Rick Scott: Irma Is Like Andrew for the Whole State

‘I pray for every person that didn’t evacuate’ in the Keys

For full picture of what is going on with Hurricane Irma in Florida, we now go to Governor Rick Scott, who is in Tallahassee.

Governor, as you get the first reports of the storm as it’s hit Florida, what are you learning, and what does that tell you about the rest of the state can expect?

GOV. RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA: Well, that — it’s clearly hitting — it’s hitting the Keys.

I pray for every person that didn’t evacuate down there. I talked to a friend earlier this morning that didn’t evacuate. And I know they’re going to get a lot of storm surge on top of their rain. And then we’re going to see it all along the west coast.

My hometown is Naples. They are going to see 10 to 15 foot above ground level of storm surge. And so I know lot of people are praying for us around the world. I know a lot of people want to help us. Tell them we need more volunteers. We have over 400 shelters open now. But we will need volunteers after the fact to distribute food and water and clean up debris.

I know people want to donate. You can go to — text disaster at 20222 and donate $10. But pray for us. We’re going to do everything we can to keep every person in our state alive and protected.

DICKERSON: And, Governor, when you get these initial reports, is there something you’re looking for in specific that lets you know whether the storm is more severe or less severe than you expected as it makes landfall?

SCOTT: Well, what I do is, I constantly get updates with regard to where the weather is and where the storm is.

And at this point, we have gotten — following the traffic cameras around the state, no one is in our roads right now, which is good. We have these shelters open, but it’s really late. We worked to try to get everybody to prepare and to evacuate if you were in an evacuation zone.

I have talked to the president. I have talked to the FEMA administrator. I have talked to the homeland security secretary. They have committed all the federal resources. They know it’s going to be a big cleanup effort. So we’re ready. I worked hard and I know lot of people worked hard to get people to evacuate.

And I hope they did and I pray for every one of them.

DICKERSON: Do you have a sense — you said you talked to somebody in the Keys who did not evacuate. About 5.5 million were asked to evacuate.

Do you have any sense of how many took that advice and then how many stayed behind?

SCOTT: We don’t know the exact number, but you can look at our roads. Our roads are completely clear.

People got out. But I’m sure there’s people that didn’t, decided to stick it out.

And I pray for them. I just hope they don’t go through the storm surge, which is — the winds are horrible. This is like Andrew, but this is Andrew for a whole state. So, we’re going to get all those winds, but then on top of that, we’re going to get this storm surge.

So, that’s what I’m more worried about right now. I know the winds are going to be very devastating and life-threatening. But I’m also very concerned about the storm surge.

People don’t realize it’s going to come into your house. It’s going to fill up maybe your entire first floor, and then it’s going to flow out. So, I don’t know how you’re going to survive that. So, you just have to think about — you have got to get to as a high ground as you can and just pray.

DICKERSON: You said you spoke to the president. Can you tell us a little bit about your conversation with him and is there anything that can be done now other than simply just to monitor how things go?

SCOTT: So, I talked to the president. I have talked to him almost every day. I think almost every Cabinet member called me once a day from the administration just making sure we have all the resources.

He said wanted to make sure we had all the resources. He said he would — saying prayers for us. That’s what — right now, that’s what we can do. We can continue to plan for after this storm of how we rescue everyone. I know the moment our first-responders can get out to save you, if you’re stuck, they will.

I have called up 7,000 members of the National Guard. We’re going to make sure we fully staff our shelters. We’re going to get you food and water as fast as we can.

This is a little harder, though, because it didn’t just impact one coast, where we can position assets on the other coast. And so it’s going to take us a little bit longer to do everything we care to do after a storm, because we have to bring the assets south, some of them from even out of state because we couldn’t preposition them here.

DICKERSON: All right, Governor Scott, we appreciate it. Good luck. Thanks so much.

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