since hurricane to tina has several action reports including one from the senate committee on homeland security and government affairs, the red cross is focused more on coordination with a federal state and local government with the support from fema, which currently bought full time to speak to representatives to 10 of the fema regional offices and we also have an additional staff working at the fema headquarters. i have also a task the staff members to work with a national disaster housing task force. during the last year we have been working with governments, state governments in improving planning. for example, the red cross in the state of louisiana working toward a single unified shelter in plan coming discussions continuing with the state department of social services and the governor's office of homeland security and emergency preparedness and the unusual logistics and sheltering for people with critical shan's petition names. we recently participated in the state of florida major disaster exercise and with fema and tabletop exercise category four hurricane affecting savannah g

and my sister tina and my nephew glisten as well is here and our good friend bonnie motes is going to do the honors of escorting them out as soon as we're done with the opening statement. so -- and, of course, i owe everything to my parents. my father, bart mcdowell, a native texan, passed away just this past january. and my mother martha mcdowell passed away not quite four years ago and our thoughts and prayers are with them always. but especially today. i would also like to extend my public congratulations to genachowski and his beautiful family on his nomination and if we are both confirmed, i look forward to working with him in the same bipartisan manner i pursued for the past three years. furthermore, i want to acknowledge the warm friendship and support i've received from acting chairman mike kopps and commissioner jonathan addlestein. i've enjoyed work with them and especially in the past six months. although we don't always agree, our disagreements are almost always pleasant. in fact, while the three of us have enjoyed this collegial time at the commission this year, folks hav