We will not take viewers to the bipartisan seminar webinar underway with the impact on Hurricane Evacuation and sheltering. The former fema administrator will begin in just a moment. Oversee, federal funding. Our goal is to harness their collective expertise to inform the instruction around disaster programs. Recent hurricane has been a lot of tension on how do you safely evacuate and shelterinplace during a hurricane and still maintain social distance to prevent further covid spread . These are challenges Emergency Managers are facing day in and day out, especially with Hurricane Season having nine named storms since june. I all indications, there will be more. We are joined by a number of these twoalk about distinct crises. First, we are going to be joined by a democrat from the Virgin Islands. She helped sphere the islands recovery from Hurricane Maria and irma in 2017. She served on the transportation infrastructure committee, where she pushes Critical Infrastructure in the Virgin Islands and other areas, as well as the economically depressed urban areas. Congressman, thank you for joining us. We are anxious to hear your comments and how the islands are handling the recovery from the hurricanes years ago at the covid crisis. I will turn it over to you now. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. I want to thank the Bipartisan Policy Center for organizing this forum. I also want to thank the panelists for joining. This is an excellent opportunity for all of us to speak about the Current Issues in hurricane and Disaster Preparedness and responses while we are in the midst of a viral pandemic. Some natural disasters like in thenes often result displacement and evacuations of survivals. Today, we examine how preparations for responding to the disasters can continue while overlapping with the nations ongoing efforts to combat the coronavirus. Lead federal agency for coordinating preparations, prevention, mitigation and response and recovery from our disasters, including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In recent years, fema has struggled to manage the severity of multiple disasters due in part to Climate Change. In this unprecedented moment, as our country continues to respond to the virus and a recent surge in cases across numerous highimpact areas, we find ourselves in unchartered territory. Havethan 160,000 americans lost their lives. At the same time, we see Climate Change increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, setting the stage for possible loss of american lives as the result of natural disasters in the coming once. Just this year, this Hurricane Season, which began on june 1, noaa expects 13 to 19 named storms, including six to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes. Therefore, it is imperative that the American Public understand the steps being taken to prepare for and respond to natural disasters, including hurricanes. On top of the efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the pandemic will further complicate femas challenges and responding to extreme weather events that are increasing in frequency and severity as a result of Climate Change. One example is the management of mac evacuation Mass Evacuation and sheltering. Territories known to be hardest hit by hurricanes also base the highest rates of covid19 cases. This years predicted higher than average Hurricane Season increases the chance of large evacuations of people, including north, to areas previously hardhit by the areas, bringing with it the potential of an increased spread in the areas. In addition, according to fema, state, local, tribal governments share responsibility for coordinating Emergency Shelter support after a disaster. For those who are lower income and forced to stay and seek Emergency Shelters as they do not have the means to evacuate overcrowded shelters from schools to convention centers, risks are becoming infection hotspots. It could lead to a symptomatic matic peopleympto staying in shelters and those with less access to health care with uncontrollable comorbidity may be put at higher risk of complications of covid19. This is a prime example of how Climate Change could act as a. Hreat multiplier Emergency Sheltering is typically authorized under the stafford act, following either an emergency or major disaster declaration, and commonly falls under public assistance category c, emergency protective measures. Fema will reimburse states, tribal, territorial and local governments, as well as eligible nonprofits for at least 75 of eligible costs while performing eligible work. Example, fema may reimburse congregate shelter costs, including facility leasing and utilities, food, furnishing, and other Services Like cleaning and medical care. Fema typically supports congregate sheltering facilities with large, open spaces, Like Community centers and schools. Hascovid19 pandemic complicated efforts to provide sheltering in typical congregate settings. Fema has acknowledged the need to ensure appropriate social distancing. Therefore, on june 17, fema issued an interim policy to authorize noncongregate sheltering, such as sheltering that of wards privacy, as an eligible emergency protective measure when needed in the events of stafford act declared incidents between june 1 and december 31, 2020. Fema also recommends sheltering with friends or family and other temporary housing solutions. For example, a Transitional Sheltering Assistance Program provides temporary hotel and Motel Accommodations for eligible disaster survivors transitioning from congregate or nonpublic shelters to temporary or permanent housing solutions. Ofaddition, it is a form direct federal assistance to homeowners to farther reinforce sheltering that covers damage, allowing disaster to remain in their home a permanent repairs could reduce this the need for Emergency Shelters if hurricanes or other hazards were to damage homes during the c. Ndemi but there remains significant concerns on the level of detailed guidance to stay, territorial and local governments regarding the handling of natural disasters in the coming once. In the coming months. Managing evacuations could be challenging and state and local officials already preoccupied with response efforts to the pandemic, and previous disasters, are now responsible for rethinking their planning and response for future disasters, including sheltering an evacuation and operations. Moreover, every state and territory cases a budget shortfall. Many will be more dependent on fema for supplies and other means during that time. Consideration to support Emergency Sheltering during the pandemic include, reducing or eliminating public assistance, nonfederal cost share, generally 25 given state shortfalls, reducing demand for Emergency Sheltering that is often limited, such as by stemming the care act moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, or temporarily extending housing for individuals who lacked it during the pandemic, and examining options to increase covid19 testing and shelters. Given the documents do not detail plans to provide or expedite testing shelters population, i hope we can discuss some of these considerations today. We need answers about what steps are being taken to protect the lives of survivors and response personnel. We need to better understand how plans can be adapted to account for simultaneous disaster. We need to know more about the capacity and whether medical supplies or other essentials will be available to communities. We need to help Emergency Managers so that they can prepare to fulfill their mission. We need to be prepared and able to address the worst case scenario. Thank you for the implication to speak with you all today and thanks so much and everyone, please be safe. Greatnk you for those remarks congresswoman. You laid out really well the challenges that the states and territories, who are at risk of hurricanes this season, face between balancing those needs of covid. Thank you for being here today. I appreciate the comments. Sure, thank you. Be safe. We are going to turn everybody over now to our colleague ryan president ofe Homeland Security and Emergency Management for iem. Previously, he was the director of urgency management for florida. Very familiar director for Emergency Management for florida. Very familiar, so he will take away the next panel. Thank you, and thank you for the introduction and thank you, representative plaskett for the overview. I am excited to be here today and to share our conversation with some of our nations premier Emergency Managers, folks who have an in the fight and will be able to talk to you all directly about the challenges that we are seeing as and individual states they represent. S far,e have done thu what remains to be done, and what are the implications, what can we learn . How do we find this . How do we staff this . So those are some of the outcomes we are looking for today. Excited to have our first panelist with us this morning. Brock long. Many of you have worked with him in the past or know him as a former fema administrator for the trump administration. He has served in other capacities on the Hurricane Liaison Team and the director of Emergency Management for alabama and currently the executive chairman of haggerty consulting. You have been in that industry a long time. We invite you all to submit questions throughout this and we will start, i will pose those to brock at the end of the conversation. There are multiple ways to pose questions, either through youtube, facebook, or you could et them using the cashtag btclive. What would brock long look like in five years if you really let himself go, the question all of you guys really want to know . Thank you for being with us. Very excited to have you. Based on whatff representative plaskett talked about. We are in the middle of august. We all know that the first couple of months of Hurricane Season are warm up. What do the next few months look like . What are our Biggest Challenges right know that we should be focused on . Brian, always good to see you. The last time i saw you face to face was Hurricane Irma, what i 4. Fer to as a forgotten cat it is good to see you again. They disaster of Mass Evacuation is something we have got to address in the future. We cannot continue to do evacuations the way we have the past decades. I joked that we have perfected this manmade disaster because we often ask people to evacuate hundreds of miles and the reason for that is because we have never put in proper building codes, theential shelter capacity does not expand with populations in vulnerable areas. There are no real programs to fund shelter capability to handle this mission. Emergency a lot of managers are faced with a tough decision. One, you have to prepare people. If you cannot save lives because of a hurricane, then covid does not matter in the secondary event. Covid is the 100 meter target. Once you get people to save locations, you will have to ask them to continue doing what they have been asked to do, which is stop the spread and putting in social distancing to ask. But what Emergency Managers are faced with is reduced shelter capacity because of the capability of being able to separate them. So there was going to be a higher shelter demand. Stock,e current shelter which has been reduced because of any or protecting people from covid. The other big problem is because of the Financial Impact on american households, typically or awe see is poverty rate lack of Financial Resiliency really drives the evacuation and shelter demand that we have seen in the past. For example, if you look at the Hurricane Evacuation, if you ask 100,000 people to evacuate, 5 to 8 typically look for shelters. I believe that number will grow and withf where we are covid, which is Something Else you will have to tack, but Going Forward, i believe we have got to as a nation to covid19, the disasters of 2017 and 2018 that i went through, and a catalyst for making real improvements. There is not a single bulletin that will change the way we do business, but over time we have to focus and streamline how we resiliency and reduce the need for evacuations. You mentioned the five day percent and that is what we saw during Hurricane Irma. Implored that, we issued the evacuation for 7 million floridians and 350,000 went to the shelters. This is a conversation i will have with the director which is, or do you do in a similar situation this year, where we have to handle all of those . Lets dive more deeply into individual preparedness. That has been an area of focus and importance for you over the years, helping families think about their own Financial Wellbeing and being prepared for those rainy days so that they can take care of themselves , and one of the things we have got to be able to do as a nation is to allow and empower these folks to have that safety net. What are some of the things we can do right now to help, and what can we do longerterm in terms of giving them the tools to get there . Starting with the longerterm , you know, femas Business Model is being broken because of a lack of Financial Resiliency and insurance. Part of the Strategic Plan is closing the gap of the lack of insurance. This is tough to talk about and not easy to digest, but it is a complex problem, but you have Climate Change in one hand, which is increasing the frequency and magnitude of the disasters, but on the social side, too Many Americans cannot put their hands on 5,000 cash, so our Traditional Campaign said get a kit for three days to five days, and that is an unrealistic asking most households. That the future, i think Congress Needs to look at the types of education and access to resiliency education in all communities across all walks of life, and it is not just income policy poverty, but asset poverty. That further impacts the lack of insurance, when they experience disasters on their households. Was we saw on 2017 and 2018 a dramatic increase in the number of people the client because of this problem. Fema will not be able to keep up. Fema cannot make people hold, so there has to be more of a whole Community Approach of how we address for future aspects of Disaster Recovery. What i think the immediate impacts are going to be his people are going to need or be more transportation dependent. They will not have the finances to buy multiple takes of gas and stay in a hotel. Stay in af gas and hotel. So you will see government at all novels being able to increase their support for transportation to independent communities and helping out on the individual assistant side. It may force fema to do more of a predisaster declaration and turning on individual assistance to help people evacuate, which should be somewhat unprecedented. You and ithe things share is a passion for mitigation. We are on the board of directors for the federal alliance of homes. One of the opportunities that usually presents themselves after a largescale disaster is to be able to reform our federal laws to improve the way we do Disaster Recovery and preparedness. We have seen it after hurricane 9 11 andatrina, and in a couple of years ago with the dra. There is a real likelihood we will see something after covid. If you could put in a couple of things into that legislation, what are the kinds of things you would like to see us improve resignation . Offirst of all, the passage the disaster reform act, i congratulate congress listening to the need of premedication funding but it isnt is and where it needs to be. I think we need to go back and look at the stafford act, which is put in place in 1979. It was an innovative act, but unfortunately, it doesnt recognize communities that putting real mitigation strategies that could reduce the destruction to property. The stafford act needs to be revised to be able to incentivize state and local communities with implementing residential and building codes, proper landuse planning because we have kind of invented this disaster of Mass Evacuation over the last years. We allow people to evacuate coastal areas. It is not like hurricanes are new. We have had the going back in history. The bottom line is we are going to have to fix this problem through proper codes to ultimately reduce the number of people asked evacuate and the distance to seek safe distance. If we keep doing the evaluation process the way we currently do as a nation, it is not sustainable. If you take coastal communities like miamidade, there evacuation time based on the way it wouldtly do it, grow tremendously, and they would have the issue of evacuations 10 days or two weeks out, which would overstate small businesses, and they have to do this because we have not put in the right codes. Wherehere are people enforcing building codes would tooo insert would be expensive, and my advice would be to go look at other communities stated and i promise you the recovery is way more expensive than spending money up to ensure a proper code based on the hazards associated with a geographic area. I concur. One of the challenges we will have is that as we start this recovery from covid, we are going to see the Housing Market as a result of unemployment being used, and we will simultaneously want to improve codes while we are having issues with the Housing Market, so we will see that conversation occurred, which is how can we simultaneously raise the Housing Market and improve the Housing Stock . Talk about funding. We have seen congress act with the cares act and a lot of money is provided to state, local and territorial governments. Seen innovative ways they are utilizing those funds . Have you seen them use the funds to combat issues with Hurricane Season thus far, and what remains to be done in terms of utilizing the current funding and potential funding they are considering, in your estimation . Congress has a lot of work to do in conjunction with fema and other agencies that provide Recovery Funding because it has become too complex. 2017i was in office from to 2018, if you look at all the funding going out because of fema because of the two years i was in office, it is more than the nine this administrators combined. That had nothing to do with fema. That went to fund over 90 recovery programs. Now you have congress appropriating money, rightfully so, for covid19, but the money is massive. If you are the mayor of the community facing hurricanes and the covid issue, you are like a deer in headlights because you are not sure what you are entitled to do with the funding and how to make sure you avoid andication of the funding, if you use the money in this manner, you will ultimately become more resilient. As we go forward as a result of covid and the money out there, is has to figure out a way to streamline this funding and open it up to the specific uses for recovery for each community rather than putting up arbitrary timelines or risk adverse streams to where they really cannot use it. My fear of the covid funding is that a lot of the money is defunded december 31st, an arbitrary deadline, because we dont know what the economic problems will be next year or in two years as a result of this. The money is great and the communities need it, but they need time to reflect and understand how best to use it, and they need a lot of discretion to use it in a manner most meaningfully for their community. Nobody knows how to fully do it, it is too complex, and we have to reduce the complexity. That was goal number three of the mother, but they have a lot of work and there needs to be another committee that specifically looks at that in my opinion. Understood. I know you got a lot of pressure as the fema administrator to answer the question, we give all this money to the states postdisaster, why is it taking them so long to spend that money . Do they really need it if they are not spending it in a timely manner . Is it really necessary . You and i both agree it is, and we understand the challenges associated with getting the money out there and in a way that accomplishes what you want to do and meets all of the federal requirements. I concur with you on that. The purpose of the ppp is to look at what infrastructure aims to do. One of the things we started at fema was Community Lifeline. I started asking the question and fema asked the question of, if something breaks in the community or people die or a life is disrupted, lets call it a Community Lifeline. We came up with seven, safety and security. You have to have them in place, from logistics to supportive. If you do not have it, you cannot have a functioning community. If you look at covid19, it was a breakdown in the health and medical critical supply chain. We saw a breakdown and power grids, but a lot of the infrastructure we have identified is not owned by fema or the federal government. There are suggestions that 85 of the infrastructure that we depend on for assistance, we expect fema to get it back on line when they have no control over it. When it goes forward and thinking about resilience and the cares act, we have got to find a way to work uniquely with the private sector that runs the infrastructure we depend on to help them bolster that. I am not a believer that a bigger fema is the answer. Retry that after andrew in 1992 and that turned fema into 911, which is something the agency has not recovered from. What i do not want to happen is we need a bigger fema as a result of covid19. That isnt the answer. It is all of us working together from proper and responsible cultures of preparedness at the citizen level to the federal government. Good. Thank you, brock. I am starting to get questions from the audience. Mark has a question similar to what i had. I will combine them. Since we started talking about infrastructure, the drra funded the tilting and infrastructure for community the building and infrastructure for communities, which will be funded at a rate previous disasters were not. That is great news for mitigation on the bric program, so i am combining marcs question, which is do you see rick as bric as a stem and the right direction . What kind of projects would you like to see . We have the opportunity to do largescale products projects. What are some of the ones you would like to see come through next year when that Program Opens up . Questioneciate marcs and i hope everyone in rhode island is doing well. Briching about funding is is just the start. My first concern is i do not believe the first allotment of 500 million is the true 6 that fema put out. I think somebody needs to go back and look at the true 6 because that number seems low to me based on the amount of money going out of femas doors. Two, it is not just fema. State legislatures have to step up and start wending litigation mitigation and a significant level. We cannot just append a program on fema and put it on their shoulders solely. To money is directly tied the Community Lifeline and if these lifelines break and life is disrupted, we have to have a structure to do mitigation to make sure the lifelines never fail and Communication Systems do not go down, health and medical systems do not go down. If you look at covid, it is a breakdown in medical lifeline and largescale logistical supply chains. Local hospitals had one contractor or vendor providing them ppe but they did not have backup contractors. The major suppliers to these pitals were highly level highly leveraged in china, and asia, so it is not just infrastructure but the supply chain. It is also going back and rethinking how we ask people to prepare. Cannot put their hands on 500, we have to stop asking them to be prepared for three days to five days because it is not realistic. We have to go back and get those tangible skills. We put too much focus on the stupid sat scores for our kids, but teach them nothing about a credit score. We have got to correct that. When you look at mitigation, it has to be a holistic approach and more than femas work program bric program. And some background for everybody, brock and i chatted yesterday, and brock mentioned that same thing he said. Oldest sonsly, my was working on his sat preparations. I turned to him and told him, added some credit score work, as well. A request for questions, please tweet them, send them in through facebook and youtube. We want to make sure we address ideas, thoughts, concerns, questions that you all have. Brock, have you seen anything internationally . One of the things you did as an administrator is be with international countries, help them and work with them. I know the u. S. Is one of the leaders in emergency preparation and management, but can you point to anything that you have learned since that you think we could use as a best practice . First of all, we take for granted how awesome the emergency man profession is in this country. It is bar none the best across the globe. Im sure there are plenty of people who would disagree with me. The problem with our profession as we have made it to complex, with too many rules and laws that keep us from being efficient, effective, and being able to respond quicker, but one of the biggest things if we need to start to realize is that we are really good i providing capability to other countries, but 2017 20, with resources domestically, we have not gone through an event where we have asked resources from other countries the large degree that i can recall. Theree got to make sure is no cybersecurity issues, customs and Border Patrol issues or whatever else. It may stand in the way of us calling for help when we need it on our worst day. T1. Thank you. Here we go, a question from andrew. He says, Emergency Response suppliers require swift action, or some would say is antithetical to the response and more what can be done to streamline and be more swift . Kind of in line with what you spoke about. I believe the postkatrina emergency reform act and i understand the way it was written because they were failures in response logistics. It turned fema into 911. Fema and focused on not the capability of local and state level, and i dont think theeally incorporated private sector into the response until the creation of Community Lifelines doctorate, which recognizes they are the key to us getting back on our feet, not the federal response necessarily. Going forward, i think through the Community Guidelines dr. And that fema put out, and go look at the two kit, it basically says if there are infrastructure owners in your community, you really need to rethink your planning and response priority in helping them get their stuff echo upon my. Covid the things with that is interesting to me is if you are asking fema to Rand Logistics for ppe for covid19, they are going to do it but lockdown the logistic system periods maybe they do not need to because maybe the normal supply chains that support our hospitals could be working just fine, but what is the balance . People want to punch fema in the mouth, whether congress, the media or community leaders, and they want to tell them, hey, we dont have ppe, get it here. They locked down the whole system, when really, the supply change could be back up and running. There is no real dialogue in the past that we have had with the private sector to understand that, and we have got to become that good. Very good. We have time for one more question. It is from one of our next panel members, brock, what do you think about using the drs as a supplement to fund lost wage . Oh, maam. Well, it is not ideal. It makes femas job truly. Omplex maybe if the executive order forces congress to act to address the issues, but it is not ideal for fema. The people of fema are golden hearted people. Nobody ever calls them a hero except the people at fema, and i know that some of those guys deployed since 2017 nonstop. When we continue to add to femas plate, to the end of the day i asked, what does the nation want fema to be good at . It is huge. Hundreds of disasters, to what is going on with covid, Mother Nature is not going to stop and everybody expect fema to get them the right answers and be good at what they are doing. Unfortunately, we have got to back off and stop putting it all on their plate and start asking as a nation, what is realistic for fema . Congress has never given fema a real goal. The American Public has not given fema a goal that is achievable to focus on. Their goal continues to be redirected after major events and it will get redirected after covid. They have got an impossible standard to stand up to, and there are plenty of people who disagree with me, but until you have walked one mile in my shoes, you need to back off fema, get behind them, but wehink whatever it is that need to do. They are the largest Insurance Agency to run a program that has not been asked. They are forced to put billions of dollars, running 90 of security for the grant. They make sure the executive branch of government can run, regardless of we face war or pandemics. And they are always constantly responding to everything. The disaster threshold is way and it needs to be evaluated. Atare improving disasters small levels that should be handled at a greater level. Thank you. I will echo your sentiment for any of our friends at fema who are watching. We really do appreciate what you have been doing for the last six months and what you will continue to be doing this year. We know the pace of operations has been phenomenal and extremely difficult on you and your families. For friends and fema and the director watching, thanks for everything you do. In closing words for the next panel . Good to see you. I had to respect for jared and mike coming up. They are two of the premier Emergency Managers in the country. They are the bull fighters in the arena, so listen to them and hopefully they put forward what they need as state Emergency Managers. I am one aspect. I realize one aspect is not what everyone agrees with, but listen to the bull fighters in the arena right now. There is a fight and it is awesome that they can be with you today. Anxious for the opportunity thanks for the opportunity to be here. Thank you, brock. We will transition to the second part of our conversation. Nationswo of the greatest state Emergency Management directors, Jared Moscowitz from florida, division of Emergency Management, and mike sirs very and mike. We will spend time talking about their experience over the last months and what they anticipate would occur. I will dive right into it. Jared, i know your connection is funny, so i will start with you on the off chance we lose you, but how has florida approached the planning effort for covid19 and hurricanes . How much do you have left to do is to mark left to do . Appreciate the opportunity. So far, it is going well because so far we have gotten so much planning for Hurricane Season really since march 1 with covid19 since day one. As mike knows, we have an at a level one longer here in the state of florida and he has, as well. Longer than any other hurricane. We have done more hurricane planning and focus on hurricane planning really than ever before. Is thing that we focused on ration shelters, rewriting the rulebook on that. We sent out 80 pages of guidance are shelterses who in the state of florida. We are working with the red cross, in at those specifically, and how are people going to react . One of the things we dont talk enough about, we do it with hurricanes, now with covid, is this a real analysis as far as who will evacuate, who will not evacuate . I really do think on how people look at the pandemic, depending on what side they are and what is happening out there, really will impact whether or not they go to a shelter or evacuate in response to hurricane. Thank you, jared. I have followups, but i would like to ask the same question to mike. How have you been planning for this . Is it an ongoing affair, and where are you in the process . I think jared would agree with me that it is always an ongoing of their planning. Before i answer the question, let me thank you publicly for back inistance to us march as my graybeard advisor, and i would like to thank brock. I believe he was the one who got drra through and got it passed, so brick is a big deal for us. Thatto sheltering, we know led by thenction six that is red cross, and the direction we are embracing here in North Carolina. Covid19 has allowed us a bully pulpit pretty much every day with press conferences so we can discuss sheltering with our public. Each day we get up there and tell them that 2020 is a year like any other, and what you want to do is to look at your if you live in flood prone areas or areas prone to be hit by hurricanes, look at paying attention to your local , make sure you have a readiness kit that includes a base covering, the different items you might need to keep yourself clean during the covid19 pandemic and then when shortacuate, go as a distance as you can and try to go to a friend or family so that you are not in the location where you are spreading covid19. What we have done is we have worked with the red cross and to get a lot of Hotels Available with a lot of rooms, and we have stood up Reception Centers, so people last week, when we experienced hurricane isaias, people reported to those Reception Centers and we would direct them further to a hotel, but we had a 72 hour block on a number of rooms. At the hotels, they would be greeted by red cross liaisons and brief them on what to expect in the hotel and to take their and feed them in a process where they would be able to get their meals. It worked pretty well, but here is the trick. A massive evacuation. If we had tens of thousands, i do not know how well we would have done. Currently, we are still sheltering folks based on last weeks event. That is where we are, and i will see right here that you did look at what jareds plan is for the plan is fore florida because we are a pretty tight team. Jared, were there any last things that came out of isaias that you are going to be able to tweak the plan with . And did it work as you hoped it would . Sorry, i muted myself. It right on the head when he said that this was more of a betatest then a real test of the system. I was a big fan of pushing for fema to make that a reimbursable expense. They did a good job allowing sevenday reimbursement and we consulted with administrator theirnd few gave on plans. Wee is the one lesson learned, even though it was not used significantly, but we got three hotels along the coast. I need to do it earlier, so a lot of times we are working for fema debt rations because we want to make sure we will get reimbursed, which is important, but if i could do it again, i will block the hotels down slightly earlier so i do not have to worry about competition from the Power Companies and im losing a day or two negotiating with the general counsels of hotel pennies. Uphave 500 that have signed and are interested. We have negotiated a lot of free contracts. Change andations depending on where a storm may hit, so i think the best lesson. Or me to start earlier time, you are increasing supply and you also need to reduce demand. They an doing that Outreach Program to help People Better understand the risks they face in their home. How is that going . What feedback have you gotten . Have you seen any demonstrable outcome because of that program . For the longest time in florida, we have done a know your zone campaign, making sure people knew the evacuation zone they lived in. If they lived along the coast or a place search prone, this year we added a part to the know your home, know your zone theme. We are two months in this country where everyone said, stay home, stay home, dont out, telework, do not go and now potentially because of a hurricane, we have switched to the where it is a you need to leave, you need to leave. Situations, mixed communication is difficult to break through all of the noise and different viewpoints on what is happening. You may want to get someone for a. An amount ofor time, because storms are bouncing around him he cannot pretend people are always paying attention. We launched a campaign, a psa campaign out there, reminding people that seven days of supplies and we change that after michael to three days of supplies. Peoplethe state, provide a comfort and make them understand we can mitigate and if thereid19 if their structure is not safe, we need to be able to provide them an alternative. We do not want people to stay up there structure is not safe and more people die in the water than the wind, and we focus so much on the strength of the. Torm based on the capacity i think we are seeing good results. I think a lot of the counties havesing folks who may be an underlying condition or truly making them only facilities or people who fail temperature screenings. Mosques, 25illion million gloves, 11 million and there are kits in a waterproof bag, with close, masks, and hand sanitizer, lots so we feelistancing, we have given the county the tools they need to provide a straight structure safe structure. Lets be honest, we dont really know how people will react, whether they stay or leave, until the event happens. It has not been fully tested. It is our job in this industry to make sure were communicating with them and to make sure they understand that it is not safe to stay where they are at. The next one is for both of you. I will pitch it to you first, mike. Schools are getting ready to reopen. I have three sons attending three different schools and my wife is an administrator, so i get to see plans and options. Are you Getting Communications back of this on concerns of using them as sites for Hurricane Evacuation . In North Carolina, we do not use schools that much for sheltering. Thatnd of went away from several years ago and are using bigboxces like large stores shut down, churches, cases like that. Frank, we are non makinging them the focus this year. We do not have to want to open up shelters. We are a little different than florida. Have twice the population and they have more coastline. We know we have to be repaired. Schools, we have a lot of schools that are still not going to open. They are going to continue to be online, and then there is a number of them that will be a hybrid of online and in person. Said, we have moved away from using schools as shelters. Onto something jared said with know your zone. We have no your zone here in North Carolina, too. Additionally, we had flood inundation as a network, which helps us out on our rivers that experience a lot of flooding due to hurricanes, so a homeowner can log the home address into that system, and we call it filing, and it will let you know whether or not you are in danger of being flooded, and you can also sign up and be alerted if you are in danger of being flooded. That is kind of where we are, and we bought a lot of ppe. Most of our cares act funding overwe receive, we spent 300 million pushing the ppe statewide, including shelters to be ready to accept evacuees, so that is where we are. Jared, any issues with schools . Is there a potential that this year could cause longerterm strategy of how florida deals with shelters . Anybodynow better than that different counties are going to do it differently. I think folks in the panhandle, folks in more Rural Counties will continue to use the school model. They have made tweaks to that to be in compliance with cdc, nema and red cross guidelines fema and red cross guidelines sent out our plan. Rather than putting people in auditoriums or in the gymnasium or cafeteria, they are instead dividing people out by classroom to keep that social distancing with only a certain amount of people per classroom, so that has been an innovative solution. A lot of our structures are built with a significant hurricane code in mind and hurricane windows of the like. I do echo what mike said, which is a lot of counties have looked at the Big Box Stores that are no longer around, target, costco, to do, get sheltering. Two do congregate sheltering. Will only do, they noncongregate shelters because the prevalence of covid19 is not that significant, and the availability of hotels is obviously not available in the south florida or in the jacksonville or orlando area. It will be a mixed approach. Is making sure counties have the tools to do it safely. So we will help make sure they have the ability to do that. Thanks, jared. We started talking about counties. Both of you have similar demographics and that you have large coastal counties that are wellfunded and well staffed Emergency Management agencies, but you also have rule areas, and the team may have three or two people. How did they deal with the need to prepare for Hurricane Season during covid . What kind of things do they ask you to help support . Were you able to help you with help them with the process . Mike . This is an ongoing challenge for us. Agree, miami, gainesville, jackson and here in North Carolina, fayetteville, charlotte the many, line is there are many Rural Counties in our state, and they dont have the capacity that the larger counties have. So we are focused with working with them to ensure that they have good capacity. You have to do wit in blue sky days as well. We want to make sure that they handthe necessary ppe on for everything from their court system to their migrant farmers to their schools, to the hospitals they may have, and so, the law enforcement, so we have done that. You know, just as a daily occurrence, we have our field staff working. I think it is the same way in florida as well, but i will say during a disaster, we are well aware of the newer people who dont have as much capacity, those types of counties, and surgee will do is we will some of our staff as well is our local Incident Management Teams to go out there and work with them. And they do everything from logistics to providing ppe to people to make sure that here is the thing, all of our Response Teams during hurricane isaias, we have them go through a staging point to pick up enough ppe that would last them throughout the whole event. And so, and then when they got to where they were going through the outer banks, we wanted to make sure those teams were set a fullthey could give spectrum of response capacity. Work with allwe of the different grants, and we are trying to change the way that we do business and make a lot of our Program Implementation more state centric. In other words, like the Hazard Mitigation program. We want them to be able to select the projects that they want to have in their counties, but we would like the opportunity to manage the contractors, the hired contractors, and get those projects done. Often times, you have a local emergency manager, and may be a planner, and we want to be able to take some of the load off of them. Those are just some other things we are doing here in North Carolina. Excellent, mike. How about you, jared . How are some of the smaller counties, do they have the resources to do planning, and how would you help them if they did not . The small,s not just Rural Counties. We have fiscallyconstrained counties for other reasons. I have counties with 15,000 people, but 5000 are in prison. Look, we help the counties out tremendously. Everybody always taught about how disasters are locally executed and federally supported and state managed, which is a great moniker, but how i look at fail if the locals fail, i and then fema fails. It is my job as the director to make sure that our locals have the resources. Whether that was ppe in this instance, or whether that was helping them get those collection kits to the labs, which were difficult to come by at times, or sending them personnel, we have people positioned in every county during a hurricane. Somebody has a liaison. , it fosters communications. We have electronic systems. Counties put their requests in, it isetimes bureaucratic and we need that for investment. We over communicate with the county, being honest with them. Letting them express their issues in a safe way so they can feel they are being heard so then i can go and ask acute so then i can go and execute the problems. Like mike said, all of that blue sky work that you put in is now bearing fruit when you are in great skies, but unfortunately, the folks here at the division of Emergency Management in between hurricane andhew, irma, michael almost dorian you know, we feel ready for Hurricane Season. Obviously covid19 makes everything more challenging. Everything is a little slower. No, i would be remiss to say in addition to fiscallyconstrained counties who dont have the resources, covid19 has had a tremendous impact on peoples individual resources. Emissions we were used to Running Missions we were used to running after hurricane will be larger because of the Economic Issues that covid19 has caused. We will be taking care of a lot more people in the recovery phase then we will otherwise would have, or would be during a regular Hurricane Season. Excellent. Thank you. I am going to start integrating some of the questions from our audience into my questions. You know, one thing is, our audience sees you all on tv standing next to your governor. But what they dont see is you as a leader of your organization as all of the state employees that support your organization. You have hundreds of people directly working for you. Those folks have been working hard for six months. If we have a large hurricane, evacuation will probably not back them up. How are you keeping your people fresh, and how are you able to keep those folks energized when you do have a major event this year . So, i will go first, jared. I just want to say, and i think jared would agree and you, too, brian, we have to lead by example, and so, what i try to do is i stay motivated. Try to be i try to be the first one to come in and the last want to leave. Put out an email to all of the Emergency Managers in the state every day. I have found that this helps keep people informed as to what is happening, what is relevant, and to fight against covid19. Lately, i have been putting out information regarding hurricane isaias and associated tornadoes, and also, the earthquake we just experienced last weekend. And i always put a motivational quote in there. I know it sounds kind of corny would i want to let people know that they are not alone, everyone is tracking, we are sharing all of this information, and i get a lot of information from our technical lead, and i put all of that stuff in the email, as well as Emergency Management stuff because by now, we are really hard to seek the effort of the Emergency Response team. You heard jared talking about testing supplies a be talk about ppe and our strategy and are pillars of strategy for isolation and quarantine, testing and tracing, and then, you know, provision with the ppe. So we keep talking about it and pushing it, and letting people know. We provide the stats for everything and that is every day. I feel like that is something that is good, and i have gotten a lot of positive feedback on that. I will also tell you that i got andally great boss basically, my team has been receiving emergency pay. Gettingr staff has been a stipend through all of this ause i think i just think you have to stay motivated and stay sharp and let people know that you care about them. Im meeting with my teammates every week to get the briefings on the normal stuff. And the big challenge of my people is that we are not going to be complacent, and what im challenging them to do is to come up with new initiatives during the covid19 pandemic muchdont really have that to do with covid19. We want to grow the agency and be better. And i think that is necessary so you dont become complacent, and we have been successful and initiating a lot of these new programs, and that is what we want to do over to you, jared. Jared yes. I feel like brian and mike put can ball in the tea so i hit it out of the park. I will talk with salaries. It is a good thing that mike touched on. I got to tell you, lets not pretend that that doesnt matter. It is a big deal to these folks who are dramatically underpaid to start with. You know, a lot of states during the downturn of the 20092010 time period, a lot of states obviously took a lot of incentives away from employees. A lot of that stuff never came back. Employeesis, i got 35,000 40,000 a year and not seeing their families. That extraordinary pay we activated in florida is a big deal. Im trying to get creative, brian. Obviously trying to get people off to make sure they have time with their family. Lets not underestimate how important that is for people to go home and spend time with their spouse and kids and recharge. We have done some outofthebox things like people bring their dogs to the eoc. Trying to give them some comfort of home. Lookingt to tell you, forward, i think state legislatures, and i know something about this, half to look themselves in the face because you know, this idea we can pillage our state agencies and strip them down to the lowest common denominator, and them not have the resources that they need, you know, that might be a thought process, but when it comes time to meet the department of Emergency Management and when it comes to a major event like this, those agencies being able to respond, how they despond how they respond will depend on how much investment you have in those agencies any part of those parted that investment is in the peopling of those agencies. Im hopeful Going Forward that we see state legislatures realize why those things are important, but look, we have plans obviously to bring in folks from outside of the division to help supplement. We are looking at bringing in a supplemental team if there is a hurricane, and so, we think that is important because what we will do here in florida, we will split between continuing the Covid Mission and then doing a separate hurricane mission. And so, my 14 will pivot to the hurricane with the people supplementing. That is important. We want people arrested and focused, especially depending upon what level of event we are dealing with. Thank you, jared. We have a few minutes i want to combine we have three questions along the same lines. All of them regarding funding. If each of you could spend a minute perhaps. What challenges are we going to phase once Hurricane Season ends . Masks, we have etc. S with cuts, what conversations do we need to have with our state legislators at the federal level in terms of what Emergency Management needs to start preparing for 2021 . Mike, i will start with you. Im pretty fortunate haverth carolina, where we gotten a lot of support from our legislature over the years, and i would say that, for instance, last year, they funded a pilot Flood Insurance program. What we are doing is we are free tothese policies families that are receiving. Unding through hud and so, we have gotten strong support for money that way. Provides aate that 25 match for the federal grants for public assistance and Hazard Mitigation. So we continue to receive those types of money. Mpg. Re able to match our e i would have to say we are sitting pretty well financially right now. We are concerned with the of a programs sharing charlotte dropped off one of our lists. That was one of our concerns as surely continues to grow. Like i said, we think through careful management about the funding, and we continue to become a more resilient state. So, that is what i would have to say. Brian jared, we got about a minute. Jared sure. I wont repeat what mike said because i agree with everything he said. I would add one additional point. It is a problem in florida when you have disaster after disaster after disaster. We have done a good job getting last 1617f the months. But the cities and counties no longer have the Financial Resources to lay the money out to do these responses and recoveries. Most of my counties do not. I am really worried about the state having to step in more often to help counties and cities that are physicallyconstrained do their cleanup and get their recovery off the ground which will put more constraint on the state, especially all of money be laid out for covid. I think that a the disaster funding doesnt get discussed. If the locals dont have money, how do they expect us to do it . Add onewould like to thing there. The noncongregate Shelter Program for covid19, we ually had to ship that shift that to the grantee at the local level. Just like you said, jared, they did not have the cash flow to support them. You know that it is needed. Did,o, that is what we statecentric model, that is what you will call you. Just wanted to make that point. Brian thank you mike, thank you jared. Thank you for the generous gift of your time. I know carving this much time out of your days difficult, but i know our audience really appreciated your insight, so thank you both very much. Michelle, with that, that concludes our panel, and i will toss it back to you. Michelle great. Mike,you so much, brian, and jared. That was an informative conversation. We can all agree that florida and North Carolina are in good hands, and hopefully, they will not be tested with a robust Hurricane Season. Thank you all for joining us today. You can follow us on twitter. Have a Youtube Channel and facebook. We are planning another event for september 15 looking at the three Year Anniversary of Hurricane Irma and maria and i hope you will join us for that. In the meantime, please stay safe, and thank you again for joining us today. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] cspan has covered every minute of every Political Convention since 1984, and we are not stopping now. This months Political Convention will be like none other in history there with the coronavirus pandemic still looming, plans for gatherings are being altered. The democrats will need to nominate joe biden as a president ial camera date candidate on monday and trump will accept the nomination next week. What cspan 9 00 p. M. Eastern of live coverage of the Democratic Convention starting monday, and the republican Convention Starting next monday, august 24. Live streaming and ondemand at cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. The contenders about the men who ran for the presidency and lost, but changed political history all week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Tonight, than 1916 president ial candidate and chief justice of the supreme court, Charles Evans hughes. Night on q a, a journal and author about the ratification of the 19th mmn in 1920, which granted women the right to vote. It passes the house by a margin very small. It passes the senate with only two votes. There are senators who are sitting on it after the house passes it in 1918 and it takes until june of 1919 before it passes both houses. And then, the senate knew they were sending it out for ratification and what is called an off year, when most eight legislatures would not be in session. Makehat was purposeful, to it more difficult, and so, the suffragists had to convince 30 governors to call their legislators back into special session to consider the amendments. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a
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