STEVEN BESHEAR: I
think you'll find
that all of the former governors
that are on the panel today
will tell you that they
experienced an increasing
number of natural disasters
while we were in office.
And I don't think
there's any question
that they're related, at least
in part, to climate change.
My biggest one in
my eight years was
an ice storm that hit
Kentucky in February of 2009.
And it caused every
one of our 120 counties
to be in states of emergency.
It took down all
of our power lines,
took down our telephone lines.
We had no heat, no lights,
and no communication.
And very quickly, we found
out that our hospitals
and our nursing
homes, many of them,
didn't have any
backup generators.
So we literally had
lives on the line.
I mean, kids in neonatal
units, people in nursing homes,
people in intensive care units.
And it highlighted for me
very quickly the communication
that is necessary between
state and federal officials
in an emergency like this.
As a matter of fact,
it highlighted for me
the lack of communication
at times that you find.
