Calling rumor and misinformation “unnecessary noise” distracting from the task at hand, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said the agency was in the area ahead of Hurricane Helene and will remain so throughout the recovery process.
In a brief Augusta stop a month after the storm, Criswell met with top city officials and Mayor Garnett Johnson. She detailed FEMA’s continued effort in the area Wednesday.
“Our goal is to be working with the community every step of the way,” she said.
Criswell said ongoing rumbling about FEMA’s alleged shortcomings “creates unnecessary noise” while work needs to be done.
“Our focus should be on the people, the great people here of Augusta that have been impacted so terribly by Hurricane Helen,” she said.
“I want to make sure my staff spends all of their time and energy helping them on their work to recovery and not have to deal with unnecessary noise,” she said.
Criswell said she’d been shocked by the amount of inland damage from the hurricane during an earlier flyover and by the number of families now receiving assistance at the Augusta Disaster Recovery Center.
Currently about 800 federal personnel are in the storm area, most of them from FEMA, but some from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Army Corps of Engineers and EPA, she said. In addition to mobile disaster recovery centers, there are nine DRCs across the state, with four more scheduled to open, she said.
More than 333,000 have registered for federal assistance in Georgia while FEMA has already given out more than $159 million in aid, with more to come, Criswell said.
“Our goal is to assure that everyone who has been affected receives the help they need,” she said.
Augusta has a long way to go as far as debris removal, Johnson said in opening remarks.
As of Wednesday, contractors had removed some 408,000 cubic yards of debris to one of three staging areas, in addition to removing 97 limbs and four hazardous trees, he said.
Averaging 23,000 cubic yards a day, Augusta is less than halfway to the amount removed after the 2014 ice storm, which was 875,000 cubic yards, Johnson said. The pickup from Helene will be much larger, he said.
“We estimate Hurricane Helene will generate more than 2 million cubic yards, meaning we have a significant amount of work ahead,” Johnson said. “This is going to be a long recovery process.”
FEMA reimburses cities 100% for debris collection during the first 90 days, Criswell said. After that, “as far as debris removal, there’s no timeline to get the debris removed,” she said.
Administrator Tameka Allen thanked FEMA, as well as local bus drivers, school nutrition workers and all others who have stepped in to assist.
“We do not want their contributions to be unacknowledged,” Allen said.
The power is back on, all traffic signals were operational Wednesday but not synchronized and garbage collection has resumed, while recycling is paused, she said.
“Together we will rebuild and emerge stronger from this challenge,” Allen said.
