infrastructure going in. that s what we re working on right there as well as building a commonwealth and a municipal capability and emergency management that did not exist before the storm. understood. but when you say that those four legs all have to operate well, do you think that the federal government did all it could in maria? i m asking because we haven t gotten to you since the death toll went up. as you know it s 46 times what the government said originally. there were 2,975 people killed in puerto rico as a result of maria and so is there anything that fema and the federal government could have done better? that s a great question. you know, look, we threw as much as we could towards puerto rico as possible within fema. if you look at the numbers like not only the response dollars that went in, the amount of staff that was put into puerto rico from this agency and across the federal government was higher than any other of the disasters we ve worked last year. you know, we
you will apply this week? proper emergency response and recovery takes the whole community and emergency management is like a chair with four legs, i have said this many times. the four legs represent, first, one leg is the federal government, the second leg is state and local governments, the third leg is going to be the private sector nongovernmental organizations and the fourth sector is the citizen. if all four legs of that chair are present going into the response and recovery then the disaster goes really well, like we saw in harvey and irma. when any one of those legs is missing, the disaster doesn t go nearly as well as we would like it to and that s what we saw in maria. what we re having to do is make sure that, one, we re getting ready to pump 50 you know, possibly $50 billion of fema tax paying dollars into puerto rico. so never before has there been a better opportunity for puerto rico and the commonwealth to become more disaster resilient and economically viable. what
storm, particularly get out of the areas that are vulnerable to coastal storm surge inundation and get into a facility that can withstand the winds, why he. understood. you will be briefing president trump this morning, what are you going to tell him? i spoke to him yesterday and will update him again this afternoon as well. secretary nielsen and i will be updating him later this afternoon. bottom line is how we re pre-positioned, if there s any any issues that we need to help our state partners overcome. proper disaster response is one that s locally executed, state managed and federal supported. what we do and i ve spoken to all three governs from south carolina to virginia as well yesterday to make sure we understand their response and recovery goals and how best to support the efforts that are under way. pre-position thing obviously we ve learned is so vital. i don t have to tell you how bad last year was in terms of hurricanes, harvey in houston, irma in the florida keys a