Opinion: Are we truly ready for disaster on top of disaster?
By Bridget Johnson, CNN
(CNN) — Last year, the US was slammed by a record 28 disasters related to weather and climate that inflicted damage exceeding $1 billion. There have already been 11 billion-dollar disasters in the country this year, fueled by even more record-setting weather such as the highest number of tornadoes ever recorded in the US during the month of May. And we’re barely into what multiple storm prognosticators warn should be an “extremely active” Atlantic hurricane season — with the first named storm of the season impacting the western Gulf Coast this week and more potential storms on Alberto’s heels.
You’ve hopefully heeded expert advice to prepare a go-bag with emergency supplies to meet the basic needs of your family and pets in the days after a disaster. But getting a community ready to weather disasters extends far beyond this fundamental home preparedness.
What barriers keep people from heeding evacuation orders, for instance? How can disaster planning better respond to the needs of people with mobility issues? What if people are told to flee but lack the money to do so? What if there’s a language barrier in emergency alerts? How is our perpetual state of crises impacting how seriously we take new disaster warnings?
To explore these and other questions, CNN Opinion will feature the views of experts over the next several weeks on how America can be better prepared for disaster. These pieces from a range of voices are intended to nurture important conversations at city halls and kitchen tables about how preparedness starts long before an emergency alert.
To launch this series, CNN Opinion spoke with former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Deputy Administrator Richard Serino about preparedness challenges and opportunities. Serino promotes crafting a national strategy to better prepare for a greater number of billion-dollar disasters that could have more devastating impacts. He looks back on some of his experiences responding to crises and what that imparted about the needs of survivors and cities hit by disasters — and what we could face around the corner.
Serino served in his leadership role at FEMA from 2009 to 2014. During that time, he responded to more than 60 natural disasters, including serving as the lead Hurricane Sandy federal area commander for New York and New Jersey. Before his FEMA appointment, Serino was chief of Boston Emergency Medical Services and served as assistant director of the Boston Public Health Commission. He is a distinguished senior fellow at the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI) at Harvard University.
CNN: Give us a 30,000-foot view of the disaster outlook. How badly prepared are we? What are the biggest vulnerabilities in the US, and are we facing unique challenges compared to other nations? And why are we breaking records for billion-dollar disasters?
Richard Serino: We are prepared for what was. We are not prepared for what is and what will be. The pace, size and scope of disasters used to be more episodic. We had big disasters though they were more discrete.
The hurricanes of 2017 were the marker of the change. A series of strong hurricanes in quick succession overwhelmed the system — hurricanes Harvey (Category 4), Irma and Maria (both Category 5) cost more than $335 billion and hit within the span of a month and a half. By the time we got to Hurricane Maria, which left 3.7 million Puerto Ricans without power, the system was spent — FEMA stockpiles were strained and an already understaffed workforce was exhausted.
We can expect more of this. This is not just a US problem — we are seeing this occur worldwide.
I was deputy administrator of FEMA during Hurricane Sandy. The New York metropolitan area was hit hard, including 44 deaths and $19 billion in damage. As more areas become inhabited, and as population density increases, the impact of these bigger storms will significantly increase. New York is an illustration: more people to evacuate, support and house.
Several hurricanes like Sandy at the same time would overwhelm the system, and it may be what we see in the near future. One of the areas which we saw needed improvement was meeting the survivors’ needs during initial interactions. FEMA Corps, a service program for young adults to help communities in disaster preparedness and response, had just started and helped with this tremendously. And what we learned has helped shape the new policies on FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program that were just realized. It’s a good start, but we have a long way to go.
People don’t understand what that big pot of money in the Disaster Relief Fund pays for and what it does not pay for — and how little it provides an individual with a damaged or destroyed home. For fiscal year 2024, the maximum amounts are $42,500 for housing assistance and $42,500 for other needs assistance. The averages fluctuate but the actual amount awarded, however, has been typically closer to $8,000. There is a big misconception that FEMA will make you whole, back to where you were prior to a disaster — that is simply not the case.
And not every disaster is a Stafford Act declaration, in which the president declares a disaster and thus paves the way for federal assistance. The heat wave is not. The Baltimore bridge collapse was not. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was not.
There is some funding for preparedness that FEMA does distribute, but we need to increase and improve this. Along with Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) and other funding, this needs to start at the local level.
The one prediction I can make about the disaster outlook is that there will be more disasters and they will be more costly, billions of dollars more costly and they are going to increase and impact more people than ever before. We have to take the time now to prepare across the board, from individuals, to government at all levels, to the private sector, the faith-based community — the entire, whole community must work together before, during and after disasters. This is not just a FEMA problem. This is time for us to work to plan and think together.
CNN: You’ve been on the emergency management frontlines through a range of disasters including hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes and a tsunami. Tell us about an experience that really made you step back and identify a need for significant changes in how we approach preparedness.
Serino: I’m going to look at this perhaps a different way — at something that worked, and then something that could use improvement. One crisis that stands out is the 2011 tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri. It was devastating: 158 people died, thousands were injured, thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed — but they recovered.
And they recovered because they had worked through scenarios and had some preparedness for a crisis such as this beforehand. They worked together as a team, they worked together as a community and they were able to actually help rebuild. But I think we can learn from Joplin — they have done such a good job after the fact of going around teaching other areas and other cities how to prepare for this, prepare for disasters and prepare for recovery.
I think we do a very good job in many places preparing people for response. We do not do a good job of preparing people for the recovery — and that’s always the longest and the hardest thing after disaster. How do you prepare for recovery? Having plans in place. How do you get people housed, get people back to work, how are you going to be able to do that? So I think we have a lot more work to be done about how we can improve individual preparedness — but community preparedness as well.
Our policies and attitudes about disasters are out-of-date. We have to admit that rebuilding, as compelling as it may be, is not always the answer. Some areas where we know flooding will come and come again should not be rebuilt. We cannot underestimate the impact that shifts by the insurance market will have on areas prone to disasters. The government at the local level is reluctant to tell people not to rebuild in disaster-vulnerable areas. However, the increase in insurance bills and even the outright disappearance of the insurance market will create some very tough choices for people. With savings held in our property, what will people do when their area is vulnerable and they cannot get or afford insurance?
We have to build policies that confront these realities so that when we spend money, we are smart about it. To do so, we have to expand how FEMA is allowed to allocate money. In some cases, we have to be creative about where we rebuild and how we do it. We also need to engage states and localities about their building and zoning codes.
CNN: Disasters cut across jurisdictions and can leave evacuees or victims confused about where to find guidance or assistance. How can different entities break down their silos to be ready in times of chaos?
Serino: People often talk about breaking down silos. I actually think you don’t want to break down silos. I grew up in Boston but a colleague of mine, Dr. Lenny Marcus, the director of NPLI, grew up in the Midwest and noted that silos serve an important purpose: If you knock down a silo, all the grain and things that are stored inside will make a mess. Look at these as disparate entities in disaster planning and response as “cylinders of excellence,” and rather look to see how we can connect these cylinders of excellence during times of crisis, during times of chaos. You have to do that ahead of time.
We must take the opportunity to build those relationships long ahead of time. As some of us have been saying for 25 years, you don’t want to exchange business cards at the scene of a disaster. But it’s more than exchanging business cards — it’s actually about how you develop relationships with people and keep them up ahead of time, during blue-sky days. During our response to Hurricane Sandy, one department’s very senior official started working outside of the system without communicating. That showed how essential it is for all levels of government to work together — because once we did, the response turned and was more seamless throughout.
And it’s not just the people in public safety and emergency management: it’s the people who do housing, it’s the people who do community outreach, it’s the people who do the budget, it’s understanding the economy.
So how do you bring all those people together ahead of time to have disaster response agreements in place? You bring that team of folks together so it’s not about breaking down the silos, it’s about connecting those cylinders of excellence.
CNN: What would a national emergency management strategy look like?
Serino: To put it in perspective, we have a National Defense Strategy, we have a National Health Security Strategy, we have a National Cybersecurity Strategy but we don’t have a national disaster and national emergency management strategy. I think one of the things we have to look at is how do we bring together a whole-of-government approach — federal, state, local, tribal, territorial levels — and assess how we are able to operate.
This would not just be a FEMA document — we have to bring together all the different federal agencies in a national strategy. FEMA has a great strategic plan to develop National Resilience Guidance; we have to look broader to a national emergency management and disaster strategy to bring together people so they can understand and align their roles, responsibilities and resources.
I’m not talking about a 300-page document: The National Cybersecurity Strategy is 35 pages. Canada has a national Emergency Management Strategy that is about the same length. But I think it’s key that we set the tone for where we need to go with what the roles and responsibilities are in the event of a disaster or other national emergency. We are at a transformation point for emergency management.
We’re at a crossroads because we can’t keep doing the things that we did 20 to 30 years ago or even 10 years ago. Because of the number of billion-dollar disasters that happen routinely and the amount of resources needed to respond and recover, we have to bring together the whole community. The private sector needs to not just be observers: They don’t just want information from the government, they want to be part of the solution. Information needs to flow both ways; they need to become real members of the team.
There are many different parts of this: the federal, state, local, tribal, territorial governments; the private sector; nonprofits; the faith-based community. And we also need to bring academia into crafting a strategy, with the research that they’ve done, and start to develop some more data on how we’re able to do that. The most important thing is bringing the public together and remembering that this is about people — how do we make sure that they are part of a national strategy? And again, this isn’t a FEMA strategy, this is an emergency management strategy.
CNN: When officials at different levels of government don’t have unified thoughts on climate change and its effects, how can you bring people from different corners together to effectively prepare for increasing extreme weather events?
Serino: The effects of climate change are real and some people do not like to use the term “climate change,” but one thing we all agree on is the disasters are happening more often. We need to look at this in terms of the effects that people are experiencing. There’s no denying we’re seeing more disasters; there’s no denying we’re seeing more billion-dollar disasters. So it’s a matter of how do we live with this? It’s never just one crisis anymore. We’re in a polycrisis and permacrisis state — and we must assess how we’re able to understand that and the full cost of that.
How do we stop looking at the billion-dollar cost — the US National Climate Assessment puts the extreme weather cost at $150 billion each year — and how do we start to look at the full scope of the effects that we see? And how do we start to look at how we can do that more efficiently, more effectively, more equitably across the board? It’s a matter of how we start to bring all of these together, and I think there are opportunities to do that.
What we have learned over the years, when it comes to disasters, is that leadership matters! In part, it’s political leadership. No politician ran for office and got elected in order to lead through a crisis. The policies that were front stage for them were often about the economy, building and social programs. But how they lead in a crisis determines whether they will get re-elected.
Of course, every crisis is about the economy, building and social impact. So the issues are still relevant; however, the urgency suddenly changes. Everything changes, from communication to the media to engaging the public. Leadership also matters for the leaders of public agencies, who have to work together, coordinate situational awareness and collaborate on activities in ways responsive to the crisis at hand. Crisis leadership requires training, preparation and intentionality, just like any professional skill. We’re not paying enough attention to preparing leaders for when it matters most.
CNN: When we see disaster upon disaster happening with little respite, how do you encourage people to respond to the next disaster threat with the required urgency?
Serino: In emergency management we have to be careful to not seem like the boy who cried wolf. We have to educate people to the crisis that’s in their area — and use crises as an opportunity to educate, even if it’s not your crisis. You want to keep the message concise about what matters the most.
Survivors before, during and after a disaster are not looking for a political speech — they want to hear an expert or trusted community member say, “This is what’s happening, this is what we know and, importantly, this is what we don’t know, this is what you as the public can do and this is what we are doing — and this is the information we know now and it’s going to change.” Being consistent and concise.
Local leaders need to hear that same candor from federal officials. In the Hurricane Sandy response, I spent a lot of time with Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer. We listened to what their needs were and told the city what we can do and what we can’t. You may be telling people hard truths, things that sometimes are not what they want to hear — you’re not going to have power for a while, but in the interim we’re going to take care of the needs such as shelter. We’re going to be here for a while. That’s an important message.
And do not make it political: In this hyper-political environment we live in now we have to be very careful and not make crisis response political. People sometimes call me an eternal optimist; we can use disasters as a way to unify people in the community involved and across the country. Whether it’s red or blue states, or white or purple or green, this is a disaster. We consistently see people come together across the spectrum.
We have the opportunity to use a crisis as a unifying community response. We’ve seen in crisis after crisis that people come together, so let’s prepare for that. Let’s find a way that we can continue that.
CNN: What is the number one way in which average citizens and their local leaders fall short on disaster preparedness?
Serino: I think people are always moving onto the next thing. People tend to say “it’s not affecting me directly” — and that’s why I think the key is education, and the key is education also for the leaders. We want to prepare the leaders so the people who work for the leaders, and the public who hear the leaders, will be ready.
Sometimes people make tragic choices in disasters. They must know that they have to prepare. We have the ability to just continue to communicate that, and leaders in a crisis have the obligation to take care of the people for their safety, and the obligation to make sure people are housed and fed, etc., after disaster.
And it’s also important for leaders to give people hope. Having people prepared, giving them some self-confidence and giving them the tools in order to cope with disaster is an opportunity to both educate people in preparedness and help them survive the response as well.
In 2011, Minot, North Dakota, experienced really bad flooding. As I flew out there, people from FEMA were telling me that the situation on the ground was bad and the people don’t like FEMA. I landed at a small airport, met local people in the hangar and then flew around the affected area in a helicopter with the adjutant general, who told me that all of the roads were washed away, houses were underwater, they lost a school — yet nobody was killed or injured. I flew to a nearby location — all you could see were rooftops of flooded homes — and was in a big meeting room with political officials, police, fire, EMS and emergency management officials from a handful of other cities and towns. You can tell that everyone is unhappy, they’re so mad; they’re also extremely tired, having been up for three days nonstop.
I walked in and said, “Before we get too much into this, I want to say thank you — no one was killed or injured because the actions you took saved lives. The fact that no one was even injured was a testimony to the work you did with preparedness and evacuating people.” I told them that I can’t tell you when we’re going to have reimbursement for what was destroyed or damaged, but that can be replaced while lives can’t — so I just wanted to say thank you. There was dead silence for a full minute — but then the whole tenor changed.
The people who were telling me it’s going to be bad, they’re going to hate you — it’s never about you as a leader, it’s about the position. It’s all about you as a leader and it’s not about you as a leader. It’s important for us to realize what’s important — we can do lots of mitigation and all that, but we also have to look at this through the eyes of people. Everything we do is about survivors.
CNN: While at FEMA you launched the FEMA Corps to integrate young adults into serving communities during disaster response. Do you see an age gap in preparedness and how emergency management needs to reach different generations?
Serino: I have extreme hope with the younger generation because we have lots of young people who have gone to school to learn emergency management — years ago there weren’t even classes in emergency management, but now you can get a bachelor’s degree, masters and even a PhD in emergency management. I have a great amount of hope because the next generations are bringing skills that a lot of us haven’t had the past and they’re bringing new opportunities to bring people together. What we have to do is give them the opportunities: FEMA has given many younger people the opportunity to do that, with some 70% of the FEMA Corps eventually getting federal job offers.
And the younger generation brings a different viewpoint along with bringing emergency management education. Some of us a little older have a different viewpoint, so it’s valuable to bring them in and let them get some experience — but it’s also us listening to them and having that two-way street.
So I’m actually optimistic but I think we need to be active to reach out to them. And I hear emergency managers saying, “oh, nobody wants to come into emergency management, we can’t find people” — but at the same time I just had three people reach out who know folks who just graduated in the field and are looking to find ways to get in. So I think there’s a disconnect there. We have to do a better job of how we connect and listen to young people.
We also need to better address “mission creep” for emergency management, which has been a big issue. In addition to the workload of disasters, emergency managers at the state and local levels are dealing with the epidemic of fentanyl and others opioids, and migrant issues across the country. FEMA also has responded to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the border crisis and the Afghanistan resettlement operation, none of which are covered by the Stafford Act.
CNN: We’re facing predictions for an active hurricane season this summer and have been recently hit by deadly tornadoes and extreme heat across the nation. What can we do today to be better prepared?
Serino: I think one of the things we do today is we continue to educate. FEMA held an Extreme Heat Summit recently, educating people at all levels of government and the community. We need more of this. We also have to build trust in crisis response, and build people’s trust in government in general. Emergency management can do that and has consistently done this over the last number of years.
FEMA lost many people’s trust after Hurricane Katrina; it took about 10 years to rebuild that trust, and that trust is gradual. We have to continue to do that and take the opportunities when they come along. For example, after Hurricane Ian we saw President Joe Biden and Florida Gov. Ron De Santis come together — perhaps they’re polar opposites, but they came together — when they saw people needed action.
In our crisis leadership research at Harvard, we found that some communities and leaders are able to achieve a remarkable collaboration of effort that really makes a difference in a crisis. Building off what is known about swarm intelligence in creatures such as ants and bees, we have found a similar instinctual response that can arise among humans in times of crisis. Leaders create the conditions in which this swarm can appear: Those conditions include unity of mission, generosity of spirit and action, helping others succeed in their work and responsibilities, no ego-no blame and a trusting foundation. The best crisis leaders create these conditions, and it really makes a difference.
We are seeing that disasters are happening frequently — an average of 18 days now separates billion-dollar disasters in the US, when that gap was 82 days in the 1980s — and there are a lot of opportunities to come together to prepare. It’s not easy. It can’t just be brought about — it has to be bottom up and top down, and we have to continue to talk and educate people about that as we move forward.
We have to continually take the opportunities when they present themselves, even if it’s a crisis in a neighboring community, and educate people. Because the majority of citizens don’t think about this disaster happening to them. You have to take opportunities to prepare and educate them.
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