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What a difference a year and a presidential election makes;
From CNN:
Michael Brown is the FEMA director. He's here in Florida. I talked to him a few moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: What's your priority today?
MICHAEL BROWN, FEMA DIRECTOR: Bill, it's to focus on life- sustaining and life-saving efforts. At 5:45 this morning, the first trucks started rolling down the interstate trying to get into these areas of devastation. We're bringing in food, water, all of the equipment, including the medical teams and the urban search-and-rescue teams to have a massive response to Frances.
HEMMER: And what part of Florida needs the most help this morning, Mr. Brown?
BROWN: Well, Governor Bush and I were able finally late yesterday afternoon to get into the West Palm Beach airport. So, this morning, he and I are going to start working our way back up along the coast and then back inland and back toward Tallahassee. Because even as you and I are speaking, the storm is still wreaking havoc on now the coastal areas on the Gulf side and up in the Panhandle of Florida.
So, we think that right now we're going to get into the inland areas and find devastation all across the state.
HEMMER: At this point -- and you said this at the end of last week -- 4,500 people are assigned on this job under your control, in fact, which is three times the amount of people assigned here for Charley about three and a half weeks ago. What are 4,500 people doing today, Mr. Brown?
BROWN: They are going to start focusing on distribution of food and ice. We're going to start working into the neighborhoods with our community response teams to find out where these folks are and get them registered with FEMA as quickly as possible. We'll have the rapid needs assessment teams going out into the communities to find out what needs to be done and reporting that back to the command center in Tallahassee and Atlanta, so that we can get those needs fulfilled as quickly as possible.
This storm has been going on for so long because she's been so strong and slow that we're trying to speed things up as rapidly as possible to give some immediate relief to these victims.
HEMMER: At this point, what are you able to assess? I know you've mentioned that you'll be going inland to try and figure out a better idea once the sun comes up as to what parts of the state needs it. But at this point, what can you say about Frances? What can you say about the damage? What can you say about the estimates at this point?
BROWN: Well, the estimates are just going to be through the roof, if there is a roof out there for it to go through, because there has just been so much water and wind associated with this storm and it's been moving so slowly that I'm very concerned about getting into the middle part of the state, into the rural areas where the flooding is going to be an incredible hazard. We're going to have a lot of structural damage that may not be readily visible to people as they go back in. We're going to have washouts and debris all over roads.
So, it's going to be a very time-consuming effort for us to get relief in there. It's going to be a very time-consuming effort to get power restored. But we have to do that as quickly as possible to give these folks some relief. (END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Michael Brown with the governor, Jeb Bush, over the weekend, too, and the two of them heading out yet again today.
"The New York Times" is reporting today that there's an estimate out there, just a staggering figure, too, $40 billion for the state of Florida between the storms of Charley and the storms of Frances. And now there's this other storm, Ivan, lurking out there far out in the Atlantic. Wow!
Hmmmmm, what a difference those budgets cuts can make.
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