FEMA director says the storm ‘probably’ will be worst disaster Texas has ever seen, and the recovery will take years,
FEMA director says recovery ‘is going to last many years.’
William “Brock” Long, newly installed as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in an interview a few weeks ago that there was one thing that worried him most when it comes to natural disasters: “You know what’s keeping me up at night? This country has not been hit by a major hurricane since 2005.”
That was the right thing to worry about, it turns out. Long, just two months on the job, is coordinating the federal response to Hurricane Harvey — the first Category 3 or greater storm to hit the U.S. in 12 years — and its lethal aftermath.
The storm has produced catastrophic flooding across thousands of square miles of south and southeast Texas. Rain continues to fall in historic quantities. Rivers are rising to levels never before seen. People have taken refuge in attics or on rooftops awaiting rescue.
“This will be a devastating disaster, probably the worst disaster the state’s seen,” Long said Sunday from FEMA headquarters in Washington.
“The recovery to this event is going to last many years, to be able to help Texas and the people impacted by this event achieve a new normal,” Long said.
Long said 5,000 federal employees are in Texas to help with the response to the developing disaster, adding that FEMA’s job is to pitch in when the local and state agencies are overwhelmed — the situation now in Texas. President Donald Trump signed a federal disaster declaration for the state, and Long said that freed him to unify efforts and send in federal resources.
W. Craig Fugate, President Barack Obama’s FEMA director for two terms, said earlier this month that Long’s words about shared responsibility among federal, state and local agencies is an echo of what he advocated when he ran the agency.
Both said something similar: that Americans tend to get complacent about the possibility of a disaster.
“We have a long way to go,” Long said about the nation’s overall disaster readiness.
Harvey is the first major hurricane to hit the U.S. since Wilma in 2005. Earlier that year, Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,800 people, most of them in Louisiana, and swamped much of the city of New Orleans.
FEMA’s initially sluggish and ineffective response to Katrina tarnished the agency’s reputation.
Will this disaster be as bad as Katrina?
“It’s hard to say. This is totally different from Katrina,” Long said, noting Harvey’s unusual pattern, making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, then virtually halting in its tracks not far inland as it dumped vast amounts of rain.
“This is an incredibly unique event,” he said.