5,000; Alabama, 7,000.

They just need someone to tell

us when they're coming, and they are ready to receive.

PATRICK RHODE: Thank you, Maggie. I have

not spoken to him but we do have I know- i 6 the works

an Emergency Decleration that will help Arkansas pay

for some of the influx so we are working those issues

- right now. Thank you Maggie. We'll make it happen.

COL. SMITH: We certainly appreciate that

That's great news, and we just need to make sure that

coordination happens. Gen. Graham has that

information, but of course he needs just a little more

detail, but that's good news. and we certainly

appreciate that. Thank you.

ED BUIKEMA: Jeff, this is Ed. It's just

going to wrap up from here. We're really going to

work this. Right now, as you said. the limiting

factor on the airlift is making sure we have enough

-
- places to put these people. There's been a great deal
of planning on this airlift and it's happening as we

- . *.- * - speak, and trust me, we're just as interested as you

to nail down these shelters. So, that's very, very

high priority right now, Jeff

COL. SMITH: I know you are, and I
appreciate i t .
 PATRICK RHODE: I know you guys have an
awful lot operationally going on right now. Does

anyone have any other specific questions for the State

=
of Louisiana.
-

(No response.)

Jeff, thank you, sir. Bill, thank you very

- much. appreciate everything you guys are doing, we're

with you all day and all night. Let's move on to

Mississippi.

M R . MIKE WOMACK: This is Mike Womack. I

think at the top of our list right now is fuel for

emergency vehicles -- primarily. we're talking about

gasoline to keep the law enforcement running. I would

say 1-20 South we're starting to run critically low on

gasoline to keep police cars serviced. It gets worse,

obviously. the further you go south, and we're not in

a desperate situation yet, but we really need to look

-- at that and maybe establishing fuel PODS in all of
those counties, or some method of making sure that our

police cars and our health care and emergency workers

, - *.- s --
for their civilian cars so they can get to these

facilities.

The second thing would obviously be the

commodities, and we know that that's an issue

- 14
 throughout the region. If we can commodities in.

then we can keep a lid on the issues dealing with

public safety.

The third thing from a strategic-standpoint

-

is I still am not real comfortable that anybody has

factored in everybody that's coming into south

- Mississippi, and that we've got the logistics to be

able to support i t . I've heard numbers of 10,000

National Guard troops, I have no idea about all the

other federal resources that are pushed in here.

We've got a substantial number of state resources and

EMAC resources. So, that's my only concern, is we

rush to push everything down here. that we've got

enough fuel and food and water to support it. Jesse.

JESSE: The other very critical issue that

is very severe, the allocations that we are receiving

today for ice and water are far, far below those that
-
- we requested, going to a very critical situation.

Also, we have with us Gen. Berwick. Gen. Berwick, do

.,.,- -- you have any comments?

,

GEN. BERWICK: None other than to absolutely

. -
reinforce the importance of taking a hard look at
logistics. I am the task force engineer for Joint
Task Force Katrina, we're taking a hard look. we'll
 help with that. And we're also making very clear to

any units of the Department of Defense that are coming

down here, that they must be self-sustaining at least

initially. So, thank you for that opportu'nity
-

MR. WOMACK: And also I believe Nick Russo

in our forward location has some comments, so at this

- time I would like to turn it over to Nick Russo.

MR. RUSSO: Good morning, Patr-ick. From the
forward command, we continue to support the state in

the efforts continue to drive the missions,

particularly the USAR missions and the rapid needs

assessment, Rapid needs assessment should be complete

by the end of tomorrow. I think we have identified

most of the problem spots. Obviously, fuel is the

critica1,factor down here. We are trying to find a

source for fuel down here with the state to supply the

hospitals. We have several critical care facilities

-
- that are within 24 hours of needing evacuation if they

run out of fuel for their generators, so that is

- - *.- -- clearly one of our priorities

As Jesse said. food. water. shelter and

sanitation. We do have the sanitation issue we think

is under control and we've mission assigned and

contracted for some portable facilities, and those are

- 16
 that they may have already disbanded and may not be

able to hear us. So, why don't we work this issue --

MISSISSIPPI: This is Mississippi. Patrick,

Y

could we have them repeat the question, please?

MARK: Sure. This is Mark (inaudible).

Yesterday we heard that apparently there are a good

- number of water utilities and water distribution

systems that we had not heard from, -and we were

speculating that they could possibly be distributing

the water by emergency generators. So. we talked

about the fuel need for hospitals. We were wondering

is there a fuel need for water distribution systems

that might be operating off of emergency generators

..~

right now.

MISSISSIPPI: Right now, one of the big

issues we have is not getting the generators. We

don't have the generators to run these systems. We

-
- have identified one source, the CB Base here at

Gulfport produces somewhere in the neighborhood of

750-to-780,000 gallons a day of surplus water that's

-. . - *... = ,

potable water that's clean and ready to go. The

problem'is trying to stand up enough water buffalo or

sanitary tankers that we can transport this water. If

we can just get it out t!o the people, they can take
 jugs or whatever and get it. We j"st need t ~ ' ~ eit
t

out there. Right now we're working those issues. But

as far as -- we need generators. We're supposed to

have a hundred-pack or two 50-packs that were pushed
-
down, but we haven't seen them yet. We can get some

of the stuff up and running.

- PATRICK RHODE: we'll try to give more

visibility to that. Nick. go ahead.

MR. RUSSO: Patrick. we're not aware of any

of the pumping stations operating on generators at

this time. There is no water flow.

PATRICK RHODE: Understood. Any other

specific questions for the State of Mississippi?

(No response.)
I know you've got to run and get back to

operations. Thank you for all the work you're doing.

Let's move on to Alabama. Alabama, are you with us.

- first?

MR. FILTER: This is Bill Filter,

Operations. We have 200,000 people still without

* -- .
power. We're hoping that that's going to be resorted

quicker, but the people that are without power right

now are the hard ones to restore. and it's going to be
time-consuming. Those numbers then require the

- 22
 en route today.
Our first base camp for.our workers has been
completed at Stennis Space Center. Second and third

base camps will follow hopefully by the Bnd of the

-

weekend. We are waiting delivery of our shelter --

three large shelters that we've ordered. so that we

can start putting some people under cover here, and we

continue to work with our DOD and our Guard partners

here in the state to try and meet the demands of the

victims here. Also, the State Coordinating Officer

here, om McAllister . Tom, anything?

MR. McALLISTER: I'm not State Coordinating

Office. that's Mike's job, but one of the things that

we need down here, we need security forces. We're

becoming totally defensive. We had one issue last

night where one of the PWSAR team was carjacked. a

vehicle was stolen. Some of that stuff-is going on.

Another thing is supplies for children. We

need the sustainables for children, like diapers,

pablum. food. formula, that kind of things. One of

-- ,

the victims told me, she said they need something for

rashes. There's no air conditioning, there's no heat.

there's no sanitation. These kids are coming down
with some enormous rashes. And manpower. We can't
 get manpower unless we can support it. ~ i g h t-now we

can ' t support -- logistica'lly, we can't support

(inaudible).

PATRICK RHODE: Jesse and Nick, ,if I could

-
jump in real quick. I wanted to say this to both you
and Mississippi and also over in Louisiana as well, we

are aggressively working with the ~e~ar-tment

of
-
Defense right now to speak to some additional

assistance on that logistical piece. Know that that's

happening right now.

MISSISSIPPI: Thank you.

PATRICK RHODE: Mississippi. anything else?

(No response.)

I guess the only other question I have would

have to be about the electrical situation right now.

and also the sheltering population, specifically

electricity. Is that improving a little bit in some

- of the northern counties?

MISSISSIPPI: Good news on that front. The

largest city in the south central part of the state.

* *.- -- ,

Hattiesburg, power is starting to come back up.

~ h e y ' v e'got about 10 percent, but fortunately the

,
largest hospital in the city does have power now.
Restoration is ongoing, and we are improving every

18
 day. but we know that the southern six counties it

will be weeks before any power.returns other than

generator power. But. yes. we are making progress.

MR. McALLISTER: One addition td that from
-

down on the coast, I spoke with the CEO of Southern

Power, which is our largest power provider on the Gulf

- Coast. They've already energized their large 240KV

system, They've got some of the system starting to

come back on. They are feeding power from other

states. He advised me that it won't -- they now don't

believe it will take quite as long to bring up because

most of the infrastructure that's down is not going to

be needed, where the houses were destroyed, where

there's nothing left. So there's large areas down

here where there's nothing existing, that they're just

going to cut off from, and try to get anything that's

up where people are at up and hot. So, we're probably

-_ looking at probably two weeks now. He's advised me in

two to three weeks we can get most of the power up.

PATRICK RHODE: Understood. Mississippi. I

-.-. - +.-. * -"
know you're obviously involved in heavy operations
. .
right now that we're helping you support. I don't
want to keep you. Does anyone have any specific
questions for Mississippi?
 (No response.)

Thank you for all the work that you're doing

right now. Alabama, are you on as well?

DHS NAC-ED MCDONALD: I have one question.

-
On the water distribution, we heard they're running
low on fuel with their generators. Is that being
. .. .

addressed also?
-
FEMA LOG: Yes, both of those issues are

being worked here with joint task forces with all the

ESFs .

PATRICK RHODE: Any other specific questions

for the State of Mississippi?

MARK: This is Mark (inaudible), from EPA.

Yesterday we heard that there were a good number of

utilities in Mississippi. and water distribution

systems, that could possibly be running off of

emergency generators, and if they were _low on fuel,

- the water distribution may cease from the utilities.

Is there any word from Mississippi on that?

PATRICK RHODE: Mississippi. did you hear
--
the question?

(No response.)
Guys. I ,think I'm looking at Mississippi
right now at one of the MERS vehicles, and I think
 support to go with it. Because they are spread out,
. .
it creates more problems.

In addition, we have our shelter population

%

growing, based on church groups and volunteer groups

that are going into Mississippi with busloads to bring

people back into Alabama, which is creating a shelter

- problem that we're addressing, which includes

defeating all the care issues that go -with it. and

right now we're handling that.

The logistics portion became overwhelming

for us. so what we've done is we've gone out to our

contractor, PBSGJ and brought them in to assist us in

getting the resources that we don't have access to on

a nationwide basis, and assist us. The key logistical

priorities shortfalls, same as everybody else. Fuel

is critical. We've set up through the Guard using

GPUs for refueling points, and we're attempting to get

- fuel to keep those going for emergency vehicles

That's a struggle.

Food distribution -- food and distribution

- - *.- a - ,

is a problem. We have kitchens and feeding units, but

it's getting the food out to the people, and that's

where the MREs come into play, where you can get those

out. And it's nice to have the kitchens, but if the

23
 people can't get to them, it doesn't do you any good

for the bulk population, so we8re.workingthat issue.

Water is right now okay, but if it's not

sustained, we're going to have problems. = A n d along

-

with that, a lot of support type .things -- shower

units, porta-potties, sanitation. all those -- the

- baby items and all those kind of comfort things that

go along with supporting population. particularly with

the children and the older people -- a lot of seniors

being 'brought in, taken to homes that we're dealing

with we're trying to capture. We don't have a good

feel again because in a lot of cases it's individual

citizens who get ten buses and go to someplace and

pick up these people and bring them back. and then we

have to react to that, so it's difficult to plan.

The question on EMAC. on law enforcement.

that was asked on California, Florida used California

-_ EMAC, and they have a drocess to do that state-to-

state. so you might contact Craig Fugate and find out

how they did that to help them out.

-. - - *.- e m ,

We are getting EMAC requests. and within the

realm of what our capabilities are, we're attempting

to support those. We have sent some law enforcement,

but based on our security concerns which are

increasing, we are having to keep most of our assets

in-house until we ready a point where we don ' t need

them.
*
Subject to your questions.

Two items to add, if I may. One is that

counties on the western border of Alabama are actually

. .

starting to provide commodities through their system

to their .neighboring counties in -Mississippi

Question was raised if that was okay. I said we

don[ ' t recognize state lines. I assured the states
and the counties will continue to provide that

assistance

We need to ensure that we keep a smooth

commodity flow. We're doing great on water right now.

Food and fuel, we're working with the DOD mission

assignment on the fuel issue. Thanks for that

information last night, by the way. We may actually

see a spike in our requirements for commodities

because of the sheltering that's occurring until the

power restoration to catch up and support those

shelters. So, even though Alabama may be looking at

power restoration, short-term we may have an actual

spike in requirements. That's it.

PATRICK RHODE: Ron, thank you very much for

 that report. Clearly, there are no lines in this

country today, so keep pushing those commodities. Can

you guys speak a little bit to the electricity

I

situation in Alabama right now, and- also the

sheltering situation?

ALABAMA: Well, the main problem with the

- utilities is that the main lines to the larger areas

was quick and easy to restore. What remains is a lot

of detailed work that you get low productivity. So.

they may be working long hours and with smaller

numbers being restored as they go through it. And

plus is we move up the west side of Alabama, it's very

remote. and you get up into the northwest portion. you

have much more difficult time restoring. So, it's

going to be a slow process on bringing those back.

What was your other question?

PATRICK RHDOE: Is the sheltering number

- (inaudible).
-
ALABAMA: Right now. the problem we're

having is capturing it because when you have these

1 - *.. -- church groups and volunteer organizations that go out

and bring-people back. they don't pop up on the screen

until they 'have a problem where they can no longer

support them. And although we applaud their efforts,

 what we have cautioned them is that we're not looking

at a two or three-day, or four-day event when they

talk about breakfast planned for this day or lunch

this day or dinner this day by a church gr'oup, we're
-

reminding them that we could be looking at months. and

that they have to get us involved. And that's

- difficult to do because they are going out and

bringing these people in, so we're tryi-ng to capture

that through the county EMAs and through P I 0 getting

out there,

PATRICK RHODE: Understood. Understood

completely. thank you very much. A n y other specific

questions for the State of Alabama?

(No response.)

We certainly appreciate all your help and

support. Let's move on to Florida.

FLORIDA: The State of Florida. The current

-
- situation in the State of Florida remains fully active

in support and response operations to EMAC state.

- -.
Total
.
of 1,185 local and state agency staff are on-

scene. Approximately half of that is law enforcement.

That number i f going to about 2800 over the next two

days as we mobilize additional Guard assets into the

area. Guard expenditures, $41 million and growing.
 Our unmet needs continuing to search for

commodity items to push in that area. Future

operation concerns, there are some tropical systems in

*
the Atlantic. None of those appear to be a threat.

There is one wave, however, which may be of concern

early next week.

- Our mission to our troops in the field

supporting the response to the great State of

Mississippi is simply secure, search and stabilize.

and we will continue to support that mission until

those objectives are reached. Any questions for

Florida?

PATRICK RHODE: Craig, thank you all for

your support, really appreciate it, Let's move on to

the State of Texas.

TEXAS: The State of Texas continues to

support Louisiana in two phases. One is the search

- To that end -- I won't go through the
- and rescue.

list -- we've basically committed all our capability

in the State of Texas, which is a tremendous amount,
. - -.- --
to the search and rescue operation in New Orleans. We

have no operational capability left in the State of

Texas. at the state level, to give.
To the other phase. the she1tering phase,
 this is obviously ramping up to be a major operation.

The first priority, of course, ' 1s to the Houston

area. We have 18,000 evacuees at the AstroDome, with

1

4.000 being in-processed as we speak. We'_reexpanding

that operation to other facilities in the Houston area

to be able to accommodate those that we anticipate to

- flow in.

We have 67 other shelters in the state, with

a .population of 10,570. We've also have opened two

other shelter hubs besides the Houston AstroDome, one

in San Antonio and one in Dallas. I need to make two

very important comments here that are very. very

important. We want all airplanes to go to Lackland

Air Force Base. We have asked this now for three

days. Last night, four airplanes from DOT arrived at

Houston in the middle of the night. So, I ask and

plead, don't send any airplanes to Houston, they need

..

-- to go to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, and

it['s very important that we do that. We're set up to

receive air traffic and be able to shelter those

,-. - -- * -
people there.

-we were told last night there would be 13

sorties flown this morning. I need to know if that

is, in fact, true. We need all bus traffic, all buses

29
 need to go to Dallas via 1-20, We do not need to send
anymore buses 1-10 into the State of Texas via

Beaumont. We've really created an uncontrolled exodus

versus a planned evacuation here. We must have --
-

don't have, but must have -- we need a single poin't of

contact between DOT, FEMA and DOD for the evacuation

- because we're getting different elements evacuated,

all well intended. We're here to recei-ve.we're not

here to be part of the problem, but we must have a

single point of contact, if we can, to tell us when

these buses are leaving, when these airplanes are
leaving, so we can understand. We're perfectly
prepared to receive at the borders of Texas. Our

Department of Public Safety is literally canvassing

the eastern part of the state, so we're picking up --

I would characterize that probably 90 percent of the

bus traffic we receive now is unplanned-for in terms

- of having visibility of it. So, please, whoever
planners are, whether,itlsDOD or whoever. if you're

launching an aircraft with evacuees in it , please send

.~ - .,.*. e -
it to Lackland Air Force Base. We thought we.had that
. -
nailed down. It caused a tremendous amount of
confusion last night

Same thing with trains. We understand

 there's this train operation. we keep hearing about

it. where there's a train going to leave and go to

Lafayette, download on DOT buses that go to Houston.

That simply cannot happen. If that is.

- ln fact, in

operation. Also, there are Department of Justice U.S.

Marshal flights. we understand. They are being used

- by DOJ to evacuate. Those are outside anybody's

window. In fact, that's what showed up last night.

So, my question to you. I guess, is there a central

joint operation center for evacuation. and who that

is. so we can -- I will actually deploy liaison

people to New Orleans to sit in there so we can get

that visibility, but please help us do this.

PATRICK RHODE: Jack, can I -- Scott Wills,

are you on the horn -- Scott Wills, Louisiana?

BILL LOKEY: Patrick, I d o n ' t think Scott's

on, he's working the evacuation This is Bill

PATRICK RHODE: Okay. I think that's who

needs to speak up amongst the few other players to

-- make sure we're working that issue.

,

TEXAS: I need to know now who i t is that

we need to talk to about when planes are leaving and

when buses are leaving. I mean. just tell me now. Is
there somebody we need to talk to?
 BILL LOKEY: scott Wells would be the point

of contact. but the actual timing would have to come

out of the site at the Dome for buses and out of the

airport, and I do not have points of contact there and

-
their numbers at this time. I can get that for you as

soon as this call is over.

TEXAS: w e i l , that's the important part. I

talked to Scott. It's very frustrating .for Scott. and

I know that. We get information from Scott and we

assume that's a fact, what Scott tells us is correct -

- you know, the information we get from Scott is, in

fact, correct -- number of buses. timing and that, but

that's probably 10 percent of it. Ninety percent of

it is traffic that's coming from other sources. Now,

we're not here to be part of the problem. we just need

to know. It's not necessary we can receive. but the

big parts -- aircraft do not need to go to Houston

- anymore. Buses go to Dallas. And this train

operation that's being done by DOT. we need to know

more about that, if in fact is it even going today.

- - *.. .- ,

We hear about a 1,000-passenger train that's coming to

ex as or is going to Lafayette where they're going to

download them on buses. That's the end of my

question.
 BILL LOKEY: And I will get answers to that
and get them to you as soon as the call is over, sir.
TEXAS: Thank you.

PATRICK RHODE : Very good, ' Jack, we

-

appreciate that. We'll definitely circle back

on that question. That's a big key component of

. .

this operation right now. Let's continue to

move on right now

MATT: Patrick, this is Matt. Just one

question for Texas, please. We understood (inaudible)

SuperDome, the fire marshall had restricted

habitability to about 10-12,000. You had reported

18.000 there. Did they allow us to exceed that limit? .

TEXAS: We're looking at Houston as a hub.
You all are focused on the AstroDome, we're looking at

the George Brown Center, Reliance Center, so we're

looking at the whole area as a shelter hub. So. that

-_ thing about the fire marshal piece, even though it

might have been an impact in Houston, i t was not an

impact -- that has operationally nothing to do with

- - -. -- .
it. You're focused on a piece of real estate. we're

looking at the Houston area as a hub. So, we're using

the AstroDome, Reliance Center, a place called the

George Brown Center, which is even bigger than the

 AstroDome. So, we're looking at a complex of

facilities versus one facility. So. yes, there was

some national thing about the fire 'marshal piece. but

that's not an issue for us. Same thing for Reunion

-
Arena. Reunion Arena is not the facility. it's there,

we're going to branch out to other communities in that

- metroplex area to receive these evacuees. Same thing

with San Antonio also. So, everybpdy's getting

focused on a facility, and that's not the issue.

MATT BRODERICK: So there are 18.000 in the

Houston area then, right?

TEXAS: Yes, and they also raise the cap in

terms of there's no longer 1 8 , 0 0 0 . They went to

11,000, and they moved it even higher. I just want to

point out that's not the issue. We're addtessing it,

the 2 5 , 0 0 0 , in other locations.

PATRICK RHODE: Thanks everybody.

.-
Bill
- Lokey. are you still on, are you there with us?

MR. LOKEY: Yes, Patrick. I'm here

PATRICK RHODE: I'd ask you to call Ed

,.-.--*.-. --
Buikema as soon as you possibly can.

MR. LOKEY: Okay, will do.

PATRICK RHODE: Thank you. With that in

mind, iet's go ahead and go over to Region 4 first. if

 we could. I ' m going to skip o v e r - ~ e ~ i o6 n for one
second, and go to Region 4 for your report. Thank

you.
REGION 4: Yes, sir, just real quick. Fuel,
-
food, and commodities are our priorities. too. We're

working on supporting, trying to get some additional

. .

- fuel lined up and into the area. On the food. we've

ordered 10 million MREs for distribution to Maxwell
and Meridian. And communications, we've sent

satellite phones yesterday, 30 to Alabama, 41 to

Mississippi, that we had here.

We're also working on a phone bank

procurement that will be placed at DRCs as base camps

in both states, and we also received a request from

Tennessee, and we just received the Georgia, Patrick,

just a few minutes ago.

We've been in contact with those two states,

-
- and in Tennessee they have approximately 15 shelters
open. Their issues are manpower for the ARC shelters

They're estimating approximately 10,000 evacuees may

-- .

be needing long-term care. Children that are rendered

. .
homeless from the hurricane, they've already starfed

enrolling them in schools in Tennessee. without the

academic ,or medical records. Tennessee has also
 opened its public universities -and colleges to
displaced college students, and they have 35 officers

of a Military Police Company deployed to Mississippi.

Georgia also is currently ,providing
-
resources. They received people last night in some
shelters. They currently have nine shelters open with
. .

49 refugees, and the number is expected to increase.

-
In both of these states we have folks in motels and

hotels. and they are maxing out on their credit cards

and probably will be needing places to stay.

In addition. we've also been in contact with

\
Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina, and asked

them to start looking at a plan in case they need to

start receiving any refugees, Any questions for us?

PATRICK RHODE: Any questions for Region 4?

(No response.)

Thank you, Region 4, appreciate all the

-
- work, Let's move on to Region 6.

REGION 6 : Good afternoon, Patrick. As

mentioned earlier, we did receive our declarations for

-. - *.- * -. ,
\

Texas and Arkansas. Gary is en route to Austin or the

Texas EOC,'with a small management team to get set up

there. Frank Pagano (phonetic). who was our RRCC

Night Director, will be departing sometime early

 evening for Arkansas to establish communications
there. ,We have liaisons at both locations, have had
for several days.

We also made contact early this mdrning with

-

the Long-Term Recovery Center asking for assistance

based on information that we had worked out with Mr.

. .

- Cauley yesterday. Justin Amelo and the center is

going to send us four DRC task forces w-ith 25-person

teams for each task force, also a heavy ERD-A to

assist with the DFO whenever it's determined. I think

at this point, Jack's leaning towards Houston, SO

that's where that will go. He's also agreed to send

us several logistical support personnel to help out

with these efforts.

Communications is still an issue with us 1

between the RRCC and our partners up in Louisiana, but

we continue to work the issue with MERS!_ Commodities

-
- we're just about in the same boat, I think, as
everyone else. We currently. as of 10:30, had on hand

- ten trucks of ice, 21 trucks of water, and one truck

,

of MREs at Beauregard, being pushed toward the

SuperDome and the other distribution points.

We have 40 trucks of water and 100 trucks of

ice that are en route to Beauregard as we sit here

 We've also contracted with DOD for up to 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 meals
per day, with the first 5 0 , 0 0 0 being delivered by air
sometime later this a £ternoon td the SuperDome . We
have no ETA on that.
*
The Clearbrook contractor thab's providing

our temp housing support at Fort Allen has been

assigned and agreed .to deliver 1 8 , 0 0 0 bagged meals

-
three times a day, starting tomorrow morning, to the

SuperDome. They can increase this number as required

for us.
Housing, we're working a mission

establishment to establish a temporary shelter at Camp

Mendor, Louisiana, for 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 personnel. It will be

a turnkey operation. We should have approximately

15.000 up by Sunday.

We've turned over the temporary housing that

we established the base came for the federal employees

- at Fort Allen. 2700, to accommodate evacuees. as well

-
as approximately 800 on the quarters-boats that
arrived there last night.
,. . *.- -- . We're working with GSA searching for large

footprint areas in Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, to

establish shelter and facilities. Now we're looking

for a place to put our employees up there, we'll be

 working that issue at the same time.
Fuel. we still have no resolution. It

continues to be a problem. We know you're working the

issue for us, and we appreciate it. We Qnderstand

-

that there's an aviation fuel shortage, or potential

for one, at New Orleans Airport. ESF-1 is working to

- identify just exactly what that is and see what we

need to do to correct i t , if we bring in aviation fuel

from outside the state, or whatever it is we have to

do to get aviation fuel there. Somewhat limited

visibility, obviously, as you all know, here on how

that's working.

We know that Col. Smith is on i t , but. Bill.

.-

we know that DMORG 7 and 8 are en route to your

location. That question was asked earlier. I don't

have an ETA on those folks at this point. And if you

would, Bill, please pass to Col. Smith my recommended

to Wayne (inaudible) from Arkansas that he might want

to send an LN02 to Jeff to work, as Texas has done. I

-,~..-- ..- -- think that's helped to alleviate some of the problems.

,

but again just reiterating what Jack said. we really

need to know when things are leaving and when they are
supposed to arrive. That's all that I have from

Region 6 . If you have any questions. I'm prepared to

- 39
 answer them, sir.
PATRICK RHODE: Any specific questions for

Region 6 ?
=
(No response.) -

We certainly appreciate all the good work

you guys are doing there, keep pushing. At this point,

- I want to turn it over to Ed Buchema, our Director of

Response. E d ?
MR. BUIKEMA: I want to quickly go around

here at Headquarters to touch on some of our

operational elements, and I'll pick on Logistics

first, Maryanne?

LOGISTICS: We're working with all of our

ESF partners to meet the shortfalls in the food and

the water and fuel. We're working with Trans on the

delivery between us an Region 4, we know of 30 million

MREs that are being sourced from DLA. We have
-
- alternate food sources with as well. that we have

worked with Acquisition to procure additional meals.

On the disaster portable morgue going into Baton

-.-. - 4.- * -
Rouge, it's about four hours out. Are there any

questions for Logistics?

(No response.)
MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, Maryanne. I want
 to reiterate something Patrick said earlier, and that

is we are asking for Department of Defense to help us

with this more than has been thus far. so we're

grateful for their assistance. And we are sognizant

of the great amount of concern with -respect to

commodity flow, and as you all know, we're working

. this as hard as we could. So, thanks, Maryanne.

-
Let's go to Operations. Mike?

OPERATIONS: The NRCC is coordinating

support required for all field operations. In

addition. we have established four task forces here at

Headquarters -- one on communications, one on food.

one on fuel. and one on security. They are working in

concert with IIMG, and I will defer for reports out

from the individual ESFs

MR. BUIKEMA: Thanks, Mike. I'm not going

to go ESF by ESF for time concerns. but-I would like

to ask for a couple of them. We've touched on some of

-
them already. I'd like to ask Jack Bell to talk about
the NDMS system, part of ESF-8

... - *.- *- ,
MR. BELL: In Region 6. I did talk to Todd

Ellis as the DORG commander running that operation,.

. .
DPMU team is at San Gabriel. He's got a forward
operation set forward in one of the other areas. The
 issue he's dealing with right now is fuel, maki-ng sure
he's got a place for the teams to st&. He alluded to

a school next door to his morgue operation. and we're

going to see if he can get that school. His forward

I

team is located in Jefferson Parish. He's got his

resources. He understands that he's got a 100,000

square foot building that he's working. that we can go

. .

- ahead and set additional morgue units up. As Maryanne

reported, we do have a second morgue en route to the

location, and we've also approached to get a big

morgue operation out of a vendor out of Atlanta.

Georgia. We started that process yesterday. I'll

follow through today to find out where that is.

We also sent the WMMIRG cash to that

location to support Todd, and we also launched a team

because there was concern dealing with the personnel

that were in the water. The other additional DMOR

Todd had requested those DMORs not be sent into the

-
- area until he was ready to receive them. He gave us

the word earlier, and we have launched DMORG 7 and 8

- - to his location and, as I said, the WMDDMOR team is at

his location. He was concerned about fuel for the

reefers. He said he felt he had sufficient reefers.
but he needed fuel for those reefers, and he also
 needed reefer at the airport. He advised that there
was a situation there, so we've been working to

resolve that for Region 6 . If there are any other

questions.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, Jack, appreciate

that very much. I want to go to ESF-1, we've already
. .

- had a lot of talk about transportation. You're key

ESF in this whole thing. Vince, can you take over?
, ESF-1: Thank you. I'11 speak to several

elements. We currently have 605 buses in the

pipeline, operating and evacuating. We have another

500 being sources into the system, They will arrive

over a period of hours to days. We have hourly

reports coming in. To the degree that we can

determine location of those assets, we have personnel

on the ground at marshalling stations for the buses.

so we are continuing to build that capacity in major

-
- chunks.

The air operations, first military aircraft,

we are running military air only until noon local, at

.- - *- * --
which time we will commence military and commercial

simultaneously. along with the ongoing medical

evacuation from New Orleans Airport. We began this

morning. First military aircraft was on the ground at
 0715 local. We eventually had four on the-ground
loading. One of our challenges is that it is taking

as much as three hours to load an aircraft because of

the condition of some of the personnel. We are

1

working jointly with TSA and the Federal Air Marshal

Service. and with the Department of Defense. DOD put

a ground services .crew on the ground before their

-
first evacuation flight arrived, got equipment out and

up and running. The airlines will be providing their

own gate personnel. The commercial airlines will be

providing their own gate personnel

We had a conference call with the Air

Transport Association. We have sourced 15 commercial

aircraft. The first ones scheduled in at 12:15 today.

Most of these are aircraft of Class Ds running

between 120 to 170 parsons per aircraft. TSA is

putting people on the ground. They have -- they have

- adopted a modified screening process. Obviously.

there's intermittent power. so they can't use normal

portals. We have worked the air traffic control

-- issues. Of course. our partners in ESF-1 from the

Forest Service are doing an outstanding job of

facilitating air operations as well. So, we have a

significant regional evacuation underway by air, by

 bus. We are continuing to work with Amtrak, Federal

Rail Administration, the Energy E S 9 as well. We had a

power line that came down yesterday across the tracks

-- where else -- and to get that train -ruzning. We

got everything but donkey carts going right now.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, Vince, appreciate

- that very much, and appreciate all the work you folks
have been doing.

The other -- the last ESF I'd like to ask to

report is ESF-13.

SCOTT WEBER: Ed, before you move on, whose

responsibility within ESF-1 is it to address the

concerns from Texas, as far as coordinating

information for when buses leave, f o r when planes

leave. for when trains leave, and ensuring that we are

sending people to the appropriate locations?

MR, BUIKEMA: Scott. as I thi-nkBill Lokey

-
mentioned, his staff down there working with the state

-- I know there is representation there from the State

- .-
-, - *.. -- of Texas working side by side with the FEMA folks and
,

the State of Louisiana folks a s well as the Logistics

. "

person down there, so that component is together down

there. and I know there's good communication so f a r .

And if we can improve that communication. we're going

 to try to continue to do so.

ESF-13, can you give a report. please?

ESF-13: Yes. sir. We currently have 100

border agents in Baton Rouge, they're working security
-
in Baton Rouge and the SuperDome area. One hundred
more are arriving today and tonight. 114 Federal
. .

- Protective Service Police are on the ground, 18 of

those are at the SuperDome with two DMAT recon teams,

50 more FPS officers are deploying tomorrow morning.

Many federal law enforcement agencies are

self-deploying. An example would be the U.S.Marshals

to go down and work the courts that have been

affected, We don't have a grasp on them right now,

and we're working that to have them fall under one

umbrella.

Many requests have come in from state and

locals that want in. We're referring them to the
-
- EMATs and we're keeping track of the numbers. and

we're trying to get a large number to send down.

Tomorrow, we'll open an IRCC, Incident Response

.,. * - - a.- -- ,

Coordination Center, to coordinate the federal law

enforcement assets that are on the ground. Wendell

Schindler will be the lead, with one of his deputies
as the primary guy there
 As far as ESF-13, we've requested a I ~ rep
J

to be here, and he's on his way over right now. Two

requests we're working right now, we have a request

from FEMA Louisiana, 500 law enforcement officers to
-

support FEMA operations. We sent that request to the

IIMG. The IIMG discussed it and referred it to DOD,

- National Guard, and we're working that right now.

Second request that is at the IIMG is for

240 law enforcement officers for a temporary morgue in

Gabriel, Louisiana, and that's being worked at the

IIMG right now.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you. Ed McDonald, do

you have any information on that from your end?

MR. McDONALD: I've been running around.

1'11 get that request done right now. I don't have

insight on those two requests, the message just came

MR. BUIKEMA: Okay, thanks.

MR. McDONALD: I'll get back with you right
after this
.,.. -4..-. * -- , a

.MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you. I ' d like to ask

Dave Garrett, of our Recovery Division, to discuss

their operations in this event

MR. GARRETT: Thanks. Ed. I'm just going to

 concentrate on probably the area of greatest interest
right now, and that is housing, and I'm going to defer
to our Chief o f the in-theater housing area command,

Brad Gere, if he is on the line. Brad? =

-
(No response.)
Okay. He's not on the line, obviously, then

- let me give you a brief rundown on what we've got

planned and what we've got in progress. We are

working to secure multiple cruise ships. We hope to

have the first cruise ships arriving in ports to be

determined, but near New Orleans, by September 5t h .

The earliest arrival of the first cruise ship will be

by September 5th Again, that's planned to arrive on

that day. We hope to have three cruise ships berthed

and capable of receiving personnel by the 8th of

September -- and, again, this 1s planning based on

everything coming together.

Our Housing Area Command is working with our

staff up here to secure hundreds of thousands of

travel trailers and mobile homes, We're buying those
* -,. ,

off the lot and we're having those manufactured. and

they will 'be shipped to staging areas in-theater and
set up according to the strategy that is being

developed at our Housing Area Command. They are also

- 48
 working to identify sites with dorms in the states and
in surrounding states -- for example, we had an offer

this morning from the DHS facility in Pleyes, New

Mexico, to make available 1,000 homes,=temporary
-

housing facilities to support personnel.

Finally, we are working to identify hotels

. ..

- and motels that we can rent for extended periods of

time for up to 18 months, so that we can essentially

rent those hotels/motels in total, and locate large

numbers of evacuees and refugees in there in a

temporary housing situation.

All of this will be coming together as the

strategy matures. And I can answer any questions

about that particular strategy at this point.

(No response.)

Okay. I think other than that, other than

the sheltering operations which ESF-6 is working --

-- (audio lost).

(Off the record.)

CERTIFICATION
The foregoing text was transcribed from audio

recordings provided by the Department of Homeland

Security. and is as true and accurate a representation

=

of the oral discussion as possible. -

PHYLLIS P . YOUNG
 SEPTEMBER 4 , 2005

LOUISIANA-BILL KING: -- search and

= rescue

operations continuing efforts. There has been some

progress re-gridding the system, and we're working

on identifying the hotspots and pockets and putting

-
a coordination plan together to pick people up from

those hotspots from all those locations. So, that's

in process right now, I was reading this morning,

and that's an ongoing effort.

The second one with medical support, with

medical support, there are some DMAT teams on

standby. There's three hospitals, we understand, or

two hospitals and a clinic that have reported at

this point that they are able to come back online,

but that assessment is being completed to assure

that that is the case prior to -- and determining

-- just to what capability and extent, if that is the

case, what capacity, what could be brought there,

and what could be reduced from taking to the

--
airports.

" This is the first one I've sat through so,

of course --
LOUISIANA-STATE: On the State side, we're

1
 working with our hospital association to identify

beds available in the State, and we're putting those

missions in so if we air back that we can fill the

beds in the State as soon as possible, and we're

-
talking about a hundred beds available here, 200

there, so airlift is appropriate t o get them out.

We're trying to get some more ambulance support, but

-
some of those are overwhelmed. But as we do that,

the Department of Health and Hospitals is the lead

for the State on that. We want to make sure they're

working with the ESF function at FEMA for mass care,

to coordinate those issues.

On evacuation right now, basically we've

got the Dome empty. The Convention Center is

getting some stragglers coming in from around the

city. The DOT counterparts that are working that

evacuation have established pickup ~ o i n t s to where

we can get people out of the city. We've got some

-
-
infrastructure stuff moving back in. In Jefferson

Parish, they're getting their power on. We have

,- some power missions down to New Orleans to actually

get that . Convention

-
Center lit up. That's so we can
stage our operations out of there because there's

still a lot of stuff to go on in the search and

2
 rescue, getting into homes. Some people may have

held up in homes that had food, didn't have a water

issue, so we're trying to continue to push

2

commodities down there, and we're going-to try to

get around to those hotspots, and we're working

making sure our grid's being worked so we can

- continue with the evacuation as a part of that

search and rescue. These are people who are not in

water and not in attics, these are people that may

have just been in the city and their house not

inundated.

MR. KINNG: Thank you. On commodity

system and moving product, we are still pushing it

in the chain and pushing it out as soon as we are

receiving the commodities, back out in the supply.

LOUISIANA-STATE: Yeah. One thing in

yesterday's late meeting -- I don't know if you're

-- aware of this -- but the MRE situation nationally is

that there's not enough out there right now, so

we' re looking outside the box. I know FEMA is, and

,~. - ..- * -
we are, too, as well, to try to get -- once we can
get power- established in these areas and that sort

of thing, you can start cooking and get,ting some of

those voluntary agencies involved in coming in with

3
 food and that sort of thing, to get us out of that

business eventually because that's where we want to

get.
f

MR. KING: On the commodity, just a couple

other things. Some figures into that updated this

morning, at Beauregard we've got eight -- and we're

. .

- reporting by truckloads -- eight truckloads of water

en route to the State 44. We do have forecasted

projections through today of receiving another 75

today. For ice, at Beauregard, there's 64 en route

to State 2, and we're showing 70 for arrival today.

MREs 18, estimate to State 19, so there must have

been one in place. Doesn't make much sense, but

somewhere around 19. And we've got 100 en route

forecasted for arrival today.

The other FCO priority, temporary

sheltering, where they are completing the

-
- assessments at various facilities and getting some

visibility on what that total picture looks like for

housing evacuees. The State has got some comments

-,- . *.- a --
on that.

LOUISIANA-STATE: Right now, the State is

trying to continue to identify sheltering areas.

There's not many left. The south of the State is

 overwhelmed. We're trying to identify some areas in

the northern part of the State,. but we need help

there as far as getting our arms around other States

so we can send people out. Starting to t H n k about

-
temporary housing right now as critical so we can

get these folks out of the shelters, so these other

- communities can get back online. They want to get

back to normalcy, the ones that are sheltering

people in their schools and those kind of things.

So, the more we can identify that temp housing and

get that moving, the quicker we can get those

parishes in the northern part of the State and the

central part of the State that are helping us out

back to normal, and then we can start working

temporary schooling issues and those kind of things,

so we get kids in school and get things back to

normal -- as well as can be expected back to normal

-- for those folks that are out of the area and won't

be able to get back into their homes.

MR. KING: One of the other facts here,

-. . .- -- .the strike teams left this morning. There were six

of the strike teams headed out for the parishes to

connect and communication been made with each of

those after last night's call.

 PATRICK RHODE: This is Patrick. Can we

get verification when the strike teams actually make

it down to the intended parishes? I know there's

I

been a little bit of confusion as to exactly which

teams have made it in, if you wouldn't mind.

Obviously, ongoing throughout the afternoon to make

- it there.

Also, curious to -- and I know this is an

unfair question, but I guess the million dollar

question -- what is sort of the opinion on the

ground, what is the best suggestion that you would

say at this point represents the number of survivors

yet to be evacuated, if you could, within some of

those larger pockets that we're still trying to

speak to today? Can you speak to that at all?

LOUISIANA-STATE: I could ballpark New

Orleans, but I've got calls from people who said

-*
they still have family back on some areas that

didn't want to move down to the downtown area

because of the security issue. So, I'm sure there's

-- .
pockets of people that held up in homes outside of

that downtown area where you had all the looting and

problems and all of that. So, there may be a lot of

people out there still that may have been sustaining

 i n t h e i r houses t h e b e s t they could -- you know, if

t h e y k e p t a few d a y s o f w a t e r o n h a n d -- you know,

t h e s e p e o p l e have been t h r o u g h h u r r i c a n e s b e f o r e , so

they know t o prepare for that situation, they're

f

j u s t n o t s m a r t enough t o e v a c u a t e . So,- w e may have

some p e o p l e out there still like that, that were

a f r a i d t o come o u t u n t i l t h e s e c u r i t y i s s u e calms

- down, s o t h a t number i s unknown. But what w e do know

is that down in St. Bernard Parish, they're an

island. They're surrounded. We c a n ' t g e t t o them.

That's t h e biggest issue there. They h a v e some d r y

land they're on, b u t we've g o t t o keep p u s h i n g t o

them a n d t r y t o g e t t h o s e f o l k s o u t o f t h e r e a s b e s t

possible because, otherwise, we have a big

s u s t a i n m e n t push t o an i s l a n d , b a s i c a l l y . And we're

a l s o g o i n g t o work w i t h o u r p a r i s h e s t o d a y t o g e t

some i n f o r m a t i o n o n what t h e y t h i n k a r e - t h o s e issues

as w e l l a s what they've got out there a s far a s

-
- rescue type stuff. St. Bernard d e f i n i t e l y i s an

i s s u e , though.

- a,- -- MR. KING: We'll t a k e t h e 9-1-1 d a t a we've

got, we'll t a k e t h e i n f o r m a t i o n on S t . B e r n a r d , and

all the other kinds of things, and try to pull

together the number you're looking for from the

 various data sources, and get that number today -- a

guesstimate, at least.

PATRICK RHODE: Understood. We certain1y

appreciate all the difficult challenges 'involved

-

there, and as soon as we can get those teams into

some of those parishes, clearly that's going to give

. .

- us a much better idea. We recognize the challenges

within St. Bernard in particular, and my

understanding is that we have a group going in to

take a look at the power situation, in addition to

our FEMA group as well that's getting there and

getting a little more visibility.

LOUISIANA-STATE: Patrick, I've got some

issues on sheltering also that we're going to need

assistance in running these shelters. We've had

people running them since the event of the storm.

They're getting tired. We're running out of security

-
- to support them right now, so we're probably going

to need some assistance in that, including contract

security. We're trying to get some more Guard

- &-
= --
troops in the state 'from other States, but most of

the is.sues are down in the affected area where we

can't support the folks outside the affected area

there that are being affected by this, so we need

 some help there.

PATRICK RHODE: If you don't mind, I'm

going to ask Dan Craig to speak briefly to that, if

I could. f

MR. DAN CRAIG: Working with the Red

Cross, we've got an additional 8,000 case workers to

help with the shelters. As far as security; we can

-
work with ESP-13 to ensure security at these

shelters.

DHS NAC-DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON :

Patrick, at the appropriate moment -- this is

Michael Jackson -- I'd like to ask a couple

questions from the Louisiana team, if I could.

MR. KING: Sure, go ahead, sir.

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: We're trying to

answer the question that Patrick asked about too

many people might still be left that. would need to

be evacuated from the New Orleans area, and I

-
- understand -- I think we talked about it in terms of
classes of people and types of people. Any idea

. . *-- * - about numbers of people -- I mean, even a wild

guess. In the downtown area, are there still some

considerable number of people in the outlying parts

of the city? Do we have any.sense at all -- I'm not

 trying to hold you to a number, but it's just an

order of magnitude.

LOUISIANA-TED: This is Ted down at the

New Orleans Airport. The estimate we got for the

-
air EVAC of who still might be left out there was

anywhere from 5-10,000,'which we're ready to accept

if that happens. That ' s the only number I 've'heard.

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: That probably

doesn't include the more systematic house-to-house -

- you know, are there pockets in neighbors that

haven't come to us yet. I guess .that's what I'm

trying to just get my brain around because that has

a lot to do about what type of assets we flow to the

airport, and what we're asking the airline industry

to do by way of evacuation and obviously what the

military guys have to think about.

MR. KING: This is Bill King: To really

get -- we can prioritize this, work o n this right

-
- away this morning and get back to you, and really

give you a much better number just in a short period

of time.
.. - *- --
DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: Okay. Thanks

very much,- Bill. The other question I have has to

do with St. Bernard's Parish. Is there a plan to go

 in by helicopter in a significant .way to make sure

that those people are being flowed food and water in

all the pockets of the parish that are dry and

accessible? Where does this rate in the airlift

*
assignment of assets, and are we getting to those

people? We've heard multiple different channels of

distress from St. Bernard's Parish, and I just ask

- for a little bit more granularity on what the SAR

mission looks like there, and the flow of assets to

that particular parish would be.

MR. KING: There is a current mission

going on today. Art Jones is leading that. He's

the Disaster Recovery Division Director. He is

leading a team. They took two birds in this

morning.

LOUISIANA: At about 11:OO a.m. this

morning, they started bringing supplies directly

into St. Bernard Parish, and he is --going to be

-
- personally there coordinating it today, to make sure

all the parish's needs are addressed as a high

-,- - *.- -- priority.

MR. KING: That's on one of them to get

. -
that assessment and such, and then I think while we

were talking about that, he had another issue you

 asked about?

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: Those were the

two, how many people and the St. Bernard Parish.

*
Thanks very much, guys. -

MAGGIE GRANT: This is Maggie Grant from

the White House. Could I ask a quick St. Bernard

. .

- question?
r
MR. KING: Absolutely.

MS. GRANT: Thank you. We just received

an inquiry from Exxon down there at the Shalmat

Refinery, that the President of St. Bernard Parish

has declared some type of "martial law" and is using

his authority to remove key pieces of equipment from

the refinery, including front-end loader and crane

essential to getting coker units back up and

refinery running.

I forwarded this on to Josh Filler just a

-
few moments ago, but wanted to bring that all to

your attention, if someone could maybe check in to

see the validity of this question from the Exxon

-.- - - *.- - --
team.

MR. KING: We'll definitely take that back

on both sides, research what's happening with that,

ESF-12 along with the State also, and get some

12
 ground t r u t h on t h a t .

MS. GRANT: Thank you.

PATRICK RHODE : Any other specific

q u e s t i o n s f o r t h e s t a t e of Louisiana? I kgow y o u ' r e

-.

working an awful lot. Appreciate e v e r y t h i n g you

guys a r e d o i n g . There a r e o b v i o u s l y a l o t o f p e o p l e

t h a t a r e working w i t h you on m u l t i p l e i s s u e s t o d a y .
-
Ed, d i d you have a n y t h i n g ?

MR. BUIKEMA: Ted Minet, I believe you're

still on at the airport, and before we leave

Louisiana, c a n you g i v e j u s t a quick s t a t u s report

of t h e a i r l i f t from your p e r s p e c t i v e ?

MR. TED MINET: Roger. The a i r p o r t is

empty of refugees a t t h i s t i m e . The l a s t f l i g h t s

t h a ' t had f o l k s on them went o u t a b o u t 8:00 o ' c l o c k

t h i s morning. The TSA f o l k s r e p o r t e d t o u s t h a t

y e s t e r d a y o v e r 11,000 r e f u g e e s went o u t ; The normal

a i r f l o w o u t o f h e r e on a r e g u l a r d a y i s 1 3 , 0 0 0 , 60-
-
something f l i g h t s , I believe, and t h e f o l k s here,

DOD a l o n g w i t h TSA, a r e working t h e game p l a n now of

... - -- -- being ready t o accept t h e a d d i t i o n a l refugees t h a t

may b e coming i n , b u t we d o n ' t expect t h e volume

t h a t we've had f o r t h e l a s t few, anywhere c l o s e t o

that.
 The sanitation issues at- the airpozt have

all been addressed. The sanitation teams are in,

it's being cleaned up. Also, on the medical side,

all the patients have been evacuated and the DMATs

I

are now ready for additional MEDEVACS in a lot

better shape than they were a couple days ago.

That's all I have.

-
PATRICK RHODE: Thank you very much, Ted,

appreciate that. Any other specific questions for

the State of Louisiana?

MR. KING: An additional piece of

information from this end is that currently doing

analysis, we're going to work with the Corps of

Engineers with the State on -- there are several -.

ferries. We have to assess the status of those.

One of them, we understand that the ferry is

operational, but the dock is damaged, and we're

- going to work together with the State and the Corps

to do an assessment of what it would take to get

those ferries operational to be able to move

-..& - *.- * -,
commodities over to St. Bernard.

PATRICK RHODE: Very good. Any other

specific questions for the State of Louisiana?

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: This is Michael

 Jackson again. On t h e S t . Bernard r e s u p p l y i s s u e ,

t h a t would b e something t h a t maybe C o a s t Guard c o u l d

be consulted on to help, if you don't have them

*
fully bolted in. I t h i n k t h a t might b e h e l p f u l .

MR. K I N G : W i l l do.

PATRICK RHODE: Louisiana, t h a n k you v e r y

- much. You've been working a l o t o f i s s u e s , a n a w f u l

lot of us are continuing to work those issues

t o g e t h e r w i t h you, and w e ' l l b e d o i n g s o o b v i o u s l y

t h r o u g h o u t t h e day t o d a y .

L e t ' s move on t o t h e S t a t e o f M i s s i s s i p p i ,

i n t h e i n t e r e s t of t i m e , i f w e could. Mississippi,

a r e you w i t h u s ?

MIKE WOMACK: T h i s i s Mike Womack. We're

down a t t h e Forward O p e r a t i o n s C e n t e r i n G u l f p o r t .

Got our Commissioner of Public Safety, George

P h i l l i p s here. J u s t b r i e f l y , Jesse Munoz and I were

- a b l e t o g e t o v e r t o J a c k s o n County t o d a y . Things

a r e s t a b i l i z i n g v e r y w e l l i n J a c k s o n County. They

are starting to talk about recovery issues over

-,.. - *.- .-
there. So, I know w e ' r e s t i l l t r y i n g t o w i c k e r t h e

i n f r a s t r u c t u r e p i e c e s t o do t h a t , but we need t o

s t a r t t h i n k i n g i n t h a t way.

H a r r i s o n County, somewhat t h e same way, a t

 least from 49 to the east, again, stabilizing --

I've not made it over to Hancock County, so I cannot

tell you if they are ready for that right now. Our

real concern today is making sure the t h r e ~counties

immediately to the north, specifically Pearl, River

and Stone, they've been not left out completely, but

they haven't gotten the resources that the three

- coastal counties have. But things seem to be

stabilizing across about half of the Gulf Coast

counties right now. I'll ask George Phillips if he

has any comments.

MR. GEORGE PHILLIPS: First of all, I'd

like to say good morning to my friend, Mr. Secretary

Chertoff. It's good to know you are there, sir, my

old colleague, and I look forward to seeing you

hopefully tomorrow.

We have three primary missions besides our

regular law enforcement duties and hopefully keeping

-
. the peace. Although they may not be regular ,public

safety missions, the way things have worked out,

-, - *.. - -*
we've stepped into some roles that aren't

traditionally ours, but it's moving fairly smoothly

. -
now. Cleaning the corridors for law enforcement and

fire and rescue efforts perimeters and primary

 routes east and west, north and south, in each of

the cities affected.

I
Recovery, our Air Ops operation is
*
coordinating with the National Guard Air -0p.s. As a

matter of fact, we're doing the deployments as of

this morning, and they're all working together.

- They all are on mission, and that's working very

smoothly.

And, thirdly, supply. We're moving food,

together again,with the National Guard, wefre moving

food not only into the areas. We finally got MREs

and we're moving those into not only the coastal

counties, but we're beginning to move inland because

although the counties north of here were not as

badly torn up, they certainly have been without

electricity, and that's beginning to have an effect

on food and water supply, so we're moving MREs into

-- the second and third tier counties. That operation

has begun this morning and is going very smoothly

also.
. - *.. - *
MR. WOMACK: Just another comment. We got

two SAR-missions today where I think as the cell

coverage, cell phone coverage, comes up, people are

able to get out on their cell phones and call in.

0

17
 Wadlan and Perlington, which is the lowest areas in

Hancock County, emergency calls where folks were

locked in a bank, and there was a 72-year-old woman

that survived at another location. So, search and

rescue does continue in Mississippi. Jesse?

JESSE: The water, ice and MRE issue that

was so critical yesterday and day before seems to be

I
-
stabilizing fairly well. I understand there's still

a couple of issues with two counties down here, just

above Hancock and Harrison County, but we are

working just as fast as we can to stabilize that.

In all the press conferences that I have

been attending, the big issue coming up now has been

the housing, and of course we are putting out the

message that we are working on that very diligently,

and we will continue to put out that until we have

further guidance. And, also, the debris especially

- in Hancock County, which is virtually wiped out

throughout the county, of course we have big issues

there that we have to address with debris. But at

, - *.- -- this time, I would like to see if the main site in

Jackson is -on.

(No response.)

I guess not.
 PATRICK RHODE: Jackson, are you on?

(No response. )

Jackson?

MR. WOMACK: Any questions for US?

-

PATRICK RHODE : Just curious, you

mentioned that (inaudible) were still continuing the

-
- urban search and rescue mission there very similarly
to the way we're doing over on the Louisiana side.

Can you speak a little bit to the numbers -- again,

perhaps even a guesstimate, knowing we're still

going sector-by-sector on that mission -- as to

perhaps some of the numbers of evacuees? I know

it's a tough question, it's an unfair question, but

just so we can get a little bit more granularity on

that today?

MR. WOMACK: Well, I think we're probably

in the thousands that would like to evacuate the

- area. I still don't have a good feel for Hancock

County as to how many people are over there. We're

trying to push some tentage and other things in

.
,__ - *.. s - there to be able to hold them temporarily, but I

don't feel like we're in the issue of trying to

airlift people out of those locations. We're able

.,-, to get to all of our counties by road. So, I would
 say in the thousands, but not in the tens or

hundreds of thousands.

As far as the SAR missions, I think we're

I

probably just in the hundreds across the coast. I

think we've hit most of the areas, we're getting

these little pockets right now.

- PATRICK RHODE: Understood. Thank you

very much for that report, we appreciate that. Any

specific questions for the State of Mississippi we

need to address?

(No response.)

Hearing none, thank you all very much for

all the work that you're doing there. Let's move on

to Alabama.

ALABAMA: Good morning. Current situation

is we've got only 38,000 without power. Some things

are coming back pretty quick. We've got 2800 in

-- shelters, and 57 shelters. Our top operational

priorities continue to be support the shelter

operations, doing receiving distribution, those

- --
areas still without power, and supporting EMAC

requests -from the other States. I'm going to turn

it over to Ron Sherman, our FCO.

MR. RON SHERMAN: In supporting the

20
 State's operational priorities, we're jointly

resourcing cots, water and MREs last night to

support the ongoing shelter operations as well as

the anticipated increase in shelter operations.

-
We're really doing pretty well on all of our

commodities except for ice at this point. We

- actually got MREs and pushed those out to Mobile

County today.

Many questions coming up that I' 11 need

answers to pretty quick on the cruise ship that's

coming into Mobile, it's intended purpose and who's

going to be allowed to access it. Good questions

that I'll need to get smart on real quickly. Thank

you.

PATRICK RHODE : Understood, Ron. We ' re

going to be addressing some of those issues here

with our Recovery team as we go around a little bit

- later.

Any specific questions for the State of

Alabama?
, . .%.- -- (No response.1

-Thank you both v e r y much. Let's move on

to Florida.

FLORIDA: Good morning. State of Florida.

 Continuing operational support deployment of forces

in Louisiana and Mississippi, 'about 3,000 folks

currently deployed. Unmet needs: We've had some

indication that perhaps Orlando may be- Identified

to receive shelterees. If that is the case, please

just give us a chance here in EOC to coordinate and

- work that issue.

Future concerns and future- operational

issues: Currently, tropical system trying to get

going in the Bahamas as well as things in the Gulf,

so we're beginning to look at what will happen if

i

we're threatened with another storm and how we'll

respond to that, given the magnitude of the deployed

resources to the other States, and are looking at

how to be self-sufficient for that response.

Other than that, things continue to

progress.
- PATRICK RHODE: Great. Thank you all very
-
much, we appreciate everything you guys have been

doing, and we' re going to hope that storm stays far

, * *. e - away from all of us, but we'll all be ready to help

if we need to.

Let's move on to the State of Texas.

Texas?
 TEXAS: State of Texas cantinues in-direct

support of the State of Louisiana in three

operations. The first operation is direct support

of search and rescue in the city of New Orleans, and

I

we've been there since it began. We have about

1,575 first responders in New Orleans. The only

issue we have is rotation. We are prepared-to self-

- rotate, but we await a plan of rotation of those

units. Our concern is our aircraft. We have 8

UH6Os and 2 CH47s deployed. Our concern is the

remaining hours on the aircraft, and the still

threat we have in the State of Texas for possible

hurricanes until November.

The second operation that's going on is

.the evacuation operation both by air and ground. In '

the air operation, we have air operations at San

Antonio, which we hope have ceased. We can no longer

take anymore aircrafr into San Antonio. We have air

-
operations at Corpus Christi. We have asked that

they cease. We have maxed out Corpus Christi. We

, - ._ .- have Austin, Lubbock, El Paso, and Amarillo in

progress.. - The issue we have with air operations is

what now has become "rogue" aircraft. These are

essentially humanitarian flights that come from

 private organizations, contracted by U.S. airlines

that are on nobody's screen, . that arrive with

passengers, and we ask that -- I've spoken to the

rock there, but we've got to get this undgr control,

-

and I ask you to make this a priority.

The ground operation continues. We

. .

- believe that over the last two days the evacuation

by commercial bus has ceased. We no longer see any

of those. Last night, we didn't have any. We still

have almost the same issue that we have with air,

and these are what's termed now "rogue" buses.

These are buses, essentially school buses, that come

from independent civic organizations, church

organizations, that self-evacuate from New Orleans,

and they arrive, and of course our priority is to

take care of these victims and we will do so. We

ask if there's some way you can visibility of these

- either on the interstate, to get them under control

or at least make sure that when they leave, they're

-.- - *.. - -.
safe, and these kind of things.

The third operational area is mass care

. .
and shelter operations which have become a ma3or

operation in the State of Texas, where we have

almost 165 shelters open with in excess of 125,000

- 24
 evacuees. We continue to operate t-hese shelters and

take care of citizens in a wide variety of needs.

We have two issues here. One is the voucher issue,

which I've asked now for two or three days

.v to get

resolution. We need to resolve this issue hopefully

today, so we can now let these evacuees start taking

care of themselves. -
-
The second issue, I guess, is what is the

long-term plan for shelter operations to move these

citizens from temporary shelters to permanent

housing or other options, and when will that plan be

done. That completes the report from Texas.

PATRICK RHODE: Thank you very much for

that report. I can tell you that many of the issues

you've articulated, particularly the long-term

shelter issues, short-term and long-term shelter,

and also how we're going to incorporate the

-- individual assistance programs via FEMA, and also

through what the Red Cross is doing, they're being

aggressively worked, and Dan Craig is going to speak

. - *- * -
to that a little bit later throughout this VTC.

-Thanks, Jack, for all of your help, it's

been tremendous.

Any questions for the State of Texas?

25
 DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: I have a

question, Patrick. When are we going to get an

a n s w e r b a c k t o Texas on t h e v o u c h e r i s s u e ? We need

t h a t question resolved. Can you g i v e m e s t a t u s on

-

t h a t one?

PATRICK RHODE: We c a n s p e a k t o i t r i g h t
. .

- now.

DAN CRAIG: -- o v e r a t t h e Red C r o s s r i g h t

now w o r k i n g w i t h them, trying t o s o l i d i f y the plan

w i t h T r e a s u r y a n d o u r CFO o f f i c e a n d t h e i r o f f i c e ,

t o e n s u r e t h a t w e c a n work w i t h a d e b i t c a r d s y s t e m

and a vouchering system to get people into the

shelters to hand off some, for lack of a better

word, " w a l k i n g a r o u n d money", u n t i l w e can g e t our

f u l l programs i n place.

DEPUTY SECRTARY JACKSON: Can w e make s u r e

t h a t we're c o o r d i n a t i n g t h i s w i t h Heal-th a n d Human

-
. Services, which i s w o r k i n g t h e same t y p e of debit

card issues, and j u s t make s u r e t h a t we're taking

-, - - *-. - -+
t h e f u l l package o f t h i n g s t h a t f o l k s need i n Texas,
,

that we've got our arms around all the financial

i s s u e s and a l l t h e v a r i o u s b e n e f i t s p a c k a g e s i n o n e

f e l l swoop?

I've talked to Patrick Alex Azar, the

 Deputy at HHS, about this a little while ago, so we

need to just make sure we're. bolting the FEMA

benefits package to particularly the stuff that HHS

has, so that we can wrap this today with a very,

-

very solid plan that can be executed quickly.

EEOB: This is (inaudible) at the White

- House. Do we have any estimated time of when we can

tell governors that the voucher or these debit cards

might be available, any ability to project when that

might be available?

DAN CRAIG: The best guess we can get --

well, not guess -- what we know, working with

Treasury, is Tuesday there will be 20,000 available,

with another order of 200,000, and Red Cross has

180,000 available, and they have another order for

400,000.

EEOB : So starting on Tuesday,

-
approximately 20,000.

DAN CRAIG: That's correct. First

priority is the larger sheltering areas.

, . - -.- * -
EEOB : Would that be for the maximum

amount, or a portion of the maximum amount allowed

by law?

DAN CRAIG: We'll probably work it two

 ways. We're going to get on a conference call with

Texas after this, and I want to talk to them about

the approach, but one thing -- we don't want to give

the maximum because we donft want someb~dy to be
-
immediately without a housing solution to go to and

just give them the money. If there is an available

housing we can give them the max grant so we're

-
trying to figure out exactly the procedure we're

going to do so that people will have either a

monthly stipend or the full grant amount.

EEOB: Thank you.

MAGGIE GRANT: Also -- this is Maggie

Grant -- to just briefly fill out your question --

also working with CMS and HHS regarding a Medicaid

component (inaudible) roughly 600,000 of the 1.5

million displaced individuals, the waiver model will

be ready to be presented on Tuesday and hopefully in

-- place with the States by the knd of the week. Also

working with Department of Agriculture regarding

food stamps, and HUD regarding some tax credits.

- -. So, we're hoping Tuesday or Wednesday to have all

those components well under way.

DEPUTY SECRETARY: Okay.

PATRICK RHODE : Mr. Secretary, this is

 Patrick again. I think that many of the concerns
are issues that you brought up can be spoken very

well, I think, through a lot of 'the efforts that are

going on, and we just need to give you a little bit

*
more granularity on that throughout the day. I
would like to ask Ken Burns to just speak to some of

the issues as we've been dealing with some of our

. .

- partners.

, KEN BURNS: Sir, our Finance Division has

been lashed up tight with the Treasury Department to

make sure that we are executing this in an

expeditious manner within all the regulations that

we have to follow, and we feel comfortable -- while

the time frame may not be tomorrow, we . feel

comfortable that by Tuesday we have this thing --

we've got it knocked in the head, and we're well on

the way to being successful.

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: Okay. That's

-
- encouraging and,,again, I think we have to latch all

of these benefits packages that flow across HHS, AG,

,. . .- .- the FEMA responsibilities one, into one package so

that we can make sure that we're not duplicating

efforts because I know that Texas has, for example,

volunteered to let us think about how to use their

 EBT card system for distribution of benefits on the
one side for the network that they've already

leveraged; and I just don't want to be flooding two

sets of EBT cards, two sets of things unnikessarily.

-

So, to the extent that we can talk later today about

. your comprehensive plan for this, I'd be eager to

- join a cdnversation of that sort, Patrick.

PATRICK RHODE: Yes, sir.

Let's move on to the State of Arkansas.

ARKANSAS: Like Texas, Arkansas continues

to support the EMAC requests we get in, to the

extent we can, fully supported by the Governor. We

have numerous Guard assets sent to both Mississippi

and Louisiana. Perhaps our biggest

concern/challenge deals with the influx of evacuees

and finding locations to put them all in somewhat of

a temporary shelter location, more permanent type

-
- shelter locations. We're still struggling with that

problem here.

.. - *.- * - We've had to close up our Fort Chaffee

entry point due to the large numbers of people

. "

there, and this morning we started landing a few

aircraft at Little Rock Adams Field to support the

evacuee effort.
 PATRICK RHODE: Arkansas, thank you very

much for your comments, and thank you very much for

your hospitality and that of Governor Huckabee, it's

been tremendous work over the last 24

-
hours, we

appreciate everything that you've done. You, of

course, face some very similar circumstances as we

- were just discussing with Texas and, as you heard

the Deputy Secretary, we're going to continue to

work those issues aggressively to make sure we're

speaking to a voucher system that works for you as

well.

Any specific questions for the State of

Arkansas?

(No response.)

Hearing none, do we have any other States

on that we've missed, that would like to chime in?

TENNESSEE: Tennessee has got a couple of

- comments, please, sir.
-
PATRICK RHODE: Please, Tennessee, go

ahead.
s -. ,
TENNESsE~: Tennessee has got about 11-

1200 Guard and State folks in the area of operations

down there, and we think we've got about 10-12,000

evacuees in the State. We have really two issues.

31
 We're anxiously awaiting our Class B decoration that

I'm certain will probably take place today, and

we're like everyone else suffering in the confusion

of the airlift, with the rogue aircra* and our

-
inability to control the schedule. And we are

leaning forward. Thank you, sir.

- 7
We understand, that

visibility is a key concern of ours as well,

something that's being worked. Any questions for

the State of Tennessee?

(No response. )
>
Thank you very much. Any other States
that we've missed?
. ..

(No response. )

Thank you all very much. At this point, I

want to turn it over to Ed Buikema, our Director of

Response, to take us through the FEMA Regions and

-- also Headquarters considerations. Ed?

MR. BUIKEMA: Thanks, Patrick. FEW

Region 6.
* -. ,

REGION 6: Good afternoon, sir. Just

quickly, from the State Response Support, we had a

call this morning from Gary Jones, the FCO for

Texas, and the priorities they've listed is to get

32
 their unified command established, -establish command

control throughout the State.

They're working to develop a concept of

operations on how they will implement coordinating

I

with State, Federal, local officials to ensure -- we

working to ensure senior liaison officials at the

hubs for coordinating with those local officials.

-
Identify and set up JFOs and DRCs in coordination

with the State. The JFO will be established in

Austin, and they are establishing an IOF in Austin

as we speak, pending the standup of the operational

JFO. And they need to identify the status and

deploy CR teams as needed.

We also Tio Hernandez, which has been

designated for the northern part of the State,

should be arriving sometime late this evening. We

have t w o of the Region 6 personnel that have been

- working with the local and congressional folks in

the Dallas area, to make sure we're still on top and

can get Tio up to speed as soon as he arrives.

. - *._. s - We also -- some of those r o g u e b u s e s that

Jack talked about ended up in Fort Worth, and we

have three folks down there working with their local

,. h..
government and congressional folks this morning,

33
 again, to assure them what's going to happen, how

we're going to support them.

Arkansas and Oklahoma are continuing to

work with Carlos Mitchell, who is on the ground

-
there now as FCO, working to establish their

requirements to get them functional in their J F O s .

We're still waiting -- we're pretty

-
confident, as we mentioned last night, to Dan that

New Mexico is going to take a significant number of

evacuees in there. Before we go with numbers, we're

just getting the thumbs-up from them, and we've

asked the Governor to contact Dan.

One of the things that we're going to

need, obviously, out here, because this thing has --

especially in the State of Texas -- has grown so

rapidly, probably some additional senior FEMA folks

here in order to get one senior Federal official or

- FEMA representative, if you will, in the ground in

these cities that are now up to 2-3,000, that it may

take a little bit of time to get the DRCs

. - *.- m -
established. We need to have the presence here. Per

Gary Jones, I'll be contacting the other Regional

Directors to see if we can get some assistance in

this because we're basically tapped out here.

 With response to the support- to

Louisiana, we continue to provide that support. The

FCO and his staff, LOG as of today -- you had a

brief there, but we have a little bit of update.

-
We're currently at the Camp Beauregard, zero MREs,

zero water, we're 24 ice there. We have pushed some

forward, so we think we're okay at the distribution

- points, and we're expecting 64 MREs, 96 water, and

62 ice to arrive today, but it's approximately a

six-hour turnaround to get them to the distribution

points just because of the distance between

Beauregard and the distribution points. And we

continue to grow those billeting areas that we're

establishing for our Federal responders. That

concludes our portion of the brief, subject to any

questions, sir.

MR. BUIKEMA: Good. Thank you very much.

.-

Region 6, thanks. Let's go to Region 4, please.

-
REGION 4-PAUL: We're in the process of

doing transition to Mississippi with command and

-- control. Talked.to -- had an Operations meeting

yesterday. .with the ERD-A Ops and a l l the ESFs.

We're in process of finishing up the (inaudible)

mission assignment so that we can do that

 transition. That should happen about 5:00 o'clock

today.

We've been supporting GMA, the reception

team at Dobbins Air Force Base. Been ain contact

with the States. We provided them some information

that we had that we got from FAA and also NDMS as

far as potential arrival date, but evidently that

-
was erroneous information, and 'we're trying to clear

that up. And we're prepared to support those

operations. Any question for us?

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you. Thanks, Paul.

Let's move on to the Florida Long-Term Recovery

Office.

LONG-TERM RECOVERY OFFICE: Hi, Ed, it's

Scott. We have our 150-seat call center up and

running, receiving a lot of calls for the victims of

the three States. Also, the mobilization center is

I -- working just fine, getting a lot of people in and

out of here, and please let us know what we can take

off your plate and make everything easier. You know

.". - *.. m -
you've got full support.

- M R . BUIKEMA: I appreciate it, Scott,

thanks. We ' re going to do ' some reports round-robin

here up at FEMA Headquarters right now, and I'm
 going to start with several of the ESFs. ESF-1.

ESF-1: Thank you. . Our air operation

continues with 13 commercial airlines, Department of

Defense, the Coast Guard and the National 'Guard. We

-
have 70 sorties scheduled for today. As of 1000

local, active DOD passenger flights have completed.

- They are, of course, continuing MEDEVAC and freight

-
and ground support at the airport.

We have maxed three locations either in

the short- or long-term. There are, of course,

situations where if you land enough passengers in a

reasonably close time period, the processing clogs

things up without occupying the full capacity. We

have 14 active destinations in six States. As of 15

minutes before we began this meeting, I had 11

- aircraft on the ground and ready to load. As you

heard, our goal yesterday we established was 10,000

-- passengers, and the figure that Ted reported a bit

ago was that it looks more like 11,000. We continue

also to deploy the inbound support of Leos in

,- . - +.- --
support of the air operation. -
-On the bus side, we still have 1100 buses

in-theater. Our current long-range destination is

Alabama. Our bus mission is evolving somewhat from

I

37
 the long-term evacuation to a morg localized effort.
As you hear, we're no longer servicing one or two

primary collection points, but we are now assisting

with the use of the buses to pick up smaJler groups

-
of people at a greater number of areas. As a

result, we have evolved from one staging area to

two. As of 9:00 aim. this morning, we had '200 buses

-
at the staging areas, and based on our operational

understanding, that number would be growing.

We have established and have in operation

a bus operations center at the EOC in Baton Rouge.

We have a conference call with them every four

hours. Some of those calls were, of course, joint

air and bus evacuation operations. That's our

report, pending any questions.

ALABAMA: Question from Alabama. We heard

the long-range destination is Alabama.

- ESF-1: That was the last report I had,

sir.

ALABAMA: We'll follow up after this call.

...._ - L... * - EEOB- MR. WALLACE: Can you tell what is

the destination in Alabama, is there a particular

destination in Alabama that is the goal, and what

are the two staging areas right now for the buses?
 ESF-1: One of the staging areas continues

to be the Poker Palace Texaco. I don't have the

details on the other staging area there in New

Orleans. 1'11 have to get back to you on that.

-
MR. WALLACE: Do you know -- again, going

to Alabama, is there a particular site, or are there

multiple sites at this point?

-
ESF-1: Again, I'll have to get back to

you on the details on that, I'm sorry.

EEOB-MR. WALLACKE: Thank you.

ALABAMA: This is news to the State of

Alabama.

MR. BUIKEMA: Yes, Bruce, we've got to

check on that, I think that may be a little bit old

information, so we'll clarify that.

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON : This is Michael

Jackson. Can I ask a question about the air asset

- planning, and it's simply this. If we have large

concentrations of evacuees in major centers like the

AstroDome in Houston, I think it would be important

-,.- - e.- -
for us to at least begin to think as contingency

planning that as we move to the next step of housing

people for the intermediate or longer-term, that we

consider that we keep some aviation assets on a

 string', or planning going into moving people one

more time so, if, for example, we had to take some

number of people from Houston to another city to a

cluster of housing that they have there =that would

-

give them longer-term stability, we just want to

make sure we're planning aviation assets and the

. deployment of those resources to be able to

-
accommodate the widest range of options as we look

at how we handle the permanent housing and

intermediate-term housing issues.

DAN CRAIG: Mr. Secretary, I just talked

to Maria Cino, and we're discussing a plan to have a

certain amount of charter flights (inaudible) fill

them up and take them to secondary housing staging

areas, they would be available to us probably over

the next couple weeks.

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: Okay, thanks.

MS. GRANT: Dan, this is Maggie Grant. I

know that one question that you've been getting and

we've been fielding over here as well is when you

- *. * - move folks for the secondary housing, are evacuees

going to be able to make a choice as to which States

they go to, or not.? That's a decision that will

have to be made.
 DAN CRAIG: is a decision that wil-1 have

to be made. Our first priority is to find and

collect housing that can bring them back either to

Louisiana or the immediate vicinity, and then slowly

' I

return those that are in the other States back to

the area, but that is a plan that we're working on

now, is whether we -allow people to choose the State

-
they want to go to, especially if they have

relatives in those areas.

MS. GRANT: Thank you.

MR. BUIKEMA: Okay. Let's move on to ESF-

3. General?

ESF-3 : (Inaudible), the State of New

Orleans. We have a conceptual plan now, there are

13 levee sections there in six main areas, and folks

in the six areas. Some will take as little as 12

days to drawdown, some could take 80, a tremendous

-- number of variables involved in this, but as this

matures we'll give you a good laydown of how that's

going to progress.
* - .
We understand, for those who are focused

o n -New .Orleans, it's critical that you have some

level of predictability of where the water is going

to be over times that you can begin to plan your

 recovery efforts. So, that's a priority of effort

in New Orleans right now.

In terms of power mission, we are

experiencing, like everyone else, a shortage of

-

fuel. It has impacted our ability on the temporary

power mission.

Ice and water, I'd say that is the biggest

challenge we have right now. We have an overall

requirement of 650 trucks pre day, and today we

expect about 200, tomorrow 300, the next day 400,

the next day 500, and so on. So, clearly, at the

macro level, we are not going to be able to meet the

demand. I would ask all the States involved to make

...

sure that they really put a sharp pencil on their

requirements because I think what this will require

is a set of prioritizations. Every truck makes a

difference, so if you don't need 450 trucks, you

-
- only need 430, then we need to know that because

we've got to start setting priorities putting the

water where it needs to go. But I'd say that is the

_
-, 1 .- *- s -.
center of gravity right now, getting the water to

where it'needs to be.

As far as navigation goes, we are working

in conjunction with DOT to make sure we've got the

42
 right channels available for the .various activities

we're talking about, getting a cruise ship into

Mobile. We have received a mission to move into

Galveston and actually dredge a berth for an

=
additional cruise ship into Galveston, so we're

working that part of it as well.

The GIWW,
. .
the Gulf Coast ~ntercoastal

- Waterway is open to limited traffic. That's a vital

link between the ports across the Gulf Coast, and

we're working very hard with the Coast Guard to make

sure that's open and available to us. And we are

opening ports as quickly as we can across the coast.

New Orleans, a priority effort. We also

need to open the Inner Harbor Canal there to allow

access from the east into New Orleans, so navigation

is also a big priority for the Corps. So that's it.

Thank you.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, sir. Any

questions for ESF-3?

(No response.)

-, -*." -- DHS NAC-AL MARTINEZ-FONTS: Ed, this is A1

Martinez Fonz at DHS Headquarters. On that water

and ice, we've been getting tremendous offers and

supplies and been getting them to where we're asked

 to deliver them. Are they not getting into where --

it was just a request for the trucks. Where are

they not getting to, or where would you like it

delivered to? =
-
ESF-3: Sir, I don't have that level of

detail in front of me. That's where I think we need

to pull together and get really specific 'on where

-
the water is, where it's needed, and so forth.

That's something we clearly need to get after here.

We are also looking at moving water in by

air to distribution points, and that's another thing

that we want to crank up. Certainly, if there are

water sources available that I don't know about, we

need to get a hold.of those and get them moving.

MR. MARTINEZ-FONTS: Again, this is

representing the private sector office and more of

the private .sector of the United States have made a

-- lot of this available. I can't give you the

numbers, but deliveries were made to Camp Beauregard

in Pineville, and Meridian, and we understood the

- -*- -- numbers are there, but anyway let's talk off-line

afterwards, see if we can get it to the right place.

ESF-3 : There is tremendous confusion

here. We just heard someone say there's zero at

 1

Camp Beauregard. I've got a figu;e that says there

are a million liters there at Camp Beauregard --

actually, more than that -- about 16 million liters.

So, there's a lot of confusion about exactly where

-
it is. I think this is something we need to get

after and make sure we have a good sense of where

the water is and where it's needed so we can get

-
moving.

MR. BUIKEMA: All right. Thank you.

Let's move on to ESF-8.

ESF-8: Our major mission of evacuating

the patients from the hospitals is complete. We're

starting to get reports of public health

departments, State Public Health Departments feeling

overwhelmed -- Texas and Arkansas -- SO we ' re

sending CDC teams there to do surveillance in

mosquito abatement which is continuing to become a

- problem, and we're also working on sending more
-
Federal medical shelters out between Mississippi and

Louisiana, and trying to identify personnel to do

-- ,

that.

ESF-8: For NDMS, our priorities today is

still life-sustaining operations at both Region 4

and Region 6. Currently, the airport operation has

 diminished significant enough that we can get some

of the teams rested and get them ready to go. The

DMORT operation is still ongoing, setting up the

morgues. Working on the plan currently for the

-
recovery of human remains and the processing that

goes along with that. In the Region 4 Mississippi

area, that's an -ongoing constant operation in

-
currently setting up the morgue there. .
We currently have DMAT team standing by,

plus the international surgical team standing by.

In the event that a hospital is going to open, we're

ready to support that. NDMS has gone back into the

second rotation wherein we're looking at the large

system to identify personnel that can rotate the

clinicians back home because the DMAT is normally

there for no more than a 14-day cycle.

Other than that, shortfalls and limiting

- factors, we're still dealing with the communications

problem, but we are getting some of those addressed.

Other than that, sir, pending any questions, that's

-*.-
.,.-,. m - my report'.

MR. BUIKEMA: Any questions.for ESF-8?

(No response. )

Thank you. ESF-10, earlier today you

 mentioned about a couple of pollution incidents.

Would you please brief on that?

ESF-10: Good afternoon. Dan Ortin, with

the U.S. Coast Guard. Currently we're =monitoring

two incidents which have occurred, one is in Venice,

Louisiana. We have what appears to be two storage

tanks for petroleum, and there is a continuing

-
release from what appears to be at least one of

those fuel tanks into the Mississippi River. Due to

the location, we're not able to get response

personnel to the scene on that one.

The second one is in Pascagoola,

Mississippi. There is a facility there that has

what has been told to me as 25,000 tons of anhydrous

ammonia. The facility was leaking earlier and a

partial evacuation had occurred. The Coast Guard

Strike Team along with EPA have responded to that,

- and that leak has been stabilized, and the

-
evacuation was halted.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, ESF-10. Energy,

* .".
ESF-12, can you give us a brief, please.

- -ESF-12: John Macombs, Department of

Energy. In Mississippi, they've indicated that this

evening I'll have the ability to have 24,000 gallons
 of unleaded gasoline available,. and on Tuesday

27,000 gallons a day of diesel. Both sources have

alternate supply activities that will be coming in.

This will support the Federal operation gctivities.

-
Later in the week, they are moving up to 65,000 a

day diesel, and 52,000 a day gas. This will be able

to take care of St-ate, local, Federal, 'including

-
military.

The issue of security at the refineries in

Mississippi, they feel that they are secure. The

conversation on that was done this morning, and they

are comfortable. That is not the case for

Louisiana. In Louisiana, we've had five refineries,

indicate today that they are having problems. They

do not have security at their sites. Many of them

they can't get to. They have requested security.

We are working that issue right now, getting the

-- addresses and contact information.

For Louisiana, leadership is now with the

Department of Agriculture and Forestry for the fuel

.,... 6- -- activities. They are establishing two depot

activities, two supply drops, Beauregard and

Barnesdale. The first is a Federal operation

staging area, the other one is a mobilization

 center. They are saying that they are now

establishing good supply. They are working on

completing their trucking activities. They have

some limitations with a couple types of vehicles,

' *
they are working on that. And they have a single

point of contact for delivery of informational

requests, and they are working through their list of

. .

- requirements.
MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you. Any questions

for ESF-12?

(No response. )

Department of Defense. Captain?

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: Yes, sir. A brief

synopsis of DOD support cumulative totals to date: .. ~ .

Federal military personnel on ground, 6,061: Navy

personnel in the area on ships, 3,255; National

Guard personnel all on State active duty, currently

34,845 from 42 States. Projected, there will be

-
36,248 by the day after tomorrow, the 6th of

September. Helicopters, we have 119 in the area;

., _ _ - -... - -- fixed-wing aircraft, 28; 24 ships, and nine

installations. 7200 personnel from the 82nd

Airborne First Cavalry, First and Second Marine

Expeditionary Force are deploying to New Orleans.

 Two National Guard Modular Airborne Firefighting

System Capable C-130 aircraft have been moved from

wildland firefighting operations in Boise, Idaho to

Pensacola, Florida in support of Katrina operations.

*
We have established Joint- Task Force

Katrina. Currently there are 60 personnel in

command structure. . We have two liaison officers,

-
Col. Jones and Col. Jordan have been detailed to Mr.

Mike Brown, the PFO. And we still have our two

Defense Coordinating Officers, DCOs, for the States

of Louisiana and Mississippi.

Aviation assets: 119 platforms with 476

personnel in various missions. Medical, we have 85

personnel for New Orleans only, staffing for 500

portable beds, includes 50 intensive care unit beds.

Of 750 provided, 25 beds at New Orleans Airport;

USS Bataan has 360 beds, and USS Iwo Jima has 360

beds. We' re also shipping critical pKarmaceuticals

-
-
of medical supplies to Mississippi, and the Armed

Forces Institute of Pathology is providing a two-

., - *.- -- person DNA team to assist disaster mortuary

operational response teams at Baton Rouge, to assist

with the identification of victims.

There are numerous ships -- the USS

 Bataan, USNS Arctic, USNS Whitby Island which-brings

bridge construction and repair equipment, several

logistical support ships including the HSV Swift,

who also worked on the tsunami relief effort, USS I

Truman which has a medical three-intensive care

units, 50 beds and five SH60 Foxtrot helicopters

will embark in-transit when they reach Jack-sonville,

-
Florida. And the USNS Comfort, which has 500

personnel, which will supply 500 patient beds and

500 ambulatory care beds. And we have been helping

to hook up some of the appropriate logistics people,

logistics principals at FEMA, to coordinate with

some of our J-4 personnel who have some expertise

just get married up and help provide whatever

support and expertise they can. That's my report,

sir.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thanks, Captain. Any

-- questions for DOD?

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON : This is DHS. '

again. I'd like tosjust add one footnote to this.

.. - .. -- First of all, our tremendous thanks for what DOD is

doing, it'-s just a fantastic job. And I want to

report that right before this call, that Deputy

Secretary Gordon England and I have both authorized

51
 in principle -- and this is being -finalized through

the DOD structure as well -- a broader expansion of

the mission authorities for Defense Department to

work on supporting missions with the troops that the

=

President yesterday authorized to be deployed into

the region. So, we will be refining a st of these

taskers and a plan .for those which will be out --

-
hopefully be completed this afternoon -- but an

expansion of the toolkit that Defense Department is

bringing to the scene, very grateful for that

assistance, and will be with Patrick wrapping that

up and, Ed, with your team today, this afternoon,

and thanks for the help overnight on that.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, sir. Let's move

on to a couple of others to wrap up. Headquarters

Logistics, Ron?

LOGISTICS-RON: Yes, sir. Logistics

- continues to supply the field with all commodities

-
and material available. We are actively working

with DOD and the acquisition and movement of bulk

-, - +.. -- water. We ' re continuing to supply -- excuse me --

to receive-the first of the 9 million MREs that have

been placed on order. We have established with

Recovery emergency housing staging areas in Baton

 Rouge and Selma, Alabama, and we c~ntinueto support

Recovery for any other emergency housing

requirements needed. Any questions?

MR. BUIKEMA: Thanks, Ron. Let's go to

f

Headquarters Operations. Mike? -

OPERATIONS-MIKE: Our immediate priorities

are to support life-saving

. . search and rescue

- missions, provide medical care and support,

including evacuation of hospitals and personnel

requiring medical care. We continue to support the

air and ground evacuation. In order to support all

those activities, we're looking at maintaining

commodity flow into the disaster areas, restoring

power and communications, and ensuring emergency

team response. To that end, we have established

task forces internally that reach out to the RRCCs

and the private sector for food and fuel as well as

our ESF-13 security.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, Mike, appreciate

that. I would like to talk now about our Recovery

. -.- - ...-. * -- programs and what.we have planned. Dan?

RECOVERY-DAN CRAIG: Good afternoon. Our

first priorities are to support the evacuation of

the victims in Louisiana and working with each of

 the States to find sheltering in respective

receiving States. We had a conference call with all

the State Emergency Management Directors in the FEMA

regions at 11:OO o'clock, to give them a :chedule on

-
what is expected and not expected of each of the

States. They have been very gracious in their

support of hosting- these victims out of Louisiana,

-
and all the support we can give them is being worked

through the FEMA regions. That is our first

priority.

Our second priority is working a

transitional sheltering program to remove people out

of the major shelters, i-e., the AstroDome, and get

them into some more transitional sheltering until we

can find a permanent housing solution -- either a

FEMA mobile home, a built-up community, or providing

rental assistance for them to find rental apartments

.- .

- and homes.
-
Our next priority is to find a solution

with the next 12 hours to providing vouchers

.,. - .&.- s -,. throughout the 'Federal family to the victims

themselves, We have staff actively engaged with the

Red Cross right now, over at Red Cross Headquarters,

and staff working upstairs to help solve that issue.

54
 And, thirdly, is to not- forget about the

States of Mississippi and Alabama for these similar

issues, and also begin the public assistance program

to get money into the cities and towns and* States to

get rebuilding from the events of Katrina.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thanks, Dan. Any questions

for Recovery?
-
(No response.)

Okay. I'd like to ask Casey Long, from

our International Affairs Office, to address the

international offers we've received for assistance.

Casey?

MR. CASEY LONG: I'd just like to start by

thanking everyone who got together on Saturday to

ensure that we fleshed out how we might be receiving

more international offers than we have in quite a

bit of time. We got folks together from USAID,

AFTA, DHS, State, GSA, DOD and NORTHCOM on Saturday.

-
- Here's the process we're currently working. All

government-to-government offers of assistance would

.. . - -- - run through the State. They've set up a Task Force

1 Department, and I've got a phone number here that

I'll give to folks in case they hear of any

government-to-government offers. That number is 202-

 647-6611. Again, all offers - of international

assistance from other governments should be run

through the State Department.

FEMA is working very closely, with the

State Department. We get an updated list three

times a day, and it is our job to flesh out what our

current unmet needs-are and communicate those to the

-
State Department. I'll get to those specific needs

because we have made some requests and those are

moving.

State would then find a match for the

offer, and the AFTA has really stepped up to the

plate here and will be handling the logistics and

operations. They have set up a 2 4 / 7 operations

center in Arlington that will have representatives

from DOD, ZBP, State, ICE and the U.N., and they

will be handling the logistics in terms of getting

-- those goods from that foreign country to the ground.

At that point, of course, FEMA or the State would

take over and make sure that we're ready to receive

- ,.. . .- -- those goods and get them to where they need to go.

Currently, here are the requests. We ' ve

reviewed the current offers of assistance that State

has compiled, and here are the current requests that

56
 FEMA has requested as of last night: 50,000 first

aid kits, 50,000 small tarps, 50,000 blankets, 100

trucks of 15,000-liter water bottles, 500,000 MREs,

25,000 cots, and 25,000 pillows. I also understand

=

there are some Greek cruise ships which may be

available that we're working as well.

Scott Webe-r over at DHS has requested a

-
breakdown of those offers of assistance by ESF, and

also by country, so I've asked the State Department

to pull that together as quickly as possible. We're

going to send that to Scott Weber, Secretary, we can

send that to you as well, if you would like a

current updated list, again, broken down by country

and ESF in terms of the offers we have on the table

from other countries. That's it.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, Casey.

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: Can I just ask

a quick question on this one? Could you summarize

-
the state of commitment of assets from the U.N.? I

know they've been very generous in making assistance

...-.. . + . - -- offers, and that -- (tape ended) .

(Off the record.)

CERTIFICATION
The foregoing text was transcribed from audio

recordings provided by the Department of Homeland

Security, and is as true and accurate a

*

representation of the oral discussion a3 possible.

. PHYLLIS P. YOUNG