Brown Blames La. Officials For Not Ordering Evacuation.

This article reports that Michael Brown, the ousted director of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, blamed Louisiana officials for the government's tardy response to Hurricane Katrina. His biggest mistake was not recognizing by August 27, 2005, that Louisiana was dysfunctional, Brown said at a U.S. House select committee hearing on the matter. Brown was pulled from the Gulf Coast region on September 9 and resigned three days later. Brown said the decision by Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin not to evacuate the area until August 28--the day before Katrina struck--was the tipping point for all the other things that went wrong or disintegrated.