Ex-FEMA chief slams ‘dysfunctional’ Louisiana

Admission of 'specific mistakes'
Criticized by Shays for not acquiring better equipment in advance that would have let different emergency agencies communicate with each other, Brown blamed the Department of Homeland Security.

“We put that money in our budget request and it was removed by the Department of Homeland Security” before the budget was finalized, he said.

Brown also said he was “just tired and misspoke” when a television interviewer appeared to be the first to tell him that there were desperate residents at the New Orleans Convention Center.

Brown testified that he had already learned, one day before the interview, that people were flocking to the center.

Brown blamed “a hysteric media” for compounding the crisis with what he said were unfounded reports of rapes and murders. He characterized blunt-spoken Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the military coordinator for the disaster, as “a bull in the China closet, God love him.”

And he said Americans themselves must play a more active role in preparing for natural disasters and not expect more from the government than it can deliver.

But Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas told Brown: “I don’t know how you can sleep at night. You lost the battle.”

Brown in his opening statement said he had made several “specific mistakes” in dealing with the storm, and listed two.

One, he said, was not having more media briefings.

As to the other, he said: “I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences, and work together. I just couldn’t pull that off.”

Both Blanco and Nagin are Democrats.

Louisiana official fires back
In Baton Rouge, La., Blanco’s press secretary, Denise Bottcher, ridiculed Brown’s line of attack. “Mike Brown wasn’t engaged then, and he surely isn’t now. He should have been watching CNN instead of the Disney Channel,” Bottcher said.

“The people of FEMA are being tired of being beat up, and they don’t deserve it,” Brown said.

The hearing was largely boycotted by Democrats, who want an independent investigation conducted into government failures, not one run by congressional Republicans.

But several Democrats from the stricken region, including Jefferson and Taylor, attended.

Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., cautioned against too narrowly assigning blame.

“At the end of the day, I suspect that we’ll find that government at all levels failed the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and the Gulf Coast,” said Davis.

Brown says federal role limited
He pushed Brown on what he and the agency he led should have done to evacuate New Orleans, restore order in the city and improve communication among law enforcement agencies.

Brown said: “Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn’t evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications.”

Brown said the lack of an effective evacuation of New Orleans before the storm was “the tipping point for all the other things that went wrong.”

A “mandatory” evacuation was ordered Sunday by Nagin, the mayor. However, buses were not provided and thousands of residents were stranded without transportation in low-lying areas.

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