Coordinator:	Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentations we will conduct a question-and-answer session.

	To ask a question you may press star 1. This conference is being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect at this time.

	I would now like to turn the conference over to Rachel Racusen. Ma’am, you may begin.

Rachel Racusen:	Hi everyone. This is Rachel Racusen with FEMA’s Press Office. I just want to thank you all for joining us this morning, and just care of a few quick housekeeping items before we start the call.

	First, if you have any follow-up questions for the National Hurricane Center’s Press Office you can reach them at 305-229-4404. And if you have any follow-up questions for FEMA’s Press Office you can reach us at 202-646-3272. Or you can email us at fema-news-desk@dhs.gov.

	And then just a quick reminder, when you ask questions please remember to state your name and publication. And if you could limit your questions to just one per person that would be great. We just have a lot of folks on the call today and we want to make sure we can get as many questions in as possible.

	And with that I will turn it over to Bill Read with NOAA’s National Hurricane Center.

Bill Read:	Well good morning everybody. Irene is pretty much doing as we were talking about yesterday, forecast-wise. She got very well organized overnight as she passed farther away from the big island of Hispaniola and out of the influence of that island, and is currently in the Southeast Bahamas -- roughly 285 miles to the Southeast of Nassau, with a maximum wind of 115 miles an hour, which brings it to the threshold. It’s now a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.

	Continues to move Northwest at about 12 miles per hour. I anticipate that motion to continue throughout today. Through - and that’ll take it through the central Bahamas, into the Northwest Bahamas overnight. It is in the warmest water and favorable environment, in our opinion, for further intensification.

	So it could actually get stronger than what we are currently carrying as Category 3. The next big challenge on the forecast will be an expected turn more to the north. That is expected to occur during the day, tomorrow, as it exits the Bahamas, runs over the warm waters of the Atlantic north of the Bahamas and south of about the - a line due east of Jacksonville, Florida.

	And it brings it up to the - the next threat area is the Carolinas. The current forecast track brings the center, you know, the most likely path is the center near or over the Outer Banks of North Carolina during the evening hours - afternoon or evening hours on Saturday. It’s also growing in size as it heads north. Potential for seeing the onset of tropical storm-force winds near the coast of North Carolina as early as the early morning hours on Saturday morning.

	That’s going to be the primary focus. The challenge for the next day or two will be the needs for watches and eventual warnings for certainly North Carolina and maybe part of Northeastern South Carolina. Probably - they talk about that this afternoon. My hunch is it may be able to wait till overnight, early morning hours tomorrow for a watch.

	And that, of course, the eye’s go to where’s it going to go next? There’s still enough uncertainty, and the parallel nature to the coast that the exact center of the storm may actually stay pretty close to the coastline during the day on Saturday, and then become a big threat for New England and perhaps Long Island towards 96 to 120 hours out on Sunday.

	And be advised it’s going to be a very large circulation as it moves north of the Carolinas. So the effects of the hurricane in the form of tropical storm, maybe even hurricane-force winds, rain, beach erosion and tidal surge will be in play from the mid-Atlantic all the way up through New England as the storm progresses.

	I think that’s what I had for now. I’ll turn it back to you, Rachel.

Rachel Racusen:	Great, thanks. And now I’d like to hand it over to Administrator Craig Fugate.

Craig Fugate:	Good morning everybody. As Bill was pointing out, I mean, there is a tendency in the media that we oftentimes talk about the wind speeds and the category of the storm. And that doesn’t do justice.

	First of all, even though it is a Category 3 -- oftentimes referred to as a major hurricane -- I’ve never heard of a minor hurricane. And even tropical-force winds can cause damages and power outages well away from the center of circulation.

	So again, we have to defer to our local officials on what actions to take. That’s why the federal government isn’t in the evacuation business ordering it. We are a support role. But local officials working with the local weather service offices are taking the products that Bill Read provides and his team, and giving locals what those impacts are.

	And then they’re going to make decisions about should evacuations be ordered, or other protective measures. So again, I know people - the category of the storm and the wind speeds are easy to communicate. But it is really an area impact.

	And again, even tropical-force winds, as Bill’s pointed out earlier, with some of the saturation and rainfall in the Northeast from recent week’s rain could result in trees coming down and power outages over a large area if the track of Irene is a little closer to the coast.

	So again, this is a - continue the time to prepare. But we are now starting to see calls for action, particularly in the Carolina Outer Banks where evacuation orders have begun. We do ask to follow - to heed evacuation orders, particularly those that are on the coastal areas and most vulnerable to storm surge.

	But for many folks in the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast New England states, they still have time to prepare. But that time will run out. And the most important thing we need to remind people that the principal threat that evacuations are ordered for is storm surge.

	And that is a situation that people should be aware of now -- to note they live in an evacuation zone. Know where that information’s going to come from, who’s the official that will give them the order to evacuate or advise them to evacuate, and have a place to go.

	And if they don’t have the - any way to drive or if they have other considerations is to find out what their local plans are and get that information now, not wait until that evacuation order is given.

	Again I think, because this is going to be over such a large area of the East Coast, we again remind people not to focus on the eye of the storm as the only place of impacts. And from FEMA’s perspective, you know, we’re still working in the Puerto Rico commonwealth, dealing with the flooding and flash flooding that Irene has already caused.

	And as we have seen the shift now from less of a threat for Florida and begin, you know, moving our teams further up the coast -- we have teams in the Carolinas, we have teams that are ready to go into the mid-Atlantic states.

	Our regions are talking with our states and looking at when protective actions may be required. And we are preparing the support of evacuations and initial impacts from this hurricane.

	But again, category of storm -- and the wind speeds don’t tell the full story -- so again we are, you know, cautioning people that even if a - the storm, the impacts are only at topical force or are a Category 1, Category 2, that can still be a significant threat, and particularly for coastal residents to heed those evacuation orders when they’re given.

	So from FEMA, again if you need a place to send people for information it’s ready.gov or from their mobile phones, m.fema.gov.

Rachel Racusen:	Great, thanks. We’re ready for some questions now.

Coordinator:	If you like to ask a question please press star 1, state your name and affiliation clearly and limit your questions to one. To withdraw your request you may press star 2. Once again, to ask a question press star 1 on your touchtone phone and clearly state your name and affiliation.

	Our first question comes from Laurel Sweet of the Boston Herald.

Laurel Sweet:	Good morning again, gentlemen. Mr. Fugate, given the current track of the storm are you - is it your belief that coastal communities are more at risk right now as opposed to inland communities? And given the storm coming, we have President Obama vacationing on our Martha’s Vineyard, is he being advised to perhaps cut that short?

Craig Fugate:	The first question is hurricanes are generally always more of a threat coastal because of storm surge for the life hazard. But winds can go well inland, as well as torrential rainfall. So they’re in area of impact so, you know, we know the coast is - evacuation are primarily for storm surge, but we can see impacts well inland. And that’s going to be determined as Irene approaches the coast how wide an area that winds will be impacting and how much rain we get.

	We did brief the President yesterday and we are keeping him and his team updated on the storm’s progress, as well as, you know, from yesterday’s earthquake. So we are briefing the President. He is, you know, basically having us do our coordination with the states and stuff. So we are keeping him updated on the storm.

Laurel Sweet:	Thank you.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Nikole Killion of Hearst Television.

Nikole Killion:	Yes and speaking of the earthquake, has that impacted your preparations for this storm in any way?

Craig Fugate:	Yes, it reminded people that the unexpected can happen. And that’s why we talk about personal preparedness. I think some of the quick lessons that came out yesterday as many people tried to use cell phones and the congestion that oftentimes text messages and social media still were working for folks.

	Also the ability to use social media to let family members know they’re okay and to kind of decrease the use of trying to use a cell phone were important lessons.

	But I think it also points out that, as infrequently as, you know, we think about hurricanes, the earthquake yesterday reminded us that we got to be prepared for a variety of things. And the best way to start is make sure you have a family disaster plan.

	As far as impacts and resources we’ve had no requests from many of the states for any federal resources, even though we had teams alerted in case they were needed. But it did serve as a reminder that for lot of folks to think, you know, things don’t usually happen up here, that we have to be prepared for the things we know and the things we, you know, can expect, and even the unexpected.

	And unlike an earthquake, this hurricane is a forecasted event that we are watching.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Evan Lehmann of ClimateWire.

Evan Lehmann:	Hi Craig. Could you please talk a bit about Congress’ new disaster fund that was passed in the debt ceiling legislation that looks ten years back at the average of all disasters to fund it? Do you think that that will reduce the amount of disaster funding over the long term?

	And also, given Hurricane Irene, do you believe that the National Flood Insurance Program and other federal programs should look forward in time and prepare for a climate change?

Craig Fugate:	Well, it’s - I’ll break it down quickly is I’ve - you know, we’ve been looking at that legislation and we, you know, again are still looking at what the potential impacts and what that actually means. So I don’t have a - an answer yet on that.

	Again, we expect that if we do see storm surge damage, those people that do have flood insurance will be able to get those policies serviced. People without flood insurance, unfortunately, will uninsured losses that could be quite dramatic and maybe, you know, could possibly cause them financial ruin because they didn’t have the flood insurance. And it’s again why we point out flood insurance is critical.

	As far as the Disaster Relief Fund, again we’re operating with a fund balance that allows us to continue to respond to the existing disasters, as well as prepare for Hurricane Irene. And we are working very closely, monitoring that to make sure that we do have the funds to continue response as these storms threaten.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Rich Klindworth of WNCT.

Richard Klindworth:	Yes, my question is, what specifically is FEMA doing in North Carolina?

Craig Fugate:	Specifically North Carolina, at Fort Bragg we’ve set up one of our incident support bases where we’ve started moving a couple days ago, generators, tarps, water, food, infant and baby formula.

	It’s not necessarily predesignated for just North Carolina but, you know, we knew the Carolinas up through the mid-Atlantic were threatened. So that was the initial place we sent stuff.

	We also have deployed what we call an instant management team and a predesignated federal coordinating officer to link up with Doug Hoell, who’s the State Emergency Management Director of North Carolina and his team. And again, right now our role is supporting Doug and Governor Perdue as they look at the preparations and support evacuations and be ready to support them if they need federal assistance.

	So we have those teams there. We have supplies moved in. But again, we are following that with additional actions as we move up the coast.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Eliot Kleinberg of the Palm Beach Post.

Eliot Kleinberg:	Hello gentlemen. Obviously everybody’s watching the Carolinas and New England, but there’s still a lot of interesting concern down here with our neighbors in the Bahamas. Mr. Read, can you give us an update on what that area should expect today and tonight?

Bill Read:	Yes, thanks for asking because it is - they’re going through a really tough time here in the next 24 to 36 hours with a large hurricane moving slowly through the islands. They, of course, have lots of experience with hurricanes but it doesn’t lessen the impact.

	The islands immediately in the path, of course is Crooked and Acklins Island -- today are going to be in the eyewall of the storm and then it’ll be moving through the - probably the easternmost chain of the islands. So it’s going to come fairly close -- close enough to have an impact to Nassau during the day tomorrow and then perhaps the effects will on Grand Bahamas tomorrow night.

	The winds, of course, in the eyewall are in that 115 gusting over 130 miles an hour. It’s a little tough on predicting storm surge there. It depends very much on the direction of the winds around the little coves and bays.

	But there are some areas there that are under impact from storm surge that you have to watch out for as much as 7 to 11 feet above normal levels in areas highly dependent on the wind direction in there.

	For Florida I think it’s mostly going to be the - worried about people getting out of surf, with heavy surf rip current and the swells, especially on Thursday and Friday as it moves up the coast offshore.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Brian Bennett of Los Angeles Times.

Brian Bennett:	Hi, it’s Brian Bennett. I wanted to get a sense of any lessons that were learned yesterday in DC and the DC region about evacuations. There was a lot of congestion and traffic as people moved out and offices closed early yesterday.

	And I was wondering if FEMA had initiated any contact with state and locals on evacuation plans or is looking at ways to improve the evacuation of the Capital region in the event of another incident?

Craig Fugate:	Well this is Craig. First of all, evacuation and the decision to close office buildings and such is actually over at the Office of Personnel Management and then coordination with the national Capital region. So I wouldn’t say yesterday was a planned evacuation. It was more spontaneous. And you would expect that, with that many people on the road you would get congestions.

	The difference is with a hurricane, we see it coming, evacuation orders are given well in advance of when you expect impacts. But it does point out why people need to heed evacuation orders and not wait for the next forecast to hope things get better.

	Particularly in our coastal communities, evacuation lead times can literarily be, you know, hours, you know, up to 24 hours or more. And so oftentimes evacuation orders are given when the skies are blue and the weather’s fair. And people think that it’s not that bad.

	But as Director Read said, you know, he’s looking with his team at when they’ll have to start putting watches up along the US coast. And that will then, I think, for many of the local communities, prompt decisions about evacuation.

Brian Bennett:	But if yesterday’s incident had been a bomb or some other incident in Washington, DC, were there other takeaways to the way the evacuation routes were used -- ways that FEMA can support the state and locals in improving communications on how people can get out of town if necessary...

Craig Fugate:	Yes, I’m going to really defer that...

Brian Bennett:	...and put a shelter in place, that type of thing?

Craig Fugate:	I’m going to defer that back to the local officials. To be quite honest with you we - our first priority here is to make sure that we were up and running and our staff were safe, and then to determine where the earthquake had occurred and how much damage. And then the support to the states.

	And as we were doing that in the background the evacuation -- or actually it wasn’t so much an evacuation, people leaving work early and then choosing to go home. Again this was not something that was called for by, you know, the local officials. It was more spontaneous.

	But as far as the impacts and how that was coordinated, I really defer back to local officials. Because we were - primary focus on our mission, which was determining the impacts of the earthquake, making sure we were safe and operational and determining if the states were going to need assistance.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Ben Geman of The Hill.

Ben Geman:	Yes, hi. Thank you. I wanted to ask if you’re in touch with any of the power companies in the North Carolina area or any of the other areas on the potential path of the storm?

Craig Fugate:	We work with our Infrastructure and Protection Branch over in the Department of Homeland Security where they have a lot of that information. But we also have representatives in the private sector here.

	So not only are we talking with the utilities -- we’re talking with the major retailers, tracking the progress of the storm and what potential impacts. And again, for those areas that now have power outages, power restoration is one of the key coordination events. And we work very closely with the state and the power utilities on what they expect from outages and what those impacts could be.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Peter Spotts of the Christian Science Monitor.

Peter Spotts:	Thank you very much. I did want to check in. Both yesterday and today folks have mentioned briefly the ground saturation up here in our part of the country. I wonder if there’s a way to put some numbers on that, just to kind of give people a sense for how, you know, above normal or not ground moisture levels are as this storm, at least for now, appears to be taking aim at us over the long term?

Bill Read:	This is Bill Read. Now you’re from the New England area or from mid-Atlantic?

Peter Spotts:	New England.

Bill Read:	Okay, yes but, Taunton, Massachusetts, the river forecast center there -- I would contact David Vallee at that office and get the details on the ground saturation. What I was referring to yesterday, it looked like the rainfall -- hadn’t seen rainfall at least for the last two weeks or so, where in your area were in the 1 inch to 5 inch range.

	And further back to the mid-Atlantic we had some rainfall in the 5 inch to 10 inch rain, both of which was - certainly add moisture to the soils.

Peter Spotts:	Thank you.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Alex Villarreal of the Voice of America.

Alex Villarreal:	Hi. Yes, thank you. Going back to the Washington, DC area do you have any updates on Irene’s potential impact there, and specifically on the MLK Memorial Dedication, and what are you planning in terms of that?

Bill Read:	I’ll pass the dealing with it back to Craig. But the weather forecast hasn’t changed all that significantly the passage of the (audio drops out).

Rachel Racusen:	It looks like we may have lost Bill momentarily. But this is Rachel with FEMA Public Affairs. As far as any questions just about the memorial plans, we’re refer you over to the National Park Service. We are coordinating closely with them, but would refer a - you to them for more questions.

Coordinator:	Did you want to take more questions from the phone at this time?

Rachel Racusen:	Yes. We’ll take one or two more questions.

Coordinator:	Thank you. Our next question comes from Mariana Cobian of the Primera Hora Newspaper.

Mariana Cobian:	Good morning. Hi. I am from Puerto Rico. And here in the island we’re still suffering from the aftermath of Irene, either. It hasn’t stopped raining since Sunday. And last night President Obama signed an Emergency Declaration for Puerto Rico. We just - we were just wondering what’s the next step in order to receive the help? How does this work, now?

Craig Fugate:	Well right now, again, we’re supporting the Governor. Primary focus has been, as you point out, been getting heavy rains, mudslides, rivers are over their banks. There’s been several small communities that they’ve had to evacuate and open up more shelters. So we’re providing...

Mariana Cobian:	Yes.

Craig Fugate:	...the direct assistance the Governor’s requesting. We’re also beginning to do damage assessments. And that will give us the information for the Governor to determine what additional assistance he may ask for.

	But right now we, you know, with the Emergency Declaration we are able to support the Governor’s request for any emergency assistance and then we’ll look at the damages and impacts of residents there. And he’ll make a determination what assistance he’ll require.

Coordinator:	Our next question is from Ross Weidner of WLS TV, Chicago.

Ross Weidner:	Yes, thanks. This is on the same line of questions as the MLK. Wondering how - what kind of coordination are you doing with the Park Service? What does coordination mean? And what do you expect - when do you expect to make a call on an event like this?

Craig Fugate:	All right. Well let’s be clear about this. For the MLK it’s in the National Park Service jurisdiction. The National Park Police will be the incident command for this event. And so what they’re looking at, and as Bill pointed out yesterday, it was a little bit too early in the forecast to say specifically what impacts we could have here and how that would potentially impact the memorial.

	But the National Park Service, as we are working with them, and they are working with not only the Hurricane Center but the local weather service office, looking at what the timelines would be for making decisions about any activities and any modifications.

	But that’s really what their role and responsibility. But as part of the National Capital Region we provide them support and information. But the actual decision making will be handled by the park police as part of their incident management for the whole activities over this weekend for the MLK dedication.

Ross Weidner:	Thanks.

Coordinator:	Our next question...

Rachel Racusen:	One more question.

Coordinator:	...is from Brian Hartman of ABC News.

Brian Hartman:	Hi. Thanks for taking the call. Can you tell me, did the cell congestion, the wireless network congestion, affect the emergency response at all yesterday in DC and the mid-Atlantic? And also, I just wonder what you learned about the demand on the mobile network now that more and more people are cutting their landlines? Thanks.

Craig Fugate:	Part one, we had all of our systems -- our backup systems -- operating. We have a system that’s called NAWAS, which is a dedicated point-to-point communication system - phone line systems that were up and running. And again I think the, you know, a lot people were reaching for their Blackberries and couldn’t get dialtone. But we were still getting our emails and we could text.

	But our systems and our backup systems were up and running. So we were able to continue to operate. But it does point out, you know, as we talked to people about being prepared, that a mobile phone device is a good tool but it shouldn’t be only tool. And that’s why we still recommend portable radios and other devices to get information.

	But also the - you know, the thing that we saw yesterday that was getting through -- I’ll give you a personal example. My wife and mother-in-law were here in the District. They were at tourist attraction. And in the midst of all that, you know, you couldn’t call, you couldn’t get a dialtone.

	Buy my wife was able to text me a message that she was okay. Then I turned around and put an update on our Facebook page to let our family know across the area that she and my mother-in-law were okay. You know, and again we kind of had - that was our backup plan.

	And so for a lot of folks yesterday as they couldn’t get through, if you had a backup plan, you had something to do. But here’s reality -- cell systems and any type of system, when you have that many people getting on the phone simultaneously across the area you’re going to have congestion.

	And, you know, I know a lot people were trying to reach out, find out about children, what, you know, what’s happening at schools, find out about loved ones. And this is something that we expect happens, and that’s why we encourage people that, yes, a cell phone’s a good communication tool.

	But it should not be your only tool. You need to have a backup plan. And oftentimes the family communication plan is probably the first thing that people should get done. Because as we saw yesterday, even when there’s no significant damages and the factor of not being able to reach or communicate with loved ones can be very stressing in the immediate aftermath of something like shaking motion for that - that we got with that earthquake yesterday.

Rachel Racusen:	Great. Thank you all for your questions. And again, we encourage you to contact either the National Hurricane Center Press Office of any questions that you didn’t get to ask Bill Read or the FEMA Press Office for any follow-up questions for us.

	And I’ll turn it over to Administrator Fugate for any last thought.

Craig Fugate:	All right, everybody. You know, we’re going to be, probably for the next couple days through the weekend, talking about Irene. But as we saw yesterday, disasters don’t stop just because we’re focused on one event. We still have wildfires, we have drought, we have heat waves, we’ve had tornadoes, we still have flooding.

	A lot of things still go on in this country. So was we focused on Irene we have to remember that we don’t always get a forecast for the next disaster. And that’s why when we ask people to be prepared, you know, it isn’t just for the things we see coming.

	September’s National Preparedness Month. If nothing else yesterday, it should remind people in the Northeast if you think hurricanes are rare, earthquakes are even rarer. And that’s why we got to be prepared year round.

	So we just continue to appreciate the support you give when you get that information to people about what to do and preparedness tips. And again, with this particular hurricane, a lot of folks are going to be watching this storm. You’re going to be the communication outlet. So whatever you need from us to get that story out there to tell people the information they need, you know, we’re there to support you in that effort.

Rachel Racusen:	Great. Thank you all for joining us, and we’ll be in touch with more details on our plans for tomorrow.

Coordinator:	This does conclude today’s conference call. You may disconnect your phones at this time.


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