The United States is spending more than $200 million every day on disaster relief following a trio of hurricanes and a deadly wildfire event that struck over the past two months, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said.
On Tuesday, FEMA Administrator Brock Long told a Senate oversight committee that the agency has never seen a challenge of this magnitude in its history following the catastrophic hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the infernos that destroyed thousands of structures in Northern California. Long referred to the fires, which killed dozens of people, as the worst devastation he has ever seen.
Long thanked the legislators for the $52 billion in emergency relief allocated so far, but said recovering from the recent spate of disasters will be tremendously expensive.
Long said he also needs additional legal authority from Congress to build the power grid in Puerto Rico back better than it was before.