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no. we re still working very closely with governor abbott and his team in texas and established recovery command over the past week. right now with harvey we re trying to concentrate on helping the state and local governments achieve debris removal. we re trying to also race to figure out temporary housing solutions and we ve been working with the governor to put together a solid plan. the governor also appointed basically a disaster recovery coordinator for the state that we ll be working with and i ve done the same. i have appointed mike burn as the coordinator for texas. texas is a seamless operation right now. and we have the management staff and the capability to begin helping those impacted by harvey with a bridge to recovery and we are laser focused on the life-saving response mission of irma not only in florida but later it ....
Overwhelming thought. let s put this into context. we ve moved response resources out of harvey and established recovery command, working with governor abbott and his tremendous team down there. shifted focus, search and rescue teams to power teams to our incident management staff not only are they in the virgin islands and puerto rico, but they were also embedded in the states within our region four districts. the thing is the damage is going to be widespread because hurricane force winds extend 70 miles from the eye, so we know we are going to have inland impacts as well as coastal impact. it s going to be setting about citizen expectations. the power is going to be off may be days, even weeks in some location. it s going to maximize the life safety message that governor scott s been putting out and making sure we are going to sustain life after the event in multiple dates. ....
The storm approaches? well, so the goal is to get people out of the storm surge areas. you don t want to be in an area that s going to experience storm surge. you have to, so that s the goal. we re not at a refuge. i need to see what happens in the next 24 hours. fema resources have already been focused in on southeast texas, the recovery from hurricane harvey. are we stretched too thin to deal with irma? we re not stretched too thin. we established recovery command in texas, so we have a good footprint to make sure we do everything in texas, start the ....
So how is it looking today? well, we ve established recovery command to help the governor, governor abbott and those local communities to achieve their recovery goals. it s going to be a long recovery for two reasons, one it takes a long time to pick um, the debris and two, it s a very complex mission to get people into transitional housing as they rebuild their lives. my goal is through individual assistance and your housing assistance programs to restore hope and provide them an initial bridge to recovery are. i can t make them whole but we are working around the clock. as of yesterday i think we had over 30,000 federal government workers in texas trying to effect recovery, but the citizens of texas are going to have to be in for the long hall. this is a tough one. for sure. in your experience when people s homes are destroyed, how long does it take them to rebuild and have a sense of normalcy again? well, it depends. ....