Jimmy Patronis, chief financial officer for the state of Florida, told Newsmax on Monday that "restoration efforts are moving rapidly" after Hurricane Idalia.
Patronis, appearing on Newsline from Cedar Key, Florida, amid ongoing recovery efforts, said "this is still a pretty vibrant commercial fishing village here, a lot of aquaculture, so those families are doing a lot of clean up as we speak. They don't get to take labor day off, they're working … feverishly to try to put their lives back together."
Patronis added: "The restoration efforts are moving rapidly," and the number of "people that were out of electricity, that's down to about 24,000 now. And all of the urban search and rescue teams that my office coordinates, we've demobilized almost all of them."
However, Patronis added that "we'll still have what are called strike teams. Those are actually a fire engine with the crew that we'll keep in the various markets of the cities that need that extra assistance, because as the electricity starts getting turned back on, a lot of times unfortunately there's fires simply because of problems with compromised wiring."
He went on to praise Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell, saying that "the few times I've worked with Deanne, she's always been [a] total professional and focused."
"The relationship that my office has had with FEMA over the last several storms, through both administrations, I appreciate. It seems like they put politics aside and … focused on the recovery efforts of those that are hurting."
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