in 2024. these are your lives in your communities that we are talking about, and therefore as one of the most ardent issues in homeland and national security. i want to thank deanne criswell and andrew friedman for starting off with some important perspectives from the administrator. thanks also to alex paisley for their support. we have a panel of some of the most distinguished practitioners of resilience, response, and a recovery in the united states from federal, state, and private sector backgrounds. it my immediate left is willie, the regional administrator for fema for region 10 which includes alaska, idaho,

washington, and oregon and 271 family really recognize -- federally recognized tribes. she served 26 years in the u.s. air force including two combat tours retiring as a full colonel. he joined fema in 2007 and is held in his disaster response in 13 states and two territories. he is a member of the fema leadership cadre and other senior positions. next to him is gary o'neill, we had hoped to have the director of oklahoma department of management and pest mitigation. we are very pleased to have gary here: is the president of the national mitigation association and is the director of

mitigation grant services at one of the country's leading consulting firms. gary has served in state government and in private industry in disaster management. he leads executives looking to reduce the impact and cost of disasters around the united states. their work on behalf of the mitigation practitioner community to advise the federal government executive and legislative branches on how to reduce the cost of disaster response, and they do public outreach to build community resilience to whatever disasters might occur. next to gary is russell strickland, secretary of the maryland department of emergency management and president of the

national emergency management association. mr. stricklin holds degrees from the university of maryland and has held emergency response positions in county and state government and serves on the governor's executive council -- he has served in three different presidential administrations. he was lead for a rebuilding task force, so let me welcome our panelists today. if i could start with you, you brought together over the past three days --

what are your priorities were 2024 and what are you looking to accomplish? >> thank you for the question. we just had our 50th anniversary . over 51 of our members --and the district of columbia. we are focusing in three main areas, and the first is a recovery. what happens with the survivors, and with that it is a full court press of how can we exploit that such that the public is well aware of it, and our second and

third where is our workforce development and use of technology. what is it we can do individually within our state and at the local level but that collectively involves all of our states? how can we help one another to up survivors? the number one focus with that right now is funding. we do not have adequate funding across the nation for recovery. we have a pretty good handle on it, but it is when we get into recovery that we need to address

and coordinate. that is where we need assistance not only at the state level but even at the lake level -- local level, so that is where we are headed this year. >> from the perspective of the hazard mitigation practitioner, what do you want fema to focus on going forward over the short, medium, and long-term? >> [indiscernible] >> i would say [indiscernible] innovation and the speed and pace of innovation, whether it

is changes to ia, shared with administrator criswell or changes in the process [indiscernible] i am having a microphone issue. changes to the cost analysis process like the building resilient infrastructure program in communities [indiscernible] it was breathtaking. it was really fast. if i were king for a day, over the short, medium, and long term focus on operational efficiency. speed up recovery and increase resilience more quickly.

ways to go about doing that. we do not want to slow down the resiliency. record it investment has been made and have funding to agencies go to waste. operationally we would like to keep them as efficient as possible. >> each region of the country faces different challenges in this area, and so therefore the regions in which you serve are no exception to the general rule. give us the benefit of your regional perspective. think about the pacific northwest and alaska. possible, horrible things that could go wrong.

what is the regional perspective toward resilience and emergency response? >> thanks for having me. great opportunity to be here. we are there to build resiliency , but also help build capacity in our state. i have 271 tribal nations. each one is different, and with that perspective and the different approaches we have to prepare and mitigate to respond to recover from disasters is not a one-size-fits-all. with the innovation, what it starts with is those relationships and collaborations

not only with our travel, state, and local partners. it is also making sure we come together. >> thank you very much. josh, and is responsibility for resilience handled in emergency management? you have seen this from the diagnostic perspective and the private sector perspective? how does resilience get put together and built into emergency response? >> it is really important lesson, and the administrator talked a little bit about it. one of the things that is really important to understand is everybody has a responsibility, not just the federal government. it is not just tribal or territorial.

we all have a role to play, and ngo's, philanthropist, academic institutions, but we have got a pretty good process. the hat that we all wear, everyone in the room and everyone watching [indiscernible] and we have to be part of that community and with the national academy of sciences [indiscernible] and one of the things they said is we need to build resilience in this country. and we need to keep doing that. we have gotten better, but this is important because it is a hold of nation problem and it will take a whole nation of response to get there. we all have responsibilities.

we just have to work better together, and i'm excited to hear the administrator talk about it. >> the other thing is the basic concept that where we are right now in resilience and preparedness are cost-saving. it may not happen overnight, but the administrators prefer a noted study, which will appear as a visual aid. on average, six dollars are saved by every dollar invested in response, which are important parts of the pacific northwest of louisiana where you are from

which are building to modern building codes. $11 return on every dollar invested. right now they are thinking about what their budget for the next fiscal year will be. is it possible to understand why we need to have statistics like this out there, and josh, i will ask you this first. why is it so hard to measure and persuade appropriators with the value you save in the investment? >> it i will talk about this from a complicated perspective. one of the things about resilience is [indiscernible] francis bacon used it in the

17th century to describe [indiscernible] so in order to bounce back you have to understand the threat and vulnerability, and that gets you the risk. it is not an absolute term like energy savings. resilience is hard to calculate because you have to understand the threat. every single disaster is different. we can talk about different scenarios, but in the end when you were on the ground it is different. this is hard to comprehend. it is not as simple as this does not happen because it is an average. [indiscernible] there are a lot of budget

issues, and i will not get into [indiscernible] but we know if we do not invested resilience we are going to [indiscernible] and that is what the mitigation article lays out clearly. >> in your region or other regions how this would turn on investment [indiscernible] >> initially resilience makes a business case, whether that is the pacific it makes a business case to the village, giving them direct technical assistance, allows them to build the mitigation plan and also [indiscernible] and we have

evacuation shelters. the first one on the west coast now. [indiscernible] we may not be able to measure it, but i think on the ground, they are singing that they know they have to be prepared, they know that sometimes we tell them we have got to get there. on our way stay in the pacific northwest, it may be weeks, months without flashing or toilet, and we have to change that mindset of how we prepare, and we are looking at how we prepare good, better, best, because not everyone can prepare . looking at a community that needs more, because not everybody starts from the same place.

>> we need to be aware of disasters that are [indiscernible] and be prepared for that situation. gary, how do you think the country should address the funding challenges from emergency response we have been talking about? [indiscernible] what do you think the country should do in the funding challenge? >> [indiscernible] >> none of which goes to personally. >> yesterday we got the release that there were 1600 plus applications in these grant programs, which were not disaster cycles. they were oversubscribed. [indiscernible] the need is there, and the

ironic thing, this program replace the predisaster mitigation program. now all of the sudden you see it , so there is obviously a need for it. as mitigation practitioners, local officials have to basically make a better case scenario to state delegations about why this is necessary. talking about building codes, part of what was important was showing them insurance information. 11 presidentially declared disasters. three out of every four flood insurance claims [indiscernible]

we were able to successfully use that to show why it was necessary. that same method can be applied when it comes to mitigation. our local and state chapters paint a picture of why this is so critical and why it is necessary. solutions for the local match question as well or rather it is the storm act. i think it takes to your point not just a hold of government put a hold of country approach to things. you've got to maintain these investments and programs. >> a question to you and josh as well. this highlight something administrator deanne criswell

said. it is one of the most important things i hope our audience draws from this [indiscernible] concern over the insurance overhang, the possibility of a category 5 hurricane striking a city like miami or an a .3 earthquake in the cascadian region. similar kinds of major events. you really are looking at the possibility of the insurance industry going through a crisis and it comes out at the full faith and credit of the u.s. government and the taxpayers, or we lose the cushion of insurance that all of us are accustomed to . i tried to look up the history

about the u.s. government being an insurance company with the u.s. army [indiscernible] what can we say about the possible consequences of some kidn of disaster that could overtake the ability of the american global insurance industry to address and what do you want us to understand about the importance of mitigation steps [indiscernible] that will eventually come to all of us when that should happen? >> [indiscernible] it goes back to what we are talking about, whole of country.

we are talking about a culture of resilience. we have got to get that down to the grassroots level, so that is a part of the mentality, and that will not happen overnight. [indiscernible] where we need to be innovative in our public education system, wringing this to the future generations. at the same time using the word innovation we need to be working with insurance [indiscernible] and they do have some ideas about how we could have catastrophic type insurance for areas that we know are going to be high risk, very vulnerable and high probability.

with that type of insurance that would cover that area. a better investment for state and local governments [indiscernible] versus the money to my going to the immediate building of resiliency. they need to be looked at not in a short period of time but in a [indiscernible] and what will improve their probabilities over time and how can we best invest [indiscernible] we are in fact resilient. >> from an economic standpoint it is pretty simple, put money away so that you can find it. it assumes certain things, like

that people will make decisions that are irrational -- that are rational, and the problem is we live in communities and we love the communities that we live in and we do not want to leave them [indiscernible] so while your risk is higher it is time for you to move. it does not work that way. [indiscernible] it gets very complicated. what we have to do is understand that insurance is one form of risk management, right? basically building stronger, higher in different places and transfer the risk, which is essentially what insurance does. [indiscernible]

or you can make sense of the risk. we make all three of these decisions every day. [indiscernible] if you accept the risk that you are not prepared to handle [indiscernible] and then it is everybody's cost. we were talking about it earlier , the newer, new jersey, connecticut region for two weeks. that will impact everyone in america, and we spent half of a fortune on the west coast. [indiscernible] and so we are all part of that caused -- cost, and if we live in a place that does not have a hurricane, tornado, or tsunami we are all part of that.

[indiscernible] >> you don't have hurricanes, wildfires. >> we were impacted by hurricane sandy. don't say that. >> you do have the chesapeake, so global warming [indiscernible] but does lack of epic disasters in states like maryland to make it easier or harder for you to strengthen resilience against natural disasters? [indiscernible] make the case to your legislators and executives that you need. >> is extremely difficult. [indiscernible] if you are a legislator and you

look at what our history is [indiscernible] do i -- one of the other great challenges to this, within membership of nema, but we are an upside down model, so when i invest in mitigation because we are unfortunate enough to receive legislation that had funding in it [indiscernible] where we should have been -- and we are now on the

frontloading of the problem. how do i make the case with the legislature? we have received some really exciting things. we have an office of resilience, at the office of emergency management. we have a revolving loan [indiscernible] on mitigation projects. we have a disaster recovery front when we cannot meet a threshold for disaster, that will help us focus. all of these have been done [indiscernible] for places in areas of our state where we have had a federal declaration or we have not [indiscernible] and

then have it pushed forward. we have a couple of legislators very much interested in the environment [indiscernible] based on all of that. it works at the grassroots level . what it is we have to work with with our state [indiscernible] and we do a lot of convening and talking and educating with it. >> my former colleague who is now the homeland security advisor to president biden is very much involved in developing a small climate resilient framework, and what we have been alluding to in our conversation

here involved that, and this think tank is proud of the national framework. can you give us [indiscernible] of how the strategic documents translate into what citizens actually see its improvements in their daily lives to help make something better [indiscernible] ? >> when i initially moved 25 years ago to the pacific northwest, we had [indiscernible] today, since 2009, temperatures in 105. 2001, 116 degrees over multiple days, so i have gotten programs working with seattle putting air-conditioner systems into public libraries.

we also work with the city of portland planning so we can have places for shade, and also retrofitting. a retrofit for apartment complexes, and all of those things that look at the data. that data is not if. it is when. we are in a 50 year window [indiscernible] >> you have to explain what cascadia is? >> it is a conduction zone of the west coast, and if that ruptures [indiscernible] it brings a tsunami that can go inland and breach the coast.

it could breach the coast would damage west of dakota, so getting people to understand that, it is the reality of living in the pacific northwest. looking out and how we work together in doing that [indiscernible] move toward resiliency, that campaign toward resiliency helps us. >> some of the biggest potential price tags of the country could face, louisiana is very much in the -- as you say. in terms of what kind of resilient steps [indiscernible]

and things that can be done, and you give us some examples of how resilience translates into preparedness to save lives, reduce property damage? >> we are unfortunately very familiar with the massive hurricanes down in louisiana. we are intimately familiar with them. [indiscernible] recently one of our hurricanes proved to us, typically our standard operating procedures [indiscernible] within a few days, the cone of uncertainty, the residual path [indiscernible] the governor's office would revolve around [indiscernible] 1 20 hours or 96 or 72.

different steps got taken, so a recent storm, it was really basic. it was just off the coast and within a short period of time it came on shore. we were not [indiscernible] what does that teach you? it teaches you a couple of things. the need for building codes [indiscernible] you have got to --if people aren't able to get out the structures need to be hardened and built to higher standards. for medical special needs folks we need to take a look at [indiscernible] those potential zones of uncertainty. we will not be able to get the

vulnerable population out, you've got to create structure. [indiscernible] retrofitting a safe room into that facility or we can look at the design for that facility in general when they get built. i think those are steps, and talk about building codes [indiscernible] there is not cost associated. i do not have to apply for a grant to take a higher standard. the recovery funds make us able to engage with things as well. >> [indiscernible] you have obviously had the benefit of several days of your semi-annual meeting preparing her for leaving messages with members of congress

expressionistic appropriations process [indiscernible] preparing for the next fiscal year's budget debates. what are the important messages that your team wants to leave for members of congress and staff? >> one, we will be back. >> [indiscernible] >> point number two, we understand recovery [indiscernible] with these actions, and we in the emergency management community are realizing [indiscernible] have continued to make it work no matter what. that is our mentality. and we tend to be very isolated to ourselves when it comes to

challenges like this. we are walking away from washington d.c. after this week that we are [indiscernible] and bringing them into the fold. does that represent municipality, the counties, the states. this is a whole of citizen challenge and we have got to make our elected officials understand that disasters are getting more, greater, in a more costly. [indiscernible] >> that is the thought i think we want to leave it on. thank you very much for coming to our discussion today. on behalf of the atlantic council, i want to give special thanks to a member of our future

dhs project. del is going off to the department of defense after today or possibly, so we are proud of his continued service in the interest of our country, and to each of you. thank you very much for your work and your leadership. it is a pleasure to be a citizen of yours and thank you for everything personally and professionally and the work you would put into nema. and, josh, your expertise and experience in giving us the broader perspective. thank you all very much on behalf of the atlantic council. we look forward to the next one. thank you. [applause]