Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Conference Of Mayors On Disaster Recovery 20180127

Lot of people and we have a lot of very important guests and i want to make sure that everybodys time is honored. Im just thrilled to be able to have a conversation about something that just continues to challenge us in a very significant way in the country, and theres no reason to believe its going to abate. All of us are going to suffer through disasters of one type or another, and cities along with states and the federal government, have been working very, very hard, before and significantly after september 11th to make sure we organize ourselves as a country so that we can recover quickly from disasters that happen so we prepare for them, and so that we build in a way where were resilient. When bad things happen we are not hurt nearly as wood bad and other im thread tile elaine duke, who oversees fema and the recovery agencies as well. Mayor Sylvester Turner of houston, texas, who went through his own trauma. The mayor of key west florida. Paul rain worth who has served in many capacities in the state of louisiana, chief of staff tuesday a number of governors and senators, but also has been of great assistance in Recovery Efforts after katrina and recently helped me work through difficult issue is with our sewer and water system in the city of new orleans, and we are joined bay number of mayors from puerto rico. Thank you for being with us today and we look forward to continuing to work to make sure we help stand up your communities as well. All of you already know well the story of new orleans, katrina came in and it was thousand biggest storms to hit the continental United States. We lost 1800 people. 500,000 homes and or buildings were hurt. 250,000 were destroyed. Literally communities were set asunder and the city of new orleans had to rebuild almost from scratch and we did so with a well wishes and the financial help from people from around the world, and i want to thank all of you for that. Subsequent to that, we began to really redesign our Recovery Systems in the city of new orleans, and we are in a far better place today, but since that time, we have suffered in the United States of america from storms, wildfires, mudslides, hurricanes, tornadoes, and some instances terrorist attacks, and otherwise just an incredible amount of violence throughout america, and we all are continuing to work on that. So in the next few months, and years i know that bad things are going to continue to happen. We can expect that. We just have to get ready. We have to get prepared and we have to know how to respond and we october only do that if there is really good horizontal and vertical communication win and amongst partners, that means federal, state and local level so we hope that when bad things come, were ready for them. If they hurt us, were ready to stand back up and we need each others help to lift each up. Ill call on paul rainwater. I have to excuse myself in ten minutes because of another event, and then well have elaine duke and then mayor turner and then move on. Paul. Thank you for having me here and thank you, mayors for everything you do. Youre the frontline leader ares who are what happens in recovery. Mayor lan drew and i were in the stretches together many teams whether evacuating people out of new orleans during katrina or the mayor loading up when he was Lieutenant Governor in he state of louisiana, putting people on c131s as we eveining waited them out of harms way during hurricane rita and i appreciate everything you have didnt as the mayor of new orleans and have enjoyed working with you to solve your problem after the floods. This has been an unprecedented year for disasters inunder country, includingarch hurricanes harvey, maria and irma. We are joined here today by the deputy secretary of Homeland Security, elaine duke and two warms who can speak to the tragedies and lesson offered studies, learn from the response and recovery. Although we are here to talk about recovery after mayor disasters in the challenges. In certainly mayor lan drew has insight and opinions on the issue as Disaster Recovery has been a parch focus on his tenure at Lieutenant Governor of the state of louisiana and mayor of new orleans. I can tell you as the head of the recovery authority, ike, fuse satisfy and the bp oil spill major disasters are shape or steps from the strength of residents who rise up to rebuild to the struggle of navigating a complex federal recovery system which can challenge us all in difficult times. But we respond, we as leaders and you as mayors, provide the leadership to work through those issues. There are shortterm and longterm challenges and they can create some of the most complex functional and political issues thaw can imagine. After a response and recovery. So let start a discussion on recovery. We have with us our first speaker will be deputy secretary elaine duke. She has previously served as a acting secretary of Homeland Security from july 31st, 2017 to december 6, 2017. She is an accomplished leader and as a civil servant. Deputy secretary served in the federal government for nearly three decades including at the a position she held from 2008 to 2010. She has held Senior Leadership positions at Homeland Security and the department of defense. Over the course of her federal government service, deputy secretary duke has received president ial rank award, the dha secretary metal, the taz medal for customer service, the department of the Army Commanders award for Public Service, and the United States coast guards distinguished Public Service medal. Deputy secretary duke has served as member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council a strategic adviser to the Government Technology and services coalition. Assisting small and mid tier businesses in the federal sector. I want to allow secretary duke to make comments. Thank you good, morning. Boundary i have been with each of you over the past addressing issues. Sometimes were on the same side and millions key werent but i found when we talked, facetotase, which is a lost art, is that we are all united by our passion for the people. The passion of our cities, people, the passion for the people of our state and our country, and the commonwealth. So i think that is the spirit by which we come together today. I talked to self of you before, and i think its important that with this time we have today, to focus on how we can even better serve the people point in our jurisdictions and im going to focus more on preparedness but i would love to never see you again, in the context of how most of us have met, but unfortunately i dont think Mother Nature will allow that. You probably read in the news today that Hurricane Harvey is now the officially second most expensive disaster so i have the most expensive and the second most expensive on my right and left correspondingly, and that is a real, i guess, eyeopener to us. Its not the money as much also the people and how peoples lives were disrupted. In total, 25 million americans thats 8 of our population were affected by this years Hurricane Season. I have visited all these and what i saw was homes, families, businesses, communities, totally devastated. But the thing that struck me most was the humanity and the sense of community. It reinforced to me that in the structure of federal, state, local, that the mayors and the communities are always going to be the heart of preparedness, response and recovery. It can be no other way. When i visited ponce, with my friend here maria, it was amazing two things stand out. One is how many people that had moved to the mainland that went back as volunteers to help their elders and others that were impacted, just to took leave from their jobs and went back. We hear so Much Negative about our young people but i men dozens of young men and women that went back to help families and communities. The other thing that impresses me from the time in puerto rico is near the end, on very hot day, we were offering more water than what the allow thement to some people, and 95 of the people turned down the extra water and said no, someone might come along later and need it. Thats true community, worry about not only yourself and others. It was just an amazing. In puerto rico, in florida, in texas, it wasnt just it was throughout, in the my trip to texas, two stories ill tell you there and thenll get on to real business. This is what unites us and is most important. One of the drivers on one of me trip was a secret Service Agent who lost his home to the flood created by the release of the dam it and happened so fast to his home that he had to take his wife and daughter and go up to the second floor and be rescued from there as a mother i was sitting there thinking, the fear of rung up the stairs with your spouse and your child, and hoping someone comes to your second floor window to rescue you. Perhaps the most touching and i have pictures of this is we were outside of houston, at one of the smaller communities that has a too large of a proportion of low income, and there wasnt elderly couple with their cots against the wall and had to have their cots against the wall because they were beth on the breathing machines and they were plugs there. And i was talking to the woman, and she was sitting next to her husband on the cot next to her, Holding Hands and they were probably in 80s or 90s, and if you dont mind me holding your hand im sorry shirks have asked. In this environment i have to ask first, right . But i asked her, i said, how are you doing . Really. She said, its a little hard. I lost my husband of 45 years. Excuse me i lost my home of 45 yours but i have my husband and i have had him 54 years and thats more important. Thats really what the people are about. Their home was destroyed. They were in a shelter but they had each other and they were Holding Hands and looked so peaceful and i think that thats what its about. And thats what our country and our communities are about. So now enough of that. I apologize if it was a little bit human side but i dont think we can forget it because now that the storm is over, the hardest part begins. We also have the Deadly Wildfires currently going on. One of our panelists couldnt be here today. The mayor, because of that. And i think in total, we have done a good job from administrative brock long, through your communities and responding to hurricanes. I was grateful to have brock, newly to fema to help lead the federal response and partnership, and glad that he will be here because Mother Nature is stubborn, no way to stop her and well be here. So i want to talk at bit about disaster preparedness. It isnt a kit you pick up at store. It isnt an article you can rate online. Its habit, its vinal lens and its constant. About the fire drills drills drr activities to get ready and i think this season has taught us that we have got to continue to focus on preparedness, and theres never enough preparedness. When we hear Something Like a fire drill and we can leave and this time its not a drill, we get out safely because of the planning and the exercising and the preparation, and i think this is a time in country with not only the Natural Disaster but the threat against our drivens we have to build a culture of preparedness throughout the country and make sure every person knows their role in preparedness. Its credit cal we all are thinking about how to respond to a disaster before it occurs, as we continue to work in the communities affected, and there are as many people in the communities working as there was this summer and fall. We have to be preparing for the future. We want to continue to work with you on how you are receiving emergency alerts and warnings, what are your communications plans, make a plan, practice it, and update. We continue exercising at the federal level and every time we exercise we find out a kitchening in our averagor, kink in our plan that were able to correct, and we record those and we fix them. And that is so critical because until you actually sit down and really go through the plan, through those of you around the table, the operators that know it, you will not know how unprepared if youre like us, you are, and if gives you the path forward. I really think that what i would like most from the community of mayors is to continue to work with us on this preparation so that as we support you as the federal government in response and recovery, the least amount of disruption to your people is possible. We learned a lot through this season. It was a real world exercise. We learned about how challenging it is when we have logisticsle which lend like getting to at the island puerto rico and Virgin Island and were working on improving those. We learned again about floods. We learned some in katrina but learned about the devastation of flooding, even if its only for a day or two and how to be prepared good ready. I think that is what we have to do. He learned a lot on debris removal. And that ends up being critical in many of this disaster recoveries. Do we know who is removing debris, where and do we have the level authority. Several location is want to where there wasnt debris removal because we couldnt reach the mayor or the local authority, couldnt reach the home owners association, and they didnt have permission to get into that community, and so people couldnt leave their homes or streets because we were stuck with how to figure out how to remove debris from neighborhoods. These are the type of Technical Details that i would like to continue working on through these exercises and through these hot washes after the disasters we had this last season. I encourage you to be looking at the planning documents. We have 32 core capabilities in our preparedness Emergency Response documents. Those are the guidelines to help you as you prepare. We are looking at those at the federal level. We have to look at them at the state level, but every city level with you as mayors we have to look at those, too. We want to be and will be as the federal government part of your team before, during and after a disaster, but the focus has to be before because thats where we can make the real difference. I want to leave plenty of time for questions so ill yield at this point. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments and thank you focusing on he human element. As a person who has worked through multiple disasters it is while we are in the business because of people and although the technical piece and the monetary piece and the piece we focus on, but the reality is its out below people and about citizens so thank you for that. We do have the mayor of San Bernardino could not be here. She is actually had to cancel because she is in recovery meetings right now. So, hopefully everything is going well for her. But mayor ponce, Maria Melendez will speak as a mayor later on after we fin irwith mayor kaatz. Id like to you to mayor turner of houston. Elected in december of 2015 serving his first full year tomorrow as houstons 62nd 62nd mayor. Since taking office mayor turner eliminated 160 million budget shortfall in record time and led the citys remarkable rebound from Hurricane Harvey. He made some very difficult and good decisions about evacuations. And anybody that has been in those roles understands the difficulty you have as a mayor or leader in making those decisions and i thought those decisions were based on fact and you did a great job and saved lives. He championed historic pension reform. Chaired on the 2017 world series winning houston extras. Go astros. I was an astro fan. Raced on the louisianatexas bored sore hewitt is a second home. Host evidence successful super bowl and expanded municipal and led the winning bid to host the World Petroleum congress in 2020. I want to opportunity over to mayor turner for comments. Thank you, paul, and secretary duke, thank you so very much good to see you again, the other mayors, all of you and certainly pleasure to be here. Madam secretary, you can hold my hand anytime. It macules you at bit. In fact just continue to hold handses. But thank you, and thank you for comping to houston and i know you have been there several times so very much appreciated. Let me be go straight into my comments. Harvey was the second costliest storm in the history of our country. But there was more rain fell on houston region than any storm anywhere in our history. I appointed marvin odom, who is the former president and ceo of shell to lead our recovery effort because its not enough just to rebuild or put us back where we were before, its to make sure that houston is stronger and more rye sellent as we go forward resilient as we go forward. So i asked marvin. He led the recovery effort after Hurricane Katrina in louisiana for shell and he asked him to lead the effort and he is doingowmans job. What yeoman lazy job. What we learned is that mitigation efforts should come before the disaster, not after the disaster. Let me start with that. Mitigation first, not mitigation second. We know Mother Nature is going to come. It rained quite a bit and flooded in houston in 2015, memorial day flood. It flooded again four months into my first administration, the tax day flood on april 17th. And again, it flooded harvey on last year. What we do know if there were certain mitigation plans strategies that have been put in this, thousands of homes would not have flooded. For example, project brave in the city of houston. Widen the channel. The city of houston this bayou city for a row. Build on the bayou, and a project already shovel ready. It only took another 47 million to complete it. It is a federal project, corps of engineers, reimbursed from the feds but the project had been delayed. Instead of being completed in 15 or 16. Its been delayed to 22 and possibly later. Based on the modeling from Hurricane Harvey if the project had been complete thousands of homes would not have flooded. The city of houston has gone out, i recommended to the city council, we cannot wait so lets go and bob rove the money. We have borrowed the moneyed from the tickets a water defendant forked andford on the Harris County and the corps of engineers and metro expect is scheduled to start in march of 2018. In a few months. Thats after the fact there are a number of other projects to expand the bayous, add capacity, shovel ready. We need to take place. And quite frankly, the funding needs to come like yesterday. And if that takes place, thousands of homes would not have flooded. We know that if there were detention base sins put basins, put in place, shovel ready, hundreds of home wood not have flooded. So the city of houston has started the Engineering Work on a Detention Basin, one would hold more water than the astrodome it but turning that into a Recreational Park as well as Detention Basin and know that hundreds of homes would not have flooded. That project costs 45 million. Needs to take place. Theres a Third Reservoir in the stiff of houston. We have known about it for years and years. The barker dam has been on the worst list for a long time. Those repairs and a Third Reservoir need to be nut place. This cost is 500 million. If there was a third reservation, thousands of wheels not have flooded. That it is what we know. 400 million to 500 million. If Hurricane Harvey hid the Galveston Bay and the storm surge came through Galveston Bay, and backed up the water, because the way the drainage system works in houston, the water comes down, the city controls the streets. The water flows from the streets to the buy yaw. The Harris County Flood Control ticket, corps of engineers control the buy yous yous and bayous and then goo the get to. If the he hurricane came to Galveston Bay, backed the water up to the street it it would have been horrendous and the port of houston had services, jet fuel to all of the United States. A large percentage. It would have been horrific. The cost of the coastal spine, the ike dike, is 12 billion. Thats a huge sum. But after Hurricane Katrina, i believe, the feds provided about 18 billion in mitigation strategies. This is 12. And we know the storms will come. Those are mitigation projects we know if we put in place, you build the city that is stronger, more resilient, and then we wont be knocking on the door of fema and congress, saying, give us more money give us money. If you if we are provided only enough money to put us back where we were prior to Hurricane Harvey, then what i have said is that the feds, fema and others, youre only providing us funding for failure. Because storms will come if you dont put in mitigation, its funding for failure. So, for example, theres a multidevelopment project on the bayou. It caters to low income tenants. It flooded in 15. The went to hud and got money to rebuild. It flooded in 16. They went to hud and got money, it was re built. Flooded in 717. They prepared to go to hud and at mayor i slowed that down to permitting process, and said, this makes no sense. Because unless you expand the bayous and provide add capacity, then hud and everyone youre providing funding for failure and well be back again. So, mitigation is critically important. And just to provide enough funding to put you back where you were doesnt solve the problem. It just doesnt solve it. Thats the lesson learned. The other thing is communication, communication, communication. Leading up to hurricane and whatever may be coming your way is important to communicate. We start communicating with the people were harvey came, before, let them know its on the was get prepared, medicine, food, whatever you needcommunicate, communicate. Because no one knew where the star was going to go. You tell them to evacuate go here and the storm hits you there. And so we didnt know. We didnt know where the storm was going to hit, really, until about a day before. And we were communicating between the city and the county, the county judge, we are were communicating very, very closely. When we did find out where the storm was going to go, people were saying, evacuate, but we said to people if you evacuate, how do you evacuate 2. 3 million houstonians and 4 Million People in the county in one day . You put them on the reed and you create a chaotic situation. The city did evacuate for a storm in 2005. But the state, the county, the city had not made preparation along the evacuation routes. So, literally all the mayor interstates turned into parking lots. You literally would be on the freeway, you could go to target, shop at bit, come back, and your car was in the same spot on the freeway and we lost 120 lives. So, in this particular case, we were not facing a hurricane women were facing the rain water. The rain. So we told people, make sure your sheltering in place, and that you have supplies and everything that you need. Now, what we did in learning from the previous flooding before, is that we knew that certain areas that were prone to flood. And so we set up prepositioned shelters. Had them equipped and staffed, just in case we needed them. When we not the report from the National Weather bureau and they told me, mayor, three bands of rain coming, each carrying between seven to nine inches of rain, we knew then that these areas were going flood. So we sent the First Responders to many of these lowlevel areas and said you have to come to the shelters, and in a matter of an hour and a half or two we had 2,000 and opened up additional ones. So this time we didnt have people out on the streets, on the bridges saying, come rescue me. They were already in. And then we turned to George R Brown Convention Center into a shelter and able to house more than 10,000 in record time. So prepositioned shelters, and what i would do even more the next time around is that prepositioned shelters for people, elderly in particular, especially in low income communities, people with special needs, have certain shelters already set up, ready to house and to manage to take care of those needs. Make sure you deploy assets where you think youll have problems. The additional thing is city the fourth largest city. What we discovered, you dont have enough assets. Hot water high water rescue vehicles and trucks. So you woman and a situation, here comes the water and its raining all over, and you need these assets all over the city, and cities simply dont have enough. And yeah fema and the feds can help to make sure the cities have high, water rescue assets to meet the needs and then youre not in the storm and youre saying, where their assets and youre calling all over, trying to find them, and thats important. We had prepositions contracts for debris removal. Fema is very particular on at the procurement process and we had prepositioned contracts, paying i about 7. 69 cubic yards. It was good deal for city already in place. When the storm commit the storm hit us, then it hit florida, and so we had contractors waiting, lets say in alabama and other places, waiting to see who was going to offer the better deal. They were waiting to see. Okay . And so we went back to fema and said if you hold to us these preposition contracts, that were good prior to the storm, this debris is going to be here a long time. Allow to us pay a little bit more so we can entice more contractors to could into place. So fema did and be used that and brought on ten additional contractors and put 453 talk toes and loaders on the streets every day for seven days, sevenday week straight every day, and then utilized im very thankful to san antonio, to austin, dallas and other cities, where we entered into mute tall aid agreements and they brought their trucks in, where fema said it would take us until christmas to pick up the debris in the first wave because literally people were dumping out their homed it was their homes and we were able to get it done by midoctober. And so we moved ahead of schedule. But that is because we were able to bring on additional contractors to meet the demand and then i asked the governor to allow the land phils phils phil landfills to stay open so the trucks would run faster and thats dawn if the coordination with the emergency manager Center Russian stayed for several days and nights, and in that center just like in a room like this, it wasnt just my directors but people from the Energy Company and others, the private sector, because when i was a major northeast Water Purification plans was totally submerged and my public director said to me, mayor in three hours, system is totally submerged, and we are going to lose power and you have to give a command that everybody has to boil their water in the city and region, and what said to them, ill do it if i have to but make sure you tell me that you have talked to everybody that is experienced this problem in the public and private sector, and if you tell me you talked to everyone and everyone conclusions its going to fail, then ill do it. But you better tell me that you have explored all possibilities in this point cost is not an option. Three hours later they came back and said we bought your six more hours and then later on they said, mayor, we can keep it going until tomorrow. And i said just keep going, and it stayed up, and that was a crisis avoided and i appreciate that. Same thing on the water Water Treatment plants and working with the private sector. Put down four miles of pipe at two systems and bypass heed the system and worked until we were able to get past the storm and we didnt have things backing up. So, coordination with the public and private sector in realtime, really does work. Then the economic stabilizeation disaster fund. Have to have money to work with until federal dollars can come in, and we have the disaster Economic Stabilization plan. Put it all in because we had to, and you could never have enough. But that is important. And then we have had to reevaluate our insurance. Prior to Hurricane Harvey we never had a claim that exceeded 40 million for our public buildings. Hurricane harvey, the claims excited 270 million. And so we have had to reevaluate and up our insurance. And thats just another element. Those are the main thing is wanted to talk about, preparation, communication, knowing what your assets are, having the economic or disaster fund, reevaluate insurance needs, but most importantly, what i want to stress with the secretary here and others, mitigation is critically important. You cant control Mother Nature, but we can work to minimize the risks, and we have to make the investment on the front end in order to make our cities more resilient and better prepared or you can give us money but youre giving us funding for failure and then, lastly, just because people in the city of houston, for example, dont complain, and because we removed debris in a short period of time, and because power was restored within a week, and the zoo was open three days later, and the transit was working, houston one of the world series and a Million People on the street, does not mean that people in houston are not deserving of emergency quick assistant from the federal government. Dont penalize us for being efficient and not mange when i still have thousands of people in homes, 140,000 Single Family homes affected. 160,000 Apartment Units affected. And thousands of people that are in homes that need to be remediated, repaired, or rebuilt, and theyre waiting on federal assistance to get to the city of houston. Treat us like you treat everybody else. Even though we are moving to take care of the situation at home. So, urgency is important. And the federal funding is needed yesterday. Yesterday. Because just like you talk about the seniors, i have a 98yearold woman in a home that was flooded, never complained. The only way we knew about her is because every sunday since the storm, she would get dressed and go to church. And one day one of her Church Members took her home, and happened to walk with her inside her house, and discovered she was sleeping on the sofa in the living room because all of the remaining parts of her house were inundated and mold infested. She never complained. And a lower income community, and never complained. There are literally hundreds of others in the same neighborhood, and theyre waiting on help. And theyre needing it, they deserve it, and hopefully we are asking the government respond with the same degree of urgency. As quickly as possible. Thank you. Thank you mayor turner for the comments. [applause] you are right, many times you can be a victim of your success, because as we all know, unfortunately, what the folks see in d. C. , specially members of congress, the positive things are happening, not the negative things happening. Sometime when they see the negative things they avoid it. Ive beened an sad co sow cat dh think federal Emergency Management agency does a good job of administering public assistance, but on the other side, the transition from shortterm recovery to longterm recovery, when we pate for supplementat bills to get through congress, the Community Development block grant dollars take long time to get to communes and the elderly woman you spoke of. So thank you very much for those comments. Our next speaker is mayor craig cates of key west, fourth generation key wester and born and raised in the city. Didnt like the direction was the was headed and knew rung for offers was the only dui make the change, has been the mayor since 2009. A longtime business man, focused on keeping taxes low, reserving the islands history, supporting local businesses, and make sugar residents can engerman the best possible quality of life that key west has to offer. And aid like to turn it over to mayor cate seven. Thank you very much and thank you, everyone for being here and thank you for issue voting me to speak. Just want to say, thank you to deputy secretary. She had come down the keys shortly after the storm, brought a lot of her contacts down to help the keys recover. Id like to talk a little bit about wind damage from a hurricane, and i know puerto rico has more wind damage than water damage, the same way with us. When you id like to talk about what mayors need to do immediately because theres a longterm recovery and theres the immediate recovery to get food to your residents that dont evacuate, or water or so all of those are priority right away. Luckily we were threatened with a category 5 hurricane. I say luckily because a lot of people evacuated because of that. Normally we were only about 20 staged. Probably would have been about 80 if it had been a category 3 and then moved up to 4 that hit us. So it had been completely different. That being said, communication is a very, very important, and im not only communication for people to evacuate, but also when the storm hits, we had our eoc set up, we have category 5 buildings, all prepared, Video Conferencing with all the government agencies, and then power went out, and power went out for hundreds of miles as the storm went through. We had zero communications. And that was an eyeopener for all of us. That being said, our police, all they had was police radios, fire had fire radios. The repeaters were down so only had a short distance. We had road blocks that the county to keep people from coming into the keys, looters or whateverrots churning. They couldnt communicate who could come back to the keys. So that is an important priority. You look at your Communications System and say, what if we dont have any fleck we have the motor e most morn modern systems available but nobody has electricity. So thats important to look out. Satellite, internet, teles. We had little satellite telephones that didnt work. Everybody Walking Around on the street toying to get the signal for it to work, and nobody can call you. We finally realized our two elevators in our city hall had analog phone lines. Thats the only lined that worked so we took those line but nobody knew the numbers to call us for assistance. So, that is something were going to correct and thats something you can easily look at in your community if you get threatened by hurricanes. The other thing is, i want to say is a local private organization that can help with the recovery. The government can only do so much. Fema comes down, they bring resources. They have to be distributed. The local governments of trying to clean up thety and protect the citizen is. You need an organization. We started key strong. Org now, which will have all the contacts to all the faithbased units, all the volunteers and update that during Hurricane Season coming so when these people call they want to call the mayor. Were major league company. We want to send down supplies. We want to help your community. Well, i dont have anyplace for it to go, so we need to be able to pass that on to a Reputable Organization that can take those and distribute it right at the local level, right at the citizens level. So thats important. It seems kind of simple when you look at the big picture, but in your recovery, thats very, very important because you get things clean up, you get things operating, but people Still Grocery stores need to open, the hospital needs to open. We had to get a mobile operating unit down before we could even get our First Responders out, fixing power lines and also a lot of basic stuff that you need to do so you can immediately get back to helping your citizens. So i just want to touch base on that and the recovery of rebuilding, everybody wants a big rebuild quicker, faster, stronger, but you dont want to lose your character, what made you what you were before that. We an historic city. We lost a lot of trees and power lines, damaged houses from trees going down. Our work force right up from us which is like our suburbs but its the keys. We say north but its actually east of key west, their houses werent up as much up to code. There was lower income and had not been rebuilt. They were damaged more now. They dont have houses to live. In thats our work force. So theres a lot of things to plan for that if you get hit, because we all think, well, one little speck, thats hurricane going to hit me directly but it will happen eventually if you live in florida, you will get hit. So, its important to look at all those little things. Thank you. Thank you, mayor cates and thank you for discussing thearch of your community, obviously key west is a very famous place to go for the summer and have fun and enjoy, and obviously youre trying to protect that culture and we respect that in the longterm recovery planning process. We also have today with us the mayor of ponce, maria melinda, and is a know understand your citizens call you ma itna is that correct . And so the mayor is currently the mayor of ponce other, electricitied during the puerto rican general replaces the first woman elected in office in porn a degree in dental medicine for at the university of Puerto Rico School of dental medicine. Worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in ponce. Were pleased youre hear and willing to speak to us. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to address our fellow mayors, but before i address all of you i like to present part of the mayor right ooh whoa have been suffering what the cate e and mayor turner, the mayor from central part of the island, the mayor in the east coast, and the mayor in center, but to the north, the mayor who is also nelson from the south, and the mayor who are my neighbors in the south. Three in the south, one in the north, in the west coast in the east coast the other win is central part. This hurricane hits the 78 cities of puerto rico. Deputy secretary elaine duke went to ponce. She went to visit puerto rico and knows what the saw. She knows everything. She tell all of you what we have been suffering also. But in the most i want to introduce the predicament affecting the american citizens of puerto rico. We are american citizens even though we are territory, and i think useful for the discussion with the brief overview of the situation before the hurricane hit, because we have different situations in puerto rico is below and has now an Oversight Board controlling the financial aspect of the Central Government, even though each municipality kole their control their own budget. This background is essential to understanding where puerto rico and other municipalities find ourselves today, because crisis and the dont onoor a vacuum oar poorly conceptual term there may be some general patterns, certainly there are no universal causes and effect. Its difficulty has a particular context. Indispensable to understand the nature, scope and magnitude, but also to assess the availability of solutions, of problemsolving, a state by robert pence, all the kings men, reality is not a foreign event, but of the relationship of that event to past, future events. I am a thirdterm mayor of the municipality of ponce, the second longest city in territorial extension. Puerto rico has experienced a decades long economic financial and social crisis also. We are probably deteriorating basic infrastructure, roads, energy, dams, substantial inesque of capital is need. There are cities but theyre going after ima in a deficit. Wasnt the only bohn because he has been a mayor how many years . 32 years. 32 years. But we need we have to modernize the energy, power system, and Energy Prices in puerto rico are the highest condition when compared to the 50 states with the exception of his. After irma, and after maria, we didnt have communications. For more than three weeks, we didnt have water. The system of water we dont control the system of water. The system of water is controlled bay government agency. We dont have power control over of our energy. Its controlled by the Central Government state government. Theyre controlling it. So, we all lose power and there are more than half million of the people in puerto rico just right now, after four months, without energy. And there are communities without water. Every generator come to puerto rico goes from mainland welldont have any generators already. We dont have generators. We have to ask fema, we have to ask the corps of engineer to help us. Texas, california, they have different ways. You can go the expressway, by railroad, going to puerto rico, you have to take a ship you have to take a plane. So its different. Very different. The situation of the city of my city, our cities, is fiscal fiscal challenges we face everyday. We compare with the u. S. Mainland from 2006 to 2016. Ponce lost approximately 10. 4 of its population. Surely dramatic increase in the past few months. We have here in the state, in mainland, more than 300,000 people who live leave the area. They left puerto rico and theyre here. The government pension fund. Finally the fiscal plan approved by the Oversight Board eliminates 350 million more dollars in transfers to municipalities for the next two years. For our safety alone it means 10 of my budget. Today i send it to the federal government. One hour later i received a letter from the Pension Agency and they said they were charging me more than 20 billion more. Even though the municipality just approved the budget. One hour later they called so you can imagine the situation of the city and all of the municipality. We have fought hard to mitigate for the crisis weather with the implementation i took measures. I cut our budget for 160 million 160 million. Reduce professional Service Contracts more than 56 million, eliminated 60 of my cabinet appointees. We are operating in the lean as possible terms. Theres not much more to cut, or lemonade to move us forward but many fellow mayors here have begun to implement versions to continue to serve the people. Thats what we are for, to serve the people. The municipality and puerto rico was called into question. Part of my medical background i have always welcomed the concept typical of the Scientific Method method. However the problem was the dissemination of values which overemphasize the transfer from state while ignoring municipal contributions in their role as the primary Service Provider for people. The discussion ignored some of the basic roles and functions of the mr. Pahlavis in the government. In fact the most expensive provide direct fundamental services to our constituents who are in need as is evident. These Natural Disasters like irma, maria, harvey and the fires at the role of municipality is indispensable. We are the First Responders always. Even though we take measures, every mayor to measures before but we were not prepared for a category 5 hurricane. It was impossible. We dont control those agencies. We took people out of the areas. There are places that were floating and other places that were land sliding. Its impossible. We cant connect cities. The bridges were broken. I have to tell you the story. Im going to tell my story because each one has a story. The mayor told me a person died in a hurricane. After the hurricane they had to maintain for four days. They cannot take it to someone for capital. Were they supposed to go . This happened in many other places. I had this guy who is 70 was 75 years old. The rural area does not have power and this guy, 75 years old old. His house costs about 35,000 because of the renovation of this house. At 6 in the morning when the hurricane began to hit us his son called him. He just lived across the street. Move right now. He moved to his own house and in five minutes his house was destroyed. Now he has lost 25 pounds. He has been in the hospital. Its only one or two times a day he has no power. We get generators for special communities. The community has a special system for water. Working with them, we got the first generator about three weeks ago. A week later somebody destroyed the generator. Things like that have happened in many other places. We have to be prepared. I have to to fema. We cant manage this event. We were prepared. We had water, we had food. No communications. We has to be out and we have to be in. I bought satellite phones and they didnt we have different ports and the only port that was open was one. The governor said yes we are going to open the port. 20 years we have been waiting for that port. The army corps of engineers comes in draws energy and power system for different companies. We need 62,000 posts for the electorate to be restored again. And they have only given puerto rico 40,000. There will be people that will have power and the Power Company said in 30 weeks from now june 1 we are going to have the first season of hurricanes. Hurricane season is from june 1 to december 1. So the mayor of texas also said it that i have to say we are mayors with pride with the greatest sense of commitment to the people. We are citizens also, american citizens. I work with heart, mind and soul like you. We all do the same thing. Its important that the consequences of these situations are not a key financial indicators. The ability to affect the changes and implement Solutions Needed to move forward. We need to be prepared before disaster comes again. It is special for me. [inaudible] i worked for almost 90 days, 98 days continually without taking a break. They did the same thing. But we still have people with no power, no water, no roads. We are welleducated people. We have gone to the university. We have our degrees. We are well prepared. We asked the congress three weeks ago, treat us equally. We dont have congress votes. We have a voice. The disaster is awful. The latino communities the latinos in new york and from many other places we have people from everywhere,. The people who went from puerto rico, they are here living and they are back and puerto rico helping people. Last night in an event of the latino leaders, how many people came to us and said we want to help you. Mayors, im grateful to be a mayor. You work for the people and you serve the people. I would like to be like that. Thanks for your time and consideration. [applause] thank you so much. [applause] every one of us the mayors know. Mayor thank you so much for your hard doper march. Ive been to puerto rico and spent 10 days there helping folks plan on having served in the military and having spent time in iraq and afghanistan with puerto rican soldiers who are american citizens i understand your comments very well. I can tell you i think all the mayors and all the governors support what you are trying to do and puerto rico and so much much thank you so much for your energy and time and passion. Im asa maze and when i was in puerto rico the people are just so positive so thank you so much for your spirit. Thank you. I want to thank our speakers and secretary thank you for staying as long as you have. We were going to open it up for questions but we have a lot of conversation just to the mayors and i think we have all learned lessons, lessons that we will Carry Forward into the next Hurricane Season. We know Mother Nature does not stop and she will be knocking at our door again soon whether its a fire or a flood or a storm and we thank you for the federal partnership we have. We thank you for the experience of the mayors and we thank you all for coming today. Thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] one of the bloodiest firefights not far from downtown saigon. They made the major salt during that timeframe and that was a major deal. We lost 24 aircraft at first they, 34 helicopters and the distinct memories that i have a bat is a ch47 chinook flying down the valley with fire coming out of the back of us. The whole aircraft was on fire. Why do you use this word . Im not a populist and im not liberal. There are several versions of that word but to me it sums up what the book is about is about the people. I wanted to honestly profile the people on the left and on the right. Most of the voters have profiled were trump voters but i did profile some who were not. For me was capturing the sentiment to deliver one of the most astonishing electoral we have seen certainly in my lifetime and certainly in modern history. He did profile the American People given issues from terrorism to poisoned water in flynn, michigan. In this part of the u. S. Conference of mayors winter meeting we will hear from senator mark warner who talks about economic challenges facing local government. Also joining the discussion the Weekly Standard editor