A.G. Gancarski
On Monday in Jacksonville, Gov. Rick Scott and Mayor Lenny Curry convened to discuss response to and recovery from Hurricane Matthew.
In the fourth floor of Jacksonville’s Emergency Operations Center, Scott and Curry met along with a panoply of other state and city stakeholders.
Media was allowed to observe a couple minutes of that meeting, in which the governor discussed the logistics of collaboration, with an eye toward “anything we can help do better.”
“What can we do better as a state? The mayor’s in the same position,” Scott said.
Curry spoke of the importance of “accountability” during the storm, and credited the governor’s office with helping with the logistics of Jacksonville’s phased evacuation of 456,000 people.
“You and I were talking before I made those calls,” Curry noted.
Although reporters were not able to observe the entire meeting; but what was evident is that Jacksonville and Duval County still have some unanswered questions regarding recovery monies (estimated to be $70 million for the part that goes to public buildings and structures) — specifically the lack of FEMA granting individual assistance for those in Duval and Nassau counties.
After the meeting, Scott and Curry both spoke to media.
Scott was asked by one reporter if being a partisan Republican impacted or slowed FEMA’s willingness to fulfill his emphatic requests for a full disaster declaration.
Scott said “I hope not,” noting that “we represent everybody” and that everyone pays federal taxes.
Curry also emphasized the importance of “get[ting] our dollars back” from D.C., speaking of being “aggravated” and “frustrated” with the glacial path of FEMA procedures.
Curry also spoke to dune restoration at the beaches, saying “we believe tax dollars sent out of the city should come back to the city,” noting that timely federal money to help restore the dunes that prevented cataclysmic flooding at Duval County beaches is a must.
There is a contractor, already enlisted for beach re-nourishment, ready to do the work; “if we wait,” Curry said, “we lose that contractor.”
In a more positive takeaway, Curry noted debris removal was proceeding smoothly.
Mayor Curry’s chief administrative officer, Sam Mousa, noted the effort is “40 to 50 percent” done for the first wave of storm debris collection, amounting to 330,000 cubic yards so far.
