discussed. it is hosted by the atlantic council. ♪

>> good morning and welcome, everyone. i am the executive here at the atlantic council. on behalf of the atlantic council as well as our forward defense program within our center for strategy and security, i am really delighted to welcome all of you to what the latest event under our future of dhs project titled "building resilience in u.s. communities." to our esteemed speakers, thank you so much for joining us today. the future of dhs project convenes leaders and provides recommendations to assist u.s. national security officials as they transform the department of homeland security to protect the u.s. homeland from threats such as natural disasters, pandemics, terrorism, and other future threats. and today's event is the final installment of that future of dhs project series and over the course of the project, we have

had the honor of hosting a series of really important convenience, all which you can find online. some of these include a hosting three former secretaries of dhs for a conversation exploring how the agency should realign his priorities to meet today's pressing threats to the homeland. we hosted former chairman of the u.s. house of representatives committee on homeland security, bennie thompson, to discuss streamlining congressional oversight at dhs. we have customs and border protection commissioner troy miller for a conversation on how cbp can leverage biometrics at u.s. borders. and most recently, hosted dhs undersecretary for intelligence and analysis ken wayne steen for a discussion on the current challenges facing homeland security enterprise. today's event, we are going to do a deep dive into another side of dhs within the federal emergency management agency and explore its role in working with

federal, state, and local governments to prepare u.s. community's to withstand and recover from disasters. we are really truly delighted to host fema's administrator, chriwell, so she can discuss agency's goals around its 2024 year of resilience initiative. 2024 might not be the only year of resilience. i think it is something we are going to need for some time to come. we are just so grateful to you -- for you spending time with us today. i am looking forward to hearing your insights over the course of the next half-hour. after we hear from the administrator, she will be immediately followed by a panel consisting of federal, state, and private sector emergency management experts. and tom warrick, who is a senior fellow with us and leads the future of dhs work will moderate that panel, so you all be in excellent hands. with that, it is my pleasure to

increase -- introduce alex hazily, who make a few announcements and further introduce our esteemed guest. alex is a principal at deloitte responsible for helping, for their relationship with fema. he and his team at deloitte are focused on helping communities get to a place where they are not just bouncing back from disasters but jumping forward after the fact. he started his career in the army 20 years ago and has since been focused on addressing key challenges, from cyber attacks to natural disasters and mass migration. he is a big believer in using the latest tech, like gen ai and gis to make sure the u.s. is not just ready but ahead of those future threats. we are delighted to partner with you. please join me at the podium. it is wonderful to have you. thank you. [applause] alex: thank you for the warm introduction. i cannot agree more that 2024 should not just be the first and only year resilience.

i am thrilled to join you at the atlantic council representing deloitte. to kick off today's forum on the crucial role of the emergency management community in bolstering national resilience. this issue is a daily challenge for leaders at all levels of government, federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and the private sector. special thank you to fema administrator deanne criswell. we also today have willie nunn, region 10 regional administered, russ strickland, and president of the national emergency management association. gary o'neill, president of the national hazard mitigation association. josh, deloitte managing director and internationally recognized advisor on climate and disaster is against. and andrew friedman, the senior climate reporter from axios. your insights are invaluable to our discussion. as we witnessed increasing climate-related extreme weather events, like the maui fire last august and the smokehouse creek

fire in texas and a,, alongside an increasingly offensive, all hazards and consequence management mission set, it becomes ever more urgent to elevate our national resilience. to focus on how we build resilience, especially in marginalized and disadvantaged committees cannot be overstated. i am honored to introduce deanne criswell, the fema administrator who is at the helm of these efforts. her extensive background uniquely positions her to lead our nation through emergencies. her role as it spanned from the city, emergency manager in our, colorado to the commissioner of the new york city emergency management department, culminating in her historic numb nation, confirmation as the first woman fema administrator. today, she stands atop an ecosystem with an evolving mandate and mission that extends beyond just traditional emergency management response and recovery. while those roles are enduring, the emergency management community and its workforce are sifting through and still

prepare this, mitigation, information sharing and technology with a mission set that includes natural and person made events, cyber,, biological, and more. today's discussion focuses on resilience, which is fundamentally about our ability to adapt and recover from adversity. building resilience is increasingly complex due to the fast-paced and changes -- uncertain changes around us. the deloitte global uncertainty report explains these challenges. as we dive into today's topics, let's draw on the collective expertise and insights of leaders like administrator criswell and our esteemed panel members. our goal is to transform our dialogue into actionable strategies that enhance community safety and resilience against these diverse challenges. we are grateful to the atlantic council for providing a platform for this critical work. i look forward to our collaborative initiative that will emerge from our discussions

today. please welcome me in -- join me in welcoming administrator deanne criswell. [applause] deanne: good morning, everybody. >> good morning. deanne: it is really exciting to be here. i think this is just a nice way to cap up a really amazing week where we hosted all of our state directors, territorial directors here for the week and talking about some of these really important topics. i am really excited to be able to be here today at my very first official atlantic council event. and i am equally excited to see how many people are so interested in this topic and who are interested in building resilience across america. it is something that i think a lot about. while 2024 is our year of resilience, i think the big piece of that is when you think about fema and you think about emergency managers, you often

think about us as a response and recovery agency. we have such an important resilience role and we want to use this year as that jumping off platform to lift that up. this event right here is really like a book end to the national emergency management association event we held earlier in the week. . the topic of my keynote at that event was really around these resilience building efforts, but also about the evolution of emergency management. i am really excited to be able to have an opportunity to further discuss some of these topics today. let me start by setting the scene for all of you. the fema of today, the emergency management profession in general, is a far cry from where we started back in the 1970's. i talked a lot about this evolution earlier this week. let me just give you a quick summary of that. since fema was created nearly 45 years ago and nemo was created

50 years ago, fema has evolved from being an agency solely focused on civil defense to one focused on response to those that include homeland security and to one that is essential to recovery. we hold all of these truths simultaneously, because that's what it means to be an emergency manager. we are chief problem solvers. you will hear me say that a lot around the community. we are expert conveners, we are first responders. in recent years, we've also had to learn how to engage in public health and cybersecurity and that list can continue, go on and on. the reality is our operational tempo continues to increase. the scope of our work continues to expand. and the title of emergency manager continues to gain new definitions. just look at the weather events of the past year and i think that you understand why.

atmospheric rivers, fires in the tropics, hurricanes in the desert, drought, extreme heat, extreme cold. 2023, the hottest year on record. permafrost is melting in alaska. and 10 feet of snow just blanketed the sierras in march. the severe weather events of today defy these historic models that we have been used to. and still, there are other threats that continue to lurk at the periphery the added to the load that we face. the fbi recently testified before congress about china's ability to strike our power and transportation infrastructure. the fbi has even warned about the potential for foreign influence in the 2024 election cycle. why do i tell you all of this? the moral of this story is we have a lot on our plate, all of

us. so, what is it that we should be able to do? what can we do gather? the answer -- what can we do together? the answer is work together to build a more resilient nation. 2024, as you heard, fema's year of resilience. it's an opportunity for us to increase individual, community, and household readiness, to train and better resource the emergency management workforce, to build up local capacity, enhance our response capability and enable effective and efficient recovery strategies. we want communities across america to think of fema and know how we have the resources that they need, that they can use to do this important work to make their communities more resilient. we want them to invest now, today, so that if and when, and it should just be when an emergency occurs, they can

respond faster and recover more effectively. sounds pretty simple, right? but what does this all really mean? what actually is resilience? it is not a new concept, that's for sure. but it is kind of a buzzword it seems these days, and it can mean different things to different people depending on the lens that you are approaching it from. so let me explain a little bit. i met a woman on a visit to saipan recently whose home had been mostly destroyed by a typhoon. she sheltered under her recently replaced roof waiting for the rest of her home to be rebuilt. she had moved her bed into her kitchen and it did most of her cooking on an outdoor stove while the rest of her house was pretty much unusable. while i was there that week, the repairs on her house were finally wrapping up. when i asked her why she did all this, why she stayed and why she

never left, why she did not seek out the resources that were available for her, like temporary housing, her answer was very simple. "this is my home, this is where i want to stay." she was determined to stay and she did. i tell this story because, to me, this is what personal resilience can look like. grit, determination, and a willingness to make it work, regardless of the circumstances. i also heard another great example of community resilience a few weeks ago during a meeting i had with tribal leaders. there, i heard a story about the native village in alaska not only has a newfound understanding of what fema's resilience programs offer, but is leveraging our resources now to invest in preparedness and resilience back home. to them, as i said earlier, they

always thought of us as a response or recovery agency, but now they are using the resources we have, like direct technical assistance, to become better prepared for their greatest threat, tsunami's, which is a huge threat in their area. and now, they have the ability to protect their people. they analyzed their risk, they understood they needed to take steps to mitigate it, and then they found the resources they needed to become more resilient. we need more communities across the united states to think like the native village, to take a hard look at the risk that they face and find ways that they can be more resilient in the future. this is one of my biggest priorities. as the administrator of fema, but also as part of the entire biden-harris administration. in fact, president biden has

invested historic levels of funding toward building a more resilient nation. he even created the first e ver national climate resilience network to guide our efforts. the framework unites the entire federal family in this important work and spells out how we should collaborate with nongovernmental partners while building state, local, tribal, and territorial capacity. because the truth is, governments, from the federal level to the local level, cannot do this all on our own. we need to widen our circle and include partners from all sectors of the economy in this critical work. from academia to nonprofits, from the private sector to philanthropy, we need to work together in lockstep to create a more resilient nation. i have seen this work begin to take root around the country on all the trips that i take. at flirt international university -- florida

international university, scientists have crated a wall of wind simulator to test how well structures can withstand a category five hurricane. in guam, there's a coalition of faith-based organizations, volunteers, foundations and local personnel that came together to form guam strong and helped reconstruct homes and build resilience after the typhoons. or look at the work from the walmart foundation. they are really doing some amazing work in this space. they regularly find resilience --fund resilience hubs in communities to help them navigate power, housing and communication challenges stemming from these types of severe weather events. the foundation is even referencing our newly released community disaster resilience zones to help inform them on where they should build these new homes in the future. these are the partners we need at the table, partners who

understand that for every dollar that we invest in mitigation, in resilience saves six dollars in recovery. partners who are ready to pull up a chair, help us connect the dots, and extend our reach into the corners and committees that we have had a hard time reaching. we need partners who can help us meet people where they are at instead of making them come to us. we need them to help us build capacity, help us inform communities across america about the importance of understanding their risk, their unique risk, making a plan, and taking actions. because like i said before, we cannot do this all on our own. we need all of you with us at the table. so, before i close, let me leave you with this. think broader. you are all here today so i know that you are already interested in this work.

but look around you and see who is missing from this room today. what other partners, what other collaborators and voices do we need to have at the table in the rooms where the decisions are being made? and then, think ahead. what will our future look like 5, 10, or 15 years from now? what can we do today to improve tomorrow? and how can we do it together? and then, consider the individual. with all this talk about coming together and making big change, i want to make sure that we never forget that this work is about people. it is about the women in saipan who lost the majority of her home, the true resilience and determination now has a stronger foundation and a better roof over her head. it is about the tribal citizens in alaska who will be safer thanks to the action the native village took to help mitigate their specific and unique risk.

it's about your neighbors, your loved ones, and about your friends becoming more resilient, building a resilient community, and together with our help, becoming a more resilient nation. so, thank you for your dedication and your commitment to this ongoing important work, one that will last long beyond 2024. and i look forward to the rest of our conversation today. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for that. that was interesting and enlightening in terms of how you are thinking about this, this year and beyond. um, i guess my first question is the most broad question and probably one that an emergency manager gets at every single parents -- every single appearance. what keeps you up at night?

deanne: [laughter] there's a lot of different things that keep me up at night. when it comes to this space of resilience, there's a couple of things that i really focus on. one is, you know, we have so many communities today, andrew, that are having repetitive climate-related events and their ability to recover makes them weaker for that next event that is following them but they also get the response fatigue, especially in our small jurisdictions and emergency management offices and our first responders, you know, they are having a hard time keeping up with the repetitive nature of so many specific, different events that are intensifying more rapidly and creating more complex recoveries that they don't have always the capacity to do all of the important work to think about, how do we make our community more resilient? or invest the time in making

them more resilient? that's why i've been really focused on how we as an agency can continue to build state and local capacity. but i also worry about this, um, disconnection, or this opportunity for -- this connection, or this opportunity for bad actors to take advantage of one of these events when we are at our most vulnerable, at our weakest. you add a cyberattack in the middle of our response and you don't know if the power outage is because of the storm or if it is because of something else. it is really going to impact decision-making as we go forward as emergency managers and are planning to be able to understand the root causes of some of the issues and how long it is going to take to recover, further taxing the limited resources that are already out there. andrew: having heard you speak before and hearing that mention of cyber just now, to what extent has the job of fema

administrator, maybe even in just the past decade, evolved into needing to be a cyber expert, in addition to storm response and earthquake response and all the other disasters that were on your plate before? deanne: i think as you heard me talk in my remarks, it is not so much about being the cyber expert. our role is always to manage the consequences of these events. i think where our expertise comes in and where you're starting to see emergency managers brought to the table more is because we have the expertise in the power of convening, the power of collaboration, of truly looking at a problem and understanding, who is not at the table that needs to be at the table, bring them together. that's the expertise emergency managers bring to the table. we don't have to be the public health expert, the cyber expert. we need to be able to be the

planning expert to manage the consequences and understand the cascading impact. we also have the power of convening and bringing the right people to have those conversations, that's where the value of emergency managers really shines through. that's one of the things i have been trained to help people understand about our role as emergency managers. andrew: yeah. um, tell me about some of the changes to fema's individual assistance program, which i believe go into effect today. deanne: they do. andrew: um, what difference might this make for, say, someone who had just lost their home in a wildfire? or who just incurred significant damage in a hurricane, for example? or if do you think there is a better example, um, go for that. i am really curious as to what this does that was different yesterday. deanne: this is really exciting time for us.

these are the most transformational changes that we have made to this program in 20 years. and it has allowed us to truly take all of the information we hear from people and the barriers that they have in trying to access assistance from our state and local emergency managers and the struggles that they have in trying to help people get the assistance that they need and really breaking down those barriers and removing them so we can help people on their road to recovery faster. a couple of examples, and i think the biggest one that i get probably the most applause when i talk to people about, is in the past, yesterday, we will just say yesterday. andrew: yep. [audience laughter] deanne: yesterday, if your home was damaged, for a certain part of fema's programs, i would have you apply for a sba loan, have you get denied, then you come back, and you would be eligible for fema assistance.

andrew: sounds like health care. deanne: perhaps. we are asking people that are the most vulnerable, the most resource deficient to go through this extra step to be told, yes, you are resource deficient and then you can get federal help. it was a bit demoralizing. we have taken that away. we have decoupled those two programs so now any of fema's programs you do not have to go through that process first, you can apply for fema grants but also apply for a sba loan at the same time, which some people use. it's a really great resource. there are things like insurance and sba loans that help provide additional resources. that's one big example of one of the barriers we continue to hear that people were no applying. there were a large number of people that we would send that

route that we knew needed help but would never come back. we've added new programs on how to help people in their first few weeks if they have been displaced in a way we have not been able to before because we know some people will stay with family and friends, may they help pay power bills, buy extra food. this displacement assistance will help them with some of those costs. but not jeopardize their ability to get rental assistance, you know. once you get tired of your family and friends staying with you, and now you decide you're going to get someplace to stay while your home is being repaired. in the past, it would impact your ability to get that rental assistance and now it is two separate programs, which i think is going to make a big difference. i think those are two really big ones that are going to make a difference. andrew: yeah. what are you hearing regarding early indications of how active the hurricane season may be? from talking to science sources, uh, hurricane scientists are not

exactly, are not exactly quiet about their concerns for this season. you have record high north atlantic ocean basin ocean temperatures. and an incoming la niña event, both of which could converge to create an extremely active season. how does that complicate or direct the work that you are doing now into the, you know, early and middle of spring? deanne: i think, you know, i think about this in a couple of ways. one is we always prepare for a really busy hurricane season. and regardless of how busy it is, it just takes one significant event to really bring all of the federal government to have to come into play. so, we always have to keep that in mind.

. we partner closely with the national hurricane center to understand, you know, what they think prediction models are going to be. we have staff embedded within them. they will release their official prediction in may. i get more excited about their update that they put out in july-august timeframe because that's when it is the busiest. but it is still about, it is just one. it does not matter how many, it just takes one. what we have seen in our operational tempo from fema's standpoint as well, we use to posture our agency to make sure we had enough resources for peak hurricane season. our operational tempo is like that year-round, from the atmospheric rivers in january to wildfires on december 30, it is not slow down now. we've had to restructure how we approach staffing and resources to make sure we are ready anytime of the year because we are seeing it all year long. in fact, last year, we had eight types of disaster declarations, whether a major disaster,

emergency decoration, one every three days last year. there is still those that we denied or those that state and local jurisdictions did not even submit because they were handling them on their own. we have to have this posture now year-round, not just hurricane season. andrew: speaking of state and local decision-makers, state and local resources, what does fema i believe a record $80 billion in the request came in and you only had 1.8 billion dollars available in funding. are you going to publicly release out the agency decides which communities receive funding, and for those who do not get that funding, will fema help those communities understand why and suggest alternative funding sources?

deanne: we have a couple of different mitigation programs, so the programs you are talking about is our predisaster mitigation program, and while it is incredibly oversubscribed, we have also had historic levels of funding during the biden administration, so we have been able to find more projects that we and if -- that we have ever been able to before. the predisaster mitigation program only allows for $5 million federal cost share. bric allows us $50 million, so we can do better community projects, and the fact that we continue to be oversubscribed is people are understanding what the future risk will be and they are putting the work into actually draft these projects, and what we do have a limited amount of funding in here these are projects that can because for some of our other programs like our hazard mitigation grant program, which is a

post-disaster mitigation program, or we could work with our federal partners to see if they fit in one of the other federal programs or funding sources or with our philanthropic partners, so i went to continue to work with our communities, because it also lets congress know the need that is out there and how much demand is there is there to build these resilience projects, so we will work with all of these communities to help connect them if possible. we will release the select these later but it is a competitive process. there is a thorough review and the scoring criteria is listed within the funding opportunity. andrew: so what is disclosed. they are making me multitask here, which my wife can tell you i suck at. so --

how do you create resilience in communities when certain responsibilities lie outside of fema and dhs authorities? guest: i would have to better understand what opportunities you were talking about, but for us are regional administrators, we have 10 administrators

deliver support this to our state and territory directors, and they were with them to understand what the greatest needs are, because it is the state and territory directors that know their communities the best, and we have no real expertise i think emergency managers bring to the table is this power of convening, so we want to help connect the dots. we want to either connect them to programs that are within our authority and we have the funding to support, or if there was another federal agency or other partner that can help supported, that is what we do, right? we are the chief problem solvers and trying to bring in the right partners. this conversation about partnerships is so incredibly important, because no one federal agency will be able to help all of the different resilient needs that are out there, but i feel we are positioned well to bring in

those partners for that specific community and going there and understand what their needs are and help them get on the road to resilience. andrew: got you. you were going to love this question. what is a bigger hindrance to fema's work? being lumped into a massive agency like dhs or congressional dysfunction when it comes to funding? deanne: wow. you think i'm going to love that question? andrew: yep. deanne: i listen to secretary mayorkas the other day when he was speaking at the conference. the department as a whole is a for purpose, and there is so much interdependency and interconnection between the work that we do in the work the rest of the department does, and it gives us the opportunity to really leverage resources.

there is so much value in being able to tap in to support her agency. as far as the second part of that question, it is a work in progress. andrew: very deftly handled. by the way, i saw secretary mayorkas speak earlier this week. i had no idea how funny he is. deanne: he is. andrew: the moderator referenced in being a little bit controversial. he said something about i have no idea what you are talking about, so that was pretty good. you are into triathlons i hear.

deanne: i am. andrew: that is my -- deanne: not a lot of people around me is an opportunity to think clearly, and i remember writing my master's thesis and it would come to me what i was out on a bike ride or run. it allows you to clear the mind to get focused on one specific thing, and i would go back to my car and right notes of the things that came to me while i was running or riding my bike, but it is that opportunity to have my release. while i am no good that any of the events individually i do finish, and that is the important part. andrew: that is very true.

i want to ask one more question. deanne: multitasking. andrew: how confident are you that the agency's products such as flood maps fully account for climate change, which is necessary for the resilience works to succeed? for example, it has long been the case of that many maps lack sea level rise influences and some inland flooding where you were sitting flood zones lack, context from the ships and heavy downpours we are seeing. i know that there has been progress on that in recent years, but i do not know the extent to which you would describe that is being done? deanne: i think it is important to remember we have different types of maps, and one that gets

referenced a lot are flood maps, but those are regulatory. those are regulatory maps based on current day risk to define your insurance premium today. we also have other maps that do incorporate future risk. you can go to our national risk index, some of our other flood smart products. it are designed to help an individual or community better understand what their overall risk is, what their future risk might be, but when it comes to our regulatory map you do not want to pay of flood premium today for a threat that you might face 10 years from now, so it is important to differentiate the specifics between the two. we have a lot of work to do it explaining that better and being able to drive people to a place on our website where they can look at what is your risk, click on there and they can see all the different types of risk they face today, five years from now,

10 years from now versus their current regulatory map on what the risk is actually today. we are not where i want to be with that, but we are continuing to push forward. andrew: that brings me to do something i have been reporting a lot on and many other reporters too, some of them a lot better than me is the insurance crisis is that we have in the u.s. right now because of the basic and extent and damage in disasters. so california, louisiana, florida, increasing parts are becoming uninsurable. does that enter in to fema's consideration at all when it comes to trying to create a more resilient country?

states are not buying insurance because it goes from $500 one year to $15000 the next year. deanne: something we think about a lot, and how we inherited the flood insurance program because the insurance industry was not ensuring that catastrophic risk and we are seeing other catastrophic related incidents where even if you want to buy insurance you cannot get the insurance, so that is why the resilience is so incredibly important, because if we can invest in the resilience and we can make resilient communities, resilient communities are insurable communities, so we have to continue to get out there and celebrate the stories of resilience, so more

communities can see the different types of projects within the scope of possibility and how they are actually impacting their insurance, where communities have it invested in creating resilience and still have adequate insurance coverage. how do we modeled that and how other communities do the same thing? andrew: one last question, which comes through the magic of a ipad. extreme heat because the u.s. thousands of lives and billions of dollars across the country each year, yet historically it has not been treated as a disaster in the same way as floods or wildfires. does the lack of inclusion of heat in the stafford act type fema's hands on this issue? and would the biden administration to be supportive of legislation to insert heat as a hazard under the act?

deanne: i get this question a lot, and it is a good question. at 2023 was the hottest yard about her globally, so this is a current issue, but the stafford act does not preclude us at all from declaring a disaster related to heat. the cost incurred by the jurisdiction have to exceed their capacity. if a jurisdiction is incurring a significant amount of cause to respond to recurrent acute event that is beyond, and they can submit the request if they can 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 on is it is march. what are we doing today to educate communities for the

summer that we know will experience extreme heat 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 will create cooler spaces, or we have had other 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 is not exceeding what they normally do, so we really need to have the conversation and pivoted so we can build more resilience in the community to of give some relief and reduce the impact if the senate.

this is about three