the air to see what additional resources would be needed. here's the latest briefing from fema on hurricane irma recovery efforts with administrator brock long and acting homeland security secretary elaine duke. >> good morning, everyone. and thank you for joining us. to continue as we continue to respond to hurricane irma. our number one concern today is with saving lives. the u.s. coast guard, customs and border protection, and department of defense have deployed significant assets to the area to assess in search-and-rescue efforts. we are very pleased that the weather is allowing this effort on search-and-rescue. we are constrained by deiography, and our bases of operations are more limited than our response to hurricane harvey. yet we are working to get as many aircraft in the air as possible. i urge everyone impacted by the storm to continue to pay attention to your state and local officials. they will let you know when it's safe to hurricane home. be patient. the federal government effort is working closely with our state and local partners in our response and recovery efforts. i would like to thank president trump and vice president pence for their attention to this storm, and their concern for communities that are affected. the white house and the entire cabinet have been very supportive of the first responders and the survivors of hurricane irma. a storm this magnitude needs a team effort, and we've seen tremendous response from our federal partners. nearly 22,000 federal personnel are already on the front lines, and more continue to deploy. we face a long and challenging road ahead. but the department of homeland security, our federal, state, tribal, and local partners will continue to stand with the people affected by the storm. whether you are in florida, georgia, south carolina, puerto rico or the u.s. virgin islands, we are here for you, and we are here for the long haul. while we are ramping up operations in florida, for those of you in texas and louisiana affected by harvey, we are still with you. i actually spoke to governor abbott yesterday, and will continue to support the state rebuilding efforts. i would now like to introduce chris crabs, the assistant seg for infrastructure for texture at dhs who is currently running our international programs direct hatd. he will talk to you about power, water, and communications in florida. thank you. >> good morning. thank you madam secretary. very briefly, on the ground in florida, we are looking at a little over five to six million customers without power. that translates to about 15 million people without power. department of homeland security is working very closely with the department of energy and the local utilities to get the crews back in there, do damage assess its, clean up debris and hang new lines. i do ask everyone to have patience, this is going to take some time to restore. in some circumstances it will be a situation about rebuilding. hurricane force winds can i go saptdly damage infrastructure. those crews are still down there right now getting a sense of what is going on on the ground. now w power out, power pretty much drives everything. lights are out. there may be impacts on local water and wastewater treatment facilities. most of those facilities should have ven rater and fuel supplies for a number of days. however, it is a priority once it's safe to re-enter -- it is a priority to get those electricity crews back in on the ground. communications is also an issue, particularly down in the virgin islands. in florida there is some cell service disruption and maybe some wire line disruption as well. again, same thing applies, as soon as it's safe those crews will be back in there. they were doing damage assess mepts late yesterday and into today. hurricane hare reand irma are linked with harvey we had a significant am of the nation's refining capacity off line as well as distribution through some of the pipelines in the southeast. as a result there may be fuel supply shortages throughout the see. that's why last week the secretary issued a jones act waver to allow easier distribution of fuel throughout some of those ports throughout. so i do ask everyone to have patience. we are getting on this quickly. and we'll be here to answer questions. thank you. >> all right. good morning, everyone. so it's very clear to all of us that the president's goal is to take care of people. and you know, this is a unique event compared to what harvey was. harvey's damage airs were combined -- confined, excuse me, to about 50 counties within texas and a few in louisiana this. one is complex because of the multiple states involved. we also have the seminole tribe that comes directly to fema for support, and then also our partners in the u.s. virgin islands as well as puerto rico. during a complex event like this it's very important to double down on communications what we are doing is to make sure we have clear lines of communication not only with our governor but the state division of emergency management a well including our tribal partners in the seminole tribe. we will continue to do that. as the secretary and chris crabs have both said it is going to be a frustrating event it' going the take time to allow people back into their homes in the florida keys. monroe county took the brunt of the hit and the majority of homes have been impacted with several destroyed and many more with major damage. we are having to go down and make sure it is a safe place for people to return so that we don't have loss of life after irma passes through. the bottom line is is that later today i will be headed to puerto rico in the u.s. virgin islands to meet with both governors to make sure that we are on the correct pathway to recovery there. obviously power restoration is one of the biggest goals, along with -- you know, power restoration is the largest goal right now in puerto rico. there were over a million people without power. we have made a lot of progress and that's down to around 300,000. that will continue to improve. for the u.s. virgin islands we are directly working with the governor to understand his issues as well. obviously we want to make sure safety and security is upheld. we are continuing to work with him to roll in military police through our national guard partners to those islands to ensure safety and security. we are also pushing a lot of commodities forward. we have established air bridges through our partners with the d.o.d. and the navy, with the ships that are offshore there. and we continue to understand the life sustainment missions to support our partners in the virgin islands. moving to the continental united states, the president as you all know moved very quickly to put forward presidential disaster irgs dla. it's very important specifically in florida right now. the county's under individual assistance declarations there is quite a few. i want the read those. broward county, palm beach, clay, duvall, flagler, putnam, st. john's charlotte, collier, holidays borrow, lee, manti. miami-dade, monroe, pinella, sarasota. these counties right now if you are a citizen in those counties you can go to disaster assistance.gov to begin registering for assistance if you are received damages and are having hardship. in some cases the first line of defense is fill your insurance he when you are allowed to get back home. file your insurance not only your personal insurance but threw the nfip program, the national flad insurance program. if you are a policy holder once you are home call your private insurer to activate that begin process -- begin the process to have money flowing to help you in that regard. the other thing here is that, you know, we're also watching the continuing situation in jacksonville, overnight jacksonville and the areas around the st. john's river were heavily impacted, we're still conducting life safety missions in and around the area because of the flooding. we were very aware of it last night and continuing to support our partners there. again, this issue is passing through, there are large scale power outages and almost a million people in georgia without power today as well. but we have been working with our partners at the department of energy to pre-stage power crews all over the southeastern united states. but let me reiterate, it takes a long time for this infrastructure to come back up. it may take multiple days if not weeks in some areas as we have been saying before the storm hit. so with that, you know, one final graphic that we have up here is our force lay down to show how dynamic this response is. but as i have said and as the secretary reiterated, it's all about communication. clearly identifying how to support our state and local partners. and that is exactly what is taking place as we start to turn the corner and provide a road to on recovery. so with that, we'll open it up to any questions. yes, ma'am. >> so some scientists say these massive storms only get in warmer water linked to climate change. the department of defense has said that the u.s. must pay closer attention to climate change. as the head of the agency who has to response to these sort of massive storms that require your staff to be on 24/7 for days at a time and essentially wipe out the budget, do you feel that the government needs to focus on climate change in a broader way at this point following these storms? >> i think the government needs to definitely focus on disaster resiliency two-fold. the only way we achieve that is that we have to create a true culture of preparedness within our citizenry, we have to help them understand their true vulnerabilities based on where they dwell and where they work, and it's not just getting supplies for three days as many people are learning how important that is, it's also having the savings account for 3 to 6 months to overcome simple emergencies as well as the disaster, to activate insurance mole sis a policies and everything else. when it comes to the infrastructure side, we have to consider best practices when it comes to land use planning in the future. regardless of what caused this disaster, it's our job within the department of home land security and fema to manage the consequences. >> how important do you think it is besides preparedness for these disasters to focus on what is potentially causing these really massive storms? >> we have to understand and we have to look at data to make meaning testimony decisiful dec forward. i think that we can all agree that we do that on a daily basis. that is how we estimate how much power will be knocked out or how many people will be influenced. but here again it goes back to the only way we become resilience is we have to dlaet true cultural preparedness which we don't have and we also have to look at how we go forward when it comes to infrastructure protection. >> i think it is important, we live in a changing world and as the fema administrator said, that we always have to look at not just the response, but the preparedness and resilience. and i think it's important that as we come together as country, we look at the changes in our world and make sure both in planning and response that we are adapting appropriately. >> i mean, i hear you saying about the response and preparedness, but what about the cause? how important do you think it is for government to be focused in on the cause, what might be behind these massive storms? >> you know, the data i don't know what it particularly indicates. we haven't had a major storm like this in quite a while. we knew this was going to be a hard hurricane season. it was predicted by noanoaa. so i would think that our sister agencies in noaa and others are looking at whether this is an anomaly year or a trend year and i think it's important to know that and we will continue working with them as they look at the data and try to determine is this a year of anomaly or a year of trend. [ inaudible question ] >> we likely will be going later this week. what is important is because of the path of the storm, we are just beginning search and rescue in earnest today. and so it's important that that be the singular focus. so we believe that with that starting at sunrise this morning, we should be able to be in the area safely without disrupting any search and rescue later in week. >> yes, ma'am. >> what is the security picture down in puerto rico and florida? are you hearing reports of any looting or any other crimes going on? >> obviously there is social media trending when it comes down to the united states virgin islands, but i've been in close contact with their governor and we are helping him to address some localized issues, but there is not widespread security issues. so we need to -- we have to deconflict some of the rumors that are there, but as i said earlier, we're helping the ghuf to if governor to facilitate mutual aid to bring in military police to make sure that we maintain safety and securities. and i will be there over the next 48 hours to put my eyes on the ground to make sure that we're making progress. >> what is the visibility like in the florida keys, do you know how many people might be needing search and rescue? >> so look, i always -- let me clarify. anytime i start to give specific number, they will change the meant we walk out that door. so some of the initial estimates are, and this is why we ask people to evacuate largely from storm surge, 25% of the houses initially have been destroyed and 65% have major damage. basically every house in the keys was impacted in some way or another. this is why we ask people to leave. regarding fatalities, that is up to the county coroners. i don't want to get in to that number because it's honestly like chasing rabbits. >> are they looking for people? >> absolutely. our partners at the united states coast guard, d.o.d. assets, you know, other partners through customs and border patr patrol, many that are supporting this mission. >> and as i said, this is a more comply indicate response because of the peninsula and the islands. so we are partnering with d.o.d. d.o.d. has provided some sea assets, aircraft carriers that can be used for lanlgdlanding a refueling. we're trying to get the recycle time shorter. we have over 40 helicopters from coast guard operational now. but it is a more complicated response than when you have refueling and landing right near by. so we are vigilant and working on it, that is the focus of today. >> time for one more. >> arir rescues haven't started yet in the keys, right? >> yes, they have. but this is different. in portions, yes. obviously in the u.s. virgin islands and as the -- not only our florida national guard is heavily involved, they have been providing re could yscues, but different than harvey. storm surge i think nundates, d and quickly recedes. so you might not see all the helicopters. we're not plucking people off of their houses. this is not as nearly as big as swift water rescue issue as harvey was. so these two storms are dramatically different and just because you tochbts seedon't se helicopter doesn't mean we're not actively putting forward the missions. >> and i want to end with thanking the industry partners to help with evacuations especially from the partners. we had delta had a charter flight evacuating americans. similarly in harvey, southwest airlines helped us with some of the evacuations out of the area and others. so i wanted to take this moment to thank industry partners for their support, too. >> and one final message. again, like harvey, the whole community will have to come akc around, partners in puerto rico, virgin islands as well as the seminole tribe. the whole community needs to be involved. info at.org and activate your insurance policies and go to disast disaster assis az tanassistance. thank you, folks. a look here at the white house press gallery where in about half an hour, we'll get a briefing on the trump administration's response to hurricanes irma and harvey. also reporter questions about other issues facing the administration. live coverage here on c-span3. while we wait, a look at expected needs from a

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