are in Louisiana, the rest are spread through Alabama.

Of that, those 60 COs that we do have on backup are

isolated for making external communications out of

their area. so Long distance and regiona1,traffic is

not being passed. There's a possibility of 9-1-1

traffic, depending on the switch, is not being passed

as well.
-
We have 40 central offices in the area that

we have no visibility into. that we cannot tell

whether they are up/down , whet her they survived the

storm or not. Communications is not available and we

have no connectivity to them

We are staying proactive in trying to

reroute all the calls that would generally pass

through these offices to other l'ocations, so that we

can free-up the traffic space in the ones that we do

have working. and we are continuing to work and

- appreciate the Louisiana efforts in sheltering the

BellSouth folks. and are continuing to work with

Mississippi and Alabama for staging of BellSouth

,, - *.- a - personnel in those locations as well. That's my

report . Any quest ions?

MR. BUIKEMA: Any questions for ESF-2?

(No response.)
 If not. move to EFS-3. Gen. Strock.

GEN. CARL STROCK: Carl Strock here, from

the Corps of Engineers. We have activated all of our

missions -- ice. water. temporary power,'temporary *

--

housing, debris. roofing, and logistics -- in all

three States, and we're also moving in our deployable

tactical operations systems into each of the three

-
States.

Some specifics: ice and water, we're moving

500 trucks each of Ice and water into the MOB centers.

We are identifying 50 engineers to support the

housing strike teams that are being formed to go in

and look for the housing solutions. and we also have

teams standing by throughout the region for emergency

power.

We have some different missions going on

right now, the New Orleans unwatering. which Gen.

- Riley has already talked about. I don't have anymore

-
detail on that mission, but obviously that's a high

priority for us. We have made available quarter-boats

.. . +.. -- which belong to the Mississippi Valley Division that

can house 500 responders and billet them during the

operation.

We have reports of navigation being closed

 from Port Allen. Louisiana to Mobile, and so we'll

work with the Coast Guard to reestablish navigation

and navigational aids. And as soon as conditions

permitawe will go in and do a comprehensive'survey of

-

the condition of the levees. Thank you very much.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you. General. Any

. .

- questions for ESF-3?

(No response.)
I'm going to move now to ESF-6

MR. BEN CURRAN: Ben Curran, with FEMA

I'll start with mass care. Total number of shelters,

some 30.2, with a population of 54,193, 69,516 meals

served in the last 24 hours. Breakdown as to those

shelters. some 48 in Alabama. 96 in Mississippi, and

85 in Louisiana. I'm talking about last nightls

numbers. of course.

Mass Care Interagency Coordination Task

- Force -- you know what I mean -- a working group.

interagency, with government and nongovernmental

organizations, began operations at Red Cross

-- Headquarters, with Libby Turner of FEMA. and Ken

Curtin participating for FEMA.

The purpose of that in a nutshell is to look

at supporting the regions, of course, in identifying
 the needs and addressing the requirements in the kind
of coordinated manner that really is going to be

required for this unprecedented move, but we 've got

all the major providers of mass care in 'that same
-
cell. Working the request right now for some 1 '

million MREs -- the request just bubbled up moments

ago from Red Cross. who will work with the appropriate
-
parties here in the EST or the NRCC. .

FEMA HOUSING: The Housing Area Command. led

by Kevin Sousa (phonetic) and Brad Geer (phonetic) is.

as you know, I think. in place in Baton Rouge. That

consists of FEMA, other Federal agencies. and the

nongovernmental organization sector. again. and

private sector. It's linking of course in the field

with its State counterparts, and generally the purpose

to address temporary housing needs. ESF-3 just a

moment ago referred to the strike teams, the backbone

- I think of this process that is soma 50 strike teams

-
heading into the hot spots, identifying folks in need

and reporting back to the HAC. the area command. for

, - +- -- solutions or relaying or conveying solutions on the

grqund. i f at all possible

Federal registration numbers of interest.

total for the three States is some close to 3.000 at

 this point. We'll break those down, if you like. that
will be in the (inaudible).

Our office. the Individual Assistance

Branch, has established a cell down in the EMA lobby.

-
the first floor, a cell of the Individual Assistance

staff, so that we ourselves behave in a much more

coordinated fashion; We're talking about the crisis

-
counseling program, legal services, unemployment.

voluntary coordination, housing is part of that, and

that will be very much in coordination with the NRC

here, and that began operations today

Also, I think i t hasn't been on the radar

screen very much. but donations management and

volunteer management, not half as much a priority, I

realize, considering everything else. We are working

closely with our FEMA voluntary liaisons and the State

donations coordinators, who do exist in each of the

States. They are successfully using EMAC to get

-
- support. We do hope to have systems up -- I don' t

know exact time but. say, within 36 hours, i f not

.I . .+.. -- sooner, is my goal -- which would include an 800

number so that folks know where to call. In the

meantime, we've set up a little cell in Room 432 here.

with -- in order to help relieve you of some of the

 calls that I know several of you have been receiving

I'll get those numbers out just as soon as they are

fired up

Would you like to expand at all, Red Cross?

--

(No response.)

Thank you. Any questions?

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you very much: ESF-6.

-
Let's go to ESF-8.

ESF-8: We have two major missions that

we're working right now. The first is to evacuate

2500 patients from Louisiana. We're working with DOD

NDMS and GPMRC to do that. We just got the ARF, and

that's going to take a lot of work to do, but it's in

. -

the works to do that now.

We're also trying to set up a 1,000-bed

mobile bed facility, which will go to the New Orleans

Airport. Five hundred of those beds wi 11 hopefully

-
- come from DOD, we're still waiting to hear. Five
-
hundred of the other beds will come from the Federal

medical ( inaudible). We have five trucks that were

.. - &- - sent yesterday and today from CDC for supplies that

went to the Super Dome and will also go to New Orleans

for the mobile bed facility.

We're trying to identify staff. We have a

46
-
 number of staff that are here in the area and across
the country. we just need to figure out where they're
going to go. We haven't gotten any requests from

Louisiana yet about exact locations for'them, so

--

that's something that we're working to identify

We're working with Mississippi to identify

- their needs. Unfortunately, there's still 4 lot of

requests that need to be done, so we don't know

exactly what kind of medical or public support they

need.

I think the USS Bataan is going to deploy.

that has a small medical capability. I think it can

house about 500 beds that are triple-stacked. so they

are not necessarily for patients, but there's 15

acuity beds, there's 44 other medical beds. They have

a small health and medical staff that would be able

to support that. That would obviously need to be

- supported through ESF-8 as well.

That's all I have for right now. I know
that Jack is going to speak
, , - &.. = - MR. BUIKEMA: This is Jack Bell, who heads

up the NDMS program.

MR. BELL. One thing, just to add to the

patient evacuation program as that's currently being

47
 initiated right now. It's my understanding it will

take six to eight hours once we get that program

running. where'the DOD would actually move a patient

from the airport. I

One of the things we will need is a lot of

cooperation with State and local in the movement of

those patients, one of which is getting all the
-
p a t i e n t data so w e can screen the patients.

The DMATs will set up a casualty collection

area at the airport. We are currently rerouting those

resources to meet that need, if the New Orleans

Airport is selected. We also have been advised that

the Bell Chase Airport has dry runways. The NDMS is

also identifying staff that we currently have staged

close enough to support patient movement.

For the DMATs. we currently have DMATs

engaged at the ice arena, that's two DMATS. We've got

one DMAT stage close to that, and we still have not

--
determined whether that DMAT is in harm's way, whether

it's into the ice arena or has been pulled back.

-,... - +... = - , We currently have three strike teams located

at the arena. They will support the locals. If they

are going to transport the patients to the arena for

the first lift, we will support the patients there

 with those resources. We've been-advised we-cannot

get any additional DMATs into that

. area unless we are
.

going to fly them in there

We also have en route to Baton Bouge three

--
other DMATs and a strike team. and one of the DMORTs

is already staged at Baton Rouge. I've just been

informed that possibly that's been rerouted, but the

-
DMATs to go to Nichol State University as a staging

area. W e ' d like to talk to somebody offline in the

event we would need some of these resources at the New

Orleans Airport

Any more questions for Region 6 on our

support. I'll go to Mississippi next. You okay.

Gary?

REGION 6 : Not at this time. that Is what

that call was with Bill Lokey and Scott Wells. We're

going to follow up right after this is over with.

Thank you.

MR. BELL: Like I said. with (inaudible)

patients, we may need one or two of those DMATs to go

- - -- to the alrport to assist, lf we get into that

evacuation-process

From the State of Mississippi, we currently

have six DMATs. We rerouted resources out of

 Anniston, Alabama. We sent them early this morning to

Jackson. Mississippi. We've got six DMATs. We've got

two medical strike teams. We've got our National

Medical Response Team of 30 personnel,, that's a

-
special medical DCOM team, that's also en route to

Jackson. One DMORT, and a mental health team to

support the responders from NDMS. Any questions of

-
Mississippi?

(No response.)

Alabama. At the Mobile Training Center in

Anniston. Alabama. we have five DMATs. We have one

DMORT team. and we have a veterinarian team. Any

questions?

(No response.)

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you. Jack, good

information. Let's move on to Urban Search and

Rescue. ESF-9.

ESF-9: Thanks, Ed. Currently ESF-9 has in

excess of 1100 personnel involved in the response.

Our Blue Incident Support Team is in the city of New

. - - *.- -- Orleans has set up a base of operation and they are

working with Region 6 and the State. They have five

task forces assigned to them. and they are currently

engaged in search and rescue operations.

 Our White IST was in Camp Shelby. They are

working in conjunction with Region 4 and the State.

They are currently forward deploying down -to the

Johnson Space Center. I spoke to our Blue,IST leader

and Op Section Chief. I saw them just before the VTC,

they were proceeding down Interstate 59 and were

making progress. They have four task forces'assigned

-
to them and will be engaged in operations as soon as

they get set up. We anticipate that in the next two

to three hours.

This morning, we activated another nine task

forces and had them moving south to be more readily

available for assignment as they are needed. I stated

earlier, we've also activated under our process eight

swift-water rescue teams from the State of California.

Each of those are 14-person teams, and they're being

flown into the general area to operate with our Blue

-- IST for water rescue operation. That should do i t .

Thank you.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, ESF-9. Let's go to

* - the Department of Defense

CAPT. MIKE McDANIEL: Good afternoon. Capt.

Mike McDaniel with Col. Don Harrington, who are

Department of Defense L&Os here at FEMA National

Headquarters, Currently. Department of ~efensehas a
Defense coordinating officers and Defense coordinating

elements in the four affected States -- Alabama,

Florida, Louisiana. Mississippi. We als-o have 38

Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officers here at FEMA

National Headquarters and the Regional Headquarters

and the State EOCs,.

We have mobilization centers, a Federal

mobilization center at Barksdale Air Force Base.

~ouisiana. and operational staging areas at both

Maxwell Air Force Base and Naval Air Station.

Meridian, Mississippi.

We currently have approved seven rotary-wing

platforms, two of those have night vision capability

for search and rescue. As mentioned by ESF-9. we have

approval for the strategic lifts to transport those

eight swift-water rescue teams from California to

Louisiana.

We are working with the issue of the field

hospital to be established. and currently the issue

being worked at DOD is to staff 500 deployable beds.

50 of those with intensive care unit capability at the

New Orleans Airport. We also are continuing rnilitary-

to-military coordination. Mr. Pulaski mentioned some

 of the Navy assets that are operating in the area.
The USS Bataan who is right off the coast of New

Orleans, and we have coordinated this morning with the

U . S . Coast Guard and some of their search and rescue

*

vehicles to potentially use that pla-tform as an

emergency landing place, but also for refueling.

And the National Guard. we currently have

-
over 7500 in the four States used in various

capacities. That's all from Department of Defense,

unless there are any questions.

MR. BUIKEMAs Thank you, DOD, appreciate it.

And last let's go to our representative at EMAC.

MR. DON CARLTON: Thank you. Don Carlton,

Massachusetts, representing EMAC, and I'm going to

report by exception, in the interest of time. We have

a two-person National Coordinating Team here at FEMA

Headquarters, coordinating most of the States'

- activities as the National Coordinating Group in the

-
State of New Mexico. We have three EMAC A-Teams

deployed to Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. In

-,, - *.- a -. Florida, there .are no further anticipated EMAC

requests. . As you saw, they're becoming an assisting

State. Alabama. same issue there. no requests for

assistance, so they are becoming an assisting State.

 In Louisiana, I'll report-by exception that

in addition to Texas we have a Kentucky swift-water

rescue team on the ground, and public assistance and

individual assistance officers are on the way from

=

Washington and North Carolina.

Mississippi, in addition to the EMAC team on

the ground, we have-a two-person public information

-
team en route, and more EMAC support.

Now. as for requests. I'll report that both

States are looking for public assistance and

individual assistance experienced people in the State

level to work in partnership with the Federal teams.

Both States are looking for vehicles and personnel for

high-water rescue and commodity distribution. Both

States are looking for security personnel and looking

for debris removal personnel. By exception, Louisiana

is looking for public health teams, which has been

-- addressed by Texas and, in addition, they're looking -

for field sanitation and refueling support.

Mississippi, by exception, is looking for more A-Team

. . . *.-. -- support personnel. We were not able to get a full A-

Team in there before the weather moved ln, and

basically we have one person deployed there helping

out the State EOC. And in addition to other assets

 I've previously mentioned that Louisiana is looking

for. they are also looking for helicopter support with

hoists and cargo capability for both search and rescue

and for cargo sling operations. And as for total

*
people -- and these numbers are changing -- as you can

see. moment by moment with Florida, we have

approximately 175 State

-
personnel that are in the area
.

- now from the States of Washington, Iowa. Kentucky.

Colorado, Massachusetts, Texas, New York, Alabama,

North Carolina and Florida. And that's all I have

unless there are questions.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you for that.

Obviously. the States and we as well are very grateful

for all the assistance that is being provided through

EMAC .

Quickly moving on, let's go to our

Headquarters reports, Headquarters Operations.

OPERATIONS: The NRCC is fully-engaged with

supporting response operations in Louisiana.

Mississippi. and Alabama. We are still acquiring

.
%
. - *.- a -. satellite imagery.and analysis through the National
Geospace Agency. and we are concentrating on

maintaining visibility of all life support and life-

saving issues in coordination with all ESFs here at

 Headquarters.

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you. Mike. Let's move

on to Headquarters Logistics. ~ a ' r ~ a n n ?

LOGISTICS: Logistics continues to push all

=
the commodities and in coordination with the regions

and DOT redirecting as needed. Gary and the MERS

folks are working all the satellite communication

. .

- issues. We have contracted for and secured additional

storage space and product for ice and water. upping it

from 500 trucks to 1.000 trucks.

The Emergency Housing Unit is working with

Recovery Division for procurement and movement of

emergency housing. Any questions for Logistics?

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you. Maryann, appreciate

all the efforts. Let's go to Recovery. Dan?

RECOVERY: Well, as you've heard and I won't

repeat, is our biggest priority is housing for all the

victims out there. We are starting to get calls in.

We have 1600 applications from Alabama. 600 from

Mississippi, and over 4,000 for Louisiana at this

...- - *.- - time, but we cannot put our inspectors in to inspect

homes until it is safe and that may take a few days,

but they are pre-positioned down in the area.

Community relations will be rallying at the

56
 Atlanta Office, and we will expect at some point to

surge up to 2,000 community relations officers to put

in the field when it is appropriate. Other than that,

=
most things have been reported on.
--

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, Dan. appreciate all

the reports. I'm going to turn it back to Patrick now

- for closure.
PATRICK RHODE: Thank you very much. Ed.

Obviously, just listening throughout this call, there

are many, many considerations that are going on right

now that are factoring into both this very heavy

response operation phase that we're in, and also as we

will be able to transition as best we can into the

recovery phase, both weather permitting and conditions

permitting there on the ground, I just want to thank

all of you on behalf of the FEMA famlly. the DHS

family, and clearly on behalf of the White House and

-- all the interests there for what you have been doing.

This is just the beginning. There are going

to be an awful lot of issues that come up that you are

.. - -3.- -- all working. We all have to collectively work them

together.. I know that I almost wish that everyone who

watches this on VTC also could see all the thousands

of people that stand behind every one of us that sit

57
 around this table, and you sit with our State partners

and all the volunteer agencies and everyone who

mobilizes for an effort of this scale. This is

something that is going to take all of us working 1

together and continuing to work hard. -Everyone is

tired. no question about that. We have to continue to

push forward. There are an awful lot of ou-r fellow

-
citizens who need us right now, and this is where the

rubber meets the road.

I'm not certain if the Department 'of

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff is with us or not

at this point. I would just like to ask if he's

there?

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: No, he's not on

the call right now. We just spoke through him halfway

through it, Patrick this is Michael, and we'll give

him a fuller debrief after this is over with.

MARY LYNN: Patrick, this is Mary Lynn. we

do expect him in the Atlanta office within the next

half an hour or so.

. PATRICK RHODE : Understood. Mary Lynn.

Thank you very much. Mr. Deputy Secretary, would you

. -

like to add anything?

DEPUTY SECRETARY JACKSON: No, just thanks

 for all the work everybody is doing, keep at i t , and

we're grateful for the effort.

PATRICK RHODE: Thank you very much. Mr.

Secretary, we appreciate it. Everyone, let's keep

=
pushing forward. We'll have another VTE tomorrow at

noon. Thank you.

(Off t h e 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
 AUGUST 3 1 , 2005-

FLORIDA: In addition, we have 400 law

enforcement officers in the area. and the situation

that they're reporting back is the infrastructure for
-
law enforcement in those six southern counties is not

there anymore, and we're going to have to start from

- scratch rebuilding-the infrastructure. They are

-
committed.

We will respond with additiodl assets. We

are shifting all of our assets from homestead. They

are en route. We should have some assets in there

later today to help with the PODS distribution. POD

distribution is going to be based on what the

Mississippi National Guard has.

We are sending Florida National Guard.troops

into the area. and hopefully they will be able to help

with the POD distribution. We have told the State of

Mississippi that we probably have supplies in the area

for about 48 hours, and they are to start shipping

their supplies that they have in Meridian down to that

- . . *.- * --
area.

Are there any questions?

PATRICK RHODE: Mike, Craig, this is

Patrick. Thank you very much for that -- that report.

 Clearly, we are aware of the DMORT and the DMAT
issues as well, too, and I know. that we're pushing

that. And thank you for the report on the fuel

issues. You guys have been absolutely phenomenal in
-
your assistance, and we really appreciate that.

Any specific questions for Florida at this

-
- time?
SPEAKER: Patrick. one.
PATRICK RHODE: Go ahead.

CRAIG: Patrick. our law enforcement has

been trying to reach out. We believe there may be

several principal senior law enforcement officials and

many of their staffs,as well as the responders, that

are victims. We've been unable to make contact in

several cases with the elected leadership. So we are

also, again, dealing with a situation where many of

the response and the local officials may have also

- become victims themselves.
PATRICK RHODE: That's a very good point.
Craig, for all of us to remember. Thank you very
.-,..,.- *... - -.. ,

much

I understand that Louisiana may be on as

well right now. Louisiana, can we go to you?

COLONEL JEFF SMITH: Patrick, I'm here.

- 2
 Jeff Smith.

PATRICK RHODE: Please go ahead, Jeff

COLONEL SMITH: Can you hear me? Patrick?

I will tell you we're still in the throw of life-
-

saving efforts right now. We still have all of our

search and rescue teams out, certainly fully engaged.

I think that at last count we had some 300 craft that

-
were out, primarily in the New Orleans area, but we

actually have search and rescue going on in several

other parishes. just not to the extent because the

population is not as heavy.

And in our particular case, I view the life-

saving here, too, as getting commodities. It's very

hot. A lot of these people now have -- were in attics

for a long time, up on roofs. and so there are a lot

of people that are dehydrating out here. So pushing

commodities to these people in flooded areas.

.-

-- especially in small areas, is a challenge. and

certainly we view that as life-saving as well.

We are fixing to probably try and execute

Q - one of the largest evacuations that I'm familiar with

for sure, and a lot of people tell me, you know, one
of the largest ever. And that's from our Superdome in

New Orleans. We have about 23,000 people there. We

 have a count of probably somewhere -around 1,500 that ,,

are special needs, and we're fixing to begin that

evacuation process probably within the next two hours.

As you know, the Department of Defense

=
has
-
activated a joint operations group out of the

Department of Defense. And about 1 0 : O O last night we

were in contact with Lieutenant General Honore, who

-
has been appointed the Joint Task Force Commander. We

basically have been planning with our FEMA folks here

and General Honore's staff this operation through most

of the night.

And we are basically just waiting now to put

in a few of the little pieces here as far as getting

them off of the island, if you will, because the Dome

is surrounded by water to the buses to start getting

those moving. But there is plans in that evacuation

process to not only use the buses that your people

-- worked through the night to get us. but also air

assets as well as potentially watercraft. n

On our special needs patients, we certainly

-,. - A
."
. -
are going to use the aircraft for that. and then to

move those-patients -- those critically ill patients

on through to other areas. So, again. that operation

will be commencing just as soon as the assets are in

 place on the ground.
Optimistically, we had hoped to get i t

cranked up earlier this morning. and we're going to

shoot for trying to do this through the daydight hours
-
in one day. If we pull that off. I think we'll be
very, very lucky. Everything will have to go just

- right to make that happen.

-
Realistically, this operation.probably will

go on through the night, and probably will not

conclude until tomorrow sometime. And. again, that's

the big piece that we're working on But in addition

to that, we have about six hospitals in the area who

are out of fuel for generators.

And in most cases it's not just out of fuel

for generators, the generators actually were flooded,

because the water kept rising here until this morning.

And it looks like it has stabilized at this

-- particular point in time. So a lot of the generators

were just overcome by water.

So literally you had hundreds of patients

. - -.-
,~ - -, .
that were just trapped. We've been able to airlift

and mediva-c some out, but in our push that we're

fixing to make we certainly are going to include those

hospitals.
 -
.

But to give you an idea of the severity and

magnitude of this -- and I know that a lot of people

have seen the news -- that's the big banana that we're
talking about. But in St. Bernard Parish.' it's just
-

completely devastated. In fact, Senator Landrew, who

overflew the Tsunami area. equates what she saw in a

- lot of our areas to equivalent damage.

We estimate that probably half the homes in

St. Bernard Parish are gone. Probably the other half

had water up to the eaves in St. Bernard Parish. They

have managed to do a lot of self-help there, and then.

along with our wildlife and fisheries and the assets

that we have received from you and from other states,

are doing a staging area there in a dry place. And

we're anticipating have seven -- having 7- to 8,000

people in St. Bernard Parish that we need to evacuate

out of there. So plans are underway to-take care of

-- those people right now
I guess I could go on with this. but

basically that's where we're at. We're basically in

-. .

the middle of the battle. We do have people that are

. -
doing forward-planning. Obviously. this is going to
be a tremendous issue as far as housing long term. and

I think some of the wheels may be invented with this

 particular disaster. . .

Your people have been great. The unified

command tone has been set. We just had a news

conference where we were standing here = with our

-
Federal Coordinating Officer, our Defense Coordinating

Officer, showing everyone that we're working together

on this, and we truly are. As with any operations,

-
there are 'little hiccups there, but. by and large.

we're very pleased with the support that we've been

receiving.

We do have a little bit of an issue with the

DMAR, but I think that's going to work out. And, in

fact. our Federal Coordinating Officer. Bill Lokey,

just walked in, and he may even have some update on

that . But we do have to get it on the ground. We

have to get it operational. unfortunately

And. Patrick. that concludes my report. But

- Bill may want to share some information with you.

I've addressed more or less operational issues, i f you

want to talk about logistics or --

.. . *... * - MR. LOKEY: Search and rescue, things like

that.

COLONEL SMITH: Oh, absolutely. Yes.

MR. LOKEY: Okay. Well. the Colonel has
 covered the issues with Operations. Some of the

larger issues we've been dealing.with is moving into

the recovery phase in that we've -- I'm sorry, I

apologize for being late. I was in witrh the two

-.

Senators. A tremendous' number of questions and

pressure coming from all the people in the shelters

- who are now running out of money, don't have money to

pay for hotels, and wondering what kind-of assistance

can FEMA provide.

We are working with our task forces and with

Headquarters and looking at all of the options with

the goal of, within 24 hours, being able to have good.

solid information we can give these people, so they

can understand what avenues, whether it be Red Cross

vouchers or things like that, we can get to them to

stabilize their situation in the shelter, and where

they are sheltered until we can move into some

-
- intermediate housing.

We are also working with the housing task

- *.-. -- f,orce on identifying options and things like that, so

we can let the folks know relative to the sheltering

options, everything from the people who are going to

the Astrodome to the people who are in a hotel in

Memphis, Tennessee
 So that's kind of where aur priorit~asare

on that right now, and I ' l l stand by for any

questions.

PATRICK RHODE: Bill, this iq Patrick.

-
Appreciate that and want to thank you very much for

all your work, too. I know you guys are still right

in the middle of heavy operations, so I think we've

-
captured many, many of your issues. and obviously a

lot of -- a lot of people here around the table, and

also the entire VTC have been working your issues

I might ask Dan ~ r a i g from our Recovery

Division to speak just quickly to what we're taking a

look at as it relates to the shelter population and

their awareness of our programs. Dan?

DAN CRAIG: We have a couple of things going

on for the sheltering program. We are working on

sending out 50 strike teams to go into the shelters to

- help people with their financial assistance, including

ensuring that they are applying for assistance and

getting into our system and then figure out a way to
- - *.-. * -
work on paying them.

One of the things we're looking at, since we

cannot get inspectors into their homes because of the
flooding levels, is working on some aerial
 reconnaissance and have it analyzed by some

engineering firms to cross-match with the

applications, so that if their house is destroyed from

above because of the flood waters we will- start paying

their applications.

PATRICK RHODE: Thank you, Dan, very much

- Ed?

ED BUIKEMA: I just wanted -to ask, Bill

Lockey, at the conclusion of the VTC, would you please

give me a call? Thank you

PATRICK RHODE: Jeff, Bill. thank you very

much. Know that we're definitely thinking about

everything that you're doing there. We're all going

to continue to aggressively work together on all of

the issues that lyou 've chronicled. Thank you very

much.

At this point --

COLONEL SMITH: Patrick?

PATRICK RHODE: I'm sorry, Jeff. Go ahead

-. - -.. -- COLONEL SMITH: Yes. I just wanted to say

/

how much that the Governor appreciates or the Adjutant

General and I appreciate the generous offers that

we've had from Greg and Bruce and Robert and Jack,

and, again, Jack is actually taking the bulls by the

 horns and has agreed to -- to operate that operation

in the Houston Astrodome,

Without this kind of help, we would

certainly not be as far along as we ar;e in this

-

particular case, or I might say we would be deeper

underwater than we are. Maybe that's a little more

accurate. But -those partnerships are truly

-
appreciated. I just wanted to say that

PATRICK RHODE: Thank you very much. Jeff.

No question, it's this incredible coordination

that is making this operation work right now.

We appreciate everything you guys are doing.

Let's move on now to the State of

Mississippi. Are you with us?

M R . MIKE WOMACK: This is Mike Womack in

Mississippi. Florida gave a great operationals

briefing. so I won't hit that. I think there's a

- couple of issues of national importance I'd like you

all to look at. I talked with a representative from

Colonial Pipeline. Wiggins. Mississippi, there's a
. . 6.- -
large tank farm there --

MISSISSIPPI: Collins.
MR. WOMACK: Excuse me, Collins,

Mississippi. We're trying to work a way maybe to

 figure out -- it's without power, but if we can.figure

out a way to pump off of those -- pump out of those

big tanks into some trucks that would help us with

this fuel issue. =

-
So if somebody at a national level could

look at this -- Collins, Mississippi. We talked to

Colonial Pipeline, but there's other pipeline

-
-
companies and big oil companies there

The second thing is this. My folks in

Meridian, Mississippi know Amtrak officials. and from

what I understand the President of Amtrak has not been

able to get through to say that he could possibly get

Amtrak passenger rail through the freight lines.

possibly into New Orleans to assist in the evacuation

So I'll throw those two out.

Something I'd like you all just to be aware

of, as far as I'm concerned, even though-we're focused

-_ on the bottom six counties in Mississippi, we've got

another 20 counties that are without power. And the

problem is, these people are mobile. and they're

.. - -.. ,. -. ,

looking for gasoline, they're looking for bottled

water, they may be looking for food. and we're

starting to run shortages. and I'm -- I 'rn concerned

that we may have some real law enforcement issues in

- 12
 those counties .
They're not severely impacted. but they are

getting spooked, and I'm really concerned about that.

So that's just an issue I think that y e need to

-
address.

That's the only issues I have.

PATRICK RHODE: Any specific questions for

-
the State of Mississippi? Mississippi, I know that we

have many of those issues chronicled as well, too, and

I think that we can also speak -- speak very well to

several of things throughout the day. Any specific

questions of Mississippi?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, sir, if I could --

PATRICK RHODE: Please.

MR. JOHNSON: -- address the Amtrak issue.

This is Reggie Johnson with Department of

Transportation. Arntrak is working those issues, and I

- did speak with Mr. Larry Beard this morning. And our

personnel over at Federal Rail Administration is also

coordinating with Amtrak to ensure that we are able to

--
get any rail services down there that are needed.

ED BUIKEMA: Thanks Reggie. This is Ed. I

have also talked to David Gunn. the President of

Amtrak, immediately before this call. And we'll need

13
 to coordinate the possibility or the feasibility of

this with our office in Baton Ro.uge, which we'll do

immediately after this call.
So thank you. =
-
PATR I CK RHODE : Thank you very much.

Mississippi. Thank you, Transportation, as well. too.

- In the interest of time, knowing that you

guys have heavy operations going on, we're going to go
ahead and move on. I think we have the state -- or,

Jesse, I'm sorry, are you there as well, too? Would

you like to add anything in Mississippi, Jesse?

MISSISSIPPI: Well. I'll just-try and keep

it very brief. Of course. Bill Carlisle is still down

-- down range with Robert Latham, State Director. and

also Governor Barber, still assessing all of the

situation.

Communications remains a big _ problem. We

-
- have interim communications with Bill Carlisle at
-l
best, and the thing that,he expresses -- everyone is

.* - *.-. e-
expressing
,
down in southern Mississippi is the
critical, critical fuel shortage, and also the

communications problems.

But also, I would like to make note that the

Region IV RRCC has been working very, very diligently

to try and help us with this situation. But I think

it's a problem of national magnit'ude.

The only other thing, too, is that we have

f

been trying to get people down here, but- the problem

that we have here in Jackson, Mississippi, is that the

-- the lodging remains a major problem, because so

much of -- so many citizens from Louisiana, especially

from New Orleans, evacuated to this area. So the

nearest hotel room that we are finding today is in

Memphis, Tennessee. So that remains a critical issue

for all of the people that are wanting to come here to

help out, but lodging is in very. very serious

shortage down here.

Also, I wanted to turn this over to Bob

Fenton that has the operational priorities that we

have at this time.

MR. FENTON: I ' 11 just go over what we're

doing today. We have the DMATs deployed to critical

hospitals down in the bottom counties. They should be

linking up at four hospitals and assisting them. We

have search and rescues down -- teams down there that

are starting search and rescues this morning.

We also have some HAZMAT teams from EPA that

are conducting HAZMATs. Last night we provided out

 trucks of water and ice to over 15 counties. We're

also going to continue to do that.

We're setting up base camps. We'll set one

up at Stinson, NASA Space Center . and

-
= w e ' 11 set

another one up at Trent Lot t Airport, and then my

understanding is that the State of Florida may set one

. .

- up at Gulfport. So we're working toward that today.

try to get the logistics in there to support these

operations and continue operations, and then, of

course, just the issues that we're dealing with with

the fuel, the communications. and the airlifts. to

continue moving commodities at these levels. Those

are the key things we're working on today.

MISSISSIPPI-BOB: Any questions for

Mississippi?

PATRICK RHODE: Bob, this is Patrick. Just

curious. obviously, we ' re hearing about some of the
--

- resource issues. particularly those as i t relates to

-
Colonial and also the generators. Do you have any

additional shortfalls that we're not speaking to at

. - 4.. * - this point?

-MISSISSIPPI: No. My shortfalls are the

generators are comi,ng and the commodities are corning,

even the trucks of ice and water. The problem is

 keeping them operational. I have trucks that are
literally running out of diesel, and what we're having

to do is drop the truck and then take a tractor and

move it two or three hours just to fill up.
-
So our shortfalls right now are just the

logistics support in order to continue the operations.

- Getting the things in. like the (inaudible) trucks

for -- for cadavers. and I'm getting the.DMORT advance

teams in, and the USAR teams are in, and the NMDS

teams are in, and all of those things are working. I

think to continue to maintain them, we need to really

start pushing on the fuel and the communications and

the airlift to continue this operation.

PATRICK RHODE: Duly noted. We're working

on all of those issues.

Anyone have any specific questions for the

State of Mississippi? Hearing none, thank you all

very much.

Let's move on. Texas, are you with us?

TEXAS. Yes, The State of Texas is here.

Quickly, our mission remains the same -- to provide

direct support to the State of Louisiana. To that

end. in shelters -- we have 47 shelters available for

a capacity of about 10.000 evacuees. Right now, we

- 17
 have 21 of those shelters open, with about 4.079

evacuees. We're in the process of transitioning that

operation from evacuation shelters to temporary

=
she1ters,
-

At about 2 : 45 this morning, we received a

call from the State of Louisiana requesting support on

. .

- the evacuation of New Orleans, specifically the Dome.

To that end, we've coordinated that effort to receive

23,750 evacuees. We'll do that in the Astrodome in

Houston, Texas, and the Astrodome will be fully

operational to accommodate that at 1800 hours today.

To do that, we have the furl array of

medical/social services, logistics, public education,

and security. There was an EMAC request that went out

from somewhere. We do not need any support at all

with this. There is none needed. We will establish a

disaster recovery center there also to begin to assist

-
- citizens through that and work that with the State of

Louisiana. We'll just take that initiative and do

-. - *.- - -,
that. So with that effort, we are moving forward.

I'd only ask the single point of contact for

this will be the State of Texas Operations Center.

I'd ask not to call Harris County. This is not the

City of Houston. This is Harris County that runs this

 operation, and so I would ask just to keep it, so they

can get moving. that the State of.Texas be the single

point of contact for this with the federal agencies.

All intent is well meaning and -- but right now we

need to leave them alone and let them get established,

and they'll have that done by 1800 hours today

We have deployed to Louisiana a full array

of search and rescue. everything basically we have.

Our full-up USAR team, along with a 35-person water

rescue team with five boat squads. they have

participated in 1,100 rescues in the last 24 hours.

We deployed eight UH-60 Blackhawks. six with SAR

capability, to include onboard water rescue teams. We

deployed two CH-47s. one C-23 short takeoff and

landing aircraft. one C - 2 6 .

Our SACCOM package I believe is at the

Superdome now. They have been en routs -- 50 game

- wardens with boats. trucks, and rescue boats. We have

sent four (inaudible) fuelers, 50 ambulances. We have

an IMT -- robust IMT team there with 6 0 people, and

s -. ,

our L&O team remains.

We're deploying today three C-130 cargo

aircraft, one medical company with five doctors. ten

nurses, 30 PAS, and 30 combat medics, We're deploying

 300 military policemen. We're deploying 120-combat

engineers. We're deploying one forward support

battalion MANIS as a logistical support battalion.

.
We're deploying five airboats to support the

Coast Guard. We have pending in EMAT five medical

doctors, 69 nurses, ten IMAC fuelers, a TAL-C, which

is a tanker airlift patrol element, and 300 additional

-
security personnel with weapons.

We have available for deployment, but not

asked for yet because we're scouring the state to see

what we have, we have 12 helicopters, medicaljprivate.

we have two fixed-wing medical/private evacuation

aircraft, we have 60 ambulances. we have two disaster

trailers -- these are large trailers that can

accommodate a full array of that. and we've identified

254 EMS personnel to include -- which makes up of Ems

and paramedics.

So. ,and we also have five steel hull

airboats available and some other boats that we use

for rescue, and we're making that up through the --

. - *.. * -
through the process to make people aware of it .

So, again, our job is to support the State

of Louisiana. And to that end, you know. we've

accomplished that part. On the evacuation. we are

 ready to receive those evacuees, and we're

coordinating directly with the St,ate of Louisiana to

make that happen when they deem fit to make it work.

That's all from the State of Terns.

PATRICK RHODE: Jack. this is Patrick. It

goes without saying we cannot thank you, the entire

. .

- State of Texas, and obviously Governor Parry as well.

for all of your assistance in this effort. It's been

extraordinary, and we really appreciate it.

Any questions for the State of Texas?

Let's go on to ~egion.6.

MR. DICK HARMON: This is Dick Harmon.

Region 6. Our priority is the commodities pipeline.

keeping that flowing, and it is flowing quite well.

We have no issues at this point. We appreciate the

support that we're getting from the Logistics units to

get it up forward to us. We continue to push i t

-
forward.

We, in fact, pushed food and water down to

the three states this morning with those buses to

.". - *.. .%-. ,

support the evacuation operation. We have established

a base camp at Fort Allen for 500 beds to support our

folks that are in the Baton Rouge area. moving towards

a total of 2.700-bed capacity there. By approximately

 midnight tomorrow night, we will ha"e the quarterboats
at Fort Allen, which will be able to house additional

employees there -- 600.

We have also established a 100-bed base camp

-
near the state EOC.

As far as shortfalls. Patrick. our concerns

-
- continue to be the- communications problems, but I
think we're getting real close to that .one. We have

Red October at the state EOC, which will either be

utilized to support Director Brown as the BFO or to

utilize it to support the IOF and get our ESFs out

there. so they can communicate with us directly. We

also have two of the MERS mini-EOVs, one either to

support the Director or support the I O F , J F O , and

we're looking into the feasibility of moving the

second mini-EOV down to the Dome area.

We understand that we can get them

-- to within
- _ about two blocks of the Dome, and then we've got water

problems. But they're looking at the feasibility of

supporting from that capacity. We also have. through

= -
ESF-2, two commercial Big Blue units that are at the
. .
EOC .

One is being set up and should be

operational within the next few minutes to support the

- 22
 state EOC operations. The other one is just waiting

to forward deploy to the Dome to support the

evacuation operations once they have a security escort

to get them down there to commercial entefprise.

-

The other shortfall or concern -- and,

Patrick, this is not a shot across anybody's bow. We

- understand that many of these requests are of the

utmost urgency, but we'd just ask that we keep

Region 6 in the loop. We get calls from the NRCC back

asking the status, and some of these requests we

haven't even seen; they have come straight up there.

So if we could keep them in the process. in the

pipeline the right way, we'll be able to better

support our folks out there.

REGION 6: Gary?

REGION 6-GARY: I just want to thank Jack

and his staff -- outstanding cooperation with the
-.. State of Texas. And I know Colonel Smith feels the

same way, and the whole nation. So we've got FEMA

liaisons there in his state EOC in Austin to help

. - *.- s -
augment this, and I'm sure we'll be continuing to

' provide the FEMA assistance. But great job on behalf

of the State of Texas in this overall national event.

Any questions for Region 6 ?

 PATRICK RHODE: Any specific questions of

Region 6? Thank you very much for all of your work,

and clearly it's good to underscore the fact that we

need to make sure that the mission assignments are

going through the proper channels that we have

established through protocol here over the years.

Let's all endeavor-to do that. That's a very good

-
point for us all to remember.

Did I hear a question for Region 6 ?

Hearing none, thank you very much. Let's go

on to Region 4 .

REGION 4: Yes. sir. Our priorities -- our

operation priorities for the next 24 hours is the fuel

situation, generators, and communications. We're

working very closely with Headquarters and in the

field as well as our ESFs, and trying to get fuel into

the areas. Also, some REFR trucks that we're moving

- today into the area.

Communications -- we've requested 100

satellite phones to be distributed, and we're looking

s -
at trying to get some additional phones in there. And
also. we're working very closely with the --

supporting the community relation processing center

here. and that Is up and running. or should be, by I

 think the close of business today.
And our NDMS folks are.in contact with our

folks in moving those teams closer to the area.

We also have been very -- in contact with

-
the ERD-As. as well as our JFO staff is out looking in

the Biloxi area for the facilities and getting some

- information back frbi them.

That's all we have at this time

PATRICK RHODE: Any specific questions for

Region 4 at this time? Thank you for all of your

work. We appreciate how well you're pushing

everything forward.

Let's move on to the Florida Long-Term

Recovery Office. Scott?

FLORIDA-SCDTT: Good afternoon, Patrick. I

just wanted to let you know we're increasing the scale

of the mobilization center operat ions . _and we have
-_ that up and running, fully functional and operational

We're still continuing PDAs up in the Gulf -- Gulf

counties -- Escambia, Clara, east over to Gulf County.

.. - *.- --
And, obviously, whatever you all need there in

support of the operation up west, just let us know.

We'll take on whatever you need.

PATRICK RHODE: Very good. Scott. Thank you

 very much for all the help that you've given us over

there to push those commodities together with Craig's

efforts in the states there.
With that, let's move it over to=Ed Buikema
-.

at this point, our Director of Response, to take us

through the ESF functions.

. .

MR. BUIKEMA: Thank you, Patrick. As we did

yesterday, we want to touch briefly on a few of our

key (inaudible) here at FEMA Headquarters. and we're

going to start out with transportation ESF-1. Reggie?

MR. REGGIE JOHNSON: Yes, good afternoon.

This is Reggie Johnson with DOT again.

As was stated by Region 6 in support of

their evacuation of the Superdome, we have contracted

455 buses, and it looks like we've got about 200 that

are currently in place, with the remainder that should

be coming in on a staggered basis. Also, in support

-
- of ESF-8, we have two MB-80 aircraft on standby to be

launched at the request of ESF-8.

.-. - -.- * - Damage assessments of the transportation

infrastructure -- it's beginning to show massive
. "

disruptions of all modes of transportation. as we

discussed yesterday about the damage to some of the

airports. But we have found that there's damage to

 all of the 1-10 bridges, and it-appears that the

eastbound span of the Pascagoula River Bridge was hit

by a barge, causing one or two spans to sag. And as I

stated yesterday, US-90 is basically destroyed, as

-
we're seeing on the video as has been shown by all of

the networks there

US-49, two-lanes are open from ~ackson to

-
Hattisburg. One lane is open from Hattisburg to

Gulfport, strictly for emergency response vehicles

only, and ensuring that 1-55 is open to the p u b l i c

from state line to s t a t e line.

Commodities are in transit, as directed by

FEMA, and we work closely with our partners there to

ensure that we get those commodities to you down there

in the regions' and the states. We certainly

appreciate, you know, your situation, and we want to

make sure that we support you 110 percent.

- We currently maintain a temporary flight

restriction in place over New Orleans, and also over

the coastlines of Mississippi and Alabama to support

..,..- - *.- * - .
and coordinate air operations.

That's all we have at this point. Any

questions for ESF-l?

ED BUIKEMA: H e a r i n g no questions. thank

- 27
 you. Reggie. Let's move on to ESF:~.

MR. SEAN LAPINSKI: Good afternoon. This is

Sean Lapinski with ESF-2. We have no outage numbers

to report at this time. ' At this time,=the major

-
carriers have stopped their recovery process and have
turned to evacuation and life-saving exercises and --

- of their major and minor facilities. It is expected

the communications network will be in rebuild mode.

not recovery. and there is no access to most locations

at this time.

There are major security concerns during the

evacuations of these sites throughout the New Or'leans

are that are being addressed with ESF-13 and ourselves

at this time. There continues to be widespread

outages in wireless and wireline networks, and this is

not expected to improve

ESF-2 and the National Coordination Center

-- for Communications will coordinate a communications

plan meeting this afternoon with Ops to determine the

best long-term plan for providing recovery for

. - *.- * -*

communications to the impact theater.

. .
That's our report at this time.
ED BUIKEMA: Okay. Thank you. Sean.
ESF-37 General?
 GENERAL COSTROK: Yes. -General ~ostrok,
Corps of Engineers here. All .of our preliminary
response teams are in place, and I know of no
impediments to any of the missions that we're facing
-
here right now. But I would like to highlight a

couple of points.

We are working a pretty critical power issue

for Colonial Pipelines. They're looking for about 56

two-megawatt generators, and that's a very important

line for providing fuel in the area. We're working

that one.
O All of our DTOS -- our operations centers

are onsite now and up and running. The most public

issue right now I guess is the unwatering of New

Orleans. I'll take a little bit of time to talk about

what's going on there.

We're actually involved in _a couple of

-
- different flood fights. The 17th Canal Street Bridge

breach is our first priority effort. We're working

very closely with the state, National Guard, and

,. - *.- --
others to stop the flow of water through that breach,

but we're also looking at the lake levels.

The current situation is that the lake is
about one and a half to two feet above normal levels.
 And until they subside, we're going to have a

continued flow of water across that, pending our

issues to stop -- our efforts to stop the water.

Lake levels are receding at abouti .05 to . I
-
feet per hour. So i t could be another 20 to 40 hours
before the lake level stabilizes and the flows stop
. .

-
- naturally. In the meantime, we'll continue to stop

the flows in other ways.

We also have a reported breach at the London

Avenue Canal flood wall. That's the second priority

effort. We have people onsite now taking a look at

that and what we can do.

The Inner Harbor breach that was reported

earlier has now stabilized. In fact, the water is

flowing out of the city at that point. And we have

another couple of other reported breaches that we're

looking into.

The Superdome flood fight -- we're involved

in that, and trying to keep the water off of the

generator for the Superdome. That's the main point of

- - *.- a - ,

effort for us right now as to the Dome area.

Another related issue that the Corps is

working is navigation. The Mississippi River is open

from sea buoy out to marker -- mile marker 507. so all

 the way out, but to tug and barge traffic only. Deep

draft navigation can occur within.the mirages. and in

the meantime we're doing hydrographic surveys and

working with the Coast Guard to get* nav aids

-

reinstalled, to get navigation back up the Mississippi

Channel to New Orleans.

. .

The ports of Mobile, Gulfport. Pascagoula.

Pennsylvania, and (inaudible) in Panama City are all

closed. And we're working to get those ports back in

operation.

The harbor dredge Wheeler is standing by in

New Orleans ready to dredge as we find sites that need

the work. We also have a dust pan dredge Chadwin

standing by (inaudible) if we're ready to do any

dredging in the upper reaches of the river.

The quarter boats are, as was pointed out,

prepared to move forward and should be onsite by
-- midnight tonight prepared to house 300 to 500

responders at the disaster site

...- - -... -- We also are involved with JTF. I spoke with

General Honore last night, offered some assistance,

and we're going to send to either Bruce Berwick

(inaudible) our Cincinnati Division forward to serve

as General Honore's engineer. and to make sure that he

 is closely linked into the FEMA efforts on
infrastructure.

That's all, sir. Thank you.

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you. General. Any
-

questions for ESF-3?

we're going to go. then, to ESF-6.

. .

ESF-6: At last count, there were still over

200 shelters open with about 78,000 fol-ksthere. We

know that that's an incomplete count. because there

have been shelters with which there has just not been
communication, and it is certainly sporadic. So we

expect that those numbers will actually go up

We are putting a support and coordination

structure in place for ESF-6. both at Headquarters and

in the field. A start to that was a new mass care

coordination unit that took place -- started working

yesterday at the American Red Cross Headquarters. with

-
- voluntary agencies and governmental agencies that

support ESF-6 both working there yesterday and

- -- continuing.
,

There are 28 kitchens that are being moved

into place. Sites have already been identified, Some

of the kitchens are set up, will continue to be set up

over the next few days to begin providing hot meals.

 In addition, the disaster welfare inquiry or

information function that usually exists has been

limited initially to medical and mental health needs.

That will be expanded to include other fafiily needs.

-

inquiries. and reunification efforts for families as

well.

- ED BUIKEMA: Thank you. Libby. Any

questions for ESF-6?

If not. I'd like to go to ES-8, please.

Our priorities for today for

Louisiana are to continue to evacuate the 2,500

patients from New Orleans, to get more staff to the

federal medical contingency stations in LSU. They

have treated 1,200 patients so far. The patients

range from anywhere from shelter patients to patients

on life support. We're also trying to set up a 1,000-

bed mobile capability.

.In Mississippi, we're identifying 250

medical personnel and also resupplying medical

s - equipment. We have four requests that we're currently

working for medical personnel and supplies for

Mississippi.

The USS COMFORT and several other M3D assets

are en route, and the fuel issue has really already
 been talked about.
Jack?

ESF 8-JACK: Yes. In ~ i s s i s s i ~ p i ,

we

currently have those teams en route going'south. We

-

are currently moving the teams that we had staged in

Anniston, Alabama, toward Jackson. We have the

- problem of not having sufficient space to support the

teams. We have just initiated work with-DoD to try to

identify other space available for teams further deep

in the Mississippi area in support of Region 4 .

Region 6 , we have teams at the airport set

up this morning that are receiving patients they are

bringing out of the Superdome. And also, we are

supporting areas at the LSU, and we have other teams

en route.

Any questions?

ED BUIKEMA: All right. Thank-you. Jack. I

-
- know there's a tremendous amount of work going on in

that arena, so appreciate it very much.

* -, .
I'd like to go to ESF-12 today. ESF-12, can

you give us an update, please?

. -
ESF-12: I have nothing to add to what we
talked about this morning -- the generator issue for

the Colonial Pipeline.

 ED BUIKEMA: Okay. Thank you.
Department of Defense? .Mike,can you -- or.
sir?

COLONEL MIKE HARRINGTON: Hi. How are you

-

doing, sir? This is Colonel Don Harrington of the DoD

liaison. along with Captain Mike McDaniel. I'm going

. .

- to brief the DOD effort.

I'm going to talk current operations that
the DOD is involved in, and I'll talk MAS, and then

I'm going to talk future operations.

It's been alluded to that we've got a joint

task force stood up. It's going to be under the

command of Lieutenant General Honore. The location is

Camp Shelby, Mississippi.

Additionally. we're going to have a joint

forces maritime component augmentation group under

Rear Admiral Kiltenny. who will arrive at Camp Shelby.

-
- Mississippi, 31' August

Navy forces -- we've got the baton with two

-,. . *... *-
MH-GOs,
.
three MH-53s. one landing craft that is
currently in the vicinity of New Orleans. Capability

also includes 60 beds with nursing care and 300 beds

with minimal care.

The SWIFT. which is a high-speed support

 vessel, is currently loading supplies in Engleside.

Texas, and will depart on 31 August.

The ARTID. which is a logistics service

support ship, currently on the east coast

--
bf Florida,

and will be on.station in the vicinity of New Orleans

1 September.
. .

- Additionally, you've got three vessel

expeditionary strike group at Norfolk ---the IW JIMA,

CORTUGA, and the SHREVEPORT -- with medical total

includes 6 0 beds of nursing care. 3 0 0 beds with

minimal care. and humanitarian assistance supplies.

They'll depart 31 August and arrive on station

4 September.

COMFORT -- the COMFORT is at Baltimore and

will depart 2 September, anticipating arrival

8 September.

National Guard support --- we've got

-
- approximately 8 , 5 0 0 National Guard troops in the AOR

conducting the following activities: life-

... - - 4.. e -
savingfsustaining
.
missions, law enforcement. security.
search and rescue, commodity distribution,

communications engineering, aviation support, damage

assessment, and temporary shelters.

Swift water rescue teams -- three teams from

 Travis Air Force Base have closed in on Lafayette,

Louisiana. Five teams from March. Air Force Base have

closed in on Lafayette, Louisiana.

Patient evacuation movements --'you've got
-

50 patients that have been moved by DoD from Biloxi,

Mississippi, to Kelly Air Force Base in Texas. The

- New Orleans patient evacuation Con Ops is in

development and, as has been alluded to. they're

preparing to evacuate personnel from New Orleans.

MAS -- mission assignments for DoD -- you

have a 500 deployable bed request, including 50

intensive care beds in a field hospital, to be

established in New Orleans,, that has been approved.

We had a request for 36 rotary wing platforms. that's

helicopters and support personnel. That's been

approved.

The request for the COMFORT has been

-
- approved. We had a request from American Red Cross

for 800 DoD personnel to assist in the sheltering and

feeding for 100 shelters in Louisiana and 40 shelters

- *..- * -
in Mississippi. That's being staffed right now.

You had a request for bed availability under

the National Disaster Medical System. That has been

approved
 Future operations -- DOD has been asked by

HHS to look for possibilities of 10 additional DoD

locations to set up 250- to 500-bed medical shelters,

and that is being staffed right now. The warning

-

order has been kicked out to JDOMS, NORTHCOM, and

OSDHD. and is being staffed at those agencies.

. .

Subject to questions, that concludes DoD

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, Colonel. Any

questions 'for DoD?

Appreciate all of the assets and resources

that you're bringing to this.

I'd like to go then to Headquarters

Operations report. Mike?

OPERATIONS: Our operational priorities for

today are to support the evacuation, and we have a

meeting this afternoon with ESF-2 to come up with a

coordinated theater network communicat-ions plan to

-
- make sure that we have communications out there to

support our response operations

-, - .A,- .- Initial -- an additional prlority this

afternoon is to make sure that we have visibility on

the generators for the pipeline. We are scheduling an

operations coordination call this afternoon at 3:00

between the -- 3:00 Eastern Time with the regions and

- 38
 the ERDs to make sure that we have synchronization for

communications support and all identified priorities.

Apart from that, all of our ESFs are engaged
here to support the full spectrum -o f response
operations.

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, Mike.

Let's move, then, to Headquarters Logistics.

MaryAnn?

LOGISTICS: Thank you, sir. As reported.

the commodities are flowing, and we thank our ESF

partners for all of the assistance there. We will

continue to coordinate with the field. Our plan is to

fill those MOBE centers and staging areas to capacity.

We will then use our storage space, warehouses. to

fill those, to keep that commodity flowing.

Please, I can't emphasize enough to release

those empty trailers, so we can get those back in the

-
- mix. We're postured to support NDMS and USAR on
resupply issues.

.. - -.. -- Gary is working the COM piece with the folks

from the MERS to get that communication up and

running. We will also work on the generator issue, as

well as the fuel issue.

Are there any qusst,ions for Logistics?

 ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, MaryAnn. I know
there's a tremendous amount of coordination going on

in that arena as well.

2
Recovery? Dan? -

RECOVERY: Thanks. As you've heard. our

number one priority will remain housing. The first

- priority is to shelter all of the victims that need

sheltering. We're working on issues related to the

Houston Astrodome move, including housing outside of

the Astrodome rental and leasing space

Second priority is finding temporary housing

for people and permanent housing solutions long term

We have set up the Housing Area Command in Baton

Rouge. which will handle all of the affected states in

the area and also working with Texas. they have five

contractors in place and are already working on plans

to find permanent solutions for all of the victims.

Also, the call centers are up and running.

working 24 hours, and are expanding that capability

- *- -- for the influx of calls that have already started

coming in. And as I said earlier, we are working on

. -
solutions because we can't get home inspectors into

the area, especially Louis,iana. We can get them into

Mississippi. But looking for other solutions to be

 able to approve the applications
So those are our short-.term priorities.

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, Dan. Any questions

for Recovery? I

-
Okay. We have pretty much gone through our

agenda, but I'd like to give an opportunity for

- anybody else that we have not had a chance to -- to

speak. or if anybody else has any questions.

But more specifically. at the Homeland

Security Operations Center, Secretary Cherdoff. I

don't know i f you're there, but, sir. if you are --

FLORIDA: The State of Florida has got some

good news for you

ED BUIKEMA: Go ahead, Craig.

FLORIDA: Our rescue teams were just passed

a report of people that had been locked up in a Connex

container as a last resort measure. Siyty souls have

- been recovered. All are alive

SPEAKER: Well, thank you for that good

piece of information. Thanks very much, and good
. , - *.-. - -- ,

work.
. .
Question, Craig, from here is whereabouts

were they located?

FLORIDA: They were in Hancock County on

Highway 90 in containers. They rode it out as -- as

a refuge of last resort. They were sealed in, locked

in, and when the search and rescue crews got there,

somehow they were able to break out of the containers

-
They were walking around, and they said everybody

survived, but they will never do i t again.

ED BUIKEMA: Well. thank you. Mike and

Craig, for that good news

Is there anybody else? HSOC? Anything from

the HSOC?

DHS NAC: Nothing from us right now, Ed.

Trying to clear up the oil issues up here. If you

need me. just let us know.

ED BUIKEMA: All right. Thank you very

much.

Thanks, everybody. We'll plan on another

call again at 1 2 : 0 0 Eastern Time tomorrow. Thank you.

(Whereupon, the proceedings went off the

record.)

CERTIFICATION t '

*' $

The foregoing text was transcribed from audio

- 42
recordings provided by the Department of Homeland

Security, and is as true and accurate a representation

o f the oral discussion as possible.

=
-

PHYLLIS P . YOUNG
 SEPTEMBER 1 . 2005

COL. WHITEHORN: -- patrol cars down there.

We have to have high-water vehicles. and wa also will

-
be needing some light armored personnel vehicles if we

continue taking far, that has high-water capability.

I don ' t know i f those resources are available, but in

-
order to patrol, we're going to have to have those

resources.

The Louisiana Sheriffs Association is also

deploying approximately 150 of their personnel to

assist with the law and order issue in New Orleans.

We're going to be staging our officers at 2:00 p.m.

today. Those that we are sending in this morning we

are going to stage at 2:00 p.m. today at Harris'

Casina (phonetic) where we can make sure that all of

the efforts for law enforcement are coordinated. We

- have haphazardly been doing this up to this point
because of the lack of communication with the NOPD

officers. We're going to have to have additional

-, . - *.- --
portable radios and hand-held radios that we can

supply to the NOPD officers. They are unable to

charge the radios that they have because they have no
power, so we're going to have to try to get Motorola
 to provide us with sufficient radios that we can hand

out to those officers in need down there.

We have set up a joint operations center

here at State Police Headquarters. wher? we have

representatives from all of the dcfferent law

enforcement professionals here. so that as the calls

come, as the needs- arise, we can dispatch from a

-
central location to make sure that the coordination is

suf'ficient to handle all of our needs.

In addition to the calming effect that Col

Smith spoke about, he talked about making sure that we

show that we are doing something down there and

getting those folks out. The commodities are

critical, water and food. That's critical to calming

those evacuees.

Yesterday. I personally was out on those

overpasses where we were saying that we had about a

-- thousand people that we had rescued. None of them had

food and water. And I was delivering water to some of

my personnel. , I took the water that I was delivering

. - *.- = -. ,

to the troopers who desperately needed it as well. and

started ra'tioning the water to as many folks as I

could on the side of the road. They need i t . We've

got to have i t . I don't know how much of that

-
2
 resource is here, but if it's not here, we need it on

the way as soon as possible.

I don't know what else I can tell you. I

believe that we are doing everything we can to restore
2

law and order to that city. I could get into the

weeds, but I don't think that's the purpose of this

meeting, so I'm goi-ng to end the report, unless you

-
have some specific questions.

COLONEL JEFF SMITH: Patrick, I just want to

re-emphasize, and can't.emphasize enough how critical

i t is to have that bus flow continue until we can

maybe get some fixed-wing in to do a little bit more

efficient evacuation, but we've got to have the buses

flowing, and we've got to do a little bit better job

on predicting when they're going to get there because

what will happen, which has happened before, as we've

said. we're going to start the evacuation at a certain

-- time, have things locked and cocked, and then have no

buses there because we were basing our planning on a

time frame that didn't happen. And I know that those

,- , . *.- s -
things happen, but it 's causing real problems.

'Col. WHITEHORN has something else that he

wanted to mention.

COL. WHITEHORN: I failed to mention, we

 also had the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI
present at our briefing this morning. They are

engaged, they are working with us and providing the

resources that they have available. They'ye provided

air support in addition to the air support that we

have. They also -- I know that they're bringing some

special weapons teams in and some SWAT teams in as

-
well, so the FBI is also engaged in what we're trying

to do here.

PATRICK RHODE: Thank you for that report.

BILL LOKEY: I believe that's it for --
PATRICK RHODE: I was just going to say,

obviously there are a lot of security issues that we

can all continue to discuss. I wanted to talk a

little bit to your transportation issue as well. too,

and I'd like to ask the Department of Transportation

to speak directly to that bus procurement. Jeff, we

-- certainly share your concerns, and we're going to make

sure we're pushing that as much as we can.

MATT BRODERICK: Patrick, before we jump off

-..., -*.- - -" ,

security. I just wanted to ask (inaudible) while

they're on, Chancellor O'Keefe from LSU was able to

get a call through up to Headquarters, and he said

that they are one of the primary medical evacuation

 sites down at Baton Rouge and that they're not only

being overrun by people coming in there, but they are

starting to have some real security concerns the

campus police can't handle, and he haslsome very

serious security concerns. Has the chief been aware

of that or are t h e y doing anything about Baton Rouge?
COL . WHITEHORN : have not received any
-
reports from LSU requesting any assistance. We had

heard rumors that there were problems in the downtown

area of Baton Rouge with lawlessness and people

breaking into cars. I saw Chief LeDuff, the Chief of

Police for Baton Rouge, made a news conference to

quash those rumors. He said that they had made one

arrest. They had one incident and they made an arrest

on i t , that they had not had any wide-scale problems

like had been reported. If the Chief of LSU would

give us a call -- I will call the Chief of LSU when I

-- get back, just to make sure that their needs and

concerns are addressed.

BILL LOKEY: And, Mr. Broderick, we were

-.. - &- - -- ,

aware of the overcrowding of the medical park and

opened up an additional staging area to help take some

of the pressure off that, and we're planning

additional ones.
 COL. SMITH: Gentlemen, - rumor control on

this thing is going to be key. Some of the things you

hear, some of it has probably partial basis in fact,

but'there's a lot of exaggeration going on a there. It

is extremely critical, it's extremely volatile, no

doubt, but as Col. Whitehorn indicated, .the Chief of

Police for the city of Baton Rouge not an hour and a

-
half ago briefed that he had contacted LSU police,

sheriff's office, and all of the law enforcement

agencies in the parish, and basically came on and said

that he had not had those issues.

Well, you know. one other thing -- I said I

was finished -- but I hope you guys are looking at

some longer-term solutions because it is going to

start getting ugly in some of these shelters. And one

of the things that's been suggested is that we look at

some of the military bases that have been closed

- because there's infrastructure in those bases. That,

too. is just a temporary, but we're liable to have to

jump a couple of different times on something like

-, - *.- * - this, so I sure wish the guys that are smarter than me

would be thinking ahead and seeing if some of those

facilities might be an appropriate place to set up.

That's all I had. Bill?

6
 BILL LOKEY: Any othkr questions tor
Louisiana?

(No response.)
.Thank you. I

-
MATT BRODERICK: Mike, I thought I heard the

Chief say he was going to give a call to LSU, but we

got that call fromthe Chancellor 30 minutes ago, so

-
he obviously had some concerns. We' 11 take it that
you got it under control.

COL. WHITEHORN: I will make the call and

speak to him just to make sure that their needs and

concerns are addressed. If they need some additional

support, I will do everything that we can to make sure

that that happens, I assure you of that.

PATRICK RHODE: One more question before we

leave Louisiana. Just out of curiosity, can you speak

a little bit or do you have visibility to the numbers

-- of National Guard folks that are coming in and how
they are best being integrated into the security

situation. Can you describe a little bit of that for

-.. - *- --
us7

JEFF SMITH: Patrick, we have an additional .

7500 National Guard coming in 'the State. but not all

of those of course are MPs or things of that nature.

 So. we're working the plan now as to where we want to

integrate them, but one of the things we're having

because of this bus issue, for instance. is we1ve.got

a hundred school buses that are ready to =go. fueled
-
and ready to go, with no drivers. The bus drivers are

little old ladies. and I don't blame them. they don't

- want to go and drive-in and do evacuations, but we at
-
least have those assets. So, one of the things that

we're planning is that some of those troops that are

coming in, our Governor is going to waive the CDL

requirement, and we'll start doing that so we can get

your commercial buses. But, yes, there is a plant to

integrate that, but like you, sometimes we don't

always have good visibility on exactly when some of

these resources are going to be hitting the ground. I

can tell you. though, the MPs have started arriving.

We have, I believe, it was 100 MPs that hit Belle

. -.

-- Chase, which is right across from the Dome. about an

hour ago. Two Chinooks landed with National Guard MPs

that are coming in. And I don't want to get in the

-. . - *.. * -
weeds. but it's starting to happen.

PATRICK RHODE: Good, that's what we're

(inaudible). Thank you very much. I know there are
an awful lot of security issues that are going to
 continue to be worked throughout- the day ind the
upcoming days.

Before we leave Louisiana, though, I wanted

to speak directly to your concern and also-ours, too,

-
and that's providing an adequate amount of buses to

continue this evacuation operation

Department of Transportation, can you speak

-
to that. please?

MR. REGGIE JOHNSON: Currently, our report

is that there were 120 buses that departed for Houston

AstroDome last night. And there are 300 buses that

are in the New Orleans area. You may not see those

because actually they're staging at what's called the

Poker Palace Texaco refueling site, and that's in a

place in Louisiana, and I understand that they're

drawing down from that site. They're bringing in

about 40 buses at a time.

-
- There are 155 buses that were requested. and

they are en route and should arrive at the truck stop

by midnight tonight. We have not received any other

, - a
.. * -
requests beyond that, and I will coordinate with the

bus compaiies to ensure that we can start doubling up

on the drivers.

One other addition that I think might help

 relieve some of the problems -- and, Bill, I'll get
with you shortly after this to give you the final
details on -- but the Amtrak rail has a train that is
en route from Nacomb, Mississippi to Bat~n~Rouge.
and

from there they are going to pick up troops and water

and they will continue to the staging area in downtown

New Orleans. We've-already completed the iilspection

-
of the tracks in that area, and so they should be

arriving sometime this evening. You should be able to

evacuate about 650 people per trip. They are going to

take people from New Orleans to Lafayette, where they

will be taken by bus to Harris County, Texas, and that

should take about two to three hours per trip.
. ..
We also have that there will be two trains

that are coming from Los Angeles, which should be in

the area in about 24 hours. And just to let you know,

these trains -- we can take ambulatory people out and

-- we can bring relief people in, and adequate personnel

have been added to this process so that we can have

continuous operations. And, Bill. I'll get with you

.. - *.- - -- ,

afterwards for (inaudible.)

'BILL LOKEY: Okay. Reggie, one thing on

that, if the rail companies have any of their own

organic security. if they could plan for that in this.

 too, that would'really help because we'd hate to have

issues further downtown and stuf.f, and with all the

people on there, too, it 's a real drain on our

security resources when we get these requests for the

law enforcement officers to travel on the bus. which
is sometimes needed. So, if the railroad has the

presence of like uniform security people to be on the

-
trains with the victims as they travel to their

destinations, that would take a load off us.

COL. SMITH: Reggie, in addition, I just

wanted to give you an update. The information you

gave was probably accurate as of maybe a couple of

hours ago, but the information that I have now is that

we've now -- our last bus from the staging area at the

truck stops are gone because they already have,moved

forward.

What we did is we put an intermediate base

- _ that was right across the river from the Dome, and now
we're emptying out that, and I think we're down

currently to probably less than 50 buses that are left

... - -- - -. ,

to be ready to load. So, that midnight tonight is

going to leave a very long void. You are correct. you

don't have the 500-bus request because I only made it

about 30 minutes ago, but we are requesting -- if you
 want to get to working on it -- those 500 buses. but

more critical is keeping the flow'up. And this is the

type of thing that I was talking about earlier. we're

*
going to probably run out of buses somewhere around

2:00 o'clock, and i f we don't get them in 'ti1

midnight, then we're going to have a void there that's

. .-

- going to cause a tremendous problem. So, please take

that into consideration. anything you can do to get us

some buses to that truck stop there on 1-10 and 55 by

probably 1:00 or 2 : 0 0 o'clock. we need it desperately

BILL LOKEY; Another thing just on a global

sense, with the quantities of people we are talking

about -- I know we went through some planning issues

with the AstroDome, but if we could get like fixed-

wing aircraft and some arrangement could be made

through EMAC, i f there are other States that have

facilities like that -- we're going to fill up -- we

. -.

-- have nothing regionally that we can put all these

people in, it's going to have to be out of the State,

but maybe some national effort could be done to look

* -- at what might be available in other locations like the

AstroDome-or mass care. or whatever. that would help

us in the immediate future.

REGGIE JOHNSON: I believe, Bill, that we

 can get you some aviation resources in. I've been
coordinating with DOD, and they are pretty much
standing by to help, it's just a matter of determining
where you want to go and when you want thiszturned on.
-
BILL LOKEY: Well, that's kind of the issue.

It's very difficult for us to be shopping around the

- greater United stat& area for places, and I think i t

might be a help to the State or someth-ing. if maybe

from the national level, seeing if there are other

opportunities like the AstroDome the States would be

willing to do -- I know that has some real Stafford

(phonetic) Act implication issues, but with the

numbers that are growing of what we have to move out

of New Orleans, it's just we have nothing anywhere

near here to put all those folks

MR. BUIKEMA: Bill, we'll continue to work

this offline, but before we leave Louisiana, we have a
-_ couple specific questions that perhaps you could help
us with. Can you tell us, to the best of your

knowledge, when exactly did the evacuation of the

- *.. s -
SuperDome start?

COL. SMITH: It started last night with the

special needs patient. but as far as the general

population, that's very difficult to answer. It was

 probably sometime this morning around 9 : 0 0 o'clock.
BILL LOKEY: I actually had four buses --

from the plan we talked about yesterday, four buses

did get loaded last night. On that initial plan that
-

we were going to start before the Army was able to

take it over, they were able to get four out last
-
- night that arrived in Houston -- I mean, it was on the

morning news, their arrival in Houston -- so we got a

few of them out of the initial ones that came before

we turned the operation over to Gen. Honore

ED BUIKEMA: Okay. And do you know roughly

how many people have been evacuated from the SuperDome

thus far?

BILL LOKEY: No. sir, I do not

ED BUIKEMA: Does anybody have a feel for

that. have any ideas?

COL. SMITH: I could probably give you an

- educated guess but, again, I would ask you to quit

referring to evacuation from the SuperDome. but maybe

an evacuation from the Greater New Orleans area from

=.- ,

the SuperDome. and probably my best estimate would be

1500 special needs patients and probably at this point

in time around 2,000 general population, but that's a

guess because we're really not -- I understand that

 everybody wants to know that type of information. but
we're'in the throes of getting .them out, and we're
just not worried too much about a count other than a
general type count. I
-

BILL LOKEY: And, Ed, in talking with the

State, the plan they are doing, just because of the

. .

- overwhelmingness of it at the Dome. the acutal

accounting of the people, registration and things like

that. is being done on the receiving end in Houston,

COLONEL JEFF SMITH: Yes. If we tried to

stop those people and get name, rank, and Social

Security Number, we would surely have a mess on our

hands.

ED BUIKEMA: -- evacuation stop at some

point because of security, and if i t did stop. when

did i t resume?

BILL LOKEY: We don't have information on

that. , The media was reporting that it was stopped

when we knew it was going on, and i f i t did stop

during that time, i t was after the time our people
-,, - *.- * - 7

left. So, I don't know that answer, but Gen. Honore's

people were on-scene, and we could try to find out

that. But between the media reports and what we were

getting from on-scene were contradictory and we don't

 have a clear picture of what exactly went on.
. COL. SMITH: Bill, let. me just say that I

had people walk in from FEMA and say. "We understand

we've been ordered to evacuate by on6 of your
-

generals", and i t took me about five minutes because

of communication to find Gen. Jones, who was

- reportedly -- no -- Gen . Dayon ( phonetic ) , who had

reportedly made that comment, and he said. "Jeff. we

have never issued that. What we have said is that we

are going to continue with the plan, but at some point

the security situation might cause us to stop the

evacuation"

So, again, it was kind of a preemptive --

. -

you know, you better kind of have your contingency

plans ready, but yet i t was reported by someone in the

chain running down the hall from FEMA saying, "Oh.

they've stopped the evacuation". We've got to do a

-- better job on the damn rumor controls.

ED BUIKEMA: Anything else for Louisiana?

. *.- -- COL. DON HARRINGTON: This is Col Don

Harrington, the IXlD Liaison for FEMA. I need you guys

to give me situational awareness on the following

plan. FEMA last night requested that 50.000 MREs be

delivered to the Dome and 1,000 MREs be delivered to

16
 Cloverleaf, and that mission was- assigned to the

National Guard. Supposedly, a CS-47 from Georgia flew

into Esler (phonetic) Air Field in Louisiana sometime

today, and they were going to upload MRgs at that

location and transport it to New ~ r l e a n s ,and then

load the trucks to transpprt to the folks at the Dome.

Do you guys have any visibility or-knowledge

-
of that operation?

CDL. SMITH: I don't, but there's a lot of

things happening, that may be happening. Your Defense

Coordinating Officer couldn't give you that

information?

COL . HARR INGTON : I got some of this

information because I ' m also the Guard guy. through

NGB, down to the folks at Louisiana, that this was the

plan, this was to be executed., But it's very

difficult getting visibility on what's happening in

-- the Dome, and who's in charge down there? The

response I got from the Bureau is that it'sBrigadier

General Billion (phonetic), Louisiana National Guard,

- *- a -
and that Honore is not in charge until the Joint Task

For-ce Katrina is actually established today or

tomorrow. So, that's another thing that's kind of

confusing.
 COL. SMITH: You know, I think at this point

there's a lot of people worry.ing about who's in

charge. We've still got people that need rescuing

We've got people that need food, water. ice. We need

-
buses. Get it down here and we'll worry about who's

in charge. Just get us the assets, please.

ED BUIKEMA: Thanks. Louisiana.

-
COL. SMITH: One other comment. Our

Governor has said that we're going to follow the

National Response Plan. work within the incident

command structure, and we're prepared to do that.

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, Colonel, appreciate

that very much. Any further questions for the State

of Louisiana?

(No response.)

Let's move on' then to the State of Texas.

TEXAS : State of Texas, real quickly.

- continues to provide direct support to the State of

Louisiana. To that end, we have 81 shelters available

with a capacity of 44.258. We have 44 shelters open

-, . - *.* --
with 9.346 occupants this morning. We are completing

a transition from evacuation shelters to temporary

shelters.

With respect to the AstroDome operation, we

- 18
 received our first bus last night *at 11:12 a.-m. We

received 21 buses since then. We.have a total number

of evacuees at the AstroDome of 2,000. We know of ten

buses that departed within the last h o u ~ from the
-
SuperDome, and we are prepared to receive those.
We've deployed essentially all of Texas'

- capability for search and rescue to the State of

-
Louisiana, and it's a long list and. 1 . won't got

through all of these, but it's our entire capability

we have -- our entire aviation capability, our entire

ground capability -- you heard this list for the

second time, I won't go through that, but it's all

been deployed through the night.

We also have deployed seven airboats to

support the Coast Guard. And so we have -- you know,

again, I went through i t yesterday and I won't go

through it today for the type of brevity we need to

- get to. Today, we are deploying a tanker airlift

controlled element called TALCE. We have pending

approval -- again, five medical doctors, 69 nurses. 10

*.. e -
(inaudible) which we're working. We've just received

an ;rgent request from Jeff for buses with drivers and

security -- and, Jeff, we'll do everything we can to
fill that. My question is, is this a supplement to

- 19
 the FEMA mission, or is it something you need direct.
and we ' 11 do it by EMAC, but where we need to go with

them. We're canvassing our metros and transit

authority across the State, and we'll do everything we

-

can to bring those capabilities to bear.

We again have available for deployment --

. .. .

and this moves up -- we have ten helicopters'private

-
-
air rescue, we have two fixed-wing. private air

ambulances, we have 60 ambulances, we have a blimp. we

have two disaster trailers, we have 254 EMS qualified

personnel to include EMT and qualified paramedics, we

have 486 nurses, we have 576 doctors, we have 25

respiratory therapists, we have eight mental health

workers, and 128 pharmacists. These are available for

deployment if needed. A11 we need to know is if you.

in fact, need them to go.

We have a total of 1,232 Texas Army National

- Guardsmen in the State of Louisiana, and so that's
where we are at now. At this time, I'd like to turn

it over to Mr. Steve McCraw, Director of the Texas

. *.- a -
Office of Homeland Security, for a few comments.
. - I

MR. STEVE McCRAW: Just real quickly, we got

a request from Louisiana to accommodate another 25.000
Louisianans. The Governor talked to the Mayor of San
 Antonio and a county judge. p hat's going to happen.
We're working out the plan at this particular moment.
Also, I ,think it's important to note that anything we

can do -- we continue to get these frantiq calls and

-
we'll continue to coordinate with our Louisiana

callings on this as they come in. regarding this

If we can't, to the greatest extent

-
possible, recognize that there's a lot of p,roblems

with this, the numbers from the Superdome heading to

the Astrodome, it would be helpful if we could get an

idea because it looks like the Dome is becoming a

collection point, and to the extent that we can get

that information, it would be very helpful to the on-

scene commander down at the Astrodome. Thanks, that's

it from Texas

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you. Texas. Any

questions for Texas?

(No response.)

Hearing none. let's go to the State of

Florida
.,. - - *.- -- .
FLORIDA: The State of Florida continues to
support Mississippi with direct support for security.
&
search and rescue, and immediate basic needs.$ Our
numbers are up over about 1,250 staff on the ground.
 We've delivered 300 trucks of water-and ice, about 50-

50. We had 30 PODS running yesterday and continue to

support the SEO and the SEO for other missions-asthey

request them. Governor Bush has directed a second
Executive Order to support EMAC. In addition, we are
developing a long-term' plan for those evacuees that

are in Florida on a -longer-term basis, and continue to

-
support missions as they occur.

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, Craig, and thank

you, State of Florida. Any questions for Florida?

(No response.)

Lets then move to the Regional Offices.

Region 6?

REGION 6: Good afternoon, sir. Just a

quick update. Some .of our issues or concerns.

obviously we've talked an awful lot about the security

issues. We received a request earlier this morning

-- from our counterparts in Louisiana, asking that we

increase the Federal law enforcement personnel from

the 200 that's been requested for them, to 500.
..I_. - 6- * --
That['~ in the works.

There are approximately 63 personnel on the

ground right now, as.we speak, with the remaining 140

flowing in later day, throughout the day. They are

 coming from various assignments.

We continue to receive requests for security

escorts for just about everything we're moving into

the Greater New Orleans area, as well as, for buses

-
that are departing and the Amtrak rail cars that are

departing to relocate evacuees

Our Dallas-FBI Field Office has assigned a

-
Liaison Officer to the ROC to assist u s with these

efforts, and he's onboard with us right now.

We continue to have a little bit of

communication problems between R-6. RCC and the FCO

staff . Hopefully this will be corrected this

afternoon when all the MERS assets are up and when we

get all the cell phones are that have been agsigned up

there assigned out to the personnel. That will make

i t a lot easier for coordinating all this.

Our priorities, obviously, commodities

remain a priority. We continue to flow them to

support the State. We have good levels of commodities

at the staging area, as we speak, with a warning as to

... - *.- -- ,

what's coming in. The flow continues well with the

exception 'obviously of the MREs, but we understand

that a distribution plan to correct this is in place.

and is being worked at NRCC for us.
 We have not had or received any information
until just this morning that we were having any bulk

fuel problems, We have issued a $1 million --

forwarded to GSA for bulk fuel in Alerandria to

correct this issue. The only problems that we're

having in that area right now are with tankers and

drivers.
-
We continue to increase our 'capacity at our

base camps. The quarter-boats should be on station

and set up around midnight tonight. We continue to

support the evacuation efforts as requested by the

State and by the FCY3. We've deployed State Liaisons

to Texas and Arkansas, and we've received a lot of --

a good point here is we've received a lot of requests

to assist us in this evacuation, and everyone wanting

to know what they can do for us. And through

coordination with Jack's personnel this morning. we

- were able to put in place from Houston Verizon a free

phone bank and data bank that those personnel arriving

at t h e ' ~ s t r o ~ o mwill
e be able to use to contact their
-. . . *.- - loved ones and get information out electronically

Sir, that's all I have

ED BUIKEMA: Any questions for Region 6?

(No response.)
 Thank you. Dick, thank you. Gary, appreciate

it. Let's go to Region 4 .

REGION 4 : Morning. Our three priorities --

excuse me -- four priorities -- fugl, food.
-
communications, commodities -- in the field we're

still working. Didn't find additional supplies.

We're also, with our food, one of the things we're
-
looking at are other options besides MREs. We've got

sort of a small task force that's putting together

some options that we'll be presenting to you.

Communications, we've got 400 staff phones

in the pipeline, with two communications vans. Also.

we've got another additional hundred staff phones that

we're issuing here to folks in the field, and as

related to the Mississippi shelter issue, we are

working with ESF-6 to try to get some generators in so

they can cook in some of these shelters. We're

working with USDA to get some food in there where they
*

can actually start cooking food. And so we're working

that issue from here.

That's all we have. Any questions for 4?

-(No response.)

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, Paul, appreciate it

very much. The call is going on quite some time, so
 we're going to have just a couple- of brief reports
here from the Headquarters side of things. I will

tell you that we have started a fuel task force here

at FEMA Headquarters, and have also asked the IIMG to

I

help us out with some of that as well. Kore to follow

on that.

I would . l i k e ESF-8 to provide- a brief

-
report, please, if they could.

ESF-8: A lot of the issues have already

been talked about. We continue with patient

evacuation, bringing in additional medical personnel

and supplies. Security is of high concern to health

care providers and responders supporting the

evacuation. New Orleans Airport -- it's gone out on

the news that that's kind of a staging area for

people, so there's concern there's no security there,

and it's on the news that people can go- there.

We continue to evac high priority hospitals,

-
194 critical patients have been moved so far. In
Louisiana, ESF-8 is using DOD installations to set up
-.,. .*,- = - Federal medical shelters which will be 2500 beds. 'and
we're also still working on setting up a 1,000-bed

facility with us. Mississippi housing is an issue for

personnel. We have a missios assignment for4250

 medical personnel. We're working to fill- that.

Environmental and health officers have also been on

the way.

Tulane Hospital is empty, Turo (phonetic) is

I

proceeding to be evacuated, VA is also proceeding to

be evacuated. There are several hospitals on dry land

that are being evacuated at this point.

-
ESF-8: NDMS teams in Region 4 are currently

engaged. I just got a direct e-mail from Gulfport.

Mississippi DMAC teams, They desperately need water.

MREs and supplies, they've run out. We're trying to

establish that communication as best as possible, but

NDMS teams are engaged in Mississippi along the coast.

and we need to get a supply line to them

We just got word at the airport, they are

also having significant problems there with people

showing up at the airport. getting on the aircraft

-- that are really designated for patient transport at

New Orleans for Region 6 .

Also, wherever the patients are going, the

,. - .- = - populations that are not patients are arriving,

reception site is not prepared to receive the influx

of these personnel, so we'll need to help coordinate

that, and I just got that through an e-mail

 Subject to any questions. NDMS report is

complete.

(No response.)

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, ESF-8, Quickly go

f

-
to ESF-2.

ESF-2: Good afternoon. Thank you. At this

point in time, I'm -going to forego the numbers and
-
just outline the plan that we have in place for the

Federal Communications Plan that will support ongoing

operations at all levels of the Federal response,

I We have identified the locations and the

types of emergency offices such as the ROCC. the EOCD.

FOIOF. the JOCs, teams locations, Z3MATs teams. we put

all that out, laid it out on the map as to where we

have assets are. We are now going to match those

asset types to the types of assets that are available

and that are staged from the industry to support

- those. We are going to work with industry this

*

evening and through the night in order to make a

response plan to get those prioritized and get assets

-, .- - *.- * - moving out there proactively so that we're not in such

a reactive-modewithout priorities, and we're going to

start the process of building a federal network so

that we can communicate inside of that network without
 having to rely on the spotty efforts -- not the
efforts are spotty, but the spotty communications

abilities that we have in these areas.

Much to the applause of industry in New

*

Orleans area, we do have three offices -- one

wireless. one that's a carrier hotel, and the other

on,e that is a major central office -- where their

-
employees have kept themselves in harm's way and have

not evacuated and suffered some pretty intense

evenings, keeping the cominunications assets up and

running for whatever limited ability that they do have

in Louisiana. So, we'd like to thank them and thank

ESF-13 for providing security from U.S. Federal

Marshals out to those sites and allowing us to keep

folks out there and keep them in the communications

fight ,

Subject to any questions, that's ESF-2's

- report .
-
ED BUIKEMA: Thank you, Sean. I'd like to

touch now the big issue, of course, security. and ESF-

-- 1,3. can you report out. please?

ESF-13: Yes, sir. ESF-13's been actively

engaged for a while now. I've been working with the

IIMG. There is a working request for 2-3.000

 additional law enforcement officers volunteering from

State and local agencies. They are working that now.

They have to be deputized. There's a lot of little

things that have to be worked out. but that's ongoing.
=
On the scene in Louisiana, Wendell

Schindler, the Director of FTS, is the DHS Federal Law

Enforcement Coordinator on the ground, and we're

-
communicating hourly, if not every 10 or 15 minutes.

Some requests that we have that we're currently

working now for the Red Cross is approximately 50 law

enforcement officers per kitchen -- security on the

mobile kitchens. Anywhere from 8 to 80 law

enforcement officers to secure the transportation of

the critical elements going lnto the affected areas.

As was mentioned, there's 40 Border Patrol

agents on-scene now in Louisiana. 40 more will arrive

any minute now, and the goal is that original 200, the

extra 300 that were requested, i f we can get that

-
request as soon as possible, and we'll work that for
you.
- -.- -- ED BUIKEMA: You mentioned Windell

Schindler. Where is he, in New Orleans?

ESF-13: He was on the MECB Mobile Command

Bus a minute ago, but he stepped out. I don't see him

 on there right now.

ED BUIKEMA: Okay. So he's hooked up with

the State (inaudible)

BILL LOKEY: Ed, this is Bill. Wendell is

-

here with us. He's our ESF-13 lead. He, as soon as

his part was over, took off to get to work. and he is

-
- integrating planning with the State and 'doing an
excellent job for us.

ED BUIKEMA: Okay. Thank you very much.

Urban Search and Rescue, real quick

URBAN SEARCH & RESCUE: Yes, sir. Two

critical issues we could use some assistance with.

For Hurricane Katrina, we've activated all 28 of our

task forces, 18 are operating right now. We have ten

more on their way in. We activated them yesterday.

and we expect them to arrive sometime this afternoon

or tonight. We need an area to receive them. We were

- hoping to use Stennis. We were told was being set up,

equally so with the 18 that are operating. We start

early on demobilization processes. We need somewhere

. -
.,~ *,- --
for them to demobilize out, so we were hoping to have

one' locating with that. Dug; to the heat, humidity and

I

arduous nature of what they do. it's pretty critical

for them. Equally so, kind of dovetailing on what

 Jack Bell was talking about, our personnel down-in New
Orleans and in Gulfport, they come in 72-hour self-

sufficient. We're entering the end of that window,

and they're having concerns with fuel sanitation, food

-
water and ice. So, if we could give some priority

assistance to those folks, it would be appreciated.

We'll try DOT, too. We've been working
-
through the LRC and the ISTs have been working with

their respective ERDs, but we're just trying to make

headway.

ED BUIKEMA: Thanks, Mike. Logistics, can

you give a quick report. please.

LOGISTICS: We are working with the regions

and the commodity flow. We've searched alternative

sourcing for other meals other than MREs and we're

working that as well.

DOT is in the midst of transporting 2

-- million MREs into the area. Any questions for

Logistics?

ED BUIKEMA: Can you give everybody a

- .. . - .A,- -- prognosis on the ability to meet the requests?

LOGISTICS: Ice and water is good. The

meals -- still sourcing additional meals.

ED BUIKEMA: Thank you. Any questions for

 Logistics?

(No response.)
Operations, Headquarters Operations?
I

OPERATIONS : We have two addiljional task

forces working on both fuel and food. and they will

report out later.
- ED BUIKEMA: Okay. Thanks, Mike. Let's go

to Recovery. Brad Gere, are you on?

RECOVERY: Just briefly, the housing mission

is being led by Brad Gere, who is head of our Housing

Area Command. He is pursuing working with Finance and

others securing commercial cruise ships to provide

support. We're working with the Port of New Orleans.

the Captain of the Port, to free up the Port to

receive those ships. If that falls through, then

we'll find the nearest ports that are going to be

available. Right now. we've got three cruise ships

- that we are working to move towards the Port of New
-
Orleans now. They will have a total berth of 6500

beds. He's also identified 400 hotel rooms and

d
.. a - working with the State of Alabama, up to 1600 beds at

dorms, also identifying commercial pads and continuing

to work and find. In addition to that, we have

contracts out to bring in 45,000 mobile home, travel

33
 trailers, into our Federal staging areas. As soon as
he finds locations to site those; we'll be setting
those up as well.

We also want to let you know -thgt we are

working to find housing for the people who will be
moving into the Astrodome so that we can get them out

- of the Astrodome and into temporary housing as soon as

possible. Just in case the worst comes .to pass. and
that is that we reach overflow level at the Astrodome.
That's it.

ED BUIKEMA: Thanks. Are there any

questions for Recovery?

(No response.)

That has completed our agenda. I know it's

gone on quite some time. but there's been a tremendous

amount of information that's been exchanged.

Obviously, there's a number of pressing issues.

- Thanks for all your work. We'll do this call again

-
tomorrow at 12:00 noon Eastern time. Bill Lokey,
Scott Wells. can you call my office in about five
-. - * - * - minutes?

-BILL LOKEY: Will do.

(Off the record.)

 CERTIFICATION

The foregoing text was transcribed horn 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 2 , 2 0 0 5 -

. .

COL. JEFF SMITH: -- we don't know what kind

of planes are coming in. In order to plan this thing,

=

we have to have a little bit of information that's

solid. Commodity distributions: we're not getting

. enough. We're just-about out of the MREs,- and the

-
push-forwards are going too slow.

I 'd like to know if anybody has looked at

temporary housing and she1tering that I asked

yesterday. We're about to run out of shelter space.

Now, we're getting all these assets in place -- the

buses. the planes. maybe the rail -- maybe -- there's

some problems with the rail. We don't have a place to

put them. We're trying to work that piece with other

states. Texas has been extremely gracious, and Texas

is stepping up to the plate and helping us. Without

them. we would be in -- well, I won't say what we

would be in, but thank you, Jack. We need some help.

and we need some help now. When we start getting the

assets to move out, we need to know where to put them.

So, I'd like to hear if anybody knows anything about

that.

Right now, there's a possibility that Search

1
 and Rescue may be in jeopardy because of a certain

plane that's flying in over our area. I would like to

just make sure that that's not going to happen, and I

think that that has been deconflicted. but if somebody

-

up there would make sure that that's deconflicted. we

would certainly appreciate it.

PATRICK *ODE: I believe that that has been

COL. SMITH: The one DMARG that we have is

set up and operational. We requested two DMARGs five

days ago. It's becoming quite apparent that we need

another DMARG, we need it here, we need it set up and

we need it manned. So, at this point, I would just

.-

like to hear what's'goingon with the buses. I'd like

to hear what's going on with the shelters.

PATRICK RHODE: We'll see if we can't speak

it that. Jeff. if you could. I certainly appreciate
-- everything you're talking about right now, and we know

we've got to continue to push this. Just out of

curiosity, if you guys have more visibility, what is

- *.- *- ,

the Ops tempo right now on evacuations? What are we

talking abbut, hourly, and what kind of visibility do

you have about existing buses on the ground? Do you

have any right now?
 COL . SMITH: Gen . ~ r a h a m address- that,
please, on the commercial buses, though. not the
school buses.

GEN. GRAHAM: Sir, we've loaded aad moved 60

-
buses this morning already, starting about 7:00

o'clock. As soon as the buses arrive, they go

Buses
- straight to the locations and pick up evacuees.
do not get held anywhere unless the bus drivers show

up and they need to sleep. Many bus drivers have

driven a long way and must rest prior to driving.
Sixty buses this morning have already .moved
.
through.

and three airplanes. We have 30 buses right now that

are in the staging area waiting. As soon as the buses

. -
at the SuperDorne are loaded, these other 30 buses will

go on. So, currently on the ground, we have 40 buses

commercial buses, sir.

B I L L LOKEY: Our problem is that we can move

- them faster than the buses can get here, but it ' s

difficult to find for planning where they are and, you

know, and the status of same.
- *.- --
COL. SMITH: I've got 2500 people at Algiers

Point right now, which is not right in the downtown

area. that we could be sending missions to and getting
off. Those people have been on levees for a day and a
 half. Get us the transportation-assets with the
drivers, and we'll start making .this happen quicker
and more effectively, and I told you all that

yesterday. =

PATRICK RHODE: Understood, Jeff.

COL. SMITH: And by the way, for any planner

- that's up there that's trying to plan this thing.

we've got other uses for those buses. Even af ter we

get them out, there's going to be ample opportunity to

use the buses for quite a while. I assure you, because

we're going to have to be moving from shelters that

are about ready to close because the people in north

Louisiana want to start getting back to normal, and
they're in the schools and everything else. Again.

this was brought up. So, I would like. please. for

somebody to address that. Apologize for the -- but

anyway, we need to get it happening.

PATRICK RHODE: Jeff, you owe no apologies

whatsoever. We've all working that very aggressively.

We understand exactly where you're at right now.

. - -.- --
Department of Transportation. where are the

buses?

FEGGIE JOHNSON: -- buses are in the system.

and currently they've got 800 of those buses that are
 actually operating throughout. We cannot control the
choke-points that happen at each.of the destinations
on the turnaround, but it appears that what we're

going to have to do is increase the amourft of buses

-

from the 1100 to an additional 5-600 buses for their

operation. But there are a number of buses in the

- system. He just said that they've got 60 rolling.

they've got 30 waiting. These buses are turning

around as fast as they can to get back into the

system.

PATRICK RHODE: Where are these choke points

you are referencing, Reggie?

MR. JOHNSON: The choke points will be at

the destinations. both in Houston and in Dallas. as

the people start to unload the buses. They are held
up there for three to four hours, so we don't get them

back into the system to turn them around

PATRI CK RHODE : Are w e in the process

(inaudible) more buses in addition to the 1100?

MR. JOHNSON: We are currently sourcing

, _ - *.- * -
additional buses.

PATRICK RHODE: Do you have specific

d)

visibility of how many buses are right now within the

State of Louisiana getting close to staging areas?
 REGGIE JOHNSON: No Sir

PATRICK RHODE: Okay. 'we need a report on

that from Transportation. Thank you.
*
Jeff, we're going to aggressively work that

issue. clearly. Can you describe --

COL. SMITH: Please do, and Gen. Graham --

- I think Gen. Graham had a comment -- he's fine.
BILL LOKEY: Patrick, the o-nly limiting

factor to our evacuating refugees out of the city of

New Orleans is going to be adequate places to put

them. We can get them out faster to places that have

been identified like Houston and Dallas. So we're

going to need some help from you folks -- and I

understand you are working on i t -- to find us places

to fly and bus and train these folks to.

PATRICK RHODE: I know that that's being

aggressively worked right now, too. People are going
- to be looping back to you immediately. Bill.

B I L L LOKEY: Thank you very much. Patrick.

PATRICK RHODE: Can you please give a status

_. - *.- - on --

MR. SCOTT WEBER: Patrick, it's Scott Weber.

I have a quick question. Why does i t take three to
four hours to turn the buses around at the choke point
 as they drop off.
MR. JOHNSON : That is really not a

Transportation issue on the turnaround. That's the

ability of the reception area to offloadi and also
-
manifest and marshal1 the people where they need them

to go. So, they've been actually holding the people

- on the buses from four to eight hours.

-
MR. WEBER: Why can't we get the people off
the buses and hold them at a staging area so we can

turn the buses around and get them back to pick more
people up?

COLONEL SMITH: That's an operational issue.

but I'll tell you what, you're dealing with ~eople.

some of them, that haven't had food or water for days,

some of them that are very weak and frail, and we're

not going to just kick them off the bus

MR. WEBER: I'm not advocating kicking

-- anybody off a bus, but can't we have chairs and stuff

waiting at a staging area to take people off the bus,

to put them in a place where we could then do whatever
. - *.- s -
-- take any information we need so we could turn the

buses around more quickly?

PATRICK RHODE: Scott, this is Patrick. I

think that there are a lot of people working that
 issue, and I think you're correctly characterizing it,
and I think that that is being aggressively worked on
in many of these different areas.

Jeff, if I could real quickly, ,could you

-
describe the security situation around a couple of
those areas, the SuperDome and also the Convention
Center?
-
COL. SMITH: We have right now 300 Arkansas

National Guard Infantrymen with M16 rifles that are

moving into that area. In fact, they may have already

moved in, I don't have operational visibility of

that. somebody else is working that piece. But they
are moving in at this particular point to assist the

locals to keep the order there. And I know that State

Police is working a plan to go in and re-secure some

of these areas.

To give you a detailed briefing, Patrick, I

- can't. Right now the lid is on at this particular

point, but things change minute to minute. That's all

I can really tell you about that.
-' - *.- * -"
MR. JOSH FILLER: Patrick, this is Josh
Filler, -can you hear me?

Patrick, I have a question for Jeff. Jeff,

can you hear me?
 CX)L. SMITH: Yes, I can.-

MR. FILLER: My office has received numerous

phone calls from law enforcement organizations across

the country -- major city police chiefs, national
-
sheriffs -- who want to help, but we have encouraged

them not to self-deploy to New Orleans or to

- Louisiana, but to work through the system. but they

-
are saying that their States are not receiving
requests for assistance

I don't know if you have visibility on this

or not, but the National Sheriffs Associa,tion is

telling us they've got thousands of deputies who want

to help you, but don't want to self-deploy. Do you

have any visibility on this?

COL. SMITH: Yes, I do. As a matter of

fact. Harry Lee, the Sheriff of Jefferson Parish, has

a request in, an EMAC request. It's being approved by
- State Police as we speak. as they are the lead law

enforcement agency. I intend to sign that and release

it. I hope it's over there when I get back.

- *.- * - ,

I just had the Sheriff of I believe it was

LaFouge '(phonetic)as I was walking to this meeting,

was in requesting additional deputies and, Patrick, I

think it was -- I'm sorry -- Josh, I think it was from

 the same association that you're talking about. and

we're fixing to send that request as well.

MR. FILLER: Very good. And I also can tell

you the LAPD and the LA County Sheriff 's Vepartment
-

has a mobile command team they want to send to the

city of New Orleans to assist at the EOC in the city

. .

- I know this gets into some of the detail they've been

trying to (inaudible) for several days, and they're

telling us that the State of Louisiana has not made a

request of California for assistance. So, if you want

that assistance. California is standing by for that

request

COL. SMITH: Actually, my operations chief

tells me that California just signed that probably

about 30 minutes ago. Patrick

OPERATIONS ASSISTANT: Excuse me. We put

the request in. The question from the EMAC guys --

- because that's the normal system -- is California is

signatory of EMAC, which they hadn't been previously.

COLONEL SMITH : California is not a

-,~... - -.- -- ,

signatory of EMAC, so has that changed?

OPERATIONS ASSISTANT: That's in the weeds,

but how do we work that request?

COLONEL SMITH: Did you hear that one. Josh?

10
 MR. FILLER: I heard that. one. I'll ask
FEMA, is there .anythingwe can do to work that because
you've got some sophisticated guys that want to get in

there to help, but are being told to hold=back.

-

ED BUIKEMA: Josh, this is Ed. We're asking

ESF-13 here, which is being led by FDS both here at

Headquarters as well as down in Baton Rouge, to work

-
that issue. Quite frankly, though. the fact that

California is not an EMAC signatory is a complicated

factor, but I'm not saying it's a show-stopper, and

we're going to continue to work that with ESF-13.

MR. FILLER: Okay, thanks.

PATRICK RHODE : Anything else for

Headquarters at this point?

BILL LOKEY: I don['t believe so. Patrick,

if anybody else has any questions.

COLONEL SMITH: Patrick. I don't.

PATRICK RHOTIE: Understood. Jeff. Bill, we'

,
I .~. - *.- --
completely understand the situation there, and just

know that everyone is working aggressively to meet

those needs, and I know there are a lot of things

1 going on 'right now which I think are going to

hopefully alleviate the situation a little bit more

throughout the day. We appreciate i t , Jeff.

 BILL LOKEY: Patrick, Jeff had one more

thing.

COL. SMITH: Patrick. I have an alibi. I

didn't hear anyone, we got so focused on thB buses and

-

then the law enforcement questions. who is making

progress on ad.ditiona1 sheltering? Who up there has
-
- that ball so we can find out what's going on with it?

PATRICK RHODE: ESF-6, can-you help us

speak to that, please?

ESP-6: I do understand that there are other

shelters on standby -- 20 shelters on standby in Texas

, that the Red Cross has. and we are aggressively

looking for other space

MS. MAGGIE GRANT: Patrick, this is Maggie

Grant, from the White House, can you hear me?

PATRICK RHODE: Yes, Maggie. .

MS. GRANT: I've spoken to Gov.. (inaudible)

- He's ready to receive 15,000 people immediately.

He's got beds, showers, food. He's got buses. He

just got off with Gov. Blanco. but Gov. Blanco said
-, - +. * -
you've got to have your own security. He is pre-

positioning ready to go down. He also says there are

' C-130s in Little Rock ready, if the proper authority

! could help move them. Georgia is ready to receive