ms. dechalus: now we know that in 2017, it was a big year. hurricane irma, florence, and maria cost the government more than $265 billion worth of damage. especially with the california wildfires. what did fema learn because of the hurricanes that occurred in 2017? and what are ways that you can improve how you respond to natural disasters in the upcoming years? mr. long: we learned a tremendous amount. before i took office, the country went 11 years without a major landfall hurricane. i guess i am bad luck. the other thing is, to put the magnitude of what happened over the last 16 months into perspective, we have packed 38 years of history into that time. the amount of disaster assistance that we will provide because of the last two calendar years is the equivalent of what the agency has done in its entire history. it is forcing us to rethink everything. our entire business enterprise. i fully believe that a bigger fema is not the answer. it is a whole community approach that has to be put into play to properly be able to prepare and also re

ms. dechalus: that is a great question. -- relationship with the federal government? ms. chalus: that is a great question. i do not think they truly know at this point. fema is still trying to figure out how what happened in 2017 with the natural disasters that occurred including hurricane irma and maria, the california wildfires, that that does not happen again. their approach is that there needs to be more communication between the local and state levels and how they interact with fema. to be thet supposed first responder. they're supposed to assist the local and state government. going forward, what they want to have is more of a cohesive strategy on how to combat some of the challenges that they faced in 2017. ms. swan: we have about a minute left. in the midst of dealing with these natural disasters we have had, the administrator also found himself in the news for some ethics related things. personal travel back to his home in north carolina. how did that play out for him? mr. nixon: this revolved around the use of staffers for his travels back home. to make a long st