FEMA Director during Katrina: How Prepared Are We for Disaster?

“When you think about what we have here—FedEx, UPS, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club—you’ve got all these places that have networks that can be used to do distribution…I truly see the private sector as part of the first responder network.”

As FEMA director when Hurricane Katrina struck, Michael D. Brown is no stranger to natural disasters. He’s since used his experience to carve out a life beyond the federal government and write a book about his time as director during Katrina titled Deadly Indifference: The Perfect Political Storm: Hurricane Katrina, The Bush White House, and Beyond. Since 2012, he’s also hosted a radio show in Denver where he shares his opinions on all things political and cultural. On June 4th, Mr. Brown joined Merion West’s Erich Prince to discuss the logistics behind disaster response, the government’s role in alleviating the impacts of these disasters, and the risks of a possible pandemic.

So to start off, a Time magazine piece last October, in which you were quoted, discussed potential comparisons between the federal government’s response to Hurricane Maria and to Hurricane Katrina. One of the points made by both you and your successor, Dave Paulison, suggested the need for a unified response across all levels of government to natural disasters, and your successor specifically discussed coordination among the “the federal, state, and local level.” Can you talk about what this looks like?

I think, first and foremost, it means that every level of government needs to understand—and quite frankly, every citizen needs to understand—the role of each of those levels of government. We operate under a system of federalism where we have a central government with a limited authority, and the people that have the most authority are state and local governments. I always try to explain to people that, in a disaster, the two most powerful individuals are the mayor of an impacted community and the governor. It’s not the President of the United States. It’s not FEMA. It’s those local individuals because they are the ones that have primary responsibility for responding to a disaster.