Bill Nelson: State and federal governments are now better coordinated to face Irma

Sen. Bill Nelson said that past mistakes between the federal and state governments in hurricane relief have prepared Florida for the impending storm.

“I think that’s the big difference today. I think the coordination between state, local and federal government’s are all there. The mistake in New Orleans in Katrina, for example, where the U.S. military and the Louisiana National Guard were on separate pages, I think that has been taken care of now with a coordinator between the guard and the U.S. military,” Mr. Nelson, Florida Democrat, said.

Florida is preparing for Hurricane Irma, which is expected to make landfall in the coming days. The storm is slated to be bigger than the state’s last massive storm, Hurricane Andrew, back in 1992 that caused many insurance agencies to close as a result of the massive claims.

Mr. Nelson said Florida’s insurance market has learned from Andrew and is better prepared to face Irma.

“As a result of Andrew, when insurance companies went bust, when they fled the state, when the two big ones — even All State and State Farm — were shedding policies right and left. There was such massive insurance losses that the entire state of Florida was paralyze for homeowners insurance,” he said. “The correction to that that is now in place is a reinsurance fund the Florida Hurricane Catastrophic Fund, that has billions of dollars of reserves that will ensure against the insurance companies going bust.”