Speaking to reporters Sunday evening, President Donald Trump praised the search and rescue work of the U.S. Coast Guard, saying the Coast Guard’s “brand has improved” because of Hurricane Irma relief efforts.
“I think we’re really well coordinated as well as you could possibly be,” he said. “And I’ll tell you what, we have great people, and a group that really deserves tremendous credit is the United States Coast Guard. What they’ve done — I mean, they’ve gone right into that, and you never know. When you go in there, you don’t know if you’re going to come out. They are really — if you talk about branding, no brand has improved more than the United States Coast Guard.”
He also thanked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for its “incredible” work, but said he thinks “the hard part is now beginning.”
He said the “power of those hurricanes” is what concerned him most.
“Probably, I saw somebody say 57 years now. Now, who knows what that means? But it’s about the biggest ever recorded at land, and unfortunately, we got it,” he said, adding he hoped there weren’t “too many people” in the path of Hurricane Irma.
“I hope there aren’t too many people in the path. You don’t want to be in that path. That’s a path you don’t want to be in. We tried to warn everybody. For the most part, they’ve left, but that’s a bad path to be in,” he said.
His comments come after Hurricane Irma pummeled the east and west coast of the state of Florida over the weekend, causing widespread devastation. The latest hurricane comes not long after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, flooding several parts of the state.
