I, for one, am going to miss Soledad O'Brien in the morning.
It was announced today that she and American Morning co-anchor Miles O'Brien have been transferred to other tasks at CNN. Unlike the other networks' morning anchors, Soledad had chops. And I'm not just referring to her Hassling of the Hoff, when David Hasselhoff responded to allegations of spousal abuse with, "The only person who broke my wife's nose was a plastic surgeon, darling."
No, I'm thinking specifically of her interview with then FEMA director Michael Brown, on day five of the Katrina nightmare. She was one of the few to focus a nation's outrage at the key imbecile responsible for stemming the tide of death and suffering in New Orleans. The transcript follows. Here's hoping Kiran Chetry can fill her chair...
S. O'BRIEN: Mike Brown is the director of FEMA. He's in Baton Rouge this morning.
Mr. Brown, good morning. Nice to see you.
MIKE BROWN, FEMA DIRECTOR: Good morning, Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: As you can tell, the situation clearly is deteriorating. You've got armed bandits roving the streets. They're heavily armed. You've got people living out on the streets with absolutely no protection, no help whatsoever, no food, no water. How many armed National Guardsmen do you have on the ground right now?
BROWN: There are approximately, I believe, it's 14,000. We're ramping that up to 30,000 by the end of the weekend. The state has come to us and said that they need the initial National Guard troops, so we've hooked up with General Honore and the First Army. We have all of the support that I'm going to ask for from the military. We're going to secure the area. We're going to make it safe so we can continue our relief efforts.
S. O'BRIEN: You know, when you hear the interviews with some of these families who are living on the street, completely and utterly unprotected from these armed roving troops of men who are attacking people and they're raping people, what are you doing to protect these people right now?
BROWN: Well, that's why we're trying to get additional boots on the ground, because we have to protect them.
And, Soledad, I want the American people to know that we understand how dire this situation is. And we're going to do everything we can to get that aid down to that individual level. You know, we're feeding stuff into the Superdome. When we found out about the Convention Center yesterday. We started diverting supplies to get them fed, too. And now we're finding literally as we do evacuations that more and more people are beginning to manifest and show themselves in areas that we didn't that they were there, and so we're doing everything we can to get to them.
S. O'BRIEN: You were unaware of the situation at the Convention Center until yesterday. When yesterday did you become aware?
BROWN: I think it was yesterday morning when we first found out about it. We were just as surprised as everybody else. We didn't know that the city had used that as a staging area. That shows how difficult communications are. And that is why we moved the USS Bataan, so that we could give the mayor a place to actually be able to communicate on a regular basis, to give us good intel about what he needs.
S. O'BRIEN: How is it possible that we're getting better intel than you're getting? We had a crew in the air. We were showing live pictures of the people outside of the Convention Center. We had a National Guardsman who was talking to us, who was telling us he estimated the crowd at 50,000 people. That was at 8:00 in the morning yesterday. And also, we've been reporting that officials have been telling people to go to the Convention Center if they want any hope of relief. I don't understand how FEMA cannot have this information.
BROWN: Well, we're busy doing life-saving and life-rescue efforts. We rely upon the state to give us that information. And, Soledad, I learned about it listening to the news reports.
S. O'BRIEN: FEMA has been on the ground for four days, going into the fifth day. Why no massive airdrop of food and water? In Banda Aceh, in Indonesia, they got food dropped two days after the tsunami struck. BROWN: That's what we're going to do here, too. And I think...
S. O'BRIEN: But, sir, forgive me...
BROWN: Soledad, just a moment, please.
We're feeding those people in the Convention Center. We have fed over 150,000 people as of last night. That is happening.
S. O'BRIEN: But I guess the point is, as of last night -- sir, forgive me, I have to stop you here.
BROWN: What we're hearing, is that we're hearing people's frustrations. There are people that are beginning to manifest themselves out of the community that we didn't know that were there, and we're doing everything we can to find those individuals, case by case to get them help as quickly as possible.
S. O'BRIEN: But it begs the question, why are you discovering this now? It's five days that FEMA has been on the ground. The head of police says it's been five days that FEMA has been there. The mayor, the former mayor, putting out SOS's on Tuesday morning, crying on national television, saying please send in some troops. So the idea that, yes, I understand that you're feeding people and trying to get in there now, but it's Friday. It's Friday.
BROWN: Soledad, what's going on is in this situation, we have people who have gone, for example, to the Superdome, and we're feeding those people. And as we do the evacuations, as the water recedes, people begin to come out wherever they've been trying to keep themselves safe. They go to the bridges. They go to the overpasses. We find out about those people. We have every urban search-and-rescue team in this country out trying to find them now. We don't know where everybody is. And as they come out and they show themselves, we're rescuing them and moving them to places. I understand their frustration. I understand your frustration. This is a catastrophic event, and as these people continue to show themselves, we rescue them and take care of them.
S. O'BRIEN: Do you look at the pictures that are coming out of New Orleans? New Orleans? And do you say, I'm proud of the job that FEMA is doing on the ground there in a tough situation?
BROWN: Soledad...
S. O'BRIEN: Or do you look at these pictures and you say, this is a mess and we've dropped the ball; we didn't do what we should of done.
BROWN: Soledad, I look at these pictures and my heart breaks. My heart breaks just like the rest of the country's heart breaks. And so what we're doing is ramping up. I've asked the military to come in and help us and do -- I mean, I've mission assigned the Army, and the Coast Guard and the others to get those supplies in to all of those pockets. I don't want to see any American suffer the way some of these people are suffering, because of the consequences of this disaster.
S. O'BRIEN: Mike Brown is the director of FEMA. Mr. Brown, nice to see you. Thanks for talking to us.
BROWN: Thank you, Soledad.