[Lunatic Fringe]

Brown needs to be fired IMMEDIATELY. I can't belive Bush ever gave such responsibility to this imbecile.

[Trust but Verify]

Your screen name seems appropriate given your post. This only sounds bad if you don't know that FEMA is not there as first responders. That responsibility goes to the local officials and departments.

[tomahawk]

Bush appointed him.

Bush put FEMA under Homeland Security.

But the bigger problem is that LA and NO officials did not follow the evacuation plan.

[Brilliant]

I think Brown is finished.

[mercy]

Get a grip. FEMA is not a 'first responder'. The tragedy of the Super Dome and the Convention Center are the fault of local authorities. Not because they failed to evacuate them after the storm, that was a herculean task that had to take the time it die, but rather putting them in there in the first place.

If the levees had not broken this disaster would have been much less, in NO anyway. But once the levees went ... the refuge of the Dome and the Convention Center became death traps.

NO authorities should have realized this was possible but the pretended it was all a huge surprise. NO was one big death trap waiting to happen.

It's not Browns fault!

[M. Espinola]

"Brown needs to be fired IMMEDIATELY. I can't belive Bush ever gave such responsibility to this imbecile."

I fully agree. On Saturday I stated on a Katrina thread Michael Brown was not doing his job but was quick to issue snooty comments to reporters saying 'everyone had plenty of time to get out' (90 year old ladies in wheelchairs & the poor without cars or $$ could not) I was attacked as being a 'liberal' for saying Brown should be replaced. Nice eh?

I am not faulting President Bush for bringing Brown on before, maybe he thought the schlub would work out, but he has not, and should be given a pink slip now.

Check this out: FEMA chief fired from previous job Michael Brown oversaw horse shows, had no significant disaster experience

Mr President I nominate Jabbar Gibson as the new head of FEMA!

This young hero accomplished far more then Brown.

[Coop]

Brown needs to be praised immediately. FEMA's and DHS' response to this disaster has been impressive, despite all the rhetoric and ignorant comments to the contrary.

[gondramB]

I think you are missing the point. These are Homeland security people from outside FEMA. This doesn't mean that there were not also FEMA people being sent on a different schedule.

BTW, the reason I'm confident these are not FEMA people being requested is because they are told to check in with FEMA Human resources.

http://wid.ap.org/documents/dhskatrina.pdf

[OldFriend]

Too bad he didn't hire you. Expert in all things, right??????

[BurbankKarl]

Yes, FEMA should have been there during the hurricane, blowing them to Tennessee.

[kabar]

Brown and Chertoff, two lawyers without any major executive experience until their present jobs. We need real professionals in these positions, not political hacks.

[Peach]

It has come to light that all during the night on Friday, September 2, the president of the United States was forced to “negotiate” with Governor Blanco for the lives of the suffering and dying people of New Orleans. She feared that allowing the federal government to take control would make her administration appear as though it had failed. How she would be judged was more important to her than the lives of those people who were dying in the squalor. How many died as Blanco maneuvered to protect her reputation?

The Posse Comitatus Act prevents, by federal law, the president of the United States from sending federal troops into any state without the direct request of the elected governor of that state. A frustrated President Bush could only stand by and watch as the horror unfolded until he received the request for help. Despite the finger-pointing at President Bush, there was little that he could do until he was formally asked for assistance. No matter how loudly the liberals scream, they know full well that the president was helpless to do much of anything.

[Freedom is eternally right]

From FEMA's website
Date: August 29, 2005 Release Number: HQ-05-175

In addition to holding regular briefings with emergency management officials in the affected states, FEMA reported the following activities, as of 10 a.m. today, as part of the ongoing federal response.

• FEMA's emergency teams and resources are being deployed and configured for coordinated response to Hurricane Katrina. This includes pre-staging critical commodities such as ice, water, meals, and tarps in various strategic locations to be made available to residents of affected areas.
• FEMA's Hurricane Liaison Team is onsite and working closely with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla.
• FEMA's National Response Coordination Center and Regional Response Coordination Centers in Atlanta, Ga., and Denton, Texas, are operating around the clock, coordinating the prepositioning of assets and responding to state requests for assistance.
• FEMA has deployed a National Emergency Response Team to Louisiana with a coordination cell positioned at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge to facilitate state requests for assistance. In addition, four Advance Emergency Response Teams have been deployed to locations in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The teams include federal liaisons who work directly within county emergency operations centers to respond to critical needs as they are identified by local officials and prioritized by the state.
• Rapid Needs Assessment teams have been prestaged in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
• Nine Urban Search and Rescue task forces and incident support teams have been deployed. The task forces are from Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri.
• Thirty-one teams from the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) have been deployed to staging areas in Anniston, Ala., Memphis, Tenn., Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans, including 23 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams. The teams bring truckloads of medical equipment and supplies with them and are trained to handle trauma, pediatrics, surgery and mental health problems. Two Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams are also included as part of NDMS assets deployed, which are able to support and rescue pets, and provide any needed veterinary medical care for rescue dogs.
• Voluntary agencies, important partners in disasters, are prepared to augment local government services with shelters, mobile feeding units, water and clean-up supplies.
• FEMA has 500 trucks of ice, 500 trucks of water and 350 trucks of meals ready to eat (MREs) available for distribution over the next 10 days.

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18471

[faithincowboys]

5 hours..give me a break???

[DWPittelli]

I think Brown critics should look at the actual memo, not its characterization by the press. I see nothing untoward in the memo. (Text here in .pdf form)

http://wid.ap.org/documents/dhskatrina.pdf

[Tempest]

FEMA is not a 1sr response agency.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Brown needs to be fired IMMEDIATELY. I can't belive Bush ever gave such responsibility to this imbecile.

Fired for what? For doing his job? FEMA is not a "first responder". FEMA does not supercede local and state officials, who weren't doing their job to begin with.

[Blogger]

Stop your hysterics. What if Katrina would have taken a sudden turn and hit Pensacola or something? Then you would be complaining that he acted too quickly and should be fired. FEMA is NOT a first responder. Use your brain and stop allowing the media to brain wash you. The Hurricane aftermath is NOT FEMAs fault. Could they have improved, yes. But it isn't FEMA that chose to stay behind as so many able bodied did. It isn't FEMA that chose to put people in a large dome without adequate security. It isn't FEMA that didn't provide the means for folks to evacuate. It isn't FEMA that was shooting at any relief that was coming. Brown wasn't perfect, but using him as a scapegoat is entirely inappropriate.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

Many Americans are too dumb to realize that the Federal relief agencies and military cannot just come barging in at a moments notice in a emergency/disaster situation. They have to be requested and authorized by local and state government first. The resources of local and state governments (police, state troopers, emergency management personnel) have have always been "first responders".

What is so damn difficult about this concept? I mean we don't need or want military boots on the ground in effected communities as a result of a tornado, a mass murderer on the loose, heavy snowstorm, brush fires, etc.

For all you smart liberal trolls and lurkers out there...this is basic federalism...

From wikpedia:

Federalism is a system of government in which power is constitutionally divided between a central authority and constituent political units (like states or provinces). The two levels of government are interdependent, and share sovereignty.

[Little Ray]

FEMA is not a first responder, and has repeatedly stated they are 96 hours away from responding to a disaster. The federal system worked. It was the idiots in the state and local gub'mint that screwed things up.

[RightWhale]

Some say it would be a bad idea to fire the head of FEMA during the crisis. Maybe later, they say.

I don't agree with this. The head of FEMA could be out of there immediately with zero loss to the effectivity of the dep't.