reuters report said.
In 2002 the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a five-part series exploring the vulnerability of the city. The newspaper, and other news media as well, specifically addressed the possibility of massive floods drowning residents, destroying homes and releasing toxic chemicals throughout the city (see http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway/ ).
Scientists long have discussed this possibility as a sort of doomsday scenario.
On Sunday, a day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Ivor van Heerden, director of the Louisiana State University Public Health Research Center in Baton Rouge, said, "This is what we've been saying has been going to happen for years."
"Unfortunately, it's coming true," he said, adding that New Orleans "is definitely going to flood."
Also on Sunday, Placquemines Parish Sheriff Jeff Hingle referred back to Hurricane Betsy -- a Category 2 hurricane that struck in 1965 -- and said, "After Betsy these levees were designed for a Category 3."
He added, "These levees will not hold the water back."
But Chertoff seemed unaware of all the warnings.
"This is really one which I think was breathtaking in its surprise," Chertoff said. "There has been, over the last few years, some specific planning for the possibility of a significant hurricane in New Orleans with a lot of rainfall, with water rising in the levees and water overflowing the levees," he told reporters Saturday.
That alone would be "a very catastrophic scenario," Chertoff said. "And although the planning was not complete, a lot of work had been done. But there were two problems here. First of all, it's as if someone took that plan and dropped an atomic bomb simply to make it more difficult. We didn't merely have the overflow, we actually had the break in the wall. And I will tell you that, really, that perfect storm of combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight."
Chertoff also argued that authorities did not have much notice that the storm would be so powerful and could make a direct hit on New Orleans.
"It wasn't until comparatively late, shortly before -- a day, maybe a day and a half, before landfall -- that it became clear that this was going to be a Category 4 or 5 hurricane headed for the New Orleans area."
As far back as Friday, August 26, the National Hurricane Center was predicting the storm could be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall, with New Orleans directly in its path. Still, storms do change paths, so the possibility existed that it might not hit the city.
But the National Weather Service prediction proved almost perfect.
Katrina made landfall on Monday, August 29.
Tens of thousands of people in New Orleans who did not or could not heed the mandatory evacuation orders issued the day before the storm made landfall were left in dire straits.
"I think we have discovered over the last few days that with all the tremendous effort using the existing resources and the traditional frameworks of the National Guard, the unusual set of challenges of conducting a massive evacuation in the context of a still dangerous flood requires us to basically break the traditional model and create a new model -- one for what you might call kind of an ultracatastrophe," Chertoff said.
He vowed that the United States "is going to move heaven and earth" to rescue those in need.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/index.html
But in fact, government officials, scientists and journalists have warned of such a scenario for years.
Chertoff, fielding questions from reporters, said government officials did not expect both a powerful hurricane and a breach of levees that would flood the city of New Orleans.
"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said.
He called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."
But engineers say the levees preventing this below-sea-level city from being turned into a swamp were built to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes. And officials have warned for years that a Category 4 could cause the levees to fail.
Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane when it struck the Gulf Coast on August 29.
Last week, Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN his agency had recently planned for a Category 5 hurricane hitting New Orleans.
Speaking to "Larry King Live" on August 31, in the wake of Katrina, Brown said, "That Category 4 hurricane caused the same kind of damage that we anticipated. So we planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing it."
Brown suggested FEMA -- part of the Department of Homeland Security -- was carrying out a prepared plan, rather than having to suddenly create a new one.
Chertoff argued that authorities actually had assumed that "there would be overflow from the levee, maybe a small break in the levee. The collapse of a significant portion of the levee leading to the very fast flooding of the city was not envisioned."
He added: "There will be plenty of time to go back and say we should hypothesize evermore apocalyptic combinations of catastrophes. Be that as it may, I'm telling you this is what the planners had in front of them. They were confronted with a second wave that they did not have built into the plan, but using the tools they had, we have to move forward and adapt."
But New Orleans, state and federal officials have long painted a very different picture.
"We certainly understood the potential impact of a Category 4 or 5 hurricane" on New Orleans, Lt. General Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Thursday, Cox News Service reported.
Reuters reported that in 2004, more than 40 state, local and volunteer organizations practiced a scenario in which a massive hurricane struck and levees were breached, allowing water to flood New Orleans. Under the simulation, called "Hurricane Pam," the officials "had to deal with an imaginary storm that destroyed more than half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents," the Reuters report said.
In 2002 the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a five-part series exploring the vulnerability of the city. The newspaper, and other news media as well, specifically addressed the possibility of massive floods drowning residents, destroying homes and releasing toxic chemicals throughout the city (see http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway/ ).
Scientists long have discussed this possibility as a sort of doomsday scenario.
On Sunday, a day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Ivor van Heerden, director of the Louisiana State University Public Health Research Center in Baton Rouge, said, "This is what we've been saying has been going to happen for years."
"Unfortunately, it's coming true," he said, adding that New Orleans "is definitely going to flood."
Also on Sunday, Placquemines Parish Sheriff Jeff Hingle referred back to Hurricane Betsy -- a Category 2 hurricane that struck in 1965 -- and said, "After Betsy these levees were designed for a Category 3."
He added, "These levees will not hold the water back."
But Chertoff seemed unaware of all the warnings.
"This is really one which I think was breathtaking in its surprise," Chertoff said. "There has been, over the last few years, some specific planning for the possibility of a significant hurricane in New Orleans with a lot of rainfall, with water rising in the levees and water overflowing the levees," he told reporters Saturday.
That alone would be "a very catastrophic scenario," Chertoff said. "And although the planning was not complete, a lot of work had been done. But there were two problems here. First of all, it's as if someone took that plan and dropped an atomic bomb simply to make it more difficult. We didn't merely have the overflow, we actually had the break in the wall. And I will tell you that, really, that perfect storm of combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight."
Chertoff also argued that authorities did not have much notice that the storm would be so powerful and could make a direct hit on New Orleans.
"It wasn't until comparatively late, shortly before -- a day, maybe a day and a half, before landfall -- that it became clear that this was going to be a Category 4 or 5 hurricane headed for the New Orleans area."
As far back as Friday, August 26, the National Hurricane Center was predicting the storm could be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall, with New Orleans directly in its path. Still, storms do change paths, so the possibility existed that it might not hit the city.
But the National Weather Service prediction proved almost perfect.
Katrina made landfall on Monday, August 29.
Tens of thousands of people in New Orleans who did not or could not heed the mandatory evacuation orders issued the day before the storm made landfall were left in dire straits.
"I think we have discovered over the last few days that with all the tremendous effort using the existing resources and the traditional frameworks of the National Guard, the unusual set of challenges of conducting a massive evacuation in the context of a still dangerous flood requires us to basically break the traditional model and create a new model -- one for what you might call kind of an ultracatastrophe," Chertoff said.
He vowed that the United States "is going to move heaven and earth" to rescue those in need.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/index.html
Obviously Chertoff as well as Brown are not qualified for their positions and are incompetent. We can only conclude that the Senators who approved them are likewise incompetent.
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