Heckuva Job

"Can I quit now?" Michael D. Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, e-mailed an aide as the waters were rising around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. "Can I go home?" Soon enough, he did – but not before President George W. Bush made Brown a permanent punchline...

By Patricia Calhoun

June 16, 2011

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"Can I quit now?" Michael D. Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, e-mailed an aide as the waters were rising around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. "Can I go home?" Soon enough, he did – but not before President George W. Bush made Brown a permanent punchline with his "Heckuva job, Brownie" line. A month later, Brown was recalled to Washington, D.C., by then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; soon after, he resigned as head of FEMA.

Michael Brown may not have done a heckuva job handling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, but he’s done a heckuva job rebuilding his life in the five years since. Today, Brown is a KOA talk-show host who has his own consulting business, does public-speaking gigs around the world on issues of homeland security and crisis management, and blogs on politics -- and now he’s written Deadly Indifference: The Perfect (Political) Storm, with co-author Ted Schwartz. Much of that indifference, he explains, was with his higher-ups in D.C.: "I'm pulling strings to make these things happen, and nothing happens," he recalled a year after the storm hit.

Brown will be pulling more strings as he talks about that experience and reads from his book at 7:30 p.m. today at the Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl Street in Boulder. For more information, call 303-447-2074 or go to www.boulderbookstore.com.
Mon., June 20, 7:30 p.m., 2011

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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