Milton response and recovery efforts from FEMA

AccuWeather

FEMA's Acting Director Leiloni Stainsby addresses FEMA's role in their response and recovery efforts in Florida during the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.

Transcript

00:00Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, and Ilani, after Hurricane Milton, what is FEMA's

00:04role right now in Florida? Is search and rescue still continuing? Good morning. Thanks so much

00:12for having me. Our administrator was actually on the ground in Florida prior to Milton making

00:18landfall. She is there now working hand in hand with our senior officials on the ground and with

00:24the state to make sure that we understand the rapidly evolving situation. As you said,

00:30search and rescue is ongoing in each of these communities to make sure that we are prioritizing

00:37life safety, to make sure that everybody in the community is first and foremost safe,

00:44and then we start to understand what the needs are on the ground. At the same time, we have

00:48response and recovery activities happening in every state impacted by Hurricane Helene,

00:55and so we continue to provide assistance in those states as well. And today into the weekend,

01:00where are FEMA teams mobilizing and how will they be helping residents impacted by Milton?

01:07So right now, the priority is absolutely life safety. We had over a thousand staff on the

01:13ground, including our administrator, prior to Milton making landfall, and those staff are

01:19absolutely there to continue to help the community recover from Helene and to assess the damages and

01:25conduct search and rescue to really make sure that we prioritize that life safety while, again,

01:31still making sure that we are supporting disaster survivors from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina,

01:37South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee as well. And let's talk more about Hurricane Helene

01:43what is the latest about FEMA's work on the ground in North Carolina and then some of the

01:48other states you just mentioned, of course, Georgia and the upstate of South Carolina.

01:52Well, in North Carolina, we also still have search and rescue happening on the ground in

01:56some of those communities. Some of the communities are rural and so they are incredibly difficult to

02:02get to on the best days with one lane roads going in and out of communities, and so the search and

02:08rescue teams continue to go through each of those communities methodically to make sure that

02:14everybody who needs assistance is getting the assistance and the life safety that they need.

02:19We're also starting initial recovery, working on things like making sure that survivors register

02:26for disaster assistance at disasterassistance.gov, using the FEMA app, or calling 1-800-621-3362.

02:34That gets an initial assistance out to communities as we start to understand

02:40what the individual needs are. We're also starting to open disaster recovery centers,

02:45which will allow members of the community to actually come to us, tell us what their needs are,

02:50and we can put them in touch with the right resources, either through FEMA or our partners

02:55like the Small Business Administration or voluntary partners who are also there in the communities.

03:01Leilani stands by acting director of response and recovery with FEMA.

03:05Thanks again for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.

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