you can find information on the website there as well. so we would like to thank our speaker for appearing here today as well as all of you for attending. our head table includes guest of the speaker as well as working journalists who are club members. and this is to say the warning

that i have tickets for events during any election event or when we have political offense. i think less so for a guest speaker today. what we say it's the members of the public in the audience. so if you your plots, we do not that it's not all working journalists so it's not always evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. i'd also like to welcome by c-span in public radio audiences. our lunches are featured in her podcast from the national press club available for free download on itunes. follow the action on twitter using the hash tag npc lunch. after her speech concludes we will have q&a and ask as many questions as time permits. it's hard to introduce our head table guests and please note in this political season that a journalist president does not imply or signify an address that the speaker. i ask each of you to stand out are usually has her pronounced. from uip began with ken that

mullah seen a company member of the national press club and on the air. you recognize him in washington, reporter for wsa channel nine. good to have you here. leslie frazier senior editor of physical sciences furniture, also our membership committee chair. thank you for your work on that this past year. anymore is executive editor for the federal drive on federal news radio. don larrabee -- i'm so happy that john could join us on the head table today. he's a former president of the national press club from 1973 and winner of the cosgrove award this year and a great friend of all of us who are members at the press club. and applauses actually welcomed for that. [applause] dressed in his christmas eve and finance. cpa candidates bloomberg news. welcome, sophia. david blumenthal is senior director for corporate medications for the weather

channel it told me today a former intern for c-span. it appeared that program works are just okay. david coming thank you for being here. posts get over podium. angela greatly came as a reporter for bloomberg news that i spelled another chair for the speakers committee to a role she had filled for several years in the past and angela is also newly elected vice president for 2012. congratulations come angela. we will skip our guest speaker for the moment. jennifer schomburg or is a writer for kiplinger's personal finance an organizer today's luncheon pitches and a wonderful job in the speakers committee this year but this event. shirley powell is executive vice president for corporate communications at the weather channel and guest of the speaker. thank you, surely. jack williams is eliminated from the press club here. he is a founding editor of the "usa today" weather page. remember mccain on the scene and was all the rage and may still be, when i was such exciting information to the gathering.

he was the man ahead of the curve i'm not in a sauce of science writers specializing in weather climate in polar region and also chair of her books and branch committee at the club, said he wears many hats. thank you for that. mark heller, national correspondent for the daily times and last but not least, dill cream with the retired white house correspondent and former vice president of the club from 1975. though, welcome. please give them a warm round of applause. clap not -- [applause] if you see our guest speaker today on a beach sometime between june and november, he's probably not their vacation. and chances are a big storm is not too far behind. but there is battling the high winds from a hurricane or withstanding countless feet of snow, and this on camera meteorologist for the weather channel has built a reputation reporting on the biggest storms come and making him one of the most recognizable reporters on

television. his broadcast appearances reach over 100 million homes. at last count our guest had nearly 86,000 followers on twitter. i think they're working with content from the cookies here today, weather-related cookies. he is 25,000 or more like some facebook. everywhere he goes, we're told women ask for autographs and men want to to buying beers and we are told restaurant sending free pizza. [laughter] his main producer for seven years as a protest,, he is mr. hurricane. as the weather channel ceo, mike kelley, viewers find them endearing because of his obvious concern for their safety and his intense passion for what he does. he's always in the thick of it, showing the story behind the weather. few cover the weather at the same passion, intensity and purpose is to be speaker. coach and a t-shirt and windbreaker troubles conflict to

cover storms around the nation, often during shifts of up to 18 hours a day and i can imagine he's had a few that have lasted more than that. although without chasing storms, whether as a compassion with baseball. as a team he aspired to be a baseball star like new york yankees great reggie jackson. still if you had to guess, his eventual career would've not been been hard to forecast. as a youngster coming to ask his mother to leave the bar and light on when snow was in the forecast so he could watch the first snowflakes caught the families were not fired. other kids would ask them whether the weather caused the cancellation of school the following day. if you have any doubt whether he is just as passionate about weather, check out youtube and search for jim can tour -- cantore appeared after encouragement from his father to pursue tremendous interest in our guest study meteorology at lyndon state college in vermont. in 1986 landed a job at the

weather channel where he's enjoyed a great career. this summer he celebrated 25 years of tracking storms for that enterprise. best known for his playfield coverage of major storms, our guest host has a series on a channel called, cantore stories and travels to some of the most extreme climates in the world to talk with locals about the weather that they personally experienced. now he is on nbc nightly news with ryan williams at the well is the today show and msnbc. he's a member of the national weather association american meteorological society and host the ams television seal of approval and award for weather forecasting excellence in broadcast. please give our guest, jim cantore a warm national press club welcome. [applause] >> all right. well now you know my life history.

i'll just put that page away. thank you very much for having me here today. it's really each menace on it. i really did know much about this to be quite honest with you when i got asked to do it. first of outcome has seen the press club on the outside of the building, then walking into the building and seen the kindness people that got a chance to speak for me i was like wow, this is a pretty big deal. so i really appreciate that. it has been 25 years. i was very fortunate to get a job at the weather channel right out of college. and you know, biggest change in 25 years is the fact when i started i had a full head of hair. and as you can see, each follicle has been taken out with these weather events have covered and there's been plenty of those. i'm going to start by talking about 2011 because out of all my 25 years, i've never seen a year and whether like we just had.

if you just take the four seasons, where you have tornadoes, snowstorms and you have hurricanes, every possible ingredient that comes together to make a big events came together each one of those seasons. and so, it in over 3000 weather records broken in 2011. an infectious record highs and record lows. for example, philadelphia gets 40 inches of rain annually. they've had 65 inches. so these are very germanic records in very extreme records. and that's got to kind of raise your lawyer. i don't care how long we've been on this earth, that is just a huge deal. $12 billion disasters, maybe 14. they haven't finished the telly and tropical storm leave for this no tober, which many of you got a chance to actually shovel before you got a chance to use your brakes this year, which was just amazing.

texas, some areas under three feet down in water. three feet down. our major snowfall that we had in the northern rockies also alerted folks down the river in the missouri river valley to flood once i'm working on another ltp or two major rivers open up spillways, just to relieve the pressure. so everywhere you the comment extremes not only because of the different seasons, but also extremes that are built on extremes. if we did not have these thousand iraqis and that we would have had the missouri river flood. we've seen in 25 years they had to go back to this weather dissemination. i mean, how we can get weather -- it was the morning news. there is sometimes a news show and there is six and 11. then comes the weather channel in 1982, were you get everywhere you want. if years after that, local on the eighth. and now, if it takes you eight seconds to get your weather,

you're still on your phone. right? i mean, that's how quick things are certainly changing. a seven day forecast is probably as good as a five day was. about 20 years ago. five days is probably as good as the three day. one thing we see now is extreme weather events. very well forecasted by computer models seven days. when you're thinking about preparing the city for a whole coastline huge. when i started a twc and 86, we are in 26 and homes. now we're at over 100 you are and our cell phone app and internet have just tremendous reach and popularity. and it's been great to be able to be alongside that brand. the good news about weather as it has no political agenda. believe it or not, weather, forecasts. we just want to do what we do to get people out of harm's way. that's the core of our business

in the core of our brand. you know, social media has been one of the biggest things in the last few years to come along. i know when i was covering i-beam on the battery in new york city, when i saw -- and between life shots had come back and look at my desk. it is starting see the vermont flood story unfold. being a vermonter and watching the bridge at creech llamas underwater in knowing how high the river must've gotten for that look like that, that was just mind-boggling to me. in the meantime we knew new york wasn't going to get it to that. but any time you are in a tropical system in the attitudes committee of the potential for disaster. some are bound up with him for rivers of their were 500 year floods, which is just a disaster. for the state of vermont, you

know where they count on a full season for the major part of their economy, that was just awful. they know a? they cut a lot of rows back in even though it wasn't one of the previous post, it's always nice to be a there in the fall season. they still have a long way to go, but they'll do it. if you look at the time to start covering hurricanes in 1992. i've covered about 75 tropical depression runs in hurricane. andrew is my first one. the second landfall at andrew. i get a chance to go to bed british. so this storm never got to cap right strength again, thank god, from louisiana. but it stalled over to buy you and we completed our coverage that night. so i went out dyspnea to get the next morning and about 4:00 a.m., you know, the old units that were used for air conditioners, my air conditioner blew in. it blew right in. i'm looking out the window and not vsam like what the heck is

going on? ac transformers blowing all over the place and i can't tell you the energy that gave chris a look at my producers we've got to go live. and we proceeded on the air about 5:00 a.m., which is the earliest we've ever gone on the air. now it's regular. we can do it anytime. i am a hominid your member john hope. do you member if you're an old weather watcher? john was like everybody's grandfather and he knew the tropics. when he talked about the tropics, he is such compassion in his voice and he was genuine. i said man, i'm going to emulate that guy. that's the guy wants to be. and i would say about 1988 or so, actually 87, he grabs me after one of my tropical updates, which we do at 50 past the other and said, cantore, your tropical updates are terrible. [laughter]

first of all, when you coming you know, love someone like i love him that was brutal. you might still be kicked in the head by a mule. he goes their terrible. you don't know grenada from grand cayman. an income you need to learn the tropics. you need to get an idea of what these tropics -- tropical storms do them on the tropics. sure enough though so i needed to hear. so i made an object to learn the tropics. back in 1992 the storm came andrew, this little storm named andrew developed east of miami and i thought okay, i'm watching this thing. all the models taking less. as of today three-day forecasts going now. and i said already. if this thing keeps going, it's going to come in somewhere between north carolina and south florida. so i thought why not share that information with everybody potentially? and now i'm going out five days, which is unheard-of. now we have a five day forecast.

but here's the kicker. i get off the air after saying that and i walked outside and the gentleman who calls it the radar, they were computer-generated here because hey jim, the director of the hurricane is on the phone, bob sheets. i kept on walking. he says no seriously, he's on the phone. he wants to talk to you. unlike mr. sheets, and this is jim cantore. he goes yeah, did you just extend out the three-day forecast for andrew? i said yet come to keeps going the direction it's heading in the coming between the outer banks south florida. he says to never do that again. i have every emergence the manager call me. sorry sir, i will not do that again. after i hung up the phone, i said i think i learned a little something about the tropics. and i learned that, you know,

you've got to go with your guys sometimes. sometimes it's wrong, but in retrospect the storm moved faster and we all know the rest of the story. katrina was definitely the worst storm ever once in. we have some bad information about a place to set up in how high they were above sea level. we lost four vehicles. aides many of these with cream cheese on them for two days, slept in the car and all the fun stuff we been in the field and of course i didn't matter. it was the hardship, seeing people's lives torn from them, just like that. the whole mississippi gulf coast changed overnight. that was the hard part. it's weird when she's been about 10 comes were teammates in the storm, you become such a part of it it's hard to leave. so it's really hard to the katrina. i felt like i was leaving my wing man is he. you know, the best thing to do is get back to my family,

recouping metadata do follow-up story later on. anyway, one thing that katrina did bring into light was in my opinion the new age of volunteerism. i had so many e-mails and letters saying jim, what do we do? we don't just want to give money. we want to make sure we can go down and take her pants and help these people get back on their feet. to me was just easier to write a check in the days before. but now people just started shoving a and people started rebuilding the mississippi coast. and after talking to several mayors down there, they will swear by the fact that mississippi would not be where it is today if it wasn't for volunteers. so now the effort, which phuket is done so while helping coordinate that with the red cross. you can't just show up there. i mean, church organizations and everything our coordinated. they really have done a nice job getting people to want to

volunteer to enhance and maintain. i think katrina really was the first time i'd seen that new age volunteerism come into play. tornadoes growing up in new england i didn't see a lot of those. as you can imagine. even though they've happened before and they certainly been very memorable. they didn't happen in my lifetime. so i sent my first one when i sat chasing in harper county, kansas. there it is on its own big stovepipe tornado comes down not bothering anyone. you couldn't even hear anything. it was probably two, three miles away at the mouse. and there's this huge tornado and you couldn't hear a thing. i see now, tornadoes didn't drop down through the job done in people's homes. if you look at the $12 billion disaster on the table right now, six of them are from turning on severe weather episodes in this year, which is really impressive

than it or that's a testament to how incredibly strong and multi-day events these very. 552 people out of the thousand people that lost their lives or because of tornadoes. third worst in american history. the menu looked at the warnings. 99% were within eternity warning. so i get listening. it's not like you don't know what's going on. alabama was advertised days before that happened. this is a testament to how incredibly strong these tornadoes were. i mean, you literally have to be underground. plus, people's understanding of a tornado. this was in a stovepipe tornado. these were so big that all people -- and under so many people say it was just really tired and then all the sudden

everything went haywire. it was just really dark. but that was a tornado. this is literally the whole thunderstorm dropping out of the ground. would we do about it? i think there's been a lot of talk lately, especially with the project whether ready nation. how do we change these warnings? should there be more tornado emergencies? to be made to tailback a little on the tornado warnings, especially in situations that like joplin? when you go without? of that is something we have to do. we are to improve our warning system a little better. but again, to take away is the forecasters did a great job. 99% all had warnings on them. but the testament to those storms and how severe they are is a take away. when you look at tornadoes as a whole, there's usually a very small percentage of the average of 1300 a year tornadoes batter in that scant, which are the

strongest part. these are over two and per hour when you get at torrey ef five. and wow, we had way too many of those. on average we had one every other year. i think we've had five or six this year, just to give you an idea what were talking about. you know, i've got to approach climate because that's been something that's come up in the last 25 years and it continues to come up. and here is where i am out with this. i got a chance to visit the path glacier in canada. as they were nowhere that is? beautiful place in the canadian rockies. just to see how far that glacier has retreated in the recent past was a little bit eye-opening to me. i said okay, there's nothing going on here. if you look at glaciers, there's only one in the whole world united to. so it's warming. the sea level has risen level

since the beginning of the century. we will see, one to two feet. whether that's true not i'd be preparing for it. even if it's half that. but the sea level rises, all the storm surge and everything else comes in on the water is on top of that. that adds a whole new parameter to everybody who wants to beachcombers that lives on a barrier island. so that is something i'd keep an eye on. the last 30 years he seen a half degree rise and i know that's only 30 years anything about helen mears spun around, but let's keep in mind on that trend. every year there seems to be more record highs then record lows. we are seeing a warming world. whether we've had anything to do

i can't tell you. i focus on 10 days last. i focus on 300,000 euros for 30 days or 60 days. but i can tell you it is something that interests me because it's going to affect ella bessemer down the road. to argue with cleaner air, cleaner water and cleaner energy. obvious problems in durban when you talk about changing your whole economy for nice people not everybody wants to play. it's when the kids get together and i'll try to decide which game i want to play and nobody can decided pretty soon the hour playtime is gone. they're not really doing big things about it. but it's not like people aren't doing anything about it. it's certainly something we want to look at.

and pay attention to the next 25 years because after 25 years is over but nowhere were heading. but a much better idea as models get better. and speaking of not knowing, we're probably going to be able to -- it's not inconceivable that we cannot allow it a whole hurricane season. that may not be at 25 years, but it may be in my lifetime or even yours. so that would be really neat. with accuracy, to be able. forecastle improve. i think we'll see a lot better forecasts. when you're in a planner and an emergency manager, that's huge to know what is coming up. our warning systems will get better. that is one of the main agenda and also hurricane intent to be. track four types of god greed. they nailed new york on a track

of my reading. wasn't nailed with the intensity. by the time he figured out the intensity wasn't going play out, there was no time to say maybe we shouldn't have evacuated new york. you know what, you should do. you're playing with one category has several hundred thousand people here. see have to make that call early on. that storm was not hyped. that's exactly how it should have played out. mitigation is a big thing. we have to think about, especially a city like new york doesn't have a ton of floodgates you know, this guy named jeff masters work for weather underground. i love the sky. not only does he write about the weather, but he's a forward anchor. you can about this great blog about what different floodgates would really help out is not only a hurricane, but a nor'easter and if we were ever to have one like we had in december 92, which flooded in

new york. insight that have to be thought of that is to go forward time. i think for us 25 years down the road. there's no reason why we should note homes that have roots that would withstand a hundred miles an hour. we shouldn't blow off a 70 miles hour wind. for outdoor shouldn't cave and 70 miles an hour winds. we have to have some protection of our people. really when you talk about a 13 minute average seek time, which is pretty good, and is interior rim has to hold. it's not going to be with every to nato. via for neophytes need to be underground and in a safe room. if we can protect you from the small ones, that's a good thing. are not going to see another year like we just had with 552 dead. i've been doing weather for 25 years, mainly because i like

teaching people about it and talking about it on the air and i like saving lives. i think being on the beach, being on the coast, even though you guys think i'm getting the beat out of me, i'm not there because people expect me to be up there. and i'm going to keep doing that, maybe for another 25. who knows. but that's what i'm going to do. it's been a great writer and i've been around a lot of great people. great meteorologists have taught me a lot. your education in meteorology does not stop after college. it goes on and on after that. so i hope you season but things from the weather channel and myself as they go for the next 25. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, jim. that is both informative and entertaining and we have a lot of questions from our dance.

i think this sort of gnu c part of the questioning that seem to come in that involve climate change and also how you kind of, let's say, partition your own view of what your own expertise is as you describe it. the first of all, how relevant is the issue of climate change for your day-to-day duties? does it change the business of forecasting on a short-term basis? does it change the assumptions? how does it change the work that you do aside from the. of the extreme weather that you just described? >> again, and the meteorologists. we deal with 10 days or less. in some cases getting a 24 hour forecast rate can be difficult. but what i know is tonight teen -- if you look at today's

dollars and go back to the 1980s, we averaged about $1 billion disaster a year. in the two thousands, with averaged almost five. in the last two years with averaged $7.5 billion in disasters per year. subleasing mark strains them are going to continue to see mark strains. what i noticed the earth's atmospheric system is an intricate one. the sun heats differently at the equator than it does the polls. eric tries its best to keep its liberty and keep the status quo unless it's interrupted and then tries to fiercely get back where it was. how that is going to interrupt or make me do with my whether aspects are simply this. i know i said 04 they will be more extreme weather events. that's the you can expect. it's not just here. go back and look at russia's heat wave. look at europe's heat waves. go look at the pakistan floods,

those kind of issues. it's raining harder out there. it's not really scientific, but when i'm out there seems to be raining a lot harder. >> someone asked, as climate change or global warming really the right turns? they make a point, raising water, dickerson or signs when the climate disruption be a better term? >> it would be if we had a basis on which to go fran. so that's when i went back and said if you look at the last 30 years, we saw an average a degree rise in global temperature. and so, should that trend continue, the climate change will definitely be climate disruption. so no matter what you call it, it is something i think everybody has to pay attention

to. and like i said, who could never argue with cleaner air, cleaner energy and cleaner water. i mean, seriously. the population is not going down. it's going. we ought to get along. napa valley or even in death valley and using a beautiful sunrise or sunset, i kind of like that. i kind of like seeing those. those are special to me. if you've been seeing those teams colorado after two feet of fresh snow and you're making fresh tracks, i kind of like that. i don't want that to change. so maybe i'm being selfish. >> someone has to learn the specifics, as our nation growing more vulnerable to hurricanes as they get their energy from warm water and of global warming is a reality in the longer-term, is to pick up wasting instrument committee likely here to stay? >> according to the eyepiece ec report, we are going to see more intense hurricanes.

not necessarily more then. all it takes is one. quite frankly, and andrew or katrina is plenty for everybody. imagine if we had to those sincere in addition to what we had. the real worry is the rising sea level. if we go up another six inches, a photo, all the action that creates the damage from the storm surge wave action is on top of the main sea surface. so if you come up six inches, all the action will be six inches higher. that may not mean a lot. if your house is sitting in a tone, it's going to mean a lot. >> maybe you can assess or describe to those of us who are looking at this kind of data on a day-to-day basis, what is to take on the meteorological community on this issue of climate change to the extent you could be a spokesman for them?

by technology and global warming and climate change by and large? >> well, i mean, i think they are clearly two sides to this. there are people say well, it's getting colder or it's getting warmer or not changed that much, the earth has been around a long time. we all know about the ice age. is this warming just a continuation coming out of the ice age? may be. i can't be sure, but i think it's a little bit more than that. but what i know as a meteorologist and a guy in this for 25 years as the weather is definitely getting more extreme. in this day and age if you're going to lose 552 people because of tornadoes that are more severe than they've been in u.s. history, i just can't chalk that up to it's kind of an odd year. i just think there's more to it than that. so i hope that answers the question. >> someone is asking his race we

are facing another dust bowl? >> mark strains. like i said, some parts of texas refute down. it's hard to make up for that with one season of maybe even a little of that average rainfall. you know, that drought absolutely has potential to expand. it could also go away. it's something we haven't dealt with. we have it dealt with a drought that had two since the 30s. you can say it's happened before. it's going to happen again. that's true. but i think the kind of conditions we see right now, at least for texas and oklahoma, at least through the winter, don't let me believe that drought is going to end anytime soon. it's going to be another rough year going into the spring for these areas. and it could expand. >> i'll ask one more on this topic and then we'll move on. i did get a lot questions on it. and the geological timeframe,

i.e., millions of years, give a guess on and this trend could last before it would no longer persist? or is that just guesswork at this point? >> well, this is where the climate modelers coming. like you said you guys, i wouldn't be surprised sunday to see a whole hurricane season modeled out with some accuracy. modeling out hundreds of years, you know, i don't know. i am not a modeler. i wish i was. i mean, i wish i could see these. as computers get better information and data get better, as i understand not only the size of the atmosphere and the horizontal, but also the vertical. you have to understand the whole thing works in the vertical. there's so many different players out there. you don't know who's going to come up and hit three for three. you don't know who's going to be the big hit with a big slugger that night.

last winter it was lending yet. he's only been at about 200 this year, .250 as opposed to pretty much carrying the team if that makes sense. we had a negative for the cold north atlantic oscillation, which was combining the best three, four tantamount their danowski been as cold and snowy in the east. this year the mao penetrated. and so it's not around. and tried to make this as simple as possible without getting into meteorology. but that's a player versus having a bad year. a good year, but a bad year in terms of snowfall. the mac we haven't had made baseball terminology since rudy giuliani was here. i was thinking about the fact that we've actually talked about this with respect to terrorism, which seems like a completely

different subject than it is, but it has to do with trying to measure risk and their acceptance of that risk. it just sort of occurs to me that there is an impatience among consumers of information to accept a certain level of risk and inherent inaccuracy whether it's for testing something that's difficult to do as terrorism as well as weather so that gets to question someone wrote here and said come you sort of knowledge this in your prepared remarks. there is controversy with routine i read in the forecasting of when and where the storm of land. and then here's the kicker, which is sort of asking you out to be perfect, right? i can cam weather predictions be more accurate with all the advancements in technology quakes do you get a lot of grief from viewers who are upset that you are not perfect? >> i have never cottony thank you letter for nailing the forecast. just fyi. and that's 25 years with the data rate there.

so yeah, the only remember when you are wrong. like i said before, track forecast with hurricane have been extraordinary in the last two years. there's been great men. intensity, not so much. there's a lot of different players going on with intensity forecast and they have notcome up with a good way of measuring not yet. so, like i said regarding new york, by the time the decision was made to evacuate the city, the storm is still forecasted to be cat two in new york city, which is without question the right thing to do. people would have drowned if they had not evacuated the city. as the west, there is still a four-foot storm surge at the battery and new york. granted it wasn't nine feet, but it is for because the strand state beach. when you play with 24 to 48 hours to get 400,000 people out of the way russia and on mass transportation, you have to make

hard decisions. imagine what would happen if it was a cat to indicate into new york and he didn't evacuate everybody. >> having said that, i know here in the washington area as well as living elsewhere across the country did i seem to be on occasion on the local level laser minus unit that set them, certainly in washington, where some local media seem to believe that we are all incapable of surviving the five-inch snowstorm. so i am wondering whether it's someone who is a great part tichenor of journalism relates to whether, what you see when you're in the local markets where you see some people between a live shot 10 feet away from you, what is the level of competency on the reporting about whether, where people are also trying to drive audience, by the way. >> there are more motives at play than just trying to be

accurate. what have you experienced out there in the field, maybe the good and the bad? and what is the appropriate level of dramatizing the coming storm. i mean, how do you make that judgment? obviously you've accumulated 25 years experience to figure out what is supposed to be right. >> i want to ask you how many notecards did they use for that question? no, i'm just kidding. here's the deal. be not the weather channel for 25 years, no one has ever asked me to hype the weather. it speaks for itself. that came from john hope. so the weather, believe me, is it so, you know, it's so never-ending journey. he keeps going and you really

don't have to hype because in a situation where it doesn't cannot believe what to come to paris as a a lot of things you can explain and talk about why it didn't work out that way. if you look back last year at the groundhog day blizzard for chicago, there was no doubt that snow -- that intensity was coming north. how they handle that is the city, you know, really wasn't that great. people just went about their normal business. there needed to be a point that we needed to say we need mass transportation of the road because once the bus went sideways on lakeshore drive, that day. nobody's going anywhere because you're still sign two inches an hour. people are tracking their cars. so it is a disaster within a disaster and you have to avoid that and that is going to take emergency managers and officials trust in us and not afraid to be in the period you had a situation here, or five inches

came in two hours and not shut down. he spent the night of the george washington parkway? anybody? >> unfortunately, they make a decision to let everybody out early, but it came early. you could see it on the radar. there was no question. maybe the thing to do is keep everyone in place, especially with a short-lived, hard-hitting and then come up the road crews get out and maybe canceler sits on mass transportation for a while. my point is there's better planning that can go underway because a lot of ability has gotten so much better. we can give you what is going to happen within the hour, what happens within a two hour. and you know what, it's not always going to be right, but in a situation like that it rather not have people in the rosenau people on the roads. >> how would you assess both from the government and charitable level since you've been around to see in some ways

you are a first responder. what do you see out there? been as a partnership between government? >> one of the biggest improvements in the last 10 years is the collaboration between emergency managers, local officials, meteorologist, see matt. 2011 happened in 2005, i don't even want to think about it. craig fugate is probably one of the best youngster had been to see matt. he understands after going through situations in florida in 2004 how you have to pre-plan that you have to make sure people are taking this storm seriously. he is a big proponent of that is becoming a big, becoming part of a solution. in other words, do your party not only preparing, but helping others. i certainly think in the last five years, 10 years, we've gotten a lot better

collaborating effort. especially in a big disaster. repositioning supplies for storms that, then. like i said, i don't think if we had 2011 back in 2005 we would've done very well. >> who are some of the unsung heroes in terms of organization helping with the disaster has? >> you know, like fema and their pre-position in a surprise to me that the red cross and salvation army hall in collaboration with that. they're on everything. it's kind of nice when i go out and i'm on the beach and everybody else's evacuate in the red cross will come out and tell us how many shelters they vote the what they are doing and what he will be ready for once the storm passes. it's kind of like your friend up there this storm. i think they are often times the unsung hero. >> to ever get grief from people

that even you guys are saying, don't come out unless you absolutely have to. they are like you're here. >> who gave it the other day when i walked in? >> how does that conversation usually? >> here is what i say. i can't argue with that in there absolutely is risk involved in being in the storm. especially when i'm doing my hurricanes. a prom prom moving at 50 miles an hour is a very dangerous weapon. and i can't tell you that that's not going to happen. but it's my job. if you have someone who's in the military, why do they do what they do? it's their job. they have a mission. i think i make a difference when i'm out there. people expect to see me out there and that's what i do. >> 1973 present mr. larrabee asked a question about the old

farmer's almanac. he said it predicts a cold winter night having snow. how do you rate their job in having produced these kinds of forecasts for many, many years? >> well, i used to get the farmer's almanac is a kid because i wanted to see what the winter was going to be like. and then i became a scientist. so i learned it wasn't that easy to just go on what has happened in the past year they basically as climatology and just average out the years and i guess a few other things. but it's not been that cold. so like i said, that player at the nal has not showed up this year to play yet. he's holding out for more money. either way, we don't use the farmer's almanac at the weather channel. but they do send us a copy and we appreciate that. just in case. last night's >> so a lot has changed in terms of technology and one of the

biggest change in the industry is the appearance of social media and the weather channel is playing a big growth area and we mentioned in the intro is very popular person on twitter. how does that change the way you do your job at all? there's also the question of user generated content. obviously, if someone sees joplin before someone else, if you look at cell phones and social media at a number, it's almost hard to miss any disaster, and he fled, hailstone, snowstorm. social media is what's going on in vermont and so the kind of fighting that went on there where added the words. i couldn't believe what i was seen on youtube.

it's changed the industry. instead of waiting for calm permission, now you can see it. i don't think people have a lot of malice intent when they send those things out. they want people out as fast as they can and that alerts people how bad it was. when i saw that a tax craig. i said we've got big problems in vermont, just because i know that by living next to that preachy gorge, would not reverse that high, that's got to be at 25 feet. i've never seen that in my life. so that just gave me kind of a hint as to what kind of the disaster was going on out there. so what that is going to result in a faster response time and may be on my gosh, we don't have enough to cover this. this is going to be a much bigger deal than what we actually planned for as was the case in vermont.

>> ideas decide when to tweet? >> welcome a further 20 hour day it's a 24 hour day. that the drawback. it's almost like you feel responsible that she had to tweet everything. people say cantore, what you talk about the tornado warning? well, i'm having dinner with my kids, but that doesn't really matter. you know, that is the drawback because people expect it from you. cooper me what is nice as i get up in the morning and look at the weather in all see things. instead of waiting until 7:00 at night i just share them with the tree. and so that's really how it changes. you get an idea what i'm taking about and looking out long-term, boat that day and was happening down the road. >> how do you pack for disaster? >> well, we've shot something i'm not. i have a whole closet that's dedicated to feel close. so i've got winners dustin summers to finance a backpack

that i/o is scary about the weather channel jackets and things like that. associate my whinge about not show up, which is happen before, all of everything in it that pack and it fits perfectly in the overhead, too, by the way. i mean, i know what i'm going to deal with and had an idea of how i am going to be out there and so i pack appropriately. the mac had you handle the logistics? obviously it powers out and you don't have access to grocery stores, had you get prepared to be there for a while? >> is a lot of health bars out there these days. a lot of different choices. he could have peanut butter, double chocolate, graham crackers. we've come a long way since the cheez whiz and frosted mini wheat. we do stack up. that's a key part of the logistics is when you get out there before everything shuts down, make sure that you have supplies because you may be there for three or four days without any place up and awry

and usually, no power for a few days. someone asked have you ever been literally blown over by wind or hurricane? >> but see, katrina was rough. first of all, i've never been in over 100-mile an hour wind. not many people i know can stand that cannot be killed with something flying around. i would say the strongest wind is anywhere between 65 and 85 miles an hour, weren't nearly thrown over. you have to kind of get this stance where you are bracing your legs and i call it the cantore lane. yeah, once you see flying debris are bound, like the case in katrina, the sheet of plywood, which is obviously one point over someone's window, the wind blew it off in a slide in the air around me. i said i think i'll move closer to the building. that's probably a good idea. another nature dictates when you

go on the air. winds over 100 miles an hour, must've got a separate satellite dish in some corner that's not part of the shocker has set out the parking lot, it's pretty hard to broadcast through that kind of rain. >> someone asked, how do you handle see the personal tragedy that goes along with covering disasters? he tried to focus on the weather rather than the people? what kind of mental regime do you have when you are in an area such as katrina? i know one of your colleagues got very emotional and joplin once you seen what happened there. it's a challenge. how do you handle it? >> i mean, it is not easy. i mean, katrina was the worst. i'll never forget this little kitty peanut to me and he was crying and said jim, i'm going to be okay, but i really worried about my dad. we last everything. the house. he is to work europe is building, which is now toppled.

that just crushed me. and you try and think of others when you're out there. i don't care how tired you are. i don't care what you've eaten or not you, you're out there to get the message out. we need help here. mississippi especially in new orleans because of levees and mrs. b. was sitting there as they say is the forgotten coast. that's not to say don't pay attention to new orleans because they needed help, too. but you just try to stay on mission. you know, you realize you have a crew counting on you and you have people counting on you to get the message out. it not easy because you go home and sometimes the images don't come back to you for a couple weeks. and you know, katrina was the worst. i went to tuscaloosa and i thought my gosh, this is the worst tornado damage is seen in

my life. and then i went to job one. how many stars seen steel beams twisted around two times or three times flick licorice, it just boggles the mind. but it all goes back to the personal stories. and we have had a horrible year. way too much heart ache. so i'm really happy for this quiet fall. in winter. >> 11-year-old macon in the corner asked, as we wrapped up, but made you want to do meteorology and who inspired you? >> well, growing up in vermont, it was the blizzard of 78. we had a big snow year. with 30 inches of snow with that blizzard in by the time they finished it in the snow off the rose, it was like in a statement by the road to the site been in a tunnel. the fatality of kit that was totally cool. i've got to be honest. it was totally cool. here's the deal.

when i sit around and about what i'm going to do the rest of my life, my dad who was a matter of fact says what are you going to do for the rest of your life? and fatter now, i'll be an electrician or faith-based. he said but it should go study the weather? are kind of a freak when it snows. you leave the light on in the barn and stay up all night and work for the first. you have to wake up every day for the next 50 years. you love what you do. and he was a man of very few words, but those were some good ones. >> that's great, jim you if you don't mind, a couple of housekeeping matters to take care of before we get to the last question. i'd like to remind our audience about upcoming luncheon speakers. a new president of the club taking office in january and she'll have the opportunity to host danica patrick, nascar driver will be here on february 21st. that's living another kind of extreme. we have a number of wonderful traditions at the national press

club as our way of thanking our guest speakers here, we actually kind of broaden it out a little bit today because of the special nature of your job. so we will begin with a different take on typically we give you a national press club coffee mug, but we figured when you get to sit at a desk? so we presented you with the new travel mug. there you go. [applause] so that's number one. i meant, because we know you have the trademark a stock outcome of national press club baseball cap. there you go. so i last question is really only came to me because of all your baseball analogies and passion for the sport. we know some athletes like to dress a certain way before they go out on the field. maybe they put their livestock on first in the right sock on second. they had their lucky t-shirt so to speak.

do you have any coming to retake on the or regimens to say this is the big time, the big storm, anything you go through to just give you a little bit of added block when you're staring danger right that saves? >> superstitions? no, i don't. what i watched a long time ago when people were in the field covering weather, i was like, why is that dude in a suit? i mean, scientists lakewood, i'm going to go out of my job is not to look like i just came out of an office, but to tell you about the weather. so i'm always kind of a hacky, t-shirt guy at the end of the day. i thought i'm just going to take that up there with me. but i'm not like everything i am on is going to be a disaster, so how do i differentiate that? so if you don't see many black t-shirt on which is what i call my doc or doolittle t-shirt, it's not usually going to be

that bad. so the black t-shirt means i am expecting the worst. a little side note for you. >> how about a round of applause for a guest speaker today. [applause] thanks. thank you so much for coming today, mr. cantore. i like to thank her national press club staff including art journalism in the tooth and our broadcast center for helping to organize today's event as well as her executive director, bill mccarron and have a libertas. here's a reminder how you complain that more information about the national press club. visit our website at www.press.org. thank you and we are adjourned. [applause] [inaudible conversations] ..

♪ this week on q&a john hopkins university brain surgeon

dr. alfredo quinoes-hinojosa discusses his new book becoming dr. q.. c-span: dr. alfredo alfredo quinoes-hinojosa, you write in your book that you are in illegal homeless immigrant farmworker. [laughter] illegal homeless immigrant farm worker and now you are a brain surgeon. how long ago were you a former? >> guest: thank you, brian. i think it is a pretty comprehensive description. i came to the united states in 1987 and i talked about that in the recent to book that we publish. it was just a little bit over 20 years ago. you know, i was just in this country. literally 63, $64 in my pocket. i spend $60 on my first track,

landed in l.a.x. with about $3 left and then found my way ought we ought to northern california, where i began to work with the very same hands that now get to touch the human brain in one of the most prestigious institutions in the world which is john hopkins. c-span: can you remember the first time that you saw the green? >> guest: can i remember the first time? imagine, brian. i mean i was just a kid now that i look back. i started medical school at harvard when i was 26-years-old and sometimes people have asked me did you know you were going to be a doctor? i said no. did you know you were going to be a brain surgeon? know. how did i end up in this journey that i have lived for the past two decades? sometimes things happen for a reason. and i used to think that chance and good luck comes to anybody who wants it but i began to realize that it's not just that.

it comes to those who look for it and one day i was walking in the hallways of harvard medical school and a very distinguished bring surgeon looked at me on the friday night around 11 p.m. and he asked me where are you going and i said i'm going to the library to study. have you ever done breens surgery? have you ever seen brain surgery? i said no. would you like to see breen surgery? i said i would love to. i kept thinking this would happen in the future and i thought about that in my book. so the next thing i know i walk into this operating room and imagine the magic that i felt when i saw that beautiful breed on a patient that was a week which was incidentally what i do now it is one of my specialty is doing brain surgery and this was 1997. and i see the human brain pulsating with a beautiful rhythm of a patient that was

awake dancing with the heart, and right there immediately right there i was captivated and the idea was born in as to whether or not one day a medieval to do the same thing and here i am. c-span: how many times have you operated on the brain? >> guest: by now i imagine going through the residency six years of 300 to 400 cases a year and now attending the john hopkins i do it anywhere between 250 to 300 brain tumors a year and i've been there now for six years so you can imagine thousands of times i have seen the human brain and doesn't matter how many times i see that bream i still go back to the same feeling every time i peel back and open it i see the human brain pulsating with such beauty and it makes me wonder every patient whether you are brown,

black, hispanic, muslim, once you peel back we all look the same. c-span: what is the toughest part of being a brain surgeon? >> guest: the toughest part is the challenges that we face, the uncertainty that we face every day and the operating room and sometimes no matter what you do you can do the most perfect brain surgery you can remove a whole tumor and that the end of the day we still cannot defeat the natural history of brain cancer for instance and i have so many patients that now come from all over the world hoping i can assure them from the most devastating disease that affects the ramadi which is brain cancer that affected senator kennedy as you know. no matter how much power or knowledge we have we still can be feet that and that to me is the most frustrating part of what i do is that i still have

to go out and talk to the patients' families and i have to look at them face-to-face and say i'm very happy with the surgery that we have done, yet i notice is only the first of many battles you are going to fight and that feeling of knowing that no matter how much of an expert on the am i can't win the war. i may win a battle with i do the surgery but at the end of the day the war will be by my patients and their families. c-span: is the cancer d.c. ph that senator kennedy had? >> guest: gcm. >> host: you use those letters a lot in the book. when you see that and what do you see when you see that? is there any chance at all or what are the percentages today? >> guest: thank you. i can tell you every time i go into the operating room and i find myself in that dilemma of

knowing that i am in front of the killer, this massive killer because it kills dozens of calls of people of the year. i'm not talking about in the other cancer. i'm talking specifically the cancer that affects the brain and i go in and i know why and the underdog when i'm fighting the fight for my patients. my patient's trust me with their lives so women in their i'm like the special forces of brain surgery. i go in with all the passion, all the knowledge, all that energy that i gathered from the patients and families and my role is to take as much else i can safely and that is what i do a lot of times to make sure i take as much as i can. the odds are against me making their incredible difference on that patient's life at the end of the day because the bottom line is that the disease is devastating. at the end of the day the disease keeps growing. but i never lose hope. every patient i treat, every surgery i do specifically in

that type of cancer, i always hope that this is going to be the patient that is going to defeat this disease and from that patient we will learn and make history for many other patients to come. and i have that feeling in my heart every single time i enter that arena in the operating room. i have to, otherwise i wouldn't be able to do what i do every day. hope is the last thing; i hope i will never lose that. and i don't want my patients to lose it either. c-span: you write a lot in your book about being in the legal. >> guest: yes. c-span: how did you come to the country illegally and then how did you become legal? >> guest: it's quite interesting. for this country was built upon people who have committed emigrated to this country some of to legally of some illegal. in my case i came with no

documentation and no ability to get a job or education so when i first came to the united states in the late 80's by crossed the border between mexico and the united states ended up coming into the san al-hakim valley to work as a migrant farm worker. it was no challenge to find a job. there were not a lot of thousands of people trying to get the jobs of pulling weeds with the same hands that are now doing brain surgery. i was pulling weeds and i can't imagine polling leads from the land that is trinkle the products, cantaloupe, cauliflower, corn, all those kind of things. my hands were bloody. i been continuously being hurt. so there were not a lot of people lining up. so i came in and asked for a job and i immediately got one. and then eventually right around ronald reagan had the immigration reform that a working authorization

specifically for people who had been in the united states a certain amount of years and then there was a special legislation for people who came and work as migrant for martyrs'. that legislation allowed you to have a working authorization. that was the first thing. and in paying taxes. eventually that working of a recession you couldn't go back anywhere. you couldn't go back to your country. but it allowed to work legally, pay taxes eventually apply for a green card which is eventually what i did. so the country was welcoming people like me who worked in the fields. was a different time, you know, the am i felt that i was given an opportunity. an opportunity to live the american dream. it was quite interesting because we talked a lot. i mean, times have changed. our borders have gotten more strict. why did back then what did happen, and i talk about this in the book. nonetheless the american dream hasn't changed. some people's perception of how to achieve the american dream

may have evolved over time but the american dream is still the same foundation of hard work, people coming to the united states with the idea that they can work as hard as they can possibly that is the journey i took from then to what i am today. c-span: you quote you're assistant or worse in the book as saying from a patient is it true that the doctor is a dirty mexican? isn't there another surgeon i can see? how often does that happen? >> guest: it happened very,

very often when i first came to johns hopkins in 2005. so you realize i had only been there six years and we had been so blessed that i have risen in the academic rankings all the way to now been nominated for full professor at johns hopkins. but when i first came and people didn't know my background, they could see that my skin color is different. they can detect a certain not of an accent in some ways. and some of them they could have known a little bit of my history of the debt harvard and in san francisco training but they couldn't get over the fact that i was from a different country, and i came from humble backgrounds. and it happened a lot to be honest with you. and i always told my team that a lot of my patients who came to see or not only suffering from a biological diseases which is bringing cancer, but they were also suffering from social diseases which is discrimination

and sometimes seeing people for the way they look and how they talk and the accents and a half, fully ignoring them not because i speak with an accent, that means my brain works with an accent. it works as well as anybody else and we know that. so i told platy the continuously don't worry. they will come up around. and every single one of those patients always came around. after surgery when they decided to trust me with their lives i would come in and talk to them. they would turn around and many times they would tell me or my assistance how sorry they felt for some of the comments. i attributed that to the disease once again the biological disease dealing with the brain cancer that makes you think it leaves you really can't explain. but they didn't happen often. i didn't pay attention to it to be honest with you. i turned all that negative energy into positive energy. how do i do that?

fighting research. by making everyone of my patients part of history which is something that to be has been so simple. but you would be surprised how the brain surgeons have either given up on fighting against brain cancer or they have decided that they just want to go in and do their surgery every day and not necessarily fight the disease, you know, in the laboratory which is something that i have done. c-span: what is the point operating of the brain and having the patient a week? >> guest: wonderful question, brian. as i yielded to already in the discussion there have been several people who have come into the operating room to see how i do the surgery. i am not the only within the united states. there are several surgeons are of the world who do a beautiful job with the principle is simple. imagine in our brave especially the left side the majority of us have gone the bids for speech in the left side. write about right here we have

the ability to produce speech. it's called the brocus area. one of the ability to understand language. that is the wernickie's area. we understand and we produce language. imagine if you have a tumor that is in this facility, the times this tuber if there is a malignant brain cancer you can't tell the border between the two variant of the normal brain. the only way that you can do this is by mapping the brain and knowing where normal function lies and then you take your resection all the way to that border a believing that a border intact. so you have the ability to take as much tuber as you can believe behind the part of the brain that is necessary for language. c-span: how does the patient not feel paid? >> guest: sunlight patient

have actually written about this. and i have a wonderful patient that i talked to in the book actually who is a sports writer and he talked about as difficult it is challenging to be there a week and knowing that someone is up in your brain and, you know, the keeping you awake as they are touching your brain but the truth is the p.m. sensors are not in the brain surface. you can the illicit memories come you can be illicit painful larry's but there is no paid in the brain. the patient is in the scalp of the skid. the paint is of the boland and on the part of the that covers the brain that is called of the dura matter. it's no different than we do dental work. i've had a patients kilby would they undergo surgery is more painful to have dental work them to have a week of surgery. the difference is the psychological pressure.

but i tell you it's amazing. just about three weeks ago one of my patients, a young man, 50-years-old who is going to be featured in the johns hopkins newsletter, she underwent an awake craniotomy with me. talking about being a true hero. this young man was stronger than in the patient i've ever seen. he remained called, he answered all the questions. i interacted with him, i must begin questions, looking at pictures, reading the words, they are working with me. we are working as a team trying to eradicate the disease and the dree beautiful job. c-span: how long can a patient stay awake and have the bring an open like that? >> guest: it all depends. the surgery's range from an hour to some types of to three hours depending of the complexity of the tuber, depending of the size of the tuber, depending on how close they are but the range. they could be a week and sometimes i put them to sleep a little bit with a little bit of

interest the shut, local and st shot. have a wonderful and rusty shaheen. it's crucial to keep them by said relaxed. c-span: when you are doing the most difficult of the surgeries how many people are physically involved? >> guest: imagine that. yesterday i did a case. yesterday morning a case that lasted about 12 hours. i was the captain of this team and i had two emt and surgeons, orthongonalogists, to plastic surgeons and the lie was leading the neurosurgeons obviously. surgeon siloed we have about eight surgeons involved in the tv and this is a patient that came far away with a very complex tuber that we have to relive the days of the school. in addition to that we had about the anesthesiologist's. in addition we had forces helping us circulated the morning, four verses of the afternoon. altogether i had about team of

20 people in these very complex cases we do. c-span: if somebody had to pay out of pocket for the operation to you have any idea how to describe the cost? >> guest: every balad that it does happen because as you can imagine why that incredible institution with incredible reputation. at hopkins we have people that come from all over the world. and i would say that most of the time some of my patients that come from all over the world have to pay cash it ranges probably anywhere between $60,000 depending on the complexity of the case of to several hundred thousand dollars depending on how long they are in the hospital. as you can imagine, you know, variable fee people sometimes come to the united states did choose to have their surgery because the with the best. not necessarily because i lead the team but also volume surrounded by an incredible amount of incredibly smart id dedicated physicians, nurses, it

reveals that is involved in the case of the patient. so they do. so those are the ranges more or less for what i see. c-span: what is the most difficult -- and you probably take this kind of question but what is a very difficult operation a baby and i read and hear about the skulls id the fees being pulled down but what is the most difficult situation you find yourself? >> guest: the most difficult situation i find myself it is the situation said which you are in the operating room, and no matter what the case is, it could be very complex brain tumor or a simple brain tumor but the difficulty is wind suddenly something unexpected happens. three weeks ago i was to make a young man could come early 40's with a very large brain tumor. soccer player, incredibly fast.

as soon as i opened the tumor and i opened to begin their resize of the tumor there was a small but significant leaders. it was just like you open the gates and blood starts pouring out uncontrollably. and the greatest challenges you know there's a fine line between life and death. luckily i remained called. i kept my whole team called and we were able to control the situation and the patient went home in today's. imagine the pleasure i had to know that. but i went home that night and i was still shocked to read after that adrenaline calms down because you're in the middle of this -- like i said york like the special forces. you have to lead the team and you've got to keep of recall, quid collected and make sure that you are paying attention to every single thing that is calling on all the way from the anesthesia, nurses, the people who were driven tero monitoring, my residence, the people who are bringing the blood did you are aware of everything. it's as almost as if times was down and everything is moving around you and you're focused and everything is quiet and that

you're aware of everything that is the ability of your chongging to save his life. i went home that late and i sit with my son, david, who is having dinner and this is now applying p.m. and he said dad, how did your de go? i said it was a tough day. i know i had this patient. i took this to work. my kids know a lot about tuber's already because the cd doing a lot of stuff. and i told him what happened with the blood. then he asked me at age ten how much blood you need to could afford to lose before the patient died? that's when they hit the, not much. we lost of 6 liters of blood and we were giving the patient blood so we were this close to potentially losing him. those cases are potentially emotionally and physically taxing for me. c-span: did you have to go back the next day and do another operation? >> guest: yes. i believe in the same day in the afternoon i had to go back and do it all over again did those are the challenges that we face to be we never really talk about the emotional weight that this kind of situation carries on to

the amount of arrogance can i talk about this in the book that, you know, i of the first one to admit i have to get up in the morning and tell myself "i can do this. there's no one better to do the stambaugh ibm." because i have to believe that every time i go into the arena into the operating room i have someone's life in my hand and i am fully capable of getting this patient in and out of the operating room because that is a trust that this patient has a and b. what a fine line between confidence and arrogance. c-span: let's back up -- leyva jolie want to get you to talk about what seems to be a metaphor in the book, you fall again to the tanker. but let's back up. his bed how will get jobs hopkins? >> guest: i did six years at the johns hopkins. i was six years at the university of california in san francisco it before that at harvard medical school. c-span: how long was a medical school? >> guest: i did for years and

a nice big one year with the howard hughes doing research investigation. c-span: did you are only 43? >> guest: 43. [laughter] c-span: combat infield harvard when you were in school before that. >> guest: before harvard i was at university of california at berkeley, uc-berkeley. before that from 88 to 91i was in a small community colleges stockton california, northern california before i went to uc-berkeley and before that i was working in the field. c-span: helm did you work in the field? >> guest: about a year-and-a-half. and then simultaneously as i was working -- as i was studying english and community college i was working in the railroad. c-span: let's go back before you jumped the fence. >> guest: yes. c-span: when did you fall into the tanker and why? >> guest: this is around this time when i was in kennedy, which learning english and i felt and i, i guess we have to set up the story because it is a metaphor in the ways as what

it's like to fight for your own life and it's like some times to give up control. right after working the fields i worked in the railroad company and i was doing the most rental job you can imagine. i first cleaning tanks that carry fish oil. and at that bottom there will be fish lard that would accumulate and i had to clean that. and then on a advanced to cleaning tanks that carried the liquefied petroleum gas and that's exactly the story that we retaliate in the tiemann sy yemen and beautiful sunny or the california in the summer. i am working with one of my co-workers that i mentioned in the book and i am in charge of fixing the security for the tanks so they wouldn't exploit or wouldn't release the gases they carry, lpg. slide in the top of this

35,000-gallon tanker and i have a hole about this big and a big jolt falls into the tank and i tell my co-worker i'm going to get it, talk about arrogance. that is exactly what happened and why franco's to me and my co-worker in this is are you crazy? mo we will get someone else this is when i thought i was at the top of the physical shape in my life and i went down and as you can imagine i didn't make it back up. but i did try. if i landed at the bottom of the petroleum tank in bye realize there is no oxygen in volume with my whole the quote mid, steel toed boots, big overalls, a lot of tools i start dropping everything and i start grabbing this rope, about 18 feet right about the size of the ceiling if i start going up the and i start doing this and i really that in

the book my whole life starts flashing. when people talk about a near-death experience. and i think to myself my gosh i came to this country to fight for not only my life but also to provide for my siblings and my parents and this is where i'm going to end up but i'm not going to go without a fight and i started going up, claiming that broke little by little with no oxygen in my lungs and i needed all the way to the top in by grant paabo's hammes and he related the story as to how when he saw in my face the agony but also the strength i can almost crushed his hand and he was asking for help. right around that time, my father comes to see who's working in the real root the same place i was working comes out and he lands right on the top of pablo at the moment he couldn't hold the anymore in the

pablo related the story that right before i did this i smiled and then i went down. c-span: to fill all the way down. >> guest: if all the way down completely unconscious. and then the whole incredible journey and work of a team, just like -- and led by a person that i mentioned in the book that subsequently died unfortunately when i was resting from traumatic brain injury. he led the team and my own brother-in-law went in and not once but twice to save my life. and it's an incredible story as to how they were able to get me out when i could have not only dyga but the weight they got me out with the ropes and no resources because we had nothing in this place and they got me out of there and the next thing i week up, the next time i wake up i am in a small pocket and i am vana de and one of the velo structures in the dillinger

because i know what traumatic brain injury and spinal injuries if the doctor is trying to safely and relax me if i said how you want to relax i am vomiting. i was completely sick to my stomach is my father relates the story hours went by with all kinds of tests because i had been down there for minutes with no oxygen they thought i had a stroke. i couldn't feel my hands. i was having a lot of side effects. i woke up a few hours later and my father came in and i said to the cause of my father and my brother crossing and a few hours went by and then i asked my father i noticed that there were some number immerses taking care of me and my father was going to be okay when i asked my dad how does my hair looks? [laughter]

as you can imagine at the moment i grabbed my co-worker i knew that i had given it all i have and it is at this point it was symbolic of the trusting things were going to look up for me. right around 2008 abc did a beautiful story how little did i know i was in the first episode in the last episode i open and close the show i had multiple interviews and a lot of people were asking me all ready since i was a medical student but aren't finished harvard medical school and i had an article that made the cover of the boston quote a lot of writers came to be and said we would love to write to the story and i wasn't ready. mentally and physically i wasn't mature yet and i came to hopkins and i wasn't ready yet.

i needed to climb the ladder of academics. i needed to go all the way up to full professor before i released my story which is what has happened now likely nominated and writer of that time i realized there was an incredible story to be told to read not just my story but my interaction with so many people that have mentored me off most recently by patients as you know and i realized this was the american dream and we were losing focus some of the american dream was all about. i think the american dream comes back to the principal of hard work and i wanted to tell the story about the underdog who came to the united states who beats nothing and based on hard work and mentorship in stores been opened in opportunities given him be taking those opportunities i was able to show the world you can still fulfill the american dream and that america still the most beautiful

country in the world and that is why i decided to tell the story around that time. c-span: but worried that some of your colleagues pledge your showboating? >> guest: you always do. it happened in many times and that is why i wanted to move up the ladder. believe me they wouldn't give me promotions based on this book. you have to peer review publications, scientific papers, just about last week we had a big article featuring the laboratory nature it has to be based on grades we get from the government. unai moly one of a few hands of brain surgeons in the united states that has funding from the national institutes of health, multimillion-dollar grants to study brain cancer so that's how you get promoted and that is how i say this is what i'm going to do first before i release the story. >> host: i think that johns hopkins has a $1.6 billion grant

your that they get grants from the government they are number one for how many years now? >> guest: for 20 years now. c-span: what do they do with all that money? >> guest: i always welcome people. it's all going back to research. i think that is what makes this place such an incredibly special place that we are constantly striving to make history with our patients. not alone as a team. we use all those resources to find deutsch yours and specifically for me the money that i am getting into the money that many of my patients donate we use it back so we can find a cure to fight the disease survive, ten, 15, 20 years from now we can say we are going to defeat your disease affecting not only you but me your future

generations and that's what we do. you will see buildings being put. my laboratory alone is about 20 people to have to pay the salary of their experiment every day it's been put back into the economies weaken find cures for the disease. c-span: to go back to the basics of brain surgery. what is the average or the regular story that you hear of a patient that leads to brain surgery? >> guest: beautiful question. this is what i hear from my patients. my patience one of the reasons my practice has been so successful is first of all with my patients come to see be the get access to everything in my team including my own personal self of number in the event the emergency but what i commonly hear from them is the moment they got their diagnosis and i write about this in the book the moment they hear the diagnosis

is like the whole world collapses and one patient beautifully described it to be as a mission that you are driving in california between fresno which is a beautiful drive but it's a straight drive into the spice and quiet and to have the beautiful classical music and you are driving comfortably and suddenly something comes from the saudi of hits your car and your whole world collapses and terms over and over and over a and you just have no idea where that came from that is how my patience discard the diagnosis and when they are first given the diagnosis they don't know whether it is cancerous or mom cancerous. the truth is there are many bring in two hours that are not cancer is and at the moment they're given the diagnosis all they knew was we are getting the diagnosis of the brain tumor and that by itself is a life changing experience.

>> host: you see there are 600,000 americans living with primary brain or nervous system tubers there are 130 different types of brain cancer, 124,000 of malignant brain cancer. the guest of these are normally the primary but as you can imagine because we are getting much better not treating other cancers, legal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, when they are growing for the release cells the end up making it happen to the brain and debris and i like to think of it as a sanctuary is a very privileged or a organ that we have that makes it different than others but also gets so up into the dream so we can cure cancer here but many times the end up making it into the brain and that is a devastating problem. so that's why we have seven

patients that in the having the tumors in their brain, a cancerous tumors of all the the tumors in the brain like senator kennedy. there was a tumor born in the brain but then we have many others that we get up. c-span: what is the usual way you do you have a problem? >> guest: once again how their life has changed but the tides patient per cent with a convulsion. they have a seizure. they've never been sick in their life and suddenly their lives one day they are doing something did they start having a convulsion or having a really bad headaches. i'm not talking of a small headache that to resolve with title or aspirin. i'm talking about getting worse and worse. and i'm not talking about migraine headaches to the committee patient study of migraines. these are patient that keep getting worse and worse and taking a lot of medications and the of the seizure. all right? a convulsion. and they draw on the floor and just like a fish out of water that's the best way i can describe it the into the hospital with a scam and they

have a big lesion in their brain the and that's how the end up many of my patients presenting. c-span: let's say today that somebody watching this has a compulsion and they want to get to you. what are the chances they can get to you? >> guest: they are very high. i have a web page that is dedicated to me that people find. the fight my e-mail, contact information, my office information, there's information in my book coming out to anybody can simply an e-mail from anywhere in the world and i will make sure that either myself or one of my colleagues at hopkins will take care of them and that is something i've committed to my life, brian. i can tell you i can give up what i do today and go to a different job and make a lot more time not work, either but i can assure you that in academic medicine you don't make the same amount of money that he would get other jobs.

the other job offers i have gotten many. i decided i want to be part of history. i want to live the american team. i am thankful for the things this country is done for me. c-span: who are your parents? >> guest: there in california's san diego. c-span: or the living to be compared to the early days? >> guest: the are much better. my brother and i helped them buy a house your backed, my siblings and point it's interesting you mention the my parents because they are beginning to realize what i do. as you can imagine with the book coming out even before the but my parents would get a lot of requests for interviews especially spanish television that are fascinated with, american television and the will to come to my parents. the hit one or two years of elementary school in the that was it. so they are beginning to realize what my life is all about and also what i do. also for many years they couldn't understand why is it after i graduated from harvard medical school lives working

120, one under 40 hours a week. i was never home. they didn't know i was trying to be hawaii and today. but other than that they have a wonderful life. they are very proud of not just me but also the rest of my siblings that are working very, very hard to fulfill the american dream. c-span: to dedicate the book to your deceased sister but held the other siblings, are there? >> guest: there were six of us total. there's only five left. c-span: where are they now? >> guest: there in the united states in the cba go and loss vegas area. they are in southern california area. c-span: where did you beat your wife? >> guest: i talked about that wonderful story as you can imagine my wife, her first name is anna in her last name is peterson. she comes from a swedish family and she's absolutely brilliant, smart, she's beautiful. when i was a community college learning english right about the time i fell into the liquefied petroleum tank i was we

evaluating my life and i was also i had so much energy. i cannot even relate to you. i knew i would go for days, you know, without sleeping. working all the time and then i still have to track and field. one day i had an injury he the guy would go to the sort and pull in the morning to the swelling poll i had a groin injury. when i came out of the swimming pool there was a young woman that said high to me. and i thought she was same height as someone else. i looked side by side and was to be. i was sure so shy people wouldn't believe this. i said i've seen this will lead before. it turns out to weeks prior i was sitting having lunch in the middle of this community college watching a fish cui pond watching the devotees to beautiful women sat next to be of talked to be adamle english was so terrible label to doubt. i ran out because i was so shoddy in the was the same woman. we didn't start dating until i was at uc-berkeley the year

before harvard. she saw the growth. she saw only 1i had nothing, working in school going to community college with my steel toed boots, my g. m. skilling likes olver because midi days i was actually shoveling sulfur. so she's been my life partner as you can imagine. c-span: - the ability and david whole lardy? >> guest: gabby is 12, david is ted disability is 6-years-old. i know you have a picture right there a few years back. this is around the time that johns hopkins came about in my very proud of our children a and i give full credit to anna hurston a beautiful job raising them with the principles and values of the american dream. c-span: how did you come close to getting aids? >> guest: it was interesting this is around the tarim in the second period of my life at uc san francisco i was trending to become a brain surgeon which i am today it was an incredible

experience but very humbling trying to help a patient milking the of a patient with fluid in this patient was dying of aids and another physician in our attempt to help the patient we have a big meal and we are trying to get all of the fluid out because the patient was a lot of pain. we are doing this and she is a big needle and there's fluid everywhere and finally she loses control of the beetle become a little and we both get stuck with blood and fluid did you could imagine the same way i believe that story of my patients getting the diagnosis of brain tumors by whole life collapsed because right around that time we do there was a case was reported at the university of california san francisco to san francisco general hospital

which is the first award for aids patients in the united states at that place there was a patient that had converted from - to positive and there was a health care provider who also got stuck with the beatles so i had to go to the therapy and i dropped over 30 pounds over the course of a mob. i was fall the day everyday and in some ways some of our patients really similar stories when they take chemotherapy to fight cancer so that's how i had an incredible level of respect for what they do because i only did it for a month, you know but imagine how the patients would do it for years at a time. it was devastating. so that's how i came. luckily everything went well. that's why there's a gap also between david the ability of because we also had to protect ourselves. we didn't know what was going to have it is every time i would get a result from my test it was absolutely worth wrecking and

you can sense the amount of intense low bids that my wife and i went through. c-span: didn't you have with other taibbi were operating on somewhat of a blood squirted on to your -- >> guest: that was at johns hopkins that was actually on television. im taking care of a beautiful young woman in a lovely family featured on the show. it's traumatic brain injury by trying to reconstruct the brain and a of abode in everything. i have complete protection, by special goggles with - 58 glasses and they are completely protected and somehow i was able to hit a small arteries that sent blood perfectly located right above my i bypass my protection and went right into my right eye. this was a young woman who had received a lot of blood transfusions. but it was so beautiful at the moment is that the first thing that cannot of early to tell the bomb that everything was fine she said she heard the evin did

on this show she wanted to make sure i was fired. that tooby was touching to do that i had her daughter's life and my hands and i was taking care of her and she was still concerned for the two of us. everything was fine luckily. she had a risk because she had a lot of blood transfusions but we were in good shape. c-span: what is the worst thing that a family or a patient us to a doctor? >> guest: you know, i think it's a difficult question obviously. i have had experiences where i think it's a relationship that you build with your patients expectations sometimes patients coming in with a citation that you are going to save their loved ones from bream cancer for instance. and i have had a few patients

like this and i think the worst thing a family can do to a physician sometimes that i have personally i cannot speak for all of them but to be one of the most devastating the design of experienced is always the last one to give hope but we reach a point in which we do things to the patients that instead of helping them i see them working against them. once we reach that end we know nothing is working it continues to progress the worst thing i have experienced myself from the family members of a patient is their inability to realize that no matter what we do things are not going to change and they are willing to see their loved ones continue to suffer rather unfair and deal with their own it devotees to cope with the fact their loved ones are going to die. they would see their loved ones and that breaks my heart and i

struggle a bye meet with them and i say please this is not going to change weedy to help them make that transfusion. c-span: in your professional training in your life at johns hopkins would have used it to yourself i don't ever want to do what i see that doctor dewey? >> guest: there have been a few occasions obviously. you learn likely at places like hopkins there are privileges where we have some of the post a brilliant and best physicians and the world. i wouldn't say that happens as much to be as it happens in the local school and as much as it happens as a resident when i saw colleagues only in my discipline but in other disciplines to be good things i consider to not be good for either for the welfare of a patient. the key decisions to continue the treatment. making decisions to stopping treatment. giving the family false expectations. i think that that is obviously some think that i really feel

strongly against it. and i told myself i will never do that. my goal in life is always to be honest to a patient is to beat when i cannot of the operating room the first thing what i do talk to them this is what we do this is what we are going to do. you do every single thing that is in my brain right now. c-span: to sit in the book one of the things it's the patient bill laundered each to have a relationship with their primary care doctor back in other words you aware of that rather than waste that time. explain that. >> guest: one of the things i began to realize that is the relationship with my patients very strong is that sometimes that specialty is we try to commit like the special forces we just go we think about taking the two were held and we sometimes tend to think that that's it, that's all we can do

what i've been able to do in my group and my team is to take for instance that a work in the laboratory to try to secure it and i get the patient involved will be in their care but being a part of history so they can donate. tecum strictly from the institution. so they feel a part of history. in my relationship with those patients continues to revolve beyond just taking care of the tumor and that is a rule that we can fulfil very well as green surgeon's especially the ones who specialize in tubers' so why don't necessarily take away the role of the primary-care physician and atrocities year for the physicians who are so frustrated because they don't have the knowledge and the specialty to deal with cream cancer and i do. i've tried it for myself to people who do this all the time

who know how to talk to patients and deal with the families work who are frustrated because their loved ones are dying of brain cancer so why try to take the role of the primary-care physician into a sob specialty but i surround myself by a lot of people. c-span: when did your life to people stop questioning whether or not you got into all of these places because of permanent action de dalia soon that has happened. >> guest: it is never going to end. people are going to see this interview and they are going to wonder why is it that i am not there? why is it that my son is not their and my love to love is not there? he took a spot from someone else to get this over and over. as you can imagine writing this book that's what you ask me why is it i haven't published stories because i needed to be ready with the show cannot i can tell you i got desperate, lagat e-mails come lagat people who hate to the medium who loved

the. people who missed the message. they think that i've taken someone else's bought a medical school that as someone else born and raised in the united states should be the brain surgeon now here in front of you doing this interview so that is never going to end. i feel that is what makes this country the most beautiful country people can express their opinions. i don't agree with them but i respect their opinions. as long as it does affect my life for the life of the patients or my family words, they go park to the cut what you do for people. c-span: how long is race an issue in your life? >> guest: every day fifth the possibility of doing something people will always say we want to have this because no one else is like to nearby seabrook this is my agenda and no as you know

i will talk with my story and why do the brain surgeon so every single day in my life begins with you i didn't shy away from it. i welcome it. i realized when i was a medical school that what i thought was a weakness, the fact that i can as a poor immigrant and now i was a brain surgeon i thought it was a weakness it turned out to be the greatest strength of my life. the vision of the american dream. c-span: take us from the very beginning to the end. >> guest: let's take today. i got up and i went out. c-span: you do this everyday? >> guest: every day. i take a ten minute together with thoughts and the leggitt at retirement for a run because and training for a half marathon in order of my patients that are battling brain cancer is by not going to lie to you and not

completely in perfect shape to be able to do that by giving it my best and by going to do it. i then the winds in the and drove to my office, made several phone calls, came here to washington, d.c. with you in by going to go back into the operating room and then it tonight i will get home until 8 p.m. and have my dinner with my kids for about 30 minutes, until the a story, go back to my office and that about half an hour to an hour with my wife watch the news and then go to bed around midnight and overnight i will call for the hospital so i receive about four or five calls throughout the night but i'm always on call for my patients, in the patient that wants to get ahold of me they always have my phone to read the truth is sometimes they do better to lead the call the hospital because the ability to get rest at night but i do that every single day. seven days a week of 365 days a year in life but it always since i remember. that is my level of energy.

c-span: how much did t do you have? >> guest: of course i get tired. every morning when i get up at 5 a.m. my body aches and dinosaur because i'd been treating it i think all of the patient struggling every day and as soon as i do that and i get up it's like the world starts and i love to watch the sun coming up every morning. i love leedy days like this as well. it's part of life. it's a cycle of life. c-span: ten years based on what you've watched happening in medicine, what do you think will be different about the art of brain surgery? >> guest: i would say that ten years from now we are going to be seeing more personalized medicine. right now for instance in my profession in brain surgery for a brain tumor we take as much as we can give the patient chemotherapy radiation. what i envision this thanks to the work that a lot of people

are of the world and putting our laboratories will be able to take this to mur abe say this patient specifically response we will turn around and give personalized medicine to that patient and that's what i think is going to revolutionize our system. and we can't allow our country not to be a will to it that is what i feel so strongly about. we still need to support research. we still need to be able to support those creative minds that are going to be able to help us to live a long and healthy life. c-span: looking back over all of your education, harvard, a university of california, berkeley, what was the toughest time during your medical training? >> guest: i'd say my medical training would undoubtedly be a resident. writer of the time i got stabbed with a be a working lunch hundred 20, 140 hours -- c-span: sood francisco? >> guest: samford this week, yes. there were different to allegis. i would succumbing to hopkins as

a young attended have to face all these other issues back then it working as a resident to train to become the special forces with little sleep or about of work or little mardy or no resources being in the hospital of the tie about seeing white children that was undoubtedly some of the most challenging to have to survive and having the problem with hiv, having the actual deal with the fact that san francisco is a beautiful city but it was also excruciatingly painful to live because how expensive it was. it was a real the time that we were in the peak in san francisco those a very challenging time in my life it about in the book. but those incredible memories that he me the most are those times when i would wake up and

my kids little ones - via david and they were trying to play with the and i was completely spent. >> host: c-span: you have a co-author ms. jon2012girls believe to rivas to read how did you relate to her? did shia interview you? >> guest: she's incredible. she's had several incredibly successful books and was a part of the team that wrote the pursuit of happiness in the incredible beautiful team. she started incredible amount of work and the moment that i met her, the moment that we talked a by was with the publishers. they all gathered a lot of resources to be little to do this which is an incredibly accomplished writer she came and spent time with the. she would run around with the hospital the my laboratory with a patient and then she had multiple interviews with the to be worked on multiple drafts. it took about three years to complete this draft of going