on yours, but we're with you unfortunately this year in the world series, observing. 22 years ago as you heard, i have been in d.c. in fema for the last two years, but 22 years ago i was in boston. and we usually don't get earthquakes in boston, and saw the images on tv. because there was another game some of us were watching. the response to the earthquake from the east coast about as far away from here as you can get was impressive. watching a lot of images on the and reading a lot about it was really impressive. but to me, what was more impressive is the work that happened after the response.

not the emergency, the first few days, the countless lives people saved. but the recovery. and how the recovery was done. we talk about whole community. that's something we've talked about. for two years, we had to call it whole community because when craig, the administrator and i go around talking about response and recovery, that it can't just be government. it can't be the federal government. although federal government brings lots of resources to bear. we can bring department of defenses, h.h.s. if necessary. we can also bring a big paycheck every once in a while.

$9 million for loma prieta. we can do that. the state as part of the team can bring a real lot. they do on response. they do on recovery. and to support the local government. and the local governments, to me, are key. because they are to support the survivors. that's what it's all about. supporting the survivors. my congressman from back in boston. not currently, but was for years, a guy by the name of tip o'neal. he used to say our politics are local. and i firmly believe that, but all disasters are local as well. and it's important to remember that. and it's important to remember that as each incident happens, people who are at the local level, the city level know that. sometimes just once in a while, some of the feds might forget that.

but it's important to remind people of that. so if you look and you have federal government with all sorts or local and state government. very impressive team. very impressive team. can do a lot. but by no means, the team. about this much is government. can do a lot, should do a lot. but needs to bring in the private sector. as we heard not a new concept near san francisco. wasn't a new concept in boston. but let me tell you for a lot of places that is a new concept. to bring in the private sector as a key member of the team. what they can bring to the table, what they have brought to the table and what they will bring to the table. i was a little surprised when i got to fema and the first major incident that i had the opportunity to experience tpwhuzz haiti and it was an unusual response to fema. we usually don't respond out of the country.

and we did. and i was in the national response coordination center. and craig is off at the white house doing stuff, so they had pow would you and said where is the private sector folks? it's, like, they are not here. what do you mean they are not here? they were not part of our team in the nrcc. i was shocked. it would be an understatement to say i was shocked. we fixed that in a few months where as now we have a private sector representative not only during time of disaster but full-time. we have a detail person there. somebody from target then rotated to somebody from big lots then to somebody with the building trades then one of the company's building management

companies now we have somebody from verizon and they come and spend three months working for fema then rotate every three months to another country but are in every one of our briefings and when we activate the people who used to be assign there had from the other companies, they now come back when we activate. so we had five private sector representatives that don't just represent their company but across the board. when we had a representative from target, she was able to get all of our businesses, 25 largest businesses, target, wal-mart, home depot, etc. and we put them on a g.i.s. map across the country to show us what stores are open and closed. why is that important for us to know? i'm not going to sit here and talk the whole time by the way.

why is that important? we did this for the first time with the last winter we had the storm that went from new mexico to new england and affected 100 million people in this country. so it's important to know which stores are open and closed narrow resources. 12k0 if the stores are open or closed, if they are going to be closed, are they closed for a day? in new england they were just closed for a day a lot of them because they had literally 60 feet of snow so they would shovel off the roof and be open the next day. in the midwest they were open for a -- they were closed for a week or two weeks. but why were they closed? this would give us the information. if they were closed because roads for blocked maybe we should prioritize opening those roads. if it was because they were without power, we should

prioritize them getting power after the hospitals and safety people because guess what, the wal-marts of the world, the stop and shop or supermarkets of the world, they feed people every day. they do it much better than we will ever. we should not be, as we have for years opening up points of distributions in parking lots of buildings, of supermarkets. we should be working with them hand in hand to know are they open or closed? and if they are closed, what do we do to open them? so they become part of a team and not everybody opening and operating in their own silos. by doing that we'll be able to take care of the public in general and more importantly, help serve the people who need it most. the people who are going to need our help more than anybody else. the people who don't have the opportunity to have 72 hours

worth of food. the people who don't have the opportunity to go to a hotel. the people who don't have access to transportation. so we can focus our efforts on those folks. that's what we as not only government as a responsible private sector and faith-based community and those need to do. so as we look at who else is a key part of that team, it's the faith-based community. it's the voluntary agencies, the red cross, the salvation army. earlier i was introduced to the gentleman from the salvation army and i was told what good work they do. ok. well, that's not a shock to me. it's like i go back to the good work they do in the middle of a fire in the middle of a cold night in new england 34 years ago where the first time i

encountered in getting that hot cup of soup or hot chocolate for myself, but more importantly, is they work to feed and house the people who were just burnt out of their home. not new. not a new concept. the red cross. for years i started as a volunteer for the red cross. ended up before i took this job as a volunteer chairman of the board of the red cross in massachusetts. had to give that up when i took this job. but an intragoodwill part of the community. in the last two years i had traveled across the country from aalaska to hawaii and the

floods in new england. to a hurricane in vermont. who ever knew vermont would get struck bay hurricane? and on the ground in joplin, missouri, 14 hours after the tornado went through there. and i was in tuscaloosa, alabama, smithville. mississippi. northern georgia, all affected by the tornadoes. and up in north dakota from the floods. and when i was flying over north dakota, had the opportunity with the general and a couple congressmen. and as we're flying over, and it was just cresting. in looking at the damages, the general is explaining how many homes and businesses were

damaged. in sort of a side mentioned we've really done a good job and haven't lost any lives and working hard, and we saved the school and did this and did that. later i went and talked to the mayor and governor and police, fire, e.m.s. folks and chiefs and command staffs and a lot of people that had been working on fighting the flood in north dakota for literally -- much longer, but this part of it for two weeks. and sometimes i think we miss things and we forget things. but for total devastation, they did not lose one life. that is incredible. if you can view the damage that happened there. and the reason that is, is because they prepared. they took the time.

they were exhausted. but they saved lives. devastating, it will take years to rebuild which but it makes a difference that they took time to prepare. it saved lives. here, what struck me a lot about reading about loma prieta was how the community came together. how people in the faith-based initiative community and non-profits and if public in general and private sector worked to get the community back together. to recover. i mentioned i was in joplin moreless right after it happened and ied that opportunity to go back just two weeks ago and to see that the devastation, which was seven miles long, 3/4 of a mile wide and nothing left standing

except a little bit of the hospital. all the debris is gone in four months. the high school opened on time in august. they rebuilt the high school. albeit in a mall in 55 days. that the high school is open and the kids went back to school. that was done a little bit -- fema wrote a check and brought some people in to help out, but it was the leadership and the dedication of the school superintendent, the city manager, the students, the parents. the community that helped raise some money, but more importantly, the community that got behind folks to help design as the secretary of education who actually said it was a state of the art high school

that would put almost any high school in to shame that they designed in 55 days. tells you something about taking years to design. 55 days they designed a state of the art high school. it's about communities coming together. in joplin, so much of it able to bring together the faith-based community. the southern baptist cooking food for 50,000 people that was then delivered by the red cross to a salvation army shelter that was served by men nice and cleaned up by muslims. with no government involvement. that's whole community. that's what it's going to take to recover from these. a lot of times people start thinking about recovery. people start thinking about it

as soon as the response starts happening. some start thinking about it as soon as the response is over. that's not the time to think about the recovery. the time to think about recovery is now. one of the things we have thought about is the national disaster's recovery frame work. we work ackry thems. ackry nelms. with the ndrf. it lays out forward how we need to recover from disasters. we are going to be going around the country. we went around initially. now we're going to go around again laying it out. still i want to get feedback from folks how to best do that.

it's not going to take just government but the exact same people it takes us in a response. all the people that i mentioned. they are the same people and more that's going to be necessary it's going to be absolutely essential for us to bring all parties together to help recover, because it's important for us to remember why we're there. for the survivor. a lot of times people, a couple of years ago, myself included. used to call people victims. they were victims of a car crash. victims of a flood. victims of an earthquake. victims of having a heart attack. but when you think about it, and you change that around a bit, and instead of calling somebody a victim, they are a survivor.

survivor versus victim. just calling somebody that. it makes a huge difference. i can speak from personal experience what a difference zwhraust terminology makes. so i mentioned a lot of people and how important it is to be part of a team. but the most important part of the team is the survivors and the public at large. by far, not even close everybody else is important. but the survivors and the public have to be the most important part of the team. they have to be involved in taking care of themselves, taking care of their community. neighbors helping neighbors. i saw it on tv 22 years ago. i saw it -- i see it each and every day.

if you look, you see it everywhere. it's important for us to let the public know that it's not only necessary for them to be part of the team, but it's important for their survival, in the community survival for them to make sure that for us to let them know that it's ok to help others during disasters. not to put they musts in danger, but it's ok to help out the disaster. for years we gave the impressions that -- i'll speak for fema. we're going to be there. we're going to help. we're not going to be there right away. we'll be there as quickly as we can. and initially, the true heroes in response, as we saw in tusk

louisa and saw in newark, new jersey, recently. saw in upstate new york and vermont are the first responders. the police officers, the paramedics, the e.m.t.'s and nurses and doctors and neighbors helping neighbors. talked to a woman in tennessee last year during the floods in nashville, and it was this home that was completely flooded. actually it was a week later, and it was being mucked out or cleaned out by again, lutherans and another, i forget the other name of the other faith-based group. there were two groups cleaning up her front home and she's sitting out this 86-year-old woman saying all these nice people are helping me clean out

literally what's left of their home and she said i wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for my neighbor that broke my front window out and pulled me out and saved her life. he was a nice young man, a 63-year-old neighbor, the nice young man that saved her life. [laughter] >> but it's neighbors helping neighbors. those are the heroes. those are the people that we need to make sure that they are part of our team as we plan to go forward, not just for response but for recovery as well. it's really important that we look, i think, from fema, at some of the great lessons that have been learned here in san francisco. i can tell you now, you know, we heard about what public

television is doing. and that's absolutely key. but as we move forward, the idea of social media and how we communicate with folks, i will say san francisco is very much at the leading edge for what's happening, whether it's san francisco heroes. has anybody not looked at that website yet? if you haven't, please do. it's great. i tried it this weekend. it's very good. in fact, as i mentioned, some of us may steal that. but it's a great stool. -- but it's a great tool. the things that happen at the local level are the most important. i'm under no illusions that the best idea come out of that beltway inside d.c. in fact in my two years there, i can't think of too many good ideas that have come out of

that area of d.c. it's important to really look and listen to what happens in the community, because that's the most important. as i started out saying, these are not new ideas, new concepts for craig and myself and how craig operated in that place in florida, wherever that operated, and what we admitted boston and what you're doing here in san francisco. it's about bringing people together. and after us talking about a year or so they said well, you have got call it something. it's really neighbors helping neighbors. thank you. [applause] >> thank you rich for being here with us today to commemorate this important event in san francisco history and for sharing with us fema's view of the private sector.

it's very much appreciated. as a private sectorly asia zon, i'd also like to recognize and say to our partners in the non-profit faith-based in the neighborhood and business communities for all their efforts and for joining us here at this event this morning. at this time i'd like to invite our panelists for the next segment to join us up on the stage. when we began thinking about today's panel and the topic of whole community. essentially crossing sectors and breaking down silos, i thought immediately to ask my friend and colleague paul jackson to moderate this discussion. aside from more than 20 years experience, i worked with all in engaging in non-profit faith-based communities and more recently with the private sector as we worked on volunteer management for the

bay area. in addition to his consulting work he advises the citizen's voice and i'll leave it to paul to introduce our experts today and i would like to remind you we are filming this session so when the q & a does start please step to the mike so we can hear you on tape. so without further adieu, my friend, paul jackson. [applause] >> thank you. how are we doing on time? so we don't have to rush? talk really snast well, i understand how great this is today. it's always a pleasure to come down to san francisco. i am a native born san fran ciscan. where was i? i was in san francisco with a state bureaucrat and having a meeting when the lights started

to shake. we knew something was going on when all the lights on our earthquake board started to go off and we knew something was going on and the phones started ringing and we didn't see operations until a long time afterwards. >> it's great seeing a lot of folks in the audience i worked with on the loma prieta recovery and i think it's wonderful, fema's emphasize -- emphasis and their whole approach to whole community management. i think this has been an incubator for many of the approaches that underlie this very important concept. it was no accident that -- remember project exact? how many of you guys remember that? 1989 7. right? in 1989 7 many of the same ideas were previous lent

focusing on community resilience and with three project impacts in oakland, berkeley and also san leandro. they were eager participants. a lot of those partnerships i think still exist today. i want to flash back a little bit. kind of set the stage for this panel. as most of you all know, how many of you guys were here during loma prieta? good. so you guys know this was a huge event for this bay area region. it had a huge geographic imprint and affected a whole lot of different types of communities. urban, as you were suburban and rural. for me being a young recovery worker, it was quite amazing how many different kinds of issues about $10 billion and i

remember years ago it was six and seven and now we say it was about $10 billion in terms of insured sand underinsured losses. there were major issues specifically for folks who lived in multifamily structures. there were donations from management, government coordination with non-profit organizations and access and functional needs and also the efficiency of government-run systems and programs. i have to say at the state level there was a lot of energy in those days. in order to meet the needs of the communities and survivors, you know, the legislature met and actually passed about 37 bills. isn't that amazing? 37 bills to address loma prieta relief issues. these bills covered a lot of territories the time. there was an expansion of our

public assistance program to cover 100%. to provide 100% funding for damages to government agencies and expanded el jabilty for projects and a project that provided funds for both resident denial housing and rental units. there was a bill that created the gap loan program for small businesses. there was a lot of activity in terms of providing tax relief for individuals and businesses that were affected and most notably, of course in sales tax for 13 months it raised about $1 billion ultimately use topped firned those -- when i think back now and when i was

thinking about what i wanted to say about this event, i was thinking dwhroon the -- thinking about what to say, i was thinking they couldn't do that today. even with those efforts that were taken by the legislature and at the state and federal levels, and the federal government provided -- almost $1 million from fema. i think altogether there was $3 billion in action put together by congress and other businesses so there were a lot of state and federal things came together. but it became clear that a lot more needed to be done to generate rebuilding on this scale. and the private sector and government secondors to meet needs otherwise not met. we have a great panel