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And state officials, and without the right coordination how does that hamper efforts on the ground? oh, you re asking a great question. first of all, what i m seeing so far is coordination is excellent. it s just what we re looking for. what we train for, how we revamped fema, that whole federal side of the system to work with the state and local government. and i m very pleased at what i m seeing. and it is so critical, because if it doesn t work, you see what happens when you have a katrina where that relationship simply was not there. and through the whole system, from the local to the state and state to the federal government. so what i m seeing in this disaster, which is a tough one, this is going to be a difficult, difficult recovery and a difficult response. so i m very pleased to see what s happening so far. i just hope that it continues as this whole thing plays out. arthel: yeah. definitely the residents there need this, the coordination to ....
On the east coast of the united states, but you know that this weekend he has been deeply involved in this. especially with the fema response. at the news conference with texas governor greg abbott, one of the reporters asked could this be katrina ii, the governor said certainly far too early to say anything about that. he gave the president and fema an amrs. + in terms of the fedel response. they ve prepositioned assets, food, medical supplies and other vehicles throughout the area. as soon as the storm has passed, and there are calls, of course, for more air assets, as we ve heard. the president in his usa cap returning to the white house. he will certainly stay on top of the situation, as you see barron coming down and the first lady, melania trump. the president, as we have reported, traveling to texas on tuesday. certainly wanted to delay that not just because of the weather. you may not even be able to land there because the two airports ....
Setting up offices to put everybody in the same room, the red cross, insurance companies, fema, need relief people flood relief people. almost like a one-stop shop. and we started that, actually, after katrina. and it s been carried on. and so you ll see those sites being set up, and there ll be computers there for people to self-register, there ll be people that can help them, and those will be set up in a couple days. so, you know, within the storm is still going on. [laughter] it s still raining. and the flood waters are still rising. so they re still in a response mode right now. and, but the recovery piece will happen very shortly. arthel: yeah. i hope they re able to get the assistance that they need, because that is very, very tricky, very, very important to those families and residents and building businesses down there. david, former fema chief and partner of global emergency solutions. eric: you know, some of the most incredible images of the devastation from the storm ha ....
Continue to run smoothly. we ve got fema saying they re going to be there for years to come. how long do you think this might be and what will fema be involved in during that time? well, the reason he s saying for years is because all of these infrastructure issues that fema supports through the disaster relief fund takes years to rebuild. i mean, you re talking roads and bridges and sewer systems and water systems, and if the electric company is publicly owned, that falls under fema s purview also. so brock long is correct, it is going to take a long, long time to recover. i mean, we saw it in andrew, you know, years down there. and we saw it in katrina. arthel: quickly, you know, a lot of people are going to be depending on money from fema afterwards. is there any way to the make that easy? it s really difficult to get through fema and to get those funds to the people who need them. well, what they will be doing as soon as they can find the right places is they ll be ....
Joins us and evan seeing freed, a gop strategist. evan, it s very early. critics saying this ll be a test of the trump administration and fema and not to have another katrina ii, which was a question asked of greg abbott during the news conference. is that fair? considering the fact that in these type of cases usually the first response, the immediate response are state and local officials? i think there is some fairness, but let s look at whatsoever has happened. the president and fema, with director long, have absolutely been on top of this from day one. they understood the severity of harvey, and they knew that they should be there and be willing to assist at any point. the state, local and federal response, they ve all been working together which is what normally cripples responses and happened in katrina where all sides weren t even talking to one another. i think president trump is also acutely aware that katrina absolutely crippled president bush s legacy or administration ....