Mike Brown is interviewed by the New York Times and claims that he couldn't get the locals to tell him what they needed and they were not in control of the situation.
The problem with this theory is that a FEMA employee did the original damage assessment Monday, August 29th before dusk. If Brown didn't understand the situation on the ground, it's because he wasn't talking to his own employees.
Join me after the jump for further explanation...
Ray Nagin was interviewed on Monday night between 9 and 11 PM on WWL TV and indicated he had a meeting with a high level FEMA employee named Marty (video)
Here are the relevant excerpts
"My heart is heavy tonight, I don't have any good news to share other than the at some point and time the Federal government will be coming in here en masse. The City of New Orleans is in a state of devastation."
.....
"This is a briefing I got from a gentleman named Marty who is with FEMA. He's the Undersec, the Director of FEMA and the FEMA Secretary is coming into town tomorrow along with our Senators and Congressional leaders to do a fly over.
.....
"We have a list from FEMA that is our wishlist of what we want and we are going to continue to work"
"When this FEMA guy came back from his aerial
view, and we had a map and he started to lay everything out, it suddenly hit everybody, the impact of this awesome, awesome hurricane."
.....
I asked the guy point blank--I said was this the worst he'd ever seen. He said absolutely. Absolutely, it's the worst situation he'd ever seen. "
....
"Let me just give you a little bit of good news. Whatever good news that is. We have the highest levels of government in the United States including the President of the United States focused on this issue and ready to send resources. They have told us to put together your wish list. Put together whatever you might need to deal with this and they are basically telling us they will come down and help us rebuild."
Marty could be one of two people given the FEMA employee directory:
Martin Frengs who is a Branch chief with flood experience
or
Martin McNeese who does damage assessment. Both appear to be professional FEMA employees and given the very different picture that Brown painted of the local response to Nagin's take on cooperation on Monday evening, interviewing whichever one did the initial assessment should probably fill in the picture of the problems with FEMA during the beginnings of the disaster.
The disconnect between Nagin and Brown could not be more serious. Nagin says he made a list on Monday night of things he needed and he was promised it and that he would deliver more to Brown in the morning during their fly around.
Nagin says the disaster was the worst professional FEMA employees had ever seen. Brown didn't think it was that bad--certainly Chertoff and Bush didn't.
Nagin knew from sources earlier in the day the 17th Street Flood Wall was breached and the damage assessment would have picked it up as well. Brown claims his FCO told him Tuesday morning that the levee had broken--when everyone in the City knew of it by midday Monday. Chertoff was never told this by Brown until midday Tuesday. Why didn't Brown know if his people knew?
Brown misrepresents the timeline for the mandatory evacuation. 72 hours is when the entire process starts. Complicating this is that the hurricane was not believed to be heading towards New Orleans until 71 hours before landfall. The first stage in a mandatory evacuation is precautionary evacuation that moves special needs citizens out. Then there is a voluntary evacuation for Orleans and Jefferson Parish. Then there is a mandatory evacuation for those two parishes. They are last because the lower lying parishes can get out first and then Contraflow instituted. Nagin was late in calling for a Mandatory evacuation by several hours, but whether it would matter in the middle of the night.
Brown didn't even understand the Louisiana process of evacuation.
Finally, he was unaware the Convention Center had been opened to evacuees after the Superdome filled up--yet the Guard at the Superdome had sent new people there because Nagin told the police to go over and open it up. So was he not listening to Nagin or the news? Both WWL TV and The Times-Picayune reported the effort to open the Convention Center. There is no way that the local delegation would not have told him of the Convention Center.
Nagin indicated that the Congressional Delegation and Brown would be coming into town for further assessment on the 30th. Brown indicates he was surprised by finding the entire delegation along for the trip.