Leader of Federal Effort Feels the Heat By ERIC LIPTON and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - On Thursday night, Michael D. Brown, the federal government's point man for managing the response to Hurricane Katrina, made a remarkable confession on live television.
Speaking of the thousands stranded at the convention center in New Orleans without food or water, Mr. Brown said that his agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, had just learned of their plight.
CNN's Paula Zahn was incredulous. "Sir," she said, "you aren't just telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today, are you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?"
"Paula," Mr. Brown replied unequivocally, "the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today."
The comment symbolized what some have described as a deeply flawed federal response. President Bush praised Mr. Brown's performance on Friday, but Mr. Brown's remarks prompted Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, to call on President Bush to fire Mr. Brown or Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
"That was just a boneheaded statement from someone who should be in charge of this situation," Mr. Thompson said. "The president will have to change the leadership so that a response this bad will never, never happen again for the American people."
Mr. Brown, 50, is a Republican lawyer who worked for the International Arabian Horse Association before joining FEMA in 2001 as general counsel. This week he has become the public face of an agency that critics say has lost focus and clout since it was absorbed in 2003 by the new Department of Homeland Security.
Now that FEMA is part of a much larger bureaucracy created to counter the threat of terrorism, its role in dealing with natural disasters has been diminished, state emergency management directors, disaster experts and former FEMA officials say. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, asked the president to name a new cabinet-level official to direct the effort.
Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, said FEMA should be separated from the Department of Homeland Security. "FEMA should not be hindered by a top-heavy bureaucracy when they are needed to act swiftly to save lives," Mr. Foley said.
Since FEMA's absorption into Homeland Security, its ties to state emergency programs have been weakened, and it has reduced spending on disaster preparation, critics say.
Russ Knocke, press secretary at Homeland Security, denied that FEMA's move to the department had hurt it. "Not only does FEMA have the resources but it has the backing of the department to do the job," he said.
Mr. Brown was brought to FEMA in 2001 by the then-director, Joe M. Allbaugh, an old friend who had run Mr. Bush's first presidential campaign. He was promoted to deputy director in 2002 and to director in 2003.
The public first saw Mr. Brown's folksy manner when he led the response to the 2004 Florida hurricanes. FEMA was later criticized for giving millions to undeserving residents.
This week he has displayed striking candor, saying he awakened Monday thinking the agency had underestimated the storm and later admitting that the lawlessness surprised him.
Andy Lester, a friend who practiced law with Mr. Brown, called him "an incredibly compassionate, very dedicated fellow in a thankless job."
Mr. Allbaugh said Mr. Brown is "doing a great job."
"I know a lot of people right now want to point fingers and criticize, but people should keep their powder dry," he said. "Disasters, particularly one of this magnitude, are always ugly to begin with."
FEMA was created by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 after criticism of the government's fragmented response to a series of disasters, including Hurricane Camille in 1969 and California earthquakes in 1971.
Hurricane Andrew, which struck South Florida in 1992, demonstrated that the federal government still had not sufficiently figured out how to respond smoothly, as thousands were initially left without shelter or water. The agency had a reputation for political patronage and pork barrel spending.
It was with the appointment in 1993 of James Lee Witt, from Arkansas, that the agency began to earn respect.
Mr. Clinton made FEMA a cabinet-level agency.
"Witt shaped it into an organization that was not only to respond to disaster but attempt to mitigate disaster by taking actions before they occurred," said Michael Greenberger, a domestic security expert at the University of Maryland and a former Justice Department official.
After severe flooding in the Midwest in 1993, FEMA under Mr. Witt, for example, bought more than 10,000 properties adjacent to rivers and relocated residents and businesses. In Grafton, Ill., where 403 residents and businesses applied for disaster aid after the 1993 flood, only 11 applied when the river overflowed again in 1995, FEMA said at the time.
The approach to disaster management changed with the arrival of President Bush, experts in emergency management say. Mr. Bush appointed Mr. Allbaugh, who was Mr. Bush's chief of staff when he was governor of Texas.
Testifying before Congress in 2001, Mr. Allbaugh said he was concerned that federal disaster assistance had become "an oversized entitlement program" and made it clear that the new administration wanted to curtail FEMA's mission.
His goal, he said, was to "restore the predominant role of state and local response to most disasters."
While Mr. Allbaugh was FEMA director, the Bush administration, with the backing of Congress, reversed the emphasis on preventing flooding, cutting the formula for such federal grants by half.
"It just does not make good sense," said Larry A. Larson, director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers.
FEMA's budget in recent years under the Bush administration has grown, from $4.6 billion in 2002 to $5.038 billion as originally enacted this fiscal year.
But after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the agency was merged along with 21 other agencies into the newly formed Department of Homeland Security. Grants previously distributed directly to local and state governments were assigned to a separate Homeland Security office. As a result, three out of every four so-called federal preparedness grants now are spent on counterterrorism.
Representative Thompson, whose Mississippi district was damaged by Katrina, said that during the Bush administration, FEMA had lost its focus.
"FEMA went back to being treated like a political resting place for favors that were owed," he said. "The entire emphasis of it was demoted."
James Risen contributed reporting for this article.