The White House says President Donald Trump has received a ‘comprehensive update’ on Hurricane Irma.
Irma has plowed into the Florida Keys as the storm begins its march up the state’s west coast.
Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and several Cabinet members have participated in the briefing from Camp David – the presidential retreat where Trump has spent the weekend monitoring the storm.
President Trump is receiving updates on Hurricane Irma from the presidential mountain retreat of Camp David this weekend
Waves crash over a seawall from Biscayne Bay as Hurricane Irma passes through Miami, Florida on Sunday. President Trump or his chief of staff have been in touch with the governor and the senators from the state
Fort Myers is seen as surf and winds begin to kick up in advance of Hurricane Irma, in Sanibel Island
The White House named OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Joe Hagin, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin as being at Camp David.
Other administration officials, including Chief of Staff John Kelly and Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert, joined in from the White House or Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington.
First lady Melania Trump and second lady Karen Pence were also on hand.
Pence and several Cabinet secretaries are planning to visit FEMA headquarters later Sunday.
Trump had spoken with the governors of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee on Sunday morning.
The White House said Trump had spoken to Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., ‘numerous times’ over the last week.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also noted that Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly had been in touch with Sen. Bill Nelson, the Democratic senator from the state.
The two talked Sunday morning.
Nelson also talked glowingly of the federal response Sunday morning on Face the Nation.
‘It’s been very good,’ he told host John Dickerson. ‘And there is cooperation between the federal level, the state and the locals.’
‘That has been seamless cooperation, unlike 25 years ago in Hurricane Andrew, when you did not have cooperation, unlike even Katrina, when you didn’t have the cooperation and the communication between the Louisiana National Guard and the US military.’
‘That has been taken care of now,’ Nelson said.