How to Prepare For a Hurricane
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President Barack Obama said people along the US East Coast should heed orders from authorities and make emergency preparations as Hurricane Irene approaches landfall tomorrow in ...
How to Prepare For a Hurricane
President Barack Obama said people along the U.S. East Coast should heed orders from authorities and make emergency preparations as Hurricane Irene approaches landfall tomorrow in North Carolina.
“I cannot stress this highly enough: If you are in the projected path of this hurricane, you have to take precautions now,” Obama said. “Don’t wait. Don’t delay.”
“All of us have to take this storm seriously,” he said. “If you’re in the way of this hurricane, you should be preparing now.” He said all indications “point to this being a historic hurricane.”
Obama and his family are cutting short their vacation on Martha’s Vineyard and will return to Washington tonight, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. They had been scheduled to leave tomorrow.
The president “felt that it was prudent for him to be at the White House this evening,” Earnest told reporters, adding that Obama’s decision was not based on considerations about his personal safety.
East Coast residents who receive evacuation orders should follow them, the president said, directing people with questions to a U.S. government website, www.ready.gov.
Obama spoke from the Fisher House at the Blue Heron Farm in Chilmark, Massachusetts, where he has been on vacation with his family since Aug. 18.
The president was briefed before his remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Craig Fugate, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator; White House chief of staff Bill Daley and other officials, Earnest said. Obama said he also had spoken with governors and mayors of big cities along the eastern seaboard.
Hurricane Irene poses the largest threat to the U.S. Northeast since Hurricane Gloria in 1985. More than 65 million people from North Carolina to Maine, or about one in five Americans, may be in the way of the hurricane, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. FEMA has been positioning emergency supplies where they can be delivered quickly to areas that need them.
The hurricane is on a path to make landfall in North Carolina’s Outer Banks tomorrow, skirt the East Coast and reach New England on Aug. 28, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Obama signed a federal emergency declaration for North Carolina, authorizing the Homeland Security Department and FEMA to coordinate disaster response and mobilize resources. The governors of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut and Virginia declared emergencies, while officials in Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Virginia, ordered mandatory evacuations.
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