Page 114 - Disaster Declaration News Today

Out west. president trump signed the disaster declaration last week, but its almost certain more funds will be needed after irma. joining me now is jeh johnson, former secretary of homeland security for president obama. secretary, thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me on . good to have you. looking from the destruction from hurricane harvey and irma and wildfires from a homeland security perspective what should you happening now? >> important to remember response to natural disa...

Passage of irma. thank you for calling in and letting us know. we hope that when the sun comes up and you can see whats going on, you will have discovered things are as good as you think they are right now. >> im hoping so. thank you. >> thank you, mayor. joining me now is former fema spokesperson daniel watson. good evening. how are you tonight? >> good evening. im good. how are you? >> relieved. is your assessment that this -- obviously, this was a better outcome than people had anticipated....

Its basically nice out and one of the things you see in the formation of that and bill can speak to this it was a very well-formed storm for a long time and its sort of broken up so the northern part of the storm is bringing in all of that wind and rain. the back side is pretty calm. the problem here that bill was talking to and its something i worry about, sort of viscerally is that folks in naples are going to say, oh, its fine and head toward their property thats along the beach as the storm ...

Circumstances. what you saw was a category ef2, maybe small ef3 that lasted a long time. i think, chris, i truly believe where you were -- i believe its probably even a microclimate that, yes, you had winds but the buildings that you were in were so good and so strong that when you get a away from there and you get into the areas that may be manufactured homes or prefab homes or even into the mobile home communities, youre going to see a whole different level of damage. >> reporter: well, as soo...

Everybody will deal with that in the day to come. but in this moment now, almost 2.5 million people are without power, 70,000 are holed up in shelters, who knows how many are sheltering in place. the miami-dade school district is saying they are closed until further notice. the president of the united states has already signed a disaster declaration for florida. and thats not just recognition that theres a bad storm. any knew it. the president knew it. the white house is well aware. its showing ...

Supplies, fema has moved supplies in. what we changed our philosophy in katrina instead of waiting for the local community before state steps in, wait for the state before the federal government steps in, we convinced president bush to allow us to do a disaster declaration prior to landfall, so any damage, we did disaster declaration, that allowed fema to spend money in disaster relief fund to move supplies early and craig did extended example and brock long, new fema administrator is using the ...

Coast. so youre planning for all three. what is the very latest? >> so, any time you sigh the forecast track in the air cone. when the center of circulation travels inside that air cone is a good forecast. the message is to pinpoint where it ask going to make landfall is nearly impossible. the states of florida, georgia, south carolina, and north carolina all need to be monitoring this closely. we are already in good communication with all of those states and working with them to be prepared. ai...

Stations. our friends to the north in broward county have 43 shelters that can shelter about 33,000 people. statewide, the governor of this state has issued disaster declaration for all 67 counties and tapped into all 7,000 national guard members and all of their assets and resource capabilities. alisyn? >> rosa, thank you very much. you saw the lines of the traffic there. for a lot of people the calculation becomes is it worth the time to evacuate. that is a choice that often comes with big con...

Now, just north of here in the next county, theres about 43 shelters there on the ready. ready to take up to 33,000 people into shelter. the and then saidwide, the governor of this state, rick scott, has issued a disaster declaration for all 67 counties, and hes also tapped into all 7,000 national guard members. and all of their assets, and response capabilities. were talking about high water vehicles. boats, helicopters, just to maim a few. florida hunkering down and making sure people know thi...

Texas, hadnt met with the governor of texas and relief workers. if he had stayed in d.c. which is what some liberals were beg ging him to do to criticize him for that. he does plenty of things where he hurts himself. this is not one of them and for the people looking for drama and trying to exploit political division for their own gain, shame on them. >> lets be honest anything that president trump does he is going to be criticized. thats the way this president is covered by the media. >> someti...