When the power went out last night during the Super Bowl at the Superdome several people took to Twitter to make Hurricane Katrina-themed jokes about New Orleans. One of those people happened to be Michael Brown, who was the head of FEMA during the disastrous 2005 hurricane.
“Someone just told me there was fighting going on in the NOLA Superdome. #shocked.”
Yes, Michael Brown, the disgraced head of FEMA, was “shocked” that there was chaos in the Superdome.
Brown’s tweet about the Superdome was passed around the internet as people were (this time genuinely) shocked that the former head of Twitter would say something like that about New Orleans and the Superdome.
There are a few reasons why people were shocked by Brown’s tweet.
First, it was very surprising that it only took Brown a few minutes to realize something was wrong at the Superdome. In 2005, it took Brown days to pay attention to the crisis. He eventually resigned after being criticized for his performance at FEMA.
Second, he didn’t back down. More than five years after the catastrophe Brown is still blaming Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and former Mayor Ray Nagin. Blanco and Nagin were also responsible for some of the post-Katrina mess but Blanco and Nagin didn’t use Twitter to vent their frustrations last night.
Brown, responding to a Twitter user who told him to come look at the watermarks that are still on his house, wrote on Twitter:
@ duris I saw them. Blanco Nagin refused to look.
— Michael D Brown (@MichaelBrownUSA) February 4, 2013
What do you think of Brown’s tweet on the Superdome? Was it insensitive?
Someone just told me there was fighting going on in the NOLA Superdome. #shocked
— Michael D Brown (@MichaelBrownUSA) February 4, 2013
Brown wasn’t the only person to start a conversation during the blackout last night. OREO used power outage as an opportunity to push out a new social ad .
