Hurricane Irene FEMA conference call transcription including 8/28/2011 question from Senator Joe Lieberman: Moderator: Thank you. If anyone else has a question, please press star 1 now. One moment. Next question comes from Joe Lieberman. Your line is open.
Joe Lieberman: Craig, let me just first say that from what I could see from Connecticut, and obviously, I was relying mostly on television, it looked to me like FEMA really performed very well. And, and exactly the way, in the aftermath of Katrina we hoped FEMA would perform in a disaster, obviously. In some of the areas like Connecticut we caught a break and it was, serious as it was, it was less serious than we worried it would be. But, I think you were in every way pro-active and ready and just wanted to say thank you for that.
Craig Fugate: Thanks senator, if there’s anything in particular, or things you’re seeing that we need to be paying attention to. I’ve been trying to tell, everybody’s asking me: What’s different about Kartrina? I said: a lot of it was the post-Katrina mercy management format, that clarified our reporting responsibilities and gave us the authorities to go before the states to ask for help.
Joe Lieberman: Yeah, no, I don’t, we’re going to talk to the governor later. But I actually was going to ask you a question, in a minute that relates to that from your end. But let me just say that I think one of the, it was so simple in a way, but you, you all put it into effect in such an important way. Wanted, the strength of the regional offices, too, the practicing the drilling, for the kinds of natural disasters that may happen or are more likely to happen in a region. And, three, the fact that you can begin to move, and did begin to move, before this hurricane actually hit. So you were ready. And I appreciate it. I was going to flip the question, actually, Craig, and ask you whether during the last few days you were asked for anything by any of the states that you were not able to provide.
Craig Fugate: No, sir, again, part of what we were doing, was we were basing a lot of our impacts from the Carolinas on up, on the storm, and we moved a lot of equipment, personnel, without any formal requests from the governors. We did not have any declarations when we started. So when the governors began asking for the declarations, our teams were already working with them on the EOCs so we didn’t have that lag time between their asking for help and we’re showing up to start working on it.
Joe Lieberman: That’s great. OK, if I hear any more from our state folks later in the day, I’ll let you now. Later, or tomorrow morning. But, please give my thanks to everybody who works with you at FEMA. I’m proud of what you did.