Lets call this session to order. If everybody who is all right. Whoever is going to be in, get in. Whoever is going to not, dont. All right. Thank you all. Thank you all so much. Can i have everybodys attention in the room, please. Thank you so much. I know time is precious for a lot of people and we have a lot of very important guests and i want to make sure that everybodys time is honored. Im just thrilled to be able to have a conversation about something that just continues to challenge us in a very significant way in the country, and theres no reason to believe its going to abate. All of us are going to suffer through disasters of one type or another, and cities along with states and the federal government, have been working very, very hard, before and significantly after september 11th to make sure we organize ourselves as a country so that we can recover quickly from disasters that happen so we prepare for them, and so that we build in a way where were resilient. When bad things happen we are not hurt nearly as wood bad and other im thread tile elaine duke, who oversees fema and the recovery agencies as well. Mayor Sylvester Turner of houston, texas, who went through his own trauma. The mayor of key west florida. Paul rain worth who has served in many capacities in the state of louisiana, chief of staff tuesday a number of governors and senators, but also has been of great assistance in Recovery Efforts after katrina and recently helped me work through difficult issue is with our sewer and water system in the city of new orleans, and we are joined bay number of mayors from puerto rico. Thank you for being with us today and we look forward to continuing to work to make sure we help stand up your communities as well. All of you already know well the story of new orleans, katrina came in and it was thousand biggest storms to hit the continental United States. We lost 1800 people. 500,000 homes and or buildings were hurt. 250,000 were destroyed. Literally communities were set asunder and the city of new orleans had to rebuild almost from scratch and we did so with a well wishes and the financial help from people from around the world, and i want to thank all of you for that. Subsequent to that, we began to really redesign our Recovery Systems in the city of new orleans, and we are in a far better place today, but since that time, we have suffered in the United States of america from storms, wildfires, mudslides, hurricanes, tornadoes, and some instances terrorist attacks, and otherwise just an incredible amount of violence throughout america, and we all are continuing to work on that. So in the next few months, and years i know that bad things are going to continue to happen. We can expect that. We just have to get ready. We have to get prepared and we have to know how to respond and we october only do that if there is really good horizontal and vertical communication win and amongst partners, that means federal, state and local level so we hope that when bad things come, were ready for them. If they hurt us, were ready to stand back up and we need each others help to lift each up. Ill call on paul rainwater. I have to excuse myself in ten minutes because of another event, and then well have elaine duke and then mayor turner and then move on. Paul. Thank you for having me here and thank you, mayors for everything you do. Youre the frontline leader ares who are what happens in recovery. Mayor lan drew and i were in the stretches together many teams whether evacuating people out of new orleans during katrina or the mayor loading up when he was Lieutenant Governor in he state of louisiana, putting people on c131s as we eveining waited them out of harms way during hurricane rita and i appreciate everything you have didnt as the mayor of new orleans and have enjoyed working with you to solve your problem after the floods. This has been an unprecedented year for disasters inunder country, includingarch hurricanes harvey, maria and irma. We are joined here today by the deputy secretary of Homeland Security, elaine duke and two warms who can speak to the tragedies and lesson offered studies, learn from the response and recovery. Although we are here to talk about recovery after mayor disasters in the challenges. In certainly mayor lan drew has insight and opinions on the issue as Disaster Recovery has been a parch focus on his tenure at Lieutenant Governor of the state of louisiana and mayor of new orleans. I can tell you as the head of the recovery authority, ike, fuse satisfy and the bp oil spill major disasters are shape or steps from the strength of residents who rise up to rebuild to the struggle of navigating a complex federal recovery system which can challenge us all in difficult times. But we respond, we as leaders and you as mayors, provide the leadership to work through those issues. There are shortterm and longterm challenges and they can create some of the most complex functional and political issues thaw can imagine. After a response and recovery. So let start a discussion on recovery. We have with us our first speaker will be deputy secretary elaine duke. She has previously served as a acting secretary of Homeland Security from july 31st, 2017 to december 6, 2017. She is an accomplished leader and as a civil servant. Deputy secretary served in the federal government for nearly three decades including at the a position she held from 2008 to 2010. She has held Senior Leadership positions at Homeland Security and the department of defense. Over the course of her federal government service, deputy secretary duke has received president ial rank award, the dha secretary metal, the taz medal for customer service, the department of the Army Commanders award for Public Service, and the United States coast guards distinguished Public Service medal. Deputy secretary duke has served as member of the Homeland SecurityAdvisory Council a strategic adviser to the Government Technology and services coalition. Assisting small and mid tier businesses in the federal sector. I want to allow secretary duke to make comments. Thank you good, morning. Boundary i have been with each of you over the past addressing issues. Sometimes were on the same side and millions key werent but i found when we talked, facetotase, which is a lost art, is that we are all united by our passion for the people. The passion of our cities, people, the passion for the people of our state and our country, and the commonwealth. So i think that is the spirit by which we come together today. I talked to self of you before, and i think its important that with this time we have today, to focus on how we can even better serve the people point in our jurisdictions and im going to focus more on preparedness but i would love to never see you again, in the context of how most of us have met, but unfortunately i dont think Mother Nature will allow that. You probably read in the news today that Hurricane Harvey is now the officially second most expensive disaster so i have the most expensive and the second most expensive on my right and left correspondingly, and that is a real, i guess, eyeopener to us. Its not the money as much also the people and how peoples lives were disrupted. In total, 25 million americans thats 8 of our population were affected by this years Hurricane Season. I have visited all these and what i saw was homes, families, businesses, communities, totally devastated. But the thing that struck me most was the humanity and the sense of community. It reinforced to me that in the structure of federal, state, local, that the mayors and the communities are always going to be the heart of preparedness, response and recovery. It can be no other way. When i visited ponce, with my friend here maria, it was amazing two things stand out. One is how many people that had moved to the mainland that went back as volunteers to help their elders and others that were impacted, just to took leave from their jobs and went back. We hear so Much Negative about our young people but i men dozens of young men and women that went back to help families and communities. The other thing that impresses me from the time in puerto rico is near the end, on very hot day, we were offering more water than what the allow thement to some people, and 95 of the people turned down the extra water and said no, someone might come along later and need it. Thats true community, worry about not only yourself and others. It was just an amazing. In puerto rico, in florida, in texas, it wasnt just it was throughout, in the my trip to texas, two stories ill tell you there and thenll get on to real business. This is what unites us and is most important. One of the drivers on one of me trip was a secret Service Agent who lost his home to the flood created by the release of the dam it and happened so fast to his home that he had to take his wife and daughter and go up to the second floor and be rescued from there as a mother i was sitting there thinking, the fear of rung up the stairs with your spouse and your child, and hoping someone comes to your second floor window to rescue you. Perhaps the most touching and i have pictures of this is we were outside of houston, at one of the smaller communities that has a too large of a proportion of low income, and there wasnt elderly couple with their cots against the wall and had to have their cots against the wall because they were beth on the breathing machines and they were plugs there. And i was talking to the woman, and she was sitting next to her husband on the cot next to her, Holding Hands and they were probably in 80s or 90s, and if you dont mind me holding your hand im sorry shirks have asked. In this environment i have to ask first, right . But i asked her, i said, how are you doing . Really. She said, its a little hard. I lost my husband of 45 years. Excuse me i lost my home of 45 yours but i have my husband and i have had him 54 years and thats more important. Thats really what the people are about. Their home was destroyed. They were in a shelter but they had each other and they were Holding Hands and looked so peaceful and i think that thats what its about. And thats what our country and our communities are about. So now enough of that. I apologize if it was a little bit human side but i dont think we can forget it because now that the storm is over, the hardest part begins. We also have the Deadly Wildfires currently going on. One of our panelists couldnt be here today. The mayor, because of that. And i think in total, we have done a good job from administrative brock long, through your communities and responding to hurricanes. I was grateful to have brock, newly to fema to help lead the federal response and partnership, and glad that he will be here because Mother Nature is stubborn, no way to stop her and well be here. So i want to talk at bit about disaster preparedness. It isnt a kit you pick up at store. It isnt an article you can rate online. Its habit, its vinal lens and its constant. About the fire drills drills drr activities to get ready and i think this season has taught us that we have got to continue to focus on preparedness, and theres never enough preparedness. When we hear Something Like a fire drill and we can leave and this time its not a drill, we get out safely because of the planning and the exercising and the preparation, and i think this is a time in country with not only the Natural Disaster but the threat against our drivens we have to build a culture of preparedness throughout the country and make sure every person knows their role in preparedness. Its credit cal we all are thinking about how to respond to a disaster before it occurs, as we continue to work in the communities affected, and there are as many people in the communities working as there was this summer and fall. We have to be preparing for the future. We want to continue to work with you on how you are receiving emergency alerts and warnings, what are your communications plans, make a plan, practice it, and update. We continue exercising at the federal level and every time we exercise we find out a kitchening in our averagor, kink in our plan that were able to correct, and we record those and we fix them. And that is so critical because until you actually sit down and really go through the plan, through those of you around the table, the operators that know it, you will not know how unprepared if youre like us, you are, and if gives you the path forward. I really think that what i would like most from the community of mayors is to continue to work with us on this preparation so that as we support you as the federal government in response and recovery, the least amount of disruption to your people is possible. We learned a lot through this season. It was a real world exercise. We learned about how challenging it is when we have logisticsle which lend like getting to at the island puerto rico and Virgin Island and were working on improving those. We learned again about floods. We learned some in katrina but learned about the devastation of flooding, even if its only for a day or two and how to be prepared good ready. I think that is what we have to do. He learned a lot on debris removal. And that ends up being critical in many of this disaster recoveries. Do we know who is removing debris, where and do we have the level authority. Several location is want to where there wasnt debris removal because we couldnt reach the mayor or the local authority, couldnt reach the home owners association, and they didnt have permission to get into that community, and so people couldnt leave their homes or streets because we were stuck with how to figure out how to remove debris from neighborhoods. These are the type of Technical Details that i would like to continue working on through these exercises and through these hot washes after the disasters we had this last season. I encourage you to be looking at the planning documents. We have 32 core capabilities in our preparedness Emergency Response documents. Those are the guidelines to help you as you prepare. We are looking at those at the federal level. We have to look at them at the state level, but every city level with you as mayors we have to look at those, too. We want to be and will be as the federal government part of your team before, during and after a disaster, but the focus has to be before because thats where we can make the real difference. I want to leave plenty of time for questions so ill yield at this point. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments and thank you focusing on he human element. As a person who has worked through multiple disasters it is while we are in the business because of people and although the technical piece and the monetary piece and the piece we focus on, but the reality is its out below people and about citizens so thank you for that. We do have the mayor of San Bernardino could not be here. She is actually had to cancel because she is in recovery meetings right now. So, hopefully everything is going well for her. But mayor ponce, Maria Melendez will speak as a mayor later on after we fin irwith mayor kaatz. Id like to you to mayor turner of houston. Elected in december of 2015 serving his first full year tomorrow as houstons 62nd 62nd mayor. Since taking office mayor turner eliminated 160 million budget shortfall in record time and led the citys remarkable rebound from Hurricane Harvey. He made some very difficult and good decisions about evacuations. And anybody that has been in those roles understands the difficulty you have as a mayor or leader in making those decisions and i thought those decisions were based on fact and you did a great job and saved lives. He championed historic pension reform. Chaired on the 2017 world series winning houston extras. Go astros. I was an astro fan. Raced on the louisianatexas bored sore hewitt is a second home. Host evidence successful super bowl and expanded municipal and led the winning bid to host the World Petroleum congress in 2020. I want to opportunity over to mayor turner for comments. Thank you, paul, and secretary duke, thank you so very much good to see you again, the other mayors, all of you and certainly pleasure to be here. Madam secretary, you can hold my hand anytime. It macules you at bit. In fact just continue to hold handses. But thank you, and thank you for comping to houston and i know you have been there several times so very much appreciated. Let me be go straight into my comments. Harvey was the second costliest storm in the history of our country. But there was more rain fell on houston region than any storm anywhere in our history. I appointed marvin odom, who is the former president and ceo of shell to lead our recovery effort because its not enough just to rebuild or put us back where we were before, its to make sure that houston is stronger and more rye sellent as we go forward resilient as we go forward. So i asked marvin. He led the recovery effort after Hurricane Katrina in louisiana for shell and he asked him to lead the effort and he is doingowmans job. What yeoman lazy job. What we learned is that mitigation efforts should come before the disaster, not after the disaster. Let me start with that. Mitigation first, not mitigation second. We know Mother Nature is going to come. It rained quite a bit and flooded in houston in 2015, memorial day flood. It flooded again four months into my first administration, the tax day flood on april 17th. And again, it flooded harvey on last year. What we do know if there were certain mitigation plans strategies that have been put in this, thousands of homes would not hav