Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas delivered the following remarks at the White House Press Briefing in Washington, DC.
Thank you, Karine, and good afternoon.
Before standing at the podium, I was at FEMA’s National Operations Center being briefed by our personnel as well as state emergency personnel. I thought it very moving and very telling that North Carolina’s Emergency Management director described Hurricane Helene as “catastrophic” and noted the fact that numerous towns situated along the river had virtually disappeared – had been completely destroyed.
In fact, Hurricane Helene is of an historic magnitude. This many states, hit this hard – the wind field of the hurricane stretched 350 miles from its center. More than 100 fatalities have been reported; hundreds and hundreds of homes and businesses destroyed. Our hearts break for those who have lost loved ones and we pray for the swift assistance and rescue of those who are currently missing.
We are in different phases of a post-hurricane environment, depending on the state and the location within the state. In some areas we are still in search and recovery – search and rescue operations. In others, we are in fact in the response and recovery phase.
I thought I would give you some of the latest statistics based on the briefing that I received, and I should say that these numbers are – as you can all well understand – quite dynamic and fluid; they change minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour.
But just as devastating as the hurricane has been, the response of federal, state, and local authorities has been extraordinary. We have more than 2,000 federal [partner] personnel dedicated to this effort on the ground; we have more than 1,200 Urban Search and Rescue personnel. FEMA staff deployed: over 1,200.
Karine mentioned the Major Disaster Declarations and the emergency declarations previously issued – I should note that in the six states most severely impacted, the emergency declarations were issued before the storm hit, and we had thousands of personnel dedicated there.
We have delivered more than 2.6 million Ready-to-Eat Meals, and more than 1 million liters of water.
At its peak, there were 5.1 million customers without power. We have reduced that amount – and not just the federal government, in support of the state and local authorities, but working very closely with the power companies and the other utilities – we have reduced that number of customers without power by 3.8 million people.
And so, the operation is very, very significantly underway. We are working in support of our state and local partners. This is an all-of-government and frankly all-of-community effort.
And with that, I’ll take some questions.