Providence Baptist Church Annex Building

Opelika, Alabama

12:58 P.M. CST

THE PRESIDENT: I just want to thank everybody. It’s been an incredible ordeal, what you’ve gone through. The first responders have been — so many first responders right here, and you’ve been incredible. Law enforcement has been incredible. And, frankly, you didn’t need law enforcement, but they’ve done it so great. They all just chipped in and helped everybody. It’s love. It’s great love.

Your governor is here with us, your senators are here right now with us, and Secretary Nielsen — and we’ve just said the A-plus job. We’re going to take care of — FEMA is here and doing an incredible job. I think you know that. And we said we’re going to just lay it out. These are incredible people.

We just met some of the survivors and family members, and what they’ve been through is incredible. One woman lost 10 people in her family, and — an incredible woman. And she — I said, “How — how did it go?” She said, “I lost 10. Ten people.” And a couple of others lost two and three. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I just want to thank you. On behalf of the First Lady and myself, I want to thank you for the job you do. You’re incredible people. We couldn’t get here fast enough. I wanted to come the day it happened, but I spoke with the Governor, and she said, “Just give us a little more time. We need a little more time.”

And already, the job is really great — the job you’ve done. So thank you very much. FEMA is laying it out. They’re all here. They’re all heart. A lot of folks coming in. A lot of folks coming in. And so, Secretary, I want to thank you for a great job, and thank all of the folks at FEMA. And tell them to stay as long as they have to stay, whatever it is.

Also a lot of the folks get aid, and we’re providing all of the aid. So you’ll see the FEMA people; let them know as soon as you can so they know that, because a lot of people don’t know that. And they really need aid, in this case.

And, again, we love you all. We thank you all. We love the state of Alabama. Georgia got hit a little bit, and we’re going to be talking about that later. We met the Governor; we met with Brian a little while ago. He’s very engaged, I can tell you that.

Thank you very much everybody on behalf of the country and on behalf of the United States. We want to thank you very much. (Applause.)

END

1:00 P.M. CST