and he wanted to talk to local officials in the affected area to find out what they were thinking and he wanted to communicate with them directly. i have to tell you, he s called multiple times a day just into this state, just to find out what s going on in new york. fema, his response agency, has been fantastic. the whole cabinet has really been deployed. so i think he s done this very well. i worked in the clinton administration. i was the hud secretary. hud is one of response agencies. i know what the federal government traditionally does. they re doing an outstanding job in my opinion. what s the top of the priority state for this state in terms of recovery and repair? we have two different types of situation if you will. the situation you re talking about is basically in manhattan. then you have it out of manhattan within the downstate metropolitan area situation. in manhattan, manhattan, as you know, has that elaborate
joining us now is the governor of new york state, andrew cuomo. governor cuomo, thank you very much for taking the time to join us tonight. i know it s a sacrifice for you. no, it s my pleasure to be with you. i understand you just got off the phone with president obama. can i ask what you two are discussing and how the coordination is going? i ll give you three guesses, rachel. he wanted an update on the storm and he wanted to talk to local officials in the affected area to find out what they were thinking and he wanted to communicate with them directly. i have to tell you, he s called multiple times a day just into this state, just to find out what s going on in new york. fema, his response agency, has been fantastic. the whole cabinet has really been deployed. so i think he s done this very well. i worked in the clinton administration. i was the hud secretary. hud is one of response agencies. i know what the federal government traditionally does. they re doing an outstanding j
in my o pinion. what s the top of the priority state for this state in terms of recovery and repair? we have two different types of situation if you will. the situation you re talking about is basically in manhattan. then you have it out of manhattan within the downstate metropolitan area situation. in manhattan, manhattan, as you know, has that elaborate information below ground. and new york does not historically have floods or hurricanes. it s not what we get in this part of the country. so we designed this elaborate infrastructure without really anticipating that you may have water coming over the banks and we ve now flooded the whole tunnel system, road tunnels, subway tunnels, and we have under the, beneath the ground in manhattan, 10, 15, 20 stories of infrastructure. so now we have the novel problem of how do you pump out this