Officials On The Hot Seat

It's been four days since Hurricane Katrina decimated the Gulf Coast, and many people feel the response of the federal and Louisiana governments has been inadequate.

On The Early Show Friday, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Louisiana's governor defended themselves in the face of tough questioning by co-anchors Harry Smith and Hannah Storm.

Storm pointed out to FEMA Director Michael Brown that New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has issued what he called a "desperate SOS," and another city official described the federal response as a national disgrace.

"I understand the mayor's frustration," Brown said. "I met with the mayor immediately after the storm had passed, talked with him about his needs. He had at great list of priorities. We have been having a continuous flow of commodities into the Superdome.

"There were five trucks arriving (Thursday) night to feed well over 50,000 people. There's less than that there. We're also diverting supplies to the convention center, which I learned about (Thursday). So I understand people's frustrations. But this has been an absolutely catastrophic disaster, and we're doing absolutely everything we can to get the supplies into those folks."

"Are you slow to get information?" Storm said. "You said you just learned about the convention center. There's 25,000 people there; reports of dead bodies, rapes, fights breaking out."

"Yes, I learned about that, the federal government learned about that (Thursday)," Brown said. "And that shows how difficult communications are in the situation where there was virtually no communications, except for our teams on the ground."

"What are your priorities now?" Storm said. "We are looking at no food and water, these horrific security issues, all of these tens of thousands of people that need to be evacuated. Where is the priority? There seems to be an inadequate response in all areas."

Brown said there are two priorities.

"One is to secure the area. The First Army is here with me," he said. "We're directing them and having them side by side with us. There will be approximately 30,000 National Guard troops here, and that will continue to increase over the next several days. That will allow us to continue those relief efforts.

"I understand that there are pockets where people have not gotten the basics, and we're working with the Coast Guard to get those. But I'm telling you, we have those supplies, we are getting those supplies into the people. … In this catastrophic event, everything that we pre-positioned and had ready to go became overwhelmed immediately after the storm."

"Why is that, Mike?" Storm said. "I know that you had identified this as a major problem, that New Orleans had potential for great disaster, but what is it that you did not anticipate?"

"The total lack of communication. The inability to hear and have good intelligence on the ground about what was occurring there," Brown said. "We had to actually take teams out yesterday because of the dangerous situation they were in. That's very frustrating not only to me but those teams. Those medical teams want to help save lives and the thugs and the others that are causing the problem are actually making it more difficult. So we had to pull them out for a while. They want to go back in. They're going back in."

Brown said President Bush has spoken with him every day since Katrina hit.

"That's why I now have complete cooperation from the military," Brown said. "I have everything I need to ramp this up and do what we have to do to secure New Orleans, to take this urban area and make certain it's secure, get people out of here, and start the recovery process."

Asked whether combat troops and more National Guard troops should have been brought in earlier, Brown said, "Well, the state had their National Guard troops here. The state was overwhelmed because of the vast size of this. That's why, in cooperation with the state, when they made that request and said they needed that additional help, we got it to them."

"What about these poor people that couldn't get out of the city," Storm said. "Was there any way to evacuate more of these people before the storm hit? They knew this storm was coming."

"That's something we need to look at because," Brown said, "when you have 100,000 folks that either can't get out, they don't have the transportation, we need to work with the cities to make certain there's a way to get those people out or at least put them in areas that can be safe."

Storm ask what he says to Americans who can't believe this is happening here and want to know why we can't take care of our own people.

"We can take care of our own people," Brown said, "and we're going to do that. I understand their frustration. I understand these people are suffering, and I'm telling you we're doing absolutely everything we can to make sure we take care of them."

Asked the same question by Harry Smith, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said, "When your whole system, your whole civilized system goes down, this is pretty much what you get left with. We had no communications, no running water, no electricity, no real help. We were inundated with water. We were locked down from every angle of access into the city. Ramping up has just been a monstrous task.

"I'm grateful for the help we're getting. I think things are finally getting to the point where we're seeing some difference, but every minute counts. That's the heartbreaking side of it. … It has just been horrific. Everybody is doing everything they humanly could do with the capacity at hand."

"What we keep hearing over and over again," Smith said, "especially from people around New Orleans, is that the response to this disaster has not been adequate. How do you respond to that?"

"Harry, I agree, it has not been adequate," Babineaux Blanco said. "But we are working every day. Now, as we ramp up, I think people are going to feel the difference. The magnitude was overwhelming. We don't get into the blame game. We just say we work with what we've got every day."

To contribute directly, send contributions to:

Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, Inc.
c/o Division of Administration
1201 North Third Street, Suite 7-240
P.O. Box 94095
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9095

Phone: (225) 342-7000
Fax: (225) 342-1057