Discussed. It is hosted by the Atlantic Council. Good morning and welcome, everyone. I am the executive here at the Atlantic Council. On behalf of the Atlantic Council as well as our forward Defense Program within our center for strategy and security, i am really delighted to welcome all of you to what the latest event under our future of dhs project titled building resilience in u. S. Communities. To our esteemed speakers, thank you so much for joining us today. The future of dhs project convenes leaders and provides recommendations to assist u. S. National Security Officials as they transform the department of Homeland Security to protect the u. S. Homeland from threats such as natural disasters, pandemics, terrorism, and other future threats. And todays event is the final installment of that future of dhs project series and over the course of the project, we have had the honor of hosting a series of really important convenience, all which you can find online. Some of these include a hosting three former secretaries of dhs for a conversation exploring how the agency should realign his priorities to meet todays pressing threats to the homeland. We hosted former chairman of the u. S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, bennie thompson, to discuss streamlining congressional oversight at dhs. We have customs and Border Protection commissioner troy miller for a conversation on how cbp can leverage biometrics at u. S. Borders. And most recently, hosted dhs undersecretary for intelligence and analysis ken wayne steen for a discussion on the current challenges facing Homeland Security enterprise. Todays event, we are going to do a deep dive into another side of dhs within the federal Emergency Management agency and explore its role in working with federal, state, and local governments to prepare u. S. Communitys to withstand and recover from disasters. We are really truly delighted to host femas administrator, chriwell, so she can discuss agencys goals around its 2024 year of resilience initiative. 2024 might not be the only year of resilience. I think it is something we are going to need for some time to come. We are just so grateful to you for you spending time with us today. I am looking forward to hearing your insights over the course of the next halfhour. After we hear from the administrator, she will be immediately followed by a panel consisting of federal, state, and private sector Emergency Management experts. And tom warrick, who is a senior fellow with us and leads the future of dhs work will moderate that panel, so you all be in excellent hands. With that, it is my pleasure to increase introduce alex hazily, who make a few announcements and further introduce our esteemed guest. Alex is a principal at deloitte responsible for helping, for their relationship with fema. He and his team at deloitte are focused on helping communities get to a place where they are not just bouncing back from disasters but jumping forward after the fact. He started his career in the army 20 years ago and has since been focused on addressing key challenges, from Cyber Attacks to natural disasters and mass migration. He is a big believer in using the latest tech, like gen ai and gis to make sure the u. S. Is not just ready but ahead of those future threats. We are delighted to partner with you. Please join me at the podium. It is wonderful to have you. Thank you. [applause] alex thank you for the warm introduction. I cannot agree more that 2024 should not just be the first and only year resilience. I am thrilled to join you at the Atlantic Council representing deloitte. To kick off todays forum on the crucial role of the Emergency Management community in bolstering national resilience. This issue is a daily challenge for leaders at all levels of government, federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and the private sector. Special thank you to fema administrator deanne criswell. We also today have willie nunn, region 10 regional administered, russ strickland, and president of the national Emergency Management association. Gary oneill, president of the National Hazard mitigation association. Josh, deloitte managing director and internationally recognized advisor on climate and disaster is against. And andrew friedman, the senior climate reporter from axios. Your insights are invaluable to our discussion. As we witnessed increasing climaterelated extreme weather events, like the maui fire last august and the Smokehouse Creek fire in texas and a, alongside an increasingly offensive, all hazards and consequence Management Mission set, it becomes ever more urgent to elevate our national resilience. To focus on how we build resilience, especially in marginalized and disadvantaged committees cannot be overstated. I am honored to introduce deanne criswell, the fema administrator who is at the helm of these efforts. Her extensive background uniquely positions her to lead our nation through emergencies. Her role as it spanned from the city, emergency manager in our, colorado to the commissioner of the new york city Emergency Management department, culminating in her historic numb nation, confirmation as the first woman fema administrator. Today, she stands atop an ecosystem with an evolving mandate and mission that extends beyond just traditional Emergency Management response and recovery. While those roles are enduring, the Emergency Management community and its workforce are sifting through and still prepare this, mitigation, information sharing and technology with a mission set that includes natural and person made events, cyber, biological, and more. Todays discussion focuses on resilience, which is fundamentally about our ability to adapt and recover from adversity. Building resilience is increasingly complex due to the fastpaced and changes uncertain changes around us. The Deloitte Global uncertainty report explains these challenges. As we dive into todays topics, lets draw on the collective expertise and insights of leaders like administrator criswell and our esteemed panel members. Our goal is to transform our dialogue into Actionable Strategies that enhance Community Safety and resilience against these diverse challenges. We are grateful to the Atlantic Council for providing a platform for this critical work. I look forward to our Collaborative Initiative that will emerge from our discussions today. Please welcome me in join me in welcoming administrator deanne criswell. [applause] deanne good morning, everybody. Good morning. Deanne it is really exciting to be here. I think this is just a nice way to cap up a really amazing week where we hosted all of our state directors, territorial directors here for the week and talking about some of these really important topics. I am really excited to be able to be here today at my very First OfficialAtlantic Council event. And i am equally excited to see how many people are so interested in this topic and who are interested in building resilience across america. It is something that i think a lot about. While 2024 is our year of resilience, i think the big piece of that is when you think about fema and you think about Emergency Managers, you often think about us as a response and recovery agency. We have such an important resilience role and we want to use this year as that jumping off platform to lift that up. This event right here is really like a book end to the national Emergency ManagementAssociation Event we held earlier in the week. The topic of my keynote at that event was really around these resilience building efforts, but also about the evolution of Emergency Management. I am really excited to be able to have an opportunity to further discuss some of these topics today. Let me start by setting the scene for all of you. The fema of today, the Emergency Management profession in general, is a far cry from where we started back in the 1970s. I talked a lot about this evolution earlier this week. Let me just give you a quick summary of that. Since fema was created nearly 45 years ago and nemo was created 50 years ago, fema has evolved from being an agency solely focused on Civil Defense to one focused on response to those that include Homeland Security and to one that is essential to recovery. We hold all of these truths simultaneously, because thats what it means to be an emergency manager. We are chief problem solvers. You will hear me say that a lot around the community. We are expert conveners, we are first responders. In recent years, weve also had to learn how to engage in Public Health and cybersecurity and that list can continue, go on and on. The reality is our operational tempo continues to increase. The scope of our work continues to expand. And the title of emergency manager continues to gain new definitions. Just look at the weather events of the past year and i think that you understand why. Atmospheric rivers, fires in the tropics, hurricanes in the desert, drought, extreme heat, extreme cold. 2023, the hottest year on record. Permafrost is melting in alaska. And 10 feet of snow just blanketed the sierras in march. The Severe Weather events of today defy these historic models that we have been used to. And still, there are other threats that continue to lurk at the periphery the added to the load that we face. The fbi recently testified before congress about chinas ability to strike our power and transportation infrastructure. The fbi has even warned about the potential for foreign influence in the 2024 election cycle. Why do i tell you all of this . The moral of this story is we have a lot on our plate, all of us. So, what is it that we should be able to do . What can we do gather . The answer what can we do together . The answer is Work Together to build a more resilient nation. 2024, as you heard, femas year of resilience. Its an opportunity for us to increase individual, community, and household readiness, to train and better resource the Emergency Management workforce, to build up local capacity, enhance our response capability and enable effective and efficient recovery strategies. We want communities across america to think of fema and know how we have the resources that they need, that they can use to do this important work to make their communities more resilient. We want them to invest now, today, so that if and when, and it should just be when an emergency occurs, they can respond faster and recover more effectively. Sounds pretty simple, right . But what does this all really mean . What actually is resilience . It is not a new concept, thats for sure. But it is kind of a buzzword it seems these days, and it can mean Different Things to different people depending on the lens that you are approaching it from. So let me explain a little bit. I met a woman on a visit to saipan recently whose home had been mostly destroyed by a typhoon. She sheltered under her recently replaced roof waiting for the rest of her home to be rebuilt. She had moved her bed into her kitchen and it did most of her cooking on an outdoor stove while the rest of her house was pretty much unusable. While i was there that week, the repairs on her house were finally wrapping up. When i asked her why she did all this, why she stayed and why she never left, why she did not seek out the resources that were available for her, like temporary housing, her answer was very simple. This is my home, this is where i want to stay. She was determined to stay and she did. I tell this story because, to me, this is what personal resilience can look like. Grit, determination, and a willingness to make it work, regardless of the circumstances. I also heard another great example of Community Resilience a few weeks ago during a meeting i had with tribal leaders. There, i heard a story about the native village in alaska not only has a newfound understanding of what femas resilience programs offer, but is leveraging our resources now to invest in preparedness and resilience back home. To them, as i said earlier, they always thought of us as a response or recovery agency, but now they are using the resources we have, like direct technical assistance, to become better prepared for their greatest threat, tsunamis, which is a huge threat in their area. And now, they have the ability to protect their people. They analyzed their risk, they understood they needed to take steps to mitigate it, and then they found the resources they needed to become more resilient. We need more communities across the United States to think like the native village, to take a hard look at the risk that they face and find ways that they can be more resilient in the future. This is one of my biggest priorities. As the administrator of fema, but also as part of the entire bidenharris administration. In fact, President Biden has invested historic levels of funding toward building a more resilient nation. He even created the first e ver National ClimateResilience Network to guide our efforts. The framework unites the entire federal family in this important work and spells out how we should collaborate with nongovernmental partners while building state, local, tribal, and territorial capacity. Because the truth is, governments, from the federal level to the local level, cannot do this all on our own. We need to widen our circle and include partners from all sectors of the economy in this critical work. From academia to nonprofits, from the private sector to philanthropy, we need to Work Together in lockstep to create a more resilient nation. I have seen this work begin to take root around the country on all the trips that i take. At flirt International University florida International University, scientists have crated a wall of wind simulator to test how well structures can withstand a category five hurricane. In guam, theres a coalition of faithbased organizations, volunteers, foundations and local personnel that came together to form guam strong and helped reconstruct homes and build resilience after the typhoons. Or look at the work from the walmart foundation. They are really doing some amazing work in this space. They regularly find Resilience Fund resilience hubs in communities to help them navigate power, housing and communication challenges stemming from these types of Severe Weather events. The foundation is even referencing our newly released Community Disaster resilience zones to help inform them on where they should build these new homes in the future. These are the partners we need at the table, partners who understand that for every dollar that we invest in mitigation, in resilience saves six dollars in recovery. Partners who are ready to pull up a chair, help us connect the dots, and extend our reach into the corners and committees that we have had a hard time reaching. We need partners who can help us meet people where they are at instead of making them come to us. We need them to help us build capacity, help us inform communities across america about the importance of understanding their risk, their unique risk, making a plan, and taking actions. Because like i said before, we cannot do this all on our own. We need all of you with us at the table. So, before i close, let me leave you with this. Think broader. You are all here today so i know that you are already interested in this work. But look around you and see who is missing from this room today. What other partners, what other collaborators and voices do we need to have at the table in the rooms where the decisions are being made . And then, think ahead. What will our future look like 5, 10, or 15 years from now . What can we do today to improve tomorrow . And how can we do it together . And then, consider the individual. With all this talk about coming together and making big change, i want to make sure that we never forget that this work is about people. It is about the women in saipan who lost the majority of her home, the true resilience and determination now has a Stronger Foundation and a better roof over her head. It is about the tribal citizens in alaska who will be safer thanks to the action the native village took to help mitigate their specific and unique risk. Its about your neighbors, your loved ones, and about your friends becoming more resilient, building a resilient community, and together with our help, becoming a more resilient nation. So, thank you for your dedication and your commitment to this ongoing important work, one that will last long beyond 2024. And i look forward to the rest of our conversation today. Thank you. [applause] thank you for that. That was interesting and enlightening in terms of how you are thinking about this, this year and beyond. Um, i guess my first question is the most broad question and probably one that an emergency