CNN: Aug. 28, 2005
CNN: Now let me ask you this. You're talking about these evacuations and how important they are. Are we just talking about New Orleans or are we talking about the whole state here?
BROWN: No, we're talking primarily New Orleans and those parishes south of there. I mean, the storm surge in a category five, can easily exceed 20 feet. You have areas that are already below sea level. We have photographs that show, graphically show what that means. If you go into the French quarter, we're talking about a storm surge that is on the tops of those buildings. It's very, very devastating. So people need to take the storm seriously. Let me put it this way. I've got rescue teams, urban search and rescue teams, swift water teams that are moving in there right now to be prepared. You don't want them to have to come and rescue you. So you need to get out of the way of the storm now.
CNN: Aug. 29, 2005
CNN: Let's talk just sort of general kind of FEMA triage. There needs to be clean water. There needs to be food. Is there enough bottled water in the area, is there enough -- are there enough food rations, I assume, meals ready to eat, that sort of thing, available to people to at least get them fed?
M. BROWN: Right. And let me tell you what happened. Last Friday or Saturday, as I started getting my reports from the National Hurricane Center, my gut just told me this was going to be bad. So I instructed all of the FEMA staff to not only predeploy assets into the possible areas that would be hit by the Hurricane Katrina, but to jam those supply lines all the way back to Ft. Worth, all the way back to Atlanta, and keep those supply lines completely jammed up so we constantly have supplies coming in. I'm glad I made that decision, because I can tell you, we're going to need an awful lot of those commodities for an awful lot of time.
MSNBC: Has FEMA stepped in and told you that they`re going to undertake extraordinary efforts to try to stop a human catastrophe from taking place?
VITTER: Absolutely. And the good news is, the federal response has been overwhelming. In fact, President Bush signed the first disaster declaration several days ago, when Katrina was still well offshore, only second time in history any president has done that. Hurricane Andrew was the first time. He signed further disaster declarations today.
Mike Brown, head of FEMA, is here on the ground in Louisiana as of yesterday, major FEMA teams, major FEMA assets prepositioned in Louisiana. So, that`s the good news. But, boy, there is a whole lot of bad news. msncb, aug. 29, 2005
plus: FEMA director Brown had flown into Baton Rouge on Sunday and had ridden out the storm at the state operations center there, confident that adequate preparations had been made. His agency had prepositioned ice, water and Meals-Ready-to-Eat in three layers, in the storm zone, in adjacent states, and at pre-existing logistical centers in Atlanta and Denton, Texas. But getting the supplies distributed was proving to be a daunting challenge.