October 3, 2024 • 17 mins
ABOUT FEMA AND NORTH CAROLINA I've said on earlier blogs that I'm holding fire about the federal response because I've lived through hurricanes and the aftermath so I know how hard it is to do help and recovery. That being said, time is ticking and we're seeing stories like this one about private citizens being threatened for HELPING. I've got former FEMA director and current KHOW morning show host Michael Brown on at 2:30 to talk about what the realities of recovery really are in a situation like this.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
As someone who's lived through hurricanes before, I know how
(00:02):
difficult the recovery can be, and the terrain in North
Carolina is terrible. But I have questions, and that means
that I have to talk to my friend and colleague
from K Howe right across the street, our morning guy
over there, Michael Brown, also happens to be the former
FEMA director. Michael, I was listening to your show this morning,
and you were talking about some of the things that
have come out.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
But I want to start with the story.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That FEMA now says it doesn't have enough money to
make it through the year after they've spent over six
hundred million dollars on illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
That story is insane to me.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
When did FEMA get into the business of resettling illegal immigrants.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
About the same time again, in the business of trying
to change the climate, taking care of immigrants, planting trees,
doing everything stupid that it should not be doing.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I agree, we'll concede that point. I want your take
on how things are going so far, because, as I said,
I've lived through hurricanes, I've lived through the aftermath, I've
been in situations where I haven't had power for ten days,
obviously not at the level that we're seeing in North
Carolina because the entire communities are cut off from other,
(01:15):
you know, access areas.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
But what is your.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Assessment of what's going on now from Afar, Well.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
From Afara, here's what you think about, not the storm
because we've had other hurricanes that have gone up in
similar areas, is that flash farthing is much more widespread
than it's been before. And when you have flash farthing
like you do in a storm like this, it's it's
(01:43):
difficult for the media to get in to see what's
going on. So the media is you only getting you know,
bits and pieces from local media bell that's happening, or
you're getting freelancers, or for example, there's you know, our
station in Asheville has been on the air for twenty
four hours a day seven these weeks since the storm hits.
It's just gives and grabs of implicating out. So from
(02:06):
what I'm gathering is the typical local response is pretty good.
But the problem is it's so widespread that they can't
get everywhere, So you're going to have all these horror
stories of everything going on, and then quite honestly, best
I can tell other than Biden's now showing up. Nobody can.
(02:28):
FEMA's shown up, and you know, eighty percent of life
is just showing up and at least saying hey, listen,
I'm here. You know, for example, I will be critical lover.
I think part of the job of the FEMA director
is to be out front and say hey, I'm here,
and I'll get all this stuff coming in behind me.
(02:48):
It's taking a while, but right now we're doing ABC
and the EP that's going on, and so that the
media can ask questions, well, what about this? What about that?
Because people in shock, the disaster victims are in shock,
and the longer it takes for them to hear anything,
the worst things get. And then the longer they go
(03:10):
without anything, the worst worse things get. And if you
just tell them here's what's in the pipeline, or here's
where you need to go today, or this is open.
I mean, she should be all over the place talking
about every little thing that's happening, and quite thankfully, the
fact that she's not makes me wonder, get the lawyer
in me, is nothing really happening? And that's my.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Concern, Michael.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
She's so not out there that I didn't even know
the director of female was a woman until right now,
And I'm not kidding, And I consume news at a
very high level and had no idea that the FEMA
director was female. To your point, and you know, when
you're out of power and you don't know your house
is flooded or any of that stuff, information is all
(03:54):
you have, right, I mean that information about what's happening.
And I was in Florida when Craig Fugate was the
director of FEMA, and boy did he do a bang
up job in Florida and he was phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, into Craig knew you've got to just see people.
I've always held the other two, even if it's bad news.
Tell people what the news is, yep, because no news
is the word, at least for me. I know, if
I don't know something, I worry about it. If I
know about it, then I can deal with it.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, not only that, Michael, you're sitting there.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Assuming that you still have a house because a lot
of people's armies were devastating, but you're sitting there in
the dark in your house. You have nothing to do
but sit there and wonder what the hell's going on.
And when you're not hitting information, it becomes you. You
become viscerally angry. I will never forget when my power
had been out for five days and the people across
the street their power came on.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And mine did not, and I almost lost my mind.
It almost sent me over the edge.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I was like, what the And but I walked down
the street to the line guys and said, why is
my power not on? And they were very easy, very
easily explained what was going on, and just that bit
of information just took me off the ledge, you know,
and they said, okay, here we go.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It's something you'd use as an example because in Florida,
I always used to tell people that look, FpML is
doing that everything they can, but there's always the last
guy at the end of the block. It's always there's
always the person that's going to be, you know, because
of the way the wires, the whole transmission, whole grid
everything to your point, your neighbor may have power, but
(05:32):
you don't because you're on a different transmission line and
they're coming from a different direction, and so'll take them
two more days before they get to you. And again,
if they would just explain that people, but here's here's right,
here's twel things going on. If you put yourself out there,
even with bad news, the meeting is going to eat
(05:52):
you alive. I mean I proved positive about but again
I think that's part of your job is to be
out explained to people and take the slings and arrows,
take the questions, and quite frankly, as as you saw
with me, if if your boss, who has to be
the president of the United States is not doing their job,
(06:14):
you can always kind of look over your chouldren and say, well,
you know, mister president, can we get that done? And
and just by saying that, and that's when I was
screaming up Bush about flying over Katrina instead of actually
landing in back route, just having him there in the
first day or two would have made a difference, you
know why, because that's from the signals to the cabinet said, hey,
(06:36):
I'm here. Whatever Bround wants you give him now, may Orcus.
He's been the Secretary of Homeland Security, he's been absent.
Team of Director has been absent. Biden's been absent. So
the only people you had to rely upon are whatever
local fire department or police department or changing navy or
whoever's out there doing stuff, that's the only place you
(06:56):
can get in them.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I have a text or who asked a question and
ask him about the FEMA forbidding truckers bringing food, water,
and supplies to the people who are in desperate need.
Check stories for North Carolina and Georgia. I've seen some
of these stories where people who are bringing their own
personal helicopters into to go do rescues are being threatened
with the rest. I understand that when you have down
power lines and you have trees across the road, and
(07:20):
in this case I forty is destroyed, there's no interstate there.
But is there a way in your experience to help
get those supplies that people are sending and bringing to
the right people in this particular situation. There's big terrain
issues here right.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
There's huge terrain issues. And to your point the interstate
shut down, I mean we had the same thing in between.
We have patch. You in the same thing in Florida
where you have interstates, Yes, just cut off. So but
that's why you need to have a FEMA director that
is actively involved in the cabinet, so that for example,
when I need this stuff, I could call Donald Rumsfeld,
(07:56):
and I could say, you're the secretary, I need X
y Z, and he knew that I was doing it.
I was asking on behalf of the president because you
need a hold a relationship with the President and I
get that stuff done. And so that's where you need
to have someone who's actively involved in the administration so
that you can say to those fuckers or who Negri
it is or just Americans person, I mean any organization,
(08:19):
yes we want your stuff, take it here, take it
there right, and you just have your team telling take
it here there so they can keep moving. Never tell
anybody no, Never tell them no.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Let me ask you about FEMA's overall role for just
a minute, because one of the things, and now we
have President Biden saying FEMA's going to pay for all
of the recovery for six months. That's unprecedented, Like FEMA
is not supposed to be the we're going to cover everything.
They're the we're gonna we're gonna help you get things
started and make sure that you're not going to starve
to deak during the emergency part.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Are we now at a point where FEMA.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Is its own sort of monstrosity and therefore states are
not necessarily going to plan for this stuff, or budget
for this stuff, or or even feel responsible for their
own state. That's kind of concerning to me.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
It should be very concerning that if Bush had said that,
I would have at some point said this wasn't You
cannot say that, You've got to retract that because one
you don't have the legal authority to do that, and
two that sets expectations entirely wrong. And what would that mean?
And by the way, what does it means You're going
to do it for six months and six months you're
going to cut the checksaf I mean, it's stupid. There
(09:30):
are certain things that you were paying for. It will
take it will take years. You know, you might have
to rebuild a school. It might take you two years
to rebuild that school. And people might say, well that
seems like a long time. Well, if your school isn't
a real in a very rural area and you have
to prioritize getting a larger school versystem. I mean, there's
all these things. I mean, when we first came into
(09:50):
in through office in January of two thousand and one,
do you know if there were still disasters that we
were handling, For example, the San Francisco routh Lakes build
dating with the San Francisco earthquakes, and you know, ten eleven,
fifteen years later. So all these things just take a
lot of time. But to your point, to to cover
(10:11):
you know, immigrant illegal immigrant housing, to worry about climate change.
If you go to theme a website right now on
their master plan, the number one go equity. Are you
thinking kidding me? That should not be your number one
goal in your strategic plan. Your strategic plan number one
goal should be how can we respond quicker? How can
we recover quickly? How can we mitigate against certain things better?
(10:34):
So it's just this whole confluence of and I knew
this would happen, and I predicted this would happen that
once FEMA gut subsumed into the Department of on Land Security,
it would get overwhelmed. It would be used for all
sorts of things that it shouldn't be used for because
you have to do best. You know, this goes back
to your very first question, is THEMA broke? Femas never broke.
(10:54):
THEMA has always got uh. It has five hundred and
thirty five advocates on this hill that will make sure
the FEMA always has the money it has for everything.
But then the bad side of that is you have
five hundred and thirty five ad to get some Capitol
Hill that will give you money and tell you we
want you to go this, do this right now. So
you end up bringing stupid things like immigrant housing.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I mean, the mission creep is ridiculous on this. It's absurd,
and I think that. But one thing, Okay, let's talk politically.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
For just a second here.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, let's turn off the compassion in American fellow Americans.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Don't want other Americans to suffer.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
This is not good for the Harris campaign because two
things have come out of this. Number one, people feel
like the federal government is just hanging these people out
to dry.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
That's thing number one.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And they're getting a lot of press nationally as people
are like, what the blank, why isn't anyone coming here?
And then this news story about oh, sorry, we spent
over seven hundred you know, almost seven hundred million dollars
on illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I don't think that's going to set well with people.
I don't think even.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
If people feel compassion for the people that have walked
over the southern border, I don't feel like they're like
compassionate to the tune of almost seven hundred million dollars
from FEMA and then the hundreds of million of dollars
here in Colorado. Do you think that's going to create
political pushback?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Well, I think it will, but that presupposes that the
dominant media will cover it the way you just survived it.
And that's that's from my perspective. That's my problem because
my book, My boss was a guy named George Bush,
and her boss is a guy named Joe Biden Kamala Harris,
(12:32):
and I do believe the media. You know, the media
came after me. Did I make mistake? Sure? But they
came after me because they've been after Bush, you know,
for for five years. And do you think they're going
to go after Kamala Harris. No, They're going to be
an insulator from this as much as they can.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
This person said, please ask Michael about the nautum n
ot a M prohibiting private air assets from providing relief.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Well, so there was I did a story this morning
about the helicopter. The guy that had the helicopter, yea,
And when I dug him this story, there was an
I can't find original source material, So I don't know
what the truth is. But for example, in the New
Orleans we put a notice to airmen, we put a
(13:21):
cap over New Orleans because we had so many helicopters
and so many aircraft in the air that we actually
had our own aircraftic control system. So I don't know
whether there was a temporary flight restriction put in retaliy
wise or legitimate, or arch there even was one. But
oftentimes in a major area, once you start getting military
(13:44):
assets in, you will have a temporary flight restriction over
an area because you've got black Hawks and Chinooks, and
you've got C seventeen's and Sea fives. You got all
of these things in the air, and you don't want
some guy that owns his own helicopter flying around filing
a flight plan. So I tried to explain my audience
that story may be nuanced, and there may be some
(14:08):
truth to it, and there may be some legitimacy to
it that I'm not at the point where I can
say it's true or not true. But in some cases, yes,
over New Orleans, but just over New Orleans we had
flight restrictions, but that was because we had the entire
lower knights Board. We have downtown Normans. We had everything flooded,
and I had so much aircraft in the air, we
(14:29):
had to have a separate air We had to have
a separate air topic control system.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I mean that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And again going back to the whole, I know that
a big problem with Florida is hurricane tourism, meaning after
a storm, people will drive in to look at the
devastation and it is the most annoying, like I want
to punch all those people in the face kind of annoying.
So I get where they don't let people drive in.
But in this situation, I'm hoping that military aircraft are there.
(14:56):
But did that appear to be the case with the
story you're talking about where the guy was threatened with
a US by a fire department.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, it doesn't matter. And then the other thing, so
I think that there was something fishing going on there,
and I think that maybe somebody was mad because some
guy was actually out there doing some good and embarrassed
somebody else. Now, let's talk about the trucker that has
an eighteen wheeler that is driving in with you know,
loads of loads of bottled water or cots or blankets
(15:26):
or something, and if he gets stopped at a checkpoint,
they need to rather than they just stop him. But
then needs to be FEMA on the ground or the
state emergency managers like Craig Fugate on the ground that says, oh, okay,
we got an eighteen wheel and he's got what Okay,
send that truck instead of where he thought he was going,
Send him over here instead, because that's where it's needed.
(15:48):
You just need to coordinate that stuff. You know, after
nine to eleven, there's this it's fun in hindsight, but
the time is horrible. When we had rescue workers at
Ground zero, somebody, somebody in the media just happened to mention,
you know, these these firefighters and rescue workers there, their
boots are wearing out very very quickly. Well, suddenly we
(16:10):
had people from all over the country, every church, every
charitable organization sending us just boots randomly, and we had
to fill a warehouse with boots because we had we
had no way that we could soak them or use them.
So there's that fine line between hey, we need your
help and building something specific. Players, Right, we meet eighteen
(16:32):
leaders full of X or Y and.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I'd always some people I'd always tell people nobody wants
your use clothes after they lost their house in a hurricane.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Well, we would even these would need to be used.
These would be like brand new boots, but they would
be like, okay, so many of them, absolutely, so many
of them. We can't we can't handle it. And they're
not necessarily steel. Told that they're not appropriate for digging
in you know, rebar, they're not appropriate for ground zero
with the chemicals. So we just you know, ended up
(17:02):
warehousing them and then probably just giving them away.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Michael Brown, I appreciate your insight.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Your work, obviously as a FEMA director gives you special insight.
I appreciate you making time for me today many time.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
All Right, have a great vacation, my friend,
As someone who's lived through hurricanes before, I know how
(00:02):
difficult the recovery can be, and the terrain in North
Carolina is terrible. But I have questions, and that means
that I have to talk to my friend and colleague
from K Howe right across the street, our morning guy
over there, Michael Brown, also happens to be the former
FEMA director. Michael, I was listening to your show this morning,
and you were talking about some of the things that
have come out.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
But I want to start with the story.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That FEMA now says it doesn't have enough money to
make it through the year after they've spent over six
hundred million dollars on illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
That story is insane to me.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
When did FEMA get into the business of resettling illegal immigrants.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
About the same time again, in the business of trying
to change the climate, taking care of immigrants, planting trees,
doing everything stupid that it should not be doing.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I agree, we'll concede that point. I want your take
on how things are going so far, because, as I said,
I've lived through hurricanes, I've lived through the aftermath, I've
been in situations where I haven't had power for ten days,
obviously not at the level that we're seeing in North
Carolina because the entire communities are cut off from other,
(01:15):
you know, access areas.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
But what is your.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Assessment of what's going on now from Afar, Well.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
From Afara, here's what you think about, not the storm
because we've had other hurricanes that have gone up in
similar areas, is that flash farthing is much more widespread
than it's been before. And when you have flash farthing
like you do in a storm like this, it's it's
(01:43):
difficult for the media to get in to see what's
going on. So the media is you only getting you know,
bits and pieces from local media bell that's happening, or
you're getting freelancers, or for example, there's you know, our
station in Asheville has been on the air for twenty
four hours a day seven these weeks since the storm hits.
It's just gives and grabs of implicating out. So from
(02:06):
what I'm gathering is the typical local response is pretty good.
But the problem is it's so widespread that they can't
get everywhere, So you're going to have all these horror
stories of everything going on, and then quite honestly, best
I can tell other than Biden's now showing up. Nobody can.
(02:28):
FEMA's shown up, and you know, eighty percent of life
is just showing up and at least saying hey, listen,
I'm here. You know, for example, I will be critical lover.
I think part of the job of the FEMA director
is to be out front and say hey, I'm here,
and I'll get all this stuff coming in behind me.
(02:48):
It's taking a while, but right now we're doing ABC
and the EP that's going on, and so that the
media can ask questions, well, what about this? What about that?
Because people in shock, the disaster victims are in shock,
and the longer it takes for them to hear anything,
the worst things get. And then the longer they go
(03:10):
without anything, the worst worse things get. And if you
just tell them here's what's in the pipeline, or here's
where you need to go today, or this is open.
I mean, she should be all over the place talking
about every little thing that's happening, and quite thankfully, the
fact that she's not makes me wonder, get the lawyer
in me, is nothing really happening? And that's my.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Concern, Michael.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
She's so not out there that I didn't even know
the director of female was a woman until right now,
And I'm not kidding, And I consume news at a
very high level and had no idea that the FEMA
director was female. To your point, and you know, when
you're out of power and you don't know your house
is flooded or any of that stuff, information is all
(03:54):
you have, right, I mean that information about what's happening.
And I was in Florida when Craig Fugate was the
director of FEMA, and boy did he do a bang
up job in Florida and he was phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, into Craig knew you've got to just see people.
I've always held the other two, even if it's bad news.
Tell people what the news is, yep, because no news
is the word, at least for me. I know, if
I don't know something, I worry about it. If I
know about it, then I can deal with it.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, not only that, Michael, you're sitting there.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Assuming that you still have a house because a lot
of people's armies were devastating, but you're sitting there in
the dark in your house. You have nothing to do
but sit there and wonder what the hell's going on.
And when you're not hitting information, it becomes you. You
become viscerally angry. I will never forget when my power
had been out for five days and the people across
the street their power came on.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And mine did not, and I almost lost my mind.
It almost sent me over the edge.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I was like, what the And but I walked down
the street to the line guys and said, why is
my power not on? And they were very easy, very
easily explained what was going on, and just that bit
of information just took me off the ledge, you know,
and they said, okay, here we go.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It's something you'd use as an example because in Florida,
I always used to tell people that look, FpML is
doing that everything they can, but there's always the last
guy at the end of the block. It's always there's
always the person that's going to be, you know, because
of the way the wires, the whole transmission, whole grid
everything to your point, your neighbor may have power, but
(05:32):
you don't because you're on a different transmission line and
they're coming from a different direction, and so'll take them
two more days before they get to you. And again,
if they would just explain that people, but here's here's right,
here's twel things going on. If you put yourself out there,
even with bad news, the meeting is going to eat
(05:52):
you alive. I mean I proved positive about but again
I think that's part of your job is to be
out explained to people and take the slings and arrows,
take the questions, and quite frankly, as as you saw
with me, if if your boss, who has to be
the president of the United States is not doing their job,
(06:14):
you can always kind of look over your chouldren and say, well,
you know, mister president, can we get that done? And
and just by saying that, and that's when I was
screaming up Bush about flying over Katrina instead of actually
landing in back route, just having him there in the
first day or two would have made a difference, you
know why, because that's from the signals to the cabinet said, hey,
(06:36):
I'm here. Whatever Bround wants you give him now, may Orcus.
He's been the Secretary of Homeland Security, he's been absent.
Team of Director has been absent. Biden's been absent. So
the only people you had to rely upon are whatever
local fire department or police department or changing navy or
whoever's out there doing stuff, that's the only place you
(06:56):
can get in them.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I have a text or who asked a question and
ask him about the FEMA forbidding truckers bringing food, water,
and supplies to the people who are in desperate need.
Check stories for North Carolina and Georgia. I've seen some
of these stories where people who are bringing their own
personal helicopters into to go do rescues are being threatened
with the rest. I understand that when you have down
power lines and you have trees across the road, and
(07:20):
in this case I forty is destroyed, there's no interstate there.
But is there a way in your experience to help
get those supplies that people are sending and bringing to
the right people in this particular situation. There's big terrain
issues here right.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
There's huge terrain issues. And to your point the interstate
shut down, I mean we had the same thing in between.
We have patch. You in the same thing in Florida
where you have interstates, Yes, just cut off. So but
that's why you need to have a FEMA director that
is actively involved in the cabinet, so that for example,
when I need this stuff, I could call Donald Rumsfeld,
(07:56):
and I could say, you're the secretary, I need X
y Z, and he knew that I was doing it.
I was asking on behalf of the president because you
need a hold a relationship with the President and I
get that stuff done. And so that's where you need
to have someone who's actively involved in the administration so
that you can say to those fuckers or who Negri
it is or just Americans person, I mean any organization,
(08:19):
yes we want your stuff, take it here, take it
there right, and you just have your team telling take
it here there so they can keep moving. Never tell
anybody no, Never tell them no.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Let me ask you about FEMA's overall role for just
a minute, because one of the things, and now we
have President Biden saying FEMA's going to pay for all
of the recovery for six months. That's unprecedented, Like FEMA
is not supposed to be the we're going to cover everything.
They're the we're gonna we're gonna help you get things
started and make sure that you're not going to starve
to deak during the emergency part.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Are we now at a point where FEMA.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Is its own sort of monstrosity and therefore states are
not necessarily going to plan for this stuff, or budget
for this stuff, or or even feel responsible for their
own state. That's kind of concerning to me.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
It should be very concerning that if Bush had said that,
I would have at some point said this wasn't You
cannot say that, You've got to retract that because one
you don't have the legal authority to do that, and
two that sets expectations entirely wrong. And what would that mean?
And by the way, what does it means You're going
to do it for six months and six months you're
going to cut the checksaf I mean, it's stupid. There
(09:30):
are certain things that you were paying for. It will
take it will take years. You know, you might have
to rebuild a school. It might take you two years
to rebuild that school. And people might say, well that
seems like a long time. Well, if your school isn't
a real in a very rural area and you have
to prioritize getting a larger school versystem. I mean, there's
all these things. I mean, when we first came into
(09:50):
in through office in January of two thousand and one,
do you know if there were still disasters that we
were handling, For example, the San Francisco routh Lakes build
dating with the San Francisco earthquakes, and you know, ten eleven,
fifteen years later. So all these things just take a
lot of time. But to your point, to to cover
(10:11):
you know, immigrant illegal immigrant housing, to worry about climate change.
If you go to theme a website right now on
their master plan, the number one go equity. Are you
thinking kidding me? That should not be your number one
goal in your strategic plan. Your strategic plan number one
goal should be how can we respond quicker? How can
we recover quickly? How can we mitigate against certain things better?
(10:34):
So it's just this whole confluence of and I knew
this would happen, and I predicted this would happen that
once FEMA gut subsumed into the Department of on Land Security,
it would get overwhelmed. It would be used for all
sorts of things that it shouldn't be used for because
you have to do best. You know, this goes back
to your very first question, is THEMA broke? Femas never broke.
(10:54):
THEMA has always got uh. It has five hundred and
thirty five advocates on this hill that will make sure
the FEMA always has the money it has for everything.
But then the bad side of that is you have
five hundred and thirty five ad to get some Capitol
Hill that will give you money and tell you we
want you to go this, do this right now. So
you end up bringing stupid things like immigrant housing.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I mean, the mission creep is ridiculous on this. It's absurd,
and I think that. But one thing, Okay, let's talk politically.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
For just a second here.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, let's turn off the compassion in American fellow Americans.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Don't want other Americans to suffer.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
This is not good for the Harris campaign because two
things have come out of this. Number one, people feel
like the federal government is just hanging these people out
to dry.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
That's thing number one.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And they're getting a lot of press nationally as people
are like, what the blank, why isn't anyone coming here?
And then this news story about oh, sorry, we spent
over seven hundred you know, almost seven hundred million dollars
on illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I don't think that's going to set well with people.
I don't think even.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
If people feel compassion for the people that have walked
over the southern border, I don't feel like they're like
compassionate to the tune of almost seven hundred million dollars
from FEMA and then the hundreds of million of dollars
here in Colorado. Do you think that's going to create
political pushback?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Well, I think it will, but that presupposes that the
dominant media will cover it the way you just survived it.
And that's that's from my perspective. That's my problem because
my book, My boss was a guy named George Bush,
and her boss is a guy named Joe Biden Kamala Harris,
(12:32):
and I do believe the media. You know, the media
came after me. Did I make mistake? Sure? But they
came after me because they've been after Bush, you know,
for for five years. And do you think they're going
to go after Kamala Harris. No, They're going to be
an insulator from this as much as they can.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
This person said, please ask Michael about the nautum n
ot a M prohibiting private air assets from providing relief.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Well, so there was I did a story this morning
about the helicopter. The guy that had the helicopter, yea,
And when I dug him this story, there was an
I can't find original source material, So I don't know
what the truth is. But for example, in the New
Orleans we put a notice to airmen, we put a
(13:21):
cap over New Orleans because we had so many helicopters
and so many aircraft in the air that we actually
had our own aircraftic control system. So I don't know
whether there was a temporary flight restriction put in retaliy
wise or legitimate, or arch there even was one. But
oftentimes in a major area, once you start getting military
(13:44):
assets in, you will have a temporary flight restriction over
an area because you've got black Hawks and Chinooks, and
you've got C seventeen's and Sea fives. You got all
of these things in the air, and you don't want
some guy that owns his own helicopter flying around filing
a flight plan. So I tried to explain my audience
that story may be nuanced, and there may be some
(14:08):
truth to it, and there may be some legitimacy to
it that I'm not at the point where I can
say it's true or not true. But in some cases, yes,
over New Orleans, but just over New Orleans we had
flight restrictions, but that was because we had the entire
lower knights Board. We have downtown Normans. We had everything flooded,
and I had so much aircraft in the air, we
(14:29):
had to have a separate air We had to have
a separate air topic control system.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I mean that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And again going back to the whole, I know that
a big problem with Florida is hurricane tourism, meaning after
a storm, people will drive in to look at the
devastation and it is the most annoying, like I want
to punch all those people in the face kind of annoying.
So I get where they don't let people drive in.
But in this situation, I'm hoping that military aircraft are there.
(14:56):
But did that appear to be the case with the
story you're talking about where the guy was threatened with
a US by a fire department.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, it doesn't matter. And then the other thing, so
I think that there was something fishing going on there,
and I think that maybe somebody was mad because some
guy was actually out there doing some good and embarrassed
somebody else. Now, let's talk about the trucker that has
an eighteen wheeler that is driving in with you know,
loads of loads of bottled water or cots or blankets
(15:26):
or something, and if he gets stopped at a checkpoint,
they need to rather than they just stop him. But
then needs to be FEMA on the ground or the
state emergency managers like Craig Fugate on the ground that says, oh, okay,
we got an eighteen wheel and he's got what Okay,
send that truck instead of where he thought he was going,
Send him over here instead, because that's where it's needed.
(15:48):
You just need to coordinate that stuff. You know, after
nine to eleven, there's this it's fun in hindsight, but
the time is horrible. When we had rescue workers at
Ground zero, somebody, somebody in the media just happened to mention,
you know, these these firefighters and rescue workers there, their
boots are wearing out very very quickly. Well, suddenly we
(16:10):
had people from all over the country, every church, every
charitable organization sending us just boots randomly, and we had
to fill a warehouse with boots because we had we
had no way that we could soak them or use them.
So there's that fine line between hey, we need your
help and building something specific. Players, Right, we meet eighteen
(16:32):
leaders full of X or Y and.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I'd always some people I'd always tell people nobody wants
your use clothes after they lost their house in a hurricane.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Well, we would even these would need to be used.
These would be like brand new boots, but they would
be like, okay, so many of them, absolutely, so many
of them. We can't we can't handle it. And they're
not necessarily steel. Told that they're not appropriate for digging
in you know, rebar, they're not appropriate for ground zero
with the chemicals. So we just you know, ended up
(17:02):
warehousing them and then probably just giving them away.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Michael Brown, I appreciate your insight.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Your work, obviously as a FEMA director gives you special insight.
I appreciate you making time for me today many time.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
All Right, have a great vacation, my friend,
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