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Brown disputed levee breach after Katrina, documents show
Former FEMA director Michael Brown disputed that floodwaters had breached New Orleans' levees in the early hours after Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, new e-mails released Tuesday show.
The 928 pages of e-mails, obtained and released by the Center for Public Integrity, also portray Brown and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as obsessed with media coverage in the days leading up to and immediately following the Aug. 29, 2005, disaster. At one point early that morning, Brown reported to an aide that he was "sitting in the chair, putting mousse in my hair," as he waited for media interviews to begin....
While the e-mails cover much of the same ground previously highlighted by congressional investigations earlier this year, they illustrate anew how concerned the beleaguered agency was with having a favorable public image during the storm. Many of the documents released Tuesday consist of talking points, press releases, interview schedules and media reports of the storm's onslaught.
Brown's own schedule was booked with media interviews in the days immediately before and after the storm. At 6:21 a.m. the day Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, Brown was prepping for an interview and e-mailing with his then-deputy, Patrick Rhode.
"Yea, sitting in the chair, putting mousse in my hair," Brown e-mailed Rhode....
Other e-mails show Brown expressing frustration as he and FEMA came under public attack purportedly for not doing enough to help black Gulf Coast residents and neglecting abandoned pets.
"I am tired, no, angered by charges of racism. You know that neither me nor anyone associated with me is a racist. Grrrr," Brown wrote in a Sept. 7 e-mail to Worthy, before adding lightheartedly, "How was that Sonic burger?"
May 10 2006, 16:59:19 UTC 6 years ago
May 10 2006, 17:38:58 UTC 6 years ago
But yes, he's a major asshat.
May 10 2006, 17:48:41 UTC 6 years ago
May 10 2006, 18:00:16 UTC 6 years ago
May 10 2006, 18:04:08 UTC 6 years ago
May 10 2006, 18:06:15 UTC 6 years ago
May 10 2006, 17:18:56 UTC 6 years ago
hahahahaha
May 10 2006, 17:39:33 UTC 6 years ago
Oh noes! The levees are breached!!11eleventy!!
May 10 2006, 17:50:45 UTC 6 years ago
The Drowning of New Orleans in Internet-speak. LMAO.
May 10 2006, 18:00:39 UTC 6 years ago
May 10 2006, 19:02:01 UTC 6 years ago
May 10 2006, 17:55:38 UTC 6 years ago
Heck of a job
Brownie was pretty much the perfect embodyment of the Bush administration's responce.May 10 2006, 18:40:09 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Heck of a job
And to make matters worse, he's still got a job.It's times like these I fantasize about stockades and rotten eggs.
May 10 2006, 18:46:50 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Heck of a job
And he's traveling around giving speeches to colleges. And getting paid for it.In addition to the rotten eggs, we need the contents of all post-katrina fridges dumped into his living room. Possibly a mob with some torches and pitchforks, too.
May 10 2006, 20:12:29 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Heck of a job
I always use him (and the ACE) as illustrative of the blaring fact that we do not live in a meritocracy, no matter how much the Bushbots babble on about 'personal responsibility' and 'the adults are in charge.'I remember a Pete Hamill column in the NY Daily News, back during NYCs mid seventies fiscal woes (another instance of the feds drumming an entire city out of the union) where Hamill opined that "Gerald Ford might be able to hold down a job as a box boy at the A&P, but there's absolutely no reason he should be taken seriously anywhere else."