We Hear From Former FEMA Chief Brown

Brownie, you give a heck of an interview!  Former EMA head Michael Brown chats with the NY Times, and blames the debacle in New Orleans on everyone but the weatherman.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - Hours after Hurricane Katrina passed New Orleans on Aug. 29, as the scale of the catastrophe became clear, Michael D. Brown recalls, he placed frantic calls to his boss, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and to the office of the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr.

Mr. Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he told the officials in Washington that the Louisiana governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, and her staff were proving incapable of organizing a coherent state effort and that his field officers in the city were reporting an "out of control" situation.

"I am having a horrible time," Mr. Brown said he told Mr. Chertoff and a White House official - either Mr. Card or his deputy, Joe Hagin - in a status report that evening. "I can't get a unified command established."

By the time of that call, he added, "I was beginning to realize things were going to hell in a handbasket" in Louisiana. A day later, Mr. Brown said, he asked the White House to take over the response effort.

Well, fine, the locals were inept.  But doesn't that mean that the White House needed to fill the leadership void?  The Times asks the same question.

Let's move on to some of the finger-pointing highlights:

When he arrived in Baton Rouge on Sunday evening [before the storm made landfall], Mr. Brown said, he was concerned about the lack of coordinated response from Governor Blanco and Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau, the adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.

"What do you need? Help me help you," Mr. Brown said he asked them. "The response was like, 'Let us find out,' and then I never received specific requests for specific things that needed doing."

The most responsive person he could find, Mr. Brown said, was Governor Blanco's husband, Raymond. "He would try to go find stuff out for me," Mr. Brown said.

Governor Blanco's communications director, Mr. Mann, said that she was frustrated that Mr. Brown and others at FEMA wanted itemized requests before acting. "It was like walking into an emergency room bleeding profusely and being expected to instruct the doctors how to treat you," he said.

"Like walking into an emergency room"?  Sure it was - except that it was a patient that was bleeding, and Blanco had been elected chief of surgery when she faced the voters and sought the governorship.

Dd it occur to anyone on Blanco's staff that hurricane response was a responsibility of the governor?  Or was it their belief that FEMA would position their own officials around the state with their own secure communications in order to accommodate a collapse in the governor's office?

Here is finger-pointing gone off-message:

On Monday night, Mr. Brown said, he reported his growing worries to Mr. Chertoff and the White House. He said he did not ask for federal active-duty troops to be deployed because he assumed his superiors in Washington were doing all they could. Instead, he said, he repeated a dozen times, "I cannot get a unified command established."

He assumed?  Based on what?  And isn't it his job to relay a troop requirement to the White House, or did Brown secretly vote for Bush as Psychic Commander in Chief?

Let us not underestimate the power of personality:

By Wednesday morning, Mr. Brown said, he learned that General Honoré was on his way. While the general did not have responsibility for the entire relief effort and the Guard, his commanding manner helped mobilize the state's efforts.

"Honoré shows up and he and I have a phone conversation," Mr. Brown said. "He gets the message, and, boom, it starts happening."

Kevin Drum has more on Brown.

And in a bit of "Follow the Leader", Gov. Blanco gets behind President Bush:

In Baton Rouge Wednesday, Gov. Kathleen Blanco echoed Bush's words from a day earlier, taking responsibility for missteps in the immediate response to Katrina.

"We all know that there were failures at every level of government: state, federal and local," Blanco told lawmakers in a special meeting of the Louisiana Legislature. "The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility."

Now everybody wants to be the hero who takes responsibility!  I can't take it.

As Kevin Drum noted in a different post, this grabbing of responsibility is rare in Washington.  He challenged his readers to provide him examples of past Presidents owning up to their mistakes, and the response was underwhelming.  (No, Clinton apologizing for slavery does not count).

One commenter nominated Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.  As part of my ongoing attempt to learn about American his try (and media myth-making), let me use that comment as an excuse to re-open this post from last fall.

My point then was to bash John Kerry.  However, for curiosities sake I also tried to find Kennedy's admission of error about the Bay of Pigs.  Cue the "Mission Impossible" theme - even with the help of Sydney Blumenthal, I couldn't do it.

 

Comments

[kim]

Sounds like Brown's a victim, too, but it also sounds like he was standing in Katrina's path.
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[kim]

Give him his Hero Medal of Presidential Honorable Mention and get him out to stud. He tried, but is not a mudder.
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[Syl]

"The most responsive person he could find, Mr. Brown said, was Governor Blanco's husband, Raymond."

Ouch.

[Jerkweed]

FEMA is yesterdays news-all they're good for now is an automatic $2,000 check. Got mine yesterday. Thanks fellow taxpayers.

Louisiana officials-reviled by one and all.

Meanwhile-the real villain down here is another alphabetical tentacle of Leviathan-the ACE and its monstrous offspring the MRGO.

These are the acronyms in dispute for the future believe me.

[Syl]

Bush, without fanfare, and very simply, stated he took full reponsibility for failures in the federal response.

When you have a true leader, others follow. And Blanco did.

I could be snarky and cynical about this, but I choose not to.

Bush's simple statement changes the narrative and lets the healing begin.

That's we expect from a leader, and that's what we got.

[TexasToast]

Now everybody wants to be the hero who takes responsibility!

I'm Sparticus!

[Jerkweed]

"Bush...stated he took full reponsibility for failures in the federal response."

Especially Odd. Since right-wing blogs argued for two weeks there were no failures in the federal response.

[Po Boy]

TM-you left out the best quote:

"Mr. Brown acknowledged that he had been criticized for not ordering a complete evacuation or calling in federal troops sooner. But he said the storm made it hard to communicate and assess the situation.

"Until you have been there," he said, "you don't realize it is the middle of a hurricane."

At least Mr. Brown made me laugh just once.

[Ranger]

On the issue of Presidents taking responsibility, the last time I think I saw a real example of this was Reagan over the Beirut Barracks bombing. On the morning that a report was going to be released that specifically blamed several members of the local chain of command for numerous incidents of bad judgment, Reagan came out and took personal responsibility for the failures that led to the bomber getting close enough to destroy the building because he had ordered the Marines into Lebanon an put them in harms way.

[Steve]

TM
"Well, fine, the locals were inept. But doesn't that mean that the White House needed to fill the leadership void?"

No.

Local elections are supposed to determine leadership. We have to keep the heat on the local officials, the electorate, and the actions of individuals who chose to ignore the evacuation orders, or our federal, republican system is lost. We are on the verge of throwing out the "Personal responsibility" and federalism babies with the bathwater.

Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson are smiling a little wider since Katrina struck.
-Steve

[Po Boy]

Of course-Reagan invaded Grenada two days later-so it was kind of overshadowed.

[Les Nessman]

"Since right-wing blogs argued for two weeks there were no failures in the federal response."

Do you have an example of a right-wing blog that did that?

[Harry Arthur]

Brown can dodge his responsibility any way he wants but a true leader, seeing that things aren't going in the correct direction, doesn't call his superiors to beg for help, he takes command if necessary and starts making things happen on his own. It seems to me Brown admits that he didn't do that.

It also seems to me, admittedly without having read the NYT interview, that he was in just as far over his head as was the LA governor. As I have stated previously, you don't have to be an emergency management expert to run FEMA, you just have to have management and leadership skills and know enough to ask your staff to make you smart on what the agency can do, what it can't do and what it's supposed to do. I don't see any evidence of any of that taking place on Mr Brown's watch and it appears from what I've read so far of the interview that he is at least honest enough to admit some of that.

Leaders do not wait for things to happen - they make things happen. Mr Brown and the LA government, it seems to me, are "waiters" not "makers". This is why the military operation was such a stark contrast with the state and FEMA responses. Military leaders are used to making things happen and once they were in NO they did.

I trust Bush has looked for a leader for FEMA this time around. It's fine to promote your friends if they can do the job, after all, you know and trust them. But when your friends aren't leaders then they have no place at the levels of responsibility that call for leadership. It's more clear the more we hear that Bush didn't choose well on this one. I won't apologize for him but, heck even Ted Williams made six outs for every four hits. This was apparently one of his "outs".

[TM]

Ok, clue-followers - "MRGO" is the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet; ACE is, hmm, an insurance company?

[Po Boy]

Army Core of Engineers.

[Po Boy]

Excuse me, its Corps-as in corps(es)

[DaraLundy]

Did Mississippi have trouble coming up with detailed lists? The lower third of the state was flattened. The New York Times does not appear to have asked that question.

[Jerkweed]

How about this beaut Nessman:

Powerline 9/2/05: "New Orleans and its residents owe the President a profound debt of gratitude."

So I suppose Bush's speech tonight will be a quick three-worder: "You are welcome." Right?

[Po Boy]

Read this Wapo story for a primer. It's way too soft on the ACE but it's a start.

[Po Boy]

Jerkweed is totally right btw. The people of St. Bernard Parish (the Parish SE of N.O) are wiped out far worse than New Orleanians and even Mississippians.

They're like New Orleanians in that they are flooded out and like Mississippians in that their houses are completely gone-but unlike either-officials are now telling them don't expect to get back in the Parish before next summer, if then. Some of these folks are facing the fact that even the bank in which they had their safety deposit box is, uh, not there.

And these people have been screaming to have the MRGO-(an unnecessary little used navigation canal and the posterboy government boondoggle funded by the US taxpayer-closed for years). Literally years. They knew it would kill them.

The MRGO screwed them (and New Orleans in turn) in two ways-1. it was a highway for the storm surge right into the heart of parish 2. the wetland erosion caused by the MRGO (primarily through salt water intrusion) ensured the storm surge would not be dampened. (The quick and dirty formula=storm surge drops one foot for every mile of marsh it travels over).

[Steve]

Guys, when the feds send "aid" to bailout folks from their own poor choices we wind up rewarding the poor choices.

Delta, United, and Northwest airlines have declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. How many billions of dollars have the American taxpayers wasted in a futile attempt to forestall their fate?

NO's sunken, corrupt city is no different from the union-run United Airlines - bankrupt and a drag on the greater society.
Let's cut our losses, and learn from our past mistakes.
-Steve

[Po Boy]

"Let's cut our losses, and learn from our past mistakes."

Probably too early to impeach Bush, but I'm game if you are.

[Ontario Emperor]

For those who demand that Brown show instant leadership, should he have sent Landreneau directly to Abu Gharib? At least Brown tried; there's no evidence that Landreneau did anything.

[Strick]

Brown had no responsibility to ask for Federal troops in this. The Governor was the only with one with that authority and she had to specifically ask for them. This isn't like bottles of water or MREs, there's are huge issues with using active forces domestically.

CNN tells us she didn't even think about requesting troops until it was clear New Orleans was out of control and the National Guard she had raised to that point weren't able to deal with it. Then Nagin tells us that the next day when Bush gave her two options for getting the troops, and, in the middle of the crisis, she asked for 24 hours to think about it which way he should respond to her request. Not state leadership's finest moment.

It doesn't sound like Brown distiquished himself down there though. Honore had no trouble getting things moving. No doubt about that.

[Po Boy]

You guys are still thinking small.

People in Louisiana really dont care anymore about casting blame for the three-four days after the hurricane. Everybody's got dry clothes on now.

What we're into is laying blame for the whole goddamn flooding enchilida.

This is a whole new ballgame.

[Steven J.]

Dd it occur to anyone on Blanco's staff that hurricane response was a responsibility of the governor?

Does this count?

Presenter: Gen. Russel Honoré, commander, Joint Task Force Katrina

Thursday, September 1, 2005
http://www.dod.gov/transcripts/2005/tr20050901-3843.html

Q General, Jamie McIntyre from CNN. To what extent is this additional assistance you've outlined today a response to a request from the state governors in Louisiana, Mississippi? And if so, can you tell us when specifically you got that request?

GEN. HONORÉ: Yes, sir. The process starts, sir, in this particular event, with a request Friday of last week, as the approximate date for defense coordinating offices to be established in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Those were established in those states over Friday and Saturday.

[Steven J.]

Or was it their belief that FEMA would position their own officials around the state with their own secure communications in order to accommodate a collapse in the governor's office?

This is EXACTLY what FEMA should've done and should be prepared to do. A terrorist attack is likely to deliberately knock out communications.

[TM]

So ACE is Army Corpses of Engineers? D'oh!

I never had a prayer with my second guess.

Anyway, if we have moved on to bitter recriminations, I did hear on the radio that the Spartacus at the ACE admits that they should have pre-positioned sandbags and choppers in anticipation of a need to repair levees.

In other news, the RNC admits that they should have pre-positioned windbags to present a better White House spin.

Sorry. On the assertion that "right-wing blogs argued for two weeks there were no failures in the federal response", my casual impression is that lefty blogs noted that there were failures at all levels and then killed Bush and the feds; righty blogs noted that there were failures at all levels and then killed Nagin and Blanco; and the national media leaned towards the lefty blog approach.

[Po Boy]

Not me. I blast all three levels at once. I detest everyone equally.

Hell, I looked up my old student body president and chewed his ass out for good measure.

[Harry Arthur]

For those who demand that Brown show instant leadership, yes I'm one who demands that when appointed to head a federal agency you be ready to show leadership on a moment's notice. I'd be willing to cut him some slack if he had assumed control of FEMA in the last two weeks but he's had adequate time to do his homework and there's no evidence that he did so.

Brown had no responsibility to ask for Federal troops in this, true but irrelevant. Brown had an "obligation" when he saw things "going to hell in a handbasket" to either assume control of the situation and start making decisions or to talk very fast and pursuasively to get others who did have the "official" responsibility to assume those responsibilities and make appropriate decisions.

Crying to your chain of command about things you can't get done and asking your chain of command to "take over" because you're ineffective is evidence of a complete absense of leadership skills. If Brown was an infantry platoon leader and reacted to the fog of battle in this manner, he would get himself and his men killed very quickly. Failure to lead has consequences.

Contrast this with the following: While the general did not have responsibility for the entire relief effort and the Guard, his commanding manner helped mobilize the state's efforts. In other words, he saw what needed to be done and by force of "his manner" got it done. That's what leaders do. The general didn't whine about not having the authority or the correct paperwork to effect action he just waded into the fray and made things happen. And it doesn't take a military uniform to have a "commanding manner".

Everything else we're discussing here about who had authority to do what and whether the governor requested the right solutions are pathetic excuses for not knowing how to get things done and not trying hard enough. If the governor didn't know what to ask for, Brown should have told her and insisted that he be of assistance. Bureaucratic paper-pushing and bean-counting won't ever be the solution in emergency situations. It certainly wasn't here.

PB, I believe you're right. The voters will deal with the state officials. Brown has resigned (so he wouldn't be fired as he deserved to be), and we will have a public commission to detail errors and to recommend corrective actions.

[TexasToast]

....we will have a public commission to detail errors and to recommend corrective actions.

That was voted down on a straight party line vote. The R's want to investigate themselves.

[kim]

ACE no doubt will come in for a disproportionate share of blame. I say disproportionate because it seems they've been tasked with an impossibility, that is defend south east Louisiana against Cat 5 storms with Cat 3 resources, funding, and devices.

How much will it cost to protect what part of the the Gulf Coast against Cat 5 nature?

I've long pondered the mystery of farmable land so far out in the Bay of Bengal that, despite government fiat against it, gets populated and devastated in predictable cycles. There is another similar area in the Saharan south that gets populated every rainy cycle and suffers mass starvation when the predictable drought returns in cycle. There are valleys in China that flood disastrously, and predictably.

Must we have such an area? Or can we see far enough ahead to the next Cat 5.
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[kim]

Perhaps we'll come out with a new calculus of recovery. I've read that the Egyptians developed math to facilitate recovery from seasonal flooding.

They used it to remark field boundaries erased by flooding.
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[Po Boy]

"ACE no doubt will come in for a disproportionate share of blame. I say disproportionate because it seems they've been tasked with an impossibility, that is defend south east Louisiana against Cat 5 storms with Cat 3 resources, funding, and devices."

No Kim-they will get all the blame they richly deserve. For one thing it wasn't a Cat 5 at landfall. Second, New Orleans wasn't really "hit". Note they were plucking people off roofs. With a direct hit-there would be no roofs left. The strongest winds were well to th east of N.O., as you can see by the Mississippi coast.

In effect-it was a Cat 3 in N.O. that shot through their class 3 levees. That's a major deal.

Nor is it impossible to defend new Orleans even from a Class 5. But it's not levees. It's restoration of the vast South Louisiana wetlands and barrier islands that can do it.

And Bush is turning on a Cat 5 funding effort. Even I'm saying slow down a little.
If we don't plan it right-it will all be wasted. Hell, they ought to just have a Mardi Gras parade and throw out $100 bills instead of beads.

[Po Boy]

"Must we have such an area? Or can we see far enough ahead to the next Cat 5."

And if it's an area that shouldn't be rebuilt-it's the Mississippi Gulf Coast. They were already wiped out by Camille in 1969 and cannot be protected at all.

[Harry Arthur]

TT, quite frankly I don't care whether it's a public commission or public congressional hearings. The truth will come out. I believe the democrats will either be given appropriate investigative capabilities, e.g., subpena (sorry for the spelling) powers and adequate staff, or they'll force a public commission. In either case everyone will have a part and the light will shine on the facts.

Remember, the 9/11 commission was voted down before it became a reality also, though it took a year. This isn't decided just quite yet. Hopefully (I'm so naive) we can avoid partisan politics from both sides. In all honesty, I thought the 9/11 commission was too partison so we'll see if we can do better this time.

Personally, if I were Bush, I'd appoint John Breaux chairman of an independent commission and give him cart blanche to pick the members. My only guidance would be that they represent fair-minded citizens without any particular axe to grind. Ideally there would be experts in various engineering and emergency response disciplines but no one directly involved over the years with NO flood control or emergency response planning.

[kim]

Yes, I understand it was Cat 4 at landfall, and that it turned at the last minute. Where did that blast of high, dry air come from?

And it was Cat 4 storm surge that ultimately took you out. That and an imperfect Cat 3 dyke.

I'll grow extra tits for $100 dollar bills.
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[millco88]

Slow down? You never slow a bureuacracy down if you ever want it to start up again. Inertia dominates the thinking. But if someone in LA govt doesn't have a "solution" already worked up, then what have they been doing? Wait, don't answer that.

[Po Boy]

"And it was Cat 4 storm surge..."

Sorry to keep backing you down many nipples-but it was a Cat 4 storm surge that wiped out St. Bernard (see above for ACE's role in that) but that would have lessened to a Cat 3 storm surge by the time it rolled in to N.O. just by virtue of the amount of land it was spreading over.

These aren't final numbers-but this is the current thinking round here.

New Orleans is not on the coast. Though it's a little closer to open water than it was two weeks ago.

[kim]

Has anyone explored tactical nuclear weapons or some other exotic energy device to disrupt eyewalls?

And given enough time, the Mississippi River will eventually extend the delta far enough out that New Orleans will no longer be threatened by hurricanes. Of course, by then it will be silted in.

Barrier islands and wetlands are intriguing as protection. The problems remains: we get in trouble when we can build where we shouldn't.

I think, as do you, that reconstruction should be very carefully thought out. I'm sorry to report that I doubt that it will be.
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[Harry Arthur]

PB, It's restoration of the vast South Louisiana wetlands and barrier islands that can do it.

And Bush is turning on a Cat 5 funding effort. Even I'm saying slow down a little.
If we don't plan it right-it will all be wasted. Hell, they ought to just have a Mardi Gras parade and throw out $100 bills instead of beads.

Exactly! It's the marshes and the natural barrier islands that do the job. They are a natural defense against virtually any level of storm. Amazingly we think we're smarter than nature's design. Levees may be helpful in some applications but in the main they just focus the surge.

As for spending. Couldn't agree more also. Look at the last major storm to hit FL. FEMA handed out millions to people who weren't even affected in, if I remember correctly, Dade county. Could have the location wrong but there was unquestionable documented waste for which FEMA was rightly criiticized. It's that leadership thing again.

[kim]

The Cat 4 storm surge filled Lake Pontchartrain, which then poured into New Orleans. I'm hesitant to yield anymore nipples because you are native and know what you are talking about.
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[kim]

I even wonder, Po Boy, if the last minute turn eastwards didn't pour more of the storm surge fury into Lake Pontchartrain than if Katrina had stayed on its course and hit New Orleans directly? Any hydrologists around to guess at that one?

The turn just pointed the gulf waters at Lake Pontchartrain. I'm guessing, any one really understand the dynamics here?
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[Harry Arthur]

kim, I'm may be dead wrong, as in backwards, but my understanding of the storm surge is that the worst is on the NE side of the eye. In this case that was focused on MS. I believe it is focused by the rotation of winds in the storm.

PB? I'm ready to be educated.

[kim]

Yes, I see, and my point is that the turn focussed more of the NE edge on Lake Pontchartrain, and also Mississippi. But I'm not at all sure of that.
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[kim]

Why are we arguing about this? Well to belabor a point obvious to some, the cost of protection against increasing categories rises exponentially. Where and if that money is to be spent is a trillion dollar question.
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[kim]

More likely multi-trillion dollar question.

What you'll Cat 5 New Orleans and not South Carolina?
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[TexasToast]

Actually Kim, eventually the Mississippi will break through at the Old River Control Structure and the Atchafalaya will become the Mississippi. The Atchafalaya has already captured the Red River and 30% of the Mississippi. It’s a matter of time. New Orleans will have too little water instead of too much.

There have been ongoing projects to restore the delta and the barrier islands - all defunded as of late. I'm curious what GWB will have to say about that.

Harry

The reason the 9/11 Commission seemed "political" is because it challenged the conventional wisdom - in a way that the Senate Committee on Intelligence did not. Remember the promised second part of the promised Senate Committee investigation – Didn’t think so – it never happened and never will. ISTM that if there ever was a time to challenge the conventional wisdom, a catastrophic failure of government like this debacle is the time. The democrats should refuse to participate in this “bi-partisan” sham.

[kim]

You would guess, TT from the distribution of hydrocarbon deposits, that the Mississippi is presently nearer the eastern edge of its historical outlet than the central, or western part.
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[TexasToast]

Old River . Matter of time.