B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Emergency Assistance to Support Homeowners Impacted by the Remnants of Hurricane Debby

B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Emergency Assistance to Support Homeowners Impacted by the Remnants of Hurricane Debby

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced emergency assistance to support homeowners impacted by the remnants of Hurricane Debby. At Governor Hochul's direction, New York Homes and Community Renewal is launching an emergency repair program for homeowners in Allegany, Delaware, Franklin, Steuben and St. Lawrence Counties impacted by the storm. Additionally, staff from the New York State Department of Financial Services will be deployed to impacted communities to support residents and businesses with financial services questions. As these state-based resources are deployed, disaster recovery experts from the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services have begun working with their local counterparts to assess damage statewide in order to determine the state's ability to request federal disaster relief resources from FEMA and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

B-ROLL of the Governor meeting with residents and assessing storm damage is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good afternoon. Just 48 hours ago, this beautiful, tight-knit community filled with love and friendship and neighbors, experienced the unthinkable. This whole region, the home to hard working families, people building their dreams, some incredible places like Corning Glass, not far from here, wineries, some call it the birth of aviation, right? This community is known for so much.

It's got charming small towns and little hamlets that I've been through so many times. It's what makes New York special, places like this. Places like Addison, Woodhull and where we are today, in Canisteo.

The remnants of Hurricane Debby that we saw coming up and - put in place plans and brought our teams together early on to try to figure out the trajectory of this storm. Bringing people, our teams from the state, together early. We just wanted to try and see if we could prevent what has happened here.

This storm washed away people's lives and their dreams. Businesses, farms up the road, homes, schools destroyed in matters of seconds. It makes me heart sick to know what the people have gone through. It's more than really what one would expect anyone to have to bear. Young families starting out, building the home of their dreams over five years, three beautiful daughters, escaping barely with their lives.

I think it's miraculous that there are no major injuries or fatalities. That is astounding to me. And as the Governor, I'm committing to help this community come back. Because in a moment of crisis, we stand as one New York. Do not think that this remote part of our state - in some eyes - does not have as much value as every single place. From our biggest cities to the furthest reaches of this state, every community matters. It has value.

So, I've already heard from some of our neighbors here that people think they'll be forgotten, that elected officials don't come from this part of the state. Well, I'm the first Upstate Governor in over 100 years. I know these communities. This is where I come from. You will not be forgotten.

And I brought the best of the best with me. I have the Commissioner of the entire DOT for all of New York, Marie Therese Dominguez is here. She has over 200 people on the ground here trying to bring these roads back, fix the bridges, because these are the lifelines. We still have people who are stranded, have to walk miles because their connections to other parts of the community have been destroyed by this storm; bridges and roads washed out.

Commissioner Dominguez, I thank you and your team for being the best, being on the ground where it matters. And I know you're not going anywhere because I've seen you in action. I want to thank you for all you do for us.

The person I was on the phone most with even before this storm, Commissioner Jackie Bray, Commissioner of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. She has seen it all. She has been at my side through the worst of the blizzards, the floods, the tornadoes, hurricanes - we've done it all. She is here on the ground today as well. And I want to thank her and her team for their great leadership.

We have a Senator, Tom O'Mara. He fights hard for this community in Albany, I can tell you this. He's not going anywhere. Our Assemblymember Palmesano could not be here today, but his chief of staff is here. And to all the elected officials standing behind me, we had a meeting a short time ago, they love their community so much. They feel heartbroken that the people they care so much about - their own neighbors, their communities, their little businesses - have suffered such an extraordinary, great deal. And I thank them for caring so much.

We have our Steuben County Legislative Chair Kelly Fitzpatrick. We spoke on Friday. She put on her best strong voice. You're going to hear from her in a couple minutes what has happened in her community. We have Steuben County Administrator Jack Wheeler here. Jack, thank you for everything you've done. We have mayors and supervisors from Canisteo, Addison, Woodhull, Jasper - all over. They're here today because they stand united in rebuilding and sharing ideas and sharing resources. They will help us get this done.

Let's start with what has happened during this fairly short time. Heavy rains of four to six inches impacted counties in Steuben and Allegheny. We had flash flood emergencies issued in Steuben and Allegheny counties, just around noon on Friday. We had flash floods in all this area. We had our swift water teams from the state. They had to come and help the local crews and emergency teams. In advance of the storm, we activated over 100 members of the National Guard just to be on hand to help.

The waters were so strong and swift here that they moved a double wide mobile home right up against a bridge. That is powerful. That is the force of Mother Nature. Tuscarora Creek flash flooding caused significant damages to the Jasper-Troupsburg High School. It's probably some graduates of this high school around me, but not lately because this school has been shut down because of the storm, Fred, from three years ago. They were on the verge of reopening, and they were slammed again. The students who thought they're returning to the schools that perhaps their parents went to are now displaced again, not able to start the school year.

The farm down the road owned by Mr. Cliff Moss lost 400 acres of corn, 200 acres of soybeans, hundreds of acres of hay and equipment. We just walked there as well. There's a lot of pain in this community. I saw it in their eyes. I held their hands and sometimes people feel like government is not going to listen. I said, "We're here, we're not going anywhere." I made that commitment to him. He's worried they're not going to have enough crops to feed the animals through the winter.

These are real problems that need real solutions. Woodhull, the downtown businesses, including the feed mill, lost a brand-new outdoor seating area.

Actually, communities all over the State of New York are experiencing such extreme weather this year. This has been an extremely bad, extreme weather year in the State of New York. Places like the North Country and Lewis County are seriously damaged. I'll be heading up there in another day or so. They were hit hard by storms in July. Oswego, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties had flash flooding Friday and Saturday again. We had widespread power outages causing over 115,000 homes to lose power. I see the crews down the street working hard. We even had a tornado touchdown in New Paltz. All remnants of this storm.

Let me tell you about tornadoes. I spent my life in Upstate New York. We would read about tornadoes hitting a place called Tornado Alley - those states that you hear on the news with regularity. That was never us. Maybe a freak one every dozen years or so. My friends, in the month of July, New York State had 24 tornadoes touched down. That's more than the entire number of tornadoes that touched down in those states that are known for tornadoes.

Obviously, that's our new normal too. 27 total for the year thus far. So, as I said, we were preparing for a long time for this event, never realizing how cataclysmic it would end up being. We had over 7,000 utility crews ready to respond, DOT has 3,400 workers deployed - 3,400 workers, that's outstanding. Thank you across the State. And we've been communicating with our teams locally.

We also have our disaster recovery staff on the ground. We're going to squeeze every single federal dollar out of the government we can. I've already alerted the White House to expect our calls, but we have to assess the damage first. It takes some time, but our assessment teams are on the ground. Our Department of Financial Services activated their disaster hotline 1-(800)-339-1759. We are going to send mobile vans here to help people apply for their insurance because no one ever saw this coming. They didn't expect to be in this position, but we know how to deal with this.

Our state teams will be on the ground answering questions, helping people fill out forms so they can get their insurance money sooner. It's really important for homeowners and businesses to keep track of all their expenses and what they lost. Make an inventory of your belongings. And if you can't resolve a dispute with the insurance company, then we want you to file a complaint with our department.

But I also said we have to give people more help just to get back on their feet while they're waiting for that insurance, while we're trying to get our lives back in order. I've declared the Housing and Community Renewal agency will launch an emergency repair program for homeowners in Allegheny, Delaware, Franklin, Steuben and St. Lawrence counties that were impacted by the storm. All these homeowners who have been impacted will be eligible for grants of up to $50,000 to help pay for reimbursement of expenses related to the storm that aren't covered by insurance or it is other disaster relief. This is a newer program. This program did not exist three years ago when Fred hit this area. It exists now. I said, "We have to be there as a stop gap measure to help these communities and these individuals get back on their feet."

I always brag about New York. I think it's an incredible state, especially parts of it like this. They're so tight knit, so caring. I say we're historic in many respects. I never wanted to be historic in the extreme weather category, though. But as I mentioned, we've had an historic number of tornadoes, historic flooding, historic extreme heat - and we haven't hit the winter yet. We have historic snowfall we've had in the last couple of years. I don't like making history like that, but this is our new normal.

And we must build up the resiliency, survey our infrastructure and make sure that we're ready for the next storm because they are not 1000-year events anymore. They are not 100-year events. They are happening with regularity in places people never thought they would. This area was just hit three years ago. It was hit again, even worse than before. We cannot be back here one, two, three years from now, having a press conference on this site and saying more should have been done. And that's what this commitment is. That's what our commitment is. Keeping New Yorkers safe and healthy are my top priorities, and that's a commitment we will not break. We are here and we're not going anywhere.

Contact the Governor's Press Office