Hurricane Katrina. Deepwater Horizon. And now, perhaps the worst disaster Texas has ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brock Long, the man directing the Trump administration\u2019s response to Hurricane Harvey, is a veteran of disaster management in government and the private sector. But the newly confirmed FEMA administrator is facing a new scale of problems to solve in the historic devastation of the nation\u2019s fourth-largest city. And if the past is any indication, political storms could loom on the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have not seen an event like this. You could not draw this forecast up,\u201d Long said Monday in Washington, amid a storm and flooding the National Weather Service called \u201cunprecedented.\u201d Trump himself placed the stakes on Long\u2019s shoulders, tweeting that his FEMA administrator since June was doing \u201ca great job\u201d managing this critical test of the often troubled administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe world is watching!\u201d Trump tweeted over the weekend, harking back to the delicate politics of post-storm devastation. In 2005, FEMA director Michael Brown was pushed out amid controversy over his qualifications and the agency\u2019s response to Hurricane Katrina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a news conference Monday ahead of Trump\u2019s visit to the Gulf Coast, the president gave Long a shout-out for his \u201coutstanding\u201d work so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hurricane Harvey is far from Long\u2019s first time managing disaster response, but it\u2019s shaping up to be one of the nation\u2019s most devastating storms. The National Weather Service forecast that before Harvey moves on, some places in and around Houston could get as much as 50 inches (1.3 meters) of rain. That would be the highest amount ever recorded in Texas. The result, Long said Monday, was likely to be 30,000 people in shelters temporarily and as many as 50 counties affected by the flooding. A tremendous amount of rainfall is headed for southwest Louisiana, too. Several deaths were reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flood damage from Harvey is likely to reach into the tens of billions of dollars, and the storm is expected to cause the region\u2019s economy to shrink, at least in the near term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump was expected to join Long and other officials in Texas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a planner. Brock, he leans forward,\u201d said Joe Myers, who has served as the emergency management chief in North Carolina and Florida. \u201cHe\u2019s like a coach. He guides them. He\u2019s not a loud person, he doesn\u2019t browbeat \u2019em. He\u2019s well-organized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Long, a 42-year-old father of two boys, has spent his career in emergency management, including as a regional hurricane program and evacuation leader for FEMA, where he worked from 2001 to 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also was Georgia\u2019s school safety coordinator. And as director of Alabama\u2019s Emergency Management Agency, Long coordinated the state\u2019s work with the federal government and other states during 14 disasters. He was Alabama\u2019s on-site commander after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Long\u2019s private sector experience gave him some familiarity with now-flooded Houston. He listed the city as an emergency management client while he was executive vice president at Hagerty Consulting, an emergency management consulting firm in Washington. In June, the Senate confirmed Long to lead FEMA and its 16,000 employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBrock\u2019s been in every one of these jobs … So he walks into this event, Harvey, probably one of the best prepared (people) that the country could ask for,\u201d said Mark Merritt, a former FEMA official and co-founder of DCMC Partners, consultants for large-scale disaster cleanup operations. \u201cHis task is to get everybody to play nice together. He\u2019s good at that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The current response phase, which tends to be nonpolitical, is nearly certain to give way to second-guessing and politics as it morphs into the longer process of recovery and rebuilding, experts said. Long and other experts said Monday that Harvey\u2019s path is likely to cost years of recovery work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIs there somebody who\u2019s going to attack Brock Long two weeks from now? I\u2019m quite sure of it. Will it be reasonable and fair? Probably not,\u201d said Barry Scanlon, director of corporate affairs for FEMA under President Bill Clinton and currently Merritt\u2019s partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked on CNN about how unfilled positions at FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security might affect the response to Harvey, Long replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even have time to worry about it right now,\u201d Long said. \u201cI have no concern. We are doing our job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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