"At last, former Under Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Brown--infamously praised by President George W. Bush for doing a "heck of a job" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina--tells his side of the response of one of the greatest natural disasters to occur in the United States. Without making excuses for anyone, least of all the President of the United States or himself, Brown describes in detail what ultimately turned out to be the largest federal response to a natural disaster in U.S. history. In a revelation that will surprise critics who accused the Bush administration of nonchalance, if not outright indifference to the calamity, Brown and his team had run a full-blown simulation of a Category 4 hurricane striking New Orleans fully a year before Katrina came ashore in 2005"--Dust jacket flap.