Now this is just absolutely unbelievable:
“Saturday and Sunday, we thought it was a typical hurricane situation — not to say it wasn’t going to be bad, but that the water would drain away fairly quickly,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Brown said today. “Then the levees broke and (we had) this lawlessness. That almost stopped our efforts.” …“Katrina was much larger than we expected,” he said.
Ladies and gentlemen, the man who is in charge of our nation’s disaster relief efforts is either a clueless idiot or a shameless liar.
I am so angry, I am shaking as I write this, and I find myself almost at a loss for words. Instead of writing out rational thoughts, I’d rather just scream my head off. There are so many insults I want to hurl at this buffoon, so many utterly obvious points I want to make that definitively prove what a complete asshat he is, I don’t know where to begin. But let me try.
No one — NO ONE — who knows anything about New Orleans’s geography and topography and levee system would ever have thought for a single moment on Saturday and Sunday that Katrina, if it followed the predicted path, was going to be a “typical hurricane situation.” Jesus Christ!! For how many years now has this article been out there?!? And this one? And many more like them? Did Michael Brown never read them? Was he not familiar with the science? Was FEMA’s director unaware of what has been acknowledged for many years as the #1 most serious natural disaster threat in all of America?!? (Or, more immediately, did he not read the National Weather Service’s statement on Sunday morning which predicted that Katrina would cause “human suffering incredible by modern standards”?)
If the braintrust running this country really thought that “the water would drain away fairly quickly” after a direct hit on New Orleans from a major hurricane, then my God, our country is run by the most absolutely incompetent bunch of nitwits imaginable. The city is below sea level. Once it floods, there is nowhere for the water to “drain away” to! Everyone knows this!!!
Wasn’t the government studying this stuff? Didn’t they have all sorts of “war games” and disaster drills, because they had been told by the scientists that the exact scenario that was being predicted on Saturday and Sunday would produce a catastrophic, months-long flood in New Orleans? So what the FUCK is Michael Brown talking about? (I’m sorry, I don’t swear on my blog very often, but this is just absolutely fucking ridiculous.)
And “larger than expected”?!? Katrina WEAKENED at the last minute, its western eyewall virtually collapsed, and it turned AWAY from New Orleans, moving 40 miles east of the city instead of moving directly overhead! It was substantially smaller, weaker and less bad than expected!!!
(NOTE: To any new readers who were not following my coverage of the hurricane last weekend, please DO NOT accuse me of using “20/20 hindsight” or “Monday-morning quarterbacking.” It will only make me angry, as it’s completely false. I — and everyone else who was paying attention — saw this coming, not in retrospect but as it was happening. Look here if you don’t believe me. Although it was by no means certain on Saturday and Sunday that Katrina would hit New Orleans, the threat of it doing so was as severe as a hurricane threat can ever be, given the limitations of our current forecasting technology. If Katrina on Saturday and Sunday did not amount to something more than a “typical hurricane situation,” then there is NO SUCH THING as something more than a “typical hurricane situation” at 24-48 hours out.)
This is completely and utterly outrageous. If the director of FEMA really thought on Saturday and Sunday that Katrina would, if it followed the predicted path, be a “typical hurricane situation,” and that “the water would drain away fairly quickly,” then he should be fired on the spot for being ignorant and incompetent to the point that he has no business working as a low-level functionary at FEMA, let alone as its director. And if he didn’t really think that, but is just saying it in order to spin the political fallout from the hurricane, then he should be fired on the spot for being a dirty, filthy, stinking liar.
Either way, Michael Brown must go. This man has no business running FEMA, especially not at a time like this. My God.
Unbelievable.
P.S. I also cannot believe that Dan Turner, the Gannett “reporter” who wrote the article that includes Brown’s quote, let Brown get away with his outrageous statements — which are, again, either outright lies or clear evidence of criminal incompetence. And it gets worse! Not only did Turner fail to rebut Brown’s words with any of the abundant and irrefutable facts that show how wrong he was, he actually backed Brown up by quoting a Florida official who makes his claimed ignorance sound reasonable:
Brig. Gen. Richard Flemming of the Florida National Guard backed Brown’s characterization of the unusual circumstances affecting FEMA’s response to Katrina.Flemming, a veteran of six hurricane clean-up efforts in the past 16 months, said none of the four hurricanes that hit Florida last year were nearly as destructive as Katrina.
Well, gee, ya think?!? It’s not like everyone who was remotely paying attention knew for years that a major hurricane hitting New Orleans would be much more destructive than any prior hurricane in all of American history! And it’s not like the official National Hurricane Center forecasts from 11:00 PM Friday onward consistently called for exactly the track that would cause just that sort of destruction! Oh wait… yes, yes that’s exactly what it’s like!! Except FEMA was apparently out of the loop!
How dare the media let FEMA get away with this charade? Journalists of America, is it not your job to expose the powerful when they are either lying to the public or failing the public because of their incompetence? Brown’s statement leaves no plausible room for doubt that one of those two things has occurred here. So expose it!!! Don’t settle for the shameful, week-kneed journalistic sycophantism of Gannett’s Dan Turner! Expose Michael Brown for the fraud he is!
UPDATE: The Washington Post has more on the broader failures here, of which Brown’s ridiculous statements are only a symptom:
The killer hurricane and flood that devastated the Gulf Coast last week exposed fatal weaknesses in a federal disaster response system retooled after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to handle just such a cataclysmic event.Despite four years and tens of billions of dollars spent preparing for the worst, the federal government was not ready when it came at daybreak on Monday, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior officials and outside experts.
Among the flaws they cited: Failure to take the storm seriously before it hit and trigger the government’s highest level of response. Rebuffed offers of aid from the military, states and cities. An unfinished new plan meant to guide disaster response. And a slow bureaucracy that waited until late Tuesday to declare the catastrophe “an incident of national significance,” the new federal term meant to set off the broadest possible relief effort.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!
The article goes on:
[T]he warnings about New Orleans’s vulnerability to post-hurricane flooding repeatedly circulated at the upper levels of the new [Homeland Security] bureaucracy, which had absorbed the old lead agency for disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among its two dozen fiefdoms. “Beyond terrorism, this was the one event I was most concerned with always,” said Joe M. Allbaugh, the former Bush campaign manager who served as his first FEMA head.But several current and former senior officials charged that those worries were never accorded top priority — either by FEMA’s management or their superiors in DHS. Even when officials held a practice run, as they did in an exercise dubbed “Hurricane Pam” last year, they did not test for the worst-case scenario, rehearsing only what they would do if a Category 3 storm hit New Orleans, not the Category 4 power of Katrina. And after Pam, the planned follow-up study was never completed, according to a FEMA official involved.
The article proceeds with a damning indictment of how FEMA’s absorption into the Homeland Security Department resulted in the de-prioritization of hurricane preparation in favor of more and more focus on terrorism. Although there are certainly political axes-to-grind at work here, it is also clear that something is very, very wrong. And as far as I’m concerned, it starts with Michael Brown. Just go back and read that again: “Saturday and Sunday, we thought it was a typical hurricane situation … that the water would drain away fairly quickly. … Katrina was much larger than we expected.” Wow. Wow. I have never been more angry at my government — ever.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Michelle Malkin finds another quote where Brown said that “as late as last Sunday he expected Katrina to be a ’standard hurricane’ even though the National Weather Service in New Orleans was already predicting ‘human suffering incredible by modern standards.’”
Brown’s incompetence is incredible by modern standards. And yet Bush thinks he’s doing “a heck of job.” Jesus Christ.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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September 4th, 2005 at 7:04:51 am
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html
I agree Brendan. Comptetence is key.
September 4th, 2005 at 7:14:42 am
Thanks for saying this Brendan. The way Bush, et al had their “round of applause” for Brown at one of the press conferences on the ground disgusted me.
The only stupider quote I’ve read this weekend is from the Mexican National Team coach after the US kicked their butts 2-0 to qualify for World Cup 2006:
“The U.S. is a small team,” Ricardo Lavolpe said. “They play like my sister, my aunt and my grandmother.”
September 4th, 2005 at 7:20:47 am
My point linking the wapo article was Brown, Blanco and Nagin. Get them out of the way.
September 4th, 2005 at 7:24:02 am
Quote from a story on Michael Brown in the 9/3/2005 Boston Herald:
“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.”
So it’s possible that both of your explanations are valid ones: “ignorant and incompetent” and “spin the political fallout”.
You’d think that they could just say “we didn’t react quickly enough; we need to do better; now let’s get on with fixing the problems”.
September 4th, 2005 at 7:44:01 am
There will be time for investigations and finger-pointing.
But I think you overestimate the role of the FEMA head, who is not a technical expert but a bureaucrat.
I suspect the experts making the calls were well aware of the potential for a worst-case scenario, but it is easier in hindsight to see what happened as inevitable, when even after the initial storm passed, it looked like it was, more or less, a typical hurricane situation.
As late as 11PM Saturday, the storm was still weak and its trajectory still far from certain. According to your own blog, the chance of NOT hitting NOLA was 71% as late as Sunday morning.
I don’t really see what FEMA could have done to significantly improve the response (meaning saving many more lives, or reducing the scale of the devastation). Moving relief assets into the center of the storm before it hit seems like it would have just rendered those assets as useless as everything else in NO. There was never going to be an easy, quick fix to this unprecedented disaster.
September 4th, 2005 at 7:52:49 am
There is going to be one HELL of a case study on how not to run a disaster plan from this.
Clusterf*cking all around.
/ btw Brendan, disregard all of my benefit of doubt I gave the Mayor last week. He IS inept!
September 4th, 2005 at 7:53:41 am
There will be time for investigations and finger-pointing.
Oh, so I should just sit on my hands while the director of FEMA lies to the American public?!?!?
But I think you overestimate the role of the FEMA head, who is not a technical expert but a bureaucrat.
I don’t give a shit what he is, his statements are so COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS that no one in any relevant position of authority should be making them. Or rather, no one who would make such statements should be in any relevant position of authority.
I suspect the experts making the calls were well aware of the potential for a worst-case scenario, but it is easier in hindsight to see what happened as inevitable, when even after the initial storm passed, it looked like it was, more or less, a typical hurricane situation.
DON’T YOU TALK TO ME ABOUT “HINDSIGHT”!!! IT ABSOLUTELY DID NOT LOOK LIKE A “TYPICAL HURRICANE SITUATION”!!! NO FUCKING WAY!!! NOT TO ME, AND NOT TO ANYONE ELSE WHO WAS PAYING ATTENTION!!!
As late as 11PM Saturday, the storm was still weak and its trajectory still far from certain.
WEAK????? The storm had115 mph winds at 11PM Saturday, making it a Category 3 MAJOR HURRICANE, and it was FORECAST TO MAKE LANDFALL WITH 145 MPH WINDS, and the Hurricane Center was already saying it might very well become a CATEGORY FIVE, and indeed some meteorologically trained people were saying that was very, very likely to occur… and the computer models had a very tight consensus around a New Orleans landfall, and the forecast track had barely changed at in 24 hours, and Hurricane Warnings were up for New Orleans. YOU COULD NOT HAVE A BIGGER THREAT THAN THAT! Of course it was not certain to come true, hurricane threats are never certain to come true, but given our current technology it was literally THE MOST SERIOUS THREAT YOU COULD POSSIBLY HAVE at 24 hours out.
According to your own blog, the chance of NOT hitting NOLA was 71% as late as Sunday morning.
That is because hurricane forecasting is ALWAYS uncertain. But you could not possibly have a more serious risk at 24-48 hours out as you did with Katrina. It is not possible. It was the most serious risk you could EVER have. A 29% strike probability at 24 hours out is actually very high.
Bottom line, your memory is completely incorrect, and you have no idea what you are talking about. I’m sorry to be harsh, but that is the truth.
And, again, don’t you dare talk to me about “hindsight.” I had this thing nailed from the beginning. That is demonstrably true if you peruse archives of my blog… or you can just look at the handy summaries prepared by InstaPundit and Kausfiles. I wish to God I had been wrong, but I wasn’t. And it’s not like I was going out of a limb or making some crazy predictions that just happened by dumb luck to come true. I was simply going with what the National Hurricane Center was saying, and then applying it to my knowledge of how deadly serious the threat to New Orleans was. At one point I said something like “if there was a 10% chance of a nuclear bomb going off in your city on Monday, you’d evacuate, wouldn’t you?” But few others were paying adequate attention, even though it was painfully obvious AT THE TIME (not in hindsight) that they needed to. And apparently FEMA’s head thought a Category 4 or 5 hurricane hitting New Orleans was no big deal (since that is what was being predicted on Saturday and Sunday, and he thought that was a “normal hurricane situation”). ARGH.
September 4th, 2005 at 7:55:25 am
“11PM Saturday, the storm was still weak”
What you talking about there boy?
On Friday night the storm was already the third strongest hurricane ever recorded on the basis of barometric pressure. I saw this in real time at the weatherunderground blog. Get real. Pilots were flying into the storm and coming back in awe, calling it the most perfect hurricane they’d ever seen.
September 4th, 2005 at 7:58:22 am
On Friday night the storm was already the third strongest hurricane ever recorded on the basis of barometric pressure. I saw this in real time at the weatherunderground blog. Get real. Pilots were flying into the storm and coming back in awe, calling it the most perfect hurricane they’d ever seen
Actually I don’t believe that occurred until Saturday night / actually the wee hours of Sunday morning. But the point stands, LagunaDave has no clue what he’s talking about. What’s far more disturbing is, neither does the director of FEMA.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:09:34 am
The nights have sort of bled into one at this point. Correction acknowledged. Kat was what, Cat 4 by Friday night?
September 4th, 2005 at 8:11:44 am
No. Saturday night & the wee hours of Sunday morning was when she blew up from a minimal Cat. 3 into a Cat. 5. I remember it well, as I stayed up all night watching it happen. Katrina was, at most, a Cat. 3 Friday night… maybe still a Cat. 2, I don’t recall. But, it was already clear from the forecast that there was a very good chance she would BECOME a Cat. 4 or 5 by the end of the weekend.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:24:44 am
“Ladies and gentlemen, the man who is in charge of our nation’s disaster relief efforts is either a clueless idiot or a shameless liar.”
Id go with fucking moron.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:30:53 am
I’m with you all the way Brendan.
We have property on the beach in Gulf Shores that was truck by Ivan last year, and watch these things closely.
The risk was great enough Friday that I would have high-tailed it out of New Orleans and taken everyone I knew with me.
So no, I’m not accepting excuses.
I live in Vidalia, LA, about 180 miles north of NO. I’d no earthly idea everyone was so ill-prepared.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:31:23 am
Michelle Malkin agrees with you 100% Brendan.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:35:18 am
E-gad. Brown had said some marginally stupid things before this, but that just takes the cake.
Did he not look at FEMA’s OWN LIST of disasters? If he had, he’d have seen this - that a hurricane hitting New Orleans was the THRID MOST LIKELY DEADLY DISASTER TO HAPPEN IN THE US!
FEMA’s head has no idea what he’s talking about. “This looked like a normal storm situation” my butt. According to FEMA’s own estimation, this was anything BUT a normal storm situation - it was one of the disasters most feared by FEMA. But Brown was too incompitent to know that, or too much of a liar to acknowledge it now.
Unbelievable. This man needs a one way ticket out of FEMA.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:35:23 am
Kat didn’t become a Cat 3 until Saturday. Her winds went from 115 mph to 145 mph during the evening hours of Saturday, and by the time I awoke on Sunday morning, her winds were at 175 mph. But you’re correct - the bloggers over at wunderground.com were predicting doom as early as Saturday morning and afternoon. As were you, Brendan. As was I (a follower of hurricanes for only about the last 3 yrs). As was anyone with more than a remote interest in the tropics and a basic knowledge of the fact the NOLA lies below sea level.
Not that it matters now.
I will assume that there WILL be a formal investigation into the failures at the local, state, and federal level.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:36:31 am
Geez Brendan, why get so nasty?
Most of what I know about the storm I learned from your reporting (which I’m very grateful for and just spent 5 hours reading the archives of). The numbers in question concerning wind speed, trajectory and strike probability all come from you, or sources you linked to.
My point is simply that there will be a paper trail a mile long, and plenty of fodder for multiple investigations of what plans were or weren’t followed. To accuse the guy of being an idiot or lying seems like jumping to unwarranted conclusions.
The quote you posted seems accurate as far as it goes. The levee breaks were what turned this into an order of magnitude bigger problem than anything experienced before, and it’s not so surprising that this threw a wrench into FEMA’s evolving relief plans.
You yourself posted on Saturday afternoon:
“We’re at a critical moment in Hurricane Katrina’s development right now. The next few hours are probably the last, best chance for a serious disruption that could ultimately prevent Katrina from making landfall as a monster hurricane.”
Your fellow blogger Jeff Masters said at the same time “While the odds of a catastrophic hit that would completely flood the city of New Orleans are probably 10%, that is way too high in my opinion to justify leaving the people in the city.”
And of course, you and he were both right in fearing the worst, unfortunately. But that doesn’t mean the head of FEMA is a liar or a dolt. We know that President Bush urged the Mayor into a mandatory evacuation, when he had delayed far too long, and that would indicate to me that somebody in Washington had a clue, if not a crystal ball.
In fact, well informed and fairly pessimistic observers like the two of you seemed to agree that there was a possibility of the worst case, but not a likelihood or a certainty. A 10% chance of the worst case means a 90% of better than worse case, and I repeat that even if you had been sitting in the FEMA director’s chair, or the Oval Office, with 100% cooperation from the local authorities, which did not happen in reality, I don’t see how you could have mitigated more than a few percent of the human or material costs in the time available. There was going to be a huge problem if everything went wrong, and it did, and there is.
All aspects of the response to the disaster will be investigated by every level of government, you can be sure of that. All I’m saying is that hasty, emotional reactions are not necessarily the most reliable.
Thanks again for your excellent coverage.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:40:37 am
LagunaDave, I apologize for “getting nasty.” As you can tell, I feel very passionately about this. I’m sorry for insulting you. However I still ferociously disagree with you. Brown’s words, on their face, are absolutely ridiculous. I have already proven that, so I’m not going to go back and argue it again. Just go back and read what I said, about his actual words and why that make no sense. For God’s sake, the National Weather Service was predicting “suffering incredible by human standards,” and he was still thinking this was a “typical hurricane situation”??? And he thought that a below-sea-level city was going to “drain quickly”??? There is no possible justification for what he said. If that is really what FEMA believed — that it was a normal hurricane situation, that the city would flood and then “drain away,” and that Katrina was going to come ashore as something less than she did — then, well, God help us all. And if that’s not what he believed, then he’s a liar. End of story. I mean, go ahead and try to disprove that. You haven’t yet, and you can’t, because it’s true.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:48:13 am
LagunaDave - great post!
September 4th, 2005 at 8:51:38 am
Brown should quit before he embarrasses himself further.
Might I point out that we would have had an experienced public safety official running DHS, former NYC police commissioner Bernard Kerik, before the media decided his nanny and mistress problems made him unfit to serve.
September 4th, 2005 at 8:54:40 am
Well said Brendan.
I’m writing from the UK where the news bulletins were reporting the threat of Katrina to New Orleans in the couple of days before she hit. It was being reported in very serious terms, so much so that it had *me* scared, and I’m thousands of miles away and with no connections to the city. So, it seems incredible that the head of FEMA didn’t appreciate the severity of the threat.
Can I just say how sorry I am for the people who have lost so much - wish I could help more than just giving a donation. Well, I’m hoping and praying that things get better before long.
Pat
September 4th, 2005 at 8:56:58 am
Mr Brown, a tragic lesson in the dangers of cronyism.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_08_28.php
September 4th, 2005 at 9:01:25 am
I’m with you, LagunaDave. I have friends in Gulfport, Pascagoula, Hattiesburg, Mobile, Dauphin Island, Pensacola, and a number of points in between. I have friends that work for the local power company, the local law-enforcement agencies, the local school system (If a school is to be used as a shelter, the school’s principal will open it and hang around until after the storm passes.), and local emergency services. I have never, ever, known anyone who relied on the advice of local, state, or federal authorities to make an evacuation decision. I simply can’t imagine anyone betting their safety on the opinions of someone else. In short, I don’t any reason to blame FEMA or the NO mayor or Bush or any of these other folks.
If you life in a flood-prone area, you move to where it doesn’t flood. If you are near a lot of trees, you move to where there are not a lot of trees. Assume you will be without power and, possibly, water for a few days. Have enough food and water to stay alive. Buy a radio and a flashlight. Park your car where nothing can fall on it. Fill up your tank. Get ready to sweat. That’s about it.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:02:35 am
P.S. “hasty, emotional reactions are not necessarily the most reliable”
Thanks, Treebeard. :) But, although emotional, my reaction also has the added benefit of being obviously correct. The facts are so clear that I see no need to wait for some sort of cooling-off period. For God’s sake, just read what the man said. His own words are enough to establish a prima facie case of complete incompetence.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:04:00 am
I have never, ever, known anyone who relied on the advice of local, state, or federal authorities to make an evacuation decision. I simply can’t imagine anyone betting their safety on the opinions of someone else. In short, I don’t any reason to blame FEMA or the NO mayor or Bush or any of these other folks.
Even if I accept all of that as true, it does not change one iota of my post. That is all completely irrelevant. I was not discussing what people did or would have done in response to Brown’s opinions. I was merely discussing Brown’s words. The fact remains that, based on his own words, Brown is either incompetent or he’s lying.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:07:32 am
Even with a low probability of total destruction, it would have behooved the city to get the most vulnerable people out early.
That could likely have been handled by the state — further needs of housing, security, etc.
But for him to stand and say that he thought it would be an average storm — no, the guy should leave because he’s too tone deaf to stay.
Hell, I didn’t think Dennis would be an average storm, though there was no risk to NO with that one.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:08:47 am
P.S. One more thing to LagunaDave:
In fact, well informed and fairly pessimistic observers like the two of you seemed to agree that there was a possibility of the worst case, but not a likelihood or a certainty. A 10% chance of the worst case means a 90% of better than worse case, and I repeat that even if you had been sitting in the FEMA director’s chair, or the Oval Office, with 100% cooperation from the local authorities, which did not happen in reality, I don’t see how you could have mitigated more than a few percent of the human or material costs in the time available. There was going to be a huge problem if everything went wrong, and it did, and there is.
Will you quit it with the straw-man argument about “likelihoods” and “certainties”? There is no such thing as a certainty in weather forecasting, nor is there even any such thing as a “likelihood” with regard to exact landfall points at 24 and 48 hours out. But you literally cannot have a higher probability of a storm hitting a particular spot on the shoreline at 48 hours out than you did with this storm hitting New Orleans at 48 hours out. Same at 24 hours out. It wasn’t a certainty (DUH) and it wasn’t a likelihood, but it was as much of a threat as you could ever possibly have. So unless Brown believes that there is NO SUCH THING as a forecast that goes beyond the “typical hurricane situation,” his words are completely ridiculous.
As for the rest of what you said, you are correct to some extent, but that’s not the point. I’m not arguing results here, I’m arguing about what this bozo said. Also, I would argue that “a few percent of the human or material costs” is very significant, when you’re talking about thousands of lives and many billions of dollars. But even if not, that’s not the point. The point is that Brown either had no clue what was going on, or he is lying about it now. I hate to be a broken record, but there is literally no other explanation for his words.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:08:58 am
Right now all the reactions are emotional.
If they weren’t, then NOLA mayor would have never been given serious credence with his Thursday radio rant.
The fact is no one truly believed the sky was falling and that was certainly the tone of the cable news coverage.
Armchair quartebacking or ascribing a stopped-clock rightness is unhelpful, and when in the hands of demagogues, downright unhelpful and dangerous.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:10:51 am
If that is really what FEMA believed — that it was a normal hurricane situation, that the city would flood at then “drawin away,”
There were (and are) pumps, right? Before the levees broke, it was basically believed that the water would be a short-term issue.
Even the morning after the storm, FEMA’s “disaster inspector” was telling CNN:
“The levees will hold. The main levee protection system will hold…But we do have a freshwater flooding problem.”
Now maybe Mike Majonos is also a liar or an idiot - obviously his prediction was wrong. But it may have been the most accurate assessment they had at the time. And similar assessments may have been reaching Washington from people on the scene before the storm hit. There will be records of every report that was made, and we’ll know eventually.
and that Katrina was going to come ashore as something less than she did — then, well, God help us all. And if that’s not what he believed, then he’s a liar.
Well, if that’s what he believed, or the experts reporting to him believed, they were almost right. If the levees had held for another day, while things settled down, we would have a big mess to clean up, but maybe not the doomsday scenario that putting the whole city underwater has resulted in.
And I still don’t see how the Feds could have done substantially more in the days leading up to the strike. Orders were sent to some National Guard units on the 27th. Guard members have 72 hours to report, and I would think you want to see what areas are wiped out and what areas still have the minimal infrastructure needed to serve as forward bases before you start shipping people and supplies into the path of a hurricane.
Anyway, I don’t doubt that FEMA’s response was less than perfect. I’ve seen nothing to suggest they’ve made the disaster significantly worse, though, and they are doing a lot of good under the worst conditions trying to help people.
Someday I’m sure we’ll be able to read every memo that was exchanged during the days immediately before and after the storm. I suspect they will mainly show people doing the best they could, but not always making the right calls every time (both locally and nationally). Of course we have to learn how to do better next time, god forbid there is one, but I’m not ready to call for witch-hunts or condemn people before the complete record is on the table.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:11:10 am
As a fellow Floridian, I have learned there is NOTHING predictable about a hurricane. It always seems to take a bump, or move one way or another before it hits land. I agree the comments are uncalled for, either foolish or a man who does not know what he is doing.
I have to say Bush may be trying to give the people positive hope. If you find out the person that is in charge of relief efforts is a stupid idoit, how defeating.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:12:23 am
The fact remains that, based on his own words, Brown is either incompetent or he’s lying.
I’m not going to defend Brown as I think he is at best ‘out of his depth’. Nor do I feel that your hot words are unjustified.
However if Brown goes, do you have any problem if he takes the useless Mayor and the even more useless Governor with him? Their performance CAUSED this to be as bad as it was(as you have pointed out previously). And I used the word ’caused’ advisedly. How did these people ever get elected to anything?
September 4th, 2005 at 9:14:46 am
The case you’ve established is irrefutable. Brown is incompetent to run FEMA and must go.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:26:22 am
Before the levees broke, it was basically believed that the water would be a short-term issue.
No it wasn’t!! This is revisionist history at its worst!! According to all the studies, the ones Brown should have been aware of, it was believed that, if the storm made a direct hit — as it was forecasted to do all day Saturday and Sunday — the city would be flooded by the storm surge (not a slow rise caused by a levee breach) and would submerged for months! This was the “worse-case scenario” and it was what everyone feared on Saturday and Sunday!! You are defending Brown on the basis of a brief, 6-12 hour period on Monday (nor Saturday or Sunday) when it looks like New Orleans might have “dodged the bullet” (though even then, the 9th Ward was flooded).
THAT is why “the morning after the storm,” as you say, they were saying the levees will hold — but that’s not what Brown was looking at on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday and Sunday, we were looking at a very real possibility of a direct hit, in which case everyone knew there was absolutely no chance the levees would hold.
I can’t believe you’re clinging to this argument, LagunaDave. If you want to argue that “Brown’s words are indeed ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter because X Y and Z,” that at least would be plausible. But… “a typical hurricane”?? That’s absolutely ridiculous, how can you not see that?? EVERYTHING that we knew about the hurricane on Saturday and Sunday told us it was not “typical”! A 175 mph hurricane, the third-most-intense hurricane in the history of the Atlantic basin, forecasted to make a direct hit on the city universally recognized to be the most vulnerable of all American cities… a typical hurricane requiring nothing more than a normal FEMA response??? That’s ABSURD!
September 4th, 2005 at 9:31:15 am
I’m with you, LagunaDave. I have friends in Gulfport, Pascagoula, Hattiesburg, Mobile, Dauphin Island, Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Robertsdale, Pensacola, and a number of points in between. I have friends that work for the local power company, the local law-enforcement agencies, the local school system (If a school is to be used as a shelter, the school’s principal will open it and hang around until after the storm passes.), and local emergency services. I have never, ever, known anyone who relied on the advice of local, state, or federal authorities to make an evacuation decision. I simply can’t imagine anyone betting their safety on the opinions of someone else. In short, I don’t see any reason to blame FEMA or the NO mayor or Bush or anyone else for an individual’s decision to ride out a hurricane.
I’ll make it easy for y’all. If you live in a flood-prone area, move to higher ground. If you live near trees, move to where there are no trees. Assume you won’t have power or water for several days. Have enough food and water to last for those several days. Buy a radio and a flashlight. Get a full tank of gas. Park your car where nothing will land on it. Be friends with your neighbors. (If it’s a really bad hurricane, you’ll be seeing a lot of them.) Be prepared to sweat. Bitch if you want to, but don’t expect anyone to listen: They’re problems are probably worse than yours.
Oh, by the way, excellent call on the hurricane’s path, Brendan. I personally thought it would continue a little west. (Although, earlier in the week, I figured it would hit Penscola. Everything hits Penscola these days.) You should remind your readers, however, that the real destructive force of a hurricane is on it’s east side; NO was on the west side. The people in southwest Mississippi suffered much more damage than NO. NO just gets all the MSM attention. And the Mississippi Gulf Coast is a heavily populated area. Everyone I know who lives down there lost everthing they own. I’m not discounting the damage in NO; I’m just pointing out where the most serious damage is.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:35:26 am
unfortunately, as with most government agencies most folks will say FEMA needs more $ and new personel, not that it is useless to begin with. Chances are they will create a new agency to look after the current agency. lesson, don’t count on gov, not for disaster relief, your retirement, or your health, prepare yourself.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:42:33 am
Brendon, I’ve been following your blog since the beginning of the hurricane and you’ve done a superb job here.
Brown’s statement, “Katrina was much larger than we expected,” he was referring to the hundreds of square miles of Al, Miss, and La not necessarily NO in particular. I say this as one who watched the press conference live on WWLTV yesterday morning. Granted there is certain amount of CYA here as it is a bureaucrat’s default position, but as I watched the press conference it appeared to me that the adults were finally in charge.
Now far be it from me to defend a bureaucrat or politician, but they are still pulling folks out of attics and rooftops one at a time. There will be plenty of time to play the blame game later.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:44:35 am
The comment he made could only possibly make sense if you substitute “Monday and Tuesday” for “Saturday and Sunday”. After Katrina hit, and before the levee failed, was the time when decisions about where to direct initial responses were being made. I can see how they would be fooled at that point, but NOT before it made landfall.
My opinion is that Bush was clued in better than the locals about what needed to be done ASAP - maybe because of his brother’s advice? - and Brown was not. I’d nominate Jeb for FEMA director, but we need him here in FL until hurricane season is over. ;-)
September 4th, 2005 at 9:45:21 am
Lets hope there is a major shake-up of FEMA after this debacle. I cannot believe that conspiracy nuts ever feared that organisation.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:46:29 am
Mike, I actually thought at one point it would go a bit west of New Orleans too. I didn’t “call” it so much as recognize that, as long as New Orleans was in the center of the “cone” of danger, it was a very serious threat to that city, because of the unique conditions in that city. I focued on New Orleans because a hurricane hitting New Orleans is worse than a hurricane hitting anywhere else, not because I thought it would definitely hit there. Why some local and federal officials apparently did not share my urgency about New Orleans is beyond me.
As for Mississippi… you are right that they got by far the worse wind damage… although ultimately “I’m not discounting the damage in NO; I’m just pointing out where the most serious damage is” is not exactly true; the damage in NO is just as “serious,” in the sense that whole sections of the city will have to be demolished — it doesn’t get much more serious than that. But, you are absolutely right, the wind damage was much more severe in MS; the damage in NO is mostly from the levee breach, which was of course caused by the hurricane, but is nevertheless a very different kind of damage. And yes, it’s true that Mississippi is getting the short end of the media attention stick. They’re much like the Pentagon on 9/11. Just as that attack was the most deadly and audacious attack in American history except for the one that had happened an hour earlier in New York, what happened in Mississippi is the most deadly hurricane hit in decades, except for what happened in New Orleans.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:49:06 am
Brown’s statement, “Katrina was much larger than we expected,” he was referring to the hundreds of square miles of Al, Miss, and La not necessarily NO in particular.
If so, it’s still wrong. Katrina’s physical growth into a huge hurricane occurred throughout the weekend. By Sunday it was quite clear that it was a huge storm. So to say “much larger than we expected”… just not true.
There will be plenty of time to play the blame game later.
I am not playing any game. I am correcting misstatements by the leaders of my country. If they weren’t misleading the public, I wouldn’t have to correct them. I will not wait until some indefinite future point to correct lies that are being told NOW.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:50:31 am
This is just a tantrum. You’ve demonstrated nothing. You misinterpret an ostensible quote from our notoriously unreliable press, and deduce that someone’s an idiot.
As an obvious example, where did this “idiot” say that the water was supposed to drain out OF THE CITY? Once the water’s in town it won’t go anywhere. D’uh. That’s not what the quote says, though. A storm surge which fails to top or break (not the same thing, there) the levee doesn’t just stay there in perpetuity - it eventually “drains away fairly quickly” (as in, a matter of hours), like the man said. Is that what he meant? I don’t know, and neither do you.
Maybe he’s a poltroon, maybe he isn’t. I have no insight into that at all. But attack the man for what he said, not for what you fantasize he said.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:55:20 am
Even if your (extremely tenuous) interpretation of his “drainage” comment were accurate, there is still absolutely no way to justify his statement that he believed on Saturday and Sunday that Katrina would be a “typical hurricane,” when the official forecasts on those days were consistently calling for a Category 4 or 5 hit on the must vulnerable city in the U.S., where experts had for years predicted catastrophic flooding from just such a storm, and the National Weather Service was predicting “human suffering incredible by modern standards.” And a quote along those lines (”typical hurricane,” “normal hurricane”) comes from two different media sources. Is it possible he didn’t say anything of the sort? I suppose, but it would have to be a complete and utter change in the meaning, not just a slight word choice difference or something… because if he said anything of the sort, it’s ridiculous. So, if there’s evidence that the media fabricated this quote or something, I’ll judge that evidence when I see it. From what I’ve seen so far, though, I am quite satisfied that Brown has aptly demonstrated his incapacity to lead FEMA.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:56:08 am
I am so effin’ pissed at readin’ how the FEDS or FEMA failed NO I’m ready to chew nails. Why am I not hearin’ the same public bitchin’ and howlin’ from all the people in Mississippi and Alabama? They took the direct hit? They had their entire Gulf coastlines totally wiped from the map!
Lots ‘n lots ‘n lots of people didn’t believe it would be as bad as it was. Lots ‘n lots ‘n lots of people deliberately stayed ’cause they figured it was 1) over hyped or 2) they survived Camille in ‘69 and, hey, what could be worse?
Where was Brown gettin’ his info from? The NO local and LA state officials. Obviously they weren’t panicked since Bush was the one requesting Gov. “Cry me a river” Blanco to order mandatory evacs. Mayor “I got my family out on Friday” Nagin and “I never got off my fat ass” Ebbert didn’t have those big yellow (now flooded) busses stationed in the poorer areas ready to load up and move out. The levee that was breeched was the one levee that had been upgraded and declared “hurricane proof.” And even I remember hearin’ how if the water came over the top, the pumps would drain it out pretty quickly.
I went through a direct hit by a Cat. 1 hurricane 2 years ago. Until the very last minute (and I mean just a few hours) it was bein’ hyped as a Cat. 2 or even Cat. 3. News people were shriekin’ over the airwaves. Not bein’ right next to a river/lake/Gulf, I stayed, but was prepared for long periods with no power. I didn’t sit around waitin’ for the US Gov’t. or the State or local hacks to show up and take me personally step by step through the preparations.
When a disaster hits, the chain of responsiblity flows UPWARD from local to federal. It’s the way our government is structured, if ya’ recall your history lessons. Nat’l. Guard and rescue teams were staged outside the area for obvious reasons. (Even our Guard MP units were put on alert here, over 1,000 miles away.) When the Interstate bridges were wiped out, how were heavy supply trucks and tankers supposed to get through? Did the people expect the 82nd Airborne to drop from the skies while being picked off by the scum snipers on the ground?
Yeah, all the bloggers were predictin’ a 10% chance of catastrophe, but we’re an excitable lot, often fueled by rumors. (Recall the “cannibalism” rumor?) Should Brown have depended upon our assessments or the NO officials?
Brown’s comments should never have been said out loud, but I don’t think he or Bush or any other Fed is an idiot/fool/incompetent for believin’ what the local, on-the-spot gov’t. was tellin’ ‘em.
September 4th, 2005 at 9:58:37 am
I could shrug it off as another case of media mis-reporting if there weren’t so many differnt quotes from different sources.
And if you weren’t pissed enough… there are still people in flooded houses in NOLA who are telling rescuers they don’t want to leave. I can only assume they have no radios or other form of communication and don’t know how dire the situation is. Or they’re idiots.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:01:51 am
Harrison, read what the local National Weather Service in New Orleans was saying at 11:00 AM on Sunday, and then get back to me about how FEMA — which still believed this was just a “typical hurricane” at that point, according to Brown — was just “believin’ what the local, on-the-spot gov’t. was tellin’ ‘em.”
This blogger may be “excitable,” but I was also basing my predictions on SOLID DATA coming from such sources as the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center, computer models, and other meterologists. Whereas, by all apperances, Brown was living in a fantasy world.
God, I never knew it could be this frustrating to be completely right about something, and to know you’re completely right, beyond a shadow of a doubt. (Mind you, I’m not talking about being “completely right” about the broader issue of blame — that one is subject to debate — I’m only talking about the narrow issue of Brown’s idiotic comments, about which there is absolutely no way in Hell that I am wrong; all the opposing arguments are based on faulty premises, misunderstood facts, etc.)
I think I prefer to be the way I usually am on most issues: having an opinion, sometimes a strong one, but willing to be swayed. But on this issue, I know that I am right, I know it with every fiber of my being, and it is so damn frustrating to have people coming on here and arguing otherwise, because your information is wrong and I feel like it’s my personal mission to convince y’all of that. I guess now I understand a bit more why ideologues can get so crazed.
And I know that, if I disagreed with me, I would find the above two paragraphs extremely arrogant and I’d go off about it … but the thing is, I wouldn’t disagree with me, because I’M RIGHT! hee hee :)
September 4th, 2005 at 10:09:16 am
Brendan,
Actually, if you’re on the east side, the winds keep pushing water forward, creating the tidal surge that kills so many people. On the east side, it has the opposite effect. Of course, like you said, NO, with its flooding potential, is an entirely different problem.
By the way, I would listen to “Harrison.” suspect he’s from Harrison County, MS (Biloxi, etc.), which was destroyed by Katrina. He sounds like I felt when I first got power back and saw the attention New Orleans was getting . . . and the “who can we blame so it’s to our political advantage” mentality so prevalent in the MSM. There are real people with real problems down here.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:11:30 am
Concur with your analysis, but I see a different reason for Brown’s statements. The Administration has decided not to point fingers at the incompetent locals. So their only choice is to revise history to try to deflect MSM blame. It makes them not so much stupid as gutless.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:13:27 am
So surely you don’t support rebuilding New Orleans? “The city is below sea level,” like you say. That is what compounded the problem, Mississippi had whole towns flattened but barely any of the extended insanity/chaos of New Orleans.
Let’s review, rebuild a town in a (sinking) bowl, on the coast, in a hurricane zone, where some people can’t/won’t evacuate a mandatory order, with insufficient local evacuation planning, where the levees can’t resist what is likely? “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!”
September 4th, 2005 at 10:15:19 am
Mike,
I live on the Space Coast in FL and I am very interested in knowing who I can and can’t trust should a hurricane come my way in the next couple of months. This is relevant to me NOW, not when the investigation is complete next year sometime, although I’ll be watching that closely too.
I can donate to the Red Cross and begin to analyze what could have been done better at the same time. FEMA can not afford to do that right now, but I can.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:15:55 am
Ok, so I have this article in one place but no where else. Maybe it’s just me but It seems like it is a bombshell? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=100857
To summarize:
1.) Michael Brown gets fired from his job of 11 years judging horse shows.
2.) Michael Brown’s buddy hires him at FEMA.
3.) Michael Brown volunteers for Bush campaign.
4.) Michael Brown gets appointed the head of FEMA.
5.) Michael Brown’s horse show judging experience does not come in as handy as the Bush administration thinks it is going to be during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:17:31 am
I absolutely sympathize with the plight of people from Mississippi, as well as those from NOLA and everywhere else affected. That includes Harrison, if indeed he is one such person.
Doesn’t change my analysis of this particular issue, though…
P.S. New Orleans getting the lion’s share of the attention is pretty much inevitable, not because of some cynical MSM plot or whatever, but because it’s a major city, it’s effectively being destroyed, and there’s been more breaking news there all week, whereas in Mississippi, once the storm hit, the damage was done and it straight into the “aftermath.” In New Orleans the actual event, what was causing the damage itself, lasted much much longer.
I don’t blame Mississippians for not being comforted by that, I’m just saying it does actually make sense from a reporter’s perspective, entirely aside from any cynical reasons you might be able to come up with for it.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:20:58 am
ct, I totally agree with you. Thanks for making that point.
David, I am withholding judgment on that issue. Clearly, if they’re going to rebuild New Orleans in its current location, they absolutely must build a levee system that can withstand the most powerful hurricane imaginable. (Not to mention a terrorist attack, as surely Al Qaeda must have noticed all this and might be getting some ideas from it.) But beyond that, I’m not sure yet. Smarter people than me will need to hash that one out, make proposals and so forth, and eventually I’ll decide what I think, but at the moment I don’t know.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:20:58 am
Brendan, I am new to the blogoshpere and have been follwing your postings throughout katrina. Exceptional work, and the timestamping of your comments will be invaluable as we dissect the gov’s response. Your most recent comment is emotionally overwrought, understandably so. Brown’s comments to me are part of the administration’s campaign of spin control, and it is indeed mindboggling that this particular instance of spin is so laughable. Is he lying or spinning? I don’t know, its what politicians do. I also believe that it is representative of the opinions that Brown was passing on to the prez at that point in time. If so, consistent with an unimaginative political appointee who is out of his depth. I don’t know how much it would have mattered, at the end of the day, had FEMA’s advice been better. Sped up the relief operation by 24 hours? Don’t know, don’t understand the logistics. 24 hours would have saved a lot of lives and avoided a lot of human suffering.
In my mind the huge miss on the part of the Feds was how long it took to establsh military boots on the ground. I do not understand why NO wasn’t swarming with troops on Thursday at the absolute latest. That to me is the crux of the reaction story, since the logistics of establishing a military presence are a lot less dauntng than establishing a reliable supply chain of water and MREs for 100K survivors, let alone getting them out. What do we know about that?
Here’s my scenario of how it plays out. Sack Brown, replace with recess appointment of Rudy or Bernie. Federalize the whole effort in Louisiana, over the objections of the governor. Dare her to fight it out in the courts. Bush would regain the momentum in one fell swoop.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:28:23 am
The City of New Orleans website says they have over 7700 municipal employees. Unfortunately it appears the clueless Brown must have thought they would have spent the weekend preparing for the hurricane
September 4th, 2005 at 10:31:16 am
Brendan:
If anybody has the right to rant and rage about this, it’s you. I’m just dropping by to let you know that it was your blog that gave me the heads up about Katrina. I stumbled in here early last Saturday morning, via Instapundit. The whole day Saturday, as I read your posts and links, I became consumed by an overwhelming sense of dread over what was about to happen. And I live in Pennsylvania.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:39:23 am
Mr. Loy,
My, my, you certainly are testy, aren’t you? I admire your foresight at the track of the storm and your imagination at being able to see what would happen on the ground and in the city. I wish they had listened to you, Brendan.
But since they didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the crisis they were facing (for, really, do you think anyone — city, state or federal — deliberately planned to fail in this case), to what do you attribute the fact that they didn’t listen to you or to the men who wrote those prescient articles and studies? Is it just because you and the authors don’t have a big enough microphone or visibility or credibility as an expert? Or did the government folks just deliberately ignore your predictions?
And if you had a larger microphone or platform to get the word out, would you have been able to do better than Nagin, Blanco, and Brown at convincing people to leave New Orleans, and coordinating the evacuation and subsequent relief efforts?
I am impressed with your hurricane knowledge, but I do have some questions about whether you understand the process of handling the relief efforts, and whether you recognize just how hard it is in this country to make people do something they don’t want to do (leave their homes), and how hard inflammatory rhetoric makes things on the folks who actually have to do the rescuing and caregiving. I also find it counterproductive to begin blaming folks before the job is over, unless they are getting folks killed due to their incompetence. Since you obviously believe Mr. Brown is incompetent based on his statements, how do you feel he is doing on his actions? Is he responsible for killing those who were sick and too poor to fend for themselves? Or is that just the way the hurricane blows?
Have you ever been interviewed on live TV, Mr. Loy? It is quite a different experience than writing or speaking to an audience you are familiar with and a subject you are comfortable with. There is no room for error on TV. You are not in charge of the microphone. You are not allowed to make your case exactly the way you normally would. You must distill your entire body of knowledge into a very short time span and use language which will reach all the people with equal likelihood of their understanding and action on your information. And there are no perfect people who can make those interviews happen without saying something somebody, somewhere, disagrees with. How many other folks besides Brown have said something wrong on TV? Have you vehemently and publicly disagreed with them when they say something obviously wrong, or do you let them slide based on whether their politics agree with yours?
What a “zero mistakes” mentality leads to is a lack of people who will risk their lives and reputations to do good for their country and their citizens. They won’t even speak up. Even doctors with their vaunted Hippocratic oath will refuse to help people desperately in need of medical attention after they have been sued several times for honest mistakes and lost their livelihoods and careers. Shooting at National Guardsmen who are coming to rescue you is not the way to make them hurry up and save you.
The blame for the death and destruction belongs on the natural disaster and the Act of God that was Katrina, and on thugs who insist on preying on people too weak to defend themselves. It will never be on those people who responded to help their Fellow Man at great risk to themselves and their families, and who work tirelessly to help despite press and public calls for them to “hurry up” and “do something”, and to besmirch their reputations by namecalling and fault-finding.
In several weeks, we should hold them to account. I will not judge them now while they are fighting for the lives and support of the folks who desperately need it. And neither should you.
Subsunk
September 4th, 2005 at 10:39:53 am
The warnings were not warnings because they were hype and soap opera, depending on the intended audience; and they will continue to be hype and soap opera in the future, because that’s how budgets are decided and sound bites are sold.
Hurricane fans are just another special interest, and bureaucracies are motivated by the same things as every bureaucracy.
The idea that a better leader would matter is ignorant of sociology. Can we be scientific about that? Probably not that either.
The one and only thing that works is that if you have a million victims, you have the potential for a million people helping each other. It scales with population and works out, if you don’t actively prevent it by stamping people into passivity, which bureaucracies tend to do as the first order of business.
Your fury is wasted, ableit fun and gratifying.
Outrage comes from the French, via a misunderstanding. It’s from outre, beyond what is proper, made into a noun with -age, outre-age. That produces to the English speaker the idea that what is beyond proper deserves rage, “See, the word itself says so!” This is so useful that the word was imported back into French.
It pretty much ruined public debate though.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:40:29 am
That should have read,
“Actually, if you’re on the east side OF THE HURRICANE’S EYE, the winds keep pushing water forward, creating the tidal surge that kills so many people. On the WEST side, it has the opposite effect.”
ct,
Geez. You don’t have many places to hide down there, do you? I don’t know enough about your area to give you accurate advice. I would check with local officals if I were you. I’m sorry. I wish I could help.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:44:46 am
Well ironman, the Department of Homeland Security web page says this:
“In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility Ö for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort.”
Kind of hard to assume primary responsibility when your point person doesn’t have the reading comprehension to follow the headlines on CNN. You know, the ones on Saturday and Sunday about a catastrophic hurricane heading towards NOLA. They even used little words like The Big One. Still got by him somehow.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:48:32 am
I admire your foresight at the track of the storm and your imagination at being able to see what would happen on the ground and in the city.
Your admiration is misplaced. I didn’t do anything special. I just saw what was head-smackingly obvious, and wrote about it. Unfortunately, what was head-smackingly obvious to me was not even comprehensible at all to FEMA, apparently. Either that, or Brown is lying. Or some combination of both.
As for the difficulty of talking on TV… I’m not parsing his words looking for minor errors… his whole message is utterly nonsensical. This is not a “no mistakes” mentality, this is a “don’t be a completely incompetent idiot” mentality.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:50:16 am
Just to clear up a growing misconception, New Orleans was NOT mostly ok until the levee breach, at least not if you mean the entire metropolitan area of New Orleans. There was wide spread flooding outside of the city proper on Monday. All of the damage to Jefferson Parish, home to about 400,000 people, took place entirely on Monday. People were being rescued from their rooftops on Monday. Although it was looking on Monday like New Orleans had “dodged the bullet” in the sense that we weren’t going to have the sludge flood, it was obvious even on Monday that huge sections of the entire area would need complete rebuilding. And the other surrounding parishes were also underwater, and many remain so, though the news cameras are not covering them.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:50:57 am
Mike,
Thanks for the kind thoughts. I’m afraid to ask how you fared in Katrina ’cause I know Mobile isn’t good. I do keep myself informed - more than the average citizen if you ask me - and that’s what I’m trying to do now by taking a good look at how Brown has acted and reacted this week.
If you’re interested, I blogged the hurricanes here last year:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/gosc/
I didn’t blog this one because I wasn’t “in the cone” but if one comes my way, I’ll probably do the same thing unless/until I need to leave.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:55:44 am
Per all of my previous posts - Bush needs to fire Brown NOW and place someone like Giuliani or James Baker in charge of the clean up. This morning on Fox conservative Bill Kristol called for Brown’s resignation and said if you read the guy’s bio (which I posted here several days ago) you will see he is not qualified for the position. Specifically, FEMA Directors are typically people who managed disaster response at the state or local level before taking the FEMA position. Brown was a lawyer in Texas who, apparently, got the job as a prestige appointment.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:00:09 am
Harrison, read what the local National Weather Service in New Orleans was saying at 11:00 AM on Sunday, and then get back to me about how FEMA — which still believed this was just a “typical hurricane” at that point, according to Brown — was just “believin’ what the local, on-the-spot gov’t. was tellin’ ‘em.”
I did read it–I was followin’ the action on your blog and the various weather blogs. And I remember what our local NWS said a coupla’ years ago ’bout all the dire things that would happen to us. We got very similar emergency bulletins (admittedly without the “human suffering incredible by modern standards” part) as the ones issued for Katrina. When we got hit with a tornado, our governor never requested then-Pres. Clinton to declare us a disaster area so we never got a lot of federal funds. Don’t recall people yellin’ ’bout Clinton and FEMA failin’ us. (And Clinton never even showed up to give me a pat on the head.)
I also read your “consquences of the delayed evac orders” by Gov. Blanco, and the 9:26 am post on Sunday, “Mayor Nagin has finally ordered everyone out.” Since you’re local, how many times has The Big Easy been threatened with The Big One, only to have it veer off or weaken significantly at the very last minute? Again I’m askin’ ya’–who should Brown believe? The NSW who, as a habit, issues the worst-case senario warnings to galvanize people to evacuate? Or Mayor Nagin, who obviously–from his own actions and statements–thought it would be a severe but “standard” hurricane situation?
In my estimation, Brown said somethin’ stupidly truthful. I’ll give ya’ that. Now you tell me–what the hell was Brown supposed to do? I’ve read in other places FEMA was ready to go. And the Guard and others did show up in MS and AL almost immediately after the roads were clear enough. In my experience (numerous hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes), FEMA usually comes in after the disaster with taxpayers’ money for survival and rebuilding. Did you expect Brown and Bush and Cheney and whomever to fly into NO, commandeer those busses, then drive through downtown NO with a bullhorn announcin’ “Evacuate, evacuate! The end is near!”
Kudos for bein’ right. Now leave law school and run for Mayor of New Orleans. Then you’ll be able to handle the situation better than those other jerks.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:00:22 am
The fact that we responded to the tsunami faster than we responded to the damage by Katrina is incriminating enough. Mike Brown wasn’t qualified for the position, as his lack of readiness for this has shown, and on that basis alone he ought to go.
Plus, these concerns were all expressed when Ivan blew through. See this article by the USA Today in 2004. These were mainstream concerns, not fringe opinions.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/hurricane/2004-09-14-new-orleans-storm_x.htm
Yes, the director of FEMA should have known better. Nobody predicts a catastrophe like that for anywhere else but New Orleans because it’s below sea level. Duh.
Brendan is right that he’s right. His anger and reaction and conclusion are completely justifiable.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:03:53 am
Harrison,
Mike Brown should have had FEMA’s response ready in the hours after Katrina, not in the days after Katrina.
Local officials were incompetent before Katrina hit; FEMA was incompetent after Katrina hit. I’m pretty sure that’s Brendan’s take on this. He didn’t expect the feds to take the lead before the storm.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:03:54 am
ct,
You’re welcome. I did fine. I don’t live in south Mobile County, where the serious serious damage occured. Good luck in Florida.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:05:34 am
Brendan,
You did a great job on the hurricane. I came across your blog and followed the whole story and yes you did call it. What you say now is going to affect what is done nationally because people like me are going to take our cues from you.
So be ready to be in the path of Kat5; but don’t be a NO; let it all drain away. Best of Luck
September 4th, 2005 at 11:05:47 am
Firing Brown NOW doesn’t seem like a great idea. Horses : mid-stream and all that. I don’t know what a suitable time frame would be given the magnitude of the situation. Right now we don’t need the additional confusion that would come from a move like that. Also, I’d prefer that there was more evidence of incompetance. He could just be spinning, which is still Bad, but would not justify removal at this point.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:14:29 am
Is it me, or does anyone else find Drudge’s picture of that lone horse standing in the flooded street of New Orleans ironic, given Mike Brown’s previous experience as a judge of horse shows?
ct, I agree. Mike Brown’s removal right now would be wrong. But Mike Brown’s removal in about 2 or 3 months is certainly due. Someone with expertise would be better suited. Someone from, say, the Red Cross - you know, where they have experience in this sort of thing.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:19:46 am
Sadly, I have little confidence there will be any accountability once this all settles down - when was the last time the Prez fired someone for incompetence? (or for that matter, vetoed a bill?)
September 4th, 2005 at 11:22:59 am
I’m rather astounded at this, considering that when Michael Brown took charge at FEMA, *virtually the very first thing he did* was organize a five day drill to determine how to deal with precisely the situation we currently have in New Orleans.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:23:19 am
Subsunk,
Can you actually truthfully tell methat he didnt have a script of what to say in all of this? How nieve of you “Mr. Subsunk”. And if you were really paying attention, Brendan wasnt blaming him for deaths or etc, he was blaming him for an out right lie. There is no way that he didnt know. Gee does the National Hurricane Center need a bigger microphonefor Mr. Brown to hear?
Point is it is infuriating when people fuck up and lie about it, especially at this magnitude. I would have had a lot morerespect forthe guy if he had said, ” I made big mistakes and I will do everything in my power now to fix it”
So Mr. Subsunk if you want to rant feel free just make sure you know why you are.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:25:09 am
This is spin: “And the Guard and others did show up in MS and AL almost immediately after the roads were clear enough.”
There are numerous reports of no one showing up in MS for days. Also reports of looting in MS. There are plenty of grim situations that don’t have tv cameras in place.
Oh, FEMA does have helicoptors and planes at their disposal, right?
September 4th, 2005 at 11:28:46 am
ct-
There is precident for this in the Bush Administration. Remember when Bush brought the former General into Iraq to run things right after the invasion? When the guy started saying things like, “Bush would have won Vietnam,” Bush fired the guy (within a week) and replaced him. At the very least Bush should appoint someone like James Baker to oversee the whole thing and push Brown into the background until this situation is more in control.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:29:43 am
Nope–sorry Mike–I’m not from Harrison Co. I’m on the east coast right now, but lived all over the US. Been through lots of hurricanes/tornados on the east coast, and wildfires/earthquakes/mudslides in CA.
Guess I’m just lucky that way…
September 4th, 2005 at 11:30:28 am
I am not defending Brown’s comments, I am pointing out that they don’t have to be interpreted as you read them. Your interpretation may turn out to be the correct one, but we will have to see. Until then, I am not going to demonize the people (including Brown) who are working to help.
There is another reading of Brown’s comments, and it is actually supported by other quotes you cite. The “off-the-shelf” plan did not reckon with catastrophic flooding:
Brown’s comments would be entirely accurate if, up until Saturday or Sunday, they were basing their response off the Category-3 exercise, and then realized the growing danger of something far beyond the scope that plan provided for. In fact, it seems almost inevitable that they would have started with the most-recent template they had - and that seemingly assumed a weaker storm that the levees could withstand.
I think it is true that the Feds are making a point of not blaming the local officials, because this would only interfere with efforts to mitigate the situation. It does place them at a rhetorical disadvantage, since nobody else seems to have any hesitation to blame them. But I’m glad they are focused on the actual relief effort rather than the perception of the relief effort.
DHS *has* taken primary responsibility, but that had to be negotiated, somehow, with the Louisiana governor’s office. Why people have to spout venom (”…doesn’t have the reading comprehension…”, etc) and finding gotchas that have no practical importance at a time like this when we should be rallying together and trying to cope with a great national tragedy is depressing.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:36:48 am
Brown should have never had the job, and I suspect he is being deliberately dishonest in the statement that is the subject in this thread. In terms of what may have acrtually reduced the human misery by a substantial degree, however, what is far and away the most important question in examining this catastrophe is why so many people were still so close to the sea, from New Orleans to Mobile, as the storm came ashore. I have no idea whether FEMA’s head is responsible for overseeing these evacuations, but if he is, it is a terrible organizational error. There is no way that bureaucrat in D.C., no matter how talented, can well-manage the multitude of possible evacuations in this nation.
The population of the United States is not like a military organization which can be given orders. It needs to be given the right incentives to engage in the desired behavior, and as strange as it may seem, for many people (often poor people, due to the hassle and difficulty of evacuating when poor, but certainly not exclusively poor), the prospect of drowning, or being cut off from civilization for a week or more, is not sufficient incentive. There are a lot of psychological reasons for this that I won’t go into now, but if one really wants to get to the heart of this problem, one really needs to re-think how to better evacuate large populations.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:39:44 am
Actually what is depressing is that Brown can be amidst of allof this and still be covering his own ass, granted poorly. That is what is depressing, and we are pulling together lauguna, look at the contributions from this blog alone. ( I gave 1000.00) But mostly we need to rise up and make sure that this isnt handled the same way again. We need better and more qualified people in charge. As I always say and will try and word it correctly brendan :). If you could try and think of if you or your loved ones were in that dome under those conditions, and then hear those comments how you would feel?
Also no one is saying to lynch the man, just hold him accountable and move on.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:44:28 am
Very good point Will! ^5
September 4th, 2005 at 11:44:50 am
If this guyu were Japanese he’d have killed himself by now.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:49:11 am
As always Brendan, I agree. And I definetly agree that the New Orleans Mayor bears a huge responsibility for not doing more in this tragic situation. From the moment I saw the pictures like the one you have posted of the buses sitting in the bus garage, and I read examples of emergency evacuation plans I posted here:
http://raywert.blogspot.com/2005/09/loyola-university-emergency-evacuation.html
I knew that there was a severe problem with the way the situation was handled from the onset. However, regardless of the ineptitude of the New Orleans Mayor, FEMA is an agency that is tasked with understanding and planning for the response given the severity of the situation. When FEMA Director Mike Brown makes comments like “Saturday and Sunday, we thought it was a typical hurricane situation — not to say it wasn’t going to be bad, but that the water would drain away fairly quickly…then the levees broke and (we had) this lawlessness. That almost stopped our efforts.” [ http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050903/NEWS/50903028 ] it totally rings of ineptitude at best and a blatant lie at worse…because as early as 2002 [ http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/thebigone_1.html ], the media was reporting that the devastation that could occur from even a “moderate” storm as potentially killing thousands. More importantly, and even more damning is the quote at the beginning of the article. That quote is from former FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh stating that shortly after he took office, he ordered aides to examine the nation’s potential major catastrophes, including the New Orleans scenario. The article then says that “Louisiana emergency management officials say that they lobbied the agency for years to study how to respond to New Orleans’ vulnerability, finally getting attention last year.”
My next question is what happened to the plans or planning process? Allbaugh (and keep in mind that this is a grudging respect I have for him because he also served as the National Campaign Manager for Bush-Cheney 2000), was highly decorated and commended in his role in helping NYC and DC recover post 9/11, but he decided to leave in March of 2003 when FEMA was merged into the Department of Homeland Security.
FEMA’s new director, Mike Brown, had a different task to fulfill as President Bush made sweeping changes in creation of the Department of Homeland Security. It was at this time when FEMA was re-tasked with focusing on “ensuring that the nation’s first responders were trained and equipped to deal with weapons of mass destruction” [ http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm ] and that “just a few years past its 20th Anniversary, FEMA was actively directing its “all-hazards” approach to disasters toward homeland security issues.” [ http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm ]
Taking this into account, it would seem that although Mayor Nagin and the LA Government share much of the responsibility for not doing more to evacuate folks…it also seems that with FEMA’s new priorities, they did not do their job to rectify that situation, and to do their mission statement “to lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters…”
September 4th, 2005 at 11:49:36 am
Brendan:
Brown is done. Everyone knows that. But the President is not the sort to execute him publicly.
Brown’s statements are, as read above, incomprehensible when it comes to New Orleans. Not so when it comes to other areas affected.
You did “call” this storm. But upon being right your job was essentially done. FEMA, or the military, etc. who have to manage the logistics of the movement of massive levels of men and materiel over an area the size of Great Britain in this case simply cannot “call” a storm. They have to see what happens and react.
To think that nothing in the way of Federal assets moved before Katrina hit is wrong. And to think that these Federal assets could have been there in time for NO, a city that sufferred rising waters rather than receding ones after what looked like a near miss even 24 hours after landfall is probably wrong also given that they had to “be there” for another hundred and fifty miles of coast land at the same time.
So I will grant you that Michael Brown was not the guy for the job.
But think about what “Katrina” was and did and everywhere it did it.
George C. Marshall wouldn’t have been up to it either.
The tragedy is still a storm of such power that it would overwhelm any level of competence in the first 72-100 hours.
For what it is worth, as excrutiatingly slow as the Federal response seemed, it is the only one that worked at all.
I do understand your frustration, though, and I really appreciate all of your work on this site.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:51:32 am
Brendan,
What I don’t understand is why are you focusing all of your anger and venom at FEMA and the administration over what you yourself described as the “narrow issue” of the quote from the FEMA Director? AND YET, nothing even close to that same amount of amount of angry word count to the incompetence of the Mayor, even state officials who SERIOUSLY dropped the ball by not following their own disaster plan. The mayor who didn’t order evac until a day AFTER the Administration said they should. The mayor who left 250 busses to flood out in their city parking lot instead of using them to evac people who couldn’t help themselves? (http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html#004752)
The city that sent their poorest to the Superdome for safety, but laid in no support for them when they got there?
September 4th, 2005 at 11:56:45 am
Refreshing analysis. And, to counter angermangement, I think there’s equal fault here, but it’s FEMA who is doing the lying at this point, the state and local LA officials are just being dumb.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:59:02 am
arrggghhh, he has expressed anger over it. This post was about this particular comment made by Brown.
September 4th, 2005 at 11:59:39 am
Brendan… Well, I reserved judgement of the feds until they had a couple of days to get their house in order… Unfortunately, they seem to be no better lead than the city of New Orleans. That’s just pathetic.
Can we offer James Lee Witt his old job back? Please?
September 4th, 2005 at 12:23:57 pm
The truly critical mistake on the part of FEMA, which was shared by the majority of the media, was in believing that New Orleans had “dodged a bullet” because the levys held on Monday. They appeared to relax, and bega