All right, y all right, you guys, why dont we go ahead and call this session to order. If everybody who is all right. You guys, whoever is going to whoever is going to be in, get in. Whoever is 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 with us and i want to make sure everybodys time is honored, and 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 there is no reason to believe that its going to abate, all of us are going to suffer through disasters of some 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 that we organize ourselves as a country so that we can recover quickly from disasters that happen so that we prepare for them, and so that we build in a way where were resilient, when bad things happen we actually are not hurt nearly as bad. And i am really thrilled to have elaine duke, who is the deputy secretary of the Homeland Security, who, as you know, oversees not only Homeland Security in the country but fema and the recovery agencies as well. Mayor Sylvester Turner of houston, texas, who, of course, went through his own trauma. Mayor craig cates, the mayor of key west, florida. Paul rainwater, served in many capacities in the state of louisiana. To governors and United States senators. But also has been of great assistance in Recovery Efforts after katrina and helped me work with very difficult issues with our sewer and water system in the city of new orleans. Paul, thank you for being joined here. A number of mayors from puerto rico. Mayors, thank you so much for being with us today. We look forward to continuing to work to make sure we help stand up your communities as well. All of you already know the story well of new orleans. Katrina came in. It was one of the biggest storms to hit the continental United States. We lost 1,800 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 the wellwishes and financial help from people around the world, and i want to thank all of you from 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, in 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. Think 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 can only do that if there is really good horizontal and vertical communication between and amongst all of our partners. That means on the federal level, the state level and the local level, so that we hope that when bad things come, were ready for them. If they hurt us, were ready to stand back up, and if we need each others help, were there to lift each other up. I thank you all for that and would like to call on paul rainwater. Im going to have to excuse myself in about five minutes because i have another event as president to take care of. Ill stay with you as long as i can. Subsequent to that, elaine duke then mayor turner and there mayor cates. Well move on from there. Thank you, mayor landrieu for having me here. Thank you, mayors, for everything you do. Youre the front lines of recovery and disaster. Weve been in the trenches together many times. Whether it was evacuating people out of new orleans during katrina or literally the mayor loading up when he was Lieutenant Governor of the state of louisiana, putting people on c131s as we evacuated them out of harms way during hurricane rita. I appreciate everything youve done as the mayor of new orleans and ive enjoyed working with you to solve your problems in the city of new orleans after the august 5th floods. This has been an unprecedented year of disasters in our country. Including major hurricanes harvey, maria and irma. We are joined by deputy secretary of Homeland Security elaine duke and other mayors. We are here to talk about recovery after major disasters and their challenges. Certainly mayor landrieu has insight and opinions on this issue as Disaster Recovery and resiliency has been a major focus on his tenure as Lieutenant Governor of the state of louisiana and mayor of new orleans. I can tell you as former head of the Louisiana Recovery Authority which led recovery from catchy can shape our cities and our states in profound ways 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 get create some of the most complex functional and political issues that you can imagine. After a response and recovery. So lets start a discussion on recovery. We have with us our first speaker will be deputy secretary elaine duke. She has previously served as the acting secretary of Homeland Security from july 31, 2017, to december 6th, 2017. She is an accomplished leader as a civil servant, deputy secretary has served in the federal government for nearly three decades, including as the departments Senate Confirmed undersecretary for management, 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 the president ial meritorus rank award, the dha secretary medal, the tas medal for Customer Service and the United States coast guards distinguished Public Service medal. Deputy secretary duke has served as a men of the Homeland Security council. So id like to allow deputy secretary duke to make some comments. Good morning. I have been with each of you over the past year addressing issues. And, you know, sometimes were on the same side of an issue. Sometimes we werent. But what i found every time we talked, especially facetoface, which is a lost art, i think, 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 thats the spirit by which we come together today. And ive talked to several of you before. And i think its important that with this time we have today in the conference of mayors to focus on how we can even better serve the people within our jurisdictions. So its very much a pleasure to be here today and im going to focus more on preparedness. Because i would love to never see you again. In the 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 officially the 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 as it is the people and how peoples lives were disrupted. In total, 25 million americans, thats about 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 reenforced 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 with my friend maria, it was amazing. Two things stand out. One is how many people had moved to the mainland that went back as volunteers to help their elders and others that were impacted. Just to leave from their jobs, young people went back. We hear so Much Negative about our young people today, but i met dozens of young men and women that went back to help their families and their communities. The other thing that impresses me from the time in puerto rico is near the end on a very hot day, we were offering more water than was the allotment 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 of worrying about not only yourself and others. It was just amazing. In puerto rico, in florida, in texas, it wasnt just it was throughout. In the in the in my trip to texas, two stories ill tell you there and then ill get on to real business, but i think this is what unites us and is so most important. One of the drivers on one of my trips was a secret Service Agent who had lost his home to the flooding that was created by the release of the dam. So that was that real quick flooding. And it happened so fast to his home that they he had to take his wife and daughter and go up to the second floor and be rescued from there. As i mother, i was sitting there thinking the fear of running 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 was an elderly couple with their cots against the wall. They had to have their cots against the wall because they were both on the breathing machines and there were plugs there. I was talking to the woman, and she was sitting next to her husband on the cot next to her Holding Hands. They were probably in their 80s or 90s. You dont mind me holding your hand, do you . Im sorry. I should have asked first. I guess 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 years but i have my husband and ive had him 54 years. Thats more important. And thats how im going to remember the hurricane because 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 they 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 bit of the 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 administrator brock long through your communities in responding to these hurricanes. I was grateful to have brock newly to fema to help lead the federal response and partnership and glad that hes going to be here because Mother Nature is stubborn. There is no way to stop her. And i think were going to be here. So i want to talk a little bit about disaster preparedness. It isnt a kit that you pick up at a store. It isnt an article you can read online. Its a habit. Its vigilance and its constant. Its about the fire drills and other activities to get ready. And i think that this season has taught us that we have got to continue to focus on preparedness and there is 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 exercises and the preparation. And i think this is a time in our country with not only the natural disasters but the threat against our countries that we have got to build this culture of preparedness throughout the country and make sure every person knows their role in preparedness. Its critical that 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 were you 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 kink in our armor, a 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, those of you around the table, the operators that know it, you will not know how unprepared if youre like us you are. And it gives you the pact forward. I really think that, you know, 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 logistics challenges like getting to the island of puerto rico and the Virgin Islands and were working on those and improving those. We learned, again, more about floods. We learned some in katrina but learned even more about the devastation of flooding. Even when its only for a day or two and how to prepare and be ready for that. But i think that that is what we have to do. We learned a lot on debris removal. And that ends up being Critical Path in many of these disaster recoveries. Do we know who is removing debris where and do we have the legal authorities . There were several locations i went to where there wasnt debris removal because we couldnt reach the mayor or the local authority, couldnt reach the Homeowners Association and they didnt have permission to get into that community. So people couldnt leave their homes, their streets because we were stuck with how to figure out how to remove debris from neighborhoods. These are the types of Technical Details that i would like to continue working on through these exercises and through these hot washes after the after the disasters we had this last season. And 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, 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 for focussing on the Human Element in the beginning because, i mean, as a person who has been an operator and working through multiple disasters, it is why were in the business, because of people. And although, i mean, it is the technical piece and the monetary piece and the piece that we kind of focus on, but the reality of it is, its all about people and about citizens. So thank you for that. We do have the mayor of Santa Barbara could not be here, mayor kathy mario. She actually had to cancel because shes in recovery meetings right now. So hopefully everything is going well for her. But the mayor of ponce will speak on her behalf after we finish with mayor cates. Now id like to go to mayor turner from houston. Mayor turner was elected in december of 2015. He is serving his first fouryear term as houstons 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 evacuation and anybody thats been in those roles understands the difficulty you have as a mayor or a leader in making those decisions. I thought those decisions were based on fact and you did a great job and saved lives. He championed a historic pension reform and hes chaired on the 2017 world series winning astros. Go astros. I was an astros fan. Raised on the louisiana texas border, so houston was a second home. Hes hosted a successful super bowl and hes expanded municipal investments and led the winning bid to host the World Petroleum congress in 2013. Id like to turn it over to mayor turner for some comments. Thanks, paul. Secretary duke, certainly thank you so much. Good to see you again. The other mayors, all of you, certainly a pleasure to be here. Look, ms. Secretary, you can hold my hand any time you want to. It may cost you a little bit. In fact, lets continue to hold hands. No, thank you, and thank you for coming to houston. I know youve been there several times into the region. I very much appreciate it. Let me go straight into my comments. Harvey was the second costliest storm in the history of our country. But there w