President Donald Trump delivers remarks to the media departing the White House for a visit to Florida and Georgia to see hurricane Michael recovery efforts.

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As the hurricane season officially starts, President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and the majority of the Cabinet attend the critically important 2018 FEMA briefing.

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REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP AT 2018 HURRICANE BRIEFING – FEMA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., 2:06 P.M. EDT [Transcript Link]

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to thank you. Great job, Brock. Really fantastic. Thank you very much. And we really appreciate the job you’ve done. It’s been amazing, and you really have kept quite busy, I would say, unfortunately. We had no choice. We were hit hard. But you’ve done a fantastic job. So I want to thank you very much.

ADMINISTRATOR LONG: Thank you.

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Earlier this afternoon President Donald Trump met with Governor Ricardo Rossello of Puerto Rico in the oval office.

[Raw Transcript – Not Yet finalized]  President Trump – “It’s great to have the governor of Puerto Rico with us and we have gotten to know each other extremely well over the last couple of weeks. And I can tell you, you are a hard working governor. It’s a tough situation. So much has to be rebuilt, even from before.
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Nearly a week after the California wildfires began, the zone containing scattered fires has swollen to an area as wide as 100 miles. The flames have left at least 38 people dead and destroyed at least 5,700 homes and businesses, making them the deadliest and most destructive group of wildfires California has ever seen.

(Via ABC)  Rising winds fanned the California wildfires again Saturday, forcing hundreds more people to flee from their homes in the state’s fabled wine country and threatening to undo the efforts of crews who have spent days trying to corral the flames behind firebreaks.
Just a day after firefighters reported making significant progress, the winds kicked up and pushed flames into the hills at the edge of Sonoma, a town of 11,000. About 400 homes were evacuated in Sonoma and a portion of Santa Rosa that included a retirement community that evacuated earlier this week, authorities said.
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CTH has noted on several occasions that many of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipal authorities control their regions in a similar fashion to mafioso families.  There is a tremendous amount of corruption within the ranks of “Mayors” on the island.  The entire system of governance is more accurately similar to third-world overlords.
This report on FEMA aid being corrupted by these same officials does not come as a surprise; indeed, unfortunately, it is the norm – not the exception.

(Puerto Rico) FBI agents in Puerto Rico have been receiving calls from “across the island” with residents complaining local officials are “withholding” or “mishandling” critical FEMA supplies — with one island official even accused of stuffing his own car full of goods meant for the suffering populace.
The accusations come in the aftermath of deadly Hurricane Maria, which devastated the U.S. territory last month.
“The complaints we’re hearing is that mayors of local municipalities, or people associated with their offices, are giving their political supporters special treatment, goods they’re not giving to other people who need them,” FBI Special Agent Carlos Osorio told Fox News.
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CARIBBEAN SEA (NNS) — President Donald J. Trump visited the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), Oct. 3, to discuss relief efforts in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands with Navy and Marine Corps leadership.  President Trump met with Governor Kenneth Mapp of the US Virgin Islands aboard the Kearsarge:

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Ward Room – USS Kearsarge – [Transcript] 2:54 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, thank you very much. I wanted to begin by saying well be leaving tomorrow morning very early from the White House. Well be going to Las Vegas. We will be paying our personal respects and condolences to everybody.
What happened is such a tragedy. So unnecessary — who can believe what happened in Las Vegas. Great love for the people, great love for the people of our country, and I look forward to going tomorrow. The First Lady will be coming with me, and were going to be paying our respects and condolences. Well be leaving early in the morning.
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“I’m really tired of Puerto Rican government officials blaming the federal government for their woes and for not acting fast enough to help people on the island. Last week I had three federal agents in my office and I was so embarrassed; I went out of my way to apologize to them for the attitude of my government and what they have been saying about the U.S. response.”
~Jorge Rodriguez, CEO of PACIV, Puerto Rico-based engineering firm

PUERTO RICO – The head of an international engineering firm in Puerto Rico said in an editorial Saturday that when the time came to send 50 of his engineers to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, he bypassed local officials and went straight to FEMA.

The reason, said Jorge Rodriguez, the CEO of PACIV, in an editorial in the New York Post, is that “for the last 30 years, the Puerto Rican government has been completely inept at handling regular societal needs, so I just don’t see it functioning in a crisis like this one.”

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There were about a dozen moments within this interview when FEMA Director Brock Long could have easily broken out with: “I ain’t got no time for that“, as the insufferable Chris Wallace demands Long talk about the politics of disaster relief.
Mr. Brock Long and the entire organization of FEMA workers have been doing outstanding work with a ‘no quit’ attitude for months.  Great interview:

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Governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rossello, FEMA Region II Acting Administrator John Rabin, Federal Coordinating Officer Alejandro de la Campa and Commander of Joint Force Land Component Command Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan provide current updates on the status of Puerto Rico relief efforts after Hurricane Maria, Sept. 30, 2017.

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“We need to do a lot more in order for us to get out of the emergency,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said in San Juan. “But the other thing that’s also true is that the administration has answered and has complied with our petitions in an expedited manner.”
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A very emotional female police officer from Puerto Rico’s police department in Guaynabo calls in to a U.S. spanish speaking radio station to tell listeners what is going on in Puerto Rico.  The police woman is very upset, crying and sobbing often, and shares how the Mayor of San Juan is politicizing the situation and not offering help.
The call and video was recorded September 28th, and highlights the corruption within government within Puerto Rico and the Municipal authority of San Juan. The video is English closed captioned (hit “CC” option) and a transcript is below:

Transcript:
Radio Announcer: What is your name?
Police Caller: I cannot give my name because I work for Puerto Rico’s Police Department. I need to pass this information out because the stuff that is being brought from the U.S. is not being distributed.  They are not allowing the Puerto Rican people to receive the donations.
Radio Announcer: What part of Puerto Rico are you calling us from right now?
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