NEWS - Brown Shifts Blame for Katrina Response

[skorpion317]

WASHINGTON - A combative Michael Brown blamed the Louisiana governor, the New Orleans mayor and even the Bush White House that appointed him for the dismal response to Hurricane Katrina in a fiery appearance Tuesday before Congress. In response, lawmakers alternately lambasted and mocked the former FEMA director.

House members' scorching treatment of Brown, in a hearing stretching nearly 6 1/2 hours, underscored how he has become an emblem of the deaths, lingering floods and stranded survivors after the Aug. 29 storm. Brown resigned Sept. 12 after being relieved of his onsite command of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency's response effort three days earlier.

Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050928/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_brown_hk4)

Bout friggin time someone stepped up and said what needed to be said. The governor of LA and the mayor of New Orleans are at much more fault than Michael Brown. Had they:

A. Ordered a mandatory evacuation earlier than a day or two before the storm, and actually enforced it
B. Fixed those mother****ing levees years ago like they should have
C. Coordinated the relief effort instead of blaming the federal government for a slow response

New Orleans wouldn't be the wreck it is today. The governor and the mayor should both go to jail for criminal neglect. Brown is just a scapegoat.

[Savage_Messiah]

It all woulda been none of our concern if we had let the damn south seceed

[JL8Jeff]

The mayor and governor also should have signed the emergency declarations before the storm hit like the president asked them to. That's what Florida does every time a storm approaches and it then establishes the chain of command and allows for the use of gov't troops to preposition themselves. They both did not want to foot the cost if the storm missed so they did not sign the emergency declaration and therefore there was not federal response until after the fact. They also had bogus emergeny evacuation plans which could not be implemented. They are nothing but crooks down there and they're the ones that got these people killed. Not FEMA. Now the mayor wants to rush everybody back into the city so he can collect their taxes and get reelected. What a moron! Unfortunately for Brown, everyone is looking for a scapegoat and he appears to be the one.

[NJSPEEDER]

nothing is gonna help when people are stupid enough to live next to water that is 10ft higher than the town.
the levees turned out to be as much as 8ft too short to combat teh storm surge in some areas. no amount of planning was ever even considered for that scenario.
as far as forwarning people, that storm was on the radar shown on ever news network in the country and pointed at their town for a week before the local warning was issued. i if told you that a hurricane was going to touch down directly on your house in 9 days would you need to be told to leave?
face it, no law maker or city planner can ever account for all teh stupid that is out there. those stooges taht are crying about response times of help are the same asshats that shot at helicopters trying to bring in relief supplies and had their pictures taken as they stole tv's, beer, car stereos, and millions of dollars of other non-essential items.
this "proud" community even wrecked and looted their own stadium when they were given a free place to stay.
they lived below sea level, they wrecked and robbed their own town, and i think they should be left to figure out their own way to try to fix the dump.[/rant]

later
tim

[Koll]

Thanks for the update, killer.

[foff667]

did you guys hear about the deal with carnival cruise lines? They gave them like 300 mil for 6 months use of 3 boats...at full capacity for those 3 months it wouldve cost 1/2 that for you and I to take cruises every week for 6 months...basically they charged the gov't $1200/wk per room...whereas you can get a cruise for ~$600/wk lol. Faulkin gay...for some unknown reason I thought carnival was being nice & offered three boats to use for free...guess I was horribly wrong. Oh yeah they are incorp. on some island so they only have to pay like 1% in taxes instead of the roughly 25% if they were actually based in the US. I dont know who to hate more carnival or the people who were dumb enough to hire them. Oh yeah did i mention most people down there havent taken advantage of the situation & feel its a dead end to stay on the boats so only like 1/3 of the rooms are being used...and were still paying on the deal. Yes they were in a pinch & this was what was supposidly available in the time they needed to get done but geez wtf were they thinking...just set the ****ing people up in a couple of large hotels...figure $80/night=$560/wk...that wouldve been almost 1/3 of what they are paying out...hmmm wonder why our taxes are so high. Rant mode off...just read that earlier today.