next mass shooting. announcer: former defense secretary jim mattis recounts his military career and his thoughts on leadership in his book, callsign chaos, learning to lead. onch book tv every weekend c-span 2. ♪ will be in order. announcer: for 40 years, c-span has been providing unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country. 1979, c-spanble in is brought to you by your local cable or satterlee -- satellite provider. your unfiltered view of government. inues. host: mike greenberger is the director of university of maryland's center of health and

security. he is here to talk about disasters. dorian has been a slow motion case study of a hurricane and government response to that hurricane. keeping in mind the horrible devastation it has done in the bahamas so far, what are the initial early lessons we are learning of the government response to it? great problemshe for emergency managers in these situations is getting people evacuated. so-called mandatory evacuations, voluntary evacuations. one of the biggest problems -- this has been such a slow moving hurricane that it has been on the radar screen for over a week now, and there may be some emergency fatigue, that is to say people have, for example in florida when they thought it was

nowg to hit first and it will hit the east coast, people have been sheltered for a week and are getting antsy. citizenshe response by to the evacuation orders has been very good, but i think the emergency managers are starting to worry that just when it is about to hit the us coast, there may be people wanting to go back. host: is there also the danger of people getting there and they have a laissez-faire about this? guest: there was always a problem with that, less so today. for example, there was a very bad hurricane in florida in the summer -- late summer of 2004. people in new orleans evacuated. nothing happened. when katrina came along, they were -- i'm not going to go through a traffic jam of eight hours in stop and go traffic, so they did not leave new orleans.

we see less of that today. people are aware of the dangers of these hurricanes and are ready to go. the problem is that they have been sheltered in place for so long, there is a fear they will give up and go back into harm's way. host: let me touch on some of the lessons learns that the "new york times" is saying about florida. this was published this morning, five lessons florida has learned in the past as it prepares for the worst. the first, mobile homes are safer than they used to be, but still vulnerable. nursing homes require special attention, storm surge is because ruinous flooding, strong building codes matter, and power failures are inevitable. guest: each of those points is very well taken. florida has been at the face of the coal mine on these issues for decades. they have gotten better and better as time goes on. the emergency managers there are

of very high quality. of the five points he picked out, the most troubling thing is nursing homes. in a lot of hurricanes, in florida and elsewhere, residents and nursing homes who are not as mobile or not as able to deal with the emergencies as others have gotten trapped in the emergency, in the nursing home without copper evacuation. we are much better at that now. it was really bad in superstorm sandy in new york when the lower half of manhattan was flooded. people were caught in nursing homes. katrina, 90% of the mortalities were people trapped in nursing homes. emergency managers are much more attuned to that now. people who run nursing homes are much more attuned to that, so we are able to plan better to get those residents out of harm's way. host: in the federal standards change in terms of nursing homes and preparedness for disasters?

guest: that's a great question. yes, in the obama administration, a bird and was put on nursing homes to come up with emergency operations. hospitals, as a matter of certification, have to have emergency operations plans. how do you, for example, get the and patients in the hospital out the door? they wanted to do the same thing for nursing homes. there was a deadline in 2017 for nursing homes to get those plans ready or lose their federal funding. the trump administration completely let that deadline go by. havearger nursing homes, own, thehave, on their smaller nursing homes don't have have ading and don't meaningful deadline and are not doing what needs to be done.

we are trying to find a sources of private funding to help smaller nursing homes do this planning so they get their patient and residents of the door. host: you are the director of the university of maryland's center for health and homeland security. how did that organization come about and what is your primary mission? guest: we are in our 18th year. it came about the president of the university, after the 9/11 attacks, de-tided he went to use the resources. my campus was where the nursing skill was. host: baltimore. guest: yes, baltimore. to use these resources professional schools to solve the problems, at that point, people were more worried about terrorism then natural to that natural disaster. orwere about terrorism, bridging storms, emerging infectious diseases, and cybersecurity concerns.

we are an inside the university consulting institution. andave an academic side offer, with various professional schools, mastered -- masters degrees in crisis management. host: and funded entirely by the university of maryland? guest: funded by the clients we service. we are self-funded, like for example, if you we are going yetelp the hospital, week into a contract with them and get paid for our services. because we are a nonprofit, inside of the university, our services are one quarter cost of a private consulting firm. even when i talk about these small nursing homes, this cutthroat rate we are offering is still too much for them. we are doing pro bono work, and we are trying to do advising as

much as we can, but there needs to be a lot more funding but on the table for smaller nursing homes and other smaller medical facilities. greenberger is our guest and is the director for nationaland health and security -- if you are in eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8000. (202) 748-8001 for mountain and pacific. if you are being impacted by hurricane dorian, we would love to hear from you if you are able, (202) 748-8002. we had a color yesterday, it might have been one of the members we interviewed, members of hungers, who talked about the rate of people who are moving to florida, 1000 people per day. the problem is that there are so many people there. there are a lot of people to move out, to evacuate in time.

guest: absolutely that is true. florida, every time there is a big hurricane in the atlantic, the likelihood is that florida is going to get hit. they have been lucky with dorian -- host: so far. guest: so far. they were worried about a direct hit on florida, which would have been devastating. there will be problems, i don't want to minimize that. florida is a heavy populated area. one of the things that needs to example,t about, for insurance, flood is to not located harm's way. one of the problems you have on florida, the eastern seaboard, [music plays] host: sorry about that, music on my ipad.

guest: one of the policies that needs to be implemented is ensuring that people are not developing and building in areas that will be flooded when the first bad hurricane comes along. host: how do you make that -- that is a state-by-state decision, right? guest: federal flood insurance, and the flood insurance, if you can get flood insurance, you want to build where you can build area there is a major debate right now about whether or not the limiting of the insurance for building in areas that are likely to be flooded and wiped out, a lot of flood insurance goes to people who repetitively are making claims because they filled in harm's way. host: maybe we have dodged a bullet on this one. storm comparison in the wall street journal. the rainfall in hurricane matthew in 2016 was pretty intense, all the way from the florida coast through southeast

or genia. the projected rainfall for dorian through september the 10th is far less on that. we have calls waiting and we go to jerry in orlando for michael greenberger. jerry, go ahead. smyrna actually, i'm in -- in newared a beach smyrna beach. we have electricity back on. it has not been a great night to sleep well, so my daughter lives two blocks away and has no electricity. we just text each other to find out what is going on with technology. it is a little scary still. we have a lot of rain still, and because i had access to the internet i was able to see it was off the coast here, and that is supposed to maybe get a little better by this afternoon. we are hanging and then hoping

the electricity lasts. host: are you a native floridian and have you been there quite some time? caller: no, i have only been down here -- retired of course, over the last seven or eight years. had a couple of other hurricanes over the last two years. this one, last two hurricanes we had a lot of debris all over the place. out here, there is like nothing on the lawn. it is kind of amazing. i was thinking maybe we were getting more rain then wind. host: jerry in orlando, thanks for that. those who may have been impacted, your line is (202) 748-8002. guest: the problems with the electrical grid is serious problems. i can't remember if that was one of the things listed in the new york times, -- host: it was, power failure. and power electrical

structure is not in good shape. the companies are terrific. not only the ones directly impacted him about if something happens in florida, south carolina and north carolina will be the next center of this problem. the electrical utilities unite and come in and service and fix things quickly. i think that is good. the problem is the grid, the actual equipment is outdated, old. you hear every day, "we are going to fix our infrastructure, we are going to fix our infrastructure." but money is not being put in those places. the weakness of the grid will come back to haunt in a big way. using electricity for short. -- for a short period of time, you can deal with that, but hurricane sandy, for people without electricity for weeks on end, we have to put our money on that pocket. host: getting back to florida,

they did, in the "new york times" report power outages in the wake of several hurricanes, improvements for the $4 billion. they write what they have done, adding concrete power poles, have replaced many of the wooden ones and many switches in transformers allow the devices to be reset without sending out to repair crews. off -- all 5 million customers in florida have meters to allow somebody to let them know if they have no power, even if they are out of town. drones buzz over neighborhoods to help identify power problems with the lines. guest: that is an unusually beefed-up system. even so, if you hear worries about cybersecurity and cyberattack, or severe weather conditions, the first thing people worry about is the grid. florida, florida power and

light, maybe doing great work, but the grid is an interconnected network. host: tell us about the process of the president declaring a state of emergency. this is a long developing storm, whether it is a hurricane or other emergency situation in the country, what makes that happen? guest: that's a very interesting question, because we are going through a very core to us. period.ous if a governor has experienced very severe interference with the ability of systems to go about their daily lives, the governor will declare -- emergency declare by the federal government, by the president. the president can do it on his own, but it is rare if he does. it is usually a state dri

ven operation. the state applies for money, but the problem in the last year has from the stafford act have been running out. congress has to feed those funds. there have been those torturous about whether authorizations will be passed. for example, last year's emergencies, there were billions of dollars appropriated, but they couldn't reach an agreement between the two houses, and the president questioned whether he would sign it because there was upset about giving money to puerto rico because the view was, which by the way i disagree with, that's puerto rico wasn't using the money correctly. finally, that gets resolved in the money is appropriated. $19.1 million. the president is now taking money out of that fund for border control and walls, even

though the congress appropriated p say purpose to hel puerto rico, the money is going out for other reasons. host: our lines are (202) 748-8000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. mountain and pacific is (202) 748-8001. if you are affected by hurricane dorian, that line is (202) 748-8002. back to the money issue, the economic policy section of "the washington post" disaster fund explodes amid the climate change in popular trends. needs fundingaii after volcanic eruption sprayed lava -- sprayed lava. florida wiped out last year by eric and michael, one of the strongest hurricanes to ever make landfall in the united states. nebraska and iowa suffered one of the worst floods in their history. puerto rico is still looking for emergency reconstruction money

after hurricane maria killed thousands in 2017. people were fighting over the details of the $13 million package. this article points out congressional feuding over disaster aid is unlikely to stop even the current impact if the current impasse is resolved, which involve -- which it was. they write disaster did leaf -- really fund is 10 times higher than it was three years ago, even for adjusting for inflation. that's according to a washington post analysis of federal data. guest: the disasters arm mounting up. you have deadly wildfires in california, flooding of farmlands in the midwest, hurricanes in the east coast. this is not the problem of people asking for money that there is no good reason to use it. frankly, with climate change, we are experiencing increasingly deadly natural disasters, and by

the way, it will affect everybody. we have the interesting situation, after superstorm sandy in new jersey and new york, that the republican senators in the southwest didn't want to fund that relief. next thing they know, they have a hurricane in louisiana and mississippi so they need the money. everybody will need this money, so it is not money going to waste. lives in the united states or anywhere in the world for that matter and look around them. hurricanes, wildfires, flooding in the midwest. we are in an era of crisis management. host: we have a call from north carolina, ed, good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air, go ahead. whyer: i would like to know the electrical power companies have not followed the tele-cone

-- the telephone companies and put lines underground. i think south carolina just past something requiring that. guest: your point is well taken. utilities should be putting their wires underground. the problem is, it is hugely expensive. this goes to the question of whether we, as citizens, are going to use our tax money to improve the situation. there's a lot of money that needs to be used. president trump, when he ran for president, talked about he want to fix infrastructure. we had infrastructure week almost every week. putt of money needs to be at the improvement of infrastructure, one of the foremost things as putting utility wires underground. it is usually expensive. we find the money to rescue banks, trillions of dollars, but we aren't finding the money to help ourselves fight these

emergencies which are coming on and increasing basis and effect -- an increasing basis and affect everyone. host: you talked about sandy a couple times, so what you think that area has learned? what do you they are doing to build up their infrastructure? guest: every problem they have experienced, the roads, keeping water out -- host: subway system? guest: subway system and in ther manhattan infrastructure to keep water from coming out. it has been improved, but not enough. if another superstorm like sandy went up the east coast, the experience would be new jersey, new york, connecticut, they would have the personnel experience to do a good job, and they have improved the

infrastructure, but not enough. host: of your organization, what is the common -- most common issue clients employ you for. guest: there is a doctrine required for some people to get federal money to have what is called the continuity of operations. if a police station gets flooded out, they have to have a plan to go to an alternate site and get up and running in 12 hours. hospitals cannot be certified unless they have that plan. we spend a lot of time helping institutions find an alternative site and be able to use it within the 12 hour period. host: let's hear from nick in illinois. hi, nick. caller: hello and thank you for taking my call. i think our disaster relief is quite amazing. you can say democrat or republican all you want, forget politics.

we better be fortunate that we have the government in place that we have, despite the crisis everybody might call it. i kind of watch the prime minister's questions, and the only thing they can do, there prime minister, for five weeks, his call him a racist and a dictator. we are talking about the bahamas as a country. what is britain going to do for the bahamas? it is amazing actually. host: that jumps into my next question, i was going to ask you, the pictures coming out of the bahamas, 13,000 homes destroyed there. your response to our color? guest: i think the caller -- caller? guest: i think the caller has an excellent point. states have the constitutionally -- states are responsible for the health and welfare of their citizens. the states take the lead in this. there is no doubt, in the 9/11 attacks, since hurricane katrina, the states have professionalized their emergency

response system and the caller is right, it is an apolitical system. you don't get into political bickering. people work altogether. but, where the politics come in, our personnel is good and they do the best they can with what they have, but for example, the electrical grade, it needs to be fixed. in 2003, a bird sitting on a wire in ohio knocked out the electricity on the whole east coast. ofcybersecurity terms, one the best places for an enemy to attack is to disable the electrical grid because it is so interconnected. we, when the politics come in, are we going to have the discipline to take money and fix that system? we find the money for tax cuts, to bail out, but we aren't finding the money to improve

roads, embankments, electrical grid, so i bless and i'm grateful to be a part of the community. it is a cooperative community, works well together, and nationwide, among emergency responders. host: let's hear from christine in new hampshire. caller: thanks for taking my call. none of my biggest questions is maintenance. while i understand we need new updated equipment here and there, back in the day, we all used to do maintenance on everything, vehicles, washers, whatever it took. it seems like there is no such thing as maintenance anymore, and there is a great way to save money and stop asking the who we areernment bringing to all the time with these disasters. we all pay our bills, especially electric and power, whatever they use, gas. maintenance happens to be the biggest issue. before we rebuild everything,

see what we have first of all. host: what is the most obvious example of maintenance in your area you are not seeing it done by your state in particular? guest: the funny thing is that what is an issue, everybody is on board, and that is great, but as far as regular maintenance every weekend month, that should be important, you should see the power companies come up or out and look at the wires. check them out, check out the transformers. we had transformers blow up over here, and that is when they come out. it's late then because then you have a loss in power. maintenance is one of the biggest things. all of those people making the money, the big companies that we need the power, they have plenty of money from what we pay. nd property tax, states want more money. nobody works on the roads. what are they doing with our money? host: christina new hampshire. guest: obviously, -- christina

in new hampshire. guest: as she suggested, that may be from the state administration, but in my experience, when you say they don't fix things, if it is a utility and they fix things, ir in your utility -- ir expensesses -- the will go up and your utility will go up. something we need to have supplemental funding for. mostte people, for the part, don't build our roads. it's built out of a federal highway fund. the embankments to keep rivers out of cities are built by taxpayer dollars. you have anis, one, issue and people don't want to pay taxes or there is a philosophy that we should not be paying taxes without a thought that those taxes actually come

back to protect us in desperate times. all of these things, maintenance, some of it may be in attic care. i think that is what the caller believes -- inadequate care. i think that is what the caller believes. maintenance costs money. if it is the private utility doing that, if they do it a lot, the customers will increase charges. the customers will be upset. if you ask any from the state, people don't want their taxes raised. for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for everybody. there is no such thing as a gated community keeping you out of danger from harm's way. in bahamas, gated communities are well underwater. we are all experiencing these problems, and we will have to develop an attitude of citizenship that will band together to find the funds to make the improvements in roads,

in embankments, electrical grids, what have you. host: michael greenberger's organization is the maryland center for health and homeland announcer: c-span's "washington journal." morning, thursday proposals to prevent gun violence. heritage action for america talks about recent surveys of issues that are pivotal for conservatives in 2020 and the republican party's future agenda. watch c-span's "washington journal" thursday morning. join the discussion. coverage fore thursday. on c-span, at 12:30 p.m., a top

u.s. air force officer joins a panel of military contractors and scholars to talk about future technical -- technologies that could be used to modernize the military. later, joint chiefs of staff chair general joseph dunford discusses defense strategy. from the military federal agencies and government contractors discussed cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and military applications for space. on c-span3, cyber security officers from the military, federal agencies, and private industry have a forum on preventing cyber attacks on elections, individuals, and companies. that gets underway at 8:00 a.m. >> this is the story of how this new economy was built. i have always been really interested, ever since i was working in washington, in how

business and government interact with one another. have an antagonistic relationship, but also a collaborative relationship. the story of american history is one of public-private partnership, the ways they are unseen. i think this story is a great way to get into that. university of washington history professor discusses her book, "the code sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's human day. q&a.span's announcer: president trump announced federal grants to combat the opioid crisis. theowing the announcement, president took questions from reporters about hurricane dorian, trade relations, and vice president p