Sec. of Homeland Security visits shoreline

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (WTNH) -- The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says the federal government is ready to make Connecticut whole again.

Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose department includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency, toured the shoreline with Governor Malloy Thursday and has a disaster relief center already opened up in Bridgeport.

The secretary's motorcade rushed from Sikorksky Airport to the Disaster Relief Center that has been set up at Lafayette Hall at Housatonic Community College. Several more disaster relief centers are expected to be open in Stamford and other cities by Monday, so federal help can start flowing to home and business owners affected by the storm.

"We were up in the Blackhawks, gave the Secretary an opportunity to see a portion, a small portion of our shore from beginning in New Haven, down to Fairfield," said Malloy.

"They can immediately apply for assistance with temporary shelter and with housing and they can do that a number of ways," Napolitano said.

Online you can go to disasterassistance.gov or fema.gov , or you can call 1-800-621-3362.

"We need to be helping people get back in their homes, we need to be helping communities get restored," said Napolitano, "we need to make sure that the infrastructure of this state is made whole."

Napolitano promised quick delivery of help because FEMA pre-positioned assets in the Northeast before the storm.

"The President's direction to us from the beginning, before landfall even occurred, was to lean forward and make sure that we did everything we could to prepare," she said, "we've done that."