Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards Hurricane Ida Press Conference Transcript

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards: (00:00)
… easy either, but I can assure you that we will get through this. Obviously our focus since the early hours of this morning, after the hurricane passed through, has been on search and rescue missions. Saving lives is the number one priority. To that end, at around three o’clock this morning, as soon as the weather allowed, we started moving search and rescue assets, people, boats, trucks to the effected parishes. And those search and rescue efforts are going to continue all day and quite frankly, for as long as necessary.

I want to pause just for a moment and really thank all of the men and women who are working so hard to make this happen. This really has been a partnership between the local level first responders, states, the federal government has put assets into this effort as well. And when I say state, it really is about 16 different states, including Louisiana, that have been engaged in search and rescue today.

And as much as I wanted to get out and survey the damage for myself today, I did not do so because all of our air assets were needed today for search and rescue because the effected portion of our state was so large and many of those areas were not accessible by ground, at least not until late into the day. So I hope to be able to get out and about tomorrow.

As was forecasted, Hurricane Ida delivered catastrophic wind surge and rain across Southeast Louisiana. Almost the entire Southeastern part of our state is without power presently. And sometimes you hear a million people without power, it’s about 1.1 million homes and businesses. It’s well over a million people. I don’t have a precise number for you.

We do have about 25,000 linemen in the state engaged in the effort to restore power and several thousand more are in route. Obviously we need to have the power restored just as quickly as possible. And for that restoration process, there’s going to be some priorities so that the most critical infrastructure comes up first and quite frankly, we’re talking about things like our hospitals, dialysis centers and so forth.

And while this was an extremely catastrophic storm, and again, the surge, the wind, rain was all as advertised, if there is a silver lining, and today it’s kind of hard to see one, it is that our levy systems really did perform extremely well. Our non-federal levy systems, particularly the hurricane and storm-risk reduction system in the metropolitan New Orleans area, all performed as intended. I can tell you that there’s been a preliminary damage assessment of levies today, people getting eyes on those levies, we don’t believe there was a single levy anywhere now that actually breached, that failed. There were a few smaller levies that were overtopped to some degree and for some duration of time, and that did result in some people’s homes being flooded, but they did not fail. They overtopped in a few areas. And I want to thank all of the people across the country who have been very generous in their support in terms of the investment made in that hurricane-risk reduction system.

CPRA is working to deploy portable pumps and flood-fighting assets to Lafourche and Plaquemines Parish, to St. Bernard, to Lafitte, to Laplace, to Grand Isle and to St. Charles to assist with some de-watering efforts that are necessary.

This morning, I conducted a unified command group meeting. FEMA representatives were on hand, National Guard, Corps of Engineers, all of our state agencies as well, to ensure that all of the partners across the state are coordinating getting help to our people just as quickly as possible. I was also able to participate in a call with President Biden and the FEMA administrator and other state and local officials, both in Louisiana and in Mississippi. I appreciated the President’s time today.

As you may have heard, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the FEMA administrator will be in Louisiana tomorrow. I look forward to meeting with them to further explain to them what the situation is here and the needs that we have that they can assist with and I hope to also visit several of the effected parishes tomorrow. We’re putting that schedule together as we speak.

There are more than 5,000 National Guardsman activated and responding to this disaster and more are on the way from sister states. We’ve known since before this hurricane hit that additional assistance would be needed in terms of soldiers of different military occupational specialties, such as MPs and engineers and so forth, and I can tell you we’ve received commitments from 13 additional states. These soldiers from these other states will start rolling into Louisiana within the next couple of days.

The National Guard search and rescue asset’s already engaged and in fact the engagement area is about 29 parishes, but they’ve got 195 high water vehicles, 79 boats and 34 helicopters all conducting search and rescue since very early this morning.

One of the numbers that I got earlier today, the National Guard had rescued 191 citizens and 27 pets across Jefferson, St. John, the Baptist and Orleans parishes, but also conducted helicopter hoist and lift operations in Laplace and Jean Lafitte, Jean Lafitte I should say.

The State Fire Marshal’s office is leading a task force of about 900 individuals from 15 different states. They’ve been conducting primary search and rescue operations in collaboration with local first responders. Worked a little differently today because for the first part of the day, they were responding to 911 calls and calls for help that had come in overnight that could not be responded to because the weather just wouldn’t allow first responders to go out. The mission now is to go back and do the very organized grid search where they do a primary search and then they’ll come back and do a secondary search to make sure that any survivors who need to be rescued are in fact rescued.

In addition to the task force currently on the ground, we have 200 additional individuals on the way from New York and from Massachusetts. I can tell you that that task force checked on more than 400 homes today. The vast majority of people were found to be okay and unharmed, but a number of individuals did require rescuing and then there was actually one that had a life-threatening emergency.

Due to physical damage and to water and electric issues, three hospitals have been evacuated since the storm hit us yesterday. Those are Chabier in Houma, St. Ann’s in Raceland and Our Lady of the Sea in Galliano. A fourth hospital, Terrebonne Generalis, is in the process of being evacuated tonight.

The Department of Transportation and Development has 177 buses in operation and so far they have evacuated more than 400 people from various locations in the effected parishes. There are 18 water system outages impacting more than 312,000 people and 14 boil water advisories impacting more than 329,000 people.

We’ve talked about electricity. We’ve talked about water. It’s pretty clear that if you have evacuated, now is not the time to return unless, and until, your parish informs you that it’s okay to do so. Businesses aren’t open, stores aren’t open, schools aren’t open and quite frankly, we need to put as little demand on our water systems and on our electric grid as possible. So please, before you return, contact your Office of Emergency Preparedness or listen to the guidances being issued by your parish.

… your parish. Tragically, we can confirm one storm related death so for, a 60 year old man from Ascension Parish who died after a tree fell on his home off of Highway 621. And it’s a good time to remind people that just because the storm has passed, it doesn’t mean the dangerous have not, as we’ve talked about before. In almost all of these storms, more people are killed after the storm passes. So with all of the people without electricity tonight and for some time to come, there will be a lot of generators in use. Please make sure you operate those generators outside in a well-ventilated area away from your home. Not under windows and doors, not in crawl spaces or garages. Carbon monoxide poison is absolutely deadly. Please pace yourself when you go out to clean up your yard or remove debris. Heat indexes will reach 100 degrees or more over the next two weeks at least.

We’re also asking that you don’t get on the road unless it is absolutely necessary. And many parishes have curfews in place, so please follow the directions of your local elected officials. There are currently 76 weather related road outages. DOTD crews had been out since very early this morning assessing roads and clearing those roads of debris. Principally, things like trees that have fallen on the roads because of the high winds. And I can tell you that I-10 Westbound and the Capitol Region is open. However, I-10 is closed in Ascension Parish due to downed trees that have not yet been removed. That work is ongoing. Crews are also working to clear portions of I-12 that are blocked in multiple areas. Because of runaway vessels in Bayou Barataria, Kerner Bridge, and Jefferson Parish in the Lafitte area is damaged to the point where it will be closed for some period of time. If you have to get on the road, please check 511la.org for road closure information and other travel related information as well.

It is still the case that there are downed trees and power lines and other debris and standing water as well on many roadways in Southeast Louisiana. As of 2:30 today, there were just shy of 2,000 people sheltered in 36 different locations across Louisiana. For the latest shelter information, text LA Shelter to 898211, or you can call 211. I have to keep reminding people that whether we like it or not we are still in a COVID environment. It is a very difficult COVID environment where 100% of our cases today are attributable to the Delta variant, which is highly transmissible. So please make sure that you are safe as possible, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, and these sheltering operations and transportation and evacuation operations, everything we’re doing needs to be done with COVID in mind. So it’s important that we mask, that we distance, that we wash our hands, do all of these things to the maximum extent possible. Last night, President Biden approved my request for a Major Disaster Declaration. We made that request yesterday before lunch, and he approved that last night. And I want to thank him for his prompt attention and his favorable response to that request. Specifically, he granted to Southeast Louisiana individual assistance and public assistance as well as Category A, which is debris removal, and for the state as a whole, he granted Category B Emergency Protective Measures. The category A and B is for 100% federal cost share for 30 days from the start of the incident. For the public assistance, it is at 75% for the federal government. I feel quite certain that we will cross the threshold necessary to request that, that be increased to 90%. All of this assistance is going to be extremely helpful because people can now register for individual FEMA assistance if they live in one of the effected parishes.

Already, more than 18,000 people have taken advantage of the opportunity to register for individual assistance. And so if you live in one of the following parishes, please register for FEMA aid if you were impacted by Hurricane Ida. And those parishes are Ascension, Assumption, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberia, Emeryville, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, Pointe Coupee, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Martin, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Washington, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana parishes. For many people, the fastest and easiest way to apply for FEMA assistance is by visiting disasterassistance.gov. If it isn’t possible to apply online, you can call 800-621-3362. The toll free telephone lines operate from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. seven days a week.

And I know that cell phone coverage has been very spotty today. Electricity is practically not existent for most people in Southeast Louisiana. And so the internet may be a problem. But you have several ways to register for aid, and certainly you have an extended period of time in which to do so. But as soon as you’re able and if you’ve been impacted by the hurricane and live in one of these parishes, we encourage you to register for aid. The Division of Administration has also announced it has closed state offices tomorrow in the same 25 parishes. We will let you know if there are additional closures in the future. In closing, I want to ask the people of Louisiana to do what you always do best, and that is to be a good neighbor. Take care of yourself. Take care of your family. Reach out to the elderly couple next door or across the road. Make sure to the extent that you can you’re checking on family members who may be elderly or have special needs.

There are an awful lot of unknowns right now. There are certainly more questions than answers. I can’t tell you when the power is going to be restored. I can’t tell you when all the debris is going to be cleaned up and repairs made and so forth. But what I can tell you is we’re going to work hard every single day to deliver as much assistance as we possibly can. And I can tell you we’re going to push Intergy and all the other electric companies to restore power just as soon as they can. And they are busy doing that, again with more than 25,000 linemen on the job as we speak. Those linemen, by the way, come from 22 different states. I can’t tell you when your cell service is going to be restored, if it’s currently out. Although I can tell you that AT&T made tremendous progress earlier this afternoon. And so hopefully your cell phone coverage is back or will soon be back. And I know that cell phones have become the preferred method of making phone calls for many people.

There are a lot of individuals who don’t even have landlines, and this made communication very difficult and frustrating today. Not just difficult and frustrating, but if you needed help, it might’ve been very difficult for you to call for that help. But we do believe that this situation is going to improve very, very quickly, if your phone service hasn’t yet been restored. And I know that a lot of people out there are tired and sometimes this can be too much to bear. It’s a lot to deal with. But I know the people of our state are stronger than the strongest of storms, our spirit is unbreakable, and that we’re going to embark on this road to recovery together. Don’t know yet if we will have a press conference tomorrow. I do hope to visit, as I said, with the DHS Secretary and the FEMA Administrator and then travel across Southeast-

.. and then travel across Southeast Louisiana and visit several of the parishes as well. And we may just make ourselves available to the press as we make those stops, or at least one of those stops, as we travel. But we will give you more information later. So at this point, I’m going to pause and take questions. We’ve got a lot of people here who can answer questions and so forth. And so, if you feel like you need to direct a question to one of them, please feel free to do so. And certainly, if I feel like one of them would be better able to answer a question, I’ll ask them to come up and respond. Yes, sir.

Speaker 1: (20:57)
[inaudible 00:20:57]

Yeah. And look, it’s very difficult to be without power, whether it’s because you want lights or an air conditioned home, or because you’re trying to run a business or you’re trying to run a hospital or a dialysis center and save people’s lives. The storm came through yesterday, it exited our state very, very late yesterday, almost still at hurricane strength.

It tied for, as best we can tell, with the strongest hurricanes that have ever impacted the State of Louisiana. The winds were extremely strong and sustained at 150 miles per hour for a long period of time. And I’ve been seeing reports that gusts got into the 170s, maybe the lower 180s at different places. This wreaks havoc on infrastructure and that includes on the electric grid. There are eight transmission lines that feed the New Orleans area, all of them failed.

And I can tell you Entergy has been out, and not just Entergy, all of the electric companies and working with the public service commission, they have been out doing their damage assessments today, figuring out the best strategy to start to restore power and giving a preference to those critical infrastructure pieces that have to be powered up first.

We really need our hospitals more than anything else to come back up so that people who are in ICU rooms and on ventilators and so forth can continue to receive the life saving care that they need. That’s important all the time, it’s certainly important even more so because of the COVID situation, a number of people in the hospital and many of whom are on mechanical ventilators.

I expect that that in not too distant future there will be announcements by Entergy and others as to when they believe power will be restored. But quite frankly, we’re just not there yet. And people are impatient, I get it, I am too. But the storm was still ravaging our area yesterday, it hadn’t even reached I-10 24 hours ago. And so it’s just too soon right now to say when that power is going to be restored. But trust me, I’ll be pushing them to get it done as soon as possible. And quite frankly, I don’t need to. They’re out there working extremely hard. They had more linemen committed to this effort before the storm ever made landfall than we’ve ever seen in Louisiana. So I’m optimistic sooner than later it’ll be restored, but I can’t be more definite than that. Melinda?

Speaker 2: (23:56)
Thank you, in terms of the hospitals, do you know how many of them are running with generators [inaudible 00:23:57]

Yeah. A bunch. I have received that information, I didn’t bring it. But I can tell you in the LDH Regions one, three, and nine, an awful lot of the hospitals are on generator power. And there may actually be a couple left in Region two here in the Baton Rouge area, although the power has been coming back on here fairly quickly.

This is a real issue for us and we’re working very hard with LDH with the Corps of Engineers and the Public Service Commission so that the restoration of power to the hospitals is prioritized. But the Corps of Engineers is helping FEMA and those work to make sure that we are putting technicians at all of these hospitals to keep these generators running as long as possible, but also to identify exactly the size generator that is needed so that we can get a backup on site in case that one should fail and we need to transition to a new generator. These things are happening as we speak, and I’ll get you a better number than a lot of them. But for now I can just tell you it’s more than not. Yes.

Speaker 3: (25:18)
[inaudible 00:25:18] can you explain the scope of the search and rescue that remain? What’s outstanding, what [Inaudible 00:25:29]

Search and rescue, typically when the State forces come in for the urban search and rescue, we go in and do a grid search where we’re going to go and search every single home on every street and we do that primary search. That’s done pretty quickly to try to figure out whether someone is in the house and so forth and needs assistance. And then, to make sure that we’ve adequately covered the area, we’ll go back and do a secondary search.

Well, what we did most of the day today was try to catch up on the 911 calls. So we were actually partnering with local authorities and going out and doing search and rescue at individual addresses where we know people had called for help. And so that occupied most of the day. And I’m looking over, I don’t see Butch… Butch Browning, the State Fire Marshall, leads this effort for us. And so that’s what we’re doing now.

We’re going to have to transition into that grid search that I just mentioned. And because we have so many populated areas in Southeast Louisiana that received such damage, whether it was from the wind or from the rain or the storm surge, this is going to take quite some time. It’s why we have so much of our National Guard dedicated to it, why we have this 900 person task force with more on the way, because we want to make sure that anyone who is in their home who needs help is going to receive it, and they’ve got to receive it in a timely fashion. Yes ma’am.

Melinda: (27:05)
Have you been in contact with the mayor of Grand Isle? Last we heard there was some trouble obviously getting to Grand Isle [inaudible 00:27:14]

Yeah, there have been some rescues made from Grand Isle. As best we can tell about 40 people stayed on the island, and probably not a good decision. But there were efforts made earlier today in and Jean Lafitte and Grand Isle. Does anybody here have any more specific information Jim, on-

Speaker 4: (27:43)
We don’t [inaudible 00:27:45]

Yeah. We’re not aware of any loss of life in Grand Isle, but it was only accessible by air today, and so we were able to finally get some air assets up. And I know that we’ve been able to get some people on the ground to inspect facilities there as well. And so I’m quite certain that any needed rescues have been made and we will get back with you if for some reason that’s not the case. Yes, sir.

Speaker 5: (28:17)
This morning [inaudible 00:28:20] mentioned that you expect the death toll will rise considerably. Can you talk about why you made that comment [inaudible 00:28:30] You were also asked the authorities [inaudible 00:28:41] if they had any death toll or [inaudible 00:28:41] fatalities [inaudible 00:28:41]

First of all, any additional deaths would be unconfirmed and until a coroner officially confirms the death and attributes that death to the hurricane, I’m not going to get in front of them. I will just tell you that I had a number of conversations overnight and today with parish presidents and other officials who believed that the death count attributable to the hurricane will go up because they see catastrophic damage in certain places that they have every reason to believe were inhabited at the time the damage occurred.

And it is certainly possible, and I’m praying for it, that by some miracle individuals had left or did survive and so forth. But I think that’s what you’re hearing out there. And I would be surprised, obviously very pleasantly surprised, if the confirmed death toll doesn’t go up considerably over the next couple of days. But what we want to make sure of is that the death toll doesn’t go up for things that are entirely preventable, like carbon monoxide poisoning, like heat exhaustion, like falling off the roof or injuring yourself when you use a chainsaw or-

Yourself when you use chainsaw or driving into water, something like that. That’s typically where we see the most deaths associated with a hurricane. It’s in the recovery, not in the actual storm itself. [Melinda 00:30:14]?

Melinda: (30:14)
Are there places where y’all are still concerned that there is a potential for new flooding? I know, obviously, [inaudible 00:30:22] the water is still rising in some places. But are y’all seeing that in [inaudible 00:30:27] and any other places where there are points of concern?

No. And one of the good things about a hurricane, and there aren’t many, is that when the hurricane passes, the wind changes direction. And it’ll blow the water out just like it blew it in. And we saw that happen. And so in most places, the water began receding pretty quickly. Now there are a few areas where they received a lot of rain inside protected levies, where that water isn’t going to drain out. And it ultimately has to be pumped out. And there are some pumping issues, even in New Orleans. But we’re very pleased to say that New Orleans actually withstood the rain quite well. And those storm surge got into that area.

And so a very limited number of structures actually took on any water in New Orleans, but there may be some pumping that’s needed to get that water in the Lakeview area, for example, out and back into the lake. The other thing that’s helping us is the weather forecast today from the National Weather Service, doesn’t call for a great deal of rain over the coming week. And so we are going to dry out as well. And might there be an isolated area to where something could happen and there’d be a little more water than they currently have? That’s always possible, but that’s not something that we are particularly concerned about at the present. Yes, sir?

Speaker 6: (31:58)
Governor Edwards, we [inaudible 00:32:07]. Obviously, the US government is [inaudible 00:32:09]. What is your next [inaudible 00:32:12] response, how you feel, and what do you tell the people who are trying [inaudible 00:32:16] the assurance that everything will be okay?

Yeah. Well, first of all, this is a tough blow. But things are going to be okay. It’s hard to see that today, but we are going to get through this. And we’ve been through these times before. We’re going to get through this one. One thing I can tell you, nothing is ever perfect. It doesn’t happen as fast as you want it to happen. And it’s of very little consolation to someone that the levees held up, if in fact, their homes took water. And if your home didn’t take water, but you lost your roof or your walls because of the wind… But at the end of the day, this was a catastrophic storm. We’re going to work as hard as we can every day to make people’s lives just a little bit better, to deliver all of the assistance that we can possibly deliver, and to do this as soon as possible.

And we’re here, less than 24 hours after the hurricane passed through our state, we’re still in a search and rescue mode. We’re not recovering yet. We are still responding and trying to save lives. And then, we will be transitioning into the response mode as well. But I just want to reassure the people that we are going to get through this. And we’re a good, strong, resilient, faithful people. And we know how to be good to one another, no matter what our political philosophies might be or divisions we might have about other things, when it comes to natural disasters, we do see one another as brothers and sisters, for me as a Catholic Christian, brothers and sisters in Christ. And we respond that way. And that’s going to continue, and we’re going to work just as hard as we can every single day. But it isn’t going to be fast, and it’s not going to be perfect. Yes, ma’am?

Melinda: (34:15)
In terms of the communications system, and there were 911 outages or cell phone outages, that is very reminiscent of Katrina. That is reminiscent of the 2016 floods. I guess I’m just wondering if you were disappointed that every time, it seems as though the communications structures are supposed to be upgraded, but we still have these failures repeatedly?

Yeah. Well, what I can tell you is that it was very frustrating. Probably nobody was more frustrated than I was when I couldn’t get firsthand reports from mayors and parish presidents earlier today. But, I think you’re going to see one of the differences is, that we had enough redundant means of communication that we never lost all communication. For example, when the email system went down, we couldn’t do the webEOC requests that we typically receive from the parishes. But we very quickly had a work around where they could continue to request assistance. Another difference, I think you’re going to see these systems back up much, much quicker. I haven’t confirmed it yet, but on my way in, I got a message from AT&T, and they believe their system is back up. And since 911 systems, in many cases, are pegged to that system, I think you’re going to see that that’s back up.

So things are coming back up much faster than we’ve seen before as well. But yeah, it’s frustrating because you put in communications infrastructure to assist you all the time, but especially when you have a disaster. And when a disaster renders that communication ineffective, it is extremely frustrating. But we have enough redundancy in the system, and the system has hardened enough that we can get it back online much faster. And I expect that, right now, for example, the overwhelming majority of communications that need to take place are absolutely happening between GOHSEP and all of the parishes.

Speaker 7: (36:26)
Last question?

Well, look, thank you all very much. I do appreciate you all for working to continue to provide coverage for this. I do want to ask one more time for the people of Southeast Louisiana, to do everything you can to follow the guidance that you’re given from your local officials. Make sure you are aware of, and that you conform to, whatever curfews may be in place, that you don’t come back until it is safe for you to do so, and that you’ll actually have some of the basic necessities of life like electricity and water and so forth. And that we all check on our neighbors and our family, especially those who are elderly or have special needs.

And then, let’s work together, and let’s lift one another up in prayer. We’re going to get through this, and it may not seem like it, but every single day will be a day where we take a step forward, and we will be making improvements. And that’s going to happen all across Southeast Louisiana, with the partnership with the federal government, and the state, and all of our folks around the various parishes, especially those local first responders and the volunteer groups, the faith based organizations, the non-profits, all of whom step up and move extremely fast. And that’s all going to come online very quickly too. So thank you all very much. We will announce our next press conference at some point in the future. Thank you, ma’am.

Speaker 8: (38:07)
Thanks.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards Hurricane Ida Press Conference Transcript

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