COVID-19's Impact on Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering
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Video Transcript
00;00;03;15 [Michele Nellenbach]: Thank you so much for joining us on this Friday morning. I'm Michele Nellenbach, the director of strategic initiatives here at the Bipartisan Policy Center. So excited to bring you this event today, we have got an amazing panel, several panels of speakers. Uh, but first I want to set the stage a little bit. So BPC has an infrastructure project that for years has been advocating that we need to incorporate more resilience into federal infrastructure programs so that we are building stronger to both reduce the loss of property and life and bring down the cost of natural
00;00;34;09 disaster response as part of that ever once Covid hit. And we had a new pressure on a lot of those agencies and staff who handle these natural disasters. We convened a task force of formal former state and federal officials who've overseen disaster recovery, um, and have had to both secure and oversee federal funding. Um, our goal is to harness their collective expertise, to inform the discussion around federal disaster programs. And so, um, as you know, many
00;01;04;07 of these programs are being tested as never before with COVID. Um, as we saw with the recent Hurricane Isaias, um, there's been a lot of tension about how do you safely evacuate? How do you safely shelter in place during a hurricane and still maintain social distance to prevent further COVID spread? So these are challenges that emergency managers are facing day in and day out, especially now with hurricane season increasing, we've had nine named storms since June and by all indications, there's going to be a
00;01;36;10 lot more. And so we're going to be joined today by a number of folks who can talk through how States are balancing those different, these two distinct crises. Um, but first we're going to be joined so thrilled by representative Stacey
00;01;49;12 [Michele Nellenbach]: Plaskett - a Democrat from the Virgin islands. She helps steer the Island's recovery from hurricane Maria and Irma in 2017. A representative plastic currently serves on the transportation infrastructure committee, where she pushes for improvements to critical infrastructure in the Virgin islands and other insular areas, as well as the development of economically depressed, rural and urban areas. Congressman thank you so much for joining us. We're anxious to hear your comments on how the islands are handling the recovery from the hurricanes
00;02;20;23 years ago and also the Covid crisis. So I'm going to turn it over to you now.
00;02;26;12 [Rep. Stacey E. Plaskett ]: Good morning. Thank you so much for having me and I want to thank the Bipartisan Policy Center for organizing this, this forum. I also of course, want to thank the panelists for joining. This is an excellent opportunity to speak with, for all of us to speak about the current issues in hurricane and disaster preparedness and responses. Why we are in the midst of a viral pandemic, as we all know some natural disasters like hurricanes often result in the evacuations and displacement of
00;02;56;27 survivors today, we examine how preparations For responding to these disasters can continue while overlapping with the nations ongoing efforts to combat the Corona virus. FEMA is the lead federal agency for coordinating preparation prevention, mitigation, and response and recovery from our disasters, including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But in recent years, FEMA has struggled to manage the severity of
00;03;27;28 multiple disasters due to climate change. And this unprecedented moment, as our country continues to respond to the virus and a recent surgeon cases across numerous, numerous high impact areas, we really find ourselves in unchartered territory, more than 160,000 Americans have 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
00;04;00;09 even more American lives as a result of natural disasters in the coming months, just this year, this hurricane season, which began on June 1st and Noah expects 13 to 19 named storms, including six to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes.
00;04;21;11 [Rep. Stacey E. Plaskett ]: Therefore it's 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 Corona virus, the pandemic will further complicate Bemis challenges in responding to extreme weather events that we know are increasing in frequency and severity as a result of climate change. One example is the management of mass evacuations and sheltering residents in States and
00;04;55;05 territories known to be hardest hit by hurricanes are also interestingly facing some of the highest rates of COVID-19 cases. This year is predicted higher than average. Hurricane season increases the chance of large evacuations of people, including North to areas previously hard, hit by the virus, bringing with it the potential of an increased spread in those areas. In addition, according to FEMA, state, local tribal and territorial
00;05;24;28 governments share responsibility for coordinating emergency sheltering 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, risk become are becoming infection hotspots, but current lags and COVID-19 testing, if not fix could lead to asymptomatic people who carry buyers, staying in
00;05;55;16 shelters, and many of those same people who have less access to healthcare, less health insurance, who are more likely to have unknown or control uncontrollable co-morbidities maybe put it higher risk of complications from COVID-19. This is a prime example of how climate change can act as a threat multiplier during public health crises. Emergency sheltering assistance is
00;06;21;15 typically authorized under the Stafford act, following either an emergency or a major disaster declaration, commonly falls under publications assistance category B emergency protective measures. FEMA will reimburse States tribal territorial and local governments as well as eligible nonprofits for at least 75% of eligible costs incurred while performing eligible work. For example, FEMA may reimburse congregate sheltering costs,
00;06;53;00 including facility leasing and utilities, supplies like food and furnishing staffing and other services such as cleaning and medical care. FEMA typically supports congregate sheltering in facilities with large open spaces, such as community cell chunk centers in schools, the COVID-19 pandemic, however has complicated efforts to provide sheltering. In typical congregate settings. FEMA has acknowledged the need to ensure appropriate
00;07;23;08 social distancing. Therefore on June 17th, FEMA issued an interim policy to authorize non congregate and sheltering such as sheltering that affords privacy as an eligible emergency protective measure will when needed in the event of Stafford act declared incidents between June 1st and December 31st of 2020 FEMA also recommend sheltering with friends or family and other
00;07;51;09 temporary housing solutions.
00;07;53;11 [Rep. Stacey E. Plaskett ]: For example, the transitional shelter assistance program provides temporary hotel and motel accommodations for eligible disaster survivors transitioning from congregant or non-congregant shelters to temporary or permanent housing solutions. In addition, blue roofing is a form of direct federal assistance to homeowners with barber reinforced sheltering to cover damaged roofs, allowing disaster survivors to remain in their homes while permanent repairs are completed. This program could have
00;08;28;04 reduced the need for emergency shelters if hurricanes or other hazards were to damage homes during the pandemic. Um, but there remains significant, uh, significant concerns about the level of detailed guidance to state territorial and local governments regarding the handling of natural disasters in the coming months and who pays managing sheltering and can be
00;08;56;15 logistically challenging and state and local officials already preoccupied response efforts related to the pandemic and previous disasters are now also responsible for rethinking their planning and response for future disasters, including sheltering and evacuation operations, more over every state and territory basis. A budget shortfall many will be more dependent on FEMA for supplies and
00;09;27;23 other needs during that time. Uh, thus potential considerations to support emergency sheltering during the pandemic may include, reducing or eliminating public assistance. Non-federal cost share generally 25% given state and territorial budget shortfalls, reducing demand for emergency sheltering that is often limited availability such as by extending the
00;09;56;18 Care's Act moratorium on evictions or foreclosures or temporarily extending housing assistance for individuals who lack housing during the pandemic and examining options to increase COVID-19 testing shelters. Given the theme is guidance documents do not detail plans to provide or expedite testing sheltered populations. I hope we can discuss some of these considerations to be, we need answers about what steps are being taken to protect the
00;10;27;23 lives of survivors and response personnel. We need to better understand how plans can be adapted to account for simultaneous disasters. We need to know more about the capacity and whether medical supplies and 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
00;10;54;29 able to address the worst-case scenarios. Thank you for the invitation to speak with you all today. Um, and thanks so much and everyone please be safe.
00;11;07;25 [Michele Nellenbach]: Thank you for those great remarks Congresswoman. Um, you laid out very, very well. The challenges that the States and territories who are at risk of hurricanes this season are facing between balancing those needs with that of COVID. And so thank you very much for being here today. Thank you. See the comments. Oh, sure. Thank you. Be safe. Um, we're going to turn everybody over now to, um, our colleague Bryan Koon, who is with, um, he is the vice president of Homeland security
00;11;40;17 and emergency management for IEM. Um, but previously he was the director of emergency management for the state of Florida. Very well, uh, very familiar with how to handle hurricanes. Um, and so Bryan is going to take us to the next couple
00;11;54;02 [Rep. Stacey E. Plaskett ]: Of panels. So take it away, Bryan,.
00;11;58;05 [Bryan Koon]: Thank you, Michele. And I thank you for the introduction and thank you Representative Plaskett for the overview. Uh, I'm very excited to be here today and to share a conversation with some of our nation's premier emergency managers, folks who have been in this fight, uh, and we'll be able to talk to you all directly about, you know, the challenges that we are facing as a nation, as individual States that they represent, uh, what we have done thus far, what remains to be done this
00;12;29;15 hurricane season. And then what is the long term implications of this? What can we learn from this event? Uh, what should we consider restructuring? How do we fund this? How do we staff these? Uh, and so, you know, those are some of the outcomes that we're looking for today. Uh, very excited to have our first panelists with us this morning is Brock Long, uh, Brock, many of you all have, have worked with in the past or know
00;12;55;17 [Bryan Koon]: He was a former FEMA administrator for the Trump administration. He has also served in other capacities. Uh, he was on the hurricane liaison team. He was a director of emergency management for the state of Alabama. He's currently the executive chairman of Haggerty consulting. Uh, been in the industry a long time, has lots of ideas, lots of exciting things. Uh, we invite you all to submit questions throughout this, and then we'll, we'll start. I will pose those to Brock towards the end of our conversation. There are multiple ways you can pose conversation,
00;13;27;20 uh, questions. You can either do it through YouTube or Facebook. You can tweet them using the hashtag BPC live. Uh, and I will see all of those on the screen and pose them to Brock. I will go ahead and answer your first questions. All of you. I know we're thinking right now, which is what would Brock Long look like in five years, if you really just let himself go. Uh, and this is what it would look like. So Brock, thank you for being with us this morning. Very excited to have you. I'm going to start off, you
00;13;57;28 know, based on pulling upon what Representative Plaskett talked to me, um, we're in the middle of August right now. We've, you know, we, we all know that the first couple of months of hurricane season were really just warm up. Uh, so what do the next few months look like? What are, what are our biggest challenges right now that we should be focused on?
00;14;17;13 [Brock Long]: Bryan, first of all, it's always good to see you. I think the last time I saw you physically, uh, face to face was Hurricane Irma. What I affectionately referred to as the forgotten cat four, but it's, uh, it's good to see you again. Um, you know, obviously right now the disaster of mass evacuation is something that we have got to address in the future. We cannot continue to do evacuations the way that we've done them for the last couple of decades. And I often joke that we perfected this manmade disaster, uh, because we often asked people to evacuate hundreds of miles.
00;14;48;15 Um, and the reason for that is because we have never put in proper building codes. We have never propped put in proper, um, residential codes. Uh, there's the shelter capacity doesn't, um, expand with populations in those vulnerable areas either. And there, there are no real programs to fund, uh, shelter capability and dual use buildings for communities to be able to handle this type of mission. But right now, you know, a lot of emergency managers are faced with a tough decision. Uh, one, you have to evacuate
00;15;19;04 people for the hurricane. That's the 50 meter target. Obviously, if you, if you can't save lives because of the hurricane, then COVID, doesn't really matter. Uh, in the secondary event, covid is the a hundred meter target. And once you get to people to safe locations, you're going to have to ask them to be able to continue doing what they, what they've been asked to do for the last couple of months, which has stopped the spread and, and putting in social distancing techniques. Um, but what emergency managers are going to be faced with is reduced shelter capacity because of the need, you know, the capability of being able to separate people properly. So there's going
00;15;51;08 to be a higher shelter demand, um, you know, upon the current shelter stock, which is been drastically reduced because of the needs of, you know, protecting people from COVID. And then the other big problem is because of the financial impact of American households. Typically what we see is that, you know, poverty rate or a lack of, uh, financial resiliency really drives, um, the evacuation shelter demand, uh, that, that, that we've seen
00;16;19;11 in the past.
00;16;19;28 [Brock Long]: So for example, if you look at the hurricane evacuation studies that FEMA has done, Bryan, if you ask a hundred thousand people to evacuate five to 8% of those evacuating are typically looking for shelters while I believe that that number is going to grow, unfortunately, because where we are with the unemployment rates as a result of, you know, COVID, which is something that these guys are going to have to tackle, but going forward, I believe that we have got to as a nation take COVID-19 the disasters of 17 and 18 that I had to go through as a catalyst for making real improvements. Um, you know, there is not a single bullet that's going
00;16;52;16 to change the way that we do business, but over time we have got to really focus and streamline how we do resilience and reduce the need for mass evacuations.
00;17;04;15 [Bryan Koon]: Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned the 5% number that's exactly in line with what we saw. You mentioned during Hurricane Irma, during Hurricane Irma in Florida, we issued the evacuation order for about 7 million Floridians and 350,000 of them went to the shelters. Uh, and this is a conversation I'll have with director Moscowitz and a little bit of which is now, you know, what do you do in a similar situation this year? Where are we going to, how are we going to handle all of those folks? Let's dive a little bit more deeply into individual preparedness. You know, that's been an area of focus
00;17;37;14 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. And one of the things that we've got to be able to do as a nation is to allow and enable, empower these folks, uh, to have that, that safety net there, what are some of the things we can do right now, uh, perhaps to help? And what can we do longer term, do you think in
00;18;07;13 terms of giving them the tools to get there?
00;18;12;05 [Brock Long]: Well, starting, uh, you know, starting with the longer term, uh, you know, famous business model is being broken because of a lack of financial resiliency and a lack of insurance. And, you know, part of FEMA strategic plan is closing the gap of, uh, the lack of insurance. And I know this is tough to talk about, and it's not easy to digest. And, you know, it's a very complex problem, but you've got, you've got climate change on one hand, which is increasing the frequency and the magnitude that disasters, but on the social side, you know, too many Americans can
00;18;44;29 put their hands on $500 cash. So our traditional preparedness campaigns of saying, go get a kit for three to five days is an unrealistic financial ask in most American households right now. And so in the future, um, I think that Congress needs to look at the types of education and the access to financial resiliency education in all communities across all walks of life. And it's not just income poverty, it's all it's asset poverty or the inability to save three to six months worth of operational savings and
00;19;15;03 account for rainy day funds. Well, then that further impacts the lack of insurance when they experienced disasters upon their household. And what we saw in 17 and 18 was a dramatic increase in the number of people applying for individual assistance because of this problem. And, you know, FEMA is not going to be able to keep up. FEMA can not make people whole. And so there's got to be more of a whole community approach of how we're addressing the future aspects of disaster, disaster recovery. Um, what I
00;19;46;03 think the immediate impacts are going to be is that, you know, people are going to need more. They're going to be more transportation dependent. For example, they're not going to have the finances to buy multiple tanks of gas and go stay in a hotel. So I think that you're going to see, um, government having to at all levels, not just FEMA, but at all levels, being able to increase their support services for transportation dependent communities, um, you know, being able to help out on the individual assistance side. And it may force FEMA to do more of a pre disaster
00;20;15;28 declaration to turn on and turning on individual assistance to help people, um, evacuating, which would be somewhat unprecedented.
00;20;26;13 [Bryan Koon]: Now, Brock, one of the things that you and I share as a passion for mitigation. We are most on the board of directors for the federal Alliance for safe homes. One of the opportunities that it usually presents themselves after large scale disasters is to be able to reform, uh, our federal laws to improve the way we do disaster recovery and preparedness. And we've seen it with after hurricane Andrew and for camera and, uh, Katrina and nine 11. We saw a couple of years ago with the DRA.
00;20;57;15 There's a real likelihood that we'll see something after COVID, if you, uh, could put in a couple of things into that legislation, what are the types of things that you would, that you would like to see us improve as a nation?
00;21;13;08 [Brock Long]: Well, first of all, the passage of the disaster recovery to format, uh, congratulate, I congratulate Congress on listening to me about the need for pre disaster mitigation funding, but it's not quite where it needs to be. Um, I think we need to go back and take a look at the Stafford act, which was first put in place in 1979. It was a very innovative act back in the day, but it doesn't, you know, unfortunately it doesn't recognize communities that put in real mitigation strategies that could reduce the impact of upon loss of life or, or destruction to property. And the
00;21;45;21 Stafford Act needs to be revised, um, to be able to incentivize state and local communities with implementing residential codes, building codes, proper land use planning, um, because we've kind of invented this disaster of mass evacuation over the last couple of years. Uh, we allow people to populate coastal areas. It's not like hurricanes are new, we've had devastating hurricanes, you know, going way back in history. Um, and the bottom line is, is that we're going to have to fix this problem through
00;22;14;09 proper code so that you can ultimately reduce the number of people that you asked to evacuate and the distance that they have to travel to seek safe distance.
00;22;21;25 [Brock Long]: You know, if we keep doing the evacuation process the way we currently do it as a nation, it is not sustainable in the future. So if you take coastal communities like Miami Dade, their evacuation clearance time, based on the way we currently do evacuation business would grow tremendously and they would have to issue evacuations 10 days out, possibly two weeks out, two weeks out, which would devastate small businesses. Uh, and they're having to do this because we haven't put it in the right codes. And yes, there are people who argue that enforcing
00;22;53;08 building codes would be too expensive on the construction side, but I would argue with them that they need to go take a look at Mexico beach. They need to go look at paradise, California. And some of these other communities that have been devastated. And I promise you that the recovery process is way more expensive than spending money up front to ensure a proper code based on the hazards associated with the geographic area
00;23;17;05 [Bryan Koon]: I concur. And I, you know, I think, um, one of the challenges we'll have is that as we go in, as we start this recovery from Covid, um, we're going to see the housing market, we'll see issues in the housing market as a result of unemployment, um, and other issues. And so you're, we're simultaneously going to want to try to improve codes as you discussed. Um, wow. We're having issues with housing market. And so we'll see that, um, that conversation occur, which is how can we help and
00;23;49;00 simultaneously raise the housing market and improve the housing stock. We've talked a little bit about funding, um, and we've seen Congress act, uh, with the cares act and a lot of those monies have been provided to the state and local territorial, tribal governments. Um, have you, what have you seen, uh, innovative ways or they're utilizing those funds?
00;24;11;01 [Bryan Koon]: Have you seen them use the funds to help combat the potential issues we've talked about with hurricane season thus far, um, and what remains to be done in terms of both utilizing the current funding and potential funding, uh, that they're still considering in your, in your estimation?
00;24;29;08 [Brock Long]: Well, Bryan, uh, Congress has a lot of work to do in conjunction with FEMA and the other agencies that provide recovery funding because it's become way too complex. Um, so if I remember correctly, when I was in office from 17 and 18, if you look at all the funding, that's going to go out from FEMA because of the two years I was in office to fix communities, it's more than the nine previous FEMA administrators combined, right. That had nothing to do with FEMA. And that money went to 20 different federal government agencies to fund over 90 different recovery programs. Now you've got Congress appropriating money, rightfully so for COVID-19,
00;25;02;18 but the money is massive and it's in multiple pots. And so if you're the mayor of a community that's facing hurricanes, but also, you know, the COVID issue, you're like a deer in headlights because you're not sure what you're entitled to, how to sequence this funding, how to make sure that you avoid duplication of this funding. And then what are the systems that are telling a mayor, Hey, if you use the money in this manner, you will ultimately become more resilient. And I think as we go forward as a result of COVID and all of this money that's out there is that Congress has got to
00;25;31;14 figure out a way to streamline this funding and open it up to the specific uses for recovery to each community, rather than, you know, putting down arbitrary timelines or, you know, risk-adverse strings to where they really can't use it.
00;25;46;14 [Brock Long]: My fear of the code funding is that a lot of the money sunsets, December 31st, it's an arbitrary deadline that needs to be lifted because we don't even know remotely what the economic problems are going to be next year or two years as a result of this. So 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 with that funding to use it in a manner that's most meaningful to their community. And that's the problem with disaster cost recovery is nobody knows how to
00;26;18;29 fully do it. It's way too complex. And we've got to reduce the complexity. And that was goal number three of FEMA. Um, but it's, you know, they've got a lot of work to do, and there needs to be another committee that specifically looks at that in my opinion.
00;26;32;13 [Bryan Koon]: Understood. I know that you got a lot of pressure as FEMA, administrator that, to answer your question, you know, we give all this money to the space, post disaster. Why is it taking them so long to spend that money? What are they doing with it? And do they really need it if they're not spending it in a timely manner? Uh, is it actually necessary? And I, you know, I think you and I both agree that it is. Um, and, but you and I both understand the challenges associated with getting that money out there and do it in a way that accomplishes what you want to do and meets all of the federal
00;27;05;11 requirements. So I absolutely concur with you on that.
00;27;08;07 [Brock Long]: You know, Bryan, the purpose of the BPC is to look at infrastructure resilience too, and I think that w you know, one of the things that we started at FEMA was community lifelines. And it got to the point where I started asking the question and FEMA started asking the question of, if something breaks in a community and people die, or life routine is severely disrupted, what is it? Let's identify it and let's call it a community lifeline. And we came up with seven initial community lifelines, right? So safety and security. You have to have safety and security in place, all the aspects of safety and
00;27;38;28 security from logistics to support it. If you don't have safety and security, you can't have a functioning community. Um, if you look at COVID-19, it was a breakdown in the health and medical supply chains, critical supply chains. We saw a breakdown in power grids, uh, you know, fuel in, in hurricanes at different things. But a lot of the infrastructure that we've identified is not owned by FEMA, the federal government. You know, there's some suggestions that 85% of the infrastructure that we depend on as citizens is owned by the private sector, but yet everybody expects FEMA to fix it and get it back online when they have no control
00;28;11;04 over it. So when it goes forward and thinking about resilience in this money, then where does the cares act or future resilience dollars. We've got to find a way to work meaningfully with the private sector that runs the infrastructure that we depend on to help them bolster that, to reduce, you know, because I'm not a believer that bigger FEMA is the answer. We tried that in 1992, after Andrew, we did it again in 2005. And that turned FEMA into 911, which is something that the agency hasn't been able to recover from. And what I don't want to happen is
00;28;39;23 that we need a bigger FEMA as a result of COVID-19. That's not the answer, you know, it's, it's all of us working together from proper and responsible cultures of preparedness at the citizen level, all the way to the federal government.
00;28;56;28 [Bryan Koon]: Thanks, Brock. So I'm starting to get in questions from the audience. And Marc Pappas has a question similar to what I had on my list as well. So I'm just going to combine the two. Uh, and since we started talking about infrastructure, just then the DRA funded, the building resilient and infrastructure and communities, the brick program, uh, which will be funded at a rate of 6% of what the previous year's disasters were. I don't think that we anticipated that we were going to be spending as much money out of the VRF is we're going to this year, but that's a great news for the brick program. Great news for mitigation. Uh,
00;29;31;01 so I'm combining Marc Pappas's question, which is, do you see the brick is a, as moving in the, as a step in the right direction for mitigation, and I'm asking you, what, what kind of projects would you like to, we've got the opportunity with brick to do some really ambitious, large scale projects that perhaps we weren't through previous mitigation programs, what are some of the ones you'd like to see come through next year when that program opens up for applications?
00;29;55;04 [Brock Long]: Well, I appreciate Marc's question. I hope everybody in Rhode Island is doing well. Marc Pappas. Um, you know, the, the, the, um, the thing about the funding is brick is, is just the start. My first concern is I don't believe the first allotment 500 million is the true 6% of what FEMA put out in the public assistance arena. And I think that somebody needs to go back in and look at what the true 6% was, because that number seems very low to me, based on the amount of money going out of famous doll, you know, doors okay, too. It's not just FEMA. So state
00;30;25;09 legislatures have to step up and start funding mitigation in a meaningful manner in conjunction with the break program, same at the local level. So this is not just we get, we can't just depend a program upon FEMA and put it on their shoulders solely, but the, the money is, is directly tied to back to the community lifelines of if these lifelines break and people die, and life routine is disrupted, then we have to have a structure to do mitigation, to make sure that those lifelines ever fail.
00;30;53;16 [Brock Long]: The communication systems don't go down health and medical systems don't go down. And, you know, if you look at, um, again, COVID, it's a breakdown in the health and medical lifeline, it's a breakdown and large-scale logistical supply chains, local hospitals, weren't storing equipment. They had one contract to a vendor that was providing them PP and E and just-in-time logistics. They didn't have backup contracts. The major suppliers to these hospitals were, were, uh, highly leveraged on contracts in China, Malaysia, where we've got to go back and
00;31;24;22 bolster those supply chains. So it's not just physical infrastructure, it's the supply chains. And it's also going back and rethinking how we ask people to prepare. So if asset poverty says people can't put their hands on $500, then we've got to stop asking them to be prepared for three to five days, because it's an unrealistic financial ask, and we've got to go back and give them tangible skills and education skills. Um, you know, and I've always said this, we put too much focus on the stupid sat score for our kids, but we teach them nothing about a credit score. And so we've got to
00;31;57;22 correct that, you know, you know, when you look at mitigation, it's got to be a holistic approach. It's gotta be more than FEMA is brick program. That's just one of the elements.
00;32;11;19 [Bryan Koon]: Yeah. And, and some background for everybody Brock and I chatted yesterday, um, and Brock mentioned that same thing. He just said simultaneously, my oldest son was working on his ACT preparation. So I've turned to him and told him that add in some credit score, work as well. Um, want to put out there again, um, quest, um, requests for questions, please tweet them, send them in through Facebook, send them in through YouTube. I'm really want to make sure that we're able to address
00;32;41;18 any ideas, thoughts, concerns, questions that you all have out there. So, uh, you know, Brock, what do you think, have you seen anything internationally? You, one of the things you got to do when you were administrator of FEMA is deal with a lot of international countries, uh, and, and help them and work with them. I know that the U S is one of the leaders in emergency management and preparation and resilience, but can you point to anything you learned during that time, or since, uh, that you think we could use as a best practice?
00;33;13;00 [Brock Long]: Well, first of all, we take for granted how awesome, uh, the emergency management profession is in this country. It is bar none the best, uh, across the globe. And, uh, yeah, I'm sure there's pretty plenty of people that would disagree with me. Uh, the problem with our profession is that we've made it too complex. It's too risk adverse, there's too many rules and laws and everything that keep us from being efficient and effective and being able to respond quicker. Um, but one of the biggest things that we need to start to realize is that we're really
00;33;43;20 good at providing capability to other countries, but in 17 and 18, when resources are strapped or COVID-19 or whatever event we may face in the future that straps our resources domestically, we haven't gone through an event where we've asked for resources from other countries, um, to a large degree that I can recall. And, um, you know, we've got to make sure that there's no, um, cybersecurity issues, customs, and border patrol issues or whatever else that may stand in the way of us calling upon help when we
00;34;16;09 need it most on our worst day.
00;34;22;05 [Bryan Koon]: Great. Well thanks for that, Brock. Oh, here we go. I got a question here from Andrew Van Single. Um, he says emergency response requires swift action, which some would say is antithetical to the current preparedness and response framework. What can be done to streamline and be more swift kind of in line with what you just spoke about.
00;34;44;11 [Brock Long]: I believe that the post-Katrina emergency management reform act, and I understand why it was written the way it was written, because there were, there were failures in response logistics and, um, you know, but the problem is, is that it turned FEMA into 911. And, uh, there was too much of a, an emphasis on FEMA, better not fail in logistics ever again, which I agree with, but it's solely focused on FEMA and not the capability at the local and state level. Um, and, and then I don't think that we've truly incorporated the private sector into the response, uh, until the, until the, the creation of community lifelines
00;35;18;19 doctor, uh, which recognizes that they are the key to us getting back on our feet, not the federal government's response necessarily. Going forward, I think that through the community lifelines doctrine that FEMA has put out and you need to go look at the, the community lifelines toolkit. What it's basically saying is, is that if they're there are infrastructure owners in your community, then you really need to restart, you know, rethink your planning and your response, uh, priorities and helping them
00;35;46;08 get their stuff back up online. Um, you know, in one of the things with COVID that that is interesting to me is that if you're asking FEMA to run logistics for PP and E for, for, for COVID-19, they're going to do it, but they're going to lock down on the logistics system period. Um, and maybe they don't need to, because maybe the normal supply chains that support our hospitals through the private sector could be working and working just fine. But what's the balance. You know, people want to punch FEMA in the mouth, whether it's Congress or whether it's the media, or whether it's
00;36;17;10 communities or community leaders, they want to hit FEMA in the mouth and tell them, Hey, we don't have PPE get it here. So they locked down the whole system when actually the private sector supply chains and the normal supply chains could be online, back up and running normal. And you don't need FEMA, but there's no real dialogue, you know, in the past that we've had with the private sector to understand that, and we've got to get that good. We've got to become that good, Bryan,
00;36;44;17 [Bryan Koon]: Very good. We've got time for about one more question. And it's from one of our next panel members, Mike Sprayberry. He says, you know, Brock, what do you think about using the DRF as a supplement to fund lost wages?
00;37;01;03 [Brock Long]: Oh, man. Um, Well, it's not ideal. Um, you know, I think, again, it makes job, it makes FEMA his job, um, you know, truly complex. Uh, obviously I was not part of the decision and the thinking as to why, um, you know, maybe if maybe the decision, the executive order forces, Congress to act, um, you know, to, uh, address the issues, but it's not ideal for FEMA. And here's the thing. The people that steam are golden hearted people that truly, um, nobody ever calls them a hero. Everybody's being a call to hero these days, except the
00;37;33;07 people at FEMA. And I know that some of those guys have been deployed since 2017 nonstop. And when we continue to add the FEMAs plate at the end of the day, I started asking the question, what is the nationwide FEMA to be good at? Because right now their mission is huge. They have been through it from 17 and 18, over 220 disasters. When the two years I was in office, a new disaster, every three days to what's going on in code mother, nature's not going to stop. And everybody expects FEMA to
00;38;04;27 give them the right answers and be good at what they're doing. And, um, you know, unfortunately we've got to back off them and stop putting more on their plate and start asking as a nation. What is realistic for FEMA? Because we've never given FEMA a goal. Congress has never given FEMA a real goal or the American public hasn't given FEMA goal that is actually achievable, that they can focus on their goal continues to get redirected. After major events, it'll get redirected again after COVID and they've got
00;38;35;20 an impossible standard to stand up to. And there are plenty of people that disagree with me, Bryan, on saying that, but until you've walked a mile in my shoes, you need to back off FEMA, you need to get behind them, but we need to rethink what it is specifically.
00;38;50;05 [Brock Long]: We need them to do. They're the largest insurance agency. That's forced to run a broken program that hasn't been fixed. They are forced to put billions of dollars. They run 98% of Homeland security is grants. They run national continuity programs and make sure that the executive branch of government can run regardless if we're facing war pandemics or whatever else. And they're always constantly responding to everything. The disaster threshold to declare disasters is way too low and
00;39;20;07 it needs to be reevaluated as well. We are approving disasters, um, really small disasters that should be handled at a, at a much granular level.
00;39;33;12 [Bryan Koon]: Well, thank you, Brock, for that. And I will echo your sentiment, uh, for any of our friends and FEMA who are watching this morning. We really do appreciate what you've been doing for the last six months in which you will continue to be doing for the remainder of this year. We know the pace of operations has been a phenomenal, uh, an extremely difficult on you and your families. So we're friends with FEMA and administrator Gaynor. If you happen to be watching, thanks for everything we do really appreciate it. Brock, any closing words for the
00;40;01;22 group before I move to the next panel?
00;40;04;19 [Brock Long]: It's good to see you, Bryan, I have true respect for Jared and Mike coming up. Um, they're two of the premier emergency managers in the country and, uh, they're the bull fighters in the arena right now. So listen up to them and, and hopefully they'll put forward what they need as a state emergency managers. I'm just one aspect. I realize that what I say is not always, maybe everybody agrees with, or maybe I'm not right. Uh, but listen to the bull fighters in the arena right now, Mike Sprayberry Jared Moskowitz because they're in the fight and, um, it's
00;40;35;07 awesome that they can be with you today. Thank you again to the BPC. I really appreciate the opportunity being here.
00;40;42;27 [Bryan Koon]: Thank you. All right, with that, we're going to transition to the second part of our conversation this morning and as Brock mentioned we got, uh, two of the nation's greatest state emergency management directors, Jared Moscowitz, uh, from Florida division of emergency management and Mike Sprayberry from North Carolina's emergency management agency. Uh, we're going to spend a few minutes this morning talking about some of their experience over the last few months and what they anticipate is going to occur over the next few. Gentlemen, good to see both of you. I want to dive right into it. Uh, and Jared, I know that your
00;41;16;19 connection has been a little bit spotty, so I want to start with you and just on the off chance that we lose you, but how has Florida approached the planning effort for COVID-19 and hurricanes? How's it going? And how much do you have left to do well?
00;41;32;01 [Jared Moskowitz]: It's good to be with you guys morning. Appreciate The opportunity. So, uh, you know, so far it's going well because, uh, so far we've gotten somewhat lucky, uh, as we all know in this game of hurricanes luck, luck matters, but we've been planning, uh, for hurricane season, uh, really since March 1st with COVID, uh, 19, uh, since day one it's as, as, as Mike knows, I mean, we've been at a level one longer here in the state of Florida as he is, uh, been as well, the than any of your time in Florida history longer than any other hurricane. And so we have
00;42;05;11 done more hurricane planning, more focused on hurricane planning at a level of one really than ever before. Uh, and so, um, you know, the thing that we focused on clearly is evacuations and shelters, uh, rewriting, uh, the rule book on that, obviously we sent down 80 pages of guidance to our, uh, counties, uh, who obviously in charge of evacuations and shelter here in the state of Florida.
00;42;28;29 [Jared Moskowitz]: And so, you know, obviously taking in the new FEMA guidance, CDC guidance, working with the red cross, uh, you know, looking at those, uh, specifically, um, you know, and, and how, how are people going to react? I think one of the things that we don't talk enough about, we do it with hurricanes, but we haven't done it with COVID. Is this behavior, uh, behavioral analysis, uh, as far as who will evacuate, who won't evacuate, I really do think on how people look at the pandemic, uh, depending upon what side they are on, on what's happening out there really
00;43;03;00 will impact whether or not they go to a shelter, whether they evacuate, um, you know, in, in response to, to a hurricane.
00;43;15;17 [Bryan Koon]: Thank you, Jared. And I've got several follow-ons, but I want to ask the same pose, the same question to Mike first, Mike, how have you all been planning for this? Are you, is it an ongoing affair and where are you in that process?
00;43;29;10 [Mike Sprayberry]: Right. And I think Jared would agree with me that it's always an ongoing affair planning. And, uh, but first before I answer the question, just let me, um, thank you publicly for your assistance to us, uh, back in hurricane Florence as my personal gray beard advisor. And, uh, I want to thank Brock for his vision as the FEMA administrator. Uh, I believe that he was the one that, uh, got DRA and got it passed, and the brick is a big deal for us. So back to sheltering, uh, yes, you know, the
00;44;03;08 emergency support function six led by the American red cross. We received a very detailed briefing on non-conference sheltering. And so that is the direction that we are embracing your a North Carolina COVID-19 is a louder. So bully pulpit pretty much every day with press conferences so that we can discuss sheltering with our public. And so each day we get up and tell them
00;44;31;25 that
00;44;32;17 [Mike Sprayberry]: 2020 is a year unlike any other. Um, and what you want to do is to look at your evacuation plan, look at shelter. And if you live in flood prone areas and areas that are prone to be hit by her canes, and look at first of all, paying attention to your local officials, whenever they give you an order to evacuate and making sure that you have a, you know, a readiness kit that includes, um, a face covering, um, you
00;45;04;21 know, the different, uh, items that you might need to keep yourself clean during the COVID-19 pandemic. And then when you evacuated those shorter distances, you can try to go to a friend or family so that you're not in a location where you're spreading COVID-19 to others or could pick it up. And so, um, what we've done is we worked with, uh, the red cross and human
00;45;32;26 services, and my business use to get a lot of hotels available with a lot of rooms, and we've stood up a reception centers. And so people last week when we experienced Hurricane Isaias, um, people reported to those reception centers. And then we would direct them further to a hotel where we had a 72 hour block on the number of rooms at the hotels. They would be greeted by American red cross liaisons, who would,
00;46;05;15 uh, in brief them on what to expect in the hotel and take their dietary needs. And then, uh, American red cross would feed them, um, by a stop and drop process where, you know, they would be able to get their meals. And so it worked pretty well, but here's the trick. It wasn't massive evacuations. And so if we had tens of thousands, I don't know how well we would have done. Currently. We still are shoved from some floats, uh, based
00;46;36;03 on the event last week, but, uh, that's kinda where we are. And I will say right here that we did look at what Jared's plan is in Florida, because that's what we all do. We share best practices, and they've done a lot of good work and we're pretty tight team.
00;46;57;03 [Bryan Koon]: Thanks, Mike. So Jared, what about you? Were there any lessons that came out of that you're going to be able to tweak the plan with? Did you execute anything and did it work as you hoped it would?
00;47;15;05 [Jared Moskowitz]: sorry. Muted myself. So I think Mike hit it right on the head when he said, you know, that this was of a muted myself. So I think Mike hit it right on the head when he said, you know, that this was beta test Uh, but if I could do it again, uh, I would, uh, lock the hotel hotels down
00;48;22;23 slightly earlier, so that I don't have to worry about competition from, uh,
00;48;27;01 the power companies. And, uh, I'm losing a day or two in negotiating with the general councils, uh, of, uh, of hotel companies. And so we have 500 hotels that have signed up, uh, that are interested in the program. We've negotiated a lot of pre contracts, uh, but obviously as situations change, uh, depending upon where a storm may hit, uh, if you're doing close
00;48;48;13 sheltering, obviously new negotiations may take place. So I think the big lesson learned for me, Bryan, is I got to start earlier.
00;48;55;05 [Bryan Koon]: Sure. So, um, you know, Jared, we've, haven't had this conversation before, too, uh, at the same time you're increasing supply, you also need to reduce demand. Um, and you were doing that through an outreach program to help people better understand the risks they faced in their home. How was that going? What kind of feedback have you gotten on that? And have you seen any demonstrably full outcome because of that program yet?
00;49;21;14 [Jared Moskowitz]: Yeah. So, you know, for the longest time in Florida, we've done, I know your zone campaign, making sure people knew what evacuation zone they lived in. Obviously, you know, if they lived along the coast, uh, someplace that's surge prone, we wanted them to know that this year, what we did is we added a know your home part, uh, to that know your home, know your zone, a theme. And the reason we did that quite frankly, is let's not forget for two months in this country, everyone was saying, stay home, stay home, stay home, stay home, stay home, don't leave telework.
00;49;51;28 Don't go out. Uh, and, and now potentially because of a hurricane, we got to switch that message, which is you need to leave. You need to leave, you need to leave. Uh, and so, you know, in disaster communications, mixed messaging is very difficult. It's very difficult right now, in my opinion, to break through, uh, all of the noise that's going on, the different viewpoints on, on what's happening. And you may only get somebody for a period of time that is listening. And let's be honest, as sometimes tracks of storms are not
00;50;21;27 defined and things are changing. They're bouncing around. You know, we can't pretend that people are always paying attention. So, uh, you know, you know, ultimately, uh, you know, we launched a campaign, a PSA campaign out there, uh, reminding people to have seven days of supplies. We changed that after Michael three days of supplies, but just not enough. Uh, I think what we're seeing, uh, is that, uh, if we, the state provides people that comfort that there is a safe place to go. If we make them understand that we can mitigate the effects of COVID-19, uh, uh, but we can't mitigate the
00;50;53;27 effects of a hurricane.
00;50;55;06 [Jared Moskowitz]: If their structure is not safe, if their dwelling is not safe for the hurricane, that's approaching, uh, we need to be able to provide them an alternative to leave. We don't want people to stay. Um, if their structure is not safe, more people die from the water than the wind. And we focus so much obviously on the strength of the storm, uh, based on the wind capacity. And so I think we're seeing good results from that. Uh, I think a lot of the counties are using non-congregate shelters for, uh, folks that might be 65 and older folks that might have an underlying condition or truthfully just making them COVID only facilities or people
00;51;28;11 who fail temperature screenings. And so, uh, you know, we have 25 million masks, 20 million gloves, 11 million gowns on hand, we bought hurricane preparation kits, which will be a, a kit in a waterproof bag. Everyone will get a gloves mask and hand sanitizer. If they come to a shelter, lots of social distancing going on, we got negative pressure machines that we purchased that we could give out to shelters, uh, if we had to. So we feel, uh, that we've given the counties, uh, the tools that
00;51;57;16 they need to provide a safe structure, but let's be honest. Uh, we well know how people are really going to react and whether they're going to stay or leave, uh, until the event happens. It's not been fully tested yet. Uh, but it's our job in this industry, uh, to make sure that we're communicating with them, their options and make sure that they understand that it is not safe to stay where they're at. They must leave.
00;52;22;15 [Bryan Koon]: Thanks, Jared. The next one is for both of you and I'll, I'll pitch it to you first, Mike, but schools in both of your States are getting ready to open this month. Many of, especially in the South, our shelter plans revolve around the use of schools. I have three sons attending three different schools, and my wife is an administrator at a fourth. So I need to see lots of different plans and ideas and options. Are you getting any communications back from the schools about concerns of using them for shelters or other aspects of hurricane evacuation?
00;52;52;26 [Mike Sprayberry]: Right. And I will tell you here in North Carolina, we do not use schools that much for sheltering. Uh, we, uh, we kinda went away from that several years ago and are using more places like, uh, large, big box stores that are shut down church churches and places like that. And so to be quite frank with you, you know, we have, um, we are really focused
00;53;23;12 on making non-congregate sheltering our focus for this year, and we don't want to have to open up any congregate shelters. And we're a little bit different than Florida. I think Florida has twice the population that we do, and obviously they have more coastline, um, that we know that we have to be prepared. So, you know, schools, um, you know, we have a lot of schools that actually are still not going to open. Um, they're going to continue to be online and, uh, and then
00;53;55;12 there's a number of them that are going to be a hybrid of online and in person. But, uh, we, like I said, we have moved away from using schools as shelters. Um, I will say that I'm going to tag on to something Jared just talked about with know your zone. We have know your zone here in North Carolina to additionally, we have what we call the flood inundation mapping and alert network, which helps us out, particularly on our rivers
00;54;23;26 that experienced a lot of flooding due to hurricanes.
00;54;26;21 [Mike Sprayberry]: And so a, um, a homeowner can log the home address into that system. We call it fiman and it will let you know whether or not you're in danger of being flooded. And you can also sign up to be alerted if you're in danger of being flooded. And so that's kind of where we are. And we bought a lot of PPE. We, most of our Cares Act funding that we received, uh, we spent over $300 million, uh, pushing the PPE, basically
00;55;01;01 statewide that includes, um, shelters to be ready to accept evacuees. And so that's where we are.
00;55;13;02 [Rep. Stacey E. Plaskett ]: Thanks Mike and Jared, any, any issues with the schools there and, you know, is there a potential this year could cause some longer term strategies and how Florida deals with shelters?
00;55;26;00 [Jared Moskowitz]: Well, Bryan, you know, uh, you know, better than anybody obviously that, you know, different counties are going to do it differently. So I think folks in the panhandle, uh, folks in some of the more rural counties, uh, they'll continue to use the school model. Obviously they've made tweaks to that, that to be in compliance with, you know, CDC, FEMA guidelines, the red cross, that the guidelines that we sent out in, in our shelter and plan, uh, a lot of the counties they're looking, uh, rather than putting people in auditoriums or, uh, in the gymnasium or in the cafeteria, uh they're instead dividing people out by classroom to
00;55;59;20 give, uh, that social distancing with, you know, only a certain amount of people, uh, per classroom. So that's been an innovative solution. Obviously some, a lot of our structures have been, are built, uh, with, uh, you know, significant hurricane code in mind, hurricane windows of, uh, of the like, so it's really gonna differ by County.
00;56;16;07 [Jared Moskowitz]: I do, I do echo what, uh, what Mike said, which is a lot of counties have looked at these, uh, uh, big box stores that are no longer around a target, a Costco, uh, to do, uh, uh, that Congress sheltering as well. We'll have to have a mixture. Uh, some areas, again, like in the panhandle earlier is they'll do, they'll only do in my opinion, uh, not a congregate shelter, uh, because of the prevalence of COVID-19 is not that significant. And, uh, the availability of hotels, uh, is, is, is
00;56;48;07 obviously, uh, not as available, let's say in South Florida or in the Tampa Jacksonville Orlando area. So it, it really will be a mixed approach. I mean, we're, the division will help obviously is making sure, uh, that those counties have the resources and the tools to do it safely. So if we have to help with, you know, cleaning the school thereafter, uh, you know, we'll, we'll help make sure that they have the ability to do that.
00;57;10;15 [Bryan Koon]: Thanks, Jared. So we started talking about counties there a little bit, and both of you have similar demographics and that you have large coastal counties with well-funded well-staffed emergency management agencies, but you also have some extremely rural areas and the emergency management team might be one to three people. How did they deal with the need to prepare for hurricane season during code? What kind of things did they ask you to help support? Uh, and were you able to help them with that process? Mike, I'll go to you first.
00;57;41;07 [Mike Sprayberry]: Yes. This is an ongoing challenge for us, because I think that Jerry would agree here. You know, you hear about the Miamis and the Gainesville and Jacksonville and stuff, but, and like here in North Carolina, Raleigh, Durham, Fayetteville, Charlotte, but bottom line is there's a, there's many, many rural, rural counties in our state. And, um, and they don't have the capacity that these large urban counties have. And so we, we are focused on working with them to ensure that they have,
00;58;12;13 um, good capacity and, and just, you know, you have to do it in blue sky days as well. And we want to make sure that they have the necessary PPE on hand, uh, for everything from their court system, to their migrant farmers, to their schools, to, um, the hospitals that they may have. And so of the law enforcement. So we've done that, um, you know, just as a daily
00;58;41;19 occurrence, we have our field staff working with them. I think it's the same way in Florida as well. Um, but I will say that during a disaster, we are well aware of, um, the newer people or the people that don't have as much capacity, um, those types of counties. And what we will do is we will surge, um, you know, some of our staff from the West as, you know, as well
00;59;07;08 as 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 they're, here's the thing, all of our response teams during hurricane, yes, we had to have them go through a staging point to pick up enough PPE that would last them throughout the whole event. And so, um, and then when they got to where they were going in the outer banks or other barrier islands, uh, we wanted to make sure that those teams were set up
00;59;44;11 and ready to give, uh, the full spectrum of response capacity. So, um, you know, we work with all the different rants and we're 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, in
01;00;12;12 their counties.
01;00;13;20 [Mike Sprayberry]: But we would like the opportunity to manage the contractors, to hire the contractors and get them done, get those projects done for them, because oftentimes you just have a local emergency manager, maybe a planner, um, and we want to be able to take some of the load off of them. Um, so those are just some of the things that we're doing here in North Carolina, Bryan.
01;00;38;15 [Bryan Koon]: Excellent. Mike, how about you, Jared, you know, some of the smaller counties, particularly in the panhandle, did they have the resources to do planning or, and how did you help them with it if they didn't?
01;00;49;12 [Jared Moskowitz]: Yeah, so I mean, you know, it's not even just the small, uh, rural counties. We have, you know, fiscally constrained counties that may not even be that small, but are fiscally constrained for, for other reasons, I got counties that have 15,000 people in them, but 5,000 of the 15,000 are in prison in that County, uh, where their EOC is two people on and no larger than a small conference room. Uh, so look, we, we, we have helped the counties out, uh, tremendously. Uh, you know, everybody always talks about how, you know, disasters are locally executed in state managed, federally supported, uh, which is, which is a great moniker obviously. But
01;01;22;04 the way I look at it truthfully is that if the locals fail, I fail and then FEMA fails. And so it's my job, uh, as a director, as it is, Mike's, uh, to make sure that our locals have the resources.
01;01;35;10 [Jared Moskowitz]: And so whether that was PPE in this instance, or whether that was helping them get those collection kits in those labs, which were, were difficult to come by at times, uh, whether that was actually sending them personnel. Uh, we now have people are positioned in every county, uh, during a hurricane, somebody in the EOC as a liaison, something we're doing, uh, you know, the last, uh, last couple of years. Um, and so it foster better communication. You know, obviously we have these electronic systems, we, we, the counties put their requests in, uh, but sometimes, you know, those are, those are nights, you know, bureaucrat,
01;02;07;27 they're the little bureaucratic we needed, obviously for reimbursement. So communicating with that director, um, more often, uh, over communicate, uh, with the County, uh, being honest with, uh, letting them express their issues in a safe way so that they feel that they're being heard, uh, so that I can then obviously go and execute on the mission at hand and solve those problems. And so, uh, you know, I it's really, like Mike said, uh, all that blue sky
01;02;37;07 work, uh, that you put in, uh, is now does bear fruit, uh, when, when you're in grace guys. And unfortunately, uh, the folks here at the division of emergency management, your Florida, and all of our counties have more experience with this than anybody else in the last five years between her main Matthew, uh, uh, you know, Irma, um, Michael, uh, and then almost Dorian. And so, um, you know, we throw ready for hurricane season. Obviously COVID-19 makes everything more challenging. Uh, everything's a
01;03;08;00 little slower, uh, you know, and I would be remiss to say, in addition to fiscally constrained counties and rural counties that don't have the financial resources COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on, on people's individual resources. And so I do think missions that were used to running like a food mission after hurricane is going to be a lot larger than it, than it would other have been because of the economic issues that COVID-19 has caused. We're going to be taking care of a lot more people, uh, in the
01;03;35;12 recovery phase, uh, than I think we otherwise would have, uh, would be in a regular hurricane season.
01;03;43;28 [Bryan Koon]: Excellent. Thank you. I'm going to start integrating some of the questions from our audience here into my questions. Um, the first, you know, one thing is that our audience sees you all on TV, standing next to your governor. That's what they picture you as, but what they don't see is you as a leader of your organization, as all of the state employees that help support your organization, you to have hundreds of people working directly for you. Those folks who have been working hard for six months, uh, if we have a large hurricane, you know, EMAC is not probably going to be there to help
01;04;17;06 back them up, how are you keeping your people fresh? Uh, and how do you intend to make sure that you're able to meet the need and keep those folks energized when you do have a major event this year?
01;04;28;12 [Mike Sprayberry]: So I'll go first, Jared. And, um, I just want to say, and I think Jared would agree is that, and you too, Bryan, we gotta, we have to lead by example. And so, I mean, what I try to do is I stay motivated. I try to be the first one at the stadium and the last one to leave, and I put out an email to all of the emergency managers in the state every day. And I have found that this helps keep people informed as
01;05;01;29 to what's happening. What's relevant in the fight against COVID-19 lately. I've been putting out, uh, information regarding, you know, Hurricane Isaias and the associated tornadoes, and also the earthquake that
01;05;18;03 [Mike Sprayberry]: We just experienced last weekend. And so, you know, you'll try to always put a quote in there, a motivational quote. I know it sounds kind of corny, but, uh, I want to let people know that they're not alone. Everybody's tracking that we're sharing all this information. And I get a lot of the information from our cert technical lead, dr. Cohen. And I put all that stuff in the email as well as emergency management stuff, because right now we're working really hard to see the effort of the state emergency response team. So you heard Jared talking about testing supplies,
01;05;53;18 and we talk about PPE and our strategy or pillars of strategy for isolation, quarantine testing, and tracing, and then, um, you know, prevention with the PPE. And so we keep talking about it and pushing it and letting people know, and we give, we, we provide the, the stats for everything and that's every day. And so I feel like that's something that's good. And I've gotten a lot of
01;06;21;07 positive feedback on that. I'll also tell you that I've got a really great boss. Um, and basically my team has been receiving emergency pay, not the senior level staff, but the lower staff has been getting a stipend during all this, because I think today is day one 58 of the EOC activation. I don't know what it is in Florida, but I reckon it's been a pretty good while Jared. And so, um, you know, when I just think that you have to stay
01;06;52;10 motivated and stay sharp and let people know that you care about them. Um, I'm meeting with my teammates every week to get the briefings on the normal stuff. And the big challenge that my people is, we are not going to be complacent. And what I'm challenging them to do is to come up with new initiatives during the COVID-19 and, um, pandemic that, you know, don't
01;07;20;11 really have that much to do with COVID-19. We want to grow the agency and be better. And I think that that's necessary so that you don't become complacent and we've been successful in initiating a lot of new programs. And that's what we want to do. Over to you, Jared.
01;07;40;11 [Jared Moskowitz]: Yeah. So, uh, I feel like, uh, Bryan and, and, and Mike put that ball on the tee, so I can just kinda hit it out of the head at a pet at a park. So I I'll, I'll start with salary. Cause I think it's a good thing that Mike touched on. I mean, I gotta tell you, uh, let's not pretend like that doesn't matter. It's a big deal, uh, to these folks who are dramatically underpaid to start with, uh, you know, a lot of States during the downturn of the 2009, 2010 time period. A lot of States
01;08;11;06 obviously took a lot of incentives away from employees, whether that's, you know, not having salary increases and a lot of that stuff never came back. Uh, and the truth is, is that, you know, I, I got employees that, you know, make 35 - $40,000 a year. Haven't seen their families working seven days a week. So that extra pay, that extraordinary pay, which we activated also here in Florida, uh, is, is a big deal. Um, you know, I, I've tried to get creative, Bryan, you know, obviously trying to get people off to make sure that they, uh, have time
01;08;44;12 with their family. Uh, let's not, uh, underestimate how important that is for people to be able to go home and spend time with their spouse, spend time with their kids and recharge. Uh, we we've done some, uh, maybe out of the box things like, you know, letting people bring their dogs, uh, to the EOC, uh, you know, trying to, trying to give them some comfort of homes since this is where this is basically where they live now. Um, uh, but I gotta tell ya, uh, looking forward, I think state legislatures, and I know
01;09;13;20 a little bit of something about this have to look themselves, uh, in the face, uh, because you know, this idea that we can just pillage our state agencies, uh, and strip them down to the lowest common denominator, uh, and them not have the resources that they need, you know, that, that, that, that might be a, uh, that might be a couple thought process.
01;09;32;26 [Jared Moskowitz]: But then when it comes time to actually leading those agencies like an emergency management or department of health, uh, when it comes time to a major event like this, you know, those agencies being able to respond, how they respond will depend on how much investment you've had into those agencies. And part of that investment isn't to the people that work at those agencies. Uh, and so, uh, I'm hopeful that, uh, you know, going forward, uh, we see state legislators realize why those things are important, but, uh, you know, look, we have plans obviously to
01;10;06;12 bring in, uh, you know, folks from outside of the division to help supplement, you know, we're looking at bringing in a supplemental team. Um, you know, if there, if there is a hurricane, uh, and so we think that's important because I think what we're going to do here in Florida is we'll, we're going to split between continuing the COVID mission and then doing a separate hurricane mission. Uh, and so, uh, you know, my core team we'll pivot to the hurricane. So people coming in and helping supplement, keeping COVID going is extremely
01;10;33;04 important, uh, because we all people obviously to be, uh, rested and focused, uh, you know, especially depending upon what level of event, uh, we're dealing with.
01;10;43;15 [Bryan Koon]: Thank you, Jared. All right. So we have just a few minutes left. Uh, and I, to combine, I got three questions that are kind of along the same lines from Barbara Spaulding, Jason Pettus, and Patrick Campion, all of them regarding funding. So if you could, each of you spend about a minute, perhaps, and I know that’s way too short. What challenges are we going to face once hurricane season ends? We've got a lot of opportunity with brick that requires match. We've got issues with the EMPG cuts, just gap, use
01;11;12;22 cuts, et cetera. What
01;11;14;07 [Bryan Koon]: Kind of, what do we need conversations do we need to have with our state legislators, as well as their federal level in terms of what emergency management needs to start preparing for 2021, Mike, I'll start with you.
01;11;28;21 [Mike Sprayberry]: So, you know, I'm pretty fortunate here in North Carolina, where we've gotten a lot of support from our legislature over the years. And, uh, I would, I would say that for instance, uh, last year they funded a pilot flood insurance program. Um, and what we're doing is, uh, we are issuing these policies through NFIP, um, free to, um,
01;11;59;04 families that are receiving funding through HUD and the CDBGDR program, um, community development, block grants for disaster recovery. And so, um, we've gotten strong support, you know, for some money that way we, um, received, you know, we are a state that provides the 25% match for the federal grants and public assistance and, uh, hazard mitigation. So we continue to receive those types of monies. Um, we are able to match
01;12;35;10 our EMPG and the MPGS. So, um, I wouldn't have to say that, you know, we're sitting pretty well financially right now. Um, we are concerned with the continued cuts and the program. And, uh, and then as you know, Charlotte dropped off the list. And so that was a great concern to us too, is Charlotte continues to grow. And, uh, but like, like I said, we think
01;13;02;25 through careful management of the funding that we get, we can continue to become more resilient state. Um, and so that's what I would have to say.
01;13;13;14 [Bryan Koon]: Thanks to Mike and Jared, and then we've got about a minute.
01;13;17;19 [Jared Moskowitz]: Sure. So I won't repeat what Mike said, because obviously I agree with everything he just said, and I want to add one additional point though, and it's really a problem here in Florida when you've had disaster after disaster, after disaster, you know, we've done a really good job getting money out over the last 16, 17 months, over $2.6 billion back to our cities and counties. But I gotta be honest, these cities and counties no longer have the financial resources to lay the money out, to do these responses and recovery short Dade County and Palm beach County and Broward County do. But most of my counties do not. And so I'm
01;13;49;21 really worried about, uh, you know, the state having to step in, uh, more often to help, uh, counties and cities that are fiscally constrained, uh, do their cleanup and get their recovery off the ground, which again, we'll put more constraint on, on the state, especially all the money that we've laid out for Covid. So I really do think that part of disaster funding doesn't get enough discussion. I, you know, the feds just think that's on the locals. Well, but if the locals don't have any money, how do they expect us to do it?
01;14;17;28 [Mike Sprayberry]: I just like to add one thing. There is the, uh, the non-congregate shelter and program for COVID-19. Um, we actually had the shift that to the state to be the grantee so that we could assist with cashflow at the local level, because just like you said, Jared, they didn't have the cashflow to be able to support it, then you know, that it's needed. And so, that's what we did a state centric model, I
01;14;47;01 guess you would call it. And so, um, just wanted to make that point.
01;14;52;10 [Bryan Koon]: Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Jared. Thank you for the generous, uh, gift of your time this morning. I know carving out this much time out of your day is difficult, but I know our audience really benefited from it and appreciated your insight. So thank you. Thank you both very much. Michele, with that, that concludes our panel. I'll toss it back to you.
01;15;13;08 [Michele Nellenbach]: Great. Well, thank you so much, Bryan and Mike and Jared. That was an incredibly informative conversation. Uh, I think we can all agree that Florida and North Carolina are in really good hands, and hopefully they in the Virgin Islands will not be tested as that as has been predicted with a robust hurricane season. Uh, thank you all for joining us today. You can follow us on Twitter. We have a YouTube channel, which many of you are watching on and Facebook. And, we are planning another event for September 15th, looking at the three-year anniversary of
01;15;44;26 hurricanes Irma and Maria. I hope you will join us for that. In the meantime, please stay safe and, and thank you again for joining us today.
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Predictions of an active hurricane season—which began on June 1 and runs through November 30—have tragically come to fruition, with nine named storms already. Emergency managers are increasingly concerned about when and where to call for evacuations if a major storm hits. COVID-19 cases are still rising, and quickly in a handful of hurricane-prone states. Promoting social distancing safeguards, securing needed personal protective equipment and supplies, and minimizing public confusion are top-of-mind considerations. Join us for a webcast with Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) and former FEMA Administrator Brock Long to explore these pressing concerns. Recently tested by Hurricane Isaias, the current emergency managers of Florida and North Carolina will also share their efforts to update protocols, plans, and guidance for safe sheltering and evacuation.
Featured Participants
Rep. Stacey E. Plaskett (D-VI)
@StaceyPlaskett
Brock Long
Executive Chairman, Hagerty Consulting; Former FEMA Administrator
@HagertyConsult
Bryan Koon
Vice President of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, IEM; Former Florida Director of Emergency Management
@IEMNews
Jared Moskowitz
Director, Florida Division of Emergency Management; Former Florida State Representative
@JaredEMoskowitz
Mike Sprayberry
Director, North Carolina Division of Emergency Management
@DirectorNCEM
Additional participants to be announced
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