President Obama signs Florida disaster declaration; Rick Scott says it’s not enough

On Sunday morning, President Barack Obama announced he signed a disaster declaration for Florida in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.

However, Gov. Rick Scott asserts it doesn’t go far enough.

“The president yesterday declared a major disaster exists in the State of Florida and ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal, and local recovery efforts in the area affected by Hurricane Matthew beginning Oct. 3, 2016, and continuing,” said the communique from the White House.

“Federal funding is available to state and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work in the counties of Brevard, Duval, Flagler, Indian River, Nassau, St. Johns, St. Lucie, and Volusia,” the release from the White House continued, citing some of the hardest-hit counties in the state.

As well, “federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.”

Scott’s office issued a statement on this matter.

“While we are blessed that Hurricane Matthew did not make landfall in Florida, there has been significant damage all across Florida’s east coast.

“For the past three days, I have toured our east coast communities from Brevard County all the way to the Florida/Georgia line and have seen homes wiped out, severe beach erosion, flood damage and [downed] trees and power lines.

“While the state is helping our communities any way we can, I am going to continue to fight for every available resource from the federal government so our families and businesses can rebuild and get back to normal.

“We are going to continue to submit requests to the federal government until they fulfill our entire disaster declaration.”

Scott will be at Jacksonville Beach at 1 p.m. today, and at Jacksonville’s Emergency Operations Center at 5:30 p.m., where he no doubt will reiterate his case to local media.