WASHINGTON -- Top officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency have strong political connections to President Bush, but they also share at least one other trait: They had little or no experience in disaster management before landing in top FEMA posts.

Michael Brown, who heads FEMA as undersecretary of homeland security for emergency preparedness and response, already has endured sharp criticism for comments he made last week that seemed to suggest he did not understand that thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina had taken refuge at the New Orleans convention center.

Before joining FEMA in 2001, Brown, a protege of longtime Bush aide Joseph Allbaugh, was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and had virtually no experience in disaster management.

An official biography of Brown's top aide, acting deputy director Patrick Rhode, doesn't list disaster relief experience.

The department's No. 3 official, acting deputy chief of staff Brooks Altshuler, also does not have emergency management experience, according to FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule.

Rule said the absence of direct experience managing emergencies is irrelevant because top managers need "the ability to keep the organization running."

But Eric Holdeman, director of the King County Office of Emergency Management in Seattle, said familiarity with the specifics of disaster management is essential.

"Experience is not just general managerial experience, it's experience in the field," he said.

Rhode and Altshuler worked in the White House's Office of National Advance Operations, which arranges Bush's travel and scripts his appearances.

The credentials of top FEMA managers stand in contrast to the backgrounds of leaders of the agency during the last years of the Clinton administration.

Clinton-era FEMA Director James Lee Witt headed the Arkansas office of emergency services before he was tapped by Clinton in 1993 to run the federal disaster relief agency.

Witt's top aides in 2000, Lynn Canton and Michael Armstrong, ran regional FEMA offices for at least three years before assuming senior positions in Washington.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said the lack of experience in FEMA's top ranks was evident in the sluggish response to the hurricane.

"Disaster preparedness, whether it's in anticipation of potential weather-related incidents or terrorist incidents requires a skill set that in my mind someone has to be trained for," said Thompson, ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Moreover, The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Brown waited until hours after Katrina had struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security Department employees to the region--and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

Brown sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29, the AP said.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials said Tuesday that the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Brown has stoutly defended FEMA's performance, saying the agency has done the best it could under bad circumstances.

Last week, Bush, while saying that the initial federal response to the hurricane was "not acceptable," nonetheless lauded Brown, telling him, "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan declined to echo such praise.

"We've got to continue to do everything we can in support of those who are involved in the operational aspects of this response effort," McClellan said.

azajac@tribune.com

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