Michael Loewinger

Oh, yeah.

That's when you could really see that FEMA is real and we could do things.

At the center of it all, of course, is the bombed-out shell of the federal office building.

And in its shadow, the exhausted, who for a day and a half now have sifted through its debris and counted its dead and seen up close why they call it terror.

The bombing was part of an alarming trend.

Anti-government extremists were becoming more active and more violent.

After the attack, the White House brought in a new number two official at FEMA, a man with experience monitoring and investigating terrorism, including far-right militias.

Mike's a legend in the business.

Tim Manning held the same deputy director role during the Obama administration.

Now he's a professor at Georgetown University, but earlier in his career, Mike Walker was his mentor.

Mike's been confirmed by the Senate.

He's held a number of senior roles.

He's been around, seen, and been part of just about everything in the past 40-plus years of emergency management and homeland security.

When Tim was preparing for his own Senate confirmation hearings, Mike warned Tim about the job he was about to take at FEMA.

Mike told him a story that's never been reported before now.

It happened in 1999.

He's in the new role at FEMA.

He was gone a lot.

These are very demanding jobs.

Traveling around the country dealing with disaster response.