It didn’t take long for “Brownie” to step aside and be replaced by someone who seems far more qualified to head FEMA.
R. David Paulison, appointed yesterday as acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has encountered disaster before: three months before Hurricane Andrew laid waste to part of South Florida in 1992, he became chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department.
When one of the nation’s worst natural disasters hit, he helped direct rescue and response efforts for the county even as 400 firefighters were made homeless by the storm.
Paulison was not available for interviews yesterday, FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said. But in testimony during his Senate confirmation hearing in 2001, Paulison said he headed Miami-Dade County’s Office of Emergency Management and had handled hazardous materials spills, floods, tornadoes and deadly accidents such as a 1996 jetliner crash into the Florida Everglades.
“Whether in response to a major fire, as incident commander for Hurricane Andrew or in response to the crash of ValuJet 592, I have seen firsthand the need for communication and cooperation during the planning, response, recovery and rebuilding phases after disasters,” Paulison told the Senate Commerce Committee.
For what it’s worth, I was born and raised in Miami, and was there when Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, and I vaguely recall Paulison earning praise at the time.
As for the politics of all this, Paulison seems to have little if any connection to the political world at all. Last night, just out of curiosity, I did a cursory search for his name at Salon, Slate, Washington Monthly, The American Prospect, The New Republic, the Center for American Progress, and Open Secrets. The grand total of results? Zero. If Paulison is some kind of political hack with deep ties to the Republican establishment, he’s hidden it well.
If his name is familiar to you, though, it’s because, as Keith Olbermann noted, he did make a high-profile appearance during Bush’s first term — as “Duct Tape Man.”
In another gesture symbolizing the continued confusion of the federal response, the man President Bush immediately named to succeed “Brownie,” proves to have been the same FEMA official who, two-and-a-half years ago, suggested that Americans stock up on duct tape to protect against a biological or chemical terrorist attack.
David Paulison, then the government’s Fire Administrator, joined with the then-head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, on February 10th, 2003, to say that duct tape and plastic sheeting should be part of any home’s “survival kit” in preparation for a terrorist attack. That set off a run on duct tape at stores, and widespread criticism of the administration. It might have been the first time after 9/11 that a large number of Americans wondered if the government really knew what it was talking about when it came to disaster preparedness.
I love Olbermann, and far be it for me to defend a Bush administration official, but I don’t necessarily see yesterday’s announcement as the latest sign of “the continued confusion of the federal response.” Paulison is qualified for the FEMA job, the duct-tape incident notwithstanding.