FEMA Director on Irene

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: Well, good afternoon. I think first, our condolences for the families who have lost loved ones. Unfortunately, Irene was a deadly storm. Reports are still coming in -- I think open source -- we've seen in the media about 21. We also know that there are several people still missing. And one of the things about these types of storms we know, unfortunately, the death toll may continue to go up in the recovery phase through accidents and other things that happen.

It's been my experience from Florida where, again, as we urge people to use common sense and be cautious -- don't drive through flooded areas; we've got a lot of power lines down, and as crews are reenergizing, again, be very careful. We don't want any more people to lose their lives.

But to the families that have lost ones, our condolences and our prayers are with them.

Tropical Storm Irene dissipated and moved into Canada, but in its path as a hurricane we started out in the Virgin Isles and Puerto Rico, which most of the damages were in Puerto Rico. The President has declared Puerto Rico a major disaster area. We are providing assistance there. And then our attentions turned to the Carolinas as the storm began moving towards the East Coast.

Prior to the arrival of Hurricane Irene we had what we call an incident management team -- these are federal employees of FEMA that are trained to go in, link up with the state prior to the storm getting there so that we are prepared to support them both in the preparation phase but also in the immediate response phase -- 18 of those teams deployed across the East Coast, as far south as Florida all the way up to Maine. And again, as we saw the track of the storm adjust we repositioned teams and we became increasingly concerned about possible impacts in the New England states. We put liaisons into those states as the storm moved north.

We pre-positioned water, food, generators, tarps and other supplies in incident staging bases based along the path of the storm. We were sitting, ready to activate our urban search and rescue teams. We put our teams on alert. Three of those teams have actually been now activated, on standby and support in New York and in Vermont, based upon the flooding there. But again, a lot of the rescue operations are being conducted by state and local officials -- National Guard, men and women that were called out by their governors, Coast Guard and other rescue officials in those areas.

As it stands now, we are still supporting in North Carolina requests for assistance as they go to the recovery phase and begin damage assessments -- a lot of power outages, roads that were heavily damaged by storm surge, particularly in the Outer Banks, as well as a lot of debris in the eastern part of the state.

As you move up the coastline, I'm sure you're all aware of the large numbers of power outages. Those numbers have come down since yesterday. The Department of Energy is working with the private sector as they track those numbers. But we went from over 6 million down to 5 million. And again, those numbers look to continue to come down, but some areas are going to have some time to get all the power back up.

Probably the real story was as Irene was exiting and many people were focused along the coast we did get some impacts of coastal storm surge but not to the degree that we were concerned about. But heavy rain did occur along the interior parts of the path. That was a big concern we had as the storm moved north, and so we have seen record flooding in Vermont, record flooding in New York. We still have rivers that have yet to crest. The River Forecast Center for the Northeast was reporting that some of these rivers may not crest for two to three days.

So the extent of impacts we still won't know, but, again, many of these areas have been dealing with very dangerous flooding. Some of it has resulted in the loss of life. To give you some idea of how fast this occurred, the rivers and the flooding were so intense that the Vermont Emergency Operations Center, their state emergency operations center, had to evacuate last night and relocate. We had already been working disasters in Vermont, so we had a joint field office that they were able to relocate to, and so they were able to continue their operations after moving. But they did experience these damages and they are working to get their center back up.

But, again, from a storm that I think -- a lot of folks on the coastal areas also showed that inland the heavy rains produced quite a bit of damages and are continuing to produce damages. So we're working with the governors now as they begin the assessment.

The question I've been getting a lot is how much damage. We don't know; we're still assessing. A lot of the states are just finishing the response operations -- are beginning that, particularly the further south you are, as you move north. But in Vermont and in New York, they're very actively still engaged in response operations, as well as Massachusetts and New Jersey -- which are also experiencing flooding -- New Hampshire and Maine.

So with that I'm open for questions.

Q Do you have any figures to attach to the damage yet, any idea how much the storm will cost?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: No, and I don't really estimate -- I don't like to give estimates, because one of the things you're looking at is a lot of power outages. You see a lot of damages that are not going to be covered by federal dollars -- we don't cover insurance losses. So some of the numbers you'll get from, like, insurance industry projects are actually what their exposure will be. Those won't translate into what the federal cost will be.

So this will be -- we do formal damage assessments with the states. We go in and look at those things that would be the responsibility of state and local government. We look at those damages. We look primarily at the uninsured losses. So until we actually get out there and do the damage assessments, we won't have numbers. But also understand that's not the total dollar figure. So you'll get lots of impacts.

You're also going to have significant agricultural impacts in North Caroline and other states. And so USDA will be working with the state ag commissioners as they compile those costs. So the total dollar figure is actually from several different sources. What we will report will be the damages that will be eligible if there was a presidential disaster declaration for major reimbursement assistance.

Q What's the total number without power?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: The total number -- and, again, this number is fluctuating and it's coming down, but the Department of Energy at our 12:30 p.m. conference call was reporting a little over 5 million. And that number had come down from a number that was a little over 6 million. But Department of Energy is tracking that very closely, working with the states and utilities, and putting that number together as it changes through the days.

Q Did Vermont take you by surprise completely? And I didn't hear any warnings about Vermont.

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: No, we knew they were in the area of heavy rainfall. And this is one thing that Director Bill Reed was trying to get people not to focus just on the center of circulation or on the coast. The heavy rainfall -- particularly this storm had a lot of rain ahead of it as it was moving ashore -- the concern was where we could expect rainfall.

In fact, if you went back to the Hydromet Prediction Center, they were putting out forecasts of these types of measures that we could see as far as rainfall, so it was something we were expecting. But the reality is with flash flooding, much of this occurred very quickly. In fact, in many of these rivers in Vermont, they've already gone back down. It was just a very quick response rate from the rain, the flooding, and now we're looking at the damages.

Q What happened in (inaudible) New York?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: Just -- I don't have anything specific right now.

Q Given that this is the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and you've talked about some of the lessons of Hurricane Katrina, can you speak specifically about what was learned then that helped you and the federal government to be better prepared for Hurricane Irene?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: Well, you got to give credit to Congress who, one, passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act that clarified and gave clarity to FEMA's mission, but also cleared up some issues that were considered issues: Should we wait till a governor has exceeded all of their resources to then ask for federal assistance, and at that point do we respond? Or are we able to get things going earlier, not wait for that declaration without waiting for the state to be overwhelmed to get ready?

And this is I think -- one of the keys we've learned is when we know there's a disaster that could occur -- and again, we're working off that forecast -- is not to wait until the state says we're going to need help. Part of it is by getting our teams into those states with the counterparts of the governor's team working early. Not only are we there in case they need our help, we have a better idea of what to anticipate and we have built that team so if we do have the impact, we can right to work.

That, as well as the ability to pre-position resources, move them into areas before the states make formal requests. A lot of this was the mechanics that we learned from Katrina. But I think some of the other things that was directed into legislation was we needed to look beyond just what FEMA's role is; that we're not the team, we're part of a team. We really had to look at things such as how do you better integrate the volunteers and the NGOs and their capabilities, as well as the private sector.

I mean, I was in Florida doing a lot of hurricanes. And quite honestly, when you get to the point where you find yourself setting up distribution points in the parking lot of an open grocery store because they brought a generator in, brought in emergency crews and got their store open, but you weren't talking, I could have probably gone where there was a greater need.

So right now one of the things we've done in this administration is we brought the private sector into FEMA's headquarters. We have a representative on a rotating basis in the private sector representing them, so we work as a team. And so right now we're getting reports of stores opening -- first in Puerto Rico, when the initial storm hit, looking at big block stores that were able to get open -- had a better sense that a lot of the things that we were concerned about, the private sector was able to get up and running, so we could focus on the areas that were flooded, mainly smaller towns and communities in the more mountainous areas of Puerto Rico.

Q It was six years ago today when Katrina came ashore. FEMA's reputation was not enhanced by the operation there. Is there one single lesson from Katrina that has kind of reshaped FEMA and their response to this?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: We can't wait to know how bad it is before we get ready. We have to go fast. We have to base it upon the potential impacts. That's why we look at these forecasts we get from the Hurricane Center and we make the decisions based upon what the potential impacts could be. If you wait till you know how bad it is, it becomes harder to change the outcome.

Q And how good was the forecast? Did you expect Hurricane Irene to be what she turned out to be? Was the forecasting good enough?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: The track of the forecast, I think they've looked back and the National Hurricane Center will give you that update of what they saw, but I think the track was only about 10 miles off of where they actually thought it was going to come ashore.

But the intensity of the wind speed -- but that's something -- I'm going to be honest with you folks. Of all the things we know about hurricanes, the track forecast, we have the greatest -- we've seen the science has really improve that in my career to where if this had been 10 to 15 years ago, Florida would have had to evacuate based upon this track.

You remember seeing the satellite how big that storm was and how close it was to the state of Florida? We would not have been able to not evacuate. But the science is that good on track. But where we know where we still have a lot of work to do is intensity forecasts -- what goes up and goes down.

Remember Hurricane Charlie in Florida? It went from a category one in Cuba, crossing over, became a category four in less than 24 hours. We've seen a lot of these storms that the smaller storms, rapid anticipation. We also see storms that weaken. And that is an area that -- that skill we still need to work on. But based on the forecast, that's what we prepare for.

Q Looking at the current scenario, does Vermont need more federal resources?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: Again, the response phase -- and we were talking to -- we have a conference call each day with all the state directors that are impacted. The state director reported they have what they need. They're beginning to look at their damage assessments, and it is likely we'll be doing damage assessments with them to determine if they're going to need more assistance to recover. But in the response phase, they advised us they had what they needed, and they appreciate the fact that we had resources standing by.

Q Administrator Fugate, since you worked Katrina six years ago and this hurricane, what did you personally see the differences? Has the red tape actually been cutting up where you felt easier to be able to maneuver to get assistance to people this hurricane versus Katrina?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: You talk about the processes and a lot of mechanics behind it. I think in this administration, from my earliest events when I came onboard -- America Samoa, supporting USAID Haiti, the floods in Tennessee, and obviously this year -- the one thing that's been impressed upon me by the President is we go as a federal team and we bring all our resources together.

I think there is a lot of things that when we do it as a team and we understand that you cannot have separate -- you can't look at local government, state government, federal government, the volunteers and the private sector as distinct entities and be successful. You got to look as a team.

And so one of the things that's been impressed upon me and the thing that we've learned and try to practice here is we're not the team, we're part of the team. We have to bring all of our resources together. We have to work as a team. We have to be focused on the survivors, and the emphasis on speed -- to get there, get stabilized, to figure out what the next steps are without waiting to ask all the questions, well, how bad is it, what do you need? We know generally in these types of events what most likely is going to be required. Let's get moving it. If we don't need it, we can turn it off. But you don't get time back in a disaster.

Look at what was happening at Katrina in the first 72 hours, that once you got past that point, there was not much more you could do to change that outcome, and then things were just cascading one on top of the other.

Q So would you say that six years ago people weren't working as a team?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: I think there was a lot of things at the federal level that Congress addressed in the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act that has certainly made my job easier to work in that team environment.

Q Do you have an exact figure on the amount that's left in the disaster relief fund?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: No, not today. I think earlier in the week we had gone below a billion dollars and were around $900 million. And I'm not sure what today's figure is. But that's one of the reasons why we implemented immediate needs funding, was to preserve funding for the existing disaster. This is one thing I want to make clear: We said we went to immediate needs funding, and a lot of people thought, well, the people that had been impacted by the tornados and floods, we're going to take that money away from them. The survivors that are eligible for assistance are still getting funds. Individual assistance programs were not affected by this, nor was any protective measures, or any debris clearance or any project that had already been approved.

The only thing that we have postponed is new projects that are permanent work that had not been started when we go into immediate needs funding. And that is to ensure that we still have funds to do this response, continue to meet the needs of the survivors of the previous disasters, while supporting the initial response to Hurricane Irene.

Q So the criticism from Congressman Blunt out of Missouri is inaccurate?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: Well, again, for the individuals that were helping, for the cleanup, and for the emergency costs, we're continuing that. But for any projects that have not come in for approval, we're not going to be able to fund those as this point. We're going to postpone those. They're still eligible, but we won't be able to start new permanent work such as permanent construction repairing damages from those tornados.

Q If I can follow up on the money question. I mean, we've had the earthquake, we had the tornados, now we've got this hurricane. Is there any risk -- do you have a bottomless pool of money for state assistance? Or do you run out?

ADMINISTRATIOR FUGATE: Well, that's one of the things we've been working on, and that's why we went to immediate needs funding. There was too much unknown about Irene, and looking at how many states were going to be impacted, we knew and we had actually -- knew that going into our end of the fiscal year, we were going to get close to the point where we would have to look at immediate needs funding at some point.

Our goal was to continue to be able to respond to the open disasters and maintain enough reserves for any new disasters until we get into the next fiscal year. But Irene was obviously something -- we felt it was just prudent. We weren't out of money, but we wanted to make sure we had enough money available to continue supporting the survivors from the past disasters, as well as start the response to Irene.

Q Your goal was a billion, and then after that, you're done?

ADMINISTRATOR FUGATE: No, we actually had more money earlier this year. We also had -- the Disaster Relief Fund is something that's an appropriation that we get. It's also something that because of older disasters we close out, we put money back in. But it is -- we generally look at that -- when we get down to about a billion dollars, we want to make sure that we can continue supporting the survivors for all the old disasters, as well as any new responses. Going into September being the peak part of hurricane season, and with Irene, we didn't want to get to the point where we would not have the funds to continue to support the previous impacted survivors as well as respond to the next disaster.