 Good afternoon folks. I'm Jim Comiskey. I am representing the Southlake County Fire Protection District, which is the fire district that basically has been encapsulated by the Valley Fire incident. Our response was as adequate as it could possibly be with the resources we had available, but what's important today for the purpose of your press conferences are cooperators. Behind me I have our county state elected officials. We have the director of Cal Fire. The OES director is here. We have the FEMA administrator and every other partner there possibly is, the Red Cross, all the other cooperators. And what we're saying from Southlake County representing all of our citizens who have suffered such horrendous losses that we welcome this. We welcome them being in our community. We know that they're going to be here for a long time and the relationships that we've developed in the past four, five, six, seven, eight days are going to carry us through the next couple of years in rebuilding our communities that have been lost and affected by the Valley Fire. Thank you. Rob Brown, Lake County Board of Supervisors, District 5. My district includes the area of Cobb Mountain that was heavily devastated by the fire a little over 10 days ago. It's encouraging to see the state and federal government stepping in to such a degree to show their concern and support for our ongoing efforts, not just for the fire and the emergency portion of this operation, but for the recovery and rebuild. We've already begun that process and I'm proud of our county. I'm proud of our community. As the repopulation occurs, members of our community have already indicated a desire to rebuild and bring this community back even better than it was to begin with. We're working to improve infrastructure even more than it was before the fire. We're looking at the possibility of implementing sewer systems in areas where it was once septic and that's going to be a huge improvement for not just our community but for the environment as a whole. Building roads to a more modern standard to avoid the destruction and keeping our constituents and our communities out of harm's way. We appreciate also the housing efforts, the money that's coming in to make sure that our community members have adequate housing during this time of rebuild. We appreciate their efforts to secure these financial resources as we begin to rebuild our communities. Thank you. Good afternoon. Jim Comstock, Lake County Board of Supervisors District 1. My district comprises Anderson Springs, Middletown, all of Southlake County to the county line, Hidden Valley Lake and up to Lower Lake and a small part of Clearlake. A vast majority of my district was tremendously affected by this fire. The community of Anderson Springs basically does not exist at this point. We are very, very saddened by the loss of life. The only thing we can say is our hearts go out to the family members of those who lost their lives. The Sheriff's Department has done such an outstanding job of searching for and finding those, the survivors, and unfortunately those that did lose their lives. If we can be encouraged by this, by the minimal loss of life, it does not in any way take away from those who have lost their life. As I said, our hearts and minds and prayers go out to all of them, but we are very encouraged that there are not more of them at this time. Our communities will rebuild. The situation here with State of California being here, State OES, FEMA being here, we cannot do it without these resources. This isn't going to be quick. This isn't going to be something that ends when the cameras go away and people go back to their jobs and their lives wherever they are. We are going to be in this for the long haul, rebuilding from the county, the state, and the federal level, helping all of us. We are greatly appreciative of all of them. I must mention the PG&E, the unbelievable effort that they have put. They created a community just here just north of Middletown of the PG&E workers and crews and they have brought resources to bear. I don't know that there are any PG&E rigs anywhere else other than right here right now. They have done such a good job getting back, getting powered up to the communities in the areas that could have. They had 800 and some odd poles to set. They were doing over 100 a day. I think they may be getting close to getting most of those back in the ground. It has been absolutely outstanding. Our fire services were stretched beyond the ability for anybody to deal with this. This was not a normal fire. This was an absolute firestorm that came down. They have done a tremendous job of suppressing where they could and containing and getting this and saving our citizens. We cannot thank them enough. The emergency personnel, the first responders, our county officials, and our state officials who are here, and the federal officials who are here, I personally want to thank you for the citizens of Lake County and South Lake County. For beginning this process, it's going to be long. We're not going away and we know you're not going away. You're going to be here with us. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Mike McGuire and I'm honored to be able to represent Lake County in our state senate here in California. I would like to be able to start out with a few thank yous. First of all, I want to say thank you to Cal Fire and to all the firefighters in Lake County. At the peak we had over 4,000 individuals fighting this devastating wildland fire and we cannot thank them enough. And I think it's also important to note that we are at ground zero of this deadly inferno. And there were nine South Lake County firefighters that lost their home in the valley fire and stayed on the front lines for the last several days. And a special thank you to South Lake Fire for their incredible bravery, sacrifice, and their hard work. I would also like to take a moment to say thank you to Sheriff Martin. The sheriff behind me is the hardest working sheriff in California. And to put this in perspective, this is not the first fire that has hit Lake County this year. We've had the Jerusalem and the Rocky and it's been a hell of a last 90 days for Lake, but if any county can get through it, Lake County will. I want to say thank you to the County of Lake, the amazing staff, Lake County Office of Emergency Services as well as the Board of Supervisors. I talked to Supervisor Brown an hour after this devastating fire broke out and the man was directing traffic and helping with evacuations. And I want to say thank you to the board. California Office of Emergency Services has been unbelievable. Within hours of this fire raking out, they had representatives on the ground. And since the valley fire broke out, Office of Emergency Services has flooded this county with resources to ensure that the residents, the survivors, have the resources they need to thrive and in the years to come. A special thank you to Congressman Mike Thompson, who has been instrumental in making sure that we have this declaration. Thank you so much to the Congressman. As well as Assemblymember Bill Dodd. The Assemblyman was here and wanted to be here at this press conference but had another meeting and I just want to say thank you to Assemblymember Bill Dodd and to PG&E. PG&E has had to replace over 800 poles in South Lake County. And at the peak, they had over a thousand representatives here. And I want to say thank you. They've had to completely rebuild the infrastructure in South Lake County. On a personal note, I was here at this fire station around 3 a.m. on the first night of the fire. And it was devastating to see. And it was an inferno of destruction. And if you were to talk to veterans of Cal Fire or local firefighters in this county, they'd never seen anything like it. The size and speed is an unprecedented. In 12 hours, this fire grew to 40,000 acres. I cannot say thank you enough to the firefighters or the heroes and the neighbors who went door-to-door ensuring that their neighbors' pets or kids and their grandkids were out safely. And of course, to the amazing generosity of Californians who have donated millions to help the survivors of the Valley of Fire. I want to end with talking about resources from the state of California. The OES director, who we are going to hear from today, has been in this county five times since the fire broke out. He was here on Sunday. This fire broke out one week ago this past Saturday at approximately 1.30 in the afternoon. Mark, I want to say thank you for your leadership. It's been hands-on. Emergency managers has responded from across California to ensure that we have synchronized and coordinated efforts. The National Guard throughout California has been mobilized, and they are here in perpetuity until we rebuild. And I want to say thank you to FEMA. They are here for the long haul. As the administrator has said, we are here to the end. And I'm grateful for their hard work, and thank you to President Obama for the decoration. And again, Lake County will become stronger in the weeks and months to come. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. My name is Mark Gallarducci. I'm the Governor Brown's Director of Emergency Services here in California. First of all, let me just say, really, our hearts and prayers continue to go out to those who have suffered losses. But to all the residents in Lake County and the government of Lake County who are really working hard to deal with the impacts of this fire. You know, we deal with a lot of disasters throughout California. It's a big state. Some call it a nation state. I can tell you every one of them is personal to us. We've got staff throughout the state. Many of some live here in the county. And we really want to always lean forward to be able to address the unmet needs and the issues that counties are faced with. The one thing about California that I think is very unique is that we've got a tremendous mutual aid system of neighbor helping neighbor. And it's not ever more evidenced by what we've seen here. You've got representatives and support from counties all throughout the state. From state agencies and now from the federal government who have engaged with us and engaged with the county to be able to address these issues. But it all started with the tremendous effort and really heroic effort by the firefighters from Cal Fire and local fire agencies and the local fire district here. Having to respond to this fire. And as you know, there were firefighters that actually were burned over and injured doing their job. The devastation is significant. There's no question about it. But now we need to focus on the next phase. And the next phase is that of recovery. And that recovery period has a series of challenges that are in front of it. And challenges for all of us because there's a number of cascading kinds of issues that we need to deal with and being able to get the county back to where it needs to be. But in fact better than where what it was before the fire. And that's really what our goal is going to be. So this won't be an easy task. It will not be an easy task. But all working together local, state, federal, non governmental, private sector, faith based, all of us working together and the citizens of the county to be able to address the challenges in front of us. We can make this better. I've seen the time and time again disaster after disaster. It will take time and it will take patience and it will take effort. Governor Brown was very clear as directed all of state agencies unequivocally to lean forward and provide whatever assistance is necessary. As we sit here today and speak, we also are managing another major fire operation in Calaveras and Amador counties also hit by a major fire and also dealing with many of the same issues that we're dealing with here in Lake. Both counties, both incidents are major priorities and we will continue to engage and support both places at the same time through the duration. The governor early on declared a state of emergency and on Monday requested from President Obama a federal disaster declaration for both the valley fire here and the Butte fire in Calaveras. The day after the White House designated Lake as a disaster area and I know they're still working on getting through the issues on Butte. And I'm very, very honored and completely so deeply appreciative that the day after the declaration by the president, the FEMA administrator from Washington DC is here on the ground in Lake County touring the disaster area. This is commitment and it really stands in the consistency in the way that I think we in California, a neighbor helping neighbor, our concepts of not waiting but working, moving, addressing those gaps, those issues and trying to make things better as possible. FEMA's involvement really back from the day of the fire, they provided a fire management assistance grant to help offset the cost of the firefighting effort. And they have been in connection with us and embedded with us at the state operations center each day and now with the declaration they are on the ground here with the FEMA administrator to see firsthand and I'm deeply appreciative and I know all of Californians are deeply appreciated. So let me just close by saying that I'm going to echo Senator McGuire, the effort across the board has been unbelievable. We are not done yet. We are not out of the woods yet. While the fire may be contained, we have these other challenges in front of us. It's a marathon, not a sprint. But we know, I know, and I want you to know that working together we will be able to overcome and make things better. So with that, let me just turn it over now to Administrator Craig Fugate, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Administrator. Thanks, Mark. Obviously, you know, the loss of life in any disaster is one that touches everybody in the community and we share that with those we lost. But our mission now is to focus on the survivors and the challenges they're going to face in rebuilding. The governor has requested and the president declared the disaster in this county. I need your help. People need to register and we can do this three ways. They can call 1-800-621-FEMA and register online. They can go to disasterassistance.gov and do it with their phone or their iPad. But more importantly, tell me where the people are and we'll go to them and get them in the process. So that's the individual assistance piece. The other part I want to talk about is this fire is a symptom of the underlying drought and the drought is not over. And the one lesson I think that came out of this from the first responders in the fire community, there will be fires that we cannot stop. And we have to focus now on life safety and evacuation and everybody in California who lives in areas that are fire prone need to take serious to message of being prepared and ready to go with little or no notice. There was no indicators that morning when people got up that they would face the fire that came through their community. And when it was time to act, many of them had little or no time to prepare. It's critical that people prepare, know what they're going to do, but most importantly, do not hesitate when an evacuation order is given. And that evacuation order may be local firefighters coming by telling you it's time to go. I'm going to tell you something. If the firefighters are telling you it's time to go, it's because they know they can't stop the fire and they want to stop the loss of life. We can always rebuild. We never get a second chance when it's too late. So help get us the message out that when the local officials say it's time to evacuate, as we saw with this fire, the fire behavior is erratic. They're moving faster than people are used to. They will not have time. They cannot hesitate. And it will mean a difference in life and death for them to get out safely. So help us get to the people that need assistance. But also help us to ensure that people understand that if an evacuation orders are given in the wildfires, go now. You do not have time. Delay can be deadly. Make their jobs easier by evacuating so they can get back to fighting the fire. Thank you. Go ahead and open it up for questions. So currently, I think the count currently as of today is 1,230 homes. The assessment teams are still out looking and adjudicating those numbers to ensure that those are the correct numbers. But the truth of this is that we're seeing what we expected and actually probably more than what we expected initially. Then you take into account the loss of commercial and also of agriculture and recreational. And I think they're still tallying the overall economic losses that will be as a result of this for the county. And I think that's going to be a little more number crunching on that, but certainly it's going to be significant. Anyone from the county want to give you guys a little about that? Matt? I'm Matt Perry, the county administrative officer. We've looked at property tax numbers and the total loss of the county in terms of property tax is $2.1 million. That's the Southlake annually. That's the Southlake fire district, school districts, the county funds and so forth. That's the loss of the property tax rolls. In addition, there will be loss of sales tax, transient occupancy tax, and other revenue sources as well. Well, it really depends if they didn't have insurance or undershirt, what kind of housing assistance they're going to need. And we're working with the state and county on what kind of assistance. Is it renters assistance? Is it getting them a hotel and motel room? And so what we're really focused on right now is what are their immediate needs? Do they have losses they need immediate replacement of? And so we can provide some financial assistance based upon need. So the first part though is getting registered, determine that need. But we know the longer term need is going to be housing. And we're going to work with the state and locals on how we get the housing needs met. Well, it depends upon what the state is looking at. Since you like to use the term trailers, we use FEMA has now moved to HUD approved housing. You would probably call it a manufactured housing. So we do have that and we have that capability. But it's going to be at the state and the county's request that we start looking at housing needs. They're still assessing and everything's on the table. But the first thing is determine what the needs are from the individuals who lost everything where they're at and where they want to go. Get in contact with us so we can plug you in and find out how to best help you. And it may not be immediate FEMA, it could be our Red Cross partners, it could be other folks. But get in contact, register, let's start working on what we can do to get you somewhere else. Well, the first thing is our assistance based upon need. And you just identify one of the first triggers is you have uninsured losses. So if you have insurance and you're covered, you're not probably going to see much assistance for FEMA because it's always based upon the need of the individual and family. So if they had uninsured losses, that's going to be one of the triggers that starts looking at us and Small Business Administration Assistance. Second question, you know, we'll work with the state and the locals. If they need it, that's what we'll do. We basically work through OES and the state. Again, our part will be those things that we're providing assistance for. And our oversight is again to make sure that on the federal dollars that we're doing everything we can to ensure that it's spent properly, there's no fraud, waste or abuse, but it gets to the people that need it. Depending upon their needs and whether they register with us generally within hours to days. Wait, hold on your question. Let me just add a couple things to the administrators that may be helpful. So the one thing about oversight, this has been a collaborative, integrated, what we call multi-agency coordinated effort from the moment the fire took off. It will continue to be that way throughout the incident. And we will continue to work together in that coordinated fashion to find the best solutions to these challenges, specifically with housing. We are going to, there's no, first of all, let me be clear, there's no silver bullet to this particular issue. There is a patchwork of capability that we're looking at. We're looking at everything from hotels to what rental properties may be available to opening an old resort that Kanakdai Harbor in to also maybe even putting manufacturing housing on the ground. So really the administrator is correct. It starts with the registration and we find out exactly what is needed, what kind of loss the survivor had, and then we can then move forward with that. It's conceivable and realistic that the costs overall, when you take in loss of revenue, response costs and everything clearly is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. We know that part. We don't have an exact figure yet. And the other thing is that immediate assistance now, as the administrator says from hours to days, we really, you know, some individuals who have insurance may have already gotten checks. Some of those people who have gotten checks may have already reached out and have gotten sheltering to meet their needs. FEMA, once they register, can rapidly, depending on where people come out in that registration process, can get a check, they can even direct deposit within hours of that registration. But no one, none of the folks that have been impacted by the fire, whether it's the counties, both Napa County and Lake County or the Red Cross or OES, working together. Salvation Army, faith-based groups, again, like I say, this whole community approach has come together to address the immediate needs that fire survivors may have and we'll continue to do that until we get people into more transitional housing. So I think we've been talking really for the last several years about the conditions and we've been saying in the beginning of this fire season, which really wasn't the beginning, the fire season hasn't ended, we're in four years of drought, the vegetation is critically dry. We've been talking about the potential for this kind of fire. We've absolutely been hoping that it wouldn't happen, we've been planning for it. But I think what has really, across the board, long-season firefighting professionals, residents of Lake County and across the state, no one has seen rates of spread, fires grow and spread as quickly as this, these are growing. And so that really leads into your next question and that's evacuations. And Secretary Fugate, Director Fugate said it very clearly. Our number one message to everyone in California right now is, heat evacuation orders, evacuate early. You've seen our public information about ready set go and that's preparing for fire ahead of time. We're past the preparing for fire now. It's now being ready to go. People have to have evacuation plans in place. This fire spread miles with just in a few hours. And as you've heard, firefighters were diverted from perimeter control and putting the fire out and law enforcement officers, other officials, and just going house to house and moving people out. And we need people to heed those evacuation orders and get out quickly and safely. Say it again. Yes, it is. I think at the height, what... Yeah, so 3,000 people that actually are what we consider homeless. Yeah, roughly 3,000 people we were considered homeless. In other words, that have their house, no place to come back to. At the time, there was like 20 something thousand that were evacuated, maybe even a little bit higher than that. Let me just say that, you know, many of them, you know, there's their shelters in Kelsey.