craig fugate. he was hired by jeb bush who was praised for his handling of storms in 2004 when this state was just battered. that is why president obama hired him to depoliticize fema. >> here is the president of the united states. >> tropical storm isaac and the steps we are taking to keep people safe. i just got an update from secretary napolitano and mr. fugate and dr. rick knabb from the hurricane center on the preparations under way in the gulf. this storm isn't scheduled to make landfall until later today, but at my direction, fema has been on ground for a week working with state and local officials in areas that could be affected from puerto rico, the u.s. virgin islands to florida and more recently, louisiana, alabama and mississippi. yesterday, i approved a disaster declaration for the state of louisiana so they get the help they need right away. particularly for the evacuations that are taking place. right now, we already have response teams and supplies ready to help communities in the e

craig fugate joining us.. >>> still ahead on "starting point," the west nile virus spikes. now on track for its worst year ever. that's straight ahead. ♪ ♪ every mom needs a little helper. that's why i got a subaru. announcer: love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. exclusive to the military, and commitment is not limited to one's military oath. the same set of values that drive our nation's military are the ones we used to build usaa bank. with our award winning apps that allow you to transfer funds, pay bills or manage your finances anywhere, anytime. so that wherever your duty takes you, usaa bank goes with you. visit us online to learn what makes our bank so different. >>> tough call this morning. dress code violation. cooper barton. let's show his picture. kind of your average 5-year-old. cheers for the university of michigan wolverines evidently and showed his pride with this t-shirt at school. at cooper's school, you can only wear college apparel if it's a team from oklahoma. the school district says

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we understand the president has just been briefed by fema director, craig fugate. is that right?that's absolutely right, martin. good afternoon to you. president obama was just briefed by fema director, craig fugate, as well as the director of the national hurricane center, rick knabb. we're told that according to white house officials, he asked to be updated on the state of preparedness along the gulf coast. they're getting emergency crews and supplies all up and down the gulf coast to make sure that those areas are ready in case this does turn into a category 1 hurricane. we're also told that there are incident support centers that have been set up in jacksonville, florida, and montgomery, alabama. you know, the administration is always emphasizing this point, martin, that the lesson that they learned from katrina is that it is important for the federal government to be in close contact with state and local governments, before a strong system moves through, so that is something that they are trying to do in this instance. to that end, president obama,s after he was briefed, spo

craig fugate will join us.astidious librarian emily skinner, each day was fueled by thorough preparation for events to come. well somewhere along the way, emily went right on living. but you see, with the help of her raymond james financial advisor, she had planned for every eventuality. ...which meant she continued to have the means to live on... ...even at the ripe old age of 187. life well planned. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. >>> hey, everybody, welcome to a special edition of "starting point." you are looking at the forum where all of those speeches, as soon as the republican national convention officially gets the under way. we're coming to you live from tampa, florida. we're talking a lot about tropical storm isaac this morning because hurricane warnings are in effect as it heads for the northern gulf coast from new orleans to pensacola, the gulf coast on alert as the storm strikes eerie similarities to katrina including the date of the landfall potentially. so what does that mean for

. >> we want to bring in craig fugate, the administrator of the federal emergency management agency, or fema, craig, good to see you. >> good morning. >> tell me a little bit, as you watch the projected path of this storm and look how broad the storm is and how slowly it might move across louisiana, what are your biggest fears? >> obviously storm surge, but the heavy rainfall. again, i think we need to remember, don't fork us on a point. this is a very large storm so impacts will be far to the east as well as to the west where it comes ashore. when people focused on tampa, as we saw, it's hard to say where it will make landfall, morgan city, louisiana, to major metropolitan area of new orleans to destin florida, you need to be heeding evacuation orders today. >> mr. fugate, we're in the middle of the murk season. is it safe to say the resources you would need to deal with this situation have been prepositioned in the gulf coast area? >> yeah, we've been moving stuff. earlier we were down in the puerto rico, virgin islands. fortunately not much impact there. florida. now looking at mis

fema, and craig fugate is in baton rouge with the governor and the local elected officials and the president has been very engaged, and it is a matter of a lot of electricity out, but until these winds stop, you can't get your crews out. it doesn't have to be sunshine, but it does have to be safe enough for the energy crews to go out to try to restoring power in the region and nen we can do an assessment of the real damage. >> i understand, senator, 75 rescue that have happened in brathwait and is there a sense of how many people you think are trapped inside of their homes? >> i think it would be difficult for anybody to give you that. the west person might be the parish president or some of the parish officials. that is a relatively small community, and again, they were under mandatory evacuation, and lot of people evidently did not or could not evacuate, and sometimes that happens in these storms, people either underestimate their power or they just don't have a which to leave. so the coast guard, believe me, is doing everything they can along with state officials, fish and wildlife to get

new details in as the governor of louisiana, bobby jindal has just taken a tour with fema chief craig fugateow. hundreds of thousands still without power. they're assessing the decision to make a decision on the levee if to intentionally breach the levee. the army corps of engineers would be involved in this. this levee we are focusing so heavily on where people where maybe as many as 50 to 100 trapped in their homes is not part of the $15 billion project used to fortify the leb vees and improve the pump system to protect new orleans. obviously, that will be something discuss the later. senator mary landrieu is saying she wants to get funds to help people in the low-lying area. i want to get an update on the storm. rafael miranda is standing by with the latest. yet again, another one of these bands coming through. lining all of the people who live here and love this area, they can't wait to see this storm finally move on out. >> that's exactly right. although it will take a lot of patience. again, not till late tomorrow conditions will really start to improve. you've been in and out of the c

i just spoke with craig fugate. he's embedded in baton rouge which is our state capital at the emergency center and spoke with him at length this morning. and the facts are these winds have been hurricane level for now over 12 to 15 hours in some parts of the state. the lower parts of the state. i'm in new orleans and have been experiencing these winds in the central city. they are going to continue to go on, which is really limiting. the people that can get out on the street to do the assessments necessary. we do see from the television, of course, the drama going on in plaquemine parish. those are local levees. not federal levees that were overtopped and people should have evacuated and didn't. the coast guard is now on the scene helping people to move to safety. electricity is out in many parts of the metropolitan area. over 350,000 homes without power, which is complicating matters. but, you know, we're still right in the middle of this. this storm is nasty, and unfortunately sort of stationary. >> senator, as y

under director craig fugate.rence between fema on the job this year with hurricane isaac storming down and making its way to the louisiana coast, a big difference from seven years ago with fema under george w. bush and michael brown under hurricane katrina. so to the good men and women of fema to director craig fugate, job well-done! brought to you by granger with over 900,000 products to help you get your job done, call granger, click on granger.com or stop by one of their branches. granger. saluting the people who get things done indeed. well, a lot of attention last night to of course mitt romney accepting the nomination. to marco rubio introducing him to clint eastwood who kind of stole the show, not in a good way. but still a lot of attention to paul ryan and all the -- hmm -- let's just call them what they are, outright lies in his speech on wednesday night. the organization that's been most on top of this, reporting all of truth as opposed to what we heard from the podium is media matters. media matters fo

we want to check in with craig fugate. he's in tallahassee, florida.s appreciate it. here's my question for you. a lot of conversations we've had over the last couple of days, is fema prepared as you see the storm hitting. how are you feeling about the response of fema and how people have prepared for this storm, sir? >> well, we're in jackson, mississippi right now heading to baton rouge later today. what was really important was the governors of both states that were impacted ordering those evacuations as we've seeing. that storm surge is relentless and people did evacuate. but for a lot of folks, they need to stay inside while the storm comes through. we have resources ready to go but until the winds come down, we're really asking people if you're not somewhere that's dangerous, stay where you're at unless you're told to evacuate. >> mr. fugate, this is zoraida sambolin. we're having difficulty, as you can imagine with the communication there in new orleans. if we can talk more about particularly plaquemines parish. have you been following the situa

in the flight over here, i was talking to our fema director, craig fugate and janet napolitano and someand mayors being effected as they deal with hurricane ivan. it is important for all of us, with some prayerful people here, to let people in the coast know our thoughts and prayers are with you. we are going to make sure we do every single thing we need to do to ensure the folks down there are taken care of and have the support nad lov and love of the country. when things like this happen, there are no democrats or republicans, there are just americans, and we stand by americans in their hour of need. now, i know it -- for me, it's great to be in charlottesville. class is back in session. come on, we need a little more enthusiasm, students. football team has a home game on saturday. [applause] and in just over two months form rom now, for the first time in many of your lives, you'll get to pick the next president of the united states. now, i know that there are some young-at-heart here who are not so young, like me, but let me jsujust speak to the young people. you have more at stake t

craig fugate, the director of fema, bill carlisle, who runs response recovery along with governor jindal team, they're working right now to put in place the plans for the disaster review, which everybody's on the ground, in place, plenty of food, plenty of water, be just stay safe. and we've already spent millions of dollars prepositions all these assets. >> great. wonderful. we appreciate you coming on today and explaining all that to us, joe. thanks. >> you bet. any time. >> still to come this morning, chris christie making the case for mitt romney last night. we're going to take a look at what political analysts are saying about the gop convention so far. and as we head to a break, take a look at a couple of pictures sent to us via twitter. hmm. there you go. if you want to share some of your isaac experiences, please feel free to do that, send us some pictures, comments, updates jah squawkcnbc, that's our handle. we'll be right back. companies have to invest in making things. infrastructure, construction, production. we need it now more than ever. chevron's putting more than $8 billi

>> just had a meeting with the governor and craig fugate and expressed need for assistance.so we can get 100% federal assistance. that's going to be so needed. just as we speak, i got word another levee on the west bank in plaquemines. this adds to the east bank troubles where we have been rescuing people all day. >> this was a tropical storm, became a hurricane. category one, not two or three, major hurricane as they say. was it a surprise levees were overtopped the way they were? we thought repairs in the seven years fixed that. >> in bell chase, we have protection. we have over a billion and a half dollars for federal levees that haven't been started yet, but absolutely. my home had more damage for this storm than katrina. i rode out katrina 14 miles from the eye of the storm, and i have seen more damage to my home from winds that kept on for two days. we also almost saw the mississippi river as water was driven up the river and almost topped the banks of the mississippi river. the flooding came from the back levees, but that's incredible, historical low river that this s

and i think that's a lesson that people are beginning -- i know craig fugate talks about it.nue to talk about it around the world. you have to on an individual basis be ready to take care of yourself. the government can't take care of everybody. >> all right. michael brown, thank you. we appreciate your coming on today and sharing that with us. good luck. we'll see you later. thank you. >> thank you. >>> up next, we'll head to tampa and get the latest of the republican national convention which seems to be back on track after a close call. >>> at 7:30 this morning, billionaire donald trump will join us to talk business and politics. the economy needs manufacturing. machines, tools, people making stuff. companies have to invest in making things. infrastructure, construction, production. we need it now more than ever. chevron's putting more than $8 billion dollars back in the u.s. economy this year. in pipes, cement, steel, jobs, energy. we need to get the wheels turning. i'm proud of that. making real things... for real. ...that make a real difference. ♪ trading tools for all.

issued a statement saying the president was briefed much of this day by the fema administrator, craig fugatehis potential of a category 1 hurricane emerging along the gulf coast. potentially even moving into new orleans. following the briefing with the president the president convened a call with alabama governor robert bentley, louisiana governor bobby jindal and mississippi governor phil bryant and new orleans mayor mitch landrieu. he promised them that the federal government would be directly involved in making sure they did whatever was necessary to avoid a disaster. on the call the president also informed governor jindal of louisiana that he had approved the governor's request for an emergency declaration for louisiana for this tropical storm isaac. mississippi also is potentially in trouble. david mattingly is on the scene for us. david, what are you seeing where you are? >> reporter: wolf, everyone has a very close eye on this isaac as it's coming ashore slowly but surely toward this part of the gulf. everyone still remembering what happened seven years ago, still rebuilding in some w

craig fugate is probably one of the best things to happen to fema. mean he understands after going through situations in florida in 2004 with four hurricanes straight how you have to pay plan in how you have to make sure people are taking the storm seriously. he is a big proponent of instead of becoming the victim becoming a part of the solution. in other words, do your part. not only in preparing but also in helping others and i certainly think in the last five years, 10 years we have gotten a lot better at collaborating efforts, maximizing especially pre-positioning supplies for storms that come on. like i said i don't think if we had 2011 back in 2005 we would not have done very well. >> who are some of the unsung heroes out there in terms of organizations that are helping once the disaster hits? >> i mean you have got fema and their pre-positioning of supplies. you have the red cross and the salvation army. they are all in collaboration. they are on everything but it is kind of nice when i go out among the beach and everybody else has evacuated i