Michael Chertoff Hurricane Quotations

Mike managed over 160 disasters during his tenure at FEMA, and his service in those disasters has been commended by many, ... He has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to the unprecedented challenge posed by Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans levee breach. He is a good man, and I personally appreciate his work and his commitment.

He has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to the unprecedented challenge posed by Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans levee breach,

last summer FEMA, who reports to you, and the LSU Hurricane Center, and local and state officials did a simulated Hurricane Pam in which the levees broke. ... Thousands drowned.

Just two weeks out from Hurricane Katrina, improvements in communication and coordination between levels of government were already evident, ... But that is only one step in ensuring that we identify the lessons learned from Katrina and make the necessary adjustments.

I think that that predication unhappily turned out to be correct and one of the things I said was we're racing the clock. Unfortunately, the hurricane beat us,

Mike Brown talked about the need to take seriously this hurricane ... It was difficult to know where on the Gulf Coast it was going to land.

We are going to be very prepared for Hurricane Wilma.

Speed was of the essence when the hurricane hit,

This is probably the worst catastrophe, or set of catastrophes certainly that I'm aware of in the history of the country. It was a devastating hurricane followed by a devastating flood,

I knew I became more involved in operational matters than I would normally expect to be or want to be, given the fact that I had a battlefield commander on the ground, ... I am not a hurricane expert. I've got to rely on people to execute the details of the plan.

But I think the bottom line right now is to take the constructive criticism and use that to build toward, as I say, the hurricane season that is 100 days away. And we don't have a lot of time to waste before we start to address that next set of challenges.

By all measures, Hurricane Katrina was the largest natural disaster that FEMA has ever been called upon to support, ... Although FEMA pre-positioned significant numbers of personnel, assets and resources before the hurricane made landfall, we now know its capabilities were simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of this storm.

And one of the things I want to say, Wolf, is we're 100 days from hurricane season, and we've got to start focusing on what we're going to do to make ourselves ready for the next hurricane.

As you know, the president has established the 'White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina,

We're going to be better prepared for this hurricane season than any other prior year.

The devastation and tragic loss of life caused by Hurricane Katrina earlier this week reinforce the urgency of our coalition's work,