Lester Holt Quotes

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?

It would be very, very dangerous for a wire walker to experience fear while he is balancing on the wire. Fear has its place on earth, before and maybe after a high-wire walk, but not during for me.

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.

There could have been more planning in New Orleans, but you look at all the devastation that happened there - have we gotten to 3,000 deaths yet? For that magnitude of a disaster, that's not all that bad.

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.

Americans rightly asked, if this is the way our government responds to a natural disaster it knew about days in advance, how would it respond to a surprise terrorist attack? How would it respond to an earthquake?

Anyone who says they're not afraid at the time of a hurricane is either a fool or a liar, or a little bit of both.

As everyone in Louisiana knows, there was often no communication or coordination between the state and federal government in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

During the aftermath of Katrina, National Guard troops were positioned on every block to establish a sense of safety and source of help for the people in need. They did not leave communities until people were safe and sound.

If you have a sudden emergency, earthquake, hurricane, you name it, we want to be able to have a National Guard officer able to command federal forces.

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.

I was a fugitive, taking risks with my life. I chose that. I chose to be a volunteer to go to Guatemala when they were having their earthquake, to help people with a team of doctors.

I have little compassion for people in trailer parks who refuse to move after getting tornado warnings. How hard is it for them to relocate? Their houses have wheels.

The problem is that every study I'm aware of, which is probably not that many, has indicated that a dollar spent in preparation and avoidance of natural disasters is worth $15 that is spent in relief. But there's no political payoff for preparation. So, who benefits? I mean, the governor or senator or the president? Bill Clinton at Oklahoma City, his performance there helped him enormously. And there really hasn't been any regulation that would, in fact, interfere with environmental disaster.

FEMA has lost its focus, and Floridians know first-hand of the agency's shortcomings, .. Natural disaster preparedness and response programs have become trapped in a homeland security bureaucracy.

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it.

During the time I was in office we have seen the beginning of the elimination of the fire season completely and are having fires all year round. I think we have seen the major problem of the destruction of land and property and lives that is a major problem because we don't have the resources for that many fires and we don't have the resources and the manpower to fight those fires throughout the year.

What changed in the United States with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences.

To anticipate and prevent disasterous contingencies would be the part of wisdom and patriotism.

We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience.

One of the inspiring things about Susan Sarandon career is that there's a quality of real fearlessness in it - you seem to be in it for the challenge and the experience.

Do we pour $40 billion into grandiose Louisiana engineering projects or do we instead put up no trespassing- signs in the areas below sea level? All are hard choices with various merits and pains. The important thing, however, is for America to decide whether the current policy of inaction is really the way we want to deal with the worst natural disaster in our history.

She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.

You learn so much from taking chances, whether they work out or not. Either way, you can grow from the experience and become stronger and smarter.

Adventure and danger can be good for your heart and soul.