Tom Ridge Local Quotations

We're going to continue the convoy of food and water, particularly water and ice, over the next several days, ... We are working with the state and local communities to determine the debris removal needs and we're prepared to do everything we can to accelerate that process.

God forbid, there may come a time when the local authorities or national authorities will tell you that you've got to use them. But for the time being, we just don't want folks sealing up their doors or sealing up their windows,

Our goal is to deter any potential attack with multiple layers of security and, based on what I have seen and heard, I can tell you that the security plans and arrangements and commitment of federal, state and local officials is very, very strong,

We'll want them to pull in all that information and sort it out between rumor and suspicion and fact and speculation and misinformation and do an assessment, do an analysis and then communicate it -- if it's a real threat -- communicate that to state and local governments,

When our incident management team and our coordination center was notified (of the explosion), within in a very short period of time ... we knew what was going on at the local (and) state level, ... We engaged immediately in conversations with the Coast Guard, the EPA, the Health and Human Services.

It's a national effort grounded in the knowledge that states and local agencies play the primary role in emergency response.