Hurricane Katrina

[Sister Golden Hair]

Here is an article from the Associated Press.

FEMA Chief Relieved of Hurricane Duties
Questions Raised About Brown's Resume, Experience
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, AP


Michael Brown's lack of experience raises questions about how rigorously the White House vetted him before he got top FEMA job.

WASHINGTON (Sept. 9) - Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being relieved of his command of the Bush administration's Hurricane Katrina onsite relief efforts, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Friday.

He will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts, Chertoff said.

Earlier, Brown confirmed the switch. Asked if he was being made a scapegoat for a federal relief effort that has drawn widespread and sharp criticism, Brown told The Associated Press after a long pause: "By the press, yes. By the president, No."

"Michael Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge," Chertoff told reporters in Baton Rouge, La. Chertoff sidestepped a question on whether the move was the first step toward Brown's leaving FEMA.

But a source close to Brown, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FEMA director had been considering leaving after the hurricane season ended in November and that Friday's action virtually assures his departure.

Brown has been under fire because of the administration's slow response to the magnitude of the hurricane. On Thursday, questions were raised about whether he padded his resume to exaggerate his previous emergency management background.

Less than an hour before Brown's removal came to light, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Brown had not resigned and the president had not asked for his resignation.

Chertoff suggested the shift came as the Gulf Coast efforts were entering "a new phase of the recovery operation." He said Brown would return to Washington to oversee the government's response to other potential disasters.

"I appreciate his work, as does everybody here," Chertoff said.

"I'm anxious to get back to D.C. to correct all the inaccuracies and lies that are being said," Brown said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Asked if the move was a demotion, Brown said: "No. No. I'm still the director of FEMA."

He said Chertoff made the decision to move him out of Louisiana. It was not his own decision, Brown said.

"I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife and, maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep. And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims," Brown said. "This story's not about me. This story's about the worst disaster of the history of our country that stretched every government to its limit and now we have to help these victims."

Amid escalating calls for Brown's ouster, the White House had insisted publicly for days that Bush retained confidence in his FEMA chief. But there was no question that Brown's star was fading in the administration. In the storm's early days, Brown was the president's primary briefer on its path and the response effort, but by the weekend those duties had been taken over by Brown's boss - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Also, while Brown was very visibly by the president's side during Bush's first on-the-ground visit to the hurricane zone last week, he remained behind the scenes - with Chertoff out front.

Even before Chertoff's announcement, the beleaguered Brown was facing questions Friday about his resume.

A 2001 press release on the White House Web site says Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing emergency services divisions."

Brown's official biography on the FEMA Web site says that his background in state and local government also includes serving as "an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" and as a city councilman.

But a former mayor of Edmond, Randel Shadid, told The Associated Press on Friday that Brown had been an assistant to the city manager. Shadid said Brown was never assistant city manager.

"I think there's a difference between the two positions," said Shadid. "I would think that is a discrepancy."

Asked later about the White House news release that said Brown oversaw Edmond's emergency services divisions, Shadid said, "I don't think that's a total stretch."

Time magazine first reported the discrepancy.

Separately, Newsday reported another discrepancy regarding Brown's background. The official White House announcement of Brown's nomination to head FEMA in January 2003 lists his previous experience as "the Executive Director of the Independent Electrical Contractors," a trade group based in Alexandria, Va.

Two officials of the group told Newsday this week that Brown never was the national head of the group but did serve as the executive director of a regional chapter, based in Colorado.

A longtime acquaintance, Carl Reherman, said Brown was very involved in helping set up an emergency operations center in Edmond and assisting in the creation of an emergency contingency plan in the 1970s. At the time, Reherman was a city councilman, and later became mayor.

"From my experience with Mike, he not only worked very hard on everything he did, he had very high standards," said Reherman, who also knew Brown when he was a student taking classes from Reherman, who was a professor of political science at Central State University.

Nicol Andrews, deputy strategic director in FEMA's office of public affairs, told Time that while Brown began as an intern, he became an "assistant city manager" with a distinguished record of service.

"According to Mike Brown," Andrews told Time, a large portion of points raised by the magazine are "very inaccurate."

Associated Press writers Ron Fournier, Pete Yost and Ted Bridis in Washington and Richard Green in Oklahoma City contributed to this story.


09-09-05 14:43 EDT


Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Sister Golden Hair

The head of FEMA has now been replaced. He is not being replaced as FEMA head overall, but as head of the efforts in New Orleans. More later.

That's a good start to making things better. Putting an experienced disaster manager in charge of relief efforts is the best course of action for everyone.

I still think that he should be completely fired and replaced with someone who has more experience so that the response is better-coordinated next time there's a catastrophe. Plus, Americans deserve accountability.

The revelations about his apparent resume errors raise important questions about Brown's credibility. It seems his only experience with any kind of disaster management, for a small city in Oklahoma during the 1970s, was even more minimal than previously known. I think Bush should've scrutinized his record more carefully before appointing him to lead FEMA, and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) should not have allowed Brown to gain confirmation without a more thorough grilling.

But even if every item on Brown's resume is true - it's still devoid of any serious preparation for a job like head of FEMA. Brown spent the '90s as head of the International Arabian Horse Association, where his job was to "ensure that horse-show judges followed the rules and to investigate allegations against those suspected of cheating." Brown was apparently forced out of that position, and became General Counsel at FEMA in 2001 - a job more legal than managerial in nature, as far as I know. Brown was also the college roommate of Bush's previous FEMA director, Joe Allbaugh.

My concern is that Brown was a nice guy who got the FEMA gig for reasons that had little to do with who was best equipped to deal with catastrophes.

[tolkienfan]

Originally Posted by Acalewia

I'm going to interupt the politics for a moment. I live just outside of Little Rock and every hotel and motel is full of evacuees. I work at Wal-mart and I have talked to people from N.O. Recently ANG's Bowie Bregade went to LA. The last I heard, Arkansas had at least 22,000 evacuees. Yesterday, my famoly and I went through our clothes and donated 4 boxes of clothes. Can we stop looking at this from a political standpoint and do what we can to help those that need it? I know help was slow, but we can't go around pointing fingers at who to blame. It was no one's fault, just some people couldn't get out on time. Are you going to blame them for that?

Good for you donating clothes! I spent 4 hours this morning sorting donated clothes into boxes at an airport to go to victims. There sure were a lot of them! I really hope the people there find good use for them.

[Spock]

hmmm, watching the news these past days, I've not seen one evacuee in soiled clothing..they all have new, clean and in some cases, creased clothes; makes you wonder.

[Rían]

my kids' school is donating clothes, too. Good to see others doing the same, and apparently the refugees are getting them

[Tessar]

Originally Posted by Spock

hmmm, watching the news these past days, I've not seen one evacuee in soiled clothing..they all have new, clean and in some cases, creased clothes; makes you wonder.

Well Good Lord I'd hope that after this many days they'd all be in clean clothes.

What does it make you wonder?

[Spock]

Because from the first news shots it was so.

[HOBBIT]

Yes, why does it make you wonder Spock???

Or a better question - What does it make you wonder??????? I'm with Tessar - I'd hope that after a week they would have clean clothes....


I don't understand your answer to Tessar.

[Rían]

The firemen in our town did a "boot collection" thing today for the Katrina victims. They go to the busiest intersection in town, and then stand on all the corners and on the concrete dividers between the traffic lanes, and hold up their tall fireman boots, and the people drop in money. Just a kind of fun way to collect money - fill up those boots, guys! They've done it for various charities, and a large percentage of people stop and make contributions.

[inked]

Well, that's great Rian!

Our church raised $900 bucks at one dinner and has ongoing projects aimed at providing food and shelter to relocated folks from Louisiana. Tonight my daughter's youth group helped sponsor and set-up for a Christian concert that drew over 200 attendees (mostly teenagers) that has raised at least $3500 so far!

We have to keep it up though for some time. It will probably be at least a year before some of these folks get back or even longer!

Meanwhile, Congress is getting into the act. This could be really entertaining! See http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/op...erland&emc=rss

edit: and this just in http://www.defendamerica.mil/article...090905ms2.html

(who'd've thought the Iraqi's would outdo the NAACP and Rainbow Coalition?)

[Rían]

Our church is doing a lot, too - probably will raise a ton more than the firemen do, just because we're so big, but I thought the way our local firemen raised charity dollars was pretty fun to share. Does any place where you Mooters live do anything like that?

[Lief Erikson]

Here's an interesting portion of an article from Yahoo! News, about the technical issues involving the levees.

Originally Posted by Yahoo! News

Louisiana lawmakers have long lamented that Corps of Engineers programs designed to protect New Orleans and surrounding areas were starved for cash.

Corps officials, said, however, that funneling more money into the agency's levee repair programs wouldn't have totally averted disaster. The infrastructure around the city was designed to withstand only a Category 3.

Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, Corps of Engineers commander, said some flooding would have occurred even if the remaining repair projects planned for the levees had been completed.

The infrastructure assumed that a storm bigger than a Category 3 has a very low probability of occurring.

When the project was designed about 30 years ago, the corps believed it was protecting the city from an event that might occur only every 200 or 300 years.

"We had an assurance that 99.5 percent this would be OK. We, unfortunately, have had that .5 percent activity here," Strock said.

Former Sen. John Breaux (news, bio, voting record), D-La., said everyone has known for years that the levees wouldn't stop a "once every hundred years" storm that could put New Orleans under 20 feet of water.

The complaints and problems with corps funding go back to the Carter administration, and presidents since then have tried to draw money from the agency's projects to pay for other priorities.

Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who left as civilian head of the corps in 2002 after criticizing the White House budget office, said the funding problems occurred through Democratic and Republican administrations.

"The corps requested money to complete the projects through the years, but the funding level wasn't given to them in order to do it," he said.

It's the Bush administration taking the brunt of the heat now.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said New Orleans got an infusion of money for flood control projects in the late 1990s.

"There was less money spent after that huge project, as, of course, there would be," Blunt said. "Any time you do a big building project, when that project's over, the next year you spend less money."

Blunt suggested there might be a limit to the amount that federal programs can do.

"This is not something that government can always prevent," he said. "You know, God is actually bigger and nature is bigger than we are, and this is one of those instances."

[HOBBIT]

Anyone see the "Mr Bill" cartoon thing from Saturday Night Live?

That was from the 70s and in it a hurricane hit New Orleans, the levees broke, the city flooded, Mr. Bill was on his roof and then an alligator ate him.

[Acalewia]

Originally Posted by inked

(who'd've thought the Iraqi's would outdo the NAACP and Rainbow Coalition?)

Wow! I never would have expected Iraqi soldiers to donate anything to the US to help take care of hurriacane victims. WOW!

our firemen do the "fill the boot" campain, too, Rian. They usually stand at the intersection by Wal-mart. I think they get the most contrubutions there.

[Sister Golden Hair]

Originally Posted by Acalewia

Wow! I never would have expected Iraqi soldiers to donate anything to the US to help take care of hurriacane victims. WOW!

Why not?

[HOBBIT]

The Iraqi soldiers are the ones being trained by the United States military - they aren't the ones that are fighting us.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Our church is doing a lot, too - probably will raise a ton more than the firemen do, just because we're so big, but I thought the way our local firemen raised charity dollars was pretty fun to share. Does any place where you Mooters live do anything like that?

i played two gigs this weekend (for free)... one was for hurricane katrina support... the other was a "support our troops" annual event to send money and goods to soldiers in iraq

[Rían]

great to see all the support!

[Insidious Rex]

Goods I can understand (and maybe bullet proof glass...) but why are we doing charity drives to send money to our own soldiers?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Goods I can understand (and maybe bullet proof glass...) but why are we doing charity drives to send money to our own soldiers?

from what i understand, the money was related to helping soldiers support their families... while being in the armed forces is a full time job for many, the reserve activation often leads to someone basically taking a huge pay cut... and if they have a large family and expenses, and are kept away from their normal job for months and months, they need another source of income... they cannot lose their job, but the lost pay is not made up for by the employer or the government

not quite sure how it is implemented, but there was some mention of it