FEMA responds to flooding and aftermath from Hurricane Francine

AccuWeather

AccuWeather spoke with FEMA's acting Deputy Director of Response and Recovery to learn how the agency is responding in the immediate aftermath of Francine.

Transcript

00:00It is less than 24 hours since Hurricane Francine made landfall. That was about, what, 20 hours ago

00:06or so. And already this afternoon, FEMA's response team, including FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell,

00:12has been on the ground in Louisiana. Leilani Stansby is FEMA's Acting Deputy Director of

00:19Response and Recovery. Thank you so much for joining us. Could you describe some of the

00:23impacts from Hurricane Francine that your team is dealing with? Sure. Thanks so much for having

00:29me today. I would say, first and foremost, we just want to say that our thoughts are with

00:33everybody impacted by this storm. You know, we know that there have been significant impacts

00:40on the ground. There's a large amount of standing water. And as you mentioned, hundreds of thousands

00:46of people are currently without power. Our administrator actually traveled down to Louisiana

00:53today to see firsthand those damages. As roads are continued to be clear and we get a better

01:00picture of the situation on the ground. And what are FEMA's response efforts? What are the greatest

01:06needs and how will FEMA help in this case? Well, FEMA stands ready in support of our state and

01:13local partners to any disaster, including this one. Prior to the storm, we actually deployed search

01:19and rescue teams, incident management teams and power restoration teams just to make sure that

01:25we had the resources that were ready to go at a moment's notice as soon as the storm passed.

01:30Those teams are certainly being put to use. We're, you know, working hand in hand to make sure that

01:37as the state is clearing roads, we get a better understanding of what the situation looks like.

01:43And if those search and rescue assets or certainly power restoration, you know,

01:47those will continue to be ongoing as we go forward over the next couple of days. It really

01:53is still very much an evolving situation. And so we have to make sure that we're really prioritizing

01:58life safety at this stage of the disaster. And this was our third U.S. landfall so far this year.

02:05And we're dealing with still plenty of time to come with potential for additional impacts from

02:10other storms. So is FEMA prepared for more possible hurricanes in the coming days and weeks?

02:16Absolutely. You know, FEMA was built for this. You know, we really make sure that we do everything

02:22that we can to be ready for the current storm and anything that comes along with us. It's a

02:28real partnership with our state and local partners, as well as, you know, with our federal

02:34partners. As you can see behind me here right now, we have our National Response Coordination

02:38Center set up. And that's full of partners from across the federal interagency so that we can

02:45bring the full breadth of the federal government, you know, to help states and locals and people

02:51who are in need for this disaster and any to come.

02:54Well, thank you so much for your time, Leilani Stansby,

02:57Acting Deputy Director of Response and Recovery with FEMA.

03:02Thanks for having me.

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