E-Mails Show Disarray at FEMA After Katrina http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/17/AR2005101701 230_pf.html
By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 17, 2005; 6:30 PM As Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans on Aug. 29, then-FEMA director Michael D. Brown appeared confused over whether Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had put him in charge, officials of responding agencies could not reach Brown and Brown's team became swamped by the speed of the unfolding disaster, according to e-mails to and from Brown. When Chertoff belatedly named him the on-site disaster coordinator on the night of Aug. 30 and declared Katrina an "incident of national significance" -- the highest order catastrophe under the federal plan -- Brown and his underlings complained over who was in charge, or at least over what being in charge meant. "Demote the Under Sec to PFO [Principle Federal Officer]?" FEMA press secretary Sharon Worthy wrote to Brown at 10:54 p.m. Tuesday, two hours after Chertoff's decision. "What about the precedent being set? What does this say about executive management and leadership in the Agency?" "Exactly," replied Brown, according to the e-mails obtained by the Washington Post. The e-mails also show that the government's national disaster plan, two years in the making, began breaking down even before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast Aug. 29. Before the storm hit, Brown's deputy chief of staff, Brooks Altshuler, said White House pressure to form an interagency crisis group was irrelevant. "Let them play their raindeer [sic] games as long as they are not turning around and tasking us with their stupid questions. None of them have a clue about emergency management," Altshuler told Brown and Brown's chief of staff, Patrick Rhode. The documents offer a glimpse of the disarray in preparedness and response to Katrina for which FEMA has been widely criticized. Communications breakdowns, delayed decision-making, misunderstanding of national disaster plan roles and absent voices of leadership mark the documents, which came as a partial response by FEMA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to a request by a House select committee investigating the Katrina response. Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke had no immediate comment about the e-mails. The Washington Post obtained copies of 20 of about 80 e-mails to and from Brown between Aug. 23 and Sept. 12. There are many gaps in the record. For instance, there are few references in the messages to Chertoff or the White House. Brown has testified that he was in at least daily telephone or e-mail contact with Chertoff and with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card or his deputy, Joe Hagin. The Homeland Security Department has withheld additional e-mails, citing executive privilege, additional time needed to process documents and a shortage of available staff, according to a House aide familiar with the documents The department also has withheld correspondence between Brown and Chertoff or his predecessor, Tom Ridge, regarding the development of FEMA's budget over the last three years. Brown has said the department caused "the emaciation of FEMA" by cutting funds and staff and denying spending on a New Orleans hurricane preparedness plan. "Secretary Chertoff's voice is markedly absent from Brown's e-mails correspondence. We need to find to why," the House aide said. Chertoff is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Katrina committee, his first extended public appearance on Capitol Hill regarding the disaster. A spokesman for Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the investigative committee, declined today to discuss the documents the panel has received to date, saying members would ask Chertoff about them Wednesday. "Davis wants to know if Michael Brown had it right. Does Secretary Chertoff agree that FEMA has grown emaciated, that its budget's been hijacked and that it's been organizationally undermined since Congress folded it into DHS?" Davis spokesman David Marin said. He said Davis would ask Chertoff and other federal officials, "Where were you right before, during and after Katrina made landfall? What were you doing? Who were you talking to?" The e-mails show a quick breakdown in communications after the hurricane hit. With telephone service out and wireless reception evidently spotty, FEMA's operations center resorted to e-mailing Brown on the afternoon of Aug. 30 -- a day after the hurricane hit New Orleans -- to get in touch with Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon R. England. As late as Sept. 1, the head of the military's Hurricane Katrina Task Force, Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, was unable to reach Brown and asked FEMA officials to track down his satellite phone. "He [Honore] wants to speak with Mike very badly," FEMA aides wrote at 1 p.m. Three hours later, the reply came from a Brown aide: "Not here in [Mississippi.] Is in [Louisiana], as far as I know." The first FEMA request to the Defense Department was not reported in Brown's e-mails until 10 a.m., Sept. 2, nearly three days later, seeking "full logistical support to the Katrina disaster in all [emergency] declared states." Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco requested 40,000 U.S. troops on Aug. 31. The notes include casual and personal references that appear grimly ironic after the fact. On Aug. 27, at 4:20 p.m., Brown confessed a sense of foreboding to Florida emergency director W. Craig Fugate, at the same time as he flattered Fugate and his boss, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother. "This one has me really worried," Brown wrote. "I wish a certain governor was from Louisiana . . . and his emergency manager!" Brown's team appeared concerned with news media coverage. On Sept. 1, Rhode, Brown's chief of staff, offered this encouragement to Brown: "Mike -- You did a hell of a job on the press conf this evening!" The next morning, President Bush offered a similar endorsement on a stop in the Gulf Coast, saying "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." On the Sunday after the storm, FEMA press secretary Worthy wrote Brown with concern that "several news outlets have carried the black/white situation in Louisiana," days after television coverage of storm victims suffering at the Superdome and New Orleans convention center. Brown was recalled to Washington the following week and resigned Sept. 12. The Brown e-mails show that FEMA leaders acted on information in conflict with the timeline released by the Homeland Security Department a week after the hurricane. Altshuler's e-mail of Aug. 28 referred to White House pressure to create the interagency crisis management team -- which was supposed to include FEMA, Pentagon, state and other key representatives. The department's timeline said the group began meeting Aug. 26. The Altshuler e-mail also included an earlier note sent by a career FEMA staffer that said the White House wanted to create the task force to look at long range impacts "if there is catastrophic flooding in and around New Orleans." Chertoff said Sept. 3 that a levee collapse and rapid flooding "was not envisioned" before the storm hit. The e-mails show delays in decision making. FEMA aides reported that Louisiana State University Chancellor Sean O'Keefe, formerly head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, tried to reach Brown the night of Aug. 30 to offer campus sites for recovery operations, but it took Brown two days to get someone to call him back. As late as 9 p.m. on Aug. 31, Brown was working on organization and staffing plans and joking with an aide who wanted a senior role: "Are you serious?" The aide, FEMA recovery division director Daniel A. Craig, replied, "Yes, I am, we need to get this done right or neither of us are leaving on great terms . . . and we were days away." You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
