CNN is reporting on a report given by the Department of the Interior to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The respondent from Interior says that FEMA turned down a reasonably substantial offer of rescue assistance:
The Interior Department offered FEMA 500 rooms, 119 pieces of heavy equipment, 300 dump trucks and other vehicles, 300 boats, 11 aircraft and 400 law enforcement officers, according to a questionnaire answered by a department official.
Agencies are, of course, an aggregate and not an individual. I wonder who at FEMA turned down Interior's offer? Was it Brown in a mindless downcheck, or some harassed (and potentially incompetent as well) second-tier official assigned as the interagency flack?