Politics > Politics-USA > Horse show organizer Michael Brown was warned 32 hours before flooding, admits his FEMA job was "to save lives"
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"driver" |
| Date: |
06 Sep 2005 08:11:23 AM |
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Horse show organizer Michael Brown was warned 32 hours before flooding, admits his FEMA job was "to save lives" |
FEMA Director Singled Out by Response Critics
By Spencer S. Hsu and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; A01
Michael D. Brown has been called the accidental director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, caricatured as the failed head of
an Arabian horse sporting group who was plucked from obscurity to
become President Bush's point man for the worst natural disaster in
U.S. history.
As the nation reeled at images of the calamity, he appeared to blame
storm victims...
By last weekend, facing mounting calls for his resignation, he told
reporters: "People want to lash out at me, lash out at FEMA. I think
that's fine. Just lash out, because my job is to continue to save
lives."
In recent days, politicians and officials in both parties have derided
Brown's qualifications to head the nation's chief disaster-response
agency...
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," Bush said Friday during a
tour of the state.
Joe M. Allbaugh -- a college friend, former Bush campaign manager and
past FEMA director -- hired Brown after an acrimonious end to a
nine-year stint as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse
Association. Former officials say he was forced out.
If anything, Brown's political background has become a liability,
leading to charges that he was given his job as patronage. He got his
start in politics as an Oklahoma native with Allbaugh but ran
unsuccessfully for Congress in 1988, winning 27 percent of the vote...
Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, said Brown
and other top federal officials were briefed as much as 32 hours in
advance of landfall that Hurricane Katrina's storm surge was likely to
overtop levees and cause catastrophic flooding.
"They knew that this one was different," Mayfield said yesterday. "I
don't think Mike Brown or anyone else in FEMA could have any reason to
have any problem with our calls. . . . They were told. . . . We said
the levees could be topped."
In his last TV interview on CNN, Brown admitted Thursday that the
federal government did not know that thousands of survivors without
food or water had taken shelter at the city's convention center.
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