The Environmental Protection Agency named a new administrator for the region encompassing New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on Thursday, filling a post left vacant for nearly nine months.

Peter Lopez has little time to waste.

The Republican state assemblyman from upstate New York faces a staggering environmental and humanitarian disaster in the Caribbean part of EPA Region 2. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands suffered widespread destruction after Hurricane Irma and, two weeks later, Hurricane Maria marauded the territories, tearing down power lines and flooding homes and crops. The islands could be without electricity for up to six months and maybe more.

Lopez takes office Oct. 10. Hell likely spend his first day getting briefed on the scope of the environmental catastrophe, according to Judith Enck, the regional administration from 2009 to January 2017. On his second day, he should fly down there, she said.

One of Peters first challenges will be getting down to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and seeing it firsthand, Enck told HuffPost by phone Thursday afternoon. It is an unfolding environmental and humanitarian crisis that the federal government has been doing a bad job handling so far.

Lopez, 56, who was still working at the New York State Assembly on Thursday afternoon, could not immediately be reached for an interview.