JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A major hurricane is headed for Florida's Gulf Coast. And if that sounds familiar, it is. Hurricane Milton went from tropical storm to Category 5 hurricane within two days, and it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday - this under two weeks from when Hurricane Helene also intensified rapidly and caused catastrophic damage across several states. So the Federal Emergency Management Agency is now overseeing disaster response and disaster preparation at once. Craig Fugate is the former FEMA administrator. He joins us now. Welcome.
CRAIG FUGATE: Thanks for having me.
SUMMERS: Craig, I understand you're in Florida yourself. Tell us what it's like there, what you're hearing from public officials, from residents.
FUGATE: Well, right now it's all about evacuation. I'm up in Gainesville, Fla., and you're seeing traffic picking up on the interstates as people head out of that region. But that's really the message right now for everybody that's in the warned area. And, again, this is a much larger area. A lot of people talk about Tampa Bay. It's really much of the west coast of Florida all the way down into Fort Myers. So we're just, you know, encouraging people to heed evacuation orders. Go now. Take your pets with you. Move to higher ground.
SUMMERS: I mean, just looking at the maps, this looks like this impact could be quite significant. I'm curious. Craig, is the cleanup of debris from Helene creating complications in preparing for or evacuating for the next storm, which could be more powerful?
FUGATE: You know, I'm hearing a lot about that, and it will cause more damage. But the reality is we need to focus on life, safety, if people are getting out of those areas. Yes, there'll be more damages, but we would hope as people will get out of those evacuation zones, we won't have a loss of life.
SUMMERS: Now, just last week Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that FEMA - it has enough funding for immediate needs. But with the anticipation of another Hurricane like Milton, he said - and I'm quoting him here - "FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season." What do you make of that?
FUGATE: Well, this is, you know, a lot of budget, you know, discussions. And I think for the public, they need to be assured that FEMA has the money to respond to support the states in these initial responses, but they're going to need more funding to do the rebuilding. So this is a discussion that is something that, you know, you talk about in the budgets, you talk about...
SUMMERS: Yeah.
FUGATE: ...At Congress. But for the people on the ground, this is not an issue for them. The issue is FEMA is there to support the governors. And if that funding gets to the point where the president needs to get Congress backup, I'm pretty sure they're going to act. The last thing I think anybody wants to do is let FEMA run out of money for the initial response.
SUMMERS: Right. I mean, I'm just thinking long-term here. With the threat of climate change intensifying both hurricanes and wildfires, I mean, there's a practical impact if FEMA doesn't have enough money. Do you think the agency needs more funding moving forward in general?
FUGATE: Yeah, this is - it's inside baseball on the budget. The budget was always based on the past disasters determining how much they needed to ask going forward. But with the rapid number of, you know, these large-scale disasters, they're going to have to add more money. Plus, we're seeing insurance decreasing in many areas. And, again, just to make sure people understand, this ain't FEMA's money. This is your tax dollars.
SUMMERS: Right.
FUGATE: And it goes for uninsured losses. So as much as we see insurance becoming unaffordable or unavailable, it is rising the cost of these disasters to the federal taxpayer.
SUMMERS: I want to ask you one more question quickly. I mean, people who live in the Southeast, like you, are probably saying, not again, another punch after the devastation from Helene that many people are still recovering from. Do you have any advice for people who are confronting now another major hurricane while they're still recovering from the one that just happened?
FUGATE: We got to focus on keeping people alive. We went through this in 2004 with four hurricanes. It delays us getting into the permanent rebuilding. We got to stay focused on life safety, getting supplies and support communities and getting critical infrastructure back online. And with this storm coming in, the focus has got to be on getting people to evacuate. Life safety is our priority, and that doesn't change...
SUMMERS: OK.
FUGATE: ...No matter how many storms we have.
SUMMERS: We've been talking with Craig Fugate, former FEMA administrator. Thanks so much for your time.
FUGATE: Thanks for having me.
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