our guest is craig fugate. on the wildfires in california, wildfires stretch capacity showing the number of acres burned in 2020 and still early in the season at fairly record levels. it is sort of a triple punch here with the fires out west, hurricane season still well underway and the pandemic still going on. of fema ever faced the sort crises on multiple fronts like this before? guest: not with the pandemic. hurricanealt with season and wildfires coexisting at the same time, but a lot of what fema does is in support of our states. i think there is a tendency to think that fema is the only organization tourist bond. -- two respond. host: we go to our independent .ine caller: the collins are east coast, west coast and text. i am an independent. , in regards becomes to covid-19 and storm threats. back in 1938, there was a massive storm that came up the east coast. had the best scenario for the where a bermuda high dropped and spinning clockwise and another front spinning counterclockwise that pushed the storm 5

host: we are joined next by former federal emergency management agency administrator craig fugate. thank you for being with us on "washington journal" this morning. guest: thanks for having me. host: a number of items on our plate including the covid-19 response. first, to the response to hurricane laura. the hurricane coming effectively the same week marking 15 years since hurricane katrina. what lessons do think fema and the federal government learned in terms of response to hurricanes in particular? guest: i think the biggest lesson was that we don't wait until we are asked to start getting ready. to be ana, there seem lot of confusion about the governor having to make requests and what fema's role was going to be. congress, after katrina launched substantial legislation. governors are going to be is he dealing with this. the federal government doesn't have to wait. we start moving resources and i think you see this response has increased. we are not waiting for these assessments. you talked about states being prepared and fema being prepared, but what about individuals? do you