A series of wind-whipped wildfires north of Boulder, Colo., have forced the evacuation of more than 11,500 residents — among them vilified ex-Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown.
UPDATE 1/8/09: Hear Brown recount his harrowing fire evacuation and couch-surfing adventure while a wildfire refugee on Newsradio 850 KOA.
Brown was lauded by President Bush for doing a “heckuva job” in the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, which took the lives of 1,836 people and caused more than $81 billion in damage. Brown resigned in disgrace and the event looms as a national turning point against the Bush administration.
This week PBS’s Frontline broadcast a heart-wrenching investigative report, “The Old Man and the Storm,” about struggling post-Katrina rebuilding efforts more than three years after the massive hurricane destroyed much of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
FEMA has promised to pay up to 75 percent of firefighting costs, according to a Daily Camera story.
The latest images and ground reports via Twitter can be found at twemes.com/boulderfire.
h/t Westword
UPDATE 1/9/09: Read Colorado Media Matters’ coverage of the Newsradio KOA 850 interview with Michael Brown.
