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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 28, 2005)
IN BRIEF Brown defends himself on late FEMA response WASHINGTON, D.C. — Embattled former Federal Emergency Manage ment Agency director Michael Brown says he was initially unaware of des perate conditions at the New Orleans Convention Center because it was not a planned Hurricane Katrina evacua tion site, according to a congressional memo. After learning from television about the thousands of evacuees who gath ered at the center, Brown ordered food and water be delivered there. But Brown, who on Tliesday faces a House inquiry into the government’s slow re sponse to the Aug. 29 disaster, told congressional aides that “there is no reason FEMA would have known about it beforehand. ” In Katrina’s aftermath, thousands of people gathered at the convention cen ter, where adequate food, water and other supplies were lacking and where violence was common. The memo, obtained by The Asso ciated Press, was written by a Repub lican congressional aide who attended a 90-minute briefing Monday with Brown, who resigned as director of FEMA on Sept. 12. Brown announced his resignation three days after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff removed him from overseeing the onsite disas ter response, and Brown was highly criticized for being a Bush administra tion political appointee without deep emergency management experience. He denied accusations that he padded his resume. Brown, who ran FEMA for more than two years, has a two-week “tran sition” remaining at the agency, during which he will advise the department on “some of his views on his experi ence with Katrina,” Homeland Securi ty spokesman Russ Knocke said. He is receiving full pay. The congressional memo details Brown’s self-defense — and attacks on other officials — in managing the re sponse to the catastrophic storm and flooding that killed more than 1,000 people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Brown “acknowledged that he made mistakes,” said a second Repub lican staff member who attended the briefing. New Orleans residents return at mayor's invitation NEW ORLEANS — The on-again, off-again official reopening of New Or leans was back on track as the mayor welcomed residents back to the Algiers neighborhood, where they found a curfew, limited services and no critical care hospital services. A steady line of cars waited 20 to 25 minutes Monday to get through police checkpoints, said police spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo. Defillo had no es timate of how many people had re turned. Only scattered handfuls of people even bothered to return to neighboring St. Bernard Parish. They came to salvage what they could from homes where the waters from Hurri cane Katrina topped the attics, where mold is blooming on the walls like ab stract art and toxic sludge covers the floors. Many said they wouldn’t be back, not after the double blow of Kat rina and Rita, which reflooded parts of the parish. At a Texaco station in Algiers, owner Mohammed Mehmood found damage both from the storm and from looting. His gas pumps were vandalized, his computers did not work and his ceil ing was about to collapse. “I have immediate problems,” he said. “I have no money. They broke and stole everything.” The neighborhood of 57,000 people lies across the Mississippi River from the main part of New Orleans and largely escaped flooding from Hurri cane Katrina and Rita. Unlike most of the rest of the city, Algiers has electrici ty and clean water. Mayor Ray Nagin also invited busi ness owners in the central business district, the French Quarter and the Uptown section to inspect their prop erty and clean up. But he gave no timetable for reopening those parts of the city to residents. Governor's challenger urges gambling ban Gubernatorial candidate Pete Soren son is calling on his rival, Gov. Ted Ku longoski, to prevent hurricane victims from gambling away their federal relief money in Oregon. In a letter to the governor, Sorenson asked Kulongoski to "direct all Oregon lottery and video poker outlets to im mediately institute procedures to re fuse to cash federal disaster relief checks or allow the use of federally is sued debit cards issued as part of relief efforts." He added that Kulongoski should ask Oregon tribal casinos to follow the same restrictions. The Lane County commissioner is one of three Democrats planning to run against Kulongoski in the May pri mary. In an interview, he said his con cern was "constituent driven," and he wasn't aware of any evacuees gam bling away their relief checks. Chuck Baumann, a spokesman for the Oregon Lottery, said he met with agency field managers on Monday. He said there was no talk of storm victims trying to use relief money for gambling. Groups working with the evacuees said Sorenson's concerns are misplaced. "The majority of people I've met are just looking to get back on their feet," said Ellen Cedergreen, a founder of Eu gene Cares, which is helping look after an estimated 100 evacuees in Lane County. "They're not spending their money on anything other than trying to survive." Holly Armstrong, a spokeswoman for Kulongoski, said Sorenson's ac tions were an attempt to get political mileage out of the tragedy. 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