The former director of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defended his role in the response to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday and put much of the blame on the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Testifying before a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the disaster, Michael Brown said that Mississippi and Alabama evacuated their states properly.

But he said New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco were reluctant to order an evacuation.

"My mistake was in not recognizing that for whatever reasons ... Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco were reticent to order a mandatory evacuation," Brown said.

He told the panel that his main regrets were that he didn't handle the media differently, and that he couldn't get Louisiana's governor and the New Orleans mayor to work together.

"I very strongly, personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together," Brown said.

"If I, Mike Brown, individual, could have done something to convince them that this was the big one and they needed to order a mandatory evacuation, I would have done it.

Brown said that he had been made a scapegoat and that part of the problem was that the American public has a misguided notion of what FEMA actually is.

"He said that FEMA does not do law enforcement, FEMA does not do communications and FEMA does not evacuate," explained CTV's Joy Malbon. "That is up to state and local officials to do that."

Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast on Monday, Aug. 29 flooding most of the city of New Orleans and devastating Mississippi's coastal towns.

Brown's defense of his role in the disaster drew a scathing response from Democratic Rep. William Jefferson.

"I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans," Jefferson said.

Brown, who has become a symbol of the American government's failure to respond quickly to the natural disaster that claimed more than a thousand lives, repeatedly dismissed accusations that he was too inexperienced for the job.

"I've overseen over 150 declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it," Brown said.

A second question by Rep. Christopher Shays about whether Brown thought he did enough to coordinate the response, led to a heated exchange.

"What would you like for me to do congressman?" Brown asked.

"That's why I'm happy you left," Shays fired back. "Because that kind of, you know, look in the lights like a deer, tells me that you weren't capable to do the job."

Brown resigned as the head of FEMA earlier this month shortly after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff removed him from responsibility in the stricken areas.

Brown joined FEMA in 2001 and ran it for more than two years. Before that he worked as an attorney for several local government and private posts, including the International Arabian Horse Association.

The hearing was largely boycotted by Democrats, who want an independent investigation conducted into government failures, not one run by congressional Republicans.

Committee Chairman Tom Davis, a Republican from Virginia cautioned against too narrowly assigning blame.

"At the end of the day, I suspect that we'll find that government at all levels failed the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and the Gulf Coast," said Davis.

Meanwhile, residents of New Orleans continue to return to their homes. Algiers is the first neighborhood officially opened by Nagin. Resident Irvin Hadley says Algiers is ''high and dry.''

Unlike most of the city, Algiers has electricity and clean water.

There was a long line outside a supermarket , as returning residents stock-up on supplies.

Nagin also invited business owners in the Central Business District, the French Quarter and the Uptown section in to inspect property and clean up.