[inaudible conversations] good morning everyone. The committee will come to orde order. We are here this morning to review ongoing Recovery Efforts in puerto rico and the Virgin Islands in weeks of Hurricane Irma. We are now over two months removed from when Hurricane Irma devastated st. Thomas and st. John on september 6. Its been nearly 60 days since Hurricane Maria hit st. Croix and puerto rico. This is a little over a week ago that senators cassidys, franken and i, along with senator carper who was just here and senator harris as well as some of our house colleagues visited both st. Thomas and puerto rico. I want to thank both governors, the governor or cello for your hospitality, the time that you gave us during that visit was incredibly important for all of us to see to be on the ground and to be hearing directly from you. I know that some other members of our committee have traveled to puerto rico previously and i thank them for that as well. What i think we observed is that the
Premarket. S p nasdaq download were as well. Lauren stocks under pressure. The euro rallying papers with me in london down 1. 5 , a 2 decline in germany with the dax. Cheryl reaction to the north korean lunch with talks in japan. The nikkei down almost half a percent. As you can see in south korea the kospi file point to 3 . Fbn am starts right now. Train 3501 am in new york. Tuesday, august 29th. Good morning. Im lauren simonetti. Cheryl good morning, everyone. Im cheryl casone. Lauren Tropical Storm harvey back in. Before it moves onto louisiana appeared causing devastating flooding. Looking at the rescue effort. Officials say nine people appeared to have died. 30,000 needing shelter. Topping 3000. There were 56,000 911 calls in houston alone between saturday and sunday. President trump will travel today to survey the damage. Train to take a look at the National Hurricane center. This shows the probable paths of the monster storm expected to make another landfall tomorrow morning her
Its a dynamic situation. We continue to track everything going on not only in beaumont, texas where we have serious operations taking place for search and rescue in life sustainment. We have had a number of evacuations around the Chemical Plant last night. We were able to evacuate about a mile and a half radius around the Chemical Plant to make sure people were safe in anticipation of any problems. We continue to push the lifesaving operations. We are continuing to evacuate people out of areas where the rivers have not receded yet. In some cases, today and tomorrow, they may be cresting. The Shelter Mission is the biggest battle we have now as well. We have rolled out a tremendous number of assets to support the lifesustaining mission and shelters. Shelters are never an ideal situation. We are throwing everything we can at them. Its not just from the federal government standpoint but here again, his neighbor helping neighbor. We had a determined this meant of people stepping up to volu
Senator mccaskill is with him in missouri. We want to send her thoughts and prayers. , he had amentioned massive heart attack, i think it was an internal did did you later that may have say defibrilator that may have saved his life. Keep them in our thoughts. I want to thank our witnesses, not only for being testimony, but for the last two and a half months. I have been to femas response center. I have talked to the men and women working with you. Doing an extraordinary job, working 12 hour shifts for weeks, months on end. This has been unprecedented. Withing in late august harvey, then irma and maria, we have not seen anything like this. I think it is heartening, really. After katrina, the lessons put into place to great effect. Have hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude, you cant just snap your fingers and make it well again. This is going to be a recovery effort that goes on for years. Recovery effort has been extraordinary. I think the men and women that work with you in your
Are echoing a similar sentiments. Some calling it cowardly, devastating, and one tweeting, new york, we are with you. That from arizona congressman, paul gosar. Earlier today, fema administrator brock long testified before a Senate Committee looking into the agencys response to hurricanes arm a and maria and puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands. Where millions remained without power and fresh water months later. The Senate Homeland security and Governmental Affairs committees runs about one hour and a half. This hearing has come to order. On the one hand, it is nice to see senator carper acting as my Ranking Member. But the circumstances are unfortunate, to say the least. Senator mccaskills husband is in the icu. Senator mccaskill is with him in missouri. We want to send her thoughts and send them our thoughts and prayers. I just mentioned, he had a massive heart attack, i think it was an internal did did you later that may have say defibrilator that may have saved his life. There