demonstrate it is beyond their capability that it will be considered for a disaster declaration. i think the part that we really need to focus■uik on is it is m. what are we doing today to educate communities for the summer that we know will experience extreme and teaching them the things they need to do and know to protect themselves and their families? or how do we help communities that will help with the urban islands creating more heat? a couple of examples we have the project lester to we selected in oregon to build more tree canopy, so it willrespaces, or r projects that have filled white rooms to cool the buildings, so the mitigation and preparedness to me is the most important contribution fema can have into this conversation about heat.

our regional administrators are in contact with our state, territory when they are having these two events, we are medicating them -- communicating with them to see what kind of because they are incurring, but they are short in nature and it eúis not exceeding what they normally do, so we really need to have the conversation and resilience in the community to of give some relief and reduce the impact if he. andrew: thank you very much for your perspective and your , and for being here. deanne: thank you. this was a great. [applause]

>> [indiscernible] >> thank you very much for joining us today. happy palm sunday for those celebrating. we are here to talk about resilienceu. communities. this is one of the most important subjects that the atlantic council is addressing these are your lives in your communities that we are talking about, and therefore as one of the most ardent in homeland and national security. i want to thank deanne criswell- and andrew friedman for starting off with some important perspectives from thethanks alsr their support. most distinguished practitioners

of resilience, response, and a recovery in the united states from federal, state backgrounds. it my immediate left is willie, the administrator for fema for region 10 which includes alaska, idaho, washington, and oregon and 2cog- federally recognized tribes. she served 26 yea■:rs in force t tours retiring as a full colonel. he joined fema in 2007 and is held i 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

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 unty 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 ur 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 adeate 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. 8'that is where we need assistae 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 hazard mitigation practitioner, what do you want fema to focus on going forward medium, and long-term? >> [indiscernible] >> i would say [indiscernible]

innovation and the speed and pace of innovation, whe 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. w÷it was really fast.

if i were king f a day, over the short, medium, and long term focus on operational efficiency. speed up recovery and increase resilience more quickly. ways we do not want to slow down the resiliency. record it investment has been made and have funding to agencies go to waste. operationally 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. at 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 buildy 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 relationshipsons not only with our travel, state, and local partners. it is also making sure we come together. >> thank you very much. , and is responsibility for resilience handled in emergency management? yove 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 responsiby 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 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■x responsibilities. we just have to work better together, and i'm excited to hear the administrator talk about it. >> the other thing ithe basi 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. 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 whh are buding 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 an3 ■a 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] [indiscernible]sed 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 groundthw 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 weand we are prepare good, better, best, because not everyone can . 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 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] >>ch goes to personally. >> yesterday we got the release

that there were 1600 plus applications in these grant programs, icre not disaster cycles. they were oversubscribed. [indiscernible] the need is there, and the ironic thing, thisreplace the pr 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 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 inrance 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. 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 i. i think it takes to your point

not ju a hold of 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 somethisaid. 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 5çc(d hurricane strikia 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] an 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 eps [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. 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] w w 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 t■o or with insurance [indiscernible] and they do have some ideas howe 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 mony to my going to the immediate building of resiliency. they need toe 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 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 understanf

risk management, right? basically building songer, higher in different places and transfer the risk, which is essentially what insurance does. [indiscernible] >ior 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 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 y to strengthen resilience against natural disasters? [indiscernible]

make the your legislators and executives that you need. >> is extremely difficult. [indiscernible] ■(if you are a legislator and yu 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, 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 are ne frontloading of the problem. how do i make the case with the legislature? we have received some really th. 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 forn 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 irovements in their daily lives to help make something better [indiscernible] ? >> i initially moved 25 years ago to the pacific northwest, we had [indiscernible]

today, 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. 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■r toward resiliency, that campaign toward resiliency helps us. >> some of the biggest potential

price tags of the country could face, 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 massive hurricanes down in louisiana. we are intimately familiar with them. [indiscernible] recently one of our hurricanes proved to us, typically our standard operati p within a few

days, the cone of uncertainty, the residual path [indiscernible] the governor's office would 20 hours or 96 or 72.cernible] 1 different stgo taken, so a recent storm, it was really basic. it was just off thas period of t came on shore. we were not [indiscernible] what does that teach you? it teaes 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. cxfor medical special needs fols we need to take a look at [indiscernible] those potential zones of uncertainty. we will not be able to get the opulation 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■úd 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]preparinl 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] >> 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. 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 more,e

costly. [indiscernible] >> that is the thought tthank yg to our discussion today. on behalf of the atlantic council, i want to give special thanks to a member of our future 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■ citizn

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. next one.

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