Transcript: Palm Springs, California, Mayor Grace Garner on "Face the Nation," August 20, 2023

The following is a transcript of an interview with Grace Garner, mayor of Palm Springs, California, that aired on "Face the Nation" on August 20, 2023.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to the mayor of Palm Springs, Grace Garner. Good morning to you. 

MAYOR GRACE GARNER: Good morning. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: In California, I know you know this, but you are in this line of this tropical storm, which for people at home, this is very, very unusual for a desert city like yours. How are you preparing?

MAYOR GARNER: Well, in 2019, we had another storm and it caused great amount of flooding, we had just a little less than four inches at that time. So we're a bit lucky in this sense, because we now know where our weak points are. We were able to prepare sandbags. Over 60,000 sandbags were distributed, 300 tons of dirt. I was out with residents yesterday helping fill sandbags, to just make sure that people are prepared to prevent any flooding into their homes. We have public safety personnel that were clearing storm drains and making sure that any areas in our city that needed support had it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So there have been warnings about staying off highways. Are you asking residents to consider evacuation or just stay put?

MAYOR GARNER: At this point, we're asking residents to stay inside, stay where they are. We don't have any reason to evacuate at this time. We have closed down preemptively three of our roads that are regularly flooded. That's our- our three main arteries into our city, which is part of the reason that we've been working very hard to build bridges in these areas and requesting federal and state funds for that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor Newsom has a state of emergency. Do you have what you need from the state?

MAYOR GARNER: At this point, we have what we need. We've been working with the county, with the state. And we've had- we have robust resources. We're very grateful for everyone's quick response. We feel good about- about what we're looking at right now. It's drizzling outside, as if it stays just this very light drizzle will definitely be okay. But we do know that there's going to be flooding, because like I said, even an inch or two of rain in the desert and cause damage.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Is one of the concerns power outages? I know it's still summer, it's still the desert, that would cause some extreme heat to become that much more uncomfortable, potentially.

MAYOR GARNER: There's always the potential for power outages when we're dealing with a storm and heat. Of course the temperature is way down right now. I think it's- it's under 80 degrees at the moment because of the storm and our utility providers working really hard to prevent any outages. And if there are any downed lines or any outages that residents experience, they should contact our Southern California Edison as quickly as possible.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, Madam Mayor, thank you for your time and good luck. Face the Nation will be back in one minute.