O’Malley: ‘Because of Climate Change, We’re Going To Be Seeing a Lot of 800-Year Floods’

RUSH EXCERPT:

O'MALLEY: "Well, yes. We have never had better tools to be able to map and to see and make visible these sorts of efforts. Let’s be honest with one another, it requires a tremendous amount of coordination, cooperation and communication across local, state and federal government. But there’s another aspect at play here and that is the expectations of the real people who are hungry for real relief and the expectations of what their insurance may pay out, what the federal and state government might be able to do to help them versus what’s actually being appropriated. There’s a big gap between the two. So, look, I — if I were providing any advice for our folks in Washington right now, it would be to make not only a very adequate appropriation now, but to better fund FEMA’s ability to respond even before emergencies. Look, you can’t rush back and all of a sudden say, whoops, for about a year or two we’ve been cutting homeland security grants to cities, we’ve been cutting the ability of FEMA and others to respond and then all of a sudden a hurricane hits and you’ve got to fill it up. We’re smarter than that, we’re better than that as a people and we need to make the appropriations necessary.

"And the realization that because of climate change, we’re going to be seeing a lot of 800-year floods. This was the biggest rain event in the United States history. It’s not going to be the last. And we need to have a government that actually works, that functions, that’s robust and can respond and provide the relief that people need, not only to rescue them but also to recover. And it’s my hope that we are learning from our experience as a country and we’ll get better as we move forward here. Houston is one big test for us. Whether or not we’re all in this together and I believe we are. That’s the course we’re seeing unfold in Houston’s long recovery ahead of us."