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Briefer: Tony Fratto,

President’s Schedule:

At 9.45 am, President Bush is briefed on the Midwest flooding situations. At 10:20 am, the President meets with the Former Commander of the International Security Assistance Force in the Oval Office of the White House. This afternoon, President Bush will make remarks in honor of Black Music Month.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto will brief the press at 12.30 pm today.

Flooding in the Midwest

Fratto was asked if they know what kind of economical impact this will have; and he said that the President will hear about this in this morning’s meeting and Fratto will get a readout from it that will give us a better view. “Obviously the human cost is something that you cannot put a value on … the impact on agriculture is also very substantial.” It has been a very well integrated effort both on federal and local levels, Fratto said.

The President is traveling to the region on Thursday but no exact itinerary has been announced yet.
When asked about the 27 levees that are said to be at risk, Fratto was questioned about the President’s confidence in the job of the Army Corps of Engineering’s. He responded that the Corps takes this very seriously and maintaining levees around the country is one of their top priorities. We will wait to see what will come out of the meeting and the Corps will report on those levees and the ones that have broken this morning.

When asked about the impact on food cost that are already high, Frattos said that food prices are very volatile and it is too early to speculate, but Ed Lazear of the White House Economical Council as well as the Department of Agriculture are looking at this right now.

Fratto was asked if the President has been told by Administrator Paulison or others, that this flooding is on the scale comparable with Hurricane Katrina, and he responded that he had not heard that comparison. “I am not sure that anyone would make those kinds of comparisons between really different kinds of natural disasters. …It is a very large significant scale affecting tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, and we’ve got life lost and money lost. He continued: “Katrina and the hurricane that followed …was one of the all time unusual natural weather events that this or any country ever had to deal with. This flooding is significant and has been referred to as one in 500-year-flood.” Fratto also said; “I think that the team that is involved in this, clearly learned lots of lessons from Katrina, and I think that those lessons appear to be paying off.”

Furthermore, Fratto talked about the importance of communication, integration and being able to anticipate what the needs are going to be, in dealing any kind of natural disaster.

Israel and Hamas
When asked about a peace agreement between Israel and Hamas, Fratto said that he had not heard that.