Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, tells Morning Edition that disaster response after Helene is not political and that the agency has the funding it needs.
Administrator of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Deanne Criswell speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. Less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated multiple southeast U.S. states, Florida is bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Milton., destroyed thousands of homes and left millions without power in its wake.
Steve Inskeep: I'm looking at the National Hurricane Center maps and trying to calculate where on the coast , and it looked like right now it was going to hit in the area of Tampa right by St. Pete Beach. I mean, areas that have already been devastated once in recent days. How does that complicate things that the area has already been damaged?
Criswell: I can tell you that they have a good relationship with all governors. You know, the disaster response is non-political. It is all about the people. I've talked to Gov. DeSantis, I've talked to all the governors in these impacted states. I continue to reach out to them to check on their progress when it comes to helping people for disasters. They work with me and that's what we need to do right now.
Criswell: We are definitely seeing progress across North Carolina, but they're still the hardest hit areas. And where that last mile of restoration is going to be the most difficult. There's power lines. There's still some water infrastructure in this transmission line. And when you think about the topography in North Carolina, it just makes it that much more difficult to get those final lines, those final water distribution lines restored.
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