Thats our goal. More from cspan and how they are helping return a sense of normal si. Here is a look. Go ahead and tell us a little bit about femas mission here and how long you have been here since Hurricane Harvey. We got here in texas ton the 27th. A bulk of our team arrived after that. Our goal is they respond to the effects of Hurricane Harvey. There are a lot of things that go into that. A lot of sheltering stuff. There are still people that moved into the recovery phase. They see that their homes have been destroyed. We are here to support the state. This is actually a Disaster Recovery center. What we do here is help people register or answer some of the questions they may have. We understand it can be a very confusing process. Here is where we try to have that face to face interaction they may not be getting online or on the phone to make sure they are getting the right customer service. How many Disaster Relief centers do you have and how big is the staff on hand to handle the volume . I think we are up to 22 Disaster Recovery centers. Yesterday it was 20. So that number is constantly changing. We have about 4,000 people supporting Hurricane Harvey here in texas. That number ebbs and flows. We registered 750,000 survivors. The number of people are helping is significantly higher. We are servicing a variety of the number of People Per Day and where each area is in the Disaster Recovery process. Walk us through what happens when a victim walks tlhrough a Disaster Relief center. They will go in and sit down and ask a couple of basic questions. Are you looking to update your case. Why are you here . How can we help you . They will direct them to a variety of different agencies that exist. So right now we have got two different portions of fema in there. We have our individual assistance which is what most come here looking for. At each of those they can register or update or answer any questions they may have. You can also sit to figure out as they start the Recovery Process, how can they make sure they are at less risk next time. There is also Texas Department of insurance and a number of Disaster Recovery centers they may have, department of Motor Vehicles to help with drivers licenses and things like that. Department of veterans affairs. We also have a large number of representatives here. We really partner together as we look at how to help people recover. To help in the form of grants we can provide 33,300. A lot of people wont come close to that maximum grant. We want to provide as much assistance as we can. They are not talking about it being enough for their recovery. Despite it being business can do a lot of assistance and they with provide low interest disaster loans that will bridge the gap far lot or a lot of peo. We need them to make a decision afterwards. But we need that information to continue with the loan process. It is part of why we partner to make sure they are providing services and answering those questions and helping people figure out the application process. So i think we are talking like the 1. 75 or 2 range. We are talking very low Interest Rates and it depends on the credit score. So once they are registered have their fema number and everything whats the next step . How long is it before they are denied or get assistance . So right now let me back up. The next step is for an inspector to come out and actually look at the damage. We need to make sure the damage they sustained is from the storm but we need to make sure they capture everything accurately. I notice most dont know enough about the damages. Well send an inspector out to make sure they are capturing frg. It is because of sheer volume. On average most disasters is about ten days. We have 750,000 applications in right now. Although we approved 240,000 applications its still a long way to go. The 202,100 inspectors on the ground, thats still a long time frame. Right now that wait is about 30 days. Its part of why we encourage people not to start the clean up process and start cleaning up. You know how quickly mold can grow. And you were saying the amount, the highest amount you can get wont cover everything. So when they in here you talk to them about other prevention plans and medications. Tell us about that. The best way is to have insurance. While we have Homeowners Insurance and renters insurance for a lot of people they dont have flood insurance. That is a huge gap. Homeowners insurance wont cover flood damages. Without that they can be left holding the bag. We also talk about how they can reduce their risk as part of the mitigation table. They can also talk about the Little Things that people can do to reduce their risk or reduce the damages next time this happens. To be elevating utilities to higher location or elevating the entire home or buy outs as they are commonly known. It will be what the state choos to prioritize when the state looks at that. People have become famously aware of the fema trailers. Are they available here . They are not here in texas. We have changed our process sz to make sure it is up to industry standards. We buy the products people would normally buy. One is we want to enpeople to actually rent a property or use the hotel program. Those resources provide a little more wrap around services and the other thing they provide for people is economic influx into the community. If youre staying in a hotel it is pumping money back into the economy. So it is a solution but not for everyone. We have to make a realistic possibility to include space. Theres not a ton of places to put those sorts of things. We have to make sure they are not being put back in a floodplain and they have wastewater and all of these other services most homes are not design today handle designed to handle right after the bat. Right now the state is leading the housing task force. They looking to come up with a solution pretty quickly and make an announcement. There are a lot of options on the table. Is that a separate no. Its part of the same process. We ask them what does their living situation look like. If it is something they can remedy pretty quickly we may look towards the hotel program. If it will be a longer Term Solution then probably rental solution is a lot like that. Fema offers other types of assistance. Yeah. Through our other program because we like using new terms and new acronyms we can help with the contents of your home, clothing, furniture, things like that. We can also help out with medical or dental expenses that you may have occurred after a disaster. When we start having this conversation we want to make sure they understand what types of services well help with and they are telling us the types of damages they sustain. One there are other resources we may be able to help with but also we need to connect them with voluntary groups or other agencies that may be able to help with some of their needs. You are dealing with two major hurricanes. What are some of the challenges with two major hurricanes back to back . Fortunately it is able to handle two catastrophic incidents. Well find similar things out there. Our work force is designed to handle that. Do we have the sheer resources and we are built for this. When we Start Talking about our manpower we have the Search Capacity force where we with look at Partner Agencies to help us and use skill sets they have to providing services to disaster providers. Is there after a certain point where things start winding down . The short answer is well be here as long as the state needs us here and wants us here. People will see shifts in staffing. The Recovery Process is different. It is focused primarily on individuals. Those types of staff will be here. After that we start looking at damage to infrastructure and state and local government. It is a different people to look in. We Start Talking about mitigation. It is different parts of our Partner Agencies that will roll through over the course of a disaster. We dont need search and rescue teams here anymore. As we roll through different types of staff will come in. Also today a form on dmunty. Police commissioner William Branton joins others in a conversation host bid the heritage foundation. You can see it live at 11 00 a. M. Easter online at cspan. Org and streaming on our free cspan radio app. Later today on discussion on education and improving educational equality. We are live with the Congressional Black Caucus starting at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online or on the free cspan radio app. The cspan bus is traveling across the country on our 50 capitals tour. We stopped asking folks blawhat the most important issue in their state . Hi. Im here in dover. I want you to know one of the most important issues in delaware is the three casinos. They have a 43. 5 tax rate. I know officials are lobbying to lower that tax rate. It provides employment for hundreds of people, jobs. Maybe the tax burden could be lowered a little bit on delaware street casinos. Hello. I am a freshman here. I am majoring in nursing. I believe the most important is the dreamers, and fact that they are taking that away. I think its important to let Congress Know that this time they need to look at we are students and americans and we are here to stay. Hello. Im a junior here at delaware state university. I think the leaders should focus on issues like drug abuse. Delaware has a lot of issues with drug abuse and narcotics. I think pharmaceutical companies could do better helping out with issues like that. For me as a student i work in a rehab home. I think it could change a lot with taking more precautions. Hi. My name is emily clark. Im a junior and im 20 years old