mike: president biden approving mississippi disaster declaration earlier today after tornadoes tour through the state friday killing more than two dozen people carving path of destruction more than 100 miles long. play for these teams so a tough pill to swallow. we heard from the superintendent from schools who says that the schools will be closed for at least a few days now because there s some damage to some of the schools down here and there s a lack of water and power but, mike, i can tell you that we have seen utility crews out here all morning long, in fact, some here behind us working on utility pole and they are beginning the process. we spoke to one of the city workers this morning who tells us that half of the town is at least with power now, so plenty of progress going on here, mike. mike: charles, have they given you context of how bad this is compared to previous storms? charles: yeah, i ve spoken to a lot of people who live in this particular town and a lot o
going to cost significant money. they might need help of corps engineer. they have a great emergency management team. they have greisha check local administrator there. it looks like everything is going according to plan and take a long period to recover. mike: obviously south carolina has natural disasters as well, your reaction and the response so far? the images you have shown on the program today is horrific. it s devastating to see the community destroyed in this manner. our thoughts for everyone outside of mississippi are with the 26 individuals and their families who were killed in the tornado last night and the other thing that i want to add here is that it s very important and i want to thank the president of the united states, i want to thank fema, the governor, the delegation, the mayor, everybody coming together in the aftermath of this devastating situation
and many, many people are going to be tested in ways we can only imagine today. but i can also tell you as a state we ve never been more prepared. all the models we ve seen from our cpra show the hurricane risk reduction system will perform as intended. will it be tested? yes. but it was built for this moment. i have a tremendous amount of confidence in the team we ve assembled at the state level. all the local officials and first responders, and our federal partners, and by the way, i want to thank fema, the administrator for coming out of texas to embed with us here. i can tell you a short while ago i had a call with the administrator from fema in washington who is closely watching what s happening here. coordinating with us and already
spotlight on the worst tragedy that the state has faced. thank you, jerry, i want to thank fema, later, you have been incredible, they re still going very heavily. there is a big area of very intense flame right now that is next to a very explosive area, wouldn t you say? it is a great big problem out there and they are fighting like hell. we want to give a little presentation and the men and women fighting this fire are incredible. we know that more than 70 people
evacuation zone get out and go to shelters. we ll continue to open up shelters and do everything to keep you safe. you can rebuild your house and possessions. i can t rebuild your life or your family. think about everybody in the family. martha: you said your dad and grandfather and concerned about your family. they need to look at it in that personal way. how would they feel if they didn t do what they needed to do right now. we want to encourage everyone to listen to you. you are unequivocal that they need to go. in terms of gasoline and fuel. there have been a lifting of restrictions to allow more to go your way, right? absolutely. i want to thank the white house. i want to thank fema, epa and department of energy, they lifted the restrictions and other states helpeditous get