If dogs could speak...

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Sept 1 interview of FEMA Director Michael Brown by Ted Koppel on Nightline:

KOPPEL: (About the discrepancy between FEMA's estimate of the number of people at the Convention Center and the Mayor's estimate) One of you was wrong. It's either 5,000 or 15,000. Do you know?

BROWN: Actually I have sent General Honore of the First Army to find out exactly the truth of what's down there, because we first learned of the Convention Center - we being the federal government - today, and he says the number is around 25,000.

KOPPEL: OK, so it sounds as though the Mayor who said 15,000 to 25,000 was closer in touch. I've heard you say in the course of this evening in a number of interviews, you just found out about it today. Don't you guys watch television, don't you listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting about it for more than just today.

BROWN: We learned about it, factually today that's what existed.. We've been so focused on doing rescue and life-saving.missions and evacuating people from the Superdome that when we first learned about it, of course, my first gut instinct was, get somebody in there, get me truth on the ground, let me know, because if it’s true we’ve got to help those people

KOPPEL: You’ve got chaos and anarchy breaking out in a number of different places in New Orleans. It would seem to me that the first thing you need to do is to get some good solid combat troops like the 82nd Airborne or the 101st in there. These are guys who are ready to move immediately. Instead you’re sending National Guardsmen in there and it’s taking time. You don’t have time.

BROWN: We don't have time. And General Honore and the First Army, division are here at my disposal, and we are absolutely doing that. We are ramping that up, and there will soon be 30,000 armed National Guard troops in there to restore order, to take control of the facility and allow us to do our job.

KOPPEL: Mr. Brown, you know, forgive me because I can't imagine what it must be like to have the burden on my shoulders that you have on yours right now. But here we are, essentially five days after the storm hit, and you are talking about what's going to happen in the next couple of days. You guys do war games. You have gamed out what is going to happen, in recent months, after a Force 3 or a Force 5 or a Force 5 hurricane. To say, as the president did, well, we didn't know the dam was going to break or didn't know the levees were going to break is factually true. Of course you didn't know it, but you could have assumed it. You could have made preparations for what would happen in the event that. You knew that it was going to be a Force 5 storm that was going to hit in that region. Why didn't you?

BROWN: Ted, we had people pre-positioned to move in immediately. And what happened which was unusual in this disaster, was two things. First and foremost was that the disaster continued long after hurricane Katrina had moved on. And when the levee did break. we were already moving in and had to move back out. And then I think the other thing that really caught me by surprise was the fact that there were so many people, and I am not laying blame, that either chose not to evacuate or could not evacuate.

And as we began to do the evacuation from the Superdome, all of a sudden literally thousands of other people started showing up in other places. And we were not prepared for that, we were surprised by that. And so what we've done is we've ramped up the rescue efforts to get those people. There are helicopters flying tonight to take care of the people on the bridges that we have found. And there are additional supplies coming into the Convention Center and into the Superdome. And we have brought in every available resource to make sure that we take care of those people

And I just want to say to the American public, that they do need to understand exactly how catastrophic this disaster is. And they do need to know, that we are going to have every available resource to do everything that we can. We are going to take care of these victims, we are going to make it right. We are going to make certain, we are going to make absolutely certain that the devastation that has been reaped upon these people is taken care of, and that we get their lives back in order.

KOPPEL: Mr. Brown, some of these people are dead. They’re beyond your help. Some of these people have died because they needed insulin and they couldn’t get it. Some of the people died because they were in hospitals and they couldn’t get the assistance that they needed. You say you were surprised by the fact that so many people didn’t make it out. It’s no surprise to anyone that you had at least 100,000 people in the city of New Orleans who are dirt poor. Who don’t have cars, who don’t have access to public transportation, who don’t have any way of getting out of the city simply because somebody says, “You know, there’s a Force 5 storm coming, you ought to get out.” If you didn’t have the buses there to get them out, why should it be a surprise to you that they stayed?

BROWN: Well, Ted, you know, we’re, I’m not going to sit here and second-guess why or when evacuation orders were given or why or why not the city didn’t have buses available. You know, that’s just not the thing that we need to do right now. Frankly, if they, if they had, if they had put buses there…

KOPPEL: Not the city, not the city. I’m not asking you, I’m not asking you, Mr. Brown, why the city didn’t have buses available, I’m asking you why you didn’t have National Guards in there with trucks to get them out of there. Why you didn’t have people with flatbed trailers if that’s what you needed. Why you didn’t, you know, simply get Greyhound buses from as many surrounding states as you could lay your hands on to get those people out of there, why you haven’t done it to this day?

BROWN: Ted, we are doing all of that. We are moving all of those things in there. And what people need to understand is, that when you are doing these life-saving, life-sustaining kind of operations, that if I move rescue workers into harm's way, and they become victims themselves, it just makes the problem doubly worse.

So yes, we move in when it's safe to move in. We move in when we can do that. We work closely with the state government. The federal government did not come in here and tell this Governor how and what to do. We came here and said, what do you want us to do, we will help you. We are now taking upon ourselves to do things that we think need to be done, and we will continue to do that, because that's our job.

KOPPEL: Your state counterpart, Terry Ebbert, the head of of emergency operations in Louisiana, said, this is a national emergency, this is a national disgrace. FEMA, he said, has been there, three days, and yet there is no command or control. We sent massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans.

BROWN: Ted, you know, with all due respect to him, we have convoys, we are feeding people. The people in the Convention Center are being fed. The people on the bridges are being fed...

KOPPEL: With all due respect, sir, the people in the Convention Center.are not being fed. Our reporters...

BROWN: That is true. The people at the Superdome, I am sorry, you are absolutely correct. We are giving the supplies to the Convention Center, now, but the people at the Superdome have been fed. That supply chain has been working, and that has been moving along Those evacuations have been continuous.

KOPPEL: But the people in New Orleans were told to go to the Convention Center. They went there in the belief that supplies would be waiting for them when they got there.

BROWN: Well, I don't know who made that promise to them, Ted, but our job is to get those supplies in there once we realize that the federal government was going to be asked to do that. And that's what we are doing.

KOPPEL: All right, Mr. Brown. Again, you know, forgive me for beating up on you there, but you're the only guy from the federal government these days that's coming out to take your medicine, so I thank you for doing that. And I really hope you are going to be able to help those people, because you still have, trust me, you have got, thousands of people at the Convention Center tonight, who need your help desperately.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 7:02 AM

Comments:

I saw in the papers today that things are finally coming together. Everyone, or almost everyone in the convention center, has been evacuated, many of them weak and barely able to walk. It's about time help got to these people.

# posted by

Anonymous : 04 September, 2005 10:22

This guy Brown has made me so angry. This country came together after 9/11, but now is sliding fast in the aftermath of Katrina. I would argue that one of the main differences was Giuliani in NY vs the bumbling pair of idiots Chertoff/Brown this time.

The potential for chaos was much greater in NY because that was truly an unexpected event and there was a heck of a lot of confusion about what/why/how at the time. The country was in crisis then, not just NY. Katrina should not have been such a total surprise, yet we let it degenerate into lawlessness and suffering and death, for absolutely no valid reason.

Everybody says, let's not cast blame right now. I agree. We are not talking about blame here, but we should put someone in charge that knows how to get things done. Not blame, but making things right, with a sense of urgency.

# posted by

Anonymous : 05 September, 2005 12:47

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