Michael Gaynor
March 8, 2006
The Hurricane Katrina catastrophe inside story: Mike Brown answers my questions
By Michael Gaynor

What America needs is not a good five-cent cigar. Cigars are hazardous. What America needs is the truth about the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe that former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael D. Brown aptly described as "of biblical proportions." The whole truth, not just the part on which partisan Democrats or Republicans want to focus. The sooner, the better. The next hurricane season begins on June 1 and preparation is inadequate.

It was my good fortune to have been fascinated by Louisiana politics when I was a college student and to have visited New Orleans and Baton Rouge in 1969, right after I graduated from college. I'm a lifelong New Yorker. I remember driving into New Orleans, looking UP to sea level, and wondering when that beautiful city would be inundated. It seemed to me to be a matter of when. Thirty-six years later, it happened.

When Mr. Brown was made the villain for the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, I was sure he was being scapegoated and so I wrote in his defense. After my second article on the subject, an email was forwarded to me by the editor of MichNews.com. The essence of it: "I want to thank Michael Gaynor for the honest and correct article he did on my husband. This was the first article I've seen that was accurate. Thank you again." The emailer: Tamara Brown, Mr. Brown's high school sweetheart and wife and the mother of their two children.

Over the next few months, I exchanged emails, first with Mrs. Brown, then with both of the Browns. I urged them to write a book telling the real story, and Mrs. Brown especially to write about what it is like for the family of a national scapegoat.

After Mr. Brown testified before a Senate investigating committee last January, the White House released its long-awaited Hurricane Katrina report, and the Associated Press prepared a concise comparison of the highlights of that report and the House of Representatives report previously released, I asked Mr. Brown to answer some key questions in writing, so that I could post his answers. The mainstream media wasn't doing the job that it's supposed to do, but the Internet is here and perhaps it would help the truth catch up to the lies if I posted his answers.

Mr. Brown was in the process of answering when Laura Ingraham did what needed to be done: put Mr. Brown on the air to answer pertinent questions. [Note: Yes. A conservative Republican who had been subscribing to the so-called conventional wisdom about Mr. Brown was fair and open-minded enough to put him on, at the top of her widely syndicated radio show on March 2, 2006.]

Ms. Ingraham was swiftly followed in letting Mr. Brown address the American people by Tony Snow, Wolf Blitzer, the CNN and CBS morning shows, Bill Maher, Chris Matthews, Chris Wallace and Joe Scarborough. Mr. Brown was busy indeed, and people hungry for the real truth were listening

Alas, not all the right questions have been asked, and therefore no all the important answers have been given. So...I write on.

The Associated Press declared that a videotape of an August 29, 2005 conference call proved that President Bush had lied when he said after Hurricane Katrina that no one could have predicted that the levies would be breached. That became the story.

But careful Brit Hume apparently read the whole transcript and calmly pointed out that was untrue. That tape does NOT prove that the President lied. Moreover, it proves that the President was engaged before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

Whether or not the President "lied" depends upon what predict means: if predict means "know," then the President surely did not lie, because only God knew; but if predict is understood to mean have reason to expect the possibility....

So, in addition to integrating into this article Mr. Brown's answers to the questions I asked him in writing before Laura Ingraham invited him on her show, I asked a few more. Some of the ones Mr. Brown's fellow Americans would be likely to ask him if they had the opportunity.

The good news is that Mr. Brown made the honorable choice: to embarrassing, but critically important, facts about the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe that politicians and mainstream media have not uncovered or deliberately concealed or ignored generally until this month, Mr. Brown has given voice. It is not Mr. Brown, wrongly maligned and harassed since last September, who should be embarrassed by the truth.

The Hurricane Katrina catastrophe was a readily foreseeable and minimizeable natural disaster for which many deserve blame: people who neglected to prepare properly to protect a city built mostly below sea level, particularly the federal and state officials of Louisiana and the city officials of New Orleans over many years; the federal government and the Congress over many years, which were pennywise and poundfoolish when it came to the crucial levees; the people in charge of evacuating New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approached, primarily Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco; and the people responsible for FEMA having been merged into the massive Homeland Security Department and then denied the necessary funds to prepare and to respond effectively, despite Mr. Brown's urgent recommendations and especially Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, a man who had zero experience in managing hurricanes (unlike Mr. Brown).

I asked Mr. Brown: Did you tell POTUS that you feared levee breach and a flooded New Orleans and, if so, when?

Mr. Brown's answer: "No question exists in my mind that the President and his staff were concerned from the very beginning about levee breaches. This was discussed with the President during my phone call about evacuations, it was discussed with Joe Hagin, and it was on the mind of every single person in that room — whether on the transcript or not — that breaches of levees were the elephants in the room — breaches were the scenario for a catastrophic disaster beyond anything we had dealt with before. It was what we wanted to plan, train and exercise for — a catastrophic disaster brought about by breaches of levees. Levee breaches were everyone's fear before this past hurricane season, before Katrina even became a named storm, and certainly after Katrina entered the Gulf of Mexico and began to approach New Orleans."

Note to those who doubt: Read the August 28, 2005 transcript, set forth in full at the end, carefully. In addition to being concerned that the Superdome roof might not survive Hurricane Katrina's winds intact, Mr. Brown expressed his concern that the Superdome was twelve feet below sea level. That concern obviously was based on a fear of levee breach, not levee topping.

Having heard former President Clinton's FEMA Director, James Lee Witt, generally agree with Mr. Brown about what to do about FEMA, that is, restore its independence and effectiveness, I also asked Mt. Brown a question the answer to which I thought was obvious: "If Witt, Albaugh [President Bush's first FEMA Director) and Brown all agree on it, shouldn't it happen?"

Mr. Brown's answer: " Seems to me that if you have the previous FEMA directors, Republican and Democrat, all saying the same thing, perhaps someone should listen. When you have Trent Lott and Hillary Clinton saying the same thing, perhaps someone should at least make an inquiry!"

My final additional question: "Is saving the faces of Congress, Chertoff and the POTUS more important than fixing FEMA?"

Mr. Brown's answer: "That's the problem with American politics. We're too concerned about partisan advantage instead of dealing with real policy issues. We need statesmen who are willing to set aside partisanship and focus on the policy issues. Anyone who does that will have the American people following them. Leadership, that's what we need."

Mr. Brown was widely lauded for the way he managed hurricanes prior to Hurricane Katrina, especially the four hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004. On September 28, 2004, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution commending the resiliency of the people and the state of Florida and the work of individuals who assisted with recovery efforts after Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, including "Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response, responding quickly to each of the disasters."

The death and destruction that resulted from Hurricane Katrina were much worse than they would have been if the New Orleans levees had been built properly to withstand a category 5 hurricane, Louisiana was much less corrupt and much more competent, the Posse Comitatus Act and politics had not handcuffed President Bush, Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin had put aside their personal animosity and recognized their limitations for the sake of their constituent instead of obsessing about their public images, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had not been merged into the massive Homeland Security Department, and Mr. Brown's request for funds to prepare for a catastrophic hurricane striking New Orleans and authority to operate FEMA as Hurricane Katrina showed it should have been operated had not been rejected.

When the United States Senate subpoenaed Mr. Brown to testify last January, President Bush had two choices and Mr. Brown had three. For each of them, only one choice was honorable, and each of them chose it. The President could have invoked executive privilege, and thereby impeded the investigation, or not invoked executive privilege, and thereby facilitated the investigation. In a less than impressive letter on behalf of the President, White House Counsel Harriet Miers, did not invoke executive privilege, but essentially expressed a desire that Mr. Brown testify as though executive privilege had been invoked, making it appear that the White House was sending Mr. Brown a signal to shut up, without actually invoking executive privilege in an attempt to silence him.

The result: Mr. Brown had three choices: to testify truthfully, to lie to protect his superiors in the chain of command (President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff) from embarrassment, or to refuse to answer (which would have constituted contempt, since executive privilege had not been invoked).

Mr. Brown made the right choice: to tell the truth. Even though that (1) meant he would contradict some of the statements of his superiors and embarrass them and (2) resulted in White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Fragos Townsend publicly complaining that Mr. Brown had not followed "the chain of command" and giving assurances that "the chain of command" would be followed in the future (as though Mr. Brown's direct reports to the President and top White House staff had been unwelcome impositions instead of efficient, expected and in accordance with his and his predecessor's practice during prior hurricanes).

Ms. Townsend chiding Mr. Brown for dealing directly with the White House was foolish. Mr. Brown regularly reported directly to the White House, both on his own initiative and the White House's initiative, as documents prove. There was never any "chain of command" issue until the scapegoating of Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown explained to me how thing worked during Katrina this way:

"We knew who was in charge — POTUS. It is the same way we operated in every disaster I handled since becoming the Under Secretary and Director. It is the same way Joe Allbaugh [President Bush's choice as Mr. Brown's predecessor] operated.

"It is clearly the way we operated in 2004 during the Florida hurricanes. In fact, during those four historic hurricanes, Tom Ridge [Mr. Chertoff's predecessor as President Bush's Homeland Security Secretary] was nowhere to be seen (and I believe because the White House told him to stay out of my way) until long after the disasters had passed and we were in recovery mode."

"I had spoken to POTUS at least a couple of times that day [August 28, 2005] and the previous day. The Saturday call to POTUS was to request him to call Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin and demand a mandatory evacuation. That call has been widely reported. But what hasn't been widely reported are all of the other calls to keep him informed, including the calls earlier that day. Not only would I call him, but occasionally, he'd call me, either on my cell phone or at the house. There was never any question about chain of command. In a disaster — he was the boss. After all, he is the POTUS."

On August 29, 2005, Mr. Brown received a report from Marty Bahamonde, the one person he sent to the Superdome who made it before the storm, that the 17th Avenue Canal levee had broken, with a "bad" water flow into New Orleans; New Orleans would have feeding/sheltering issues with people at the Superdome, estimated at 12,000; a heavy residential area on the north side of New Orleans was under an estimated eleven feet of water; an estimated 30,000 tourists were in hotel rooms; at Charity Hospital, all windows were out, the basement was flooded, and there was no power; the capacities of the 27 other New Orleans hospitals were unknown; the main hubs were out of commission and the early estimate was that power would not be restored for over a month.

What did Mr. Brown do? He immediately called the President.

During a conference call beginning at noon that day, Mr. Brown reported:

"I talked to the President twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One. He remains very, very interested in this situation. He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches. He's asking about hospitals. He's very engaged, and he's asking a lot of very good questions I would expect him to ask.

"I say that only because I want everyone to recognize, and I know and appreciate of everybody here of how serious the situation remains. I get frustrated when the media talks about it's gone from a Category 5 to 4 to 3. What they don't realize is there is a lot of rain, a lot of storm surge, a lot of potential victims there."

Secretary Chertoff's contribution during the conference call: "echo[ing] what Secretary Brown said [that 'this is the long haul"].

FEMA did not conduct a conference call that night, but the White House was reaching out to Mr. Brown. Shortly before 10 PM, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card emailed Mr. Brown: "Joe Hagin [Deputy Chief of Staff] has kept me well-informed about your reports. Anything you want me to do?? Andy Card"

At 10 PM that night, Mr. Brown replied by email:

"Thanks for writing, Andy. This is a bad one. Housing, transportation and environment could be long term issues/

"If you want any details (not too good on the blackberry) feel free to call anytime. [telephone number omitted]

"And, I appreciate your support and notes."

The next morning, Mr. Brown contacted Secretary Chertoff, and learned that Secretary Chertoff was going to FEMA's Region 4 to boost morale. Secretary Chertoff assured Mr. Brown that he was not trying to interfere (a sound decision, given his inexperience and Mr. Brown's experience in hurricane management).

Mr. Brown was doing "a heck of a job," and POTUS knew it!

But petty politics reared its ugly head. Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco were not the only peacocks. Mr. Brown received word to "take up the Secretary (Chertoff)...i.e. 'Solid team with solid support from the Secretary" etc.

Before noon on September 2, 2005, Mr. Brown informed POTUS that he needed the Army NOW.

What was going on?

"Teams were evacuated yesterday afternoon [September 1, 2005] after receiving intel from the National Guard that the security situation was deteriorating. The National Guard evacuated as well. DMATs left all equipment behind. Last night, they attempted to go back in with FPS [Federal Protective Service]. FPS deemed the situation unsafe and they did not go back in. They tried again this morning and again FPS determined that the situation was unsafe."

"A cell phone call was received from a truck driver carrying supplies at exit 2 on Causeway Blvd that his truck was being hijacked by an armed mob. Contact was lost with the driver and attempts to re-contact him have been unsuccessful. ESF-13 is following up."

Louisiana is not Florida.

FEMA's fiscal year 2004 budget request to the Office of Management and Budget included $100,000,000 for catastrophic planning. The plan was to conduct major exercises in five cities across the United States. OMB did not approve this request, it was not included in the President 2004 budget and Congress did not fund it. Notwithstanding that, FEMA set aside some funding in its Response Division's fiscal year 2004 budget to conduct one exercise and chose to conduct it in New Orleans (or else things would have been even worse).

The Homeland Security Department would not fund FEMA's fiscal year 2005 request for Catastrophic Housing and Catastrophic Planning (made on or about July 25, 2003), so the housing problem from Hurricane Katrina is catastrophic.

On March 16, 2004, Mr. Brown wrote to Admiral James Loy, Deputy Homeland Security Secretary, warning of the danger of underfunding:

""Thank you for the opportunity to discuss how FEMA is progressing and the challenges we are facing as we approach the mid-point of Fiscal Year 2004. While FEMA is a relatively small part of DHS, our mission — FEMA's mission — is a critical one, with extremely high public visibility. The President, State and local governments, other federal agencies, Congress, the media and the American people expect FEMA, and now DHS, to ensure the Nation's ability to respond to and recover from not only acts of terrorism, but all of the natural disasters, and other emergencies we face each year.

"These expectations provide the lens through which we view our current budge situation and how we are positioned to maintain and exceed those expectations for the future. We are currently living within our FY 2004 appropriation and FTE levels, and we are adhering closely to budgetary intent in our spending.

"However, we are struggling every single day to maintain operations and capabilities at current levels. I am increasingly concerned that, as a result of this struggle, important investments and preparations for the future are being mortgaged or deferred indefinitely."

Mr. Brown was rightly concerned, but his requests were spurned.

Mr. Brown has been shamelessly scapegoated, but he has not been silenced. For America's sake as well as the sake of Mr. Brown and his family, it was imperative that Mr. Brown do what has not been done by the Bush administration, Congress, Louisiana's officials, New Orleans' officials, partisan zealots and, of course, the mainstream media: tell it all, like it really was. He has been doing so, and mainstream media finally gave him a platform.

In my view, even if President Bush had chosen to invoke executive privilege, Mr. Brown still would be free to speak, because executive privilege is supposed to protect frank, but flawed advice, not to silence a scapegoat, and, since privileges are obstacles to ascertaining the truth, they should not be construed more broadly than necessary to fulfill a legitimate purpose. And Mr. Brown should speak, because if FEMA is even less prepared to respond than it was during Hurricane Katrina, as Mr. Brown believes, the American people need and deserve to know it, so that more can be done beside pray for good weather.

As soon as the White House released its own report on Hurricane Katrina, I wrote to Mr. Brown, asking ten questions that had not been asked during his Senate testimony.

Unfortunately, Mr. Brown does not have a copy of the transcript of the August 30, 2005 conference call in which he advised the President that 90% of the New Orleans population had been displaced, it was a catastrophic disaster, he needed the army, etc. A White House Situation Room meeting, it included POTUS, Vice President Cheney, National Security Advisor Steven Hadley, Ms. Townsend, Secretary Chertoff, Presidential adviser Karl Rove, and Chief of Staff Andrew Card as well as Mr. Brown.

However, Mr. Brown's response to me included a telling transcript of a conference call led by Mr. Brown that began at noon on August 28, 2005. President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff participated in that conference call. Hurricane Katrina had not yet struck Louisiana, but the transcript shows that the magnitude of the impending disaster was appreciated; evacuations, levees, and Department of Defense participation were discussed; President Bush was intimately involved, hardly uninterested or aloof; and Louisiana officials were assuring Mr. Brown that evacuation was proceeding well and FEMA had done all it could be expected to do. The transcript reflects both Mr. Brown's mindset at the beginning of this disaster and his absolute and utterly reasonable certainty that President Bush, Secretary Chertoff and the top members of the White House staff were aware of the potential magnitude of this disaster even before Hurricane Katrina reached Louisiana.

Transcript Highlights (in chronological order):

Max Mayfield [Director of the National Hurricane Center]: "I really don't expect to see any significant weakening. So I think the wisest thing to do here is to plan on a Category 5 hurricane."

Max Mayfield: "[T]he current track and the forecast we have now suggests that there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself, but we're — we've always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within about 20 percent.

"If that track were to deviate just a little bit to the west, it would — it makes all the difference the world."

Max Mayfield: "I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levies will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very grave concern."

Max Mayfield: "[Y]ou know, this one is not just the intensity, but it's the size that really has us concerned too."

Mr. Mayfield was crystal clear: catastrophe was coming. And President Bush was listening intently.

President Bush: "Mike, thank you very much, I appreciate so very much the warnings that Max and his team have given to the good folks in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, Appreciate your briefing that you gave me early this morning about what the Federal Government is prepared to do to help the state and local folks deal with this really serious storm.

"I do want to thank the good folks in the offices of Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi for listening to these warnings and preparing your citizens for this huge storm, I want to assure the 'folks' at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property. And we pray for no loss of life, of course.

"Unfortunately, we've had experience at this in recent years, and I — the FEMA folks have done great work in the past, and I'm confident, Mike, that you and your team will do all you can to help the good folks in these affected states

"Again, I want to thank Governor Blanco and Governor Riley and Governor Barber, Governor Bush of Florida, for heeding these warnings and doing all you can possibly do with your state folks and local folks to prepare the citizenry for this storm.

"In the meantime I know the nation will be praying for the good folks in the affected areas, and we just hope for the very best.

"Mike, thanks for letting me speak to the people I know who are working long hours, Again, I want to thank everybody involved in this effort I appreciate the long hours you're keeping. I expect you to keep more long hours until we've done everything we can in our power to help — to help the folks in the affected areas."

There is no doubt that both President Bush and Mr. Brown wanted to do everything possibly as quickly as possible to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. But the first responders failed to take the necessary action and failed to cooperate, notwithstanding the President's expectation that warnings were being heeded in Louisiana.

Colonel Bill Doriant of Louisiana: "Evacuations are underway currently. We're planning for a catastrophic event, which we have, been planning for, thanks to the help of FEMA, when we did the Hurricane Pam exercises. So we're way ahead at the game there.

"Our priorities right now are sheltering, and then planning for search and rescue and commodities distribution after recovery.

Colonel Jeff Smith of Louisiana: "I'll just tell you that the evacuation process is going much better than it did during Hurricane Ivan. Nobody anticipated that it would be easy. Nobody anticipated that there wouldn't be traffic jams. But by and large, it has gone much better than it did with Ivan, And, of course, we still have a contraflow in effect at this particular point in time, and we do still have heavy traffic coming out of New Orleans, but by and large that process is going very well.

"We have established a unified command here with our federal coordinating officer. Our EPD-A team. ERD-N team is on the ground here. And, again, as our Operations Officer pointed out, we're spending a lot of time right now with the search and rescue, making sure that we marry the appropriate state assets and the federal assets so we can have an effective search and rescue effort just as quickly as possible.

"We're also taking a look at our sheltering needs, long-term sheltering needs, looking at sites to start bringing in the temporary housing. So we're not only fighting the current battle, managing expectations here with our local parishes, but we are also working with FEMA and cur other federal partners to have the most effective response and recovery that we possibly can during this time."

Louisiana officials thought they had it under control! And Mr. Brown was asking about their unmet needs.

Mike Brown: "Any questions? Colonel, do you have any unmet needs, anything that were not getting to you that you need or

Colonel Smith: "Mike, no. (Inaudible) resources that are en route, and it looks like those resources that are en route are going to — to be a good first shot. Naturally, once we get into this thing, you know, neck deep here, unfortunately or deeper, I'm sure that things are going to come up that maybe some of even our best planners hadn't even thought about, So I think flexibility is going to be the key.

"And just as quickly as we can cut through any potential red tape when those things do arise, you know. we just need to look at it. We appreciate your comments I think they were to lean as far, far as you possibly can, you know, without falling, and your people here are doing that. And that's the type of attitude that we need in an event like this.

"So, again, thank you very much."

Mr. Brown and FEMA were leaning as far forward as possible.

Mississippi representative: "EGO is onsite. ERD-A is onsite. EMAC-18 is onsite. We've got everything that we need from the Federal Government.

"And, again, we appreciate what you and FEMA are doing. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate you being there. It shows the support at that level, We really do appreciate it. We certainly appreciate the words from the President."

Mississippi too that the federal government had done its part.

Florida representative: "More importantly, I am not anticipating any FEMA assets other then the recovery assets we currently have. We're not going to put in a request for resources in lieu of the greater need to the west of us.

"In addition, we're planning our search and rescue missions for our counties, also building our task force structures to provide assistance to the neighboring states in EMAC, and pretty much are gearing up with Governor Bush's direction to support our neighboring states as well as our initial response."

Florida was helping neighboring states.

Mike Brown: "Any questions? (Missing) on the commodities that I want to see that supply chain jammed up just as much as possible. I mean, I want stuff (missing) than we need. Just keep jamming those lines full as much as you can with commodities.

"My gut tells me we're — that's going to be one of our biggest needs. So just (missing) up tight."

Mr. Brown was pushing supply delivery hard.

Those who have the slightest suspicion that Mr. Brown was not ready, willing and able to do his job (within the limitations imposed upon him by the incompetence of key state and local officials and the limitations imposed upon FEMA by bad Congressional and bureaucratic decisions over his vigorous objections) should read these words of Mr. Brown near the end of the conference call:

"In fact, let me just go ahead and (missing) and tell you what my priorities are and what my concerns are, Number one, you know that the Mayor has ordered the Superdome to be used as a shelter (missing) first resort. I didn't hear about any other shelters for people to go to as they left New Orleans.

"As you may or may not know, the Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level, so I don't know what the heck (missing) . And I also am concerned about that roof. I don't know whether that roof is designed to stand — withstand a Cat. 5 hurricane.

"So not to be (missing) kind of gross here, but I'm concerned about NDMS and medical and DMORT assets and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe, So if I could, get some sort of insight into what's going on in that Superdome, I think it would be very, very helpful.

"While we're on (missing, I want to make sure that NDMS and the DMORTs and DMATs are ready to go, as soon as, because I do believe I also heard there is no (missing) mandatory evacuations. They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons, and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that. So let's just keep that in mind (missing).

"I've already mentioned a lot of these. I am concerned (missing) there's going to. be a huge demand. I think the point that Log made about making realistic requests resources arid commodities is good. But my point to Gary and the others is I want lines jammed up, So whatever those requests are, that we can fulfill those.

"And then, finally we need to reach out to all of your colleagues in the Departments that this is really all hands on deck, and I really do expect to be able to call everyone — everyone within FEMA is actually on call, and we may need you to deploy and go somewhere.

"I don't want anybody to self-deploy but be ready to go. And while I have the Deputy Secretary here at some point we may want to reach out to the broader DHS and ask for — putting some men and women down there.

"My gut tells me — I told you guys my gut was that this (missing~ is a bad one and a big one. And you heard Max's comments, I still feel that way today.

"Now, the good thing about this is we've got a great team around here that knows what they're doing, and they (missing) to do it. I want to emphasize what I said yesterday, get to the edge of that envelope. And, in fact. if you feel like you (missing). go ahead and do it. I'll figure out some way to justify it, some way (missing) tell Congress or whoever else it is that wants to yell at me. just let them yell at me. (missing) not to worry about — in fact, I don't want any of these processes in our way.

"We're going to do whatever it takes to help these folks down there because this is, to put it mildly, the big one I think, All right?"

The death and destruction resulting from Hurricane Katrina was not Mr. Brown's fault.

As for Secretary Chertoff, he spoke briefly at the end, as follows:

"Hi. This is Secretary Chertoff. And, again, as it relates to the entire department, if there's anything that you need from Coast Guard or any other components that you're not getting, please let us know. We'll do that for you. OK."

"Secondly, are there any DOD [Department of Defense] assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them, and have we I guess made any kind of arrangement in case we need some additional help from them?"

And, after Mr. Brown replied, "We have DOD assets over here at the EOC. They are fully engaged, and we are having those discussions with them now," Secretary Chertoff added two words: "Good job."

When Secretary Chertoff testified as part of the Senate's investigation of Hurricane Katrina, he was asked whether the depletion of FEMA's budget and its personnel vacancies affected FEMA and replied that he did not believe it affected FEMA's mission capability, even though FEMA had "approximately 342 vacancies" as of April 20, 2005. His exact words: "FEMA is still able to maintain its mission capability."

Mr. Brown was asked what he thought of that answer. His reply, in essence, was that Mr. Chertoff was either naοve and ignorant of what was happening to FEMA despite Mr. Brown's entreaties, or dishonest with the Senate Committee.

Ask yourself: do sufficient funds for planning and responding and having and keeping experienced people enhance mission capability?

Then ask Mr. Chertoff to resign.

To preface my ten questions to Mr. Brown and for your information, I set forth this AP comparison of the House and White House reports on Hurricane Katrina:

"A comparison of a White House investigation into Hurricane Katrina released Thursday, and a Feb. 15 House report:

"EVACUATION:

"House: Mandatory evacuations ordered in Alabama and Mississippi went relatively well. Evacuations in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish were either declared late or not at all, a failure that 'led to preventable deaths, great suffering and further delays in relief.'

"White House: Federal performance was weak across the Gulf Coast due to poor planning for evacuation routes, communications, equipment and evacuee processing. Though fundamentally a state and local responsibility, the federal government must be ready to evacuate people when those authorities cannot.

"LEVEES BREACH:

"House: Despite reports from FEMA and the Coast Guard the night Katrina hit, the Homeland Security Operations Center failed to conclude that New Orleans levees were breached. 'Perhaps the single most important piece of information during Katrina was confirmation of the levee breaches in New Orleans.'

"White House: Confusion about the difference between levee overtoppings and breaches, or breaks, contributed to delays in responding to flooding in New Orleans. On the evening of Katrina's landfall, the Homeland Security Operation Center reported that levees had not been breached, despite a bulletin six hours earlier by the National Weather Service that at least one had.

"MILITARY RESPONSE:

"House: Military assistance was invaluable, but the military failed to coordinate with state, local and other federal assistance organizations.

"White House: The Defense Department was one of the only federal departments that was able to respond to presidential orders with prompt, effective action. But active duty military and National Guard operations were not coordinated and served two different bosses, president and governors. The military may need to oversee the federal response in the worst catastrophes.

"COMMUNICATION:

"House: Damage to communications in the region was extraordinary, but officials failed to plan adequately for alternatives. Multiple levels of government did not prepare for the loss of power and its impact on communications, which hindered the response effort. Government failed at all levels to deal with long-standing problems of 'interoperability,' the ability of different public safety units to communicate with each other effectively.

"White House: Disjointed and conflicting reports from the disaster site gave response agencies a confused picture of what was happening as the crisis unfolded. Lacking and inadequate communication systems added to the confusion because radios and telephones were knocked out. Federal agencies did not understand their missions, leading to chaos in trying to offer help.

"BUSH ROLE:

"House: President Bush's remarks, shortly after Katrina hit, that 'I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees' showed he was not being briefed by a disaster specialist as the crisis unfolded. Delays in assigning relief missions 'may have been avoided if the president had been advised of the need for early presidential involvement.'

"White House: Bush is not specifically blamed, but the White House should have activated an emergency alert system to be broadcast before Katrina hit. White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend said the White House should have acted faster to cut red tape and settle disputes among relief agencies.

"STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:

"House: New Orleans police were ill-prepared, completely overwhelmed and lost 'almost all effectiveness.' Despite adequate warning 56 hours before Katrina made landfall, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin delayed ordering a mandatory evacuation in New Orleans until 19 hours before landfall.

"White House: Two days before the storm's Aug. 29 landfall, Gulf Coast officials knew tens of thousands of residents would be unable to evacuate. Changes at all levels of government are needed, though the report does not address response reforms by state and local authorities

"CHERTOFF AND BROWN:

"House: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff should have more quickly declared Katrina an 'incident of national disaster' to trigger faster relief and additional resources. Michael Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, should not have been in charge of the disaster response because he had not been trained for it.

"White House: Chertoff was having trouble coordinating activities of various federal agencies and was not receiving fast, accurate information about the situation. Still, Chertoff is not faulted at length because the report says the government's disaster response plan is unclear and needs to be rewritten. Brown was still working on an organizational chart to lay out his staffing plan more than three days after the hurricane made landfall."

Then I asked Mr. Brown ten questions.

My Ten Questions to Mr. Brown and His Answers

1. When questioned after the release of the White House report, White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend chided you for dealing directly with the White House instead of following the chain of command. As director of FEMA, what was your practice during natural disasters: to dealing directly with the White House or with the White House through the Homeland Security Secretary?

Answer: During my tenure as FEMA Director I always dealt directly with the White House regarding natural disasters. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security was so disinterested in natural or manmade disasters, that during Secretary Ridge's tenure he never participated in any disasters during the initial response phase, which, of course, is the most crucial as it focuses on life-saving and rescue efforts. Only after the initial phase was over, and with approval of the White House, would Secretary Ridge enter a disaster area. For example, during the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, Secretary Ridge did not enter the disaster area at all. During the California wildfires, he visited California only after the President's visit, and only after the fires had come under control. During the 2004 election while four hurricanes roared through Florida, Secretary Ridge came to Florida only after the White House approved a visit by him and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson.

I do not recall Secretary Ridge ever calling or interfering with operations. He would call occasionally to offer moral support or to compliment the FEMA team on the job they were doing, but he never interfered with any operations. The White House, throughout each of these disasters, dealt directly with me. The President, and his White House staff, were always in direct contact with me regarding the situation "on the ground" and offering to do anything I needed for support.

2. If the former, were you ever admonished by the White House not to deal directly with the White House?

Answer: There was never any question in my mind that I should deal directly with the White House until just days before I was removed from the Katrina operations by Secretary Chertoff, when White House Chief of Staff Andy Card told me in a telephone call that I should start going through the "chain of command," whatever that meant.

3. If so, did you deal directly with the White House because you believed that dealing with the White House through the Homeland Security Secretary would make matters worse?

Answer: If I had to deal with the White House through Secretary Chertoff (or any other Secretary, for that matter) it would have added another layer of bureaucracy, another step, when minutes made a difference between life and death. Your readers should note that not only was it protocol for me to deal directly with the White House, but I often, with the support and approval (it was just the natural way to work) of the White House, often dealt directly with other cabinet secretaries.

4. If so, why did you believe that?

Answer: Common sense dictates this. You can call directly, and speak to the "person in charge" (i.e. the President) or you can call an intermediary and wait for the transfer of information to him from somebody else then wait for the response.

5. What were the practices of your predecessors as to dealing with the White House?

Answer: We should note that this was not an unusual practice, but a common one. James Lee Witt, under President Clinton, and Joe Allbaugh, under President Bush, always dealt directly with the President, even though they did not have a DHS Secretary at the time. General Becton, FEMA Director under President Reagan, has commented to Knight Ridder newspapers that not only did he believe the FEMA director should report directly to the President, but that I had an obligation to do so, especially when I believed that doing otherwise was costing precious time.

6. Did the White House ever instruct or ask you, either orally or in writing, not to deal directly with the White House during natural disasters, or compliment you for doing so?

Answer: Only after Andy Card told me to "follow the chain of command" did my direct contact with the White House cease. Two days later I was sent to Washington by Secretary Chertoff.

7. Do you think that the White House recommendation to keep FEMA under the Homeland Security Department is in America's best interests?

No.

8. If so, why? If not, why not?

Answer: FEMA was at one time an "honest broker" among federal agencies. Since its inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security it has lost much of its ability to act as an honest broker.

Look at the practical side. DHS has a primary mission: to prevent acts of terrorism. This is clearly shown not only in the Homeland Security Act but by the facts. With over 180,000 employees, more than 178,000 of those employees are engaged, in one way or another, with preventing acts of terrorism or performing law enforcement functions: Immigrations & Custom Enforcement, Customs & Border Protection, Secret Service, U.S. Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, et al.

Only one agency, with only 2,500 employees (or less right now because employees are leaving in droves) is responsible for responding to acts of terrorism or natural or manmade disasters: FEMA. Thus, the natural tendency within our form of government, is to follow the money. That money is going toward crisis management, or law enforcement, instead of consequence management, or response. While DHS claims to be an all-hazards department (responding to all types of disasters) it is only lip service. Their primary function, funding, culture and mission is to prevent terrorism — a worthwhile and necessary mission, but one which should not be to the detriment of responding when disaster strikes.

9. Do you think that it is in America's best interests for the White House to retain or to replace Secretary Chertoff?

Answer: I'm not an objective person to whom to ask that question.

10. Do you think that Adviser Townsend's comment to the effect that the chain of command must be respected in the future was based on a genuine belief that another layer of bureaucracy is helpful in an emergency, a desire to provide the White House with the plausible deniability that you deprived it of during your recent Senate testimony or another reason?

Answer: I can only assume Ms. Townsend made those remarks in yet another effort by the to deflect criticism toward me. It is disingenuous for her to now make that claim knowing full well how we operated for over 3½ years during my tenure. The argument may sound good, but it has absolutely no basis in fact.

In addition to replying to the foregoing questions, Mr. Brown answered many questions on details and provided pertinent documentation, including (1) his September 15, 2003 letter to the first Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, outlining FEMA's teetering on the brink of failure; (2) his 2004 memo to Admiral Loy on FEMA's impending budget disaster and related "talking points"; and (3) his 2005 memo to Mr. Chertoff on FEMA's teetering status, as well as the transcript of the conference call conducted by Mr. Brown and participated in by President Bush and Secretary Chertoff during the afternoon of August 28, 2005.

Follow-up Questions and Answers

Thereafter, I asked and Mr. Brown emphatically answered these five follow-up questions:

(1) Did Mr. Brown do his best to prepare FEMA to respond to a catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina? Answer: Yes.

(2) Did the Homeland Security Department reject Mr. Brown's critical recommendations that would have permitted FEMA to have responded much more effectively to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe? Answer: Yes

(3) As former Senator Howard Baker might have asked, what did the President know about the scope of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe?

Answer: That it might have been even worse than it was.

(4) As former Senator Howard Baker might have asked, when did the President know it? Answer: During the early afternoon of August 28, 2005, even before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. See transcript set forth in full at the end of this article.

(5) As former Senator Howard Baker might have asked, when did the President know that most of New Orleans would be flooded? Answer: Probably on Saturday, August 28, 2005, when Mr. Brown only described to him how bad it might be, but asked him to intervene and call Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco to order a mandatory evacuation, and when Max Mayfield spelled out the worst-case predictions during a recorded conference call.

Those who doubt that Mr. Brown (1) was more than competent to serve as FEMA Director, or (2) provided repeated warnings to his superiors that FEMA was being incapacitated in case of a catastrophic natural disaster, or (3) was on top of the Hurricane Katrina situation to the extent that the incapacitation of FEMA still permitted even before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, should read the documents set forth in full hereafter, including (1) Mr. Brown's September 15, 2003 letter to then Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge; (2) Mr. Brown's "talking points" for his March 16, 2004 meeting with Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Loy; (3) Mr. Brown's formal submission to Deputy Secretary Loy; and (4) transcript of the August 28, 2005 conference call conducted by Mr. Brown and including POYUS, beginning at noon.

Mr. Brown's September 15, 2003 letter to then Secretary Ridge:

"Thank you for taking the time to meet with me Friday regarding grant consolidation and the overall preparedness strategy of the Department. My sole motivation regarding these topics is to ensure that you have the benefit of all perspectives during your decision making process. As I mentioned in our conversation, decisions regarding grants and preparedness will have a substantial impact upon the future mission of FEMA. Regardless of your final decision, I will have one reaction. I will support and apply all necessary assets and manpower to implement your decision.

"I believe the following proposals present a unique opportunity to achieve a tremendous success for both the Department and the Administration. Undoubtedly, individuals within and outside the Department will raise concerns regardless of your ultimate decision. Through your leadership and a focused effort to answer these concerns, I am confident these proposed actions will not only placate the detractors, but will ultimately gain their praise when the advantages to the first responder and the preparedness of the nation are revealed.

"The proponents of moving grant programs and FEMA's preparedness mission to the Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP) and the Office of State and Local Government Coordination (OSLGC) describe the reorganization as an effective way to consolidate preparedness and grants responsibilities to achieve an effective, Department-wide, terrorism preparedness initiative or a 'one-stop shop.'

"In reality, their proposed action does not consolidate grants or preparedness initiatives. The proposal would still result in a bifurcation of these functions within the Department There will still be congressionally mandated all-hazards grant and preparedness programs within EP&R.; Additionally, the proposed move would ignore the painful lesson FEMA learned years ago during the 1985 Pennsylvania tornadoes and Hurricane Andrew that the separation of the preparedness mission from the response mission inevitably leads to an ineffective and uncoordinated response. These realities shaped President Bush's proposal for EP&R; and reinforce my continuing belief that the only way to truly consolidate these programs within the Department is to consolidate both the grant and preparedness programs within EP&R; by moving ODP to FEMA.

"This proposal is consistent with the National Strategy for Homeland Security. It directly tracks several of President Bush's priorities in his proposed legislation for the Department. The proposal is also consistent with the President's '04 Budget that calls for the transfer of a handful of FEMA grants to ODP. The goal of the President's budget is the consolidation of grant programs. You can achieve that consolidation and remain consistent with the budget by using the Secretary's administrative powers to move ODP into EP&R.; It is this same logic that allows the move of ODP into OSLGC, as the budget does not address the move of ODP once the proposed grant programs are incorporated into it.

"The goal of creating a grants and preparedness 'one-stop shop' for the first responder and State and local governments is truly achieved only by moving ODP to EP&R.; This move will eliminate potential political liabilities for the Secretary by distancing the Secretary's office from the operational and decision making role of the disbursement of billions of dollars of highly sought after and contested grant monies. The example of the Fire service's active lobbying with regards to grant funding and their tensions with other entities competing for limited grant dollars is a primary reason to remove these political liabilities from the direct office of the Secretary. Moving COP and these functions into an operational directorate provides the Secretary's office with the appropriate oversight of these programs while removing the direct responsibility of addressing the tensions and criticisms that arise from the first responder community. Simply put, a denial letter comes from an Under Secretary rather than the Office of the Secretary.

"President Bush clearly signaled that First Responder Grants belong in EP&R; when he proposed the First Responder Initiative in his budget proposal of January 2002. The President later advocated moving ODP to EP&R; in his proposed legislation for the Department. The recommendation to move ODP to FEMA received far greater scrutiny and policy review by the President's senior staff than has the current proposal to move ODP into the OSLGC. In fact, the move to OSLGC has never been formally vetted at the senior staff level within the Department. Additionally, both the President in his proposal and Congress in the Act, clearly indicated that the preparedness mission should reside within the EP&R; directorate by including the word 'preparedness' in the Directorate's name and mission.

"While the President's attempts to move ODP were unsuccessful, it is important to note that during the creation of the Department, the President's legislative strategy was centered on gaining several key and unprecedented management authorities for the Secretary of DHS. This calculated strategy was made knowing that later, these powers could be exercised to achieve many of the President's unfulfilled legislative priorities. Due to the President's successful efforts to gain these authorities, you are now in the position to move ODP to EP&R; thereby delivering on a key element of the President's original proposal for the Department.

"The precedent setting use of the Secretary's unique management authorities should be exercised for high-level initiatives so as not to dilute the baseline upon which these authorities are utilized. Moving ODP and a handful of grants from FEMA to the OSLGC reduces the threshold of these powers. Instead of consolidating all aspects of grants and preparedness within one directorate of the department, it uses the authority to move limited aspects of programs from a division level office to a different support office. This will not result in the sought after Departmental consolidation of preparedness responsibilities. The move of ODP to OSLGC will not solve the fundamental problem of the separation of some preparedness activities (i.e. terrorism preparedness) from the all-hazards preparedness and grant functions of FEMA. The move of ODP to OSLGC will also dilute the future abilities of DHS Secretaries to exercise these unprecedented authorities at the appropriate level and indeed, could further limit your ability to exercise these authorities during your tenure.

"FEMA has an existing infrastructure to handle the transfer of ODP that is far more robust in structure, experience, regional presence, and established historical relationships with State and local entities and first responders than that of the OSLGC. Since FEMA's inception in 1979, it has cultivated an extensive infrastructure enabling effective coordination of emergency preparedness and response through our long-standing relationships with State and local entities. This infrastructure is founded in common efforts among Federal and State entities to coordinate throughout the entire continuum of the emergency management cycle.

"FEMA's relationships with its State and local partners have been formed, maintained, and improved over the course of 111 emergency declarations, 912 major disaster declarations and numerous response operations. Similarly, our decades of operations in these areas is buttressed by a developed financial management system that supports our expertise in grants administration by disbursing a massive amount of awards each year. In FY '03 alone, FEMA has distributed $5.4 billion in 175,374 awards. This is compared to ODP's awards of approximately $28 billion in 204 awards in FY '03.

"Moving ODP to EP&R; will create the full integration of all preparedness functions within one Directorate. ODP will enhance the terrorism delta on FEMA's solid all-hazards foundation. It will merge ODP's strong point of law enforcement prevention grants and training functions with FEMA's solid relationships with fire, EMS, public works, local officials, and emergency managers. Additionally, the move will match ODP's experience in the mandated state homeland security plans with the strong relationship FEMA has developed with the Governors, mayors, and State and local emergency managers that execute these state plans. The result will be a unified and balanced approach to all preparedness activities.

"In my opinion, there is one hurdle that the proposal of moving ODP to EP&R; must overcome. A traditional tension between the division of influence between the fire and police services must be addressed. Currently, the fire community opposes moving Fire grants to ODB due to its concern that fire issues will be given a lower priority in the historically law enforcement oriented approach of ODB. Vice versa, moving ODP to EP&R; raises similar concerns with the law enforcement community. I believe a politically viable and beneficial strategy exists for this issue and FEMA can lead its implementation immediately.

"To address the concerns of the law enforcement community, I am proposing a reorganization of the Preparedness Division of FEMA. Currently, the U.S. Fire Administrator is the Director of Preparedness. This will raise concerns from the law enforcement community. To address this issue, EP&R; will modify the structure of the Preparedness Division to incorporate a Presidentially appointed senior representative and advocate from both the fire and police services. These representatives will serve as the operational Deputy Directors of Preparedness under the newly continued Sue Mencer who would be the Director of Preparedness. This will facilitate a unified and balanced approach to the Department's preparedness activities.

"The newly designated Deputy Director of Preparedness and U.S. Fire Administrator would represent the fire services. The newly created Deputy Director of Preparedness and U.S. Law Enforcement Representative would represent Law enforcement services. Both of these positions would be filled with proven, experienced, and respected senior officials from their respective service. The creation of these co-equal positions will provide each of the traditional services with an advocate who is recognized as one of their own.

"The creation of the U.S. Law Enforcement Representative gives the police services something they have never had within the Federal government. Local police officials have associated their preparedness activities with the Department of Justice. Regardiess of the existing perception of ODP representing law enforcement issues, there exists a reality that DOJ/ODP represents the Federal law enforcement views rather than local police interests. The police services have never had one of their 'own' representing their issues at the appropriate level of ODP or DOJ. This proposed reorganization of FEMA's Preparedness Division gives them their own representative. Cops identify with cops, not the FBI.

"The USFA representative will focus more on preparedness issues for fire, EMS, and the traditional FEMA constituency. The Police Representative will focus more on preparedness issues relating to prevention and law enforcement. Each of these Deputy Directors should benefit from the expertise of liaisons from IMP, S&T;, USCO, USSS, and BTS in order to filly integrate all missions of the Department into a common delivery of a united, all-hazards preparedness strategy.

"If appropriately executed, this strategy will gain the support of first responders, the law enforcement community, and their representatives in Congress.

"In light of your administrative powers and the President's initial proposal, the question is not why should ODP be in EP&R;, but rather why should ODP not be in EP&R;? In my opinion, no sufficient policy justifications exist to justify the proposition that ODP should not be in EP&R.;

"While detractors resort to the fact that the President twice unsuccessfully tried to move ODP, they fail to account for the reality that the dynamics behind the Congressional opposition to the move have changed due to committee realignments. Detractors also ignore the fact that you wield Congressionally granted reorganizational authorities that the Executive did not possess during its prior attempts to effectuate the move. Mark Twain once said, 'We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it-and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again- and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one either.'

"The transfer of ODP to FEMA will help facilitate the development of a true one-stop shop for first responders. The one-stop shop will consist of a web portal that will include training standards, equipment procurement, training coursework, grant resources, and applications combined into a viable portal that can be utilized by the smallest communities to our largest cities. FEMA's development of the Compendium of Federal Terrorism Training is the preexisting foundation for the development of a comprehensive, interagency, terrorism training and preparedness portal. Having all preparedness and grant functions in EP&R; will enable the Department to streamline its ability to determine training needs; determine responsibility for developing specific training among the Directorates and the federal government in order to fill gaps and avoid duplication; develop and maintain required training; and ensure quality, consistency, and conformity with existing standards.

"The backbone of our one-stop shop concept is the development of a National Terrorism Mission-essential Task List (NTMETL). This element is the key to any system that focuses on the needs of the first responder. First responders consistently state that their single biggest need is to have a list of tasks that they can train against NTMETL will enable the Department to target preparedness efforts by organizing available training and grants in a system That considers the discipline (i.e. public health, law enforcement), scenario (i.e. RDD, communicable bio agent), role (i.e. technician, operations), and tasks (i.e. condition, standard). Adding the delta to this system of the existing training compendium, a standardized equipment list for each task available grants to help acquire the suggested training and equipment and an online application will make the system a true 'one-stop shop.'

"The benefit to the first responder will be the ability for them to have a performance/training roadmap for their emergency personnel, determine training priorities, access course information, contact training providers to schedule training, plan exercises using standardized performance criteria, and apply for grants. The benefit to the Department will be an ability to use empirical data to guide federal training management tie equipment and grants to key preparedness activities, control training gaps and duplication, and provide an empirical basis to determine the preparedness of the nation as well as determining necessary funds to adequately prepare. Ultimately, we will be able truly compare a state's plan to its level of preparedness.

"This one-stop shop proposal could be achieved with a series of milestones announced along the way to a complete, operational one-stop shop. The stage of completing the Compendium of Federal Training portion is essentially complete today. The completion of cataloguing available Federal grants can also be achieved in short order. The final element of creating the NTMETL will take more time, but can be achieved in a reasonable period if it is given the right resources and appropriate interagency priority.

"To facilitate this effort, I believe it would be extremely helpful if an Executive Order were issued to designate DHS (operational responsibility would be delegated to EP&R;) as the lead for this interagency effort. Strong IT contracts supported by an interagency working group comprised of program experts operating under a stringent timeline for deliverables will enable this project to succeed. The inter-agency is already accustomed to EP&R;/FEMA acting as the inter-agency coordinator on the Compendium, and will readily embrace this role, too.

"The final issue I would like to address is the impact of removing the preparedness mission from FEMA will have on its response mission. Just as grants are so closely linked to preparedness, preparedness is integrally linked to response. it is for this reason that the backbone of FEMA's responsibilities given to it in the Stafford Act are reflected in the emergency management cycle of preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. This cycle forms a chain that should not be broken. Because this cycle guides every action that FEMA takes, it is clear why the agency has organized its four divisions of Preparedness, Response; Recovery, and Mitigation directly in line with the priorities set out by the cycle. The preparedness function represents an integral pillar of FEMA's ability to meet the requirements of this rigorous cycle.

"The placement of the preparedness mission in the Department is a fundamental question for the haute mission of FEMA. Preparedness defines EP&R;'s vision of 'A Nation Prepared' and drives our mission to lead the Nation to prepare for, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and recover from major domestic disasters, both natural and manmade, including incidents of terrorism

"Since FEMA's inception in 1979, it has cultivated an extensive infrastructure enabling the effective coordination of emergency preparedness and response through our longstanding relationships with state and local entities. This infrastructure is founded in common efforts among Federal and State entities to coordinate throughout the entire continuum of the emergency management cycle.

"An effective preparedness policy is validated through an increased ability to respond through training, planning, education, guidance, exercises and assessments. Preparedness is fundamentally linked to response, as it is the cornerstone of planning in advance for the response phase of the emergency management cycle. Therefore, we believe that all preparedness functions of the Department should be consolidated into FEMA where the response mission resides.

"In the 1980's, FEMA learned the hard way that disjointed efforts between preparedness and response create significant problems in effectively managing disasters. As an example, the 1985 tornado outbreak that affected northwestern Pennsylvania highlighted significant planning and response problems. More recently, as Secretary Card can attest, the lack of a synchronized effort between the preparedness and response missions led to an ineffective response to Hurricane Andrew. It is interesting to note that then, as today, there were competing interests involved in the preparedness mission. Years ago this tension was caused by the separation of resources applied to the preparedness for nuclear war from all-hazards preparedness. Today, the tension is between preparedness for terrorism as opposed to all-hazards.

"The Stafford Act, as we know it today, was strongly influenced by the Federal shortcomings in response to the 1985 tornado outbreaks in Pennsylvania. As a result, the Act focused on the need for an all-hazards approach to preparedness and response. The all-hazards approach operates upon the understanding that there is a cycle to emergencies that begins with preparedness and mitigation, flows into response, and ends with recovery. These primary areas or phases of disaster management are inextricably linked. The further preparedness efforts are distanced from the response, recovery, and mitigation duties, the greater the opportunity for disconnects that can result in an ineffective and uncoordinated response.

"Moving the preparedness function out of FEMA and into OSLGC would fundamentally sever FEMA from its core functions of supporting first responders, State and local governments and the public. It would shatter agency morale and would completely disconnect the Department's response functions from the responders and governments they are supposed to support. It would break longstanding, effective and tested relationships with the states and first responder stakeholders. The move would also sever effective FEMA training delivery systems that directly train over 1,000,000 first responders each year. The appropriate pairing of the preparedness and response missions in the EP&R; directorate compliments emergency management structures at the State and local level. In those structures, the same people responsible for responding to any emergency or disaster, no matter the cause, would be the same people responsible for preparing for it.

"The preparedness mission should remain in FEMA. The agency has decades of experience in preparedness, an existing field structure in its regions, and is the Directorate tasked with providing the response to terrorist attacks and natural disasters. The Department does not need to start from scratch by shuffling and recreating preparedness responsibilities within other areas of the Department. FEMA has laid a solid preparedness foundation and the Department should build upon it.

"I recognize that these proposals differ significantly from your original thinking. These proposals likewise represent a significant divergence from the original design for a one-stop shop and the role of preparedness within the Department. However, I sincerely believe that the senior leadership of the Department would readily embrace such bold changes.

"I am also convinced that you should exercise your reorganization authorities in such a way that establishes a higher baseline for the future exercise of those authorities, both for yourself and future secretaries. Whatever your decision, the dedicated employees of EP&R;/FEMA will work diligently to implement them.

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to outline both my concerns and these proposals."

These legitimate concerns and sound proposals that should have been heeded!

Mr. Brown followed up with Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Loy on March 16, 2004, but without success.

Mr. Brown's "talking points" for his March 16, 2004 with Deputy Secretary Loy

Thank you for the opportunity to share how EP&R;/FEMA is progressing and the challenges we are facing as we approach the mid-point of Fiscal Year 2004.

As you know, while EP&R; is a relatively small part of DHS, our mission-FEMA's mission-is a critical one, with high public visibility.

State and local governments, other federal agencies, Congress, the media and the American people expect FEMA, and now DHS, to ensure the Nation's ability to respond to and recover from acts of terrorism, natural disasters, and other emergencies.

I am pleased to be able to talk to you today about our current budget situation, how we are positioned for the future, and to answer any questions you may have.

Let me first say that, overall, we are living within our FY 2004 appropriation and FTE levels, and that we are adhering closely to budgetary intent in our spending.

Having said that, I should make it clear that we are struggling each day to maintain operations and capabilities at current levels, and I am increasingly concerned that, as a result, important investments and preparations for the future are being mortgaged or deferred indefinitely.

Before I talk about our current program-related issues, I'd like to talk for a minute about the shape of EP&R;'s overall budget for FY 2004, and specifically, what has happened with our operating accounts this year.

Concerning our total budget: While our FY 2004 discretionary budget total is $46 billion, this includes over

    $2 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund

    $1.4 billion for BioDefense Countermeasures and Public Health Programs, and

    $637 million for grant programs, the modernization of flood maps, floodplain management activities, and disaster loans.

The remaining $563 million represents our true operating expenses, only 12% of our overall budget.

Concerning our operating accounts, I want to share three things with you:

1. How our budget account structure limits our ability to manage our budget

2. The scope of reductions to our FY 2004 operating accounts, and

3. The challenges that are mounting as a result of our current situation.

Mr. Brown's formal submission to Deputy Secretary Loy follows.

EP&R; Briefing to Deputy Secretary Loy

1. Loss of Flexibility


First, as I noted, we currently suffer from a lack of flexibility based on how Congress has structured our operating accounts.

The FY 04 President's Budget proposed a single "Operating Expenses" account for EP&R.;

But in the FY 04 Appropriation, Congress broke out the line items in the single "Operating Expenses" account into a number of smaller, separate accounts, including separate accounts for "Administrative and Regional Operations" and "Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery."

When we must take a reduction, we cannot easily move funds between appropriations. This is particularly a problem in our "Administrative and Regional Operations" account, which is largely salaries and benefits, and fixed costs such as rent and regional operations. It is very difficult to absorb a reduction in this type of account.

As you can understand, this significantly reduced the flexibility we would otherwise have with a single account.

Because of the way we are boxed in, we have been forced to charge some admin costs to the administrative set-asides in other appropriations, such as the Flood Map Modernization and Pre-Disaster Mitigation funds, in order to make for funding lost to cost-shares and other reductions we have had to take in operating expenses.

2. Reductions to FY 2004 Operatin2 Accounts (PMRR and ARO)

Next, our FY 04 EP&R; operating budget (consisting primarily of our "Admin and Regional Operations" and "Preparedness, Mitigation, Response and Recovery" accounts) has absorbed significant reductions.

First, in formulating the FY 2004 Budget, OMB transferred $13 million from EP&R; to "Departmental Management" (from Operating Expenses, Administrative and Regional Operations).

The rationale was that consolidation of functions under DHS would generate savings, but no savings have been realized. Thus FEMA continues to operate with essentially the same number of personnel, but has steadily taken on additional taskings and responsibilities.

Also, during the FY 2004 budget formulation phase: Approximately $9 million was transferred from the "Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery" operating account base to the Office of Domestic Preparedness. However, since those funds included pay for positions that did not transfer to ODP, we were forced to absorb those costs as well.

EP&R; also lost $250 million to rescissions of appropriated funds in FY 2004 (including a supplemental for the Disaster Relief Fund). These rescissions included nearly $2 million in reductions to the already limited "Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery" and "Administrative and Regional Operations" accounts.

We estimate DHS cost sharing initiatives (taxes) for this year could ultimately reduce EP&R;'s funding between $3 and $10 million, funds that are currently allocated to FY 2004 program activities.

In addition to reduced funding levels in FY 04, we are losing 67 positions to ODP with activities that are transferring to ODP.

The effect of this FTE transfer is made especially acute by the fact that, although some of these positions only performed collateral duty on the transferred activity (Example: Citizen Corps), we are nevertheless losing a full position

We will, of course, have to distribute the work they leave behind among an already overburdened staff. Our total FTE is less than 5,000, including disaster staff. With a full-time personnel count of about only 2,500 across the entire Directorate, the loss of 67 positions has a significant effect.

Overall, while FEMA is continuing to meet its obligations and carry out its fundamental responsibilities, it is getting more and more difficult to do so. We expect the remainder of the year and FY 2005 to continue in the same mode, and are preparing ourselves as best we can.

3. HS vs. Non-HS, Shortfalls, Un-Funded Requirements, and the Future

Within FEMA, we currently identified approximately $230 million in shortfalls and unfunded requirements, over and above our current operating expenses. These items include such things as: National Special Security Events, development of mutual-aid agreements, forced facilities moves, increased security costs, etc.

As I noted in my letter to Secretary Ridge transmitting EP&R;'s FY 2006-2010 Resource Allocation Plan, I committed our Directorate to the difficult-but-necessary work of finding the funding for these within our current funding level.

However, last week we received news from the CFOs office that OMB designated two-thirds of our budget as being "Non-Homeland Security," and that "Non-Homeland Security" activities will be held to zero budget growth beginning in FY 2006. This paints a grim picture for our future.

Although solid targets have not yet been released by the CFO's shop, we have been told to expect to reprogram our FY 06 budget plans to absorb a cut of $1 00 million.

Once we receive our revised FY 06 target we will begin counting the cost, but it is clear that many, if not most, of our current un-funded requirements will have to be deferred in favor of more critical and immediate priorities. And the requirements to cover shortfalls, such as security costs, could significantly affect our operations.

Program/Sub-Program Status

SLIDES 1-6: [No notes.]

SLIDE 7: EP&R; Major Programs (Summary of Program and Budget Status)


This and the following slides provide an overview of FEMA's five major programs, and the status of their Sub-Programs. Although we report in FYHSP (Future Years Homeland Security Program) only by our five programs, there is a great deal of planning below that level.

This past year I began holding quarterly reviews, similar to this review, so that I and my managers will know if our performance and spending are on track.

I brought an example of FEMA's First Quarter Performance Briefing, held in January. It shows the Sub-Programs and Elements below that make up the Programs: which contribute to my priorities, and whether they are on track or not. [Handout of First Quarter Performance Reviews]

Our Second Quarter Performance Briefings are scheduled for early April, and we will begin to tie performance to our budget and spend plan.

For my briefing today I am only concentrating on the Sub-Program level. Each is coded "Green" "Yellow" or "Red," indicating whether they are on track: in danger of going off track if not corrected; or already off track.

Before we look quickly at each Program, I must point out that there are many "Green" indicators. That is because we are generally on track with our performance, but have scaled back our level of performance to match the F~ 04 resources.

For example, we would like to be doing much more in the area of exercising, building emergency teams, or catastrophic planning, but simply do not have the resources. These unmet needs translated into our over-target requests for the FY 05-09 and FY 06-10 planning.

Please note that our rate of obligation is slow. That is because we were reluctant to fully allocate funds earlier in the year without knowing the extent of the "taxes" that would have to be absorbed. Now that we have that information and are fully allocating funds I expect our rate of obligation to pick up significantly.

SLIDES 8 & 9: Mitigation

Mitigation, which includes the National Flood Insurance Program, Map Modernization, and other mitigation programs for earthquakes, hurricanes, and dam safety, is on target in all of its Sub-Programs.

Tract for Map Modernization to update our flood hazard maps nationwide. Weare currently distributing funds and are in the process of developing guidance for implementation. As with most of our programs, this is implemented through our regional offices.

SLIDES 10 & 11: Preparedness Program

FEMA's Preparedness Program covers a wide range of activities, including our fire programs and training and exercising.

Preparedness supports our Response and Recovery capabilities, and has a critical role in the National Incident Management System (NIMS) Program Coordination Center.

Though all of the Sub-Programs are "Green," this is a good example of how we have had to scale down our level of performance to realistically match our funding.

For example, FEMA lacks sufficient funding to sponsor, take advantage of, or fully and effectively engage in exercise opportunities. FEMA, at both the Regional and Headquarters levels, should be able to fund at least low-level participation in support of other agency-sponsored exercises that supports FEMA's mission, and cannot.

Currently, we do not have funds to participate in exercises unless funded by the exercise sponsor. Consequently, we cannot always participate in exercises that are our highest priorities. We, and regions, have had to turn down opportunities with NORTHCOM.

That is why one of my top ten over target priorities for FY 06-10 is "Exercise Support for Federal Emergency Team Readiness."

SLIDES 12 & 13: Response Program

The reputation of FEMA, and of DHS, will live or die on a timely and effective response when we do have a WMD event or truly catastrophic disaster. A great deal of emphasis and energy is devoted to our Response Program, but we face major challenges.

You can see that the status within this Program is mixed, with some red, yellow and green .

Let me address the "Red" indicator first.

The primary reason the Response Planning program is shown as "Red" is the continuing lack of travel and program funds needed to support participation in training, team exercises, outreach and other activities vital to this Sub-Program's success.

For example, in FY 03 exercise support costs for exercises being conducted by other Federal agencies and other elements of DHS totaled over $2.6 million. As of February 15th of this year, these costs approach $1 million and are expected to increase as new requirements arise.

Direction, Command and Control is a "Yellow."

This sub-program includes our Incident Management Teams, Operations Centers and Special Events. There are funding gaps in all of these areas, which are exacerbated by shortfalls that we have had to cover with the absorption of NDMS. That program brought with it many preexisting financial liabilities.

As of February 15th, Response paid $2.8 million to vendors to remediate these liabilities. This money has unavoidably been reprogrammed from other vital areas.

The Logistics Subprogram is also "Yellow."

While some aspects of Logistics are on track, such as team and cadre training and pre-positioning of disaster supplies, other elements are not quite on target.

The Pre-positioned Equipment Program, which sustains a community's response to a WMD incident, is being transferred from ODP. That transfer, and the uncertainty of associated funding for FY 05 and beyond is dragging down performance.

Despite these hold-ups in some areas of Response, great strides have been made in the Program overall. The Specialized Response Team Sub-Program, which includes Urban Search and Rescue, NDMS, MERS Communications, Nuclear Incident Response Team, Domestic Emergency Support Team, and the Hurricane Liaison Team remains on-target with its milestones.

Similarly, the Health and Medical Response Subprogram, which includes BioShield, the Strategic National Stockpile, and Medical Surge Capacity Development is on-target with its milestones.

SLIDES 14 & 15: Recovery Program

I know that you realize the importance of Recovery as a critical part of the Department's mission, and I appreciate the fact that it has been singled out with its own goal in the new DHS Strategic Plan.

As you can see, the Sub-Programs within Recovery indicate that all we are on target with our priorities and performance for this year. However, I must raise a warning flag that we are operating on a very thin budgetary margin and have scaled back our level of performance to match FY 04 resources.

As a result, our ability to address two longer-term priorities, catastrophic planning and enhanced IT investments for improving disaster assistance delivery, will be dependent on over target funding.

Both in FY 05-09, and again in FY 06-10, I have set forth catastrophic planning as one of my highest priorities for over-target funding. Currently, however, the prospect of getting that funding seems very bleak.

We simply have to realize that FEMA-and DHS-is not prepared right now to deal with a truly catastrophic disaster, regardless of the cause. The United States has been very lucky so far and has not been struck with a catastrophic natural event.

Such as a massive earthquake striking the Los Angeles basin, or New Orleans suffering a direct hit by a Category 5 hurricane.

And we are certainly not yet prepared to deal with the complex and costly consequences of a WMD event in a major metropolitan area.

Imagine, for example, the complexities involved in providing housing and restoring public infrastructure, including utilities, for the displaced population of Manhattan while decontaminating the island after release of a dirty bomb. We do not now have the funding to do the planning necessary to support the recovery from such an event.

At our current capacity, a terrorist event or series of events impacting 1.5 million people would require over six months just to register all of the victims.

The challenges that we faced after 9/11 are only a small introduction to what we might experience in the future, with potentially much broader and longer-lasting consequences.

I want our Recovery capabilities to keep pace with the threats we face and the demands of the future, and we will simply not be able to do that at current funding levels.

SLIDE 16 & 17: National Security Program

Our essential programs for Continuity of Operations (COOP) and Continuity of Government (COG) are within National Security. This is one Program which did receive significant additional funding in the President's budget for FY 05. ($27 million for COOP/COG support and $2 million to upgrade the Emergency Alert System.)

There is a Yellow indicator in one of the Subprograms because a contract for our New Generation Central Locator System is still pending action. We will correct that within FEMA and get back on track.

SLIDE 18: Congressional Reporting

EP&R; has no Congressional appropriations reports due at this time.

SLIDE 19: Summary Five Questions:

In preparation for this review, we were asked to explain generally how we are living within our FY04 Appropriation.

And, specifically, we were asked to address the five questions shown on this slide:

1. Is EP&R; within its FTE ceiling?

Yes. All FEMA Program Areas report that they are within their FTE ceiling.

2. Is there budget language that must be addressed by the EP&R; spend plan?

The Preparedness and Response Divisions both have budget language that must be addressed in the EP&R; Spend Plan (e.g. BioShield, NDMS Public Health, US&R;).

3. Is EP&R; working and spending in accordance with the intent of the budget?

All FEMA Program Areas report that they are working and spending in accordance with the intent of the budget.

4. Is EP&R; encountering problems with its programs?

Some EP&R; Elements report encountering problems with their programs:

Preparedness notes that they lack sufficient funding to participate in numerous exercise opportunities. FEMA should at least be able to fund some low-level participation in/support of other agency-sponsored exercises that support the FEMA mission.

Response notes that lack of funding is the single most important factor impeding progress in a number of Sub-Program Elements. Worst-case scenario, this lack of funding will degrade response times in the event of an actual event, possibly putting lives and property at risk.

Response also reports significant problems involving the cost of transitioning the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) into DHS/FEMA from HHS.

5. What priorities are not going to be addressed?

Preparedness notes that its inability to participate in all-hazards exercises due to insufficient program funding, makes America less secure.

Response does not expect to meet their goals of providing a WMD Capacity for our Response Teams. In addition, staffing shortages will make it impossible to fully establish Incident Command System and logistics training.

Recovery is unable to provide timely assistance following a catastrophic disaster/terrorist event, including; housing, debris removal, infrastructure restoration, and economic recovery.

Impact of Shortfalls and Rescissions on Support Areas:

I would also like to point out that the ability of FEMA to accomplish its mission also depends on our Support Offices ability to provide services to our program areas.

And these support offices face serious challenges due to resource shortfalls. Such as:

Our Facilities Management Division reports that, due to a $3.4 million funding shortfall, FEMA HQ may have to reduce the number of security guards to a level insufficient to Threat Condition Yellow.

FEMA is currently searching within its own resources for over $3 million to pay the costs of guard services necessitated by increased security costs. The shortage of these funds is exacerbated by the reductions in the "Administrative and Regional Operations" account, and lack of flexibility to transfer between appropriations, that I noted at the outset.

Our Human Resources Division reports that they don't have the resources to support transitioning the incoming Health and Human Services employees coming into the Agency, which includes approximately 8,000 intermittent employees who are members of the 100+ NDMS Teams.

They also report that they do not have the funds required to provide mandated retirement and benefits counseling to existing FEMA employees.

Our Information Technology Services Division reports that:

Its land mobile radio equipment doesn't meet national standards,

A third of its equipment is obsolete,

Project management and oversight support are at risk of being compromised,

And there are only limited backup communication systems available to respond to a catastrophic event.

Summary

In summary, I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide a status of our performance and the budget for FY 04.

As I have indicated throughout, FEMA has one of the most visible and critical missions in the Department, and I will do everything I can to ensure that we have the resources to carry-out that mission.

The record shows that Mr. Brown urged that FEMA be responsible for both preparedness and response to natural disasters. See the following CongressDaily article, by Greta Wodele, titled "Official seeks transfer of first responder grant office" and dated February 14, 2005.

"A top Homeland Security Department official wants the grant office that provides funding for first responders placed under the agency's preparedness and response division.

"'I've floated the proposal in the [Homeland Security] Department,' Michael Brown, the undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response, said Monday.

"He said he proposed the idea several times. 'It really makes sense when you think about it,' Brown said. 'You can't separate preparedness from response.'

"Brown said he has been awaiting the arrival of incoming Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to make his case. The Senate is expected to approve Chertoff's nomination Tuesday.

"But a spokeswoman for the secretary's office said officials are not considering the shift.

"Currently, the office of state and local domestic coordination and preparedness is located within the secretary's office, serving as a public outreach office between the secretary and state and local offices. If Brown's plan were implemented, the office would move away from secretary's office and placed under Brown's authority — giving him power over billions of dollars in first responder grants.

"One administration source said other department officials want to keep the office within reach of the secretary to give Chertoff immediate access to the funds and allow it to retain its high profile within the department. House Homeland Security Chairman Chris Cox, R-Calif., whose panel proposed the shift last year, said Friday that is a 'political decision.' Cox added, 'The secretary is a political appointee and is surrounded by political appointees. ... Individual grant decisions should not be made at the apex of the third largest Cabinet office.'

"Cox last year faced several opponents, mostly lawmakers from rural states, over his efforts to revamp the formula process to allocate funding based on risk and vulnerabilities rather than other factors such as population. Rural lawmakers last year successfully beat back efforts by Cox and urban lawmakers to give their high-risk areas a larger piece of the pie.

"Cox said Friday the department last year resisted his proposal to put the grant office under the emergency preparedness and response wing to avoid the political jockeying for money.

"'If the department moves in that direction, we'll be vindicated in our judgment,' Cox said. 'It was the view of [the Homeland Security Committee] that first responder grant making belongs with emergency preparedness and response because that's exactly what emergency preparedness is all about.'

"Cox's Senate counterpart, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Friday she plans to review all the department's programs this year, including its grant-making functions. Collins has argued that every state must receive adequate funding to prepare and prevent a terrorist attack.

During the next month, Mr. Brown sent a lengthy memorandum on FEMA to Secretary Chertoff, at his request, to prepare the Secretary for a meeting that the Secretary found unnecessary after reviewing the memorandum.

Key parts of the memorandum follow.

Overview of Component:

Mission:

To lead the Nation to prepare for, to mitigate the effects of, to respond to, and to recover from major domestic disasters, both natural and manmade, including incidents of terrorism.

Identification of Top Near-Term Management Issues

Most Important Goals


1. Operational Construct

Create and begin implementation of a revised FEMA operational construct that ensures the best utilization of the Nation's resources when responding to disasters and emergencies. The intent is to examine our conceptual approach to disaster management and develop new approaches that improve effectiveness through re-designed processes. Examples include re-design of our disaster work force, including operational readiness of full-time FEMA staff; tracking and visibility of operational assets; and examination of the proper balance of operational roles between headquarters and regional offices.

2. Logistics Capability and Asset Visibility

Develop and begin implementation of a supportable logistical strategy that effectively and efficiently supports the DHS and FEMA disaster response and recovery requirements, to include: acquisition, deployment, tracking, warehousing, and operation and maintenance of all assets.

3. Catastrophic Planning

Develop and begin implementation of a comprehensive and integrated multi-year catastrophic planning strategy that meets the requirements of FEMA and its partners, and supports implementation of the National Response Plan.

4. National Incident Management System Integration Center (NIC)

Establish a NIC to provide strategic direction for and oversight of the NIMS to ensure a consistent, nationwide approach to prepare for, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents regardless of cause, size or complexity.

5. Disaster Work Force

Establish and begin implementation of a plan to recruit, train, credential, deploy and retain a disaster workforce with the appropriate skill mix and management structure to support the operational requirements of all disaster related functions.

6. Position Management

Establish and maintain a baseline of all positions in the Agency, and hold managers accountable for developing long-range workforce plans to assure appropriate numbers, skills, and grades of employees to support current and long-term mission needs.

Most Serious Challenges:

1. Preparedness


The preparedness mission is scattered across the Emergency Preparedness & Response Directorate (EP&R;), Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP), the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness (OSLGCP), Public Affairs, and the Headquarters Integration Staff (I-Staff).

The President recommended moving ODP into EP&R; in his legislative proposal for the Department. However, the Congress enacted legislation placing ODP within the BTS Directorate.

Recently, the Department missed an opportunity to consolidate the preparedness mission when DHS chose to use its own authorities to move ODP to the newly created OSLGCP. This reorganization has failed to produce tangible results due to the lack of a clearly defined chain of command. The absence of effective leadership in the preparedness mission has further spawned a complete lack of accountability for results. For example, in HSPD-8, the President called for the submission of the National Preparedness Goal with the DHS Fiscal Year 2006 budget submission. The deadline passed and OSLGCP did not submit the preparedness goal.

These recent organizational changes have divided what was intended to be one, all-hazards preparedness mission into two artificially separate preparedness categories of terrorism and natural disasters. DHS has institutionalized the split by dividing the primary responsibilities for each category between the separate organizations of FEMA and ODP. Having two organizations and several other ancillary organizations working on preparedness has bred internal and external confusion.

The DHS Preparedness mission should be centralized in the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate. This recommendation is consistent with The President's original intent and is consistent with the Act's direction that the first responsibility of the EP&R; Under Secretary is "helping to ensure the effectiveness of emergency response providers to terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies."

Moving OSLGCP/ODP to EP&R; will create the full integration of all preparedness functions within one directorate. ODP will enhance the terrorism delta on FEMA's solid all-hazards foundation. Most importantly, the move would reconnect the severed link between preparedness and response within the Department. The link ensures that capabilities and procedures trained will be identical to the capabilities and procedures actually applied during a real event.

2. National Response Plan and other operational planning initiatives

Ambiguity regarding the organizational placement of the National Response Plan (NRP) and other operational planning initiatives needs to be resolved. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 assigned EP&R; in Section 502 with,

(3) Providing the Federal Government's response to terrorist attacks and major disasters, including-

    (A) managing such response;

    (B) directing the Domestic Emergency Support Team, the Strategic National Stockpile, the National Disaster Medical System, and...the Nuclear Incident Response Team;

    (C) overseeing the Metropolitan Medical Response System;

    (D) coordinating other Federal response resources in the event of a terrorist attack or major disaster;

(4) Aiding the recovery from terrorist attacks and major disasters;

(5) building a comprehensive national incident management system with Federal, State, and local government personnel, agencies, and authorities, to respond to such attacks and disasters; and

(6) Consolidating existing Federal Government emergency response plans into a single, coordinated national response plan;


Instead of assigning many of these responsibilities to EP&R;, as described in the Act, the former Secretary made the decision to assign these responsibilities to varying departmental entities. For example, the development of the National Response Plan and the National Incident Management System was initially assigned to TSA for development. Then after several months, the Secretary again shifted responsibility for NRP/NIMS development to the newly created I-Staff within the immediate office of the Secretary. This decision was consistent with past and subsequent decisions that removed key areas of operational responsibility from line directorates.

Since the completion of the NRP and NIMS, another operational planning function has been created and assigned, outside of EP&R;, to the I-Staff. The Operational Planning Integrated Process Team (OPIPT) has been tasked with developing an operational planning approach to maximize DHS preparedness and response capabilities. This effort will center on the development of plans for 16 scenarios developed in conjunction with the HSC. It is still unclear how these plans will be reconciled with the existing Incident Annexes to the NRP, ongoing catastrophic planning at FEMA, and similar planning efforts at DOD and the NCTC. On its face, the assignment and implementation of these efforts outside of the NRP construct appears to contradict the Act's original intent when it assigned EP&R; with "Consolidating existing Federal Government emergency response plans into a single, coordinated national response plan."

In addition to the OPIPT's federal planning responsibilities, there is a proposal to also make OPIPT responsible for planning initiatives at the State and local level. These proposals ignore FEMA's decades long expertise, relationships, and understanding of the emergency management system and potentially ignore basic concepts of authority. The effect of these assignments has been a confused operational framework, and an implementation strategy that is vexing to staff as well as congressional authorizers and appropriators.

Since the inception of the Department, responsibilities that the Act delegated and that FEMA's mission encompasses, have been assigned to other areas of the Department. The result has led to confusion and the duplication of mission areas within the Department. Fundamentally, the continual redelegation of EP&R;/ FEMA's responsibilities for preparedness, response, and emergency/incident management has called into question EP&R;'s future role and existence within the Department.

Proposals for long-term cross-cutting effectiveness

1. Organization

The management trend since the inception of the department has been to ignore the statutory roles of the Under Secretaries who are appointed by the President to serve as the Department's senior leadership team. The department has failed to enable a leadership team that works across the department. Instead, DHS created a top-heavy organization that is led by its staff rather than its leadership.

The department has focused on building org charts: the vertical and horizontal boundaries of the department; the assembling of tasks into jobs and jobs into departments, and divisions. However, the department has failed at an equally important element of organization by excluding any attention to the personal networks that link people throughout the department and across the department's boundaries. These networks are just as important, if not more important, for the execution of the department's mission.

The lack of these networks, coupled with a skewed allocation of missions and authorities, have encouraged unfocused empire building in duplicative mission areas rather than facilitating the development of cohesive strategies to fill the homeland security vacuum that DHS was created to address. To create personal networks, the leadership of the department must be part of an environment that facilitates integration. This can be done by having permanent office space available to the Under Secretaries and their staffs at the NAC. This will better enable the Under Secretaries to collaborate with the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, all other Under Secretaries, and their respective staffs. The availability of collocated space will help create integration through the development of personal networks at the leadership level. These networks will, in turn, be driven throughout the respective organizations resulting in increased horizontal integration.

2. Decision Authority

The allocation of decision authority within the department- i.e. what decisions are made by which people at what levels, with what oversight or review, is dysfunctional. The formal delegations of authority by the Act have been ignored. Decision making authority often resides within positions that are outside the span of control of the Under Secretaries who are statutorily responsible for particular missions.

The expectation of Under Secretaries being responsible for the management of their statutory responsibilities has eroded to an operating construct that places much of these responsibilities within newly created and expanded staff organizations such as the I-Staff and the OSLGCP. The executive office staff's involvement in operational and management areas that are clearly within an Under Secretary's purview has created conflicts. These conflicts are compounded by the executive office's track record of continually bringing additional operational responsibilities into the Secretary's Office rather than pushing them down to the directorates.

The current rationale given for expanding staff organizations is to create integration within DHS. However, these moves create the opposite affect. In an attempt to 'integrate,' the executive office has merely pulled representatives out of their existing directorates, cut all ties from their home organization's chain of command, and created yet another layer of bureaucracy. These staff functions are uncoordinated with the directorates and perform duplicative functions that create confusion and organizational tension.

[Mr. Brown was very upset that DHS had refused to fund his "over-targets" for continuing the catastrophic disaster planning that FEMA had done that resulted in the Hurricane Pam exercise referenced in media reports. Mr. Brown enlisted Dave Howe who worked at the White House's Homeland Security Council for Adviser Fran Townsend to try and help FEMA get the needed funds. Mr. Brown wanted to know exactly who had cut the funding — DHS or OMB. Sure enough, it was DHS, and it never even got to OMB for consideration. What's important to note is that not only did DHS hurt FEMA's effectiveness, but FEMA was specifically referencing New Orleans as the example of the type of planning/exercises FEMA needed to do. Email substantiates this.]

Transcript of August 28, 2005 Conference Call Including POTUS

Mike Brown: Everyone let's go ahead and get started. Its noon, and we have a lot of business to cover today.

Before we get started I wanted to very briefly introduce Michael Jackson, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, and my good friend from the old days. So, Michael welcome to our little operation here.

MR. JACKSON: Hi.

Mike Brown: Let's get started immediately. National Hurricane Center, do you want to give us an update?

NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: For those following along on the website, we have made some last minute adjustments so please refresh the website at fema.gov/hlt. We have both the Mobile Bay and New Orleans official storm surge slosh model best track runs posted on this websites and we will continue to post them as they are made available as the storm comes closer to the coast.

With that, well turn it over to Max Mayfield.

MR Max MAYFIELD: Okay. Good afternoon. I don't have any good news here at all today. This is, as everybody knows by now, a very dangerous hurricane and the center is about 225 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River

Putting the visual loop up here. Slide 100 here, just so you can see the size. You know, if there was ever a time to remind people not to focus on that skinny, black line, this is it. This is a very, very large hurricane, and you can even see some of these outer rain bands have already moved across the southeast Louisiana coast and are moving into the New Orleans area right now. That band will dissipate, and additional bands will start coming in later this afternoon,

Let's go to Slide 200, the infrared satellite loop. And I show this to really emphasize the eye. Right now, this is a Category 5 hurricane, very similar to Hurricane Andrew in the maximum intensity, but there is a big, big difference This hurricane is much larger than Andrew ever was.

And for the folks in Louisiana, in Mississippi, and Alabama, and the Florida panhandle, when we're talking about the intensity — in fact, especially the folks in Louisiana, if you remember Lily. Lily had been a Category 4 hurricane in the central Gulf of Mexico. It had a very, very small pinhole eye, and those small eyes usually don't maintain themselves very long.

Lily weakened down to a Category I hurricane by the time it made landfall. This one is not going to do that. When you have a large diameter eye like this, and as strong as this one is, I really don't expect to see any significant weakening. So I think the wisest thing to do here is to plan on a Category 5 hurricane

Okay. Let's go to Slide 300, which is the water vapor animation, and I'm just going to spend a minute on this to talk about the steering currents. Al! of the computer models are developing high pressure here to east of Florida. The winds go clockwise around that high. That will help turn Katrina to the north, but there is also a drop — a low pressure, as you can see, moving in on the ends of the loop here from the northwest.

And this is where there are some differences in how the models handle that. If this drop were just to continue to sweep in, it will turn more toward the north and even northeast faster. If it stays back here and, you know, farther removed from the hurricane, it will allow it to come in more in a north-northwesterly track.

No one can tell you exactly where that landfall is going to be, but this hurricane is so large that no matter where it hits it's going to have an impact over a very, very large area.

Let's go to the HRVC (phonetic) slides, Slide 400. This is our forecast at the present time, takes the center over southeast Louisiana, just east of Lake Poncetrain and on up onto Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, into Ohio, in the three-day time period.

I want to say that — and I know I'm preaching to the choir here — that the — this hurricane in particular is not just a coast event, The strong winds, the heavy rains, and the tornadoes will spread well inland, aIong this path that you see here. Having said that, I also want to make absolutely clear to everyone that the greatest potential for large loss of life is still in the coastal areas from the storm surge.

So let's go to Slide 500, where it says the storm surge forecast. This is the actual forecast based on the last forecast that came out about an hour ago that has the center coming over here, passing just east of the city of New Orleans, and covering the eastern side of the lake.

I really want to emphasize that, you know, and I think FEMA are staying here in southeast Louisiana but Robert Latham and Bruce Bowman here. Mississippi and Alabama, these valleys that you see here along the Mississippi coast, those valleys are up over 20 feet. We're talking about a Camille-type storm surge here. even on the Mississippi coast. And we'll talk about .Alabama here in a minute.

On the west side of the track, this is very, very complicated. You know, there's a very complex system of levies there in the New Orleans area. Some of the valleys that we see — and I'm sure that all of these areas are already going under water out near the mouth of the Mississippi River. The colors that you see here show inundation over the land areas.

One of the valleys here in Lake Poncetrain, we've got on our forecast track, if it maintains its intensity, about 12–1/2 feet of storm surge in the lake. The big question is going to be: will that top some of the levies? And the current track and the forecast we have now suggests that there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself, but we're — we've always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within about 20 percent.

If that track were to deviate just a little bit to the west, it would — it makes all the difference the world. I do expect there will be some of the levies over top even out here in the western portions here where the airport is. We've got valleys of 10 feet that can't overtop some of those levies,

The problem that we're going to have here remember the winds go counterclockwise around the center of the hurricane. So if the really strong winds clip Lake Poncetrain, that's going to pile some of that water from Lake Poncetrain over on the south side of the lake. I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levies will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very grave concern.

Now, let's go to the next slide. This is Slide 600. I really want to make sure that various of the folks in Alabama know what can happen here. If you remember back Hurricane Jorge in '98, it made landfall in Mississippi as a Category 2, and you had five to eight feet of storm surge way up into the northern part of Mobile Bay.

You're going to have likely more than that from this hurricane. So we are, indeed worried about the Mobile Bay area, and, of course, Dolphin Island and the Gulf Shores area there,

Now, let me go to the next slide, Slide 700. We have shifted the track here, This is not our official forecast right now, but if that track eases eastward just about 30 miles. which is almost to the noise level for us here, you could have much higher storm surge values both well up into the northern portion of Mobile Bay. And. you know, I'm showing 10 and 11 feet right now. We like to say we're within a couple of — you know. 20 percent. So you could have, you know, 12 or 13 feet of storm surge there.

This is a — this is going to have a real impact 'well out to the east, and I don't want to forget about Florida either. Even the northeastern Gulf there, east of the hurricane warning area, we full expect three to five feet of storm surge and wave setup that will have an impact on coastal areas. And I know some portions of Highway 98 there around Appalachia (inaudible) are already being eroded,

So big, big impact from the storm surge well out to the east. We need to understand that.

Okay, Any specific questions for me before I toss to the Hydranet Prediction Center and Jim Hope.

Mike Brown: Any questions for Max?

MR. Max MAYFIELD: Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr. JIM STETHKOVICH: We do have a question here in Alabama

MR. Max MAYFIELD: Yes, sir.

MR. JIM STETHKOVICH: Hey, this is Jim StethkovIch, National Weather Service. We're getting some reports out of the Mobile office that they're starting to have projections of over 15 foot in northern Mobile County. Were wondering, based on what you just told us, Max, if that might be a little bit high.

MR. Max MAYFIELD: Well; you know, they may have centered the track farther east, and just — you know, that's almost to the (inaudible). We've heard about 12 feet. Yes, two or three feet higher than that, that's certainly possible. That's not what we're forecasting —

JIM STETHKOVICH: Thank you.

MR. Max MAYFIELD: — but there is certainly that possibility. This is — you know, this one is not just the intensity, but it's the size that really has us concerned too.

(Inaudible.)

MIKE BROWN: Okay. Mr. Buckley?

MR. Mike BUCKLEY (Inaudible.)

MIKE BROWN: Max, there's a question coming from the audience.

MR. MIKE BUCKLEY: This is Mike Buckley from Headquarters. Can you comment on the forward speed and what might affect the track as well as the intensity of the storm surges?

MR. MAX MAYFIELD: Well, we've got it going about, you know, 10 knots, about 12 miles per hour. Once it makes that turn to the northeast, it's going to start accelerating, if that motion occurs earlier, you know, that that would speed everything up. But right now, we're talking about the center, you know, the actual center being on the coast tomorrow morning. But we really — again, we don't want to focus on that.

I mean, the storm force winds are going to be there, you know, later this afternoon and this evening. So, you know, people are already running out of time. And, quite frankly, for the folks in Louisiana, if you can't get people out, you know, you're ever going to, you know, talk about vertical refuge, this is the time to do it.

MIKE BROWN Thanks. Max,

Other questions for Max? If not, let's go to the HPC.

JIM HOOK: Thanks, Mike, This is Jim Hock from the HPC. Good morning — good afternoon.

I apologize for the quality of our video this morning. We have lost one of our video feeds, so I'm going to show you the presentation across the other feed. If you could follow along on the website, that would I think improve the quality of that feed.

The problem is on our end and not on your end. We expect considerable precipitation with Katrina over the next 48 hours. Fortunately, the storm is expected to move quickly once it makes landfall and move up through the central part of the United Sates. If you'll go to Slide Number 900, which is our Day 1 forecast. which is this morning at 7:00 a.m. Central Daylight time until tomorrow morning at 7:00 am., we're looking for precipitation amounts of greater than four inches in the area in the vicinity of New Orleans and slightly to the east at that.

On this graphic, amounts greater than four inches are indicated in blue, with a maximum amount over the next day or so expected up to maybe seven inches in the lower Mississippi Valley area.

In the next slide, Slide Number 1000, we're looking at the precipitation from tomorrow morning at 7:00 am. CDT to Tuesday morning at 7:00 a.m. And this is once the storm is now on land, is producing a considerable amount of precipitation, amounts greater than — we're expecting greater than four inches over a sizeable part of eastern Mississippi, western Alabama, and eastern Louisiana during that time period.

Then, the next day the storm will be quickly moving' north and producing precipitation primarily in the Tennessee Valley and the Ohio Valley, and the storm will then continue up through the eastern Great Lakes, So for the three — day period, if you'll look at Slide 1100, you'll have our totals, We're looking for amounts of five to ten inches in the lower — lower central U.S., with maximum of over 15 inches in isolated spots. That should then proceed — be followed by smaller amounts, on the order of four to eight inches in the Ohio Valley, with lesser amounts then as the storm moves into New England,

So the good news from this storm once it makes landfall is that we expect the storm to continue to move fairly quickly through the central United States.

Max, that's all from the Hydranet Prediction Center. Back to you.

National Hurricane Center: Thank you, HPC. We'll turn it over to John Smith, our hydrologist here at the Hurricane Center.

Mr. JOHN SMITH: Good afternoon, As we get a little bit closer to landfall we wanted to start talking a little bit about some of the hydrologic implications as the storm moves north and east. This is just a quick slide of soil moisture. You can go back to Slide 1200, please.

What you can see is over July and August we had a lot of heavy rains through southern Alabama and northern Georgia. That area is very wet right now. Earlier in the week, the track of Katrina was kind of troubling towards a flooding perspective, because of the storm moving over that wet area.

As the storm goes ahead and makes landfall somewhere along the Louisiana/Mississippi coast, and moves north and then east and accelerates like Max and Jim just talked about, that eases the river flooding (inaudible) a little bit. It you go to Slide 1300, the River Forecast Centers in both Slidell and Peachtree City are calling for the possibility of significant river flooding all along the corridor of Katrina as it moves north

If it starts to turn east and accelerate, the rainfall totals ought to come down a little bit. Flooding ought to be more localized when that happens. Down here is where we're really starting to get concerned. Much of this is storm surge flooding and is expected to reach well out to some of the rivers, some of the coast rivers.

Add to that the 10 inches of rainfall that might be possible, especially down . along the Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana coast, and we're looking for some — the likelihood of significant river flooding in that area.

Are there any questions?

MIKE BROWN: Any questions?

NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Hearing none, this concludes the weather portion of the conference,

MIKE BROWN: Thank you very much.

At this time, I'd like to go to Crawford. Texas. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce the President of the United States,

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes, Mike, thank you very much, I appreciate so very much the warnings that Max and his team have given to the good folks in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama, Appreciate your briefing that you gave me early this morning about what the Federal Government is prepared to do to help the state and local folks deal with this really serious storm.

I do want to thank the good folks in the offices of Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi for listening to these warnings and preparing your citizens for this huge storm, I want to assure the 'folks' at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property. And we pray for no loss of life, of course.

Unfortunately, we've had experience at this in recent years, and I — the FEMA folks have done great work in the past, and I'm confident, Mike, that you and your team will do all you can to help the good folks in these affected states

Again, I want to thank Governor Blanco and Governor Riley and Governor Barber, Governor Bush of Florida, for heeding these warnings and doing all you can possibly do with your state folks and local folks to prepare the citizenry for this storm,

In the meantime I know the nation will be praying for the good folks in the affected areas, and we just hope for the very best.

Mike, thanks for letting me speak to the people I know who are working long hours, Again, I want to thank everybody involved in this effort I appreciate the long hours you're keeping. I expect you to keep more long hours until we've done everything we can in our power to help — to help the folks in the affected areas.

Thank you, sir.

MIKE BROWN: Mr. President thank you. We appreciate your support of FEMA and those kind words very much. Thank you, sir.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Okay.

MIKE BROWN: Okay. We'll move on now to the states. Louisiana?

COLONEL SMITH: Good morning, Mike. This is Colonel Jeff Smith here in Louisiana. We certainly appreciate those comments from the President, because I can tell you that our Governor is very concerned about the potential loss of life here with our citizens and she is very appreciative of the federal resources that have come into the state and the willingness to give us everything you've got, because. again, we're very concerned with this.

I'm going to turn the briefing over for a moment to our Operations Officer just to kind of give you a quick laydown of things. This is Colonel Bill Doriant.

COLONEL DORIANT: The Emergency Operations Center is at a Level 1, which is the highest state of readiness: 'We've got currently 11 parishes with evacuations and climbing. Eight are mandatory, including a first-ever mandatory for New Orleans. We've got 38 parish declarations of emergency: also the state declaration and the Presidential declaration of emergency,

Evacuations are underway currently. We're planning for a catastrophic event, which we have, been planning for, thanks to the help of FEMA, when we did the Hurricane Pam exercises. So we're way ahead at the game there.

Our priorities right now are sheltering, and then planning for search and rescue and commodities distribution after recovery.

That's all I have at this time,

COLONEL SMITH: I'll just tell you that the evacuation process is going much better than it did during Hurricane Ivan. Nobody anticipated that it would be easy. Nobody anticipated that there wouldn't be traffic jams. But by and large, it has gone much better than it did with Ivan, And, of course, we still have a contraflow in effect at this particular point in time, and we do still have heavy traffic coming out of New Orleans, but by and large that process is going very well.

We have established a unified command here with our federal coordinating officer. Our EPD — A team. ERD — N team is on the ground here. And, again, as our Operations Officer pointed out, we're spending a lot of time right now with the search and rescue, making sure that we marry the appropriate state assets and the federal assets so we can have an effective search and rescue effort just as quickly as possible.

We're also taking a look at our sheltering needs, long-term sheltering needs, looking at sites to start bringing in the temporary housing. So we're not only fighting the current battle, managing expectations here with our local parishes, but we are also working with FEMA and cur other federal partners to have the most effective response and recovery that we possibly can during this time.

So. again. I want to say thank you very much for all that you're doing. I think that at this point in time our coordination is as good as it can be, and we just very much appreciate the President and your commitments to resourcing our needs down here.

Any questions that you have, we'd be glad to take them now, unless you want to hold that until later. That's your call. Mike.

Mike Brown, Any questions? Colonel, do you have any unmet needs, anything that were not getting to you that you need or

COLONEL SMITH: Mike, no. (Inaudible) resources that are en route, and it looks like those resources that are en route are going to — to be a good first shot. Naturally, once we get into this thing, you know, neck deep here, unfortunately or deeper, I'm sure that things are going to come up that maybe some of even our best planners hadn't even thought about, So I think flexibility is going to be the key.

And just as quickly as we can cut through any potential red tape when those things do arise, you know. we just need to look at it. We appreciate your comments I think they were to lean as far, far as you possibly can, you know, without falling, and your people here are doing that. And that's the type of attitude that we need in an event like this,

So, again, thank you very much.

Mike Brown: All right. I'll be in Baton Rouge probably about 4:00 this afternoon, so I'll see you sometime this evening.

COLONEL SMITH: Okay. (Missing') as far as coordination.

Mike Brown. All right. Any (missing)? Mississippi?

MISSISSIPPI: Mr. Secretary, little did we know less than a week ago when we had the opportunity to meet that we would be sitting here today facing the challenges that we face. I appreciate you listening, appreciate you being there, Mike. FEMA has been great. You're leaning forward, and we appreciate that. We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster not only in this state and the region, but the nation, to respond to this event,

I was on the coast yesterday and what I saw was, quite frankly exactly what existed before Camille. People were not evacuating. I feared that. It seems to be now today we're in the middle of a panic evacuation. I can say that it's going well. The numbers are picking up. We're preparing to open shelters in all 82 counties.

Search and rescue resources from within the state are being predeployed to the Jackson area today, will be predeployed to the coast this afternoon,

National Guard liaison teams will arrive no later than 1800 this afternoon for the three coastal counties. We also have been in close contact with our other assets in the region to see what we can bring in, should we need it, specifically search and rescue, water and ice and food, We had resources left from Dennis that we can carry over probably 24 to 36 hours.

We know that FEMA has got resources they can predeploy to help us. We're prepared to distribute those once the storm clears and we can get in there.

The priorities right now are evacuation for us, Mike. We just — we think that people are finally starting to heed the warnings. I hope it's just not too late.

The sheltering, obviously, is a big issue, but the shelter spaces are there. Search and rescue, as I said, is a priority. National Guard — we're also preparing to deploy some additional Guard resources to the Hattiesburg/Camp Shelby area to get on the ground post-landfall for search and rescue, and even security purposes.

EGO is onsite. ERD-A is onsite. EMAC-18 is onsite. We've got everything that we need from the Federal Government.

And, again, we appreciate what you and FEMA are doing. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate you being there. It shows the support at that level, We really do appreciate it. We certainly appreciate the words from the President.

That's all I've got. Mike, unless you've got some questions for me.

MIKE BROWN: Questions for Bob? All right

Bob. (Missing)

ALABAMA: (Missing) still at a Level 1 operations. We do have the EPD-A in place. Ron Sherman is team leader. We've been doing some joint planning. We've got liaisons down our coastal counties. We're still expecting a substantial storm surge in our two coastal counties.

We've got our search and rescue teams on standby. I have also volunteered help to Mississippi if they need some also. We've got our water rescue teams. Because of the flood problem, we've got sandbags stockpiled so we're in pretty good shape. Water, ice, the other emergency commodities we've been working with Ron on that, and we've got sufficient on hand to meet what we think are — will be our initial requirements, Mike.

The Governor is signing an emergency proclamation today. We'll be going in with a request for an emergency declaration for about six counties. The Governor will also be issuing a mandatory evacuation for parts of Baldwin County. We do have voluntary evacuations going on in Mobile County at this time. So we're in good shape.

MIKE BROWN: Good. I'm glad (missing).

MIKE BROWN: Oh, yes. When should we expect your request in, Bruce?

ALABAMA: (Missing) right now. Toby Roth, the Governor's Chief of Staff is here, so we've got all the documents ready to go, Mike. So as soon as that happens, we'll get it to Ron and get it on up to you.

MIKE BROWN: All right. We'll turn it right around, Thanks,

Okay. Great (Missing,)

FLORIDA: (Missing) responding. South Florida, we're maintaining that, and we're getting ready with the evacuations that are now occurring in the panhandle

More importantly, I am not anticipating any FEMA assets other then the recovery assets we currently have. We're not going to put in a request for resources in lieu of the greater need to the west of us.

In addition, we're planning our search and rescue missions for our counties, also building our task force structures to provide assistance to the neighboring states in EMAC, and pretty much are gearing up with Governor Bush's direction to support our neighboring states as well as our initial response.

So other than what we already have, we're not going to ask for anything additional. We're going to try to do as much as we can in-house.

FEMA: Let me just (missing) Alabama, Mississippi, and (missing) Florida to be used. So if we need them, don't hesitate to let us know, so we can bend Craig's ear, move them out of Florida.

Thanks, Craig.

Are there any questions for Florida? Hearing none, we'll go to Georgia, Georgia? Texas? Do we have Texas on? You'd better, You're about to —

TEXAS: (Missing) Texas here. And we are basically preparing to move into a mass care assistance mode, standing up our capabilities to provide sheltering for evacuees who are moving into Texas.

We, in fact, already have several shelters that are open, and we are bringing on — the Governor has ordered 200 members of the Texas State Guard, which is the Texas State Guard militia under the direction of the Texas Army National Guard, to duty to provide volunteer assistance with shelter management operations.

So we are working closely in conjunction with the American Red Cross and Salvation Army to provide that service along with our local jurisdictions on the eastern part of the state.

The Governor has dispatched to Louisiana a liaison officer to work in the State Operations Center there, try to provide a liaison and make us — or give us a better understanding of what — some of the needs we might be able to supply there. The Texas Army National Guard is inventorying their assets in expectation if we get requests for assistance from them to mobilize.

Our Texas Building and Procurement Commission, which helps us manage the contracts that we do with private vendors, has sent a representative to the State Operations Center to begin to monitor and to work with contract operations in the event that that type of assistance is needed anywhere other — in our Sister states

Of course under the direction of FEMA, Texas Task Force I has been mobilized and is staged at Shreveport under the direction of FEMA to provide assistance, and we continue to monitor this situation

We have got the mass care ESF coming to active duty at the State Operations Center beginning tomorrow morning. We have increased our staffing level in the State Operations Center.

MIKE BROWN: Thanks, Texas,

Any questions? Okay. Let's go to the regions. Region (missing) Gary?

GARY: (Missing) that's in Louisiana with Colonel Smith to kick off this presentation. Bill?

BILL LOKEY. Thank you very much, Gary. The — we've got the ERD-N and the ERD-A established here, and also some of the FEMA staff members who were evacuated from the Disaster 1601 helping, working with the state. The basic priorities are life-saving missions, life-sustaining missions and then moving to immediate and long-term recovery,

In essence we formed planning groups in various areas, the priority being for search and rescue and some of the medical issues in supporting that, and refining some of the plans that were left over from the catastrophic planning efforts that ware done here that have been helpful in getting things organized.

We have a number of other efforts going on in the distribution and staging, power, rapid needs assessment, debris clearance, temporary housing and roofing, external affairs, specialized needs, and setting up disaster recovery centers and we're working on a safety plan for our own folks for riding out the hurricane,

We're meeting all of the state objectives as last we heard, and planning is going well.

That's kind of a summary, Gary, of what we're up to,

GARY: We'll go ahead and give a couple more updates here from the region, Undersecretary Brown. Go ahead, Tony.

SPEAKER: Yes. Our Regional Response Coordination Center has activated a Level I with all ESFs on a 24/7 basis. We do have an operational staging area that has been established at Camp Beauregard with commodities of ice water, MREs, and tarps onsite. We are initiating actions to work with the Corps of Engineers to potentially some quarter boats to house workers as housing will become an issue in the Baton Rouge area.

We are moving requested commodities forward to support some state requests in Orleans Parish. We have established Camp Menden as a temporary housing staging area.

The Department of Energy is here in the RRCC and has started running modeling to provide estimates on the potential effects to the power infrastructure, and when we could potentially look at restoration, so we can identify where we need to move our most critical assets the quickest.

We've gotten a heavy generator kit that's scheduled to arrive in Barksdale at the Mobilization Center along with USAR task forces are to be in Barksdale as well today. All the Region 6 permanent staff are being made available for any response and recovery duties that will come up.

We have the Denton MERS Detachment that's onsite at Camp Beauregard and also in Baton Rouge. The Denver MERS unit is en route to stage here in Denton for further development, along with an emergency response team advanced element from Region 1 Boston is due in here this afternoon to Denton, in case we are needed to move them forward.

And we just continue to coordinate with the National Response Coordination Center, the ERD, and the state to refine our response plan and finalize getting our resources in place prior to tropical storm force winds.

MIKE BROWN: Any questions? (Missing) on the commodities that I want to see that supply chain jammed up just as much as possible. I mean, I want stuff (missing) than we need. Just keep jamming those lines full as much as you can with commodities.

My gut tells me we're — that's going to be one of our biggest needs. So just (missing) up tight.

Any questions for (missing)?

Region 4?

REGION 4: (Missing) supporting the ERD-A in Mississippi and Alabama, and also rapid needs assessment teams are on standby and in place in Mississippi and Alabama.

We also are running our models for our Cat. 5 for Biloxi and Mobile in the panhandle. We were planning for anticipated increase in commodity flows. We are monitoring and identifying status and locations of teams and ommodities. We're coordinating logistics and operations support with the Headquarters as well as the field.

We have Region 9's support in the lead in Mississippi, and we also have Region 4 en route and supported by Region 10 in Alabama. We also have MERS support at both Alabama and Mississippi.

We're working with the NDMS folks in identifying potential areas of critical facilities that we may need to look at after impact.

And at this time I'd like to turn to our team leaders in Mississippi and Alabama for any additional comments they may have,

Mr. Carlisle?

MR. CARLISLE: Well, Paul. as you indicated, we're on the ground here. As the Undersecretary said, we also believe the commodities are going to be a major issue, and we're trying to get visibility over the things that are flowing to the states. But other than that, our biggest concerns, of course, are the urban search and rescue teams. We've got two of those moving into Meridian today.

Of course, DMAT and VMAT, with the large potential for loss and pollution down — and carcasses down in the southern counties are also a concern. We're working that issue now.

But other than what has been covered by Robert, were in pretty good shape in terms of where we are right now.

PAUL: I'd like to call on Mr. Sherman in Alabama for any additional comments he may have.

SPEAKER: Just one, Paul. One of the things we're going to finish working on today is clarifying the process we're going to use for transferring the commodities from FEMA to the state as the requester generated. That's it.

SPEAKER: Sir, that's all we have from Region 4. We're open for comments,

MIKE BPOWN: Okay. Thanks, Paul,

(Missing.) Hearing none, let's go to Florida (missing). Scott, are you there?

FLORIDA LOG-SCOTT: lam here. (Missing.) We clearly are doing whatever we can to support the operation over in Louisiana and Mississippi. Just got off the phone with Mayor Croddy's office, and they have given us the go-ahead to use the Orange County Convention Center to bring in all the DAEs as a staging area, so we can process those and get them all of the — all of their credit cards and everything taken care of down here.

And I think that's the best way we're going to be able to support now, as well as whatever personnel you all think you would need from us. We are willing to support whatever we need to do

MIKE BROWN: Good. (Missing) issue an advisory to everybody. Everyone is on call. So it's all (missing). So, Scott, we'll fill up the Convention Center in Orlando.

Tell them to get ready

FLORIDA LOG-SCOTT: They're ready for it,

MIKE BROWN: Any questions (missing)?

Hearing none, let's go to Headquarters. Operations?

OPERATIONS: The National Response Coordination Center has activated 24/7, a Level I. All of the emergency support functions are represented. So together (missing) we're all here to support life-saving and protecting property.

The Movement Coordination Center Branch has been activated at Headquarters to support all operations with ESF-1. The NDMS and national urban search and rescue resources are (missing). We have made arrangements for pre-landfall satellite imagery, and we have completed that (missing) Louisiana and surrounding parish area down to one meter and in color.

We also have ready Aviation and Maritime Office P3 flights arranged for post-event visual imagery.

We have made arrangements with the Coast Guard and EPA to prepare for Katrina's second landfall, to respond to flooding conditions and potential oil spills and hazardous material releases.

The NCS is working with industry around the clock to make sure that we identify what resources are pre-staged and available. We are also working on taking care of requests for wireless priority services, The Corps of Engineering is very actively involved in preparing (missing) New Orleans (inaudible) missions for post-landfall.

In addition to that, we are assessing the potential impact of the storm on the critical infrastructure and we stand by to proactively support requests for assistance as necessary.

MIKE BROWN: Good. Any questions for Ops? Logistics?

As reported, we have been in constant communication with the (missing) and the field elements in our positioning of our commodities. Just to give everyone a rundown (missing) on hand by — water, 619 trailer loads, (missing) million gallons, five-day supply (Missing) 17 million pounds, (missing) supply (missing), which is about (missing) half a million MREs, which is a two-and-a- half day supply.

We have additional mission assignments and procurement actions in place for all of those commodities. All of the field elements when you're (missing) these commodities order them, but (missing) quantities that you can realistically distribute (missing) tie up our (missing).

Any questions for Log?

MIKE BROWN: Any questions? Recovery?

RECOVERY: Number one priority for recovery is housing mission. We have sent Brad Gare and Kevin Suza down there to lead it up and meet up with the ERD-N team. They will be setting up the Housing Command Center in Baton Rouge to start, and working cut the IOF. (Missing) Logistics to start moving housing entities down towards the southeastern area of the country to prepare post-hurricane

(Missing) is to ensure that the call centers are up and running. They will go 24/7 tomorrow morning (missing) will be ready. Their priority is ensuring that we have IA staff, PA staff in the field, and they are surging down to Orlando like we heard earlier. And it's (missing).

MIKE BROWN: Questions for Recovery? Others? Mike?

MIKE: Mr. Undersecretary, let me just mention that given the predictions on the wind speeds, it's possible that some of the shelters — that those wind speeds may exceed the design level of some of the shelters. So there does need to be some attention paid to those areas that might not be up to a design standard, and be prepared to deploy any medical resources to (missing), particularly in those shelters that are closer to the (missing) where the wind speeds are expected to be higher

MIKE BROWN: In fact, let me just go ahead and (missing) and tell you what my priorities are and what my concerns are, Number one, you know that the Mayor has ordered the Superdome to be used as a shelter (missing) first resort. I didn't hear about any other shelters for people to go to as they left New Orleans.

As you may or may not know, the Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level, so I don't know what the heck (missing) . And I also am concerned about that roof. I don't know whether that roof is designed to stand — withstand a Cat. 5 hurricane.

So not to be (missing) kind of gross here, but I'm concerned about NDMS and medical and DMORT assets and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe, So if I could, get some sort of insight into what's going on in that Superdome, I think it would be very, very helpful

While we're on (missing, I want to make sure that NDMS and the DMORTs and DMATs are ready to go, as soon as, because I do believe I also heard there is no (missing) mandatory evacuations. They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons, and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that. So let's just keep that in mind (missing).

I've already mentioned a lot of these. I am concerned (missing) there's going to. be a huge demand. I think the point that Log made about making realistic requests resources arid commodities is good. But my point to Gary and the others is I want lines jammed up, So whatever those requests are, that we can fulfill those.

And then, finally we need to reach out to all of your colleagues in the Departments that this is really all hands on deck, and I really do expect to be able to call everyone — everyone within FEMA is actually on call, and we may need you to deploy and go somewhere

I don't want anybody to self-deploy but be ready to go. And while I have the Deputy Secretary here at some point we may want to reach out to the broader DHS and ask for — putting some men and women down there.

My gut tells me — I told you guys my gut was that this (missing~ is a bad one and a big one. And you heard Max's comments, I still feel that way today.

Now, the good thing about this is we've got a great team around here that knows what they're doing, and they (missing) to do it. I want to emphasize what I said yesterday, get to the edge of that envelope. And, in fact. if you feel like you (missing). go ahead and do it. I'll figure out some way to justify it, some way (missing) tell Congress or whoever else it is that wants to yell at me. just let them yell at me. (missing) not to worry about — in fact, I don't want any of these processes in our way

We're going to do whatever it takes to help these folks down there because this is, to put it mildly, the big one I think, All right?

MIKE BROWN: Yes.

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: (Inaudible ) Yes. Hi. This is Secretary Chertoff. And, again, as it relates to the entire department, if there's anything that you need from Coast Guard or any other components that you're not getting, please let us know, We'll do that for you. OK.

Mike Brown: I appreciate it. (Missing.)

Having been through many of these, the Coast Guard and ICE and all of the others have been incredibly good to us. And I hope we never have to call you and tell you that I can't get help from the Coast Guard or somebody. Thank you for those comments.

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Secondly, are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them, and have we I guess made any kind of arrangement in case we need some additional help from them?

MIKE BROWN. We have DOD assets over here at the EOC. They are fully engaged, and we are having those discussions with them now.

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Good job.

MIKE BROWN: (Missing.)

SECRETAPY CHERTOFF: I did, yes. Thank you.

(Missing.)

(Laughter.)

MIKE BROWN: Are there any other questions or comments anyone needs to make? If not, carry on. Next meeting noon tomorrow. I'll see you from Baton Rouge.

(Whereupon, the proceedings went off the record.)

CERTIFICATION

The foregoing text was transcribed from audio recordings provided by the Department of Homeland Security, and is as true and accurate a representation of the oral discussion as possible.

PHYLLIS P. YOUNG

© Michael Gaynor

 

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Michael Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member... (more)

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Will Obama be impeached now that Republicans control both houses of Congress? (Nov. 2014)

Cliff Kincaid
Mr. and Mrs. Clinton: Tear down that library

Matt C. Abbott
Tweets sink head of US bishops' news agency

Victor Sharpe
Hoisted by their own petard

Lloyd Marcus
Voting Cruz: Has God abandoned America?

Chuck Baldwin
A politically incorrect analysis of neoconism

Jim Kouri
CIA chief more concerned with Obamaism than protecting Americans: Critics

Michael Gaynor
Judge Masin cannot make Ted Cruz a natural born US citizen

Ellis Washington
Open letter to CUNY dean Sarah Bartlett

A.J. Castellitto
God, Cruz and Country

Cliff Kincaid
Cruz thwarts hostile takeover of the GOP

Gina Miller
Truth about MS Religious Freedom Protection Act

Susan D. Harris
It's the little things: Remembering Western Civilization
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