Ray Nagin Quotes

We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge: so many lives wouldn't have to be lost if there was enough disaster preparedness.

We have seen levee breaks and flooding in the wake of storms, some of which have caused the loss of life, and USDA is ready to assist in any way we can.

In New York, FEMA granted the Mamaroneck Beach & Yacht Club's request to be remapped from the high-risk flood zone in August 2012 - just two months before the club was damaged and its outbuildings destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, which stacked up yachts at its docks like pick-up sticks.

It is vital that the entire international system is ready to meet the challenges of future disasters.

If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it's the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.

I was involved in some of the very first meetings that created the maps that showed what would happen if you had a Category 1, 2 or 3 hurricane in New York.

Assure personal survival in any kind of disaster.

The nation’s disaster mechanisms do not seem to be in the hands of those who know how to use them.

No one can prevent hurricanes, but prosperous communities are much better able to withstand them than poor ones.

While Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the dangers of failing to evacuate hospitals from the path of a storm, Hurricane Gustav demonstrated that moving thousands of sick people has its own risks. Gustav also highlighted a critical vulnerability of American hospitals - an inability to withstand prolonged blackouts.

When I visited Vietnam for Oxfam, the thing that really struck me was how the local farmers had to prepare to evacuate or climb to their mezzanines with their valuable family possessions.

I've been through WTO riots in Seattle, massive earthquakes, major floods... forest fires. I just try to be as even-keeled and calm as possible.

As Mayor of San Francisco, I will work hard to ensure that, in the event of natural or man-made disasters, San Franciscans are prepared and our City is protected.

We know we cannot underestimate the importance of emergency planning in our region, nor can we assume we'll have ample warning time. If an earthquake or terrorist attack hits, we won't necessarily have advance alerts or opportunities to double- and triple-check our plans.

I was caught on the freeway for hours when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. The entire city had to be evacuated. I observed lives threatened by catastrophes and a whole range of behaviour. What could people do during a crisis?

I did live through Katrina and also Hurricane Rita, which hit Lake Charles. Interestingly, when Katrina hit, they evacuated and Lake Charles was one of the evacuation destinations. We opened up the civic center of the city to the evacuees and provided them free medical and psychiatric care there.

But I think the bottom line right now is to take the constructive criticism and use that to build toward, as I say, the hurricane season that is 100 days away. And we don't have a lot of time to waste before we start to address that next set of challenges.

But I warn my colleagues that we will fail in our efforts to protect the homeland if we do not take additional steps to avoid a trade-off between protecting ourselves against terrorists attacks and preparing for and responding to natural disasters.

If there were a major earthquake in Los Angeles, with bridges and highways and railroads and airports all shut down and huge buildings collapsing, I don't care how much planning you do, the first 72 hours is going to be chaotic.

Well, I'm not excusing the fact that planning and preparedness was not where it should be. We've known for 20 years about this hurricane, this possibility of this kind of hurricane.

We've certainly learned a lot of lessons from Katrina, from Rita. Rita was better than Katrina. We're doing a better job planning. We're closer - more closely aligned with the Department of Defense. These things would be positive things if we were to have another attack.

I was a rust repairer. I was a rust repairer and full-time survivor. I survived all the major earthquakes, and the Titanic, and several air crash.

As a country in the path of typhoons and in the Pacific Rim of Fire, we must be prepared as the latest technology permits to anticipate natural calamities when that is possible, to extend immediate and effective relief when it is not.

For political and bureaucratic reasons, governments at all levels are telling far less to the public than to insiders about how to prepare for and behave in the initial chaos of a mass-casualty event.

And one of the things I want to say, Wolf, is we're 100 days from hurricane season, and we've got to start focusing on what we're going to do to make ourselves ready for the next hurricane.