Our hearts are with everyone that's in the path of Hurricane Ian.
Um, and uh, fema and the weather service are wonderful partners and I want to thank you both on behalf of the american Red Cross. Administrator chris Well, uh, for inviting me to join you. The Red Cross has done an incredible amount of work in preparation for Hurricane Ian and is my pleasure to welcome the American Red Cross Ceo Gail McGovern, thank you so much. So now with every emergency response, we would not be successful in meeting our mission without our partners at the american Red Cross. And finally, as I told the president yesterday, this level of interagency coordination will not stop as we prepare for the historic and the catastrophic impacts that we are already beginning to see. We are also tracking medical needs across florida's hospitals, adult care facilities and dialysis centers, both for facilities that have evacuated but more importantly for those that have not. These are the same teams, the same brave first responders that we used to help communities during COVID-19. And there are multiple volunteer agencies that are staged and prepared to perform feeding operations as soon as it is safe to do so, We have provided Florida with 300 ambulances as well as expert federal medical teams. We have 3.7 million meals and 3.5 million liters of water staged in Alabama. And just yesterday I spoke with the president and Ceo of the American Public Power Association to discuss some of their emergency preparedness actions and the mutual aid agreements that they have in place. The Army Corps of Engineers is pre staging 350 personnel to conduct power and fuel assessments as soon as the storm passes. We have moved in a variety of generators of all sizes and types to restore power to critical infrastructure and medical facilities as needed.
We have a 128,000 gallons of fuel remained ready for rapid deployment. These teams will coordinate search and rescue efforts by land air and sea. Our search and Rescue coordination teams remain staged in Miami to include teams from our fema, Urban search and rescue program, The Coast Guard Cbp the Department of Defense, the Department of the Interior and the state of florida. As I said yesterday, Search and Rescue remains a top priority.
#National mweather sewrvice update
So now I'll give a brief update operational update on the inter agency personnel commodities and resources that we have deployed to support this response. And it's incredibly important that you only run generators outdoors. Too many lives are lost each year due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
#National mweather sewrvice generator
And third never operate a generator in your home. Second, if you are taking shelter in an area with rising water levels quickly find higher ground. First, never drive through standing or moving water as it takes only a few inches of water to carry away a vehicle. Therefore, I would like to just share a few key safety messages that will help keep you and your family safe.
These are life saving messages that simply cannot be ignored and when it comes to hurricanes, water water is dangerous period from coastal storm surge to inland flooding the majority of the state of florida is in Ian's Crosshairs. That means we need everyone to heed the warnings of their local officials before, during and after the storm.
But as with any storm, the most important work starts at home. And I can confidently say that we have the right teams and we have the right resources in place and ready to meet the changes or the needs of those that we are charged to serve.
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