Hurricane Center Director Tells Paper He Briefed Brown and Chertoff on Danger of Severe Flooding

Editor and Publisher ^ | September 04, 2005 | E&P Staff

[LPM1888]

Hurricane Center Director Tells Paper He Briefed Brown and Chertoff on Danger of Severe Flooding

By E&P Staff

Published: September 04, 2005 6:55 PM ET

NEW YORK Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, told the Times-Picayune Sunday afternoon that officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, including FEMA Director Mike Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, listened in on electronic briefings given by his staff in advance of Hurricane Katrina slamming Louisiana and Mississippi--and were advised of the storm’s potential deadly effects.

"Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the briefings and in formal advisories, which warned of a storm surge capable of overtopping levees in New Orleans and winds strong enough to blow out windows of high-rise buildings," the paper reported. "He said the briefings included information on expected wind speed, storm surge, rainfall and the potential for tornados to accompany the storm as it came ashore.

"We were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfield said. "It’s not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped."

Chertoff told reporters Saturday that government officials had not expected the damaging combination of a powerful hurricane levee breaches that flooded New Orleans.

Brown, Mayfield said, is a dedicated public servant. “The question is why he couldn’t shake loose the resources that were needed,’’ he said.

Brown and Chertoff could not be reached for comment on Sunday afternoon.

In the days before Katrina hit, Mayfield said, his staff also briefed FEMA, which under the Department of Homeland Security, at FEMA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., its Region 6 office in Dallas and the Region 4 office in Atlanta about the potential effects of the storm. He said all of those briefings were logged in the hurricane center’s records.

E&P Staff

[AliVeritas]

Exactly.

[Steven W.]

As long as they are in charge of the Department of Homeland Security and Fema we are all at risk if we are hit by a disaster.

This statement exemplifies the paralytic nature of liberal stupidity - the poster assumes he's at risk because of who's in charge of DHS or FEMA ??? He/she gives no consideration to the fate of potential natural or terrorist disaster? Such (lack of) logic presumes that everyone is too stupid and incapable of fending for themselves (or evacuating or even giving notice).

[Dog Gone]

If I remember correctly the evacuation order for New Orleans was made mandatory on Saturday.

You remember wrong. Sunday morning between 9 and 10.

[Wild_Bill_8881]

nope, mandatory evacuation wasn't made until Sunday morning after nagin had gotten calls from both Mayfield and President Bush Saturday night pleading with him to order them

[mewzilla]

The point is that Chertoff and Brown were aware of the dangers to New Orleans but now they are lying about their lack of action.

Where, when, and how did they lie?

Specify.

[LPM1888]

Thank you.

[bnelson44]

Now he's complaining there are too many Fed resources around

[Calpernia]

I think this is a spin from the thread where Chertoff was stating he wasn't getting official information from LA officials.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1477830/posts

[Parley Baer]

Yep another twisting of the facts by a liberal. I heard the interview on Meet The Press as replayed by Matt Drudge. THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID. The above poster has it stated correctly.

[Dog Gone]

As long as they are in charge of the Department of Homeland Security and Fema we are all at risk if we are hit by a disaster

We're all in danger if the local and state governments sit on their butts and do nothing to protect their own citizens. New Orleans itself said it was in charge of its disaster plan. It's on their website and in their plan.

They didn't follow it. Bush's fault.

Give me a break.

[BruceS]

You need a new memory or a better search engine.

The President called at Midnight Saturday to urge a mandatory evacuation. The actual mandatory evacuation was not ordered until after 10:00 AM Sunday, after the head of the National Hurricane Center called Blanco.

[keats5]

Nonetheless, Chertoff and Brown had every right to assume the primary responders would follow their own city and state evacuation plan, allowing any required national response the time it takes to respond to the victims' long term needs.

National responses to disasters typically take 4-7 days. That's why every state is required to have their own immediate response plan. A simple example is how the N.O. mayor failed to deploy the 400 school buses in his district to evacuate victims before the flood, and park them on high ground in preparation to evacuate more victims after the flood. Because the mayor failed to follow his own plan, hundreds of N.O. school buses sat in water while desperate victims awaited buses from out of state.

[AliVeritas]

I have it somewhere.

[Tribune7]

The point is that Chertoff and Brown were aware of the dangers to New Orleans but now they are lying about their lack of action.

Check your premise! What lie?

[Fenris6]

Oh please stop with the logic! Liberal heads are exploding everywhere. ;)

[AliVeritas]

You know why, because the Hurricane Director called Nagin, Blanco and Landrieu and felt they weren't taking it serious enough, funny he didn't mention that (or the paper left it out. He then called the president who set up his own meeting with the Pentagon and with FEMA. This is why (even when Bush called the mayor and governor, they said they had it under control), Bush took it upon himself to declare state of emergency in two of the states and himself asked for mandatory evac on TV. There were troops and agencies waiting to go, they wanted no help.


By the way, you can find NO example of when FEMA was able to respond in less than a week in previous disasters.

[OldFriend]

Full of it and you can't spell either. Get lost.

[ladyjane]

No. Order wasn't given until Sunday morning.

What you may be remembering is the mayor's *own family* being evacuated by helicopter on Friday!

[newfrpr04]

on hannity (radio) now

[jwalsh07]

Is this black comedy? Do these people really belive that what Chertoff and Brown have said indicates they didn't think a CAT 4 hurricane would cause flooding in the bowl?

What they said was that a false sense of security was communicated by the press when they said that NOLA had dodged a bullet. The flow of aid and NG was never interrupted, there were no discontinuities, they were flowing since Saturday.