While Perez, Baro Diaz, and Lewis continued to survey the projects, O’Matz and Kestin were in the office Thursday morning for an unusual meeting. To the team’s astonishment , FEMA Director Brown had decided to visit the paper’s editorial board. Though he had refused to talk to O’Matz on Monday, he now traveled to Florida from Washington, DC, specifically to dispute what had become a national story. It was a tense, frustrating meeting. Brown offered only vague answers to detailed questions about who was receiving FEMA’s money and why. Kestin later recalled with irritation: “Michael Brown’s position was: ‘There is no problem.’” ^[28] The time O’Matz, Kestin, and the other reporters had spent in the projects told a different story. But Brown pointed out that the federal government had declared every county in Florida a disaster area in the wake of Hurricane Frances, at the request of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and insisted that it was appropriate for FEMA to send aid money to Miami-Dade County. Further, he said, “We don’t give anybody a dime without inspecting to see whether or not they have incurred damage.” ^[29]

The reporters were perplexed. How could inspectors have verified so many applications when there was no damage? The scale of the discrepancy excluded the possibility that a few inspectors had simply made mistakes. Brown had inadvertently alerted the team to what might be a systemic flaw in his agency.

Reactions to Brown

“The next legitimate question,” O’Matz notes, “is who are these people that have signed off on damage when we know that there wasn’t great damage in Miami-Dade?” But though the reporters pressed him for an answer, Brown refused to comment; the meeting adjourned with all parties dissatisfied. Still, the team had a new angle to explore, and were determined to do so with or without FEMA’s cooperation. “Never tell an investigative reporter ‘no,’” says Demma, “because they’ll go find out.”