Brownie fires back "it's all their fault!"

[alonzomourning23]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Testifying before a congressional committee, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown on Tuesday blamed Louisiana's leaders for dragging their heels last month as Hurricane Katrina approached the Gulf Coast.

Brown appeared before a House select committee probing the federal, state and local response to Katrina. The storm devastated Mississippi beach towns and left most of New Orleans flooded when the city's protective levees failed at several points.

Brown said Mississippi and Alabama had evacuated properly, but said New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco were reluctant to order an evacuation. (Watch Brown's comments -- 3:51)

"My mistake was in recognizing that for whatever reasons ... Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco were reticent to order a mandatory evacuation," he said.

"If I, Mike Brown, individual, could have done something to convince them that this was the big one and they needed to order a mandatory evacuation, I would have done it."

In a heated exchange, Rep. Christopher Shays questioned whether Brown did enough to coordinate the response.

"What would you like for me to do congressman," Brown asked the Connecticut Republican.

"That's why I'm happy you left," Shays said, "because that kind of, you know, look in the lights like a deer, tells me that you weren't capable to do the job."

Brown said he wasn't a dictator and couldn't make state or local officials do anything.

"I guess you want me to be the superhero that is going to step in there and suddenly take everybody out of New Orleans."

Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, one of three Democrats who participated in the hearing despite Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's decision not to appoint members to the select committee, took issue with Brown's testimony.

"I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans," Jefferson said.

"I think it's fair to say that perhaps mistakes (were) made all around, but I don't think the response of the federal government can be explained on the basis of, as you have said here, you could not persuade the governor and the mayor to sit down and coordinate a response."

Jefferson noted that the governor had requested a disaster declaration from the federal government three days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, which was approved by President Bush two days before the storm hit.

Brown told the panel that FEMA was a coordinating agency, not a first responder, and stressed that it was vital that "emergency management begins at the local level."

"The reason that this primary responsibility, this first response is at the local level is that it is inherently impractical, totally impractical for the federal government to respond to every disaster of whatever size in every community across the country," Brown said. (Watch Brown's defense of FEMA -- 3:02)

Brown resigned September 12 after two weeks of intense criticism of FEMA's response to Katrina, which killed more than 1,000 people when it struck near the Louisiana-Mississippi state line August 29.

Just 10 days earlier, President Bush had praised Brown during his first trip to the region, telling him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Bush's comments came as thousands of New Orleans residents huddled in the Ernest Morial Convention Center in oppressive heat with little food or water.

Brown had told CNN on September 1 that he was not aware that there were evacuees at the convention center until that day and that "considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well."

Brown also came under fire because of alleged inconsistencies in his resume, and his relatively limited emergency management experience.

He said that those claims were not true, and in some cases were defamatory.

"I have overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I am doing. And I think I do a pretty darn good job of it," Brown told the panel.

In his opening remarks Tuesday, Brown said he expected to be asked by investigators if he did all he could in response to the storm, which devastated the Gulf Coast and is blamed for more than 1,000 deaths.

"The answer to that question is 'yes,' but I do believe there are specific mistakes that I made with Hurricane Katrina. I will mention two.

"First, I did not set up a system of media briefings which I should have done as that would have required less of my time than responding to all the requests for interviews.

"Second, I regret not being able to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down and coordinate their response."

Brown is still being paid as a consultant to help FEMA assess what went wrong. (Watch Brown still on the FEMA payroll -- 3:20)

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA's parent agency, said last week that Brown would be paid for about a month for "transitional purposes." The spokesman, Russ Knocke, said he did not know how much Brown was being paid.

Brown's 2004 salary was $145,600, according to the Plum Book, a congressional reference guide to executive branch salaries.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/27/katrina.brown/index.html

 

[E-Z-B]

This article indicates that the federal level should have done more with Katrina:

WASHINGTON - The speed with which the federal government marshaled significant military and other resources to evacuate, rescue and care for victims of Hurricane Rita raises new questions about why Washington was so slow to respond to Hurricane Katrina less than four weeks earlier.

The response to Rita, however, suggests that the government had plenty of authority to respond to Katrina and that what was lacking during Katrina was an understanding of when to use that authority.

more


http://news.yahoo.com/s/krwashburea..._nigb.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

 

[PKRipp3r]

he actually tried to claim that his now infamous CNN appearance where a newscaster informed him of the Civic Center situation was JUST A VERBAL FLUB and that he really DID Know about it.

wow.

he's like a five year old trying to like his way out of throwing gum into his sister's hair.

it's seriously like "no I di'int!!! it's their fault!! waaahhh!"

he needs to be put out to pasture, permanently

 

[elprincipe]

[quote name='PKRipp3r']he actually tried to claim that his now infamous CNN appearance where a newscaster informed him of the Civic Center situation was JUST A VERBAL FLUB and that he really DID Know about it.

wow.

he's like a five year old trying to like his way out of throwing gum into his sister's hair.

it's seriously like "no I di'int!!! it's their fault!! waaahhh!"

he needs to be put out to pasture, permanently[/QUOTE]

The real guy who ripped him a new one was Gene Taylor, Democrat of Mississippi. They got into a number of heated arguments. Also Brown described how things were so much better coordinated in Mississippi than Louisiana, to which Taylor was pretty much flabbergasted as it seem to indicate Brown thought things had gone well in Mississippi!

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

[quote name='elprincipe']The real guy who ripped him a new one was Gene Taylor, Democrat of Mississippi. They got into a number of heated arguments. Also Brown described how things were so much better coordinated in Mississippi than Louisiana, to which Taylor was pretty much flabbergasted as it seem to indicate Brown thought things had gone well in Mississippi![/QUOTE]

Yeah, that was the highlight of the hearing. And it rips the veneer off the idea that in Louisiana the Local Gov was all screw ups and that in Miss. The State knew what it was doing. In both states the response on the state and local level was effectively the same.

They had the same delays, the same problems, exactly the same. The difference is politics. The Republicans in Mississippi won't publicly chastize the administration. But there have been plenty of reports in newspapers that, in private, individuals like Trent Lott and Gov. Barbour are just as angry with the response.

Now, I make my disclaimer that there were failures in the local govs of Louisiana. To ignore those would be innane. But to lay all the blame on the local gov of Louisiana, and then state that Mississippi ran smashingly well, and that the difference is democrats vs. republicans, is just depressingly sad. Mississippi fared just as well as Louisiana in its handling of the emegency.

 

[PKRipp3r]

[quote name='elprincipe']The real guy who ripped him a new one was Gene Taylor, Democrat of Mississippi. They got into a number of heated arguments. Also Brown described how things were so much better coordinated in Mississippi than Louisiana, to which Taylor was pretty much flabbergasted as it seem to indicate Brown thought things had gone well in Mississippi![/QUOTE]

totally

it was bizarre to see Brown focusing so exclusively on LA and New Orleans... as if everywhere else had been a cakewalk

just further proof of how completely out of touch or just brazenly uncaring he is

 

[munch]

[quote name='Admiral Ackbar']Yeah, that was the highlight of the hearing. And it rips the veneer off the idea that in Louisiana the Local Gov was all screw ups and that in Miss. The State knew what it was doing. In both states the response on the state and local level was effectively the same.

They had the same delays, the same problems, exactly the same. The difference is politics. The Republicans in Mississippi won't publicly chastize the administration. But there have been plenty of reports in newspapers that, in private, individuals like Trent Lott and Gov. Barbour are just as angry with the response.

Now, I make my disclaimer that there were failures in the local govs of Louisiana. To ignore those would be innane. But to lay all the blame on the local gov of Louisiana, and then state that Mississippi ran smashingly well, and that the difference is democrats vs. republicans, is just depressingly sad. Mississippi fared just as well as Louisiana in its handling of the emegency.[/QUOTE]

I live in Mississippi and Barbour was pissed about the federal response. it's just the media gave little coverage of Mississippi on a national level. it was NO all day.

I discussed the media coverage with a class i teach at Mississippi State University. The problem was no one really saw how bad it was Mississippi. That is why people like Kanye West said "George Bush doesn't care about bblack people" because he never saw the destruction that took place in MS. plus, there was an emphasis to show a place people knew about, like NO, rather than rural places in Mississippi.