Former FEMA Director urges Book Rap audience to be prepared

“FEMA will not save you,” said Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Brown, who served as the first undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA director from 2003 to 2005, was forced to resign in the wake the federal government's poor response to Hurricane Katrina. He presented his book, “Deadly Indifference: The Perfect (Political) Storm: Hurricane Katrina, the Bush White House and Beyond,” at a National Press Club Book Rap June 21.

The government will not always be there, Brown warned. “There needs to be an understanding of the role of government and the role of the individual,” he said. It is the individual’s responsibility to be prepared for disasters, he said.

People need to be prepared to take care of themselves, Brown said. “Just in time delivery [means] trucks can’t get to Whole Foods. They can’t get to Safeway. They can’t get to Harris Teeter. They can’t get there because the bridges are out. The roads are gone,” he said. While people may last for a day or two with the stuff that is in their house, those supplies will quickly diminish or become unusable if the power is out.

Government officials consistently warn Americans to be prepared but the American people ignore warnings from government officials because they don’t want to think about disasters happening, Brown said.

“It is difficult, if not impossible, to even think about this,” Brown said. “Even those who are the poorest amongst us in this country are still better off than 90 percent of the rest of the world. On top of that, we become very complacent and comfortable with the way we live. We have a belief that we are Americans and nothing bad can happen to us.”

The government has set up a website, ready.gov, with preparedness information but Americans don’t take advantage of the resources available at ready.gov because it is administered by the government, Brown said.

Brown said his goal in writing the book was twofold: “To use Katrina as an example of everything that could go wrong” and to teach Americans “that Katrina is not an aberration. Katrina is not a one-time event.”

During Brown’s tenure, FEMA responded to many disasters before Katrina including the four hurricanes that hit Florida during the summer of 2004. Brown described FEMA’s response as “relatively great.” The response to Hurricane Katrina was different. “Katrina was one of those incidents where everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Mistakes at all levels of government. Mistakes within the population. Mistakes within the government. They all came together in one disaster,” Brown said.

Brown praised current FEMA director Craig Fugate. He “is doing a fantastic job of lowering expectations,” Brown said. Fugate is explaining exactly what FEMA can do and more importantly what FEMA cannot do, Brown said.