Homeland Security Secretary Mullin said the administration is coordinating directly with every state in the path of the storm system moving across the country, with federal assets already staged and governors trading resources to restore power where it has been knocked out.
"We're in touch with all the governors that are affected and might be affected by the continuing storm moving across the nation," Mullin said. "We're all working very closely together."
He said the president has been engaged from the outset, and named FEMA's leadership as the point of the federal effort.
"The president has been very involved in this from the get-go, Cam Hamilton, who is our director of FEMA," Mullin said. "We started prepositioning assets into every state and working closely with their emergency responders."
Governors report they are 'in good shape'
Mullin said his conversations with the governors have been uniform so far.
"Right now from the conversation I've had with each governor, they're in good shape. We have good partnership," he said. "It's interesting about this area is why they may not have been hit with storms real bad the last two years. They work really, really good together."
He described governors coordinating across state lines on power restoration, citing a call with Georgia's governor.
"When I was talking to Governor Kemp from Georgia, he was talking about his relationship with Ron DeSantis," Mullin said. "When we're dealing with the other governors, they were talking about how they're cooperating with sending assets to the areas that are affected without power to get the power restored."
Coast Guard working the Mississippi
Mullin said FEMA is responding with life-saving operations, and that the Coast Guard is deployed in the inland waters and off the coast.
"FEMA is setting by responding with life-saving responses. The Coast Guard is out in the inner waters in the Mississippi, the mouth of Mississippi out in our shores," he said. "We are still doing some boat rescues, but really it's more recovery of the boats, not of the individuals."
He cautioned that no amount of planning covers everything a storm of this kind brings, while crediting the chain of command from Washington down to the county level.
"We're working together well as a team. You never can be fully prepared for a storm like this, but I can tell you that the coordination from the Oval Office with President Trump's leadership to the governors, to the county and first responders, we're all working very closely together," Mullin said.
