Former FL Emergency Director Dem Rep. Moskowitz: DeSantis Invested in Building Best Emergency Management Agency

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who served as Florida’s Director of Emergency Management from 2019 to 2021 and was appointed to the post by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), stated that DeSantis is “doing a good job on emergency management” and has invested “into building the greatest emergency management agency of any state in the State of Florida.”

Host Kaitlan Collins asked, “You’ve worked with Gov. DeSantis in previous disasters, in your previous role, including, obviously, hurricanes that hit Florida pretty regularly. What do you make of the job that he’s done so far?”

Moskowitz answered, “The Governor’s doing a good job on emergency management, and he has since he came into office, he really understood that emergency management in Florida needed to be the top agency in the country. And, in fact, on the very first day that I took over, in 2019, the very first place we went to was Mexico Beach, and quite frankly, the government in Florida, including the Governor, has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into building the greatest emergency management agency of any state in the State of Florida. And they’re battle-tested, right? … And so, the State of Florida is on top of emergency management. We have to be, when you have storms like Michael, Ian, and now Idalia all in a four-year period, but look, the state’s doing a good job. We have had a couple of loss[es] of life but that’s been kept down to a minimum. I think a lot of lessons [were] learned from Ian, a lot of people have listened and heeded those evacuation warnings. But, look, we’re not out of the woods yet. The immediate response is still ongoing before they eventually transition to recovery.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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