Hello there I'm Chuck Todd. This is the Chuck Todd Cast. We are recording this midday

on Friday, September 30th. Hurricane Ian is taking aim at the Carolinas as we're recording

after crossing the peninsula of Florida leaving 13 dead so far. Almost 2 million people

are still without power in the area ahead of the storm. Is it known for handling flooding

well? So we'll see what happens in the Carolinas. But to help us understand the response

and really the mitigation efforts against future powerful storms. My guest today is the

former FEMA director Craig Fugate who before he was the director of FEMA was basically

the Florida FEMA director. They call it something slightly different. He's a Florida native.

Easily one of the most experienced people alive when it comes to disaster recovery hurricanes

and climate mitigation. Mr. Fugate it's good to see you sir.

Hey Chuck, good to be here. First let's start with safety health family. Where are you

in Florida and how is your family holding up? We're up in games. We didn't get much

over and I got three limbs down on the fence but that's in cons. Consequential to what

people are going through in the top floor. Right. No, my mom didn't even lose power.

Orla, she's in Seminole County so I was thankful there. So let's start with the first of all

let's start with the weather aspect of this and that is this not just how powerful the

storm was. But first of all you you you led the recovery in Charlie if I'm not mistaken.

Correct Craig for the state of Florida. And here's this this one hit in the exact same

spot as powerful but like five times the size or something like this. Just enormous and

Charlie was pretty devastating wasn't it? Yeah, I like to tell people Charlie was like a

10-foot or 10 mile wide tornado. So you only hurricane Chuck you flown over these things.

Just only hurricane I could ever see from the ground in a helicopter flying over and

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