Some of my good friends on the right side of the blogosphere say that ex-FEMA chief Michael Brown has been unfairly maligned for Katrina-related problems caused by state and local officials in Louisiana. John Hawkins of Right Wing News says Brown lost his job because Louisiana Gov. “Kathleen Blanco is an idiot.” Bryan Preston makes a similar argument here.

I don’t need any convincing that Blanco and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin performed poorly. But let’s face it: FEMA’s performance under Brown was a joke. Just read Brown’s own words in today’s New York Times.

Start with his admission that he did not ask for federal active-duty troops to be deployed to New Orleans on the night of Monday, August 29, because “he assumed his superiors in Washington were doing all they could.”

According to FEMA’s web site, FEMA’s mission is to “lead the effort to prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident.” As director, it was Brown’s job to manage the federal response, including the deployment of federal active-duty troops. Given that, his apparent lack of interest in DoD’s response seems odd at best, grossly negligent at worst.

Tom Maguire is also unimpressed:

He assumed? Based on what? And isn’t it his job to relay a troop requirement to the White House, or did Brown secretly vote for Bush as Psychic Commander in Chief?

Bear in mind that Gov. Blanco and the National Weather Service first reported a levee breach on Monday morning. By mid-afternoon, looting had begun. And that night, Mayor Nagin announced that 80 percent of the city was underwater.

Brown may not have been interested in talking about the deployment of federal active-duty troops, but he did discuss at length his inability to “get a unified command established”–a phrase he says he repeated a dozen times in one form or another that night. Loren Steffy says establishing that command was Brown’s job:

FEMA’s role, after all, is to coordinate disaster relief efforts. The agency has few resources of its own because it’s supposed to provide what amounts to supervisory oversight. Brown simply lacked the leadership to do that. Perhaps it was his lack of experience, or perhaps it was his personality, but Brown clearly was ill-suited for his job.

Then there is Brown’s fingerpointing at Gov. Blanco, whom Brown says failed to produce an itemized list of needs:

When he arrived in Baton Rouge on Sunday evening, Mr. Brown said, he was concerned about the lack of coordinated response from Governor Blanco and Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau, the adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.

“What do you need? Help me help you,” Mr. Brown said he asked them. “The response was like, ‘Let us find out,’ and then I never received specific requests for specific things that needed doing.”

But when Mayor Nagin gave Brown exactly he wanted–a detailed list of his needs–look what happened:

Mr. Brown said he was relieved to see that the mayor had a detailed list of priorities, starting with help to evacuate the Superdome.

Mr. Brown passed the list on to the state emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, but when he returned that evening he was surprised to find that nothing had been done.

“I am just screaming at my F.C.O., ‘Where are the helicopters?’” he recalled. “‘Where is the National Guard? Where is all the stuff that the mayor wanted?’”

This incident does not inspire confidence that FEMA would have been able to fulfill Blanco’s requests had she produced the itemized list that Brown says FEMA required.

The Times also informs us that FEMA officials in New Orleans–the people federal taxpayers pay to “manage federal response and recovery efforts”–fled the city the day after the hurricane hit. As a result, Brown apparently had no staff whatsoever in New Orleans between Tuesday August 31 and Thursday September 2.

Which helps explain why Brown was making so many so clueless public comments about what was happening on the ground in New Orleans.

Rick Moran shares my dismay:

Leaders in a crisis have only two options; either they can try to control events or have events control them. Judging by the remarks made by former FEMA head Michael Brown in this interview with the New York Times, it appears that leaders at all levels – local, state, and federal – not only became captive to events surrounding the aftermath of the hurricane, but also failed to work together to get on top of the situation, wasting precious hours dithering about a “unified command structure” while the situation in the city spiraled out of control.

If it was Mr. Brown’s purpose to defend his actions during the disaster, he did a horrible job. Brown is revealed to be clueless, an absolutely [disastrous] choice to lead an agency where a hard nosed “can do” attitude is absolutely essential. Instead, he appeared in New Orleans believing himself to be a glorified waiter – someone whose job it was to write down the state’s order for hurricane relief rather than act as an executive who should have anticipated what was needed and behaved accordingly…

…The interview with Michael Brown shows that President Bush made an error in judgement when he named this political hack to head up FEMA. But it also shows what happens when events outstrip the ability of leaders to manage them. The monumental nature of this disaster was clearly beyond the competence of governmental institutions to handle. It was made worse by the failure of those in leadership positions to act decisively.

Update, 9/16: Reader Reed H. calls my attention to the Monday 8/29 afternoon news conference featuring Brown, Gov. Blanco, Sen. Mary Landrieu, and Sen. David Vitter. You can find video of the Press Conference on C-SPAN here.

Check out Brown’s comment about Gov. Blanco’s performance:

I want to say a couple of things about Governor Blanco and her team. I have the best job and the worst job in the federal government, and I get to travel around and see some of the worst things that happen in this country. But I also get to see communities and states that come together and work together as a team. And I can tell you, Governor, that what I’ve seen here today is a team that is very tight-knit, working closely together, being very professional, and in my humble opinion making the right calls.

Compare that to what the New York Times reported yesterday:

Hours after Hurricane Katrina passed New Orleans on Aug. 29, as the scale of the catastrophe became clear, Michael D. Brown recalls, he placed frantic calls to his boss, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and to the office of the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr.

Mr. Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he told the officials in Washington that the Louisiana governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, and her staff were proving incapable of organizing a coherent state effort and that his field officers in the city were reporting an “out of control” situation.

“I am having a horrible time,” Mr. Brown said he told Mr. Chertoff and a White House official – either Mr. Card or his deputy, Joe Hagin – in a status report that evening. “I can’t get a unified command established.”

By the time of that call, he added, “I was beginning to realize things were going to hell in a handbasket” in Louisiana.

Back to the 8/29 press conference, here’s Brown’s “guarantee” that FEMA would “stay here as long as we need to be here:”

The storm is not over. Again, because of my unfortunate experience with hurricanes, everyone in Louisiana is going to get tired. You’re going to get worn out. And so I say to everyone, be patient, be calm. FEMA — my guarantee to you is that FEMA will stay here as long as we need to be here to help you in every way possible that we can help you.

As noted above, FEMA officials fled New Orleans the following day, Tuesday 8/30.

Brown also gave false reassurances regarding FEMA’s ability to provide water, ice, and meals to victims gathered at the Superdome and other shelters:

At some point in this stage, when we get more into the recovery phase, then we’ll start working on getting financial assistance to victims, making sure that they have at least a footing to start rebuilding their lives. In the meantime, water, ice, meals ready to eat, the kinds of commodities that people will need to sustain life in the Superdome and in other shelters, those are backed up all the way from Ft. Worth, Texas into Louisiana, and all the way from Atlanta, Georgia into Mississippi. And I have instructed my team to keep those supply lines jammed up totally so that we always have at least a three- to five-day supply of commodities moving into the state. So whatever the needs are, we can fulfill those needs.

A partial transcript of the press conference (via Federal News Service and LexisNexis) is attached in the Extended Entry.

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Previous:

FEMA still in the crosshairs
FEMA follies
FEMA in the crosshairs
Nagin and Brown: peas in a pod
Memo to Bush: Fire Michael Brown

August 29, 2005 Monday

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH LOUISIANA GOVERNOR KATHLEEN BLANCO; SENATOR MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA); SENATOR DAVID VITTER (R-LA); MICHAEL BROWN, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ADMINISTRATION

SUBJECT: HURRICANE KATRINA AND RECOVERY EFFORTS

BODY:

(Note: This event was fed in progress.)

GOV. BLANCO: (In progress.) I also thank God that he made us a strong and caring people, but I know that we are ready to help each other. I know that many people have helped each other already, and we’re going to get prepared to recover from this devastation.

While we’re praying hard for the victims, our emergency service personnel are working right now at this minute on search-and-rescue operations across southeast Louisiana. I have deployed boats into some of the areas that we have — where we have heard reports of people stranded on rooftops. That would be primarily St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines and into New Orleans East. I have ordered the Louisiana National Guard, the Louisiana State Police, and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to begin search-and- rescue missions as soon as weather conditions permit, and they have — they have begun those operations. They’re all working in coordination with the local first responders. All three agencies have search-and- rescue personnel and assets, including over 200 boats with trained personnel from wildlife and fisheries. They are staged in the affected areas, they are fueled, and they are ready to go the minute weather conditions permit.

Now we believe that in some places they might be able to actually get in with their boats. They have to pay attention to what’s happening with the winds and the weather itself because we don’t want to endanger their lives, but each individual boat operator is using his or her own judgement and paying close attention to the conditions.

In addition, I’ve ordered the Department of Health and Hospitals to stage mobile medical teams and put them on standby, poised to reenter the affected areas as soon as weather conditions permit. Dr. Cerise is leading a team as we speak. They’re on their way into the New Orleans area. Further, I have ordered the Department of Transportation personnel to be staged on standby and ready to clear critical access roads to help emergency teams and utility crews get to the affected areas.

I’ve also ordered the Louisiana State Police, again, in coordination with local law enforcement, to block reentry to the affected areas, except for authorized emergency personnel.

We know that parts of Orleans, parts of St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Jefferson Parish, and St. Tammany Parish, have been devastated by high winds and flood waters. But the reports are still preliminary. High water and strong winds are making it too dangerous for our emergency workers to reach some of these areas at this time.

Katrina is by no means over. We’re hearing reports of major wind and water damage, as I said, in St. Tammany and in Washington Parishes as it moves northward. Wherever you live, it is still too dangerous for people to return home. If you evacuated and you’re in a shelter, if you’re with friends and family, please, please stay there. Stay safe. It’s too dangerous to come home. The roads are flooded, the power is out, the phones are down, and there is no food or water, and many trees are down. So chances are if you try to come in, you wouldn’t be able to get your vehicle through anyway. So give us some time. Please, I’m begging for patience one more time. Stay where you are while the professionals assess the situation. I ask for your patience. We are working hard to get you home, but not until it is safe.

State police and National Guard and local law enforcement agencies are all working together. We have a lot of people who’ve been ready, ready to go out as soon as they possibly can to search the hardest-hit areas. The storm knocked out phone service and some cell phone systems, but thanks to a coordinated communications system, we have been in touch with every single parish in the region. Men and women of our emergency services are making a concerted and heroic effort to find everyone who’s trapped, but high water is keeping us out of some areas, as I’ve said. High winds are keeping our aircraft grounded. We have not been able to fly any aircraft in at this point in time to make a good assessment. But rest assured that they will all work through the night answering calls for help and looking for those who are — who have notified us in some way or another, or if their friends and family have notified us. We will be making every effort to find those people who may be in need of our help.

The damage has been great. We know it could have been worse. And I urge you to keep helping your neighbors, to pray for the victims, and also to pray for our friends in Mississippi. They’ve taken a hit right alongside ours, and we know what that means. They’re suffering, and they’ll need our assistance, and they’ve helped us along all through this preparation, so we are extremely grateful. I am extremely grateful to Governor Haley Barbour, and I wish him the best in his recovery operations as well.

Today we are very blessed to have Mr. Mike Brown, the director — the national director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency — you might know that as FEMA. Director Brown has been with us a good part of this day, and his professional staff has been assisting us here and across the southern region of Louisiana for the past several days. We feel a lot of confidence with them here, and indeed President Bush has told Director Brown to do all in his power and capacity and given us all the authority to do everything that is necessary.

Director Brown, I hope you will tell President Bush how much we appreciate it. These are the times that really count, to know that our federal government will step in and give us the kind of assistance that we need and are in desperate need of. So thank you for being here.

MR. BROWN: Thank you.

GOV. BLANCO: Director Brown.

MR. BROWN: Thank you very much, Governor.

Let me first say on behalf of President Bush and the first lady, extend their condolences and their prayers to everyone in Louisiana who has suffered from Hurricane Katrina. As a former governor, he understands exactly what it’s like to go through these kinds of disasters, and I know personally that his heart aches when he sees these kinds of things.

I spoke to the president while he was traveling on Air Force One, Governor, and he has given me the verbal okay to let you know that he will be signing the Presidential Disaster Declaration to make this a major disaster declaration, giving us the full authority to exercise whatever we need to do and to spend whatever we need to spend to help the state of Louisiana recover. So that’s a little bit of good news for you today, I hope.

I want to say a couple of things about Governor Blanco and her team. I have the best job and the worst job in the federal government, and I get to travel around and see some of the worst things that happen in this country. But I also get to see communities and states that come together and work together as a team. And I can tell you, Governor, that what I’ve seen here today is a team that is very tight-knit, working closely together, being very professional, and in my humble opinion making the right calls. We often tend to forget that, you know, we had hurricane-force winds still blowing through downtown New Orleans as short a time as an hour ago. And so you’re making the right decisions about encouraging people not to move back in yet, to stay away.

Most deaths, most injuries from hurricanes occur after the storm has passed. So I would say to all folks in Louisiana, as you return to your homes when you’re allowed to return to your homes, be careful. Don’t get in that water. Watch the downed power lines. Watch for — if you’re going to use a chainsaw, know how to use the chainsaw. If you’re going to have a generator, know how to exercise and how to operate the generator. Be very, very careful.

The storm is not over. Again, because of my unfortunate experience with hurricanes, everyone in Louisiana is going to get tired. You’re going to get worn out. And so I say to everyone, be patient, be calm. FEMA — my guarantee to you is that FEMA will stay here as long as we need to be here to help you in every way possible that we can help you.

You’ve got a good team. You’ve got a good start. Let’s say that right now you’re on your road to recovery.

So, Governor, good luck.

And I’d like to introduce Senator Landrieu and let her make a few comments.

SEN. LANDRIEU: Thank you very much.

We are indeed fortunate to have an able and experienced director of FEMA who has been with us now on the ground for some time and, as he said, will provide all the resources necessary for a full recovery. It will take weeks, possibly months, but the resources will be there. I want to thank the president for a preliminary, before-the-storm declaration and now a full declaration for the emergency assistance we need.

I also want to compliment the governor and this Louisiana team, lieutenant governor, all the local elected officials. I have witnessed, through the governor and the state-wide elected officials, local officials literally putting their lives on the line over the last 48 hours — parish presidents, sheriffs, firefighters, mayors. And we still don’t have a complete assessment of all of the damage.

So with the local teams still under search and rescue, the federal team is now ready to step in and provide the recovery assistance necessary, primarily through FEMA and also through the Red Cross. The final note, I spoke to the Red Cross director this morning, Marty Evans. The Red Cross team has been on the ground here. She may be able to come in herself. She’s also a very experienced leader. The Red Cross and FEMA will be in full force to help us through the recovery.

Let me finally add, I want to support the governor in her order and request for people not to return to the state, to these areas, until it’s safe to do so and give our emergency personnel the time they need to get the search-and-rescue mission completed so recovery can begin.

I’d like to ask Senator Vitter to come forward and add his remarks as the senator from the state, as well.

SEN. VITTER: Thank you, Mary.

Well, today has been a day of just enormous human suffering. And so Wendy and I join everyone here in saying that our hearts and prayers go out to all the families of Louisiana who have suffered so much, who, in many cases, continue to suffer so much. And our prayers continue, particularly on those horribly hit areas like St. Bernard, the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans East, Plaquemines and perhaps eastern St. Tammany. I’m very concerned about that area. We haven’t heard much from there. So our hearts and prayers go out to all of those folks.

And in line with that, all of our top priority is rescue, because there are still lives on the line. There are still people who need to be rescued. And it’s everyone’s top priority, certainly the governor, as I know, to get rescue equipment, boats, aircraft out as soon — absolutely as soon as practicable and safe. And that’s beginning to happen now, and so that will be a top priority.

I also know FEMA director joins us in that top priority, and I thank him for his leadership and the president’s leadership in being so responsive to date. It was truly historic — almost unprecedented — when the president signed the first emergency declaration before Katrina had made landfall. I think it’s happened once before, with Hurricane Andrew. Unfortunately, it was very, very appropriate. But that federal response, Mike, has been enormous. We thank you for it. We thank the president for it, and we know it will continue because we all know this is just the beginning.

GOV. BLANCO: We know that a lot of people are extremely worried about their property and about their family members and about their friends.

We will do the best to do our very best to get communications to those who absolutely know, especially about lives. Let’s worry about the lives that are at stake first and then — and worry about property second.

I know that everyone is concerned about their homes and their businesses and what’s happened to their communities. Let me just say that we all need to be patient. Again, in many cases you can’t get in. We are — we have to — we have to give nature some time. The flood waters will recede, and we will attempt to reach all those who need us.

These are critical moments in our search-and-rescue operation, and we’re asking that you not complicate them by putting pressure on our emergency personnel. If you will sit tight and stay with us — stay where you are until you get the all-clear from your parish area — and it will be broadcast. We urge you to stay connected to the media. They have been magnificent in helping us to get the right kinds of messages out in a timely fashion. We ask that you listen carefully and just respond at the appropriate time. If you try to get in now, it’s going to make it hard for us to get supplies in, medical supplies. It will make it hard for us to get food and water.

The City of New Orleans has suffered a shearing of a 50-inch water line — water main, and so now everybody’s on a boil water alert except for Algiers and the central business district. If you have no electricity, you cannot boil your water. Your water is not safe for drinking, or really it’s just not safe water any longer. So that situation will have to be repaired before it will be safe for most citizens of New Orleans can get back in.

There are many complications. We are concerned. We believe that lives were lost. We hope it’s minimal. We don’t know what the number is at this point in time. But God bless all of the families who are so worried and so concerned. Our prayers are with you and remain with you, and our work effort has just begun.

As the Director Brown said, the recovery is beginning, and we will recover. We are a strong people. We can and will recover. We’ve done it before. These are challenging times, but we’re a strong people who have the integrity and the heart to come back together and help each other to reestablish ourselves as a magnificent place to live, to work and to have our families, and to be a part of a loving community.

Thank you.

Q Based on what you know, do you have any estimate of casualties? I mean, what kind of numbers are you all even playing with?

GOV. BLANCO: We have no actual reports yet. There aren’t too many official reports about direct casualties directly as a result of the hurricane, for instance from drowning or something like that. We’ve heard isolated reports of perhaps four to six people at this time. I suspect that’s minimal. I really don’t know what the final count will be. We hope, you know, that it wouldn’t be that much more, but we’re worried.

Q Governor, anything from St. Tammany yet? I heard earlier there were problems getting through in St. Tammany.

GOV. BLANCO: St. Tammany. I’ve heard that Slidell has a considerable amount of water in downtown Slidell, and I don’t know about the other parts of the community. St. Tammany Parish is closed. The parish officials are saying that it’s impossible to get through, so they’re asking people from St. Tammany to please be patient and not try to get in.

Q At what point are wind speed favorable and you can get those search-and-rescue boats out into the water?

GOV. BLANCO: As the hurricane moves northward, the winds diminish. I think that in some places right now the boats can get in and are going in. We had some stationed in key areas, and they were — they’re working, they’re running and they’re manned.

Q When do you expect to be able to fly over New Orleans — (off mike)?

GOV. BLANCO: I suspect it won’t be until tomorrow. It’s still too risky to put aircraft up.

Q Any other word on flooding in New Orleans, the French Quarter, those areas? (Off mike) — some parts of New Orleans — (off mike) –

GOV. BLANCO: Right. That is still the reports we’re getting, unless the general has some more knowledge.

GEN. : The watercraft we have at Jackson Barracks are deployed. They are working, evacuating personnel. We also have over 100 personnel working with the New Orleans Emergency Operations Center, assisting the New Orleans Police Department with evacuations and bringing evacuees to safe areas.

Q I’m sorry, General. You said crews are actually evacuating people now?

GEN. : That’s correct.

Q From Jackson Parish or –

GEN. : Jackson Barracks is a military facility at the intersection — on the boundary of Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. We had boats pre-positioned there and personnel. They have been deployed, and they are assisting in evacuation in that area as well as the — as well as the personnel that we have assisting the Orleans Parish — Orleans — NOPD.

Q Do you know if they’ve actually rescued anyone yet? How many people have they taken, and from where? Have you gotten any reports?

GEN. : We know we have — we have some evacuees that have been taken to the Superdome. I just got that information, Governor, as I walked in. And also we have some at Jackson Barracks that have been taken there, safe shelter.

Q How many are they looking for? How many are they looking for? Earlier it was 133 calls. I’m sure they’ve gotten a lot more since then, or are you (having ?) to go in door to door in certain neighborhoods?

GEN. : They are responding to emergency calls they’ve received, and then as well just getting out and surveying the area and identifying anyone that needs evacuation.

Q What areas are they out in right now?

GEN. : They’re working — I don’t have the particular details. They are in support of each of the districts, NOPD districts, augmenting and supporting the New Orleans Police Department.

Q So they’re in Orleans right now?

GEN. : And St. Bernard.

Q And St. Bernard, okay.

Q Were any of the people off rooftops?

GEN. : Say again?

Q Are they picking people off rooftops? Are people stranded on rooftops?

GEN. : I don’t have that — those particular details.

Q Do you know how many boats are out right now?

GEN. : We have out at Jackson Barracks — the count that I’m aware of is 12.

Q Have they given you any — is there any truth to reports that there are corpses floating in the water?

GEN. : We have no confirmation of any fatalities.

Q Anybody injured who you’ve been evacuating? Anybody injured –

GEN. : I have no report of that — of any injuries as well.

Q Any estimates now of how many people may be out stranded places, or any estimates of how many homes have been flooded? (Off mike) — numbers?

GEN. : We don’t have those numbers.

Q What about river traffic? What’s the story with some of the rigs I understand were loose on the river, disrupting traffic? Any details on that?

GOV. BLANCO: We understand a lot of barges got loose and were floating, and that some boats were pulled off of their moorings; you know, where they were anchored. So the river’s pretty much of a difficult area right now.

Q What about chemical plants or refineries? Are you all — I’m assuming in St. Bernard and Plaquemines those refineries have been flooded.

GOV. BLANCO: Well, you know, they shut down their operations so that a dangerous situation would not occur with them. Over the entire weekend, they were phasing down and shutting down.

Q Some of the tourist areas that people in other areas of the country would notice, what’s happened in those areas?

GOV. BLANCO: Well, we’ve had a lot of windows popping out of the hotels. So you know, it’s very dangerous to be walking on the sidewalks. I know sometimes tourists think it’s a great heyday to get in those high winds, but it is very dangerous all over the downtown area where all of our major hotels are, especially the high rises. They were losing windows. Our hospitals have lost windows. It’s a very serious situation, and we’re just working through it.

Q Are there attempts to move patients from Charity Hospital in New Orleans elsewhere since you said the power was out at Charity and there were several floors that windows were blown out?

GOV. BLANCO: Dr. Cerise is arriving there and working out a plan to move them into the Superdome area and then medevac them out to some of our hospitals up in north Louisiana in particular. We have some capacity there. And we have some patients who were on ventilators, and they were being manually ventilated when the power went out.

Q Director Brown, could you just tell us, sir, what’s involved in FEMA’s initial assessments of what you are going to be doing, et cetera, assisting people?

MR. BROWN: Well, first and foremost, our primary response right now is to save lives and protect property. So we have, for example, at Camp Beauregard, we have medical teams, urban search-and-rescue teams. They’re moving in behind the state teams so they can join up with them as quickly as possible. We’ve been trying to get a disaster medical assistance team into the Superdome, but frankly, it was — until it was safe to actually move them in, we have not done that. So that movement has begun to start.

We will bring the full phalanx of all of those teams — urban search-and-rescue teams, swift water teams, the medical teams, unfortunately the mortuary teams — all of those teams will begin to move in as quickly as possible and as soon as it’s safe to get them into those affected areas.

The other thing that we’ll do is we will respond to — under the disaster declaration, we will respond to direct requests from the governor. As the local officials get into these affected areas and find out what they need, the governor will make the request to the state EOC right here. Those requests will be passed on to us, and if we have the resources, the teams, we will put them in place and let the state utilize those.

At some point — and it’s important, I think for the media to remember this — we are in a response mode right now. The hurricane just passed, so the focus is on rescuing lives, saving lives and protecting property. At some point in this stage, when we get more into the recovery phase, then we’ll start working on getting financial assistance to victims, making sure that they have at least a footing to start rebuilding their lives. In the meantime, water, ice, meals ready to eat, the kinds of commodities that people will need to sustain life in the Superdome and in other shelters, those are backed up all the way from Ft. Worth, Texas into Louisiana, and all the way from Atlanta, Georgia into Mississippi. And I have instructed my team to keep those supply lines jammed up totally so that we always have at least a three- to five-day supply of commodities moving into the state. So whatever the needs are, we can fulfill those needs.

Q I know you haven’t been FEMA director forever, and this storm we haven’t been able to assess yet, but just at a glance, how does this compare to other natural disasters that we’ve experienced in the United States?

MR. BROWN: Look, I’m not going to be flippant, but if you’re the one who has had your house destroyed, this is the worst disaster ever. And so I don’t compare disasters; I just don’t think that’s right. But I will tell you this: when you think about a major urban area suffering as this one has — and from my perspective, it’s not just New Orleans that we’re now dealing with. I’m dealing with Biloxi. I’m dealing with Mississippi. We’re doing a disaster declaration in Mississippi, one in Alabama. I anticipate I’ll have disaster declarations in Tennessee and the Ohio Valley. This is a monster storm that is going to cause flooding all up through Tennessee and the Ohio Valley. So this is a major, major disaster for FEMA.

Q Thank you all.