Last Wednesday, I felt horrible for those on the Gulf Coast killed by the water and winds of Hurricane Katrina, but was also hopeful that the worst was over.
I didn't realize then I would spend the rest of the week and the weekend and the beginning of the next week watching babies unable to wake up, on the verge of death from dehydration.
I didn't realize I'd hear Aaron Broussard, President of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, break down on national television while telling the story of the man running the local emergency management building, whose mother drowned in a nursing home Friday after days of assurances from her son that someone was coming to rescue her.
I didn't realize I'd watch the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown - who has taken to describing those trapped in New Orleans as citizens who "chose" not to leave - admit on national television Thursday that he and his agency didn't know that more than 20,000 people were without food, water or security at the New Orleans Convention Center until the story appeared on television that day.
Brown came to FEMA as an appointee of then-director and college friend Joe Allbaugh in 2001, ending his tenure as, unbelievably, the judges and stewards commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. Before that, Brown worked as a lawyer in Enid, Okla., and city employee of Edmond, Okla. These are not exactly applicable life experiences for a man appointed - after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - to head the agency primarily responsible for dealing with major national disasters.
It should go without saying that much of the blame for the widespread disorganization, the agonizingly slow deployment of resources, the declaration by President Bush that the federal response to the disaster was unacceptable, and the F grade given to the federal relief effort by Louisiana's Republican Senator David Vitter rests at Brown's feet.
But it is going to require many, many American citizens joining the New Orleans Times-Picayune in voicing their discomfort with this man holding their lives in his hands should there be a major disaster in their hometown to affect change.
Katrina hit the Gulf Coast with plenty of notice - what if a major terrorist attack or earthquake occurs in a similarly populated area without any warning whatsoever? If the possibility of an Arabian horse commissioner handling the evacuations of your loved ones concerns you, please write your representatives and your newspapers to call for Michael Brown's resignation.
Chris Narkun
Opinion editor
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