communities. bill: now to kristin fisher live at the white house. tell us what the trump administration is doing and how they re reacting to help people impacted by this storm. good evening to you. reporter: good evening, bill. within the last few hours, president trump has approved a major disaster declaration for the entire state of florida. and what that will do is free up federal funds for state and local authorities to rebuild and repair all of the damaged infrastructure. it ll also free up federal funds for individuals and business owners, things like grants for temporary housing or home repairs, even some low-cost loans to cover perhaps some uninsured property losses. as for exactly how much money we re talking about, too soon to say. president trump says right now they re still focused on saving lives and not how much this hurricane is going to cost. we may have been a little bit lucky in that it went on the west, and it may not have been
possible. it has impacted more than 2,000 square miles with an estimated $2 billion in property losses. at the time the victims frequently urged to seek help. fema assistance is not guaranteed. however, if you don t register, it is guaranteed you won t get assistance. reporter: more than a year after the colorado flood, letters arrived from the federal emergency management agency demanding payback but the long-term flood recovery group for boulder county is still getting new cases from the flood, including people who need help understanding the letters. it is coming at a time where people are still recovering. they re traumatized. they get a letter like this and they re retraumaized. particularly difficult during the holiday season. reporter: fema offered a statement saying in part quote, federal law requires fema and other federal agencies to recover improper payments. total of 249 survivors received recoupment letter from fema which represents only 1.5%. as former head of fem
over. delay, a texas republican, happened to be back on the hill when he got the news today. he said, quote, thank the lord. nearly three years ago a jury found delay guilty of funneling corporate campaign donations through the republican national committee. texas law bans direct corporate contributions to polite k58 campaigns. but the appeals court ruled the prosecution did not prove the money was tainted. prosecutors say they will appeal the state s highest court. now to the historic flooding in colorado. where rescue crews say the emergency response is just about ending there. but the massive cleanup is just beginning. according to reports, property losses have reached nearly $2 billion. in estimated costs so far. officials say at least seven people were killed, an estimated 200 people still missing. two guys from the denver area got a bird s-eye view of the floodwaters over the weekend. they couldn t get the flood zone by car so they did the next best thing. i don t know if this
the winner walking away with about $134 million after taxes. turning to flooding in colorado. officials say property losses from record flooding are approaching $2 billion. more than 7,200 homes and businesses were impacted by the waters. this morning we are learning fewer than 6,000 of those had flood insurance. some residents are being allowed back inside the flood zone. fema is warning locals to try to stay out of any flood waters no matter how shallow fearing pollution. now for the national forecast. bill, good morning. we ve had a low number of billion dollar weather disasters this year. other years we had more. moore oklahoma was our first and now in in colorado is the second one of the year. a couple years ago we had like 15 in one year because we had a lot of hurricanes which we haven t had this season. our friends in mexico are the ones struggling right now. hurricane manuel, this has killed 80 people in mexico and left about 40,000 people
go of some of the hope and the concerns and the hope that perhaps there are children who are alive. he says they don t really think so anymore. it is heartbreaking. dark. quieter. fewer people at the scene. less hope. we are following the story. the country is following the story. u.s. president barack obama signing a disaster declaration for oklahoma, releasing federal aid to the tornado struck state. he spoke with governor mary fallin earlier monday, telling oklahoma is on his and the first lady s thoughts and prayers. the federal funding pledged, grants for temporary housing, home repairs and lope cost loans for uninsured property losses. national weather service has given the tornado a preliminary rating of ef-4. doesn t mean a lot to the rest of us. in fact, wind speeds could be 166, 200 miles an hour. we want to go straight to our meteorologist, ivan cabrera, at cnn weather center. give us a sense what were the