Nightly News | August 30, 2011
Flynn: ‘We’re resilient people here in Vermont’
Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn joins Brian Williams to discuss the cleanup efforts in Irene-stricken Vermont.
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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.
>> and a reminder, we're watching the flooding and it runs on a delay. we've had a foot of rain here in the east on top of already-saturated soil. it takes a while to crest. some rivers have yet to crest in the northeast. so much of our time and attention has been devoted to the state of emergency in the state of vermont and with us on the phone tonight from there, the state's public safety commissioner, keith flynn. commissioner, i'm looking at the list of communities that are -- that have people in them cut off. a lot of people, especially skiers in the northeast will recognize the names, killington, stockbridge, stratford, it goes on and on. how many communities are cut off by your count and are live air rescues going on right now.
>> at last count we're dropped down from 13 to 11. so we have been making headway in getting in with the central services into these towns and by using our aot resources to actually get roadways into these towns so we have an avenue of ingress and egress.
>> do you have communication with most of the folks who are waiting for help? are any of their circumstances dire or they all doing well but in place?
>> as you can imagine, that runs the gamut. we have some type of communication. what we've been trying to do is utilizing all our available resource. for instance, we had 120 troopers out today in the areas, making contact with people. going door-to-door and making welfare checks. just trying to make sure that we're doing what we need to do to help these people sustain their current efforts and get into them and give them an access.
>> do you need help? do you have all the people and equipment you need?
>> our federal partners, fema, have been extremely helpful in working this. not only by matching resources but also helping in the planning areas . we're resilient people here in vermont. we take pride in helping each other and helping ourselves. we're doing well in that along with our federal partnership.
>> well we're all watching this, commissioner, pretty much aghast as to what has happened to that great state. wishing we could do more and wishing you the very best.