i think that any amounts of money, whatever it takes, we re going to do. but we re already set up. we have tremendous trucking systems, food systems, we have a lot of contractors waiting. for the most part it has been handled by fema, and also we coordinated locally. we have food for days. we have emergency equipment and generators for many days. we should be in great shape. now, i ve also heard it could be 21 and 22 inches. you can imagine what that is. 22 inches of rain. it is not something that we have had. certainly we never had this on the east coast. but i think we re well prepared, well set up. i think the storm here is similar to hurricane hugo, almost like a combination of hurricane hugo in 89, hurricane floyd in 1989. successful disaster response and recovery is one locally executed, state managed, and federally supported.
a little while ago. with me now, todd byrd. he runs this live web cam of this boat ramp there in wrightsville beach. so we ve seen, todd, this steady stream of people pulling their boats out of the water, in preparation for this storm. and i hear you ve decided to ride this thing out. tell me why. caller: well, i ve sent my family away. we ll say this first. i ve sent my wife and my kids on a little vacation down to florida, let them go to disney land, while we ride this out. actually about a mile in shore. so i feel pretty safe here. we ve battened down the hatches. yesterday was a big day at the boat ramp. and it s just been steady as she goes. everyone is preparing. what s wrong with you going to disney world with them? caller: i ve got to stick around. we ve got to take care of our property here. we ve got a lot of friends doing a lot of work. my buddy, chris willetts with
sea tow has sea tow international helping him to help with the aftermath of this storm, which is expected to, from what i understand, get a doozy. you may indeed get a doozy. and i think you ve lived through some doozies, as well. you ve been there since the 80s. what are some of the worst hurricanes you ve seen, and did you ride those out, as well? caller: yes, ma am. i ve been here since 1984, probably one of the worst ones i ve seen hit here at wrightsville was hurricane fran. we also had hurricane floyd, which was pretty bad. the thing that kind of bothers me now, we have a new generation here who has never seen anything like this. and it s going to be quite interesting to see how many people will take and heed the advice of our officials in order to get out of harms way. because this is nothing to play with. and just lastly, the fact, though, you re sticking around. what have you learned through those storms like fran, as you have stayed behind? caller: well, the first th
electricity before the storm. when the storm hit, it took it out entirely. the job that fema and law enforcement and everybody did working along with the governor in puerto rico i think was tremendous. i think that puerto rico was an incredible unsung success. texas we have been given a pluses for. florida, we have been given a pluses for. i think in a way the best job we did was puerto rico, but nobody would understand that. it is harder to understand. it was a very hard thing to do because of the fact they had no electric before the storm hit, it was dead, as you probably know. so we ve gotten a lot of reaccept activir reception for what we did in puerto rico. speaking of puerto rico, they re going to be effected pretty much pretty soon by something else on its way, is that right? potentially hurricane isaac now is tracking south of the
happening, and how well prepared we are. thank you, mr. president. unfortunately hurricane florence is setting out to be a devastating event to the carolinas and potentially virginia as well. as you can see, they re forecasting a major landfall storm, category 3 or category 4 at landfall. biggest hazard we are worried about is storm surge, primary driver of the evacuations under way by the states of north carolina and south carolina, virginia now. as the system comes in and makes landfall, during the weekend it is forecast to stall out, lose its steering currents and drop copious amounts of rainfall. unfortunately the remnants of gordon pass through the mid-atlantic over the weekend, dropped a lot of rain, saturating rivers. so hurricane florence as it comes in and puts anywhere between 20 and 30 inches more in isolated areas could create a lot of inland flooding. right now we re supporting