When the president flew to the Gulf Coast on Friday, Sept. 2, 2005 to inspect the damage and the response efforts, I asked the White House chief of staff for private time with Bush when he arrived in Alabama to give him a heads up about the problems in New Orleans and prepare him to deal with the media—especially for any questions he might get from the White House press corps. 
 
 I’d kept the White House staff fully informed of the debacle unfolding in Louisiana, but I felt compelled to privately inform Bush of the difficulties with Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. The president’s schedule included a brief meeting with me before the public briefing and photo op at the air national guard base. But that meeting was cut short and I wasn’t able to fully explain the situation to the president. Without warning about the problems we were having in Louisiana, he walked into the glare of the cameras. 
 
 Governor Bob Riley of Alabama, pleased with FEMA’s response to problems in his state, said during the briefing he wanted to thank FEMA and me for our hard work. Though Louisiana was a mess, the Mississippi and Alabama response efforts were going relatively smoothly. The president picked up the cue from Riley and uttered those famous words, “And Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva a job…” 
 
 I grimaced because that is exactly the sort of comment I had wanted to avoid. I wanted the president to convey how badly things were going in Louisiana. Now, he appeared to be out of touch with reality, and he used my nickname in front of the media, which instantly piqued their curiosity about the relationship between the president and me. 
 
 The press was now on the hunt. Who is Michael Brown? Why does he have a nickname? Why is the president so uninformed about what’s really going on in Louisiana? 
 
 As the media scrutiny increased, I faced another problem—chain of command. FEMA was part of the alphabet soup of agencies folded into the new Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Tom Ridge. But under the Stafford Act, which created FEMA and governed federal responses to disasters, FEMA’s director is to act “on behalf of the President of the United States.” 
 
 To Ridge’s credit, he never interrupted that chain of command. But the same could not be said for his successor, Michael Chertoff. A few weeks into the recovery effort, I was stunned when the White House informed me in a call that I had to start following a new “chain of command” under Chertoff. That was one of the first signals to me that the bus was in first gear and about to run me over. 
 
 The power struggle had started about a week earlier when I instructed Northcom to move a hospital ship to New Orleans. Upon learning of the ship’s deployment to New Orleans, then U.S. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi called in the middle of the night, screaming that the ship should instead be used in his state. I explained that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour had not requested use of the ship, and that we had a priority need for the ship in Louisiana. 
 
 Lott impugned my character over the telephone, but I refused to budge. A U.S. senator interfering in ongoing operations for purely political reasons was unacceptable. But Lott went over my head and persuaded Chertoff to change the destination of the hospital ship to Mississippi. Northcom was so confused by this that I received an email making certain that that was the proper decision. 
 
 Even though that was not the decision I’d made, I had been overruled by a secretary unfamiliar with ground operations and who was making a decision purely on the basis that a U.S. senator had requested the ship go to his state. Chertoff sealed my fate at that moment. Though I was ostensibly running our operations center in Baton Rouge, I was no longer in charge. Now, someone sitting at a desk in Washington was making operational decisions. 
 
 The bus was moving full steam ahead right over me. Any expert in crisis management will tell you that if you can’t answer the question as to who is in charge of a crisis, then no one is in charge and the response to the crisis is doomed. 
 
 *** 
 
 But unfortunately for me, the media still thought I was solely in charge, unaware of the political machinations going on behind the scenes. This was hardly the only time that journalists failed to understand what was really happening in New Orleans. And that was partially my fault. My mishandling of the press during the disaster response was among my greatest mistakes. 
 
 In the aftermath of Katrina, FEMA coordinated all of the helicopters, boats and amphibious craft being used to rescue thousands of victims from rooftops, buildings and highway overpasses. A detailed grid system was established to eliminate duplicative efforts, make the rescues as efficient and quick as possible and prioritize hardest hit areas. Triage was in full force. 
 
 When CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked shortly after Katrina hit to accompany one of those teams so he could record the rescue of victims, my instinctive answer was to decline the request. The rescue boats carried the minimum crew members necessary to maximize space for victims. If I let a national news figure and a cameraman on a rescue boat, that boat would have two fewer spots on it for victims in need of rescuing. 
 
 My answer—no, you can’t go. 
 
 Big mistake in hindsight. 
 
 Cooper and his cameraman rented a boat, and with total disregard or ignorance of the systematic, grid-driven rescue of victims, managed to find a house with victims yet to be rescued. As Cooper and his cameraman reported on “their” rescue, the inevitable question of where the rescuers are was asked, and the next stage of blame began. Based on that one, isolated, out-of-context rescue, the narrative was set that the rescue efforts were disjointed, in disarray and uncoordinated. 
 
 Nothing could have been further from the truth—an organized plan existed to rescue each of those people. Within two or three days of the storm, we had gotten to safety the easiest victims to locate, those who had made it onto their rooftops. FEMA had so many rescue helicopters in the air it established a mini air traffic control system to coordinate its efforts. Getting evacuees out of the Superdome took longer, about a week. The hardest task, going door to door to rescue victims holed up inside their homes, was what went on for weeks. ||||| Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on Sunday praised the federal disaster response to Hurricane Irene, saying the Federal Emergency Management Agency under Administrator Craig Fugate has been exemplary. 
 
 "This is a much better FEMA than the olden days," the Maryland Democrat said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They have been with us since Day One." 
 
 "Craig Fugate and the people at FEMA, [Homeland Security] Secretary Napolitano and President Obama -- they have been excellent," O'Malley went on. 
 
 In 2005, FEMA was widely panned for an inadequate response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. ||||| In the post-Katrina congressional hearings I was asked what, to this day, I considered to be either the dumbest question ever posed by a U.S. senator; or, a question designed to point the blame at me without realizing how ignorant it made the senator appear. 
 
 After 9/11, I was concerned FEMA was not ready for genuinely catastrophic disasters so I asked Congress for funding to study several catastrophic scenarios, including the possibility of a Category 5 hurricane hitting New Orleans. The tabletop exercise, which we dubbed “Hurricane Pam,” was held in July 2005, one month before Katrina hit. The results struck fear in everyone involved. Hurricane Pam taught us too late that Louisiana and New Orleans were ill prepared. The state’s emergency manager was under federal indictment, its emergency operations in disarray. 
 
 The senator asked why, if we knew from the Hurricane Pam exercises in July, 2005, that New Orleans and Louisiana were ill prepared, why we didn’t make the necessary changes to policies, procedures, statutes and funding, so that the city and state would be prepared for Katrina in August 2005. 
 
 Anyone who understands Washington recognizes the stupidity of the question. In less than 30 days I was expected to request and get approval for funding, adopt rules and regulations, disburse grants and have the state and locals hire, adopt, exercise, train and be ready for a disaster they hadn’t been ready for in years? 
 
 Since Katrina caused several levees to breach, I also suppose that same U.S. senator expected me to have the levees re-engineered and brought up to standards in 30 days, too. To this day I relish telling that story to people who want to understand how Washington works. 
 
 *** 
 
 The post landfall response was the most massive movement of resources, material, personnel and equipment since Sept. 11, 2001. More food, medicine, military personnel, FEMA personnel and volunteers, were dispatched from Pensacola, Florida to Houston, Texas than in any other disaster in U.S. history. 
 
 Imagine the most stressful situation you can. In the midst of those circumstances, everything that is supposed to work a certain way fails to do so. No matter how often you push the button, bark an order or instruct staff, things don’t work the way they’re supposed to. I was experiencing that during Katrina, but didn’t recognize it. 
 
 In those instances one needs to learn to step back, reassess the situation and restart the entire management process. The key to being able to do that is having a support system around you that can help you take a deep breath and objectively analyze the problem. But my trusted press secretary had been recalled to Washington. My staff had become disorganized, understandably fearful of the political repercussions, and had begun to distance themselves. 
 
 I often pleaded with first responders and FEMA employees to get rest—to actually take time to sleep. While it is unnatural for them to do so—they’re driven by the desire to serve—if they fail to physically and mentally take care of themselves, they risk becoming victims themselves. In the end, I failed to heed my own advice. 
 
 Every CEO, manager, business owner and politician, needs to learn from my experience. You must nurture your outside, independent network and train yourself to know when to call on them. But that isn’t the only lesson from my story. 
 
 The American public needs to learn not to rely on the government to save them when a crisis hits. The larger the disaster, the less likely the government will be capable of helping any given individual. We simply do not have the manpower to help everyone. Firefighters and rescue workers would all agree the true first responders are individual citizens who take care of themselves. 
 
 Government has a few lessons to learn, too. FEMA was once known for its great partnership with state and local governments. The agency saw its role as an augmenter of state and local response—helping to train, equip and organize first responders at the local level. It was what I always called an “honest broker.” Our role was to assist state and local governments to correct vulnerabilities they faced. When a presidentially-declared disaster struck, FEMA activated the Catastrophic Disaster Response Group, and, acting as that honest broker, brought federal, state and local agencies together to respond appropriately, efficiently and effectively. 
 
 That same approach gave us the Urban Search & Rescue Teams, the Veterinarian Medical Assistance Teams, the Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, the Nuclear Incident Response Teams, all of which were made up of local first responders who received training and equipment to use during presidentially-declared disasters. 
 
 But after the creation of DHS in 2003, the focus shifted from an all-hazards approach to a focus on terrorism. Money for grants, training and equipment suddenly had to somehow help combat terrorism—and thus the partnership between federal and local agencies began to break down. Grant dollars were moved out of FEMA into the Department of Justice Office of Preparedness grants, thus moving the focus away from all hazards to one of law enforcement. Naturally, state and local governments followed the money, and the marriage between FEMA and state agencies was undermined by the pursuit of terrorism dollars. 
 
 I wrote Secretary Ridge in 2003 and warned him that this shift of grant money out of FEMA would ultimately result in FEMA’s failure. And it did. Terrorism became the focus, as did law enforcement. Partnership faded away. You can’t blame state governments; they were simply chasing the money. 
 
 Today government needs to affirmatively reassert its commitment to the all-hazards approach to disasters. Whether a disaster is man-made, natural or the result of terrorism, the response is the same. And the federal government must not become a first responder. The more state and local governments become dependent upon federal dollars, the weaker and more dependent upon the federal government they will become. 
 
 Why is that important? Disasters happen every day. The federal government should be involved only in those disasters that are beyond the capacity of state and local governments to handle. Centralized disaster response at the national level would destroy the inherent close relationship between citizens and those who save their lives and protect their property in times of everyday disasters. We must not allow that to happen. ||||| Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said Sunday that federal, state and local governments are working together better in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 
 
 "We've learned to really work as one team, not as separate levels of government, and to put everything together early before the storm hits," Fugate said on ABC's "This Week." 
 
 "I think the big [lesson] — and this is one Congress recognized and passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act — was that we shouldn't have to wait until a state is overwhelmed to begin getting ready, that we should be able to go in before the governor's made a request, have supplies ready, have our teams in the state and work as one team, not waiting for damages to occur and that formal request to come," Fugate said.
– Hurricane, er, Tropical Storm Irene proved to be no Katrina, and that's partly because the resulting Federal Emergency Management Agency overhaul actually worked, says FEMA administrator Craig Fugate. "We've learned to really work as one team, not as separate levels of government, and to put everything together early before the storm hits," he told This Week. "We shouldn't have to wait until a state is overwhelmed to begin getting ready, have supplies ready, have our teams in the state and work as one team, not waiting for damages to occur and that formal request to come." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico: Chris Christie on evacuation: "We got a million people off the Jersey Shore in 24 hours. Your No. 1 goal as a governor is the saving of human life. It was my call that we were just not going to have people on those barrier islands on the coastline." Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on FEMA: "This is a much better FEMA than the olden days. They have been with us since Day One." Ron Paul on FEMA: "It's a system of bureaucratic central economic planning, which is a fallacy that is deeply flawed. FEMA has been around since 1978. It has one of the worst reputations for a bureaucracy ever." Colin Powel on Dick Cheney: Many of the ex-veep's reveals were "cheap shots. Cheney may forget that I'm the one who said to President Bush, 'If you break it, you own it.' And you have got to understand that if we have to go to war in Iraq, we have to be prepared for the whole war. And Mr. Cheney did not prepare for what happened after the fall of Baghdad."