‘We will fail again,' FEMA ex-chief says

By Chad Previch
Published: September 21, 2007

TULSA — The country is not prepared for another Hurricane Katrina because of layers of bureaucracy, the former Federal Emergency Management Agency director told Oklahoma officials Thursday.

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Michael Brown, a Guymon native and FEMA director during Katrina, told state emergency management officials to be prepared for federal responders to push them aside during the next major disaster in an attempt to prove they've learned from the deadly hurricane.

He urged them to push back and tell FEMA what is needed to work together. Brown poked fun at himself and heavily criticized the Bush administration, Louisiana officials and the media.

"As long as this administration is in ... they will so overreact that they will come into a state like Oklahoma and you will be overwhelmed,” Brown said. "That doesn't work, either. Overreaction is not a lesson learned.”

Brown, 52, spoke to more than 200 state emergency managers and state and local officials as part of the Oklahoma Emergency Management's fall conference.

Brown became deputy director of FEMA after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He became a national figure in the response to Katrina, which made landfall in August 2005.

"If there's a major disaster in this country ... and you don't correct that bureaucracy, we will fail again,” he said.

‘Standing tall'
Brown said he tried warning the administration that Katrina would be the nightmare storm the country feared, that the Superdome was not prepared to fit thousands, and that residents should have been told to evacuate sooner.

He said in Louisiana, he couldn't tell who was in charge of what and found a governor who didn't know her role.

He criticized himself for not publicly saying enough wasn't being done and resources weren't going to where they were needed.

Brown said federal officials continue to fight with leaders in Louisiana and New Orleans.

Brown remembers being compared to the captain of the Titanic. He said he laughed but then discovered the doomed ship's captain warned that the vessel would not work and it didn't have enough lifeboats.

"The captain of the Titanic, I want to meet when I get to heaven,” he said.

Today, Brown spends about 25 percent of his time speaking around the world and the rest of the time representing companies involved in homeland security or emergency preparedness. He's also working on several government-related books.

He said it's liberating not to be in the federal government.

Brown said he gets looks at airports and beat up on Internet blogs. But he said people also thank him.

"I'm standing tall,” he said. "I'm happy. My kids love me. My dog loves me. My lawyer even loves me. It's important for people to see that you really can be resilient.”

‘The front lines'
Brown said even as a conservative Republican, he would be pleased if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., shook up the federal response process.

"Shame on the federal government for creating this monster that can't function ... like it used to,” he said.

Brown said the country is on a slippery slope of having the federal government take care of every disaster.

The 9/11 attacks in some ways can be blamed for the bureaucracy that greeted Americans during Katrina, Brown said. FEMA was folded into the Homeland Security Department in March 2003.

It created a wedge between the federal and state and local governments and a sentiment that preparedness was separate from response, Brown said.

Slowly, the country is realizing the importance of local emergency management and that more money is needed, Brown said.

"You're in the front lines,” he said. "It's not the feds.”


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I was in Louisiana when the weather event known as Katrina stopped in for a visit. People can blame the federal government all they want but that simply doesn't hold water. The people and government in the New Orleans area are, for the most part, ignorant, lazy and always looking for a reason to escape responsibility and if you haven't followed the situation in New Orleans, it hasn't changed. I saw first hand the utter incompetance of the state government and a governor who could only stand at a podium and cry. Quit feeling sorry for those people. They made the decision to not heed the warnings, refuse to maintain supplies(other than drugs and alcohol)and then ransack their own city. A lot of people in the state are sick of hearing about New Orleans. There is very little said about the people in S.W. Louisiana and in Mississippi who rolled up their sleeves got to work rebuilding and didn't wait on handouts. I interviewed one victim in Cameron Parish who summed it up nicely, "The people of New Orleans have always known of the dangers and never took one step to correct the problems, maybe the next storm will finish the job." The blame lies with the residents of New Orleans, not the federal government.
Harry, Kingman - Sep 22, 2007 9:09 PM
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He really did call in every possible resource available several days prior arrival of the storm. There is paper trail of call outs to every relief agency to send every possible unit to Northern Lousiana as the storm passed Florida. Oklahoma alone had hundreds of people staged in strategic locations ready to roll in. I feel the image of the president flying over then returning to Washington was construed as obtuse behavior toward the victims. I really wished he would land and put on hip waders. He couldn't have done more by landing in New Orleans but people wanted him down there to smell the stink, feel the heat, and eat MRE's. I guess it will forever be debated and studied. If they learned anything, they learned that the president needs to ursurp authority and immediately federalize all state troops and ursurp authority over governors and mayors. The only way to get things done is to get ride of everyone between the president and the local strategic command. The dead heads (governor and mayors) need to just sit and let things happen.
John, Stigler - Sep 22, 2007 1:16 AM
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In any disaster response if you don't have roles and responsibilities lined out and practiced, you are going to fail and failure means people die. These failures are a result of organizations ran by managers not leaders. Sure you can "manage" any disaster, but it takes a Leader to overcome and Brown managed. It takes courage and dedication to address and solve these problems. As long as the managers in power are worried more about their careers than the responsibility to which they are assigned, the results of Katrina will repeat.
Doug, Midwest City - Sep 21, 2007 2:05 PM
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I feel for the guy too, but why is ANYBODY paying him a cent for advice? Another "Bushie" cashing in on the complete failure that the federal gov't has become.
Jeff, pauls valley - Sep 21, 2007 8:18 AM
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Good for him! I always thought they made him out to be the scapegoat.
Cristalle, Edmond - Sep 21, 2007 8:09 AM
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