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Maybe they should have been interviewing someone that had direct responsibility for what was going on you know like someone in the state ER organization.

We're in for a long autumn of hearings. The full truth will come out. We'll be revisiting this matter of what FEMA knew when and these interviews given by Brown will be something he has to answer for. Yesterday, for instance, the president of Jefferson Parish accused FEMA of having turned back 3 Walmart trucks of drinking water, told the Coast Guard not to give them 1000 gallons of their allocated diesel fuel from a CG ship in Jefferson Parish and then sent FEMA staff to cut the lines of the parish's only remaining emergency phone lines (promptly restored by the sheriff who posted armed guards on them). There are other reports in the papers of help from Chicago and Nevada police aid being turned away by FEMA's orders despite the obvious need. No matter what the failures of the local officials in LA, it just doesn't explain FEMA's actions.

There's a lot more story to all of these incidents. And there are many witnesses who can testify in hearings. We will know what FEMA did and did not do. It's unlikely that every complaint against FEMA is true but there is an awful lot to answer for if even a fraction of it is true.

Well for one thing I wouldn't listen to a word the Parish president said. He is part of the problem.

FEMA (especially within the first 72 to 96 hours) does not control anything locally. I doubt that they even have that kind of staff assets. As far as the police are concerned it just might have been a logistics issue, I think we will know all of these things soon enough.

If FEMA was doing anything like it been charged it was probably because the local organization had fallen apart. If they did attempt to cut his lines it may have been that they were harming more than helping.