Trump: Federal and state officials coordinating well on Hurricane Irma
WASHINGTON — Watching Hurricane Irma sweep across Florida along with the rest of the nation, President Trump on Sunday praised the cooperation of state and federal officials and urged residents to stay out of the way of the deadly storm.
"The bad news is that this is some big monster, but I think we're very well coordinated," Trump told reporters as he returned to the White House from a weekend at Camp David.
Trump, who held hurricane preparation meetings with aides and Cabinet members while staying at the presidential retreat in Maryland, said he hopes most Florida residents have gotten away from Hurricane Irma.
"I hope there aren't too many people in the path," the president said. "You don't want to be in that path. That's a path you don't want to be in. We tried to warn everybody. For the most part, they've left, but that's a bad path to be in."
In addition to the meetings at Camp David, the White House said that Trump has spoken with state and local officials in the region, including the governors of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as Florida.
Also on Sunday, Vice President Pence and other administration officials visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency command center in Washington, D.C. Pence stopped to shake hands with workers, do a television interview and get a progress report from FEMA director Brock Long.
Kathleen Fox, acting deputy administrator of FEMA, said that as of Sunday more than 13,000 people from a variety of federal agencies are positioned in and around Florida. The agencies include the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Small Business Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Some 2.4 million packaged meals and 1.4 million liters of water (much of it in Alabama) have been set aside at Florida’s request, ready for immediate distribution once crews can safely access disaster sites, Fox said. That’s in addition to what the state’s already set aside itself.
“At this point, we have pre-staged as many people and commodities as we are able to,” she said.
Trump, who plans to hold more meetings late Sunday, said he was most worried about the sheer power of the hurricane, and "we're going to see how it's going to play out over the next five or six hours."
While "I think the hard part is now beginning," Trump said he expects to visit Florida "very soon."
He also had no idea how much the disaster will wind up costing: "Right now, we're worried about lives, not cost."
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