On why the flood in Nashville hasn’t received much press or administration attention:

Well, I think I can understand the politics of it. The other issues, of course, on the plate at the time were New York — the bombing — and New Orleans [the oil spill]. New York is sort of an act of war, which always trumps everything. And New Orleans looked like it was going to be an unusual historic catastrophe . . . where you destroy the whole Gulf Coast and the damage will last for decades.
Now, floods are awful, a lot of people here died, but they happen often. You have the Red River, you have the Mississippi. It’s not as though we don’t have experience with it. It’s not historic in that way.
If I lived in Nashville, I wouldn’t be in any way sympathetic to the administration for ignoring it in some way. But I can understand why in the politics of it — it’s something you think you can get a handle on without it becoming a national emergency