FEMA details how they're responding to Helene's catastrophic damage

AccuWeather spoke live with FEMA to hear how the agency is coordinating their resources to respond to Hurricane Helene's widespread destruction.

Transcript

00:00Marty by Monday is senior spokesperson with FEMA. He joins us with the latest

00:04on the federal response to this disaster. Thanks for being with us.

00:12We appreciate your time, sir, so much. And how do you allocate FEMA resources to such a large

00:19area of impact? Well, we we put all resources that we have into this effort. We have more than

00:263,000 FEMA assets throughout the six states. And then we have thousands of others, federal

00:33agencies, search and rescue teams, volunteers. And so we look at those areas where there's

00:41the need. All six states have that great need. And so we are funneling all of those assets

00:47into those areas. And then a lot of local organizations are very helpful in this

00:56response as well. And we work closely with them. But some areas have a lot more

01:02capabilities than others. And so we gauge that. And that's where we surge our resources.

01:08Have you been able to reach communities that are still cut off?

01:11There are areas that we are dealing with that are still cut off because of all the damaged roads.

01:18And so in those cases, we have a large helicopter mission, particularly in North Carolina, where we

01:25are flying in supplies via helicopter on a daily basis to those areas that are cut off so that they

01:31can get those needed commodities in. And how are you coordinating resources

01:38And how are you coordinating resources as you see what is happening on the ground?

01:45Yeah, based on what we're seeing every single day and where we're hearing the specific needs are,

01:52that's where we're targeting those resources. And in those areas, particularly like in North

01:57Carolina, where communications is very difficult, we are flying people into those locations every

02:04single day to scour those communities, meet with those folks that do not have any communication,

02:12finding out what their needs are, and then getting that assistance to them. So it's a

02:16really challenging effort that is not normal in disaster times. But this is what we're presented

02:23with. And we've countered that with helicopter assets and other means to get into these hard

02:30to reach locations. And this is a once in a generation storm. You just mentioned some

02:35challenges. So what other challenges are you facing with residents who need help

02:40and are unable to contact loved ones? Yeah, that's one of the things that, you know,

02:46the American Red Cross is working with these communities and folks in those hard hit areas to

02:55help them reach out to loved ones and creating a database of those people that are missing and

03:01trying to find them in other means. So there's a very strong effort to identify and locate folks

03:07that may just not have been able to reach family because of communications. And they're helping

03:13with that certainly every day to try to make sure that those people are not missing. And if we can't

03:21find them, that's why we are continuing to do search and rescue efforts in those hard impacted

03:26areas. And sir, how do residents seek FEMA assistance? Yeah, there's a number of ways.

03:35If you have communication and you can by telephone, you can call 1-800-621-3362

03:42or go to a disasterassistance.gov. But one of the things that we're having to do in this disaster

03:47is go door to door. So we have thousands of people across all six states going door to door

03:54in these hard hit communities, registering people where they are on the spot in their homes,

04:00because we understand that a lot of them can't get the communications out to make those

04:05applications. So we're going door to door in all of these hard hit communities to make that happen.

04:12Marty Bomondi, senior spokesperson with FEMA. Thanks again for joining us.