MSNBC Scarborough Country - Transcript

MSNBC
SHOW: SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY 22:00

September 10, 2004 Friday

HEADLINE: SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY For September 10, 2004

BYLINE: Joe Scarborough

GUESTS: David Dreier; Mario Diaz-Balart; Jim Davis; Robert Jensen; Bob Kohn; Bernard Goldberg

BODY:

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REP. MARIO DIAZ-BALART ®, FLORIDA: Well, Joe, I think the state has done an incredible job preparing for this storm.

I think if anybody had forgotten the lessons of Andrew, I think the last two storms pretty much reminded us rather quickly that this is a serious ordeal.

SCARBOROUGH: But how is Miami and how is Florida going to handle the third hit in a month? That's got to be devastating.

DIAZ-BALART: I know that, and particularly those people who have gotten hit twice in central, central-west Florida, that-look, the long-term impact-obviously, the short-term impact, which is not that short, because the recovery is not a short deal. It takes month, sometimes years, to get over economically and emotionally. It's such a huge trauma.

But also for the state economy, for the insurance-the situation in the state of Florida. You can't have a viable economy without a viable insurance industry. And the problem is going to be not only the cost of property insurance for winds, but also the availability of insurance. Look, but Florida will survive. We will prosper. We will do well. We're led by a great governor, by the way, who has done an incredible job. And I'm extremely grateful to have Governor Bush.

And also, I think we have to be very grateful to the federal government for the way that it has responded. The president has been here personally. And you are starting to see the relief effort, but, again, as you said, look, you know, we hope this third one doesn't come, because this is an animal. This is a beast. This is a horrible storm.

SCARBOROUGH: Yes. I'll tell you, this one is looking big, 150 miles an hour. It's a Category 4. It could morph into a Category 5. We all know that as it gets into the Gulf, sometimes it heats up, speeds up.

Jim Davis, talking about governors, a lot of people are saying they want you to run for governor in a few years. Tell me, how in the world can the state of Florida handle this third storm? Isn't it not only going to bring about destruction to property and to people's lives, but also economic devastation? Isn't this is a nightmare for the state of Florida?

REP. JIM DAVIS (D), FLORIDA: Well, it's too soon to judge the economic impact.

But it's first things first, Joe. We are a very resilient lot in Florida and we'll get through this. But people are tired. They're worn out. And a lot of things have been put on hold. School has been canceled Monday. I'm going to get plywood early in the morning to put on my house. And people are getting ready for this.

SCARBOROUGH: Yes.

DAVIS: But you just do what you got to do. One of the things that binds us together as Floridians is that we appreciate and respect Mother Nature.

SCARBOROUGH: So what do we do economically in the state of Florida? Is the government going to have to handle this, come in and help out on the insurance issues? Is the state of Florida going to handle it? How do you handle a crisis like this, because you basically can't buy insurance in the future?

DAVIS: Well, no.

As Mario pointed out, after Hurricane Andrew, the state of Florida set up a trust fund that provides insurance as a last resort. And it can raise the cost of insurance in all products, automobile, malpractice liability if this fund gets short of money. So there will be a basis to fund it, but it may drive insurance costs up. There will be a special session of the legislature later this year. The legislature will have to address some state issues.

And one of the issues we a Floridians I think will raise again in Washington is whether the federal government ought to provide some sort of catastrophic fund not just for Florida, for other states. We have had an unprecedented number of natural disasters this year, just 10 alone in the month of August. It is why FEMA ran out of money a few days ago.

SCARBOROUGH: All right, Congressman, thanks so much.

I appreciate both of you being here tonight. And I want to ask you, we are going to be staying on this story all weekend. I would love for you all to come back in and give us an update. But we wanted to get you here tonight just to tell people what's going on out there.

Congressman Diaz-Balart, thank you.

Congressman Jim Davis, we appreciate you being in SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.

Be safe down there. And I'm going to be giving you a call tomorrow.

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