For a closer look at the federal response to Hurricanes Milton and Helene, we're joined now by Keith Turi,

acting Associate Administrator for Response and Recovery at FEMA.

Thanks for being with us.

So Milton is now the second major hurricane to make landfall

over the past two weeks. What's needed most on the ground right now?

Well right now we're still in a life safety mode as you know the storm did pass

through overnight and most of the weather has cleared but

there's still a range of hazards that are that are out there we've got down power

lines floodwaters that are still rising in some of the rivers and of course issues like power outages

things like that so we're focused primarily on keeping people safe local

official state officials are out doing assessments making sure the roads are

clear making sure it's safe to be in the neighborhoods.

They're going to let people know when they can come back.

But that's really the key thing right now is making sure that everyone follows those directions

and stays safe here for the next couple days

before we get into recovery mode. A question about FEMA's capacity

because according to the New York Times

as of Monday just 9% of FEMA personnel were available to respond to Hurricane Milton.

Is that affecting the relief that you're able to provide to folks on the ground?

No, we have the resources that we need.

That we have a primary cadre of folks that do disaster response

But we also have many other layers of resources we can bring in we have other parts of our workforce that have ability to

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