Where do you stage? Where do you go? You have to have communications, you have to have electricity, you have to have dry ground. These are all things that have to exist, and these are all things that don't exist in New Orleans.

You're seeing the effects of an electricity pricing mechanism that's tied to the cost of natural gas. Companies that are larger producers from coal and nuclear are getting a higher-than-anticipated benefit.

There was electricity just going and going like a wave. It just kept on going wave after wave.

When we started out doing this, basically what we were doing was throwing money at the problem. In most cases, people had absolutely no idea how to spend the money.

Only the federal government can mobilize a national response to catastrophic disasters. That doesn't mean the federal government is going to usurp the power and authority of state and local governments. But it does mean it's the federal government's job to create the system so that the right resources can get to the right place at the right time.

In many ways, this is a test of our national capacity, ... If we can't do this 24-7-365, we aren't doing our job for preparedness.