Coordinator:	Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time your lines have been placed on listen-only until we open for questions and answers.

	To ask a question you may press star 1. Please be advised today's 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 Miss Rachel Racusen with FEMA. Please go ahead.

Rachel Racusen:	Hi everyone this is Rachel Racusen with FEMA's press office. Thanks again for joining us today. Just before we get started and I turn it over to Bill Read with the National Hurricane Center I want to just go over some quick housekeeping items first.

	If anyone needs to reach the National Hurricane Center's press office after this call for follow-up questions or more information, you can reach them at 305-229-4404. And if you need to reach the FEMA press office you can call us at 202-646-3272 or you can e-mail us at fema-news-desk@dhs.gov.

	And just a reminder that when we get to the question-and-answer portion of the call, please state your name and publication before you ask a question.

	And with that I'd like to turn it over to Bill Read.

Bill Read:	Thank you Rachel. Good morning everybody. Those who have been following the Irene saga, well this is the sixth day of this hurricane. It's been a major hurricane since yesterday. Currently we're in the northwest Bahamas (unintelligible) island, moving over the Abacos this afternoon, 115 mph sustained winds with higher gusts. We've had gusts as high as 128 measured on Cat Island overnight last night.

	We're now moving north northwest at 13 miles an hour. Yesterday and the day before it was more of a northwest track. This is the expected turn. It's pretty much on schedule and on track at that point. So the next areas of concern as it exits the Bahamas is what the impact will be in North Carolina.

	We have hurricane watches up now for most of the North Carolina coast, tropical storm watch down through most of the South Carolina coast to the west of the main trend area to the passage of the center.

	Confidence in the track at least through Saturday morning is quite high. There will be an impact on eastern North Carolina. The storm in our opinion will maintain major hurricane status with winds of 115 mph as it approaches the coast of North Carolina on Saturday morning. On this track, a dangerous storm surge can be expected along and to the right of where the center makes landfall. Then of course we have the very high winds and being a large hurricane, a tropical storm force and hurricane force winds over a large area as it passes through North Carolina.

	That said we think we'll have to go with hurricane warnings possibly most likely with a 5 o'clock advisory this evening and most likely for the same general area for which the watch is in effect now. We'll probably extend the hurricane watches northward into the mid-Atlantic region also with the 5:00 pm advisory. I don't have the details yet; we have to coordinate that with the affected offices.

	The storm will continue moving towards the north northeast after it crosses North Carolina and the uncertainty while not as great as yesterday, there still is some. This will bring into play the Tidewater area of Virginia and the Delmarva Peninsula and the lower Chesapeake Bay at a minimum. Any further deviation to the left could bring direct center impacts as far inland as the Washington/Baltimore area and after that the rest of the eastern seaboard is well within the path of this storm. Regardless of the fine details of where the center goes, it’s going to bring into play all of the northeast corridor for heavy rains, high winds and coastal storm flooding.

	Sunday morning the impacts will be on the Delmarva and Jersey Shore, Sunday afternoon into Monday morning for New England and New York.

	I think I'll stop at that point and pass it back to you Rachel.

Rachel Racusen:	Great thanks Bill. I'd now like to turn it over to Administrator Fugate.

W. Craig Fugate:	Well with the cheerful news Bill gives, we're busy and we have teams as far south and have deployed into the State Emergency Operations Center in North Carolina supporting their teams. We have teams that are either there or en route all the way up the East Coast, including Maine. We have liaisons in the State Emergency Operations Centers and have folks that are coordinating all the way down to some of the major metropolitan areas.

	We have been moving supplies, we talked about that. To kind of give you a better idea, although I don't have any direct requests from governors yet because we haven't been hit, the first phase of all of this is to support the states in their evacuation operations. And as Bill points out as those hurricane watches go further north, we would expect the Mid-Atlantic States to begin making decisions if evacuations will be required. That is something that local and state officials do and that's why it's very important for people to heed the evacuation orders of local folks and listen to their local TV and radio stations for those updates.

	FEMA, national media just does not have the ability or the capability to really cover every jurisdiction and that's why we really want to put the emphasis on the evacuation orders or recommendations will come from the local officials. Local TV and radio stations are oftentimes the ones that will be carrying that specific information. We are in support of that through the governor's team.

	But we are also planning for the impacts in the first days after the storm hits. We are prepositioning supplies. We'll give you a couple of locations and this does not indicate we think these states will be hit, they were just locations we picked to provide a forward area to park these supplies and have them closer to the impact, so Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Westover, Massachusetts; and McGuire, New Jersey are three of the what we call initial staging base where we send trucks of supplies. 

These include generators and these are not little ones that you get at the hardware store, these are big generators designed for public safety and critical infrastructure. We are prepositioning bottled water, shelf-stabile meals, baby infant supplies, tarps and durable medical goods to support shelter operations are just some of the examples including communication equipment and others.

	Again we don't have formal requests from the states and because they're located in a state, that does not mean we think that state will be impacted. As Bill points out, North Carolina has got the greatest threat right now and looks most likely to receive a landfall from this storm.

	But these facilities such as Fort Bragg, North Carolina are military bases that we do in conjunction with the Department of Defense. Supplies are either at these locations or will be arriving prior to the impacts of the storm. And again our role right now is still focused on supporting governors as evacuations are being ordered as we've seen already in the outer banks of North Carolina and we anticipate maybe required further up the East Coast, and then preparing for initial response to the aftermath of the hurricane by moving supplies into these areas to have them ready to go.

	I'd like to thank everybody. I think there's hardly any excuse for people not to know that there's a hurricane out there and helping get the word out about being prepared, but we're going to rapidly see the time from being prepared to the time of action change over as we've already seen in North Carolina with the evacuations for the outer banks. And people need to understand that their time will be running out to be prepared and be ready in case of evacuations or other protective measures.

	We oftentimes focus on the coastal residents but as Bill points out, this will not just be a coastal storm. We can see impacts well inland both from winds that can cause widespread power outages as trees come down especially due to the saturated soil, but also flooding. Even today -- this not part of Irene -- but even today we have a system coming through the mid-Atlantic and here in D.C. we have flash flood warnings that have been issued so we've had a lot of rain up here.

	We're probably going to see more rain, more flood risk and so a lot of the simple safety tips about turnaround don't drown if we have flooded road. Again if you're not in the evacuation zone as the storm moves through, stay inside, stay off the roads and again after the storms be very careful.

	We'll probably for this one again we'll not just see coastal impacts but impacts well inland and we're just asking people now to take time to be prepared and ready. And again we thank you for all the stuff you've done to get the word out particularly getting information out about ready.gov and our mobile site m.fema.gov.

	But I think it's really important that people turn to the state and local officials now as evacuations orders have started and we expect to see more along the East Coast as unfortunately Irene continues to track our way.

	So with that I'll turn it back over to Rachel.

Rachel Racusen:	Great thanks. And we're ready for questions now.

Coordinator:	Thank you. And at this time if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your touchtone phone. If your questions has been answered, you may remove yourself by pressing star 2.

	Once again if you have a question, please press star 1.

	Our first questions comes Rory O'Neill and please state your publication.

Rory O'Neill:	Hi it's Rory O'Neill with Metro Radio Networks. Mr. Fugate, the New England area probably hasn't gotten a hurricane obviously in couple of decades how -- for the people who don't know compared to us down here in Florida -- how will FEMA manifest itself to average residents? How will they know that you are responding to the area?

W. Craig Fugate:	Well I think again it will always be determined upon what the impacts are, the governor's request for assistance and whether or not there's damage as a result and a presidential disaster declaration. But really we don't want to take away from the officials at the local and state level. That's really the folks that are making the decisions and are carrying out evacuations.

	As far as our presence, we just want to reassure people we're there supporting those teams but if the public's seeing FEMA, it's most likely if we've had impacts and if we do have a request for and the president declares it a disaster area particularly individual assistance. Otherwise, you know, we're doing things to get ready but we're not getting in front of the governor's teams; we're there to support them.

Coordinator:	Thank you. Our next question comes from (David Curley) and please state your publication.

(David Curley):	ABC News. For both of you, can you give us a sense - it looks like North Carolina gets hit pretty hard, when it bounces up and then hits New York then further up into New England, what's your sense when it's a 2 what it going to do to those areas?

Bill Read:	Yes I'll hit it first from the weather perspective there. One of the things we talked about yesterday was the last month of rainfall across the area from the nation's capital up into southern New England has much above normal rainfall so you have saturated ground. At the very minimum we're going to get five to 10 inches of rain and a wide swath of winds that are blowing in the tropical storm gust to hurricane force. Even inland you're going to get a lot of tree fall out of that and you're going to get a lot of flooding out of that. It's almost a given.

	So I think flooding and power outages and damage caused by trees is going to be a big story as the storm moves inland over the northeast.

W. Craig Fugate:	And this is Craig. And that's really again for folks that are not on the immediate coast but are inland and that's -- we're not just talking a few miles, this could be fairly large areas along the coast and inland -- to be prepared for power outages and those power outages may be extensive. Again as Bill points out the wind field in the storm is very large and you don't really need the hurricane force winds. If you've got tropical force winds, remember that's from about 40 mph all the way up to right at hurricane force would be considered tropical force.

	If you get 50, 60 mph winds blowing for hours over an area with saturations, that's going to cause a lot of tree damage and trees coming down. So widespread power outages is something people need to be prepared for. And again it's too early to say exactly where that's going to happen but along the eastern seaboard from the Carolinas north, it's something people need to factor in as they get their supplies.

Coordinator:	Thank you. Our next question comes from Peter King and please state your publication.

Peter King:	That's very much. It's Peter King with CBS News Radio. And two questions for Administrator Fugate, Craig number one are you seeing evidence that people are taking this storm seriously up north as Mr. O'Neill mentioned a few moments ago, they're not used to this stuff. And my second question is do you have a message for people who refuse to evacuate even though evacuation orders might be given?

W. Craig Fugate:	Sure. I think when you have Mayor Bloomberg and his team take time to talk about a storm in New York City it is significant. So I think the message out there, just looking at social media, looking at tweets on Irene and stuff like that, a lot of information is being shared. So hopefully, you know, people are taking the steps but I think we're seeing a lot of not only the official information but we're seeing a lot of the general public taking that information and sending it to friends and family. So there's a lot of stuff out there, you know Facebook, Twitter, updates that people are putting out there so the awareness of the storm I think is good.

	But the hard thing is as you point out is action. So for those folks who make that decision -- and again this is a decision you're going to make is not to evacuate when an order is given. Unfortunately we cannot predict with certainty that you will absolutely flood and so a lot of times people will evacuate, come home and their homes are fine and then they complain about the hassle of having to evacuate. Well, you know, quite honestly if we had the ability to tell people who would flood and who wouldn't, we'd do it. We don't. We have to do it by the areas of risk and the problem is people run out of time, waiting for a better forecast or hoping it's not that bad.

	And Peter you were down in Florida, I think you heard some of the 911 calls that we had particularly in hurricane Ivan where literally people calling 911, the roads were cut off, they're not passable, we got almost hurricane force winds, the water's coming up and they're calling 911 begging to be saved and nobody can get to them. And then we have to put the responders in harms way oftentimes when the storm is still active, try to get to people.

	So this is really about life safety and again if we could only limit it to the folks that we absolutely knew would flood we'd do it but we don’t. We have to ask people to leave areas. And this is again why it's so critical that you heed the evacuation orders that are going to come from the local officials. They know the conditions, they work with the hurricane center, they have the best data possible and they oftentimes are having to make these decisions hours if not days before the hurricane gets there. So they're having to factor in all the traffic congestion at evacuation times.

	I just cannot emphasize this enough: if you live in an evacuation zone, your plan should be to evacuate if the order comes. And if you return home and your home is fine, count your blessings. But again delay can be deadly and you'll run out of time and lose options and there's a point at which the local responders will not be able to get to you if it gets too bad.

Peter King:	Thank you.

Coordinator:	Thank you. Our next question comes from (Rich Kleinwort) and please state your publication.

(Rich Kleinwort):	(Rich Kleinwort) with WMCT in Greenville, North Carolina and this is to Administrator Fugate. What is the latest that you guys are doing in North Carolina and what can you say to our residents?

W. Craig Fugate:	Again Governor Perdue has - she's declared an emergency and (Doug Holt) the State Emergency Management Director stood up the State Emergency Operations Center in support of the county Emergency Management Agencies. We have one of our incident management teams already joined up with (Doug's) team so as they're looking at evacuations we're ready to support that.

	But the thing about North Carolina, that's a very experienced, robust team that's dealt with a lot of previous disasters and so they have a lot of capabilities. So part of it was we moved a lot of supplies to get into Fort Bragg. We weren't sure if it was going to be the Carolinas or not but it looks like North Carolina. We're there basically supporting the governor's team, again because North Carolina has a rather robust response capability. We don't have a formal request yet to support the governor but we do have our teams and supplies. They're ready to go.

	Again we want to tell people there is listen to the governor and her team and listen to your local officials. They know best what you need to do in your communities and we're there to support that team.

Coordinator:	Thank you. Our next question comes from Evan Lehmann and please state your publication.

Evan Lehmann:	ClimateWire. Thanks for holding this call. Administer (sic) Fugate, FEMA is conducting a study now that finds climate change impacts could increase the flood plane size by 45% over the next decades in part because of storm surge related risks from hurricanes. Should the National Flood Insurance Program be considering climate change impacts in its risk assessments?

W. Craig Fugate:	Well, you know, let's talk about Hurricane Irene and we'll get back to you on that because right now a lot of people are talking about things that we need to look at in the future, and yes we've got to look at that risk. But trust me a few inches or a few feet changes won't make a big difference when we're talking about storm surge from a Category 3 hurricane.

	So right now what we want to focus on is life safety and evacuations. And again we are looking at climate issues and how they impact, we've done projections on that and that's certainly something we have to look at in the future, but today I'm more concerned about people in the evacuation zones heeding evacuations.

Coordinator:	Thank you. Our next question comes from Laurel Sweet and please state your publication.

Laurel Sweet:	Good morning gentlemen. Laurel Sweet from the Boston Herald. If I could revisit a question from yesterday, could you update us on the status on the president's vacation on Martha's Vineyard and how involved he is in keeping an eye on the storm?

W. Craig Fugate:	Well I'll refer back to White House comms on his activities. I can't tell you that. This morning we did brief the president, he's been updated as the situation has developed. Again this storm as Bill already pointed out, we've been preparing and dealing with it first down on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico which unfortunately in Puerto Rico we're still dealing with flash flood and mudslide impacts there as we support the governor. So we keep him briefed. I personally had briefed him now on this storm and again this morning updated him on the status but will defer to the White House comms on the activities of the White House.

Laurel Sweet:	Thank you.

Coordinator:	Thank you. Our next question is from John Baer and please state your publication.

John Baer:	Philadelphia Daily News and it's for Bill Read. Bill is there any chance that this storm loses power as it travels north and can you say when the Jersey Shore should be impacted, for how long and to what extent?

Bill Read:	Okay the intensity - I wouldn't get too carried away about the absolute intensity of the storm. It will weaken as it moves north, we're fairly certain of that. Several factors in there ((crosstalk))

Man:	National Hurricane Center could you please mute your mic?

Bill Read:	What happened there?

	Okay we have - I have some interruption up here. Let me revisit this right here for you.

	As the storm moves north it's going to maintain its intensity, maybe even get a little stronger prior to North Carolina. Interaction with North Carolina and increasing wind shear is expected to weaken the intensity somewhat coming across there into the Delmarva. And then we're going to be encountering the increasingly colder waters of the Atlantic as we move north of the Gulf Stream. 

That combined with interaction with land and the wind shear that will going on, we anticipate the storm to reduce its intensity somewhat. I still think though that there's a possibility to be at the low end of the category 2 across the Delmarva and in southern New Jersey and…

((Crosstalk))

Man:	FEMA HQ Emergency Support doing a sound check.

((Crosstalk))

Bill Read:	The wind shear will still be large as far as area so we'll have a large area still having high winds. That's going to cause significant tidal effects and the wind damage we talked about earlier.

Man:	New York State Office of Emergency Management doing a sound check.

Man:	This is FEMA, you're loud and clear.

Rachel Racusen:	Folks, if you're not on the press conference call...

Coordinator:	Our next question comes from Scott Thuman and please state your publication.

Scott Thuman:	Yes ABC 7 news out of Washington, D.C. Gentlemen either one can answer this, I'm just curious if there's another storm or system that you would compare this very one to when you think of the size, scope and the potential impact and also just how far inland do you think we could see severe flooding?

Bill Read:	Okay the ones I've been using of Gloria in 1985 is probably the closest one in recent times. Several storms in the 50's, Carol and Edna, followed a path not unlike what we're looking at here. For the Jersey Shore if we maintain the size and strength it was called the Great Atlantic Hurricane in 1944. There was a tremendous amount of wave action and beach damage going up through New Jersey.

	Rainfall along and both west and north of the path as this moves northward there's going to be a fairly large area of rain. This tropical moisture will be brought northward. I'd say a 5 to 10 inch swath covering much of the mid-Atlantic up into New England is a good forecast for right now on the rainfall.

Coordinator:	Thank you. Our next question comes from Ed O'Keefe and please state your publication.

Ed O'Keefe:	Washington Post. The first question was my initial question but Bill and Craig if the organizers of the Martin Luther King Memorial dedication on Sunday called you up even though they're supposed to call the regional office, what would you recommend they do?

W. Craig Fugate:	This is Craig. One of the things and again we're working with our National Capital Region which is actually--

Woman:	Good morning FEMA this is (Crystal City) requesting an AV check.

W. Craig Fugate:	We apologize…

((Crosstalk))

Man:	(Crystal City) this is FEMA, you're loud and clear.

W. Craig Fugate:	Let me keep going Ed. We need to know how much time ((crosstalk))

	Again we're still looking at what…

Man:	Good afternoon (unintelligible) this is ATF AV check please.

Man:	ATF this is (unintelligible), you're loud and clear.

((Crosstalk))

Man:	Copy same. Thank you.

W. Craig Fugate:	But anyway Ed it's being done and again my recommendation is how much time do they need before they have to make a decision to close down and that would help make determinations about when we could see those impacts and what's the timeline they would need. But that's really discussion that are ongoing right now as we coordinate with the parks service and the organizers about the potential impacts for this weekend.

Rachel Racusen:	Great and with that will be our last question. Folks we apologize for some of the difficulties just there. And again if you need anything further from either the National Hurricane Center or FEMA's press office, please contact us. Thanks for joining.

Coordinator:	Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.


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