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Mike check one two three one two three my check one two three my check my check my check better Any better? check check check You got Well, I just want to thank everyone for being here today I want to begin by thanking particularly our federal delegation for being with us today The homeland security director our administrator diane chriswell from fema I want to personally thank President biden and his team for very quickly signing the emergency declaration that we sent up on yesterday obviously The resources that the people here in rolling fork and throughout mississippi need Uh, the help is on the way and I think that's critically important Uh, I want to take the opportunity to personally thank all of the volunteers that are here what we've seen Of the last 36 hours in mississippi on the one hand has been heart breaking to see the loss and devastation of these communities But on the other hand has been inspiring and gives me great reason for optimism And quite frankly makes me damn proud to be a mississippian because mississippians have done what mississippians do in times of tragedy In times of crisis They stand up and they show up and they're here to help themselves help their neighbors and as we talk to individuals throughout The devastation back here behind this first yesterday morning and then again today What you see is that we've got a lot of good people that live in this great state And i'm proud of them and i'm proud to represent them and i'm proud To take this opportunity to get as many resources here as we possibly can As you know and and secretary mayorkas will mention this and i'm sure our female director will as well But in our emergency declaration We started with the four counties that were hardest hit Uh, clearly, um, and the president approved both public assistance and individual assistance For the individuals in those communities and we appreciate that In addition to that, we're going to continue working. We've got Mima and fema joint teams on the ground here But also joint teams that are doing their thing from our emergency operations center in every region of our state And we appreciate them when we have these natural disasters and unfortunately we have more Then we care to think about We appreciate our federal partners and them showing up finally before I turn it over to the secretary I just want to personally thank mayor walker here of the town of rolling fork who just walked us through And had and led us and led the delegation through and have the opportunity to see an awful Large number of individuals that are hurting right now hear the stories about where people are Where they're staying who they're staying with but more than anything what I heard and I hope everyone else Behind me heard is the people who have been displaced Whether they're staying with their son in greenville or with someone in clinton every one of them has said Or mom or dad or me I've lived in this community for 30 40 or 50 years I want to continue to live in this community and I can assure you we're going to do everything we can Through housing and other means to get those people back in this community as quickly as we possibly can And so with that again, I want to reiterate my thanks to secretary mayorkas and his Working with the president to expedite Our emergency request. Thank you for being here on the ground in mississippi It matters to these people It matters when their federal partners are here. It matters When their local representatives are here and so secretary mayorkas. Thank you for being here I'm turn over you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you very much governor. I want to Echo the sentiments that the government governor expressed And I want to echo two words heartbreak and inspiration We walked down the street of this town Seeing devastation on both sides of the road And congressman thompson and I Were able to speak with an individual who traveled from houston texas Just to help the people of this town And he said something I I thought was very appropriate and very powerful that one can see photographs Of the devastation, but there's no substitute for actually seeing it In person and that is indeed what we've come to do. We've come to see it in person to communicate To the people of mississippi That we are here Not just today But for the long haul It is heartbreaking to hear of the loss of life to see the devastation firsthand It is also as the governor expressed Inspiring to see the people of mississippi come together and not just the people of mississippi But the people of this country to come to assist those in such dire need It is also inspiring to see the first responders The disaster response officials the volunteers Even individuals who themselves Have survived the disaster come rise and help Their fellow mississippi and in a time of such great need The president has directed us to be here To assist the people of mississippi To be here on an enduring basis Not just through the response, but through the recovery as well We are mindful of the fact that that will take time, but we are here for the time it will take We see extreme weather events increasing Only increasing in gravity in severity and in frequency And we have to build our communities to be best prepared For them to prevent the devastation to the extent possible To be able to quickly respond and recover to prove ourselves resilient We cannot do that alone We need one another and that is what we are here to communicate that the federal government Under president biden's leadership is here to support mississippi to support the governor To support the senators Hyde smith and wicker To support the members of congress to support the local officials Mayor walker We are here for the people and it's my honor to To introduce the great administer of the federal emergency management administration dn grislaw Thank you secretary and i am so appreciative of you joining us here today on the ground because as he said it just makes Such a difference to be able to see firsthand The impacts that these communities have faced governor reeves. Thank you for your partnership We are going to be here with you throughout the duration of this and mayor walker So inspired by how you have led your community how your community continues to come to you True leadership in action And it's going to be Really important in the days in the weeks ahead And also just want to thank the entire congressional delegation, right? They are here to make sure that we are bringing everything we can To support this community because you've heard president biden did declare And approve the the governor's request for a major disaster declaration He did that yesterday and what that means is that includes Public assistance, which means to help with the debris removal from communities like this To help pay some of the overtime costs For carol humphreys monroe in sharkies county It also means that individual assistance is approved as the as the governor mentioned for these same counties for carol humphreys Monroe in sharkie counties What this major disaster declaration does is it ensures that we can bring in the right resources now to help start the recovery process In support any of the ongoing response actions that may be needed In these communities When I spoke to the president and gave him an update yesterday on what I was hearing on the ground He's very clear to me all the time make sure that the entire federal family does whatever they can to support these communities And that's what we're here to do So I want to tell the individuals to start if you are in one of those four counties If you are in carol humphreys monroe or sharkie You can contact your insurance company first line of defense But also begin the process with fema and you can do that by going to disaster assistance dot gov Or you can call one eight hundred six two one Three three six two to apply for assistance. You can also use the fema app We also have people on the ground that will be in fema shirts. They're called disaster survivor assistance teams They'll have iPads with them. They can also assist in registering you for assistance These are just the first counties as the governor said We are going to work with the team with the state team here to assess additional counties to see if Any more need to be added to this declaration Um, we know that this is going to be a long term recovery event And we can see just where we're standing here that one of the major issues that we're going to face Is housing and how do we help the the individuals that have been impacted by this horrific event I know that our partners from the american red cross are already on the ground and providing shelter that those that need it And I think as you heard the governor say So many family members extended family members neighbors helping neighbors are already supporting some of that initial Temporary sheltering solutions to help people stay safe right now But we are going to continue to work with our state partners to find the right solution For individuals in this community because we know that every individual has a unique need every family has a different situation And so we want to make sure that we understand what the needs are and what the best tools are going to be To come in and support this community as quickly as possible I'll give a little bit of an update on some of the things that we are doing on the ground right now Our region four administrator gracia check. She's here with me today She has been in constant communication with the state director as well as the governor Since before the incident happened when we were monitoring the threats of what was going to happen And our regional response coordination center has been activated being able to support and send in resources At the state's request if there were any additional Needs or gaps identified we would have been able to bring those in and support as needed We've sent an incident management management assistance team. They are right now at the state emergency operation center They are embedded there and they will work side by side with our state partners to support them And helping to make sure that the right federal resources that are available are here and supporting these communities And then yesterday as I mentioned already I directed our disaster survivor assistance teams to come in And start going door to door into these communities helping people register for assistance Why I would say right now is our number one Concerns is still life safety Because you look around here and you look at the debris I just really encourage everybody to remain vigilant Stay cautious. There is a lot of hazards with it within this debris And unfortunately there's been so much loss of life Which is just heartbreaking But we often see additional injuries and additional loss of life after a disaster because of the type of Hazards that are in this debris so please listen to your local officials If there's roads that are closed in barricades, please don't go around them That means that there's a hazard over there and as you are going through Your homes and you are looking for your belongings. Please take the extra care to make sure that you're keeping yourself and your family's safe With that I would just say that FEMA is here. We remain committed to the people of mississippi. We will be here for you now We will be here for you next week. We will be here long after these cameras are gone To make sure that we are assisting you with all of your recovery needs Governor you have my commitment that we will be here throughout the duration of this recovery effort And so with that, um, I would now like to turn it over to senator wicker for his comments Thank you. Thank you madam administrator and we i'm joined With congressman thompson congressman come on up here and senator come on up here I want us to stand together Because uh, I want you to know that this delegation is a shoulder to shoulder For mississippi in this regard We got a letter together of both of our senators all four members Of the house of representatives yesterday afternoon got it up to the president of the united states I want to thank the president for calling each of us individually I want to thank him for sending a member of his cabinet here We don't always get cabinet members, but we thank you set mr secretary and madam administrator And uh, we are also in it with you for the long haul We uh, we appreciate Mayor walker and uh, and the state officials that are here The law enforcement that have come in and uh, we realize this is going to be a long process Let me say this before I turn it over to Uh senator hoddsmith and mr representative thompson We're we're about to spend some local and state money on this We're going to do it in coordination with one of the best state emergency management teams In the country. We're we're good because we have experience We we really would prefer if we didn't quite have as much opportunity to show how good we are But the governor has put a good team together and we've been visiting with them Yesterday and today Madam administrator and mr secretary, we're going to spend some money We're going to get the best guidance we can from jackson and washington dc We want cooperation when we ask for reimbursement. We've had problems in the past I don't anticipate any problems in the future because we're going to work with you We're going to spend the money the right way according to the statute And um, and we want a smooth transition of the of those funds I'm too impressed with the spirit Of uh of can do There's no victimhood in this community today And uh, we're there with you. We'll be back again and we're with you for the long haul senator hoddsmith Thank you senator wicker and uh I tell you when I got the text Friday night and saturday morning started coming to my phone. I knew it was bad But until I got here yesterday It is Undescribable until you see this it is our job to step up right now We were over at the napha autos park store We got in a circle and we prayed and that is certainly what we need This morning early on national news I saw a gentleman talking about being in one of the houses and he said after the storm it got quiet But I heard children crying I'm so concerned about the mental welfare of these children of these adults way beyond this storm You know, I have a staffer previous staffer His name is gipson clark and when anybody in washington dc said, where are you from? He said rolling fork missy sypley and they would look at him so strange like rolling fork This storm has put rolling fork on the map. We have other areas. We have four counties that have damage But this has truly highlighted this community, but I've got news for you. This community is going to come back This community is going to come back strong We are here to help you We are here to provide the services We want you to have the debris removal to be able to relocate to be able to restructure your lives But you're going to come back and I don't want anyone to give up on that hope Because the folks behind me this administration this secretary this director of fema We are going to be here for you. We're going to do it every day Do we get people in a position that's livable again? Thank you for being here Thank you for putting this word out I do ask for your prayers and I want you to be conscious of the mental effect that this is going to have on these residents And any help we can reach out with with any of that. Please let us know what that is. Thank you congressman Thank you very much Let me first thank The biden administration For a record Of a disaster declaration I've represented this area For quite a while And i've never seen a disaster declaration Turn around in this kind of time So i'm excited. I thank the governor for making the request in a timely manner I thank all of the state and local partners who got us to this point I want to thank supervisor smith and supervisor smith from shocker county. I want to thank mayor walker For always being there In this time of need I want to thank secretary mayorkas Administrator cresswell and their teams for demonstrating that this administration cares because they are here today As the senator said most of the time They'll send somebody Not so high up But I think this demonstrates The seriousness about the effort and we appreciate it The other notion behind this declaration Is they approve normally when state and local resources have been overrun And so now that those resources have been documented not to be here at the state or local level It's your federal government That will backfill the need In this community We don't want anyone who's impacted to make a decision to leave Because they didn't get made whole again We have that process we have to Document it over time But our goal is to have this community as close to what it was The full friday night occurred But it will require cooperation On the part of everyone and again, let me thank all of the partners who've been here from day one And everyone has a story But all the stories so far are positive because everyone who's shown up so far Is here to help Apart from that Let me Turn the mic over to mayor eldritch walker The mayor of rolling park mississippi Thank you congressman First of all to Secretary The governor of the great state of mississippi and all the representatives who are here From this great state Mayor flags from vicksburg mississippi On behalf of this entire community First we want to say thank you We want to thank you for all that you're doing for Our families here And making sure that The city of rolling fork will come back bigger And better Than ever before We want to make sure that Our displaced families are taken care of That's being done We want to make sure that their priorities for Their personal high genes and everything that's needed is in place This is being taken care of We're well on our way To bring in rolling fork back To where it once was and to make it even better On behalf of the entire board of alderman Of this city Again, we want to thank you And we want to let you know that without your help the volunteers We have volunteers here from as far away as arkansas Tennessee Louisiana, they are right here in the city of rolling fork helping us out And we are thankful For what everybody is doing To help us in this devastating time You know, we often we kind of remember those of us who have This is a bible bill And we were all taught that a family that prays together Stays together This is a family a family of unity a family of strength and this is what we need to make this community Come back Once again And lastly I'm not only just the mayor of this community But I've lost personal friends I'm also the local funeral director now I'm having to meet my families Those who have lost loved ones And help them make it through This traumatic time But you know what? I'm a firm believer That when you do right Right will follow you And I think that I've been prepared to take on this task And I'm going to do it in the name of the mayor of the city of rolling fork And of the man that I am and I that god has made me to be So I want to thank each of you Who are here For all that you have done And all that you will do in future days Thank you so much Thank you mayor Thank you for doing right Thank you for doing right not just in these times of tragedy, but every single day. Thank you. Thank you I'm going to open it up to questions. But before I do I just want to remind everyone that we are here in rolling for it And rolling fork is certainly devastated But this disaster Did not stop Across that road right there I made stops yesterday with the Humphrey county's sheriff in silver city And in winona and in amary And there's damage in smithville and vaden and a lot of other places throughout our state And so while we're all here today Please know that we also Are thinking about Our friends and neighbors in those communities And the resources that the president approved yesterday after my declaration my request for our declaration Will be provided in those communities as well And so we've got a lot of Press here today a lot of national press here today And we're here in rolling for it because as the storm came across the mississippi river The most and the first major damage occurred right here But it's not unique to here As I walk through those communities yesterday I promise you there's a lot of hurt in other places in our state too And we're going to keep them in our prayers as well And so with that i'm going to open the floor to questions. Yes, ma'am start back here Well, thank you for the question and for those of you who did not hear it It was a question regarding the potential for severe weather that we have in the state of mississippi This afternoon Now we have been monitoring that very very closely Obviously with the visits from our friends from washington What we have found is that the vast majority of the most severe weather is expected South of interstate 55 We are monitoring it very closely. We we have our state emergency operations center. We were there earlier today We do have mema personnel there watching and prepared to dispatch whomever needs to be dispatched In the height of the storm on friday evening We had over 300 search and rescue personnel situated throughout the state A lot of state assets A lot of local assets and we are prepared that in the event that occurs this afternoon We will be there We will be there Senator wicker mentioned earlier It's unfortunate, but we've had to deal with this These kind of storms a lot in mississippi lately a lot of you may or may not know I got sworn in in january of 2020 In my first 14 months in office, we had 14 federally declared disasters We've got a great team of emergency management professionals not only at the at the state of osc But a great team at the local level as well And yes, we have been in communication with them to be prepared obviously South alabama Is also in those lines for potential severe weather today What we've seen much like the storm that occurred here friday night Is in the 24 to 36 hours that are leading up to this afternoon It appears that the risk seemed to be getting worse and worse not better And when you stand here and see this what feels like a beautiful weather day in mississippi Please be aware and please know if you are south of i-55 in mississippi today There are significant risk. We are prepared We obviously have a lot of assets and a lot of resources from here to amary and everywhere in between But in mississippi, we will have people prepared to go if and when necessary i'm asked the secretary to come in as well If you'd like or Or d.n. Either one I would say I would say one quick thing and then i'll turn it over to the administrator And that is that people should listen to their local officials And heed their warnings and follow their instructions with respect to what to do if in fact a severe Weather event is imminent Yeah, what what i'll add to this is that we have teams on the ground now with our incident management assistance team that's embedded at the eoc To help support any requests that the governor and his team may ask I got to tell you that the first responders through this event that just happened are amazing as they responded out into these communities The countless lives that they saved while many of them had probably damaged to their own homes very impressive But if there's additional assistance that's needed right very capable state if additional assistance is needed We can move that in quickly And and we'll support the governor and whatever his requests are And I just want to echo what the secretary said at the end there Know how you're going to get information Know how you're going to get these alerts because these weather systems change rapidly And then know what your actions are going to be so you can protect yourself and your family Those two pieces of of action right now are going to be incredibly important as we know that these storms are dynamic And they change quickly. Thank you We have mac here as those of you who are local know is our emergency management director at the state emergency operation center And I just asked him to make sure that we didn't not cover everything and he says we're okay So i'll start over here. Yes, sir. Well, I will tell you that When we woke up yesterday morning We immediately started doing damage assessments When we woke up yesterday morning or when many people woke up a lot of people around here didn't go to bed And a lot of people around the state didn't go to bed But for those who did wake up at daybreak yesterday We had 23 confirmed fatalities and we had four individuals that we knew that were missing And we had not seen significant analysis of the munroe county area yet because Because of course this storm and what's made it so very dangerous as it came in the middle of the night And these things are very hard to see when they come in the middle of the night and you tend to see more fatalities Well yesterday we increased the number of fatalities throughout the day from 23 to 25 The four people that were missing in sharky county when I was actually when I was with the sheriff After I left here yesterday almost around noon or maybe a little after they had confirmed They had found those four individuals all alive praise jesus and so There are still some possibilities that the numbers could go up. I'll also tell you we had a conversation this morning The initial 25 confirmed fatalities The number may come down one or two or three maybe four and the reason for that is not that the fatalities didn't occur It's just There's some possibilities that they didn't occur because of the storm. They were for other more natural causes And so we're monitoring that it is certainly possible that the number of fatalities will can can still go up But those search and rescue assets when you have 300 of them as we had throughout the state yesterday We do believe that we have searched in most of the rubble Um, there's still a lot of damage out there. Uh, there's a lot of work to be done at this point It's really difficult to rebuild communities if you don't have power if you don't have water And those are things that through the public assistance That we have been able to secure From our partners at fema We'll be able to get those up and running and operational very very quickly And so I can't give you exact numbers at this time But just know that Aside from the number of people that we have back at the state of osc monitoring This weather in south Mississippi today. We also continue to have assets that are Monitoring and assessing damage And the easiest thing that we can do Is continue to work with our local people to get that done Yes Yeah, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. I believe that there are 13 in sharky county. Is that right? I'm the mayor stepped away. I believe there's approximately 13 in sharky county I believe there's approximately four Um, uh, there's approximately four in Humphreys county And I know that there's approximately Three to four up in one row county, but we will get you the exact numbers Uh, after this is over a mic hasn't written down Some of that we're not, uh, able to give out yet notifying Next of kin, but it will get you the information that we have when the press conference is over. Yes, sir Well, I'll just tell you it's been my experience in times like this That there is no such thing as politics It doesn't have anything to do with politics All this has to do with is helping our friends and our neighbors And what you see behind me and what you've seen over the last 36 hours is a united front In working with the administration working with the state officials working with the local officials, you know, I was talking to Administrator chris well on the way up here and and and the way The staffer act, which is the federal act that the governs these works and has forever and ever And and it's the way it ought to work, which is local national And natural disasters are state managed Locally executed and federally supported And that's the reason that the declaration was so very important that we got done yesterday Because the federal support is there and we are executing at the local level now Um, and we will continue to do so. Yes Yeah, well, look, we you know, we have a disaster trust fund in mississippi As i mentioned earlier this i'm not proud of this fact, but we do deal with natural disasters regularly We we made a request sometime yesterday of the senator hobson who is the chairman of appropriations that represents part of this county, maybe all of this county we made a A request to speaker gun who was up here with senator hobson yesterday To give us approximately five million dollars to get started We will have the resources though. We are going to have the resources to do whatever is necessary to work with our federal partners. Yes, sir Well, I will tell you that and that's a that's a great question and and um, and I will tell you I spoke to Um, I don't know how many countless governors yesterday Republican and democrat governors that were reaching out to help and I had a great conversation with governor bashear yesterday And the lessons learned from that storm because that one similar to this, you know, we've we've had a lot of tornadoes in mississippi But but storms that had such significant damage from one side of the state all the way to the other Obviously, uh, we don't see every single day And so two issues one that you mentioned and one that's equally as important Number one, you can't rebuild the community if nobody can move back And in in some communities that have been damaged What we've seen is that there are a lot of residences that have gotten significant damage But you can probably live in them Any of you that have toured back here behind me know there aren't very many residences back here that can be that can be lived in And so I talked to um, the secretary and the administrator this morning Uh, the two primary objectives that we have before us is number one is potential housing About short term intermediate term and long term potential housing for those residents because as I mentioned earlier The guy that I was talking to is said his mom and daddy are living with him in greenville But they don't want to live with him in greenville. They want to live right here and I get it And so we've got to make uh, we got to make a um We got to work hard to make sure that once we can get the debris cleaned up That we have opportunities for residents to come back and live here because if this community is going to be rebuilt People got to have a place to live And the second thing which is critically important is small business assistance. We've always worked with the Small business administration, uh on every single one of these disasters With mema and we we are committed to doing it here to make sure that every federal Asset and every federal resource is available for our small businesses here in this area But really throughout the state because there's a lot of lot of damage Hey seeing no other questions. I just want to again thank every single one of you for being here Thank all of our partners from the state and federal government. Um Thank you for being here and god bless. Okay. Thank y'all