BY ALYSSA CARTEE

You're watching multisource politics news analysis from Newsy.

This week in Sunday talk shows, all eyes-- on Irene.  Sunday morning officials downgraded the hurricane-- to a tropical storm.

The Director of the National Hurricane Center tells CNN’s Candy Crowley-- that doesn’t necessarily mean Irene will cause less damage.

Bill Read:  “We’ve lowered the naming down to a tropical storm but as you can see, as you were just showing, the impacts don’t change.  The title flood is underway, the huge waves on the beaches is underway, the river flooding and rain flooding is underway and the power outages are underway. That will not change.”

Many politicians dealing directly with the storm appeared to talk about their concerns.

NJ GOV. CHRISTIE ( R): “Flooding is going to be the big problem.  Candy, we’ve had the wettest August in New Jersey history before Hurricane Irene.”

VA GOV. MCDONNELL ( R):  “It’s the second largest power outage in the history of the state.  A million customers means about 2 and a half million people without power so that’s going to be our biggest concern I think going forward.”

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D): “We don’t want people to be deceived by what might still appear to just be a little rain outside. There’s more rain to come and winds of upwards of 50 miles an hour with gusts of maybe 65 miles an hour.  So this storm is not over and the after effect can be just as difficult as what we saw overnight.”


(SWV_0828Sunday_BookerNBC)  (1:35 - 1:54)
Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D):  “I’m very concerned in our country that we have not been investing in infrastructure like we need to.  We’re seeing in the city of Newark lots of flooding and problems because our infrastructure is getting very aged and we haven’t had the kind of investment or the resources to put the investment into it to keep our infrastructure strong and safe.”

With the end of the fiscal year drawing closer, cost has been a major political concern.  FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate tells Fox News Sunday how the government is able to afford Irene recovery costs.

“What we are looking at is making sure we had enough reserves in the relief fund to continue  responding to disasters so we are able to continue the response to these current disasters such as Irene as well as the existing ones.  And we are very closely looking at numbers for what it’s gonna take depending on the damage as we get through Irene, what it will take the rest of this year but also for the impacts of Irene for next year.”

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley applauds FEMA for helping his state deal so well with the storm.

“The good news is this, because of FEMA’s partnership, because people listened we were able to avoid any big problems in terms of threats to lives and to public safety. **FLASH** This is a much better FEMA than the olden days.”

But GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul disagrees -- strongly.

"It's a system of bureaucratic central economic planning, which is a fallacy that is deeply flawed."

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile says FEMA’s improvements since Hurricane Katrina-- can be credited to President Barack Obama’s administration.

“But the fact is the administration was on top of the federal agency, cabinet secretaries, the President was basically communicating with the governors to declare state of emergencies, which allow these governors to have the resources and supplies they needed ahead of time. We didn't have that during Katrina.”

To keep up with Tropical Storm Irene and its recovery efforts -- stay with Newsy.
 

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