Transcripts For CSPAN3 Ambassadors Discuss Hurricane Irma Response In Caribbean And Florida 20170916

I n the director great. Welcome everyone. Im the director for the Americas Program. Its great to have you all here today. We need make requirement of csfs an emergency announcement. Im the emergency officer. Follow me. We dont expect any problems but given were having a problem on hurricanes one never knows. Weve all seen the pictures of the tremendous dama agage that been done on barbuda, the u. S. And British Virgin ielteneds and we shouldnt forget hurricane harvey. They give us an opportunity to refocus our efforts to see where were doing well and where efforts need be improved. Theyve been tested like never before in the u. S. And parts of the caribbean. We organize to bring greater attention to both the impact of the hurricane sdwhz critical local and international response. This is the latest in the series of panels weve been doing on the caribbean. Two months ago we published a report with the most important aspects of the caribbean. With mexico and canada, the caribbean represents our third border. It has been led from the very beginning by dr. George fario who has had a long history of involvement at csis. Hes been assisted by a great group of otherer Senior Advisors and associates and by our great Americas Program staff. Without further ado, id like to turn the floor over to sally, a friend of csis and the executive director of Central America a. Thank you very much. Thank you, michael. First of all i want to thank everybody who came here today. This is an important discussion and caribbean Central American action, were a nonprofit. Were happy to work the csis on anything involving our region and i think all of us who have an interest in the region, all of us who care about whats going on there, its important that we talk about what the solutions are and whats happening. I want to thank csis for making this forum possible. My jobs going to be easy. I did want to make one comment i think before i do that, i think a testament to Hurricane Irma, ive been describing it as the United Nations of hurricanes. We have states that have all been hit by this disaster which i think brings particular focus on International Coordination and on local coordination in terms of getting relief, supplies and trying to figure out how to make it all work smoothly. So that being said, i also would like to recognize and testament to the International Nature of course the first counsel for the embassy of france and i believe we may be having miguel val ez, the first secretary of the embassy of cuba. Of course both countries are impacted by the disaster. So my two fellow panelists today are on your right ambassador sanders of barbuda to the United States. And just the bios arent here but hes currently ambassador extraordinary to the United States and the organization of american states for a antigua and barbuda. He was a senior fellow at the london uk and toronto. He has been in the Diplomatic Service in england and organization of Economic Cooperation and development, World Trade Organization and countless other roles representing his countries. So thats ambassador sanders. And before we go on, im going to do a quick introduction for ambassador. Hes ambassador of the kingdom of the netherlands to the United States and hes had had a 36year career with the Netherlands Ministry of foreign affairs. Focusing his work on transatlantic relations. Common, foreign and Security Policy and secretary of the eu coordination in the netherlands. So thats the brief introduction of my fellow panelists and now id like to turn to ambassador sanders who of course is the ambassador for barbuda. Barbuda probably was the most impacted nation by Hurricane Irma and so we really want to hear as much as possible from the ambassador. I was hoping that would have been here. If you dont mind, ill stand here because it gives me a place to put these pieces of paper on. I want to start this presentation as ive done with almost every 1 of the similar presentations ive made on this matter over the last week. And that is by first expressing sorrow to the people in government of the United States of america. The damage done and the 18 lives that were lost as Hurricane Irma stormed through the state of florida, georgia, and the carolinas, coming on the heels of hurricane harvey, which had h taken upward of 70 lives in texas just weeks before. Is a difficult thing. Those were 88 plus lives of people who if they were your brother, your sister, your mother, your father would have been a matter of personal grief to you and thats the thing about hurricanes. And about Natural Disasters. We could watch them on television and in the media with a certain sense of withdrawal. Its almost liking a movie. But when it effects you yourself is when you understand how hurtful it can be. So i sympathize with the families of those people who are the unfortunate victims of it two mighty category 4 hurricanes that thundered on to the shores of this country. I also want to say to this particular group that the fenomina of brutal, ferocious and merciless storms has led my country to that Climate Change is a reality and here to stay d spite all those who say its a fantasy of the chinese or whatever is the reason people say that it doesnt exist these storms know no borders. They cross them at will and with no fear of being turned away. Theres no immigration officer that will say no way jose should it decide to come this direction. They know no ideologies or embargos. So irma stormed through parts of cuba before it went on to the United States. It didnt know there was an embargo. They make no discrimination between small or large or rich or poor. They see no white people or black people or any persons of any color in between. The destruction is ruthless, its heartless and its pit leases. That is why no nation can stand apart from the reality of Climate Change or the effects of Global Warming. That is why, as year after year we are confronted with a trail of death and destruction that is the after shock of these storms, all countries should resolve to put Climate Change high on our agenda and to build resilience. Now id like to talk to you specifically about antigua and barbuda. Separated by 28 miles. That 28 miles was significantly important to antigua on this occasion because while the eye of the hurricane went over barbuda and the outer edges of it went over antigua, antigua did not receive the kind of damage barbuda did. Not only was it the fact that we did not get the full effect of the hurricane but it was also preparation. It is a kind of forced preparation if youd like because weve been suffering these hurricanes, bad ones since 1995. In 1995 hurricane luis was a category 5 hurricane and it reduced antigua to a snowless winter scene. If you could imagine a country of the tropics that just went through the most cruel winter you can think about at which there was no grass on the mountain side, no grass on the ground, no branchess in the trees. And no leaves on the nonexistent branchs. Thats what antigua was like. Including my own which was tossed into the sea within a matter of minutes. We rebuilt from all of that. And every time you rebuilt we rebuilt to Higher Standards and higher regulations. Had we not done that on antigua, we would not be today still open for business and we would not have been able to cope with the problem that we have of barbuda. But to turn to barbuda for the first time in over 300 years, there is today not a living sole on barbuda. A society of people who lived for generations on that island had had to be plucked away from all that they own, all that they know and all that defined them as a people. My government was compelled to evacuate all the 1700 inhabitants of barbuda and move them to antigua. We had prepared for that possibility before this hurricane came along. We had had ordered all the building material, all the dry foods, all of the mediciness that we thought we would need in an emergency. And we had warehoused them in miami, waiting to fly them into antigua, which we were able to do two days after the hurricane passed so that when we evacuated the people from barbuda we were able to address their immediate needs from our own resources. We did not have to wait for other countries and other agencies to help. But Hurricane Irma has mangled barbuda in a way that none of us could have imagined. There is now no portable water, no electricity, and such buildings that are left are pitful wrecks, incapable of providing shelter and dangerous to enter. Now barbudas 62 square miles. This city washington d. C. , is six square miles bigger than barbuda. Hurricane irma was 364 miles wide when it spread itself across the island, overwhelming it incise, strength and fuerosity. Its force was category 5 plus, the strongest hurricane ever seen in our region. With winsds gusting at 225 mile per hour. Neither barbuda, nor its inhabitantess stood a ghost of a chance against a formidable and all encompassing monstrous power. Despite all that, barbuda had had one fatality and that is again because it government had had built a shelter, concrete roof everything and most of the population went to that shelter. A few people of course stayed behind. It was always difficult to get people to leave their homes, even in conditions like this. And one woman with a little child, a toddler, little boy refused to leave her home until it was far too late. When her home began to crumble around her, she then decided to rush for the shelter. By then the winds were Strong Enough to pluck that child from her hands. She didnt see it again until the next day when he was found dead but we will mourn that child for a long time. However, weve got to be thankful that the rest of the people survived. We of course could not leave people on barbuda in those conditions and even though they them svls, amidst all the rubble and wreck were reluctant to leave their homeland, we knew two things were compelling us to move them out, not only the existing conditions on barbuda, which could not sustain life but hurricane jose which was scheduled to travel on the same track as irma and to hit barbuda two days after it had already reduced it to rubble and that is what compelled us to bring them. Now, ive spoken but this story is better seen and therefore weve got video which i crave your indulgence to look at for a few minutes and then i will wrap up this presentation with the current condition of the island. Having survived the worst storm in living memory and another on the way, people are exhausted, hungry and just desperate to leave. Waiting to get eva people are hungry and just desperate to leave. Im going to come back and try to salvage something in the help. My whole life is here. Were not coping, were definitely not coping. Everyone is in the same situation and nobody can help one another. The core of the hurricane carved a cruel and deadly path through these streets. A 2yearold died as the mother tried to move her to safer ground but amazingly the rest of the people survived the storms rath. The Prime Minister has travelled from neighboring antigua to provide reassurance. He knows its a matter of time before hurricane jose arrives in a matter of hours. We heard him haggling for every boat, helicopter and plane to help with the evacuation. But fear starts to spread that not everyone will get out in time. This womans just been told she doesnt have a place on the next boat. The codifying scale of the devastation means barely a building is salvageable. That means the whole island will have to be rebuilt and the government has already admitted it simply doesnt have the money. The hope is that the funds will come from somewhere. We will bring that friendly governments and International Partners will step up to the plate and assist us. They should not see this as a form of id say the Prime Minister and people coming with a begging ball, cap in hand. This is a disaster, Natural Disaster. They can only hope that one day they will call this island home. But they must leave by any means possible. Including this towed barge and they dont know when they will return. You couldnt get to sleep and i think he was up all night trying to organize and keep things together and then all of a sudden the big crash came and then it just started bringing down everything. Everything just started to decay and crumble. Whats your house like . Everything is destroyed. Theyre gone. What have you eaten . Hardly anything because theres nothing to eat. You cant cook or anything. You have to have biscuit or tea or water or whatever. And thats about it. What do you do now . Where do you go . What happens . I have no idea now because every wp is homeless, no one have nowhere to go. Are you going to rebuild . I dont know whether that is a possibility and if there is then it will be for a very long time. Were not coping. Were definitely not coping. Everybody will tell you the same thing. Everybody is in the same situation and nobody can help one another. We cant help each other because Everybody Needs help. Well, that is the exodus well, that was the exodus of barbudaens to antigua. Now the people who came represent an increase overnight suddenly and without warning, with no prep rasaration of 3 or population. It must be very difficult for any country to suddenly have to cope overnight with an increase of their population by 3 . Think of the medical services. The School Places. Amongst those people were 500 children. School years just started. We have to find School Places for them in antigua in an already over takxed educational system. Weve had to find food and water a modicum of basic living but basically that is all it is. Theyre in shelters. They have been very generous and open their homes and taken in many elderly people and young children. But the bulk of them are now living in government buildings and makeshift areas. Theyre of course very anxious to return to barbuda. Thats their home. Thats where everything they have is. Thats where their parents and their ancestors are buried. Thats where they got married, had birthday parties but its impossible to do so now and how long this will be like this, i have no idea. Because rebuilding barbuda is going to cost us at a reasonable estimate we dont have that kind of money. And the reeszen why its going to cost that is because we just cant go to barbuda and build any buildings. We cant build what was there before and send people back to it because this Hurricane Season is not yet over. It will go until the middle of november and then it will reoccur next year and the year after that and the year after that. We rebuild it in the way in which it is now next year another hurricane comes along, knockess the whole thing down and we start all over again and we come to the International Community and ask for help and after a while theyll get fatigued. I am not even sure that as i speak to you now this tragedy but which everybody feels very emotional will be a story any longer. The International Media will have moved on to Something Else, some tweet or something that attracts their attention and this will be forgotten. But it wont be forgotten for us. Because we have to look after our people. My Prime Minister said in that video that we werent asking for help because we want. Were asking for it because we need. This is not just a disaster, its a humanitarian crisis. And our hope is that the International Community will be responsive in helping us to rebuild barbuda in a Sustainable Way that will resist these hurricanes which are clearly caused by Climate Change and Global Warming which, as i said is not only here to stay, but i suspect will get worse in the coming years. Thank you all very much. Thank you, ambassador. I think well turn to ambassador huro for some remarks and then well open up the floor to questions. So if i could invite you to ing. Im pondering whether i will thank you for putting the lectn are back up. I will make use of it. Im in a way a different kind of animal so to say and st. Martin is different from antigua and barbuda. But i think the dezaisadisaster bottom line is the same and id like to start off with saying the same as my colleague has had. You in this country have suffered the same fate harvey, irma as we have. And we are our heart goes out to you like we know that your heart goes out to us in the caribbean. And i say us because the kingdom of the netherlands is a kingdom of four parts. Four independent parts of the kingdom of the netherlands and one of those parts is st. Martin. An island that we share with france. Half of the island or 40 is dutch, roughly 40,000 people are living there. The other part is french. So if i say that im a different animal a little bit. Im not born obviously in st. Martin. Im born in the netherlands, the european part of the kingdom of the netherlands and in the european part we have had our share of disasters but a different share. We have had the share of the disasters of flooding in the netherlands. A hurricane of this magnitude was something totally new to us in the netherlands. Its not new to our friends in the caribbean, actually its quite rare in aruba and unfortunately st. Martin, like antigua has experienced something similar before. If i tell you a little bit of what happened in st. Martin, we had had the rath of the hurricane come over st. Martin. To give you some figures four people died on st. Martin. One of them of Natural Causes and three deaths directly related to the hurricane. By the way ill speak on the dutch part of st. Martin due to 40,000 people. More than 40 people injured. Seriously injured. I think of all the structures. 90 is damaged and 30 is damaged beyond repair. Part of a wider kingdom of of course the other three parts of the kingdom were not touched by st. Martin. I think the hardening thing you can see is that the other parts of the kingdom includes the part in europe have immediately patched to the people of st. Martin. We will not abandoned you. We are all part of our king went out to carousel last sunday to vizzed people who have been evacuated from the island. He visited st. Martin on monday, stayed overnight on the island and went on tuesday yesterday to the two other islands that theyre too close by. Small islands and visited them as a sign of solidarity. And he reiterated that plants are with you in your moment of need. Another country that is with us in our moment of need must be the United States. Unless we want everyone to talk about what do you do in the aftermath of Something Like that. We have been helped greatly and are still being helped by the United States. We have a regular contact, the french authorities, the dutch authorities and the United States working together, what we can do for the island. Our first concern after we after the storm had passed was evacuation. And then evacuation of everybody who was in medical need. And the problem we have found out with evacuation is that you have to be strict and you have to make a list and you have to make a list public and you basically have to prioritize how you will evacuate and the first one were the people in need meet the medical people in need and we evacuated in the netherlands and we mainly also evacuated via american exit. Big problem with the evacuation was the airport of st. Martin is on the dutch part of the island. The airport was severely damaged. The runway had to be cleared and then there was no control tower anymore. There were no lights anymore. So after the runway was cleared, it was clear that we could only fly during the day because there was no absence of lights and no control tower and there were only military planes going to fly. It was too dangerous for a commercial flights and we had to have a very strict order of how we would evacuate. So if there are lessoness to be learned, i think that is one. You have to be strict in your evacuation. Maybe one lesson earlier. Prepositioning of assets. We have prepositioned some assets, both material but also military on the island, knowing that irma was coming. I dont think anybody really realized how that irma would be. We have now scaled up our military from 100 to 500 and we will be at 700ths by tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and that, in the end is probably the amount of people that you need. Nobody knew this was a first time for all of us what the impact of Something Like that would be. Secondly, i must say and i mentioned this quickly before, were even greatly helped by the international operation. We are in this together with the french government. With whom we immediately establish contact. We are in their, lets say, crisis team. They are in our crisis team. The americas by the way are also in our crisis team and i think that probably they will be there in the french crisis team as well. But i will not speak for them. We had a close contact with the brits who were of course on the british islands. We have tried to coordinate as much as possible. We have coordinated evacuation flights. We also coordinate, for instance with the french deceleration plans. We coordinatirordinate with the. We coordinate evacuation plans, we coordinate Flight Control in or out. We also coordinate. We have the only port. Im happy to say that the port of st. Martin is reestablished anymore. Weve had our first cruise ship coming in, not for a cruise, but for picking up people that had had more than 350 people going out and if necessary will get our second cruise ship in tomorrow to pick up the remain. If i give you a state of play, all the medical emergencies are out, all the family of Emergency Responders are out, it was a priority category for us. I think that of all the tourists that were there, which was a third priority group, of the 800 are left we have gotten out by now more than 3 1 2 thousand on flights and more than 500 by boat. Theyre sort of 800 roughly left and then you come to the people who are permanent resident on the island. Some people want to leave. Some people want to stay. We would love them to stay. Because they have to rebuild the island. But you cannot force them to stay so were talking with them now and see who has to be out. There are a number of students at the American Medical College on the island, the 600 students. Of course these people want to go out, a big part of them, americans are already outen the american flight. So that is as far as the evacuation is concerned. I think we are in a good spot by now. I think the evacuation emergency part will be done by tomorrow. But okay. Lets be honest. It is five six days before you have anybody out. It is an island of considerable size. The water supply has been restored. People are Drinking Water from bottles. We have the deceleration plant. Also on the two smaller islands, water supply is there. The food supply has been there the food supply, what all the food packages that youre sending communication is a huge problem like you have seen in florida. Your telephone should not work. Your Internet Connection is not there. Im happy to say that by tomorrow we think the telephone system or the portable telephone system will be restored in st. Martin, which will make life for a lot of people a lot easier and which also make for all the people who are missing their loved ones they can now reestablish contact and we found very, very important that the contact is there and people can say im okay. The house is not but im there. Your loved ones are safe. For the longer term, there is a huge rebuilding operation ahead of us. We realize that we have Assessment Team. Theres an american Assessment Team on the ground, dutch Assessment Teams coming in this week. Anywhere between 1. 1 and 2 billion dollars is the first assessments that we hear. And i think that will probably be a modest on the modest side of the first assessments. There is a second problem. These are islands that live off tourism. I do not think that they will have a lot of bookings in the near future. So we have to make sure that they can survive. They have to have a source of income. All the more reason to rebuild the island as quickly as possible because you do not only rebuild the dwellings, you rebuild their source of income. We are happy to say that not only theres an out pouring in the netherlands of funds that are coming out from the people, there are donations to the National Red Cross of more than 3 Million Euros who have a what we call a on friday all the National Television channels and radio channels will band together and do a big program where people can phone in for their contribution. The government will make an assessment what the damage is and will make their contribution. We have seen already that European Union, were part of European Union. The status of the french part is different from us but still its clear that European Union will step in to an amount we do not know yet. So well get International Solidarity not only from the people for the region but for the people from europe where there is a strong bond with europe. Lastly i want to relay i heard a very nice interview this morning, a lady from st. Marttt whose house was still standing, no roof, heavily damaged. And she said okay. What are you going to do now . And basically her answer was i never liked the roof. This is a possibility to rebuild my house to my own design. This is an absolute disaster, its also an opportunity. We people in st. Martin have experienced this before. Well pick up our shovels, well pick up our brushes. We will rebuild and we will be better and more beautiful than we were before irma. Thank you very much. [ applause ] we are going to have to turn over to the next panel but i didnt want to not give an opportunity for a couple of questions to be asked by the audience. I do have a couple of questions myself but for the sake of time if i could invite sir. Im sorry. My name is charles sharp. Ium wrr with the black Emergency Managers association. I heard you better without the microphone. Perfect. Im with black managements association. And my heart goes to the people of antigua and barbuda. I know what the problem is now. I dont understand a word youre saying. So the web cast is hearing you but im not. How involved has sedima, i wanted to meet you at their upcoming conference in september, not in a situation like this, but are they involved . Im in touch with ron jackson and other members. How are they assisting you . I know nassau has a deployment plan for those who evacuated to return. Are you looking at that phased approach for people returning back to help rebuild in a step by step approach . Well, the answer to the question is that these are early days. This hurricane occurred on the sixth of september. We are not even a week away from that well, we are a week away from it now. But we have been preoccupied as you can understand with coping with 3 increase in our population. We know that barbuda has to be rebuilt but how to rebuild it in what way, the only thing that is definite about it is that it cant be rebuilt in the way that it was. But it has to be rebuilt to with stand these storms which are clearly now here to stay. How we will plan that, how we will mobilize it is something people are discussing but not in any definitive way. We will have to first send in team of people to study that bp we will need expert help with it as well. I know my Prime Minister talked about converting the island into a completely green technology. So if we move away from fossil fuels, we rely on renewable energy. We no longer have telephone poles and electricity poles in the area which are susceptible to destruction by these hurricanes. Those are the kind of vague concepts that are around. But barbuda barbuda could be a major Tourist Destination in the caribbean. Its beaches are among the most beautif beautiful. I think they may even be a little superior to yours. We have pink sand beaches. You can stand up to the water to your neck and see your toes. Im not kidding. Its why it it was the preferred Holiday Place for princess dianna and one of the two boys is second in line for the thrown of britain. But it has that potential but and it of course is used for that now. But in the future weve got to insure that the hotels are one thing. How people live, the standard of their buildings, the quality of them is going to be very important. And so too is going to be the utilities. So thats up the road. Weve got an immediate problem. That one is very much we know we have to do it. And but youre right. As we do it, its going to have to be new settlement. We cant send everybody back at the same time. But as homes get rebuilt and we get all of the utilities back in place, there will be that faces resettlement. The barbuda ns are anxious to get home. In fact our probl stopping them. Thank you very much oh, sorry. So thank you very much for this presentation. Im from the French Embassy and as my colleague here knew were in the situation very very sad situation for the population. Irma territories last week as you know. Guadeloupe september 5 with no more damages. St. Martin, french barge of st. Martin on september 6 and 7. And given the unprecedented violence and the importance of damages certified for the time being. Evaluated to more than 2 billion euros, especially in st. Martin and st. Martin which were too had heavily devastated. 95 antiguan but i dont want to make that speech because as you say, mr. Ambassador, we cant have this meeting every year. We cant continue to have this meeting every year. Kikkan expose a lot of billions of dollars and the victims are always the same. The population. And we have to think what we can do to to fight this situation and i think the first we can do is to continue to work against Climate Change, against the Global Warmings of the oceans because if this hurricane has been stronger its because the sea is so warm, you can see the scientific works everywhere in the world, the corporation of scientists, the meteorologists all said the sea has been never warm like today. So the first we have to do that. The second, i think, we have to work all together closely to prevent. We have architect. I dont know what. Some other scientist to build some infrastructure that can resist for the next hurricane. This is cost a lot of money. And we have to work all together very close to rebuild your island, our islands for the population. I dont want to make this speech but its what i want to say with my heart and i would like to be with you for the future. Thank you, sir. Thank you. One more maybe. If theres one more question well take that. If not, well close out this panel. Going, going, going. So id like to thank the two ambassadors. I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned by what has happened as a result of irma. Again, everybody whether u. S. , kingdom of netherlands, france, britain, and the independent territories in the caribbean, were all affected, there is a theres a lesson about resilience to be learned about how can we make the islands more resilient, how can we build better to ambassador Saunders Point are we going power lines underground, phone lines underground, everything that can be done to make the countries more resilient but the point about Climate Change, as the waters continue to rise, you cant be resilient against a 50 foot ocean swell. So there are a lot of considerations that are out there about how we build back better. But i would like to close on that note so we can turn over to the next panel but i would just ask all of you will in the room who are here today who are watching online, if there is anything you can do to contribute to the recovery of our countries in the region, that will all be appreciated and we look forward to working with you as we we wont forget about this two weeks from now or a year from now. This is going to be a longterm process, so all of the friends who are here thank you and we look forward to hearing from you and working with you. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much. Im mark schneider. Im a Senior Advisor at csis. Im pleased to welcome the second panel. Weve just heard from the distinguished ambassadors what is a very stunning and really very depressing report on the magnitude of the impact of Hurricane Irma on their islands as well as others, on cuba, on puerto rico, on the British Virgins islands, on the u. S. Virgin islands and its clear that the vulnerabilities both countries small and large to the power of nature in this situation. We have with us today two distinguished individuals who can talk about the response, particularly in this case of the u. S. Response, both with respect to immediate relief and hopefully looking down the road as we just heard theres going to be an incredible need for coordinated support and cooperation for the reconstruction and rebuilding, rebuilding in a way that takes into account the threats and dangers of Climate Change in the region. For that we have margy bond and directive director of Caribbean Affairs and James Flemming whose usaids hurricane response director at the office of foreign disaster. Margys had a distinguished career at state including her previous assignment in the u. S. Embassy in kabul and before that some four years in the state Department International organizations bureau. Shes a harvard graduate. And one of the most impressive elements of her career was her work as a peace corp volunteer in the republic of congo. James flemming who also began his Development Career the right way in the peace corp after graduating from college in physics, he joined in 1999 and worked as the Operations Division chief responsible for the Disaster Assistance Response Teams. Those teams ive worked closely a with them in haiti and after hurricane mitch in Central America and i value greatly their work. James now is usaids division chief for Disaster Response in asia, latin america and europe, the middle east and central asia. And well begin with margy. Good afternoon and thank you good afternoon and thank you csis for inviting me to represent the state department here at this Panel Discussion today. First of all, on behalf of the state department i want to extend our deepest sympathies to all those who have suffered losses because of Hurricane Irma. We share in your grief and we and we are living this disaster with you. Ourselves. Also, i think this roundtable today is an important opportunity to reaffirm our united stance with the caribbean and with those affected by the hurricane. Since Hurricane Irmas first landfall in antiqua and barbuda to the heartbreaking damage it caused in the British Virgin islands and throughout st. Martin, the u. S. Department of state has worked in lock step with other u. S. Government agencies in particular the department of defense and usaid as well as with caribbean governments and International Partners to evacuate citizens from the United States and provide humanitarian support. Hurricane irma has underscored or interconnectedness as sally mentioned, its the u. N. Of disasters and it underscores the need for close cooperation in the region. By working together we can move beyond the events of the past few weeks and recover and rebuild. The humanitarian support that the u. S. Government is delivering and will continue to deliver in the coming days, weeks and months will address the most pressing needs of the caribbean people, but even as we respond to the immediate humanitarian needs of the crisis, we already are looking ahead to how do we addressed Lessons Learned as ambassadors have mentioned and from the netherlands mentioned and how do we mend the deeper longer lasting wounds beyond just the cleanup. As you know or many of you may know, in june of this year, we completed a comprehensive strategy to increase our engagement with the caribbean. The strategy is called caribbean 2020. The Disaster Assistance that we are providing now is in line with that commitment. But in caribbean 2020, our strategy, we also pledge to work with caribbean countries Going Forward to address issues of a resilience of Emergency Response capacities and of infrastructure so that we can respond better to major Natural Disasters like Hurricane Irma. We understand that theres a lot left to be done to determine the extent of the damage as others have mentioned were still in the assessment phase. We need to continue support those seeking shelter. We need to continue supplying relief supplies. Moving forward our focus needs to start to shift from rescue to recovery including robust humanitarian support and i know these are issues that are going to be discussed more by james after me. But before i turn to james, i do want to take a moment to discuss a little bit about the u. S. Governments response efforts in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. Before the storm hit the department had begun monitoring Hurricane Irma as it formed off the coast of africa in late august and we issued travel warnings to u. S. Citizens in the path of the hurricane, we authorized departure for u. S. Embassy personnel in haiti, cuba, bahamas and the Dominican Republic. Were very grateful to our wardens in the field and the regions Tourism Industry and others who helped us to pass this urgent message. It alerted many to prepare and others to change or delay travel plans. We then stood up a 24 hour task force to facilitate the evacuation of u. S. Citizens in need to provide support to u. S. Missions overseas and to coordinate and this is one of the most important parts is to coordinate u. S. Government assistance with our interagency colleagues and International Partners. I personally served on our advertiser on several of our shifts when after its been 24 hours task force so i can tell you that at every level the state department, the commitment has been there, everybody has been standing up to provide support to this relief effort. My last update that i received from the task force indicates that our efforts so far have led to the evacuation of more than 2,300 people from st. Martin including more than 300 people evacuated by Royal Caribbean and 2,000 by air evacuations provided by the u. S. Including military support and other support. To further support evacuation efforts in tortola, san juan and st. Martin we have positioned a number of our consular offices both from the u. S. And missions in the region to puerto rico and other posts in the caribbean and evacuation flights remain under way. We are extremely grateful during this whole event and the aftermath to our colleagues at the department of defense as well as our dutch, french and british authorities for their cooperation. For more specific information about travel, about evacuations and travel and shelters and services to americans and citizens, i refer people viewing and who have questions and specifics about each of the individual countries that they look at travel. State. Gov on the website. The state department website. And in conclusion i want to thank you for your continued support to the u. S. And caribbean cooperation, particularly csis, the caribbean ambassadors, Sally Yearwood for her endless efforts as well and many others who have directly shaped the gwen 2020 strategies that we are beginning to implement. As we move forward in our relief efforts, well continue to rely on you our partners, to try to path to even more robust relationships between the United States and the caribbean. That you csis for organizing this event. Our hearts go out to our friends and family in the caribbean who are going through this devastating disaster. Thank you very much. Thank you. [ applause ] james . Thanks. Well, first, thanks to mark and csis for the invitation to come and talk to you today and have a discussion. Usaids office of foreign Disaster Assistance, our responsibility is to lead the u. S. Governments Disaster Response for the people effected around the world by disasters. And this is a disaster that we could see coming as mentioned at least a week ahead of time so one of the things that we did even before the disaster is prepare as much as we could in advance. And so what that meant for us is we predeployed our disaster professionals across the caribbean to our best guess to where the storm would have the greatest impact. So we placed people in haiti, Dominican Republic and in barbados where we could get to any of the other islands that were affected. One of the other things we did is we activated we have local consultants in almost every country in the caribbean and we activated all of those local consultants and they are our eyes and ears and coordinate very closely with government Emergency Management agencies throughout the region. Also what we did is we prepared airlifts of commodities to be able to respond very quickly to wherever the storm impacted greatest. As these hurricanes go they never they never follow the exact track that you expect, so our staff after seeing where the storm was going we shifted our staff really away from haiti and the Dominican Republic toward the bahamas and antiqua and barbuda and then st. Martin as well. And so at the moment we have Disaster Assistance Response Team members on bahamas, on antiqua as well as on st. Martin. So the way our assistance, the United States assistance is triggered, its triggered by a request from the affected country. So we have received to date four disaster declarations which are issued that initiates our assistance. We received disaster declarations from the bahamas, from antiqua and barbuda, from holland and from france. And ive worked at usaid for 19 years and i think this is the first time i recall receiving disaster declarations from the netherlands and from france. But wherever we receive a disaster declaration, i feel personally that its actually an honor to receive a request for help. And for our teams to go there is thats what were trained to do and we enjoy doing that, so this is this is what this is what we do. So when we when we go into a country, we recognize that the lead for that Disaster Response is the local government and so our job as americans is not to take over but is to support that local government. So when our Disaster Assistance Response Teams arrive in the bahamas, were coordinating with the bahamas government first and foremost. We also coordinate with regional entities. There was a question earlier about the caribbean disaster Emergency Management agency sedema. We door to with them but we also have a job to coordinate the entire u. S. Government response. Cedema. So we coordinate with department of state, department of defense, any other u. S. Government agency that has a role in that Disaster Response. Then we work with u. N. Organizations, international ngos, national government, nongovernmental organizations, local nongovernment organizations to actually start implementing assistance. So far what the United States has done in terms of Disaster Response, we have released an initial amount of funds to each of the four countries from which we have received a disaster declaration. So we have provided an initial amount of 100,000 to all four countries, usually thats channelled through the local red cross for immediate life saving assistance in that country. What we have also done is we have dispatched two relief flights that are arriving tomorrow, one in antiqua and one to the bahamas. These relief flights are full of whatever that country needs. In these cases it includes shelter materials, it includes blankets, hygiene kits, household items, water containers and so forth. We also have received a request for Water Treatment from st. Martin and what we did is look through the u. S. Government to who could provide this type of desalinization. In this case it was the department of defense that had this equipment, so we in turn asked the department of defense to provide this equipment, a couple of these reverse osmosis purification units are being delivered immediately with more on the way. What were also doing is its clear that this is in the early stage of the Disaster Response, so our teams are on the ground conducting assessments and looking for gaps in ways to respond in the future. And the last point ill make before turning it over to question and answers, is that not only do we do response and response is very important when lives are on the line, but youve heard a number of comments and questions about preparedness. Thats an essential part of any Disaster Response is what you can do ahead of time. And this is a big part of what usaid does is Disaster Response and help communities become more resilient to disasters around the world. I have a personal saying is that, how we honor the people who have been affected by disasters is doing better the next time. Learning lessons for response and preparedness that we can put in place and again, thats how we honor those who have been affected by disasters. Thank you. Thank you. [ applause ] i think we have questions from the audience. Im Charles Sharpe again. Charles sharpe again. In terms of regional coordination, usaid, i also know that the agn, association of south asian nations are also contributing highly to rebuilding the caribbean. Whose coordinating that effort or is it like a free for all . Is it a free for all for a lot of ngos . Whose coordinating them all, making sure the money is being spent at the Community Level . Thats key to rebuilding. There are a lot of layers to that question. What i would say first is that the responsibility is that sovereign territory. So if its bahamas, the bahamian government is responsible for all the assistance that comes into their country and coordinating that. A lot of times if a country has exceeded its capacity to coordinate on its own, a lot of times itll ask the u. N. To come in and help coordinate. The u. N. Has lots of coordination ability. Im not aware that any of these countries have asked for that type of assistance yet, but its an option should they need it. I think the other thing that youre talking about is the principals under which assistance is provided and i think one of the core tenets of humanitarian assistance is you have to involve the people that youre helping with the design of a program. So in the intervention that youre doing, it cant be done appropriately unless the people who are receiving that assistance are part of the process, and any person who is responding internationally should be operating under those principals to ensure that thats thats the proper way. Other questions . Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Jillian Marcel and im here representing research and Technology Park from the u. S. Virgins islands. One of the things about the tech park that i represent is that it is completely commercially funded and so the question that i have is, as part of thinking differently about how we respond to this disaster, is there a role for the private sector . Because their technology companies, their 50 companies in my organization that are ready and willing to be involved in the response and the recovery and i would be very pleased to hear from you as to how we might work with you to organize that . Thank you. Sure. I think in my career, this is something that has changed dramatically in the 19 years ive been involved in Disaster Response. It used to often be u. N. Organizations and donor governments that were responding to disasters. I think that youre seeing a huge influence from the private sector. Not only with funding but with innovations and so forth in responding to disasters. And so i think its absolutely vital and its a key piece of any response and what i would say first of all, is that any response has to be tailored to what the needs are. What the needs are . Its not what you have to offer and what the needs are. Going back to the first question, the first place to look is with that sovereign government, to see what the needs are and see if you have a role to play in that. Then, theres usually a coordination mechanism set up. Most countries have a national Emergency Management agency in which you can plug in and see if this fits within the response plan. So those are my initial suggestions. I think your question matches up with the spirit of the 2020 caribbean strategy. Whats different about the strategy it really was developed handinhand with the members, with ngos, csis and within the private sector. We are working closely to develop the strategy. Were now in Implementation Phase and have several working groups advancing the pillars of the strategy. There is an opportunity for continuing actually its essential for the success of the strategy that the way it was drafted and imagined that we continue that in the implementation process. So we would welcome working with members of the private sector, members of academia, the diversity of opinions that are here in this room as we do advance it. And the strategy is build around six pillars, security, diplomacy, prosperity, energy, health and education. So we are working we have six working groups working on those areas and so if theres an area you would like to plug in to, ill give you my Business Card at the end of the session and we can establish a contact. We have one additional question from michael matera. Thank you very much. My name is michael materra, director of the Americas Program here i want to thank everyone who has been part of putting this together and carrying it off. I had a qui. We had a brief meeting before this began from the cuban embassy, and he talked about how havana still doesnt have very accurate reports of the damage that apparently covers about 90 of the island. Apparently cuba was hit much worse than many people know right now. What is what is u. S. Aid and the policy on assistance to cuba . Have the cubans asked for assistance . I assume they havent. What is the policy on that . Were in a new state with cuba. Im just wondering how thats reflected at this point in time. Sure. Thank you. Its a really interesting question and one of the things that i like about working in humanitarian assistance for the u. S. Government is that we do have policies and authorities that allow us to work in any country around the world upon request. And i think you know, as i mentioned before, this is triggered by a request. And so so far from the cuban government, we have not received a request for assistance. But we are checking in with the embassy regularly just to ensure there is no request. We dont expect one. But should there be one, were prepared to respond in cuba, as well. If i could, two additional ways that frequently the International Community responds to Natural Disasters in cuba is through ocha at the u. N. And the office of the coordination of humanitarian affairs and through the Panamerican Health organization on emergency relief in the area of medical needs. And i would suspect that since there is a both boxes in havana, i would assume they would be engaged. Frequently they then reach out to the u. S. For special kinds of assistance that might be needed that those organizations might not have. Thank you. David lewis, Manchester Trade and senior associate at csis. Any of you but mark especially with the five decades experience u. S. Government and margie with the strategy, id like to go back to sort of ambassador saunders piece on the indiscriminate movement of Natural Disasters over what i believe sometimes are artificial sovereign nation state boundaries particularly in the caribbean which is the one region in the world that is host to multinational countries, the europe is in the caribbean. The United States is in the caribbean. And so on and so forth. One of the issues we discussed in the briefings for the strategy was that sort of very clear issues, security, counter narcotics, economic development, its very inadequate to think just of the sovereign nation states issues because these are now multinational issues. Id wonder if any one of you would comment now with a Natural Disaster covering so many different sovereign states, local states, puerto rico, u. S. , Virgin Islands are not sovereign states. These are local states of the United States and theyre doing work in the region. What can it show us about what we need to do for assistance and other areas to really streamline that much more. Particularly when youve got the two Major Economic and political powers in the world, europe and the United States right there in the caribbean with massive amount of resources and expertise to shed light and help on this. If youd like to go, ill comment after. Well, i think the situation is of coordination is something we recognized for a time has always been a challenge and its something that well continue to need to address especially in light of these kinds of Natural Disasters or transnational issues. Certainly in the strategy we developed that with an eye of how do you how does one country do everything. One country doesnt do everything. Everything has to be done in partnership. Its not Just Partnership with other countries. Its partnership with all of the players that are in the arena. So i think that is something weve recognized that we want to continue to we hope the strategy is going to be a vehicle and a mechanism for advancing that kind of cooperation. But certainly every donor doesnt need to do the same thing in every country. We need to identify where the comparative advantage is, who has the value added, what is needed as james said, what is it that the country itself needs and what are the people asking for. I think this is a step in the right direction in terms of advancing that kind of cooperative approach. Whether it is to a transnational threat or whether it is to Something Like a disaster the one were living with. Its a challenge we recognize and welcome everyones ideas how do we address that. Yeah, maybe ill take a slightly different take on it just specifically on Disaster Response. I think your question is a really good one. The way i think about this is maybe in a concentric circle model. Starting at the outside, i had mentioned sadima. I think youre seeing more of cdema. These regional entities around the world so the caribbean, we heard about the Southeast Asia nations have one and so forth. This is something that u. S. Aid office of foreign Disaster Assistance we have actually invested in. We have provided funds to cdema to build their capacity to respond regionally on behalf of the member nations. Thats the first circle. That is important. I also think that this idea of building capacity to respond regionally is important but also build capacity of nations to respond. So over time, well work with different governments and their Emergency Management agencies to help build their capacity so that you dont need as much international help. And weve seen Success Stories on this around the world. Last, i would say that this idea of capacity building, it cant stop at the National Level within a country. And you know, you referred to this i think that getting down to the local municipalities and building capacity there, theyre always the First Responders is the local community and building some capacity there is critical especially for this lifesaving idea. And its Something Else we have focused on over time you know across the world including in the caribbean. I would just add that there is now within caricom, there is a Disaster Relief committee set up where u. S. Aid and the state department have been in touch and worked together. The other point we havent mentioned is that there is now in fact with respect to france and also with respect to the uk the d. O. D. Has helped provide Logistic Support and engaged in cooperative action with them. And one of the things that you havent mentioned is u. S. Aid has prepositioned a lot of the relief supplies in the caribbean, as well in florida which unfortunately i dont think very much of that was able to be accessed. But there is a lot of prepositioning thats been done. Sally, you wanted to say something. Me again. I just want to make a quick comment because i think one of the things thats been interesting to watch over the last week is the fact that the private sector has been very responsive. I think for those of us who are on the follow the caribbean tourism organization, Caribbean Hotel and tourism association, their information coming out on whats going on has been probably some of the best minute by minute accounts of how hotels have been reacting, what the damage has been. And for us at ccaa and the work we do with Tropical Shipping in terms of doing Disaster Management workshops, our focus has always been on private Public Sector cooperation and coordination in preparing for a disaster. I think and thats one of the things well continue to stress and ill talk to you about it. But so thats one thing. I think i also wanted to point out because we have mark from 84 lumber. Thats another private sector entity going in there and doing work and being ready to provide assistance. There are a lot of these private sector activities taking place and helping the transition. I wanted to bring that up. Also worth mentioning the Caribbean Electric Utilities Corporation have protocols in place to provide assistance from one island to the other so that they can help each other rebuild. There are a lot of these things taking place at the private sector level in the collaboration with the Public Sector that are really making a difference. I think, james, to your point, a lot of the work thats been done on the preparation has been as somebody said to me its paid off in spades because the preparation has i think mitigated a lot of the problems that we could have had. And thats not to underestimate the huge challenges that are ahead because the recovery is going to be a massive amount of work on the recovery. But i think but good work has been done. Now it gets into the harder work of recovering. So thank you. The last question for this gentleman right here. Since my name was mentioned i figured id say a few things. When you think of 84 lumber, you think of lumber. Thats not really what were all about, especially in a disaster situation. No one mentioned the turks and caicos hit by the eye of the storm, as well. We have people on ground there. We gave them a half Million Dollar credit line for any supplies they need for emergency or reconstruction or water or red cross blankets or whatever else is needed. We gave a quarter million credit line to the bahamas government so that they would do the same thing. Weve also asked hermes to write credit for all the nations involved in the disaster so we can help provide them about what they need up front. Building and construction is going to come a year from now. What we need to do right now is get the supplies that are needed to the countries that need them. Were going to put boots on ground in every nation to help them evaluate the construction thats there, what the needs are that are there. We did chile after the earthquake, mongolia with their district. We did the caribbean, did a presentation with Huntington Bank and exom bank. Were willing to go into the Banking Industry and help provide loans for people who help rebuild their homes, as well. These are things the private sector can do and get involved in with the help of others. So in the affected nations were offering our help to go in and work with their banking systems, work with their contractors, work with their governments to come up with the solutions as you suggested earlier what to do better for the next time. So were not just a lumber company. We really help work with people and countries and companies to try to get through the hard times. Great. I think on that relatively positive note, were going to thank everyone who attended. And thank our two panelists. Thank you very much. [ applause ] [inaudible conversations] we heard more about hurricane Recovery Efforts in florida and the caribbean on friday when fema administrator brock long briefed reporters. Heres some of the news conference. I was with the president and secretary perry as well to put boots on the ground in south florida to make sure we are making appropriate progress and in the Virgin Islands this week meeting with governor and the governor in puerto rico. Its a complex disaster. As secretary duke was explaining, this is way different than harvey. In harvey, the damage was confined less than 50 counties in one state and we had some pockets of damage obviously in louisiana. This has spread across multiple jurisdictions, multiple states in several island territories that makes the logistical response very complex. In regards to how complex the nature of this responsibility is i do feel progress has been made but let me be clear. We understand there is a lot of work left to do. As weve been saying, the power will be out for multiple weeks in some areas because of the way the storm attacked us. We are continuing to make progress and i realize we have long way to go and believe secretary perry will update us how were doing it. Were aware of the fuel distribution issues taking place. Its not as easy as bringing a generator down to a private gas station and getting the fuel out of the ground where the power is off. Many of these places have not been retrofitted to handle generator power. Thats something we have to look at as nation Going Forward, how do we mitigate these problems in the future. The other thing is support of Human Services whether medical facilities to those displaced is ongoing. Its a very challenging event. America needs to understand, too, that over 200,000 people were most likely sheltered in this event. We have that down to 10,000 shelters for people remaining in florida and not just through fema, the state community and volunteers volunteering at the shelters and help the folks out find transitional housing until the situation is alleviated for their situation. We have a long way to go. Its only day four after irma has exited the state and were going to continue to do that. Fuel distribution, power restoration and accommodate distribution are the priorities for today. We will continue to do that. Hopefully our search and rescue teams are wrapping up in Monroe County today. Good news is the search and rescue mission is complete. Its time to start shifting and focusing on bridge and pathways to recovery. Already in florida we had 300,000 people register for individual assistance. If youve been impacted continue to try to find Online Access to Disaster Assistance. Gov and you can find 1800621fema if you have access to a landline. Our disaster support teams are going to help and please continue to call your Insurance Agent and activate your policy so if you sustained damage, start money flowing to that. This weekend on American History on cspan3, today, 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war, the final military maneuvers that led to general robert e. Lees surrender. All the squirmishing daytoday, sailors creek, hi bridge, right up to the last morning breakout attempt by john gordon at appomattox, theyre full of high drama and emotions are running very high. Unions are out for blood. They sense this is the end game. Lee just will not quit and long street also doesnt want to quit. But the army is crumbling around them. At 8 00 p. M. On lectures in history. The professor on coal miners strike and massacre. On the morning of april 20th, 1914, its questions of actually what happened but there is an exchange of gunfire. Both sides think the other side is the one who shot the national guard, will attack the camp. By the end of the day the national guard, in order to stop the fighting, they decide to pour kerr rosin on the tent kerosene on the tent colony and light a fire. American artifacts the american treasures exhibit at the National Constitution center. Wilson who served in the Continental Congress and saw the articles of confederation were too weak to achieve centralized purposes and wanted a stronger Central Government and stronger president elected by the people insisted we the people of the United States as a whole are sovereign, not the people of each state and not the parliament itself as in britain. American history tv all weekend every weekend only on cspan3. Next, a look at how efforts to reduce the u. S. Trade deficit could impact foreign partners and the global