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