Michael Brown, the embattled director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was removed as head of the Hurricane Katrina relief operation Friday, and authorities said troops recovered fewer corpses than expected in the first street-by-street search of this flooded city.
FEMA also dumped plans for widespread distribution of $2,000 debit cards to hurricane victims, another sign of the troubled relief effort that has outraged survivors and bedeviled the Bush administration.
Brown was recalled to Washington and replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, moves announced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
With 37 of the area’s 174 pumps now working and 17 portable pumps operating, floodwaters continued to recede in New Orleans, enabling police and soldiers to proceed with the systematic search for bodies. The search is being carried out on a grid-by-grid basis, and there were hopeful signs that the initial estimates of 10,000 dead may have been overstated.
“Some of the catastrophic deaths that some people predicted may not have occurred,” said Col. Terry Ebbert, the city’s homeland security chief. He added that the “numbers so far are relatively minor as compared to the dire predictions of 10,000.”
Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell, commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, told reporters “there’s nothing at all in the magnitude we anticipated.” Military and police security was increasingly strict as authorities limited media access to the removal of corpses.
“You can imagine sitting in Houston and watching somebody removed from your parents’ property,” Ebbert said. “We don’t think that’s proper.”
Meanwhile, New Orleans police and troops had not resorted to forcible evacuations as several thousand residents remained inside homes without running water or electricity, while outside, toxic floodwaters remain. Police continued to take guns from anyone not involved in law enforcement or security.
Brown became a lightning rod for bipartisan criticism of the relief effort that began slowly and was stymied by red tape and indecision. He finally was ousted after a published report that alleged he inflated his resume, a charge he denied but that provided ammunition to critics who said he was not up to the task of presiding over what may be the biggest domestic relief operation in modern U.S. history.
“This story’s not about me,” said Brown, who will continue as FEMA director. “This story’s about the worst disaster of the history of our country that stretched every government to its limit, and now we have to help these victims.”
“I’m going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night’s sleep,” Brown told The Associated Press. “And then I’m going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims.”
Republican Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi welcomed Brown’s departure.
“Something needed to happen,” said Lott, whose oceanfront home was destroyed by the storm. “Michael Brown has been acting like a private instead of a general.”
FEMA’s debit card program, announced just two days earlier, will end after cards are distributed at shelters in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, a spokeswoman said. Hurricane victims in other areas will have to apply for aid through FEMA’s Web site to receive direct bank deposits. There were fears that the debit card program might be abused by people filing false claims.
In Houston, the Red Cross distributed 12,000 debit cards, officials said.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that “arguably” a day or so of response time to the storm was lost because thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi’s 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana’s 256th Infantry Brigade were deployed in Iraq.
“Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear,” Blum told reporters who accompanied him on a tour around Bay St. Louis, Miss.
There were some signs of progress. In New Orleans southern Riverside and Garden District neighborhoods, work crews cleared massive live oak branches from Jefferson and St. Charles Avenues. Still, a cat’s cradle of tangled electrical wires made obstacle courses of side streets.
The Army Corps of Engineers said most of the city could be drained by Oct. 2, a sharp cut from its initial estimate that it would take 80 days to remove the water.
And authorities announced that the New Orleans airport will reopen to commercial flights Sept. 19.
In hard-hit St. Bernard Parish east of New Orleans, contractors began working to control an oil spill from the Murphy Oil refinery in Chalmette, while Colorado National Guard personnel and other troops went door to door on streets slick with the benthic ooze.
Alan Abidiem, special assistant to parish President Henry Rodriguez Jr., said 67 people in St. Bernard Parish had been confirmed dead, with more than 30 bodies removed Friday from a single nursing home on Louisiana Highway 46. The state is considering charges against the owners of St. Rita’s Nursing Home for failing to evacuate the residents, who died when muddy floodwaters rose inside.
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As the evacuation continued at a brisk pace Friday, Iowa received several dozen people seeking emergency shelter.
“We are continuing to tell people they have to leave New Orleans for health reasons,” said Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. “The health concerns there are increasing daily” in and around the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.
Nearly 250,000 people are living in 774 shelters scattered across the United States, mostly in Texas and other Southern states.
Knocke said there’s no telling when the evacuations might begin to slow down. Most of those being airlifted out Friday wanted to be near friends or relatives who could offer help in finding a more permanent place to live, officials said.
Still, government officials said there was encouraging news Friday. The numbers of people being housed in emergency shelters dipped slightly.
In Illinois, officials said they have emergency shelters in Rockford and four other cities on standby.
How to give
For a list of groups accepting donations for hurricane relief, go to chicagotribune.com/katrina and select “Fund list.”
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