Hey, everyone, it's read before we get started, I'm sure you're all watching the news about hurricane Ian as it has made landfall in Florida.

Please go to our Twitter feed at Project Lincoln, where you can find all the information you need about how you can help make sure that Floridians who are in the path of this thing get the help and the assistance they need.

The greatness of America is that we pull together when we need to, regardless of what state we live in, regardless of what party we belong to. This is the time to show each other what America means. Let's get after it, let's help those folks and now on with the show.

Welcome back to the Lincoln project. I'm your host, Reed Gillin. Today, I'm joined once again by legendary Democratic strategist, senior advisor to the Lincoln project and host of that trippy show found wherever fine podcast can be downloaded.

Joe trippy Joe always good to have you back. It's always good to be here. Thanks for having me, Reed. So Joe as we're recording this, we're about 40 days out from Election Day. This is the Wednesday, September 28th.

You and I thought we'd be discussing the January 6th hearing that was supposed to be run today. Instead, Hurricane Ian as we speak, making landfall in Western Florida.

And I just want to take a moment to say and I know Joe, you've got a lot of connections down there that we're thinking of everybody. If you have any desire to help folks down there, you can go to at project Lincoln on Twitter.

We've listed a whole bunch of ways that you can help the folks down there. I know that Joe where I live in Utah, you know, a lot of the guys who are responsible for repairing power lines, their trucks were on the road earlier this week.

And so it is scary to see how powerful this thing is, but as this storm is making landfall, it's always incredible to me to see the number of resources that people bring to bear to be prepared for when the recovery begins because, you know, right now is awful.

And there will be days and weeks of immediate response, but the recovery is really the hard part because that takes weeks, months and even years.

This one looks like it's all hands on deck to help out any way you can. And if you can check those resources on Lincoln Project page and do what you can as it, you know, within a week or so, the press coverage will go away.

But those people are going to need help down there for it'll be months, if not years to recover for a lot of these folks.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I guess have a dubious distinction. I got to Louisiana to Baton Rouge 24 hours after Katrina made landfall in 2005. I worked at FEMA in 2003, right as it became the part of the Department of Homeland Security.

That was a year of not so many hurricanes, but a lot of tornadoes and really understanding the response and recovery efforts, all of the different agencies, both state, local, federal that have to come into being.

I mean, Joe, I could tell you that when I got to Baton Rouge in 2005, you know, to the emergency operations center there, it looked like something out of apocalypse now people were running Willie nilly.

There were helicopters taking off and landing. The press was just running around free at the time.

A woman named Kathleen Blanco was governor of Louisiana. I think she's since passed away. Shell shocked, you know, Ray Nagan, the mayor of New Orleans subsequently went to prison.

I don't think it was for hurricane related things, but certainly had been late on the draw to tell people to evacuate.

And you know, as the day went on flying over the city, it was literally something out of a movie.

There was water everywhere you could see where their levies were still, you know, cracked and the water was rushing through boats up on the land.

And then there was the smell because all the sewer lines had gone. All of the refineries were flooded.

We landed in Placaman's parish and it was like something you'd see in a war zone, right? They had commandeered a refinery building from a major oil company.

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