Former FEMA director Michael Brown sees himself in a cartoon.
It depicts him pulling levers and pushing buttons on a giant machine, but the wires to these controls have been cut.
This, says the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is what happened when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in August 2005.
“I continued to push all these buttons, and nothing happened,” Brown told me. “At some point, you become so overwhelmed that you mentally begin to shut down. … I should have recognized that, and I didn’t.”
Brown, 51, was the official on national television assuring everyone that help was on its way as cameras showed victims stranded on rooftops and bridges. He became a national symbol of the Bush administration’s incompetent Katrina response. Fired in September 2005, he’s now doing what many folks do after losing their jobs. He’s become a consultant.
Brown now works out of a Boulder office. He’s a partner of a Washington D.C.-based firm called Resilient Corp., which helps companies with regulatory compliance and strategic planning. He is director of emergency-management programs. And if that’s not ironic enough, he spoke to the Public Relations Society of America in Denver on Wednesday about crisis communications.
“Part of it is learning what not to do,” explained Scott Harris, president of the PRSA Colorado chapter. “And he’s going to be the poster child for what not to do for the next 20 years.”
Brown spoke for free and required no travel expenses.
Brown still blames Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin for the hurricane response, but he concedes that when Katrina hit, he was somewhat checked out.
“I was planning to leave (FEMA) in 2004, and I should have,” Brown said.
When the media scrutinized Brown’s credentials, we learned that he spent 10 years as head of the International Arabian Horse Association in Aurora before becoming FEMA’s general counsel in 2001. He’d also worked as a lawyer. But articles pointed out that his primary qualification seemed to be “Bush crony.”
Time magazine accused Brown of padding his resume, noting he was an “assistant to the city manager” in Edmund, Okla., and not an “assistant city manager” as Brown stated. Whatever his title, Brown did oversee emergency services there from 1975 to 1978.
Before Katrina, Brown was respected for FEMA responses to more than 160 disasters, including California wildfires in 2003 and four Florida hurricanes in 2004. Unfortunately, he’s going down in history for the one that went horribly wrong.
He has not been back to New Orleans since. And today, what company wants to boast that Brown is drafting its plan?
“We had exactly the same concerns,” said Bill Clough, general counsel of Portland, Ore.-based OnScreen Technologies, which makes portable, illuminated emergency traffic signs. “But he’s proven that he can open doors for us. He’s very articulate and charismatic. And most people that we deal with in the emergency-services area feel very strongly that he took a shot for the administration.”
Brown said that, as FEMA director, he tried to make plans for a hurricane sacking New Orleans. But budget cuts and political squabbles ensured they were never fully formulated. Brown said he battled the renowned stubbornness of the Bush administration. “It goes like this: ‘We’ve made this decision, and now it’s done. … And we’re not going to let you get us off this decision.’ It drove me nuts,” he said.
Brown said his biggest mistake was sticking to the talking points he received from the White House. The points were true – that FEMA was marshaling the largest emergency response in history. But they didn’t provide the full context, which was that the response wasn’t going to be enough to help everyone.
“I was trying to be a good team player,” Brown said. “There comes a time when you shouldn’t do that.”
Now he’s fighting for his reputation.
“We’re hoping to get back 10 or 20 percent,” he said. “We’re never going to get back 100 percent. There will always be people who – no matter what you do or talk about – will always still blame you.”
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to him at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-954-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
