6A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2005
HURRICANE KATRINA
FEMA head resigns
Career firefighter reportedly named as replacement
BY LARA JAKES JORDAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown resigned yesterday, three days after losing his on-site command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
"I'm turning in my resignation today," Brown said. "I think it's in the best interest of the agency and the best interest of the President to do that and get the media focused on the good things that are going on, instead of me."
Brown had taken much of the heat for the delayed relief efforts in Louisiana and was relieved of his on-site command on Friday. In an interview yesterday with The Associated Press, Brown said he resigned "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president." He said he feared he had become a distraction.
"The focus has got to be on
FEMA, what the people are trying to do down there." Brown said.
His decision was not a surprise. Brown was abruptly recalled to Washington on Friday, a clear vote of no confidence from his superiors at the White House and the Homeland Security Department. Brown also was accused of padding his resume, which he has denied.
White House officials picked a top FEMA official with three decades of firefighting experience as Brown's replacement. R. David Paulison, head of FEMA's emergency preparedness force, will lead the beleaguered agency, according to three administration sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made.
Paulison is a career firefighter from Miami who was among emergency workers responding to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades in
1996, according to a biography posted on FEMA's Web site. He also has led the U.S. Fire Administration since December 2001, according to the site.
As chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, Paulison led 1,900 personnel under a $200 million operating budget. He was also in charge of Dade County's emergency management office, according to his biography. Paulison will lead an agency that has been under fire for its response to the Katrina disaster.
President Bush ducked questions about Brown's resignation. "Maybe you know something I don't know. I've been working," the president said to reporters on an inspection tour of damage in Gulfport, Miss. Bush said he planned to talk with Brown's boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, on the flight back to Washington.
"There will be plenty of time to figure out what went right and what went wrong." Bush said.
Former FEMA director, Mike Brown, left, listens as U.S. Fire Administrator R. David Paulison, right, speaks to firefighters at Loudoun County Fire Rescue in August. Brown resigned Monday, three days after losing his on-site command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The White House reportedly picked Paulison as his replacement.
Bill Koplitz/FEMA via THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
UTILITIES
Traffic signals such as this one in Burbank, Calif., were not working yesterday during a blackout across Los Angeles.
Blackout brings hassles, long lunches
BY LAURA WIDES
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Phil McCarten/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Utility workers connected the wrong wires and caused a blackout across major portions of Los Angeles on yesterday afternoon, trapping people in elevators and snarling traffic at intersections, authorities said.
Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by the resulting power surge and outages, which were reported from downtown west to the Pacific Coast and north into the San Fernando Valley.
wrong wires, said Ron Deaton,
general manager of the Los
Angeles Department of Water and
Power.
Several workers who were installing an automated transmission system hooked up the
"They connected it to another line that was not expecting that much electricity." he said.
No injuries were reported.
Some power was restored within an hour; Deaton said he expected all power to be restored by 5 p.m.
Downtown high-rises went dark, fire officials said they received reports of people stuck in elevators, and stoplights went out at intersections across the city. Neighboring cities, including Burbank and Glendale, also were affected.
on "full tactical alert," meaning no officers were allowed to leave work when their shifts were over.
The Police Department went
But calm prevailed in downtown Los Angeles around midday. Office workers took the opportunity for an extended lunch as police and fire sirens echoed in the background.
The blackout came a day after ABC aired a video tape of a purported al Qaeda member making terrorist threats against Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia, on the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
But even before the utility explained what happened, Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said
there was no indication of terrorism.
Some Los Angeles neighborhoods did not lose power at all.
Los Angeles International Airport lost power, but its emergency generator kicked in promptly and no flights were affected, said Harold Johnson, an airport spokesman. UCLA Medical Center used backup generators and reported no danger to patients.
Los Angeles operates its own power utility, which serves 1.4 million electricity customers. Customers of Southern California Edison, the largest utility in Southern California, were not affected, according to spokesman Gil Alexander.
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