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Release Date: September 13, 2008
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010
Secretary Chertoff: Good afternoon, everybody. I'm joined by David Paulison, the FEMA administrator; Rear Admiral Joseph Castillo, the Assistant Commandant of the Coast Guard for Response; and Kevin Colton of the Department of Energy.
As you know, Hurricane Ike has struck the coast of Texas and the west coast of Louisiana, but the effects of the storm including an exceptionally broad storm surge have been felt as far away as eastern Louisiana and Mississippi and down the Texas coast. By way of illustration, we've had some very, very significant surges in the area: Beaumont, particularly Orange County and Cameron Parrish in Louisiana, have been very hard hit with a surge. Lake Charles, for example, in Louisiana, is experiencing some flooding as are other parts of Cameron County. Although the impact in the city of Galveston and the Houston ship channel was not quite as bad as worst case scenario, it was still very substantial. We're talking about surges of 16 feet, maybe more in certain isolated inland places. This has been a very dangerous storm.
Tropical storm winds on a sustained basis have now begun to move inland. There will be a lot of rain and the rain will continue to cause flooding problems as this storm moves through the Texas and then further into the United States. Among those areas that are most seriously hit, and about which we're particularly concerned from the standpoint of search and rescue, are Orange County and Cameron Parrish, Louisiana; the city of Galveston; the eastern part of Harris County which have taken quite a bit of water.
This is still a dangerous storm. Our principle focus at this moment is search and rescue. More than 50 aircraft are currently engaging in that effort. Coast Guard has a couple of Falcons that are currently flying and Coast Guard, Department of Defense, National Guard, over 50, are airborne conducting search and rescue operations. Again, we're particularly focused on those areas hit with storm surge.
Even in those other locations where the flooding is not quite so significant, people must remember that the most dangerous period in the storm is often what occurs after the storm has moved on. There's a loss of power; there's fallen trees; there may be hidden traps that are covered with water. There will be debris-downed power lines and other kinds of hazards. People should exercise extreme caution as they get out and about so we don't have injuries and loss of live going forward from this point on.
We have already heard some initial reports of a few deaths. Obviously one death is more than we want to hear about, but we may learn of other losses in the hours to come, particularly among those people who did not evacuate. Therefore, we want to make sure that even as we move quickly to rescue people, and we've been getting a lot of 911 calls; those are being tracked and located. There is a systematic plan to conduct search and rescue ground, water, and air. We ask people to exercise some patience. Don't take risks trying to extricate yourself from a dangerous circumstance. If you can hear what we're saying, sit tight; communicate if you can by cell phone or other means and wait for help to arrive. That's probably the safest course to take.
I spoke with the President today. He's following this very closely and we both want to emphasize the importance of letting the emergency responders do the work they're going have to do over the next hours. I also want to indicate that Louisiana has had, also, significant set of rescue challenges, not quite perhaps as large as Texas, but we have been running search and rescue recruiting in some of the coastal parishes in the central and west part of Louisiana. I'm told the most recent figures we have are 179 rescues in Louisiana and one dog rescue.
We have 2.2 million people were estimated by the state of Texas to have evacuated and Louisiana also estimates a significant number of evacuations, over 130,000. So we've got a lot of people who have moved out. We've got a significant number of people, thousands in shelters, and again they ought to stay put until it is safe to return.
One of the critical challenges we're going to have is power and the state is working very hard with the energy companies to get that power up as quickly as possible. Once that happens it will make it easier to conduct recovery operations.
I spoke to Governor Perry a short while ago and informed that the President had declared a major disaster for 29 counties in Texas. That clears the way for federal funding to individuals and local communities for their recovery efforts, and also for debris removal, which will be a significant burden in both Texas and Louisiana as we move forward in the days to come to recover from the storm.
Both Governor Perry and Governor Jindal are doing tremendous jobs informing their communities and directing response and recovery efforts and we couldn't be happier to support them as partners.
Houston Mayor Bill White had a press conference to counsel the public to drink only bottled water or to boil tap water as a precaution due to low pressure in the water system. And again, that might be good advice for anybody; better be safe than sorry, and unless told otherwise, using bottled water or boiled water would probably be prudent.
A few moments from now I'm going to be leaving to fly down to Austin at the President's request. I'm hoping and anticipating tomorrow to be in Houston and in the impacted zone. As we continue to move forward from the rescue phase into the recovery phase to try to get things up and running in the affected communities as soon as possible.
I would end by saying this: although the storm has made landfill, and I think if it's downgraded to a tropical storm it will be shortly, it is still a dangerous storm. The system will move into the country with rain. That may cause flooding, including flash flooding. It may not be as dramatic as the scenes you saw on television right at the coast. But exercising prudence for everybody in the path of the storm is very, very strongly recommended so that we wind up minimizing the loss of life as much as humanly possible.
Administrator Paulison: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I want to pick up on what the Secretary just talked about, and that's emphasizing that everyone in the path of this storm needs to stay home. Don't get impatient. Don't try to get out early. In all the hurricanes that I've seen that I've dealt with, most of the injuries, most of the fatalities come after the storm, not during the storm. It's generally those people who get out too early and too soon and get into the path of danger. So it's still a very dangerous time. The storm is moving to north Texas and Arkansas. It still carries a lot of wind, a lot of wind, the possibility of tornadoes and lightning, so I want to make sure that people understand very clearly just stay home. Just be patient. Stay in your house and don't go out too early until it's safe to do so.
As the Secretary said, our first priority right now is lifesaving efforts. We're working very hard to do the search and rescue operations. They are underway and there's a lot being done by all the different agencies. We have a large combination of state and federal responses out there right now. We have state helicopters. We have Coast Guard helicopters. We have Department of Defense helicopters, all out there trying to rescue people particularly in the Galveston area where we have large groups of people who did not evacuate like they were told to do so. And right now they are flying over those areas and doing airlifts.
At the request of the state of Texas we sent one of our Type 3 search and rescue teams and boat teams to assist in that operation in that area and just south of the (inaudible) area to check that out. Bolivar Island and Galveston, Texas the count right now is up over 120 have been rescued and I'm sure from my last report is much more than that.
Pennsylvania Task Force 1, which is the Type 1 search team, is on the scene with 70 personnel, is being transported to the USS Nassau and that boat has left Virginia and is moving around into the Gulf, will be a base for us to operate off of. It has a large surgical team. It has two helicopters; a disaster relief team; and four utilitied landing aircraft. So we're going to put that into the Gulf and make sure we have that base there.
I told you before we have over 1,000 rescue personnel on the ground. We're responding to these disasters as quickly as we can. A lot of people did not evacuate and so it's going to take some time. So again, just be patient like the Secretary said.
There's a lot of requests for donations and volunteers and I would ask for people who want to do that to contact either the Red Across or other volunteer agencies and to ask what they may do to help instead of just sending supplies without understanding exactly what that is.
Again, the National Family Emergency Registry is up, our locator system for families and children and I'm going to give you that phone number, and that phone number is 1-800-588-9822. That's 1-800-588-9822 and that phone is open 24 hours a day to register with that so your family members can find out where you are and you can find out where your family members are.
Again, we want everyone to be safe and I know we said this over and over again, but the most important thing is people stay out of harm's way; stay in your home; let the rescuers do their job and then when the storm clears and the water goes down then we can go in and start picking up the debris.
Moderator: We have time for just a few questions. When I call on you I ask that you identify your name and your news organization, please. Yes, sir.
Question: Richard Cowan from Reuters. Secretary Chertoff, if you could give anymore detail on possible deaths and what you said on numbers?
Secretary Chertoff: Well, in terms of deaths we've heard some unconfirmed reports of a few deaths. I don't want to start to speculate about what the numbers are. We hope it's a small number as possible, but we're going to have to wait and see particularly as the rescue operations go forward.
We were told by the state of Texas that they estimated 2.2 million who did evacuate and Louisiana estimates over 130,000 evacuated, largely from the very western part of the state.
I should also say there was some overtopping of some of the non-federal levees in Louisiana. Most of those seemed to have been managed without an extraordinary amount of flooding, but there was a significant amount of inundation in Tarragone Parrish and some issues with pumps there, and we did conduct some rescue operations there so we'll be working with the state of Louisiana to get that back up again.
Question: Yes, from CNN. How has FEMA's response to Ike different from the prep and response to Gustav?
Secretary Chertoff: Well, of course every storm is different. In both cases we worked, obviously, to facilitate evacuation as much as possible. In this case, it looks like the scope of the search and rescue operation is going to be substantially larger than was required in Gustav because Gustav turned out not to be as intense a storm and it hit a location that was less populated. So that's' going to be the main difference.
Obviously we're going to continue to do what we did in terms of points of distribution out. I think the state of Texas is planning to put about 40 pods out where we can give food and water on. As the Administrator said that other day, the Red Cross is planning on feeding a half million people a day and they're starting to get ready as soon as conditions permit to get in there. So that's going to be similar to what we did in Gustav. Probably the scale will be larger given the sweep of this storm.
Question: Stewart Powell with the Houston Chronicle. How many folks are now awaiting rescue do you think by helicopter and to what extent do people staying behind now complicate the challenge that you face getting to them?
Secretary Chertoff: I don't want to guess at how many people are waiting rescue. We have gotten reports of people calling into 911 and those have been logged and they're going to be part of a disciplined plan that Texas is coordinating as part of Texas Task Force 1. As we've continually said every time there's a storm, when you stay behind in the face of a warning, not only do you jeopardize yourself, but you put the first responders at risk as well. So now we're going to see this play out.
The men and women who fly the aircraft and get in the boats are exceptionally brave. I'm sure they're going to wind up taking more risks than they should to rescue people. We'll support them in every other way we can and obviously we want to conduct these rescues, but again, if I can emphasize in the future, please not to play games with a storm. It's in everybody's best interest.
Question: How many pictures have you seen show houses that have been completely destroyed, and as you said, the number of people who stayed (inaudible) do you expect that you'll have higher numbers of deaths because of that or in that area?
Secretary Chertoff: Again, I don't want to speculate. I can just tell you if someone stayed in an area that was predicted to be largely flooded, like certain parts of Galveston and other places, they put their lives at risk. Obviously we hope that people were able to find a place to hide and shelter that's not going to cost them their lives. We hope for the best. We're prepared for the worst. We are going to conduct a lot of rescues. We have a lot of medical assets, teams in place, to come in and help, but as the weather clears and we're in there, we're going to finally determine what the consequences are; and it may not be evident by the end of today. It may take a day or two to really get a firm fix on this.
Question: Are there any talks with the IEA about a global drawdown on petroleum products to deal with possible (inaudible) shortages? I'm Siobhan Keyes with Dow Jones. If there are talks, what is the status of those talks?
Mr. Colton: The Department of Energy is in contact with the IEA and we have been developing and producing analyses for the IEA that demonstrates the lost amount of production from Hurricane Gustav, certainly what we know will be lost as a result of the refineries that have gone because of Ike, and we can come up with some pretty solid numbers before we even hear what the damages estimates are to the Texas refineries. So we're developing that information and sharing it with the IEA now.
Question: What are those numbers and can you share that with us?
Mr. Colton: I cannot.
Moderator: Operator, can we take a question from the phone line please?
Operator: The first question is from Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post.
Question: Just a follow-up on the rescue question. Is it possible to say how many calls have been received or an order of magnitude at hundreds, thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands; and then two quick others: yesterday a possibility of more than 100,000 affected by flood waters, can you update that and possibly help us understand what accounted for the lower surge than projected; and then finally can we get an update on the status of any (inaudible) or damage assessments in terms of areas of damage or critical facilities. Thank you.
Secretary Chertoff: That's some one question. I'll try to remember all the parts of this. I don't want to speculate about the number of calls. Calls are continuing to come in. We will address all of the calls and all of the cries for help that we receive.
In terms of estimating the number of houses damaged, again, we are going to be flying and we actually have been flying assets. We've got a P3 from Customs and Border Protection that's been doing overflights. We have a MERS unit that's taking video. We actually saw some of the video so we're going to be assessing the damage as the storm moves out and that will give us a picture of what are the areas where there's a large amount of inundation.
The best explanation I can give you about why the surge was somewhat less than expected in the Galveston and Houston ship channel is that the storm moved slightly to the north and actually came in more or less came dead on into the bay and usually it's the right side of the storm because it's where the winds sweep and push the water up most vigorously, so that wound up slightly or somewhat diminishing the worst scenario. But it still was a substantial surge and we shouldn't minimize the impact of that.
Moderator: Operator, we'll take another question.
Operator: The next question is from Jeff Bliss of Bloomberg News.
Question: Yes, hi. Mr. Secretary, can you just clarify in terms of the DoD assets, how many troops are down there from the National Guard and how many aircraft compared to the aircraft that are up from the Coast Guard?
Secretary Chertoff: Well, I know we have a total of 52 helicopters currently up operating and a couple of our Coast Guard Falcons. I don't have the exact breakdown of how much is the National Guard and how much is the Coast Guard. They are all operating under a unified air traffic system operated by the state of Texas through Texas Task Force 1.
In terms of the National Guard mobilization, I believe the state mobilized over 7,000 National Guard. I don't know what the current number is.
Speaker: 7,500.
Secretary Chertoff: I think 7,500 was the last estimate that we got.
Moderator: Operator, we'll take one last question from the phones before we take our last question here in the room.
Operator: We have a question from Joe (inaudible).
Question: Thanks very much. Mr. Secretary, for you or one of your colleagues there, can you give us any better idea about the potential damage to the refining industry in the southwest there Texas and Louisiana and also to the petrochemical and chemical industries if anything's known?
Secretary Chertoff: I think we're going to need another day. The hope is that with the surge being somewhat less than feared we may be able to have been spared some of the worst-case scenarios. But we're going to need to assess this. I also want to remind people part of the challenge is not just making sure the infrastructure itself is intact, but getting the power up so things can operate, and that's going to be one of the big challenges and early challenges of this effort.
Moderator: We can take on last question here in the room.
Question: For Mr. Paulison, you've had hurricane after hurricane. How is FEMA doing? Are we stretched? We're very early still in the hurricane season. How are things looking? As you go forward do you need downtime to rest and recover?
Administrator Paulison: We're doing fine, and we're halfway through hurricane season, not in the early season. We're actually doing fine. If you remember with the support of the Secretary and the President and Congress we were able to double the size of the organization so we have a lot more people than we had, a lot more experienced people that we brought into the organization to help manage it. And we have 10 regions out there. We have not tapped all of them. So right now we're doing fine. We'd like not to have another one right away and would like to have a little bit of downtime but right now we're handling Gustav and Ike and also Fay that just went through Florida. But we're handling all of them fine.
Moderator: Thank you, everyone, that completes the briefing today.
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This page was last reviewed/modified on September 13, 2008.