Getting the band back together

It's not quite been 24 hours after landfall but already some of our old friends are offering their critiques of Hurricane Sandy and the federal response.

Here is Arabian Horse enthusiast, former FEMA Director, and best selling author, Michael Brown speaking to the Denver Westword  (link via Gambit)

Brown expects that in the coming days, there will also be comparisons between Obama's quick response to Hurricane Sandy and his slower response to the attacks in Benghazi, which has become a challenging campaign issue for the president.

"One thing he's gonna be asked is, why did he jump on this so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in...Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?" Brown says. "Why was this so quick?... At some point, somebody's going to ask that question.... This is like the inverse of Benghazi."

 Yes, the response was too quick. Hard to believe Obama had them mobilized on an empty stomach.

Ray Nagin has been tweeting some benign well wishes to the victims. Most of us think that's nice. But at the same time, his name has been unfairly drawn into the spat between New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Atlantic City Mayor  Lorenzo Langford. We are not often quick to defend Ray Nagin but here's Jarvis DeBerry explaining that these comparisons are based on persistent and damaging myths about the evacuation of New Orleans prior to Katrina.

Those criticizing Langford accuse him of encouraging people to hang around, which they say makes him like our former mayor. Nagin's failures are myriad, legendary even, but those accusing him of not properly warning New Orleanians of Katrina's danger are either misinformed or lying on purpose.

Given that the city is largely poor, that no storm had struck in 40 years, that it has only one interstate highway and that a 2004 evacuation nightmare had led many to say "never again," you might consider it a marvel that on the Monday morning Katrina arrived the overwhelming majority of New Orleanians were gone. We hadn't even given the storm a thought till late in the day Friday.

Now maybe later when Langford inevitably tells us rebuilding Atlantic City will depend on getting some casinos up and running, there might be something to this. But for now leave C. Ray alooone. He's got enough to worry about.

Also, the dangling crane on the NYC skyline has brought forth Ed Blakely like some sort of ill-advised bat signal. But if Blakely is angling for a job this time, it looks like he's going for political pundit rather than disaster consultant.

US political legend holds that there will be an incident, a surprise in late October in a presidential election year, which will separate the candidates at a point where one moves so far ahead that he wins by more votes than anyone anticipates. Is Hurricane Sandy the 2012 October surprise for Obama?

Given the close race, it will take a deciding deed or moment for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney to pull away in the last dash to victory. There is no doubt Sandy is a political storm and not just a weather event.

Ugh. Well, the good news is when he sucks at this stuff, nobody suffers.. I mean, unless they read it.

Anyway, if the citizens of New Orleans could offer the people affected by Sandy at least one bit of our own advice, it would probably be, whatever you do, do not hire Ed Blakely.  A few years ago, as he was preparing to leave us, I put together a helpful timeline of his tenure here just in case someone might need that information for later.

Meanwhile, is Veronica White's book still in print? This seems like the moment it was written for.

Deadly Indifference

Former FEMA stooge and hypocritical disaster book author Michael Brown endorses plan to hold Hurricane Irene aid hostage to yet another round of GOP spending cuts.

Brownie Plodder and the Deadly Indifferences

A crowd of maybe 10 reporters on assignment, four or five bookstore employees, and a few random stragglers slumped into two rows of folding chairs outside of the Garden District Book Shop last night to see former FEMA director and Arabian Horse enthusiast Michael Brown talk about his new book, Deadly Indifference: The Perfect (Political) Storm: Hurricane Katrina, The Bush White House, and Beyond The title itself is intriguing. "Deadly Indifference" sounds like someone's attempt to mock a cop buddy movie that tanks at the box office. It also happens to be the title a second rate mystery novel just in case people aren't confused enough. And if they aren't annoyed enough, there's also the grating use of "Perfect Storm" as well as that enigmatic "And Beyond" thrown in to help with that. I haven't read the book yet. I'm waiting on a library copy and I wasn't about to drop $24.95 on it last night. Gambit's Kevin Allman points us to a review by Paul Bedard that appeared in U.S. News and World Report if you're looking for Cliff's Notes.



The main thing that Brownie got across at this talk was that the "Deadly Indifference" referenced in the title of his book doesn't characterize the Federal Emergency Management Agency under his charge at the time of the flood so much as it applies to, well, possibly everybody. But more specifically, he means to tell us that individuals affected by disasters are themselves so unprepared, so deadly indifferent to the hazards that stalk their lives, that they make things difficult for the FEMAs of the world. Only Brown preferred to use "firefighters and rescue workers" as his avatar for emergency management in his examples repeatedly citing 9/11 as his case reference of choice.

“I don’t care how angry you are. I just want you to read it and think about, are you ready?” Brown said. Not being prepared for the dangers you know your environment poses risks not only your life, but also the lives of others. “We owe it to all these firefighters and rescue workers to be as prepared as we can. As powerful as we think we are, Mother Nature is more powerful than anything we can imagine.”

Depending on your point of view this is either Brown's version of "ask not what your country can do for you" or "people shouldn't live there." Either way it's a cop out for someone hawking a book about the "lessons learned" from a disaster his agency largely failed to cope with.

Despite opening his talk proclaiming his readiness to "have open discourse" about his failures, most of the "lessons" Brown wanted us to learn were about the people who failed him. He took a few obligatory shots at former Governor Meemaw, at Ray Nagin, and also, with the eager prompting of T-P reporter John Pope, at George Bush who he paints as an aloof "frat boy"

On Friday, he described Bush as “a jocular, fun-loving frat guy” who didn’t seem to understand the magnitude of the threat that Katrina posed or the breakdown that ensued after the storm passed and the floodwaters drowned New Orleans.

Brown illustrated this by telling us about a time that Bush annoyed him by picking on the suit he was wearing which was pretty funny considering Brown's own reputation as something of a "jocular" fashion maven himself.

Others on Brown's list of deadly indifferences included Anderson Cooper for being too unhappy on TV about search and rescue operations, rogue truck drivers for failing to move supplies into the city, and the Stafford Act for placing bizarre limitations on the process of rebuilding. That last one most of us would probably agree with although it was interesting that Brown chose to bring up the exceedingly complicated controversy over the new hospital complex in order to talk about it. Throwing in a line about how the old Charity Hospital, "probably needed to be torn down anyway" didn't help to clarify matters.

But mostly, Brown emphasized to us that we, as individuals, should learn how to make FEMA's planning go more smoothly. For example, Brown shared with us his experience evacuating from his Colorado home during a recent wild fire emergency. While Brown had managed to round up his three dogs and drive down to a pre-determined rendezvous point, he was disappointed to see his neighbors arrive there less promptly and with varying loads of (I guess trivial) personal possessions in hand. I tried to turn this on its head by asking Brown what lessons emergency managers can themselves learn to better prepare for the fact that people are going to behave with less than optimal efficiency in these situations but he didn't really answer that choosing instead to talk about putting GPS on supply trucks.

There was some attempt made by his hosts at the Book Shop and by Brown himself to characterize his appearance in front of the small and not at all deadly or indifferent crowd as courageous in some way. But actually Brown exhibited a kind of fake magnanimity toward the audience that mostly came across as trying too hard. One man showed up in a "FEMA Sucks" T-shirt. Brown made a bee line for him attempting to win him over, "Hey I gotta get a picture of that shirt!" A woman delivered a sequence of marginally coherent attacks at him, the Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Patent office, various other offenders all while Brown smiled a bit too broadly and pretended to understand what she was talking about. Finally he awkwardly slapped the table inviting her to sit next to him. I think he was just trying to have his picture made sitting with a black person. Anyway the whole thing came off as desperate and more than a little sad.

At the end I presented him with a copy of River Road Recipes to sign for me. He gladly took it and said a few nice things about the Junior League. When I reminded him of his reputation for being perhaps a bit overly familiar with the Baton Rouge dining scene, his face snapped back to that fake smile again. He might as well have been shouting, "See? Look how great a sport I am!" Again, just sad. At least I have something to remember him by.

Bizarre

Salon: Ex-FEMA chief plans live broadcasts in New Orleans
Michael Brown will take his radio show on the road to mark the fifth anniversary of Katrina Pray that no one disturbs him while he's eating.

Isn't his area of expertise in horses anyway?

Former FEMA Director Mike Brown picks Colts over Saints

My favorite bit from the Politco blurb:

He has a good sense of humor about being called "Brownie" and Bush's notorious "heckuva job" comment, joking that he's trademarked the two phrases.

"It'll cost you $25 every time you say it."

Uh oh, NOLA T-shirt makers. Brownie is coming after your ass next. #Defendheckuvajobbrownie