Michael Brown
Michael Brown
Former administrator of FEMA who resigned from his position after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Many americans blamed him for the slow response to help those in New Orleans in the aftermath of the deadly hurricane.
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth8 November 1954
CityGuymon, OK
carolina deaths eastern entire ground hurricane jersey north occur people percent realize york
Something that most people may not realize is that more than 50 percent of the deaths in a hurricane occur because of flooding, and right now the entire Eastern Seaboard -- all the way from North Carolina up through New Jersey and New York -- the ground is just saturated.
coach dress former manager order people softball speak start student tennis
As a former (boys) tennis and softball coach at Northwest, I can speak to this. There were times I had to dress our student manager in order to have enough to start softball games. While we want people to have opportunity, where are the numbers?
area certain complete cooperation people ramp recovery secure start urban
That's why I now have complete cooperation from the military, ... I have everything I need to ramp this up and do what we have to do to secure New Orleans, to take this urban area and make certain it's secure, get people out of here, and start the recovery process.
alarm frustrated incredibly move
And that's one of the things that I think we need to go back and find out, because I was sounding those alarm bells, and to this day I'm incredibly frustrated that we didn't move and could not move things faster.
disaster katrina
This disaster did not end the day Katrina made landfall,
awareness information receiving
They should have had awareness of it because they were receiving the same information that we were.
fighting money resources uphill
They are fighting an uphill battle. They wouldn't give me the money and resources to do it.
easy
Yes, it is painful. There is nothing easy about this.
deal
We didn't want to deal with it at that point,
difficult except federal government learned shows situation teams virtually
Yes, I learned about that, the federal government learned about that (Thursday), ... And that shows how difficult communications are in the situation where there was virtually no communications, except for our teams on the ground.
areas direct grateful hamper needed others outpouring rescue response skills support themselves volunteer volunteers
We're grateful for the outpouring of support already. But it's important that volunteer response is coordinated by the professionals who can direct volunteers with the appropriate skills to the hardest-hit areas where they are needed most. Self-dispatched volunteers and especially sightseers can put themselves and others in harm's way and hamper rescue efforts.
fema law
Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications.
centre convention federal government people until
Paula, the federal Government did not even know about the convention centre people until today.
That's the president's decision. He assessed the situation.