mr. o'brian describes so well. so we have had lots of fema experience and flooding and in branson and with with the lake there are lots of problems. i think we have tried to deal with those the best way we could bet i know you have got to leave and mr. o'brian you have to leave at 3:30 or so. 4:00, good. we have a second round of questions them and i'm glad to have that. just to start with mr. o'brian, you have been in the middle of this every day now since late may. to you have any recommendations that fema and the private sector could individually or collectively improve what we do to respond to these disasters? >> well, we have dealt most specifically with the her side of fema as mentioned, working on business recovery. and fema does not have the dollars for businesses, but they do have resources. what i would say senator is while they have been great partners in this, there is perhaps an issue of speed in response. i noted one which i think is a very good example, of them working with a national partner as we s

mr. o'brian, is all served by entire electric. i don't know if you've had discussions about this or not. i suspect you have. what do you see as the long-term impact on utilities in a community that their utility provider doesn't automatically, isn't allowed, frankly, we didn't change the law to allow it. isn't allowed to participate in the cost share for disaster recovery. >> senator, i think you have raised a good point with that, and the mississippi experience. our electric utility is locally headquartered and serves approximately 10,000 square miles in four states, most of that in southwest missouri. and certainly year in and year out they do anticipate that there will be some level of damage of storms. what they don't necessarily anticipate is in the f5 tornado that cuts to 40 miles of their service area. including some of the most densely bodily part of that. and their estimate in terms of the damage done is, today somewhere around 25 billion, it could go higher as they continue on that. and what that means for our community,

mr. o'brian? >> thank you.ood afternoon, chairman pryor, ranking member paul and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to be with you this afternoon and to talk about the may 22nd tornado, its impact and our response particularly regarding the business sector. regardless of the level of devastation that you may have seen on the news, the reality is, frankly, much worse. the tornado to date has claimed 159 lives, that makes it the worst tornado in terms of fatalities in more than six decades and the eighth worst in u.s. history. the storm which had winds close to 300 miles per hour in some locations carved the path nearly 8 miles long and averaging three-quarters of a mile wide through joplin and the adjoining village of duquesne. more than 4,000 homes were damaged or destroyed beyond repair. 9,000 people displaced for the long term. also in the path were hundreds of businesses. more than 450 in the direct path were destroyed or damaged beyond repair. that is approximately 20% of all of the