Black Hats

Friday, February 10, 2006

First thing in the morning, I filled in the Jeff Davis team via speakerphone and told them I would be down for a face-to-face meeting at 1:00 PM.

I once had a visiting professor who had worked for years for the EPA. He talked about, how there were times when the appropriate action was to firmly place the black hat on someone’s head. This morning I invited everyone to listen in to the 8:30 conference call and our National Guardsmen invited us to listen in on their conference call afterward.

The ESF 14 folks were very diplomatic. This was a joint decision, concerns were being addressed by the LRA & FEMA, they were not sure how long it would take to develop a workable approach, etc., etc.

In contrast, the LRA representative who spoke to the National Guardsmen said that FEMA felt they were spending too much money and had put a halt to things much to the surprise of the Governor and the LRA. H went on to say that the LRA was working on a proposal for the program to continue and hoped to have it done by the end of the day. In the mean-time the National Guardsmen were instructed to prepare to continue the program starting Tuesday on the assumption that we would be gone by then.

One of the National Guardsmen assigned to our team was a guy from Texas. He had a very rye sense of humor and keen sense of self. He was flabbergasted that after a month or so of working with planners for the first time in his life he was expected to take over. His response was great. He said, “After this I think I will go hang out at the hospital for a month and become a brain surgeon!”