Emergency chief first political casualty of Hurricane Katrina

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2005

BATON ROUGE, United States (AFP) — The head of the US federal agency handling the Hurricane Katrina relief effort became the first political casualty of the crisis when he was replaced as pointman on the ground.

Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown was to be recalled to Washington and replaced at ground zero by Vice Admiral Thad Allen from the US Coast Guard, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

Brown had resisted calls to resign over the sluggish federal response to the disaster in which hundreds are feared to have died and billions of dollars' worth of damage sustained to property and infrastructure.

"I have directed Mike Brown to return to administering FEMA nationally," Chertoff told journalists in state capital Baton...