Can i have everybodys attention in the room, please . Thank you so much. I know time is precious for a lot of people and we have a lot of important guests with us and i want to make sure everyones time is honored and i will thrilled to be able to have a conversation about something that just tps to challenge challenge us in a significant way and theres no reason to believe that theyll suffer through disasters of one type or another and cities along with states of the federal government have been working very, very hard before and siggive nifican before and after september 11th to organize ourselves as a country so we can recover from disasters that happen so we prepare with them and so we can rebuild and when bad things happen were not hurt nearly as bad and i am thrilled to have elaine duke, deputy of Homeland Security who oversees not only Homeland Security in the country, but fema and the recovery agencies, as well. Mayor Sylvester Turner of houston, texas, who of course, went through his own trauma. Mayor kraig kates who is a mayor of key west, florida. Paul rainwater who is to my right who has served in many capacities in the state of louisiana and chiefs of staff to the United States senators, but has been of great Recovery Efforts after katrina and has helped me work through difficult issues with the sewer and water system in the city of new orleans. Paul, thank you for being here and we are joined by a number of mayors from puerto rico. Thank you very much for being with us today and we look forward to helping you stand up your communities, as well. All of you know well the story of new orleans. Katrina came in and it was one of the 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 the well wishes and the financial help from people from around the world and i of the to thank all of you for that, subsequent to that, we began to 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 and hurricanes, tornados and some instances terrorist attack 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 will continue to happen and i think we can expect that and we just have to get read. We have to get prepared and we have to know how to respond and we can only do that if there is really good horizontal and vertical communication between and amongst all of our partners. That means on the federal level, the state level and the local level so that we hope when bad things come, were ready for them and if theyre ready for us, we need to stand back up and we are there to lift each other up. I thank you all for that and now i would like to call on paul rainwater. Ill have to excuse myself in five minutes because i have another event to take care of and ill stay as long as i can and subsequent to that well have elaine turner. Thank you for having me here and thank you, mayors for everything you do and youre the frontline leaders for what happens during the recovery of disaster. Mayor landrieu and i are in the trenches together many times. Whether it was evacuating people out of new orleans during katrina or literally the mayor loading up when he was Lieutenant Governor in the state of louisiana putting people on c131s as we, v evacuated them and i appreciate everything youve done as mayor of new orleans and ive enjoyed working with you to solve the problems after the august 5th floods. This has been an unprecedented years for disasters in our country and including major hurricanes harvey, maria and irma. We are joined here today by Homeland Security secretary duke, and the many lessons our cities can learn from the response and recovery. Although we are here to talk about recovery after major disasters and the challenges. And certainly mayor landrieu his resiliency has been Lieutenant Governor of louisiana and as mayor of new orleans. I can tell you as former head of the Louisiana Recovery Authority which led the recovery from katrina, gustav, isaac and the bp oil spill, many can shape in profound ways from the strength of rz dents 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 and there are shortterm and longterm challenges and they can create some of the most complexion, functional and political issues you can imagine after the response and recovery and lets start a discussion on recovery. We have with us and our first speaker will be deputy secretary elaine duke. She has previously served as acting secretary of Homeland Security from july 31st 2017. Shes an accomplished leader and as a civil servant. The deputy secretary has served in the federal government for nearly three decades as well as the department concerned over the knowledge inment, a position she held from 2008 to 2010. Shes held Senior Leadership positions in the department of defense. Over the course of her federal government service, deputy secretary duke has received the president ial meritorious rank award and the dhs secretary medal and the medal for customer service, and the department of commanders award for Public Service and the coast guard distinguished Public Service medal. Deputy duke has served as member of the Homeland Security adviser cancel and the Government Technology and services coalition, assisting small and midtier businesses in the federal sector and i would like to allow the secretary duke to make some comments. Good morning. Buenos dias, my friends in port ridiculous owe. I have been with each of you over the past year. Addressing issues and sometimes were on the same side of an issue and sometimes we werent, but what i found every time we talked especially face to face which is a lost art, i think, is that we are all united by our passion for the people and the passion of our cities and the passion of the citys people and the passion of our state and our country and the commonwealth. So i think that thats the spirit by which we come together today, and ive talked to several of you before, and i think its important that with this time we have today in the conference of mayors to focus on how we can even better serve the people within our jurisdictions and its very much a pleasure to be here today and im going to focus more on preparedness because 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 the 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 eye opener to us. Its not the money and its how peoples lives were disrupted. In total, 25 million americans and thats about 8 of our population were affected by this years Hurricane Season. I have visited all of 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 with be no other way. When i visited ponce with my friend tim 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 leave from their jobs and young people, and we hear so Much Negative about our young people today and i met dozens of young men and women that went back to help their families and their communities. The other thing that impresses me from the time in puerto rico is near the end on a hot day we were offering more water than was the allotment of 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 of worrying not only about yourself and others. It was just amazing. In port ridiculous owe, in florida, and texas, it wasnt just it was throughout in my trip to texas, two stories ill tell you there and then ill get on to real business, but i think this is what unites us and is most important. One of the drives on one of my trips was a secret Service Agent who had lost his home to the flooding that was created by the release of the dam, and so that was that real quick flooding and it happened so fast to his home that he had to take his wife and daughter and go up to the success floor and be rescued from there and as a mother i was sitting there thinking the fear of running 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 have too large of a proportion of low income and there was an elderly couple with their cots against the wall and they had to get their cots against the wall because they were both on the breathing machines and there were plugs there and i was talking to the woman and she was next to her husband Holding Hands and they were in their 80s or 90s. Im sorry. I should have asked first. In this environment, i guess i should have asked first. I asked how are you doing, really . She said its a little hard. I lost my husband of 45 years i lost my home of 45 years, but i have my husband and ive had him 54 years. Thats more important and thats how im going to remember the hurricane because thats really what the people are about. Their home was destroyed and they were in a shelter, but they had each other and they were Holding Hands and they were 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 of the 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 the panelists couldnt be here today because of that. I think in total we have done a good job from administrator brock long, i was grateful to have brock newly to fema to help lead the federal response and partnership and glad that hes going to be here and north nature is stubborn and i think well be here and i want to talk about disaster preparedness. It isnt a kit you pick up at the store or an article you read online. Its a habit, its vigilance and constant. Its about other activities to get ready, and i think that 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 our country with not only the natural disasters and the threat against our countries that we have got to build this culture of preparedness throughout the country and make sure every person knows their role in preparedness. Its critical that 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 working in the community as there were this summer and fall, we have to be preparing for the future. We want to continue to work with you on how are you receiving emergency alerts and warnings . What are your communications plans . Make a plan, practices it and update. We can continue exercising at the federal level, and every time exercise, we find out a kink in our armor. A 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 go through the plan through those of you around the table, operators that know it, you will not know how unprepared, if youre like us, you are. And it gives you the path forward. I really think that, you know, 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 logistics challenges like getting to the island of puerto rico and the virgin islands. And were working on those and improving those. We learned again more about floods. We have learned some in katrina but learned even more about the devastation of flooding. Even when its only for a day or two and how to prepare and be ready for that. But i think that that is what we have to do. We learned a lot on debris removal. And that ends up being Critical Path in many of these disaster recoveries. Do we know who is removing debris, where and do we have the legal authorities . There were several locations i went to where there wasnt debris removal because we couldnt reach the mayor or they couldnt reach the local Homeowners Association and they didnt have permission to get into the community. 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 kinds of Technical Details that i would like to continue working on through exercises and through hot washes. After the disasters we had this last season. And i encourage you to be looking at the planning documents. We have 32 core capabilities in the 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 it leave plenty of time for questions. So ill yield at this point. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments. And thank you for focussing on the Human Element in the beginning. Because i mean, as a person whos been an operator and working through multiple disasters, it is, while were in the business, because of people. And although the technical piece and the monetary piece and piece that we kind of focus on but the reality of it is, its all about people and citizens. So thank you for that. We do have the mayor of Santa Barbara could not be here. Mayor kathy mario. She today cancel because she is in recovery meetings right now. So hopefully everything is going well for her. But mayor ponce, mayor melinda, will speak on her behalf as mayor after we fin wish mayor kates. So now to mayor turner from houston. Mayor turner was elected in december of 2015. He is serving his first fouryear term as houstons 62nd mayor. Since taking office mayor turner eliminated 160 million budget shock fall in record time and led the citys remarkable rebound from Hurricane Harvey. He made some very difficult and good decisions about evacuation. And anybody thats been in those roles understands the difficulty you had as a mayor or leader in making those decisions and i thought those decisions were based on fact and did a great job and saved lives. He champions an historic pension reform and cheered on the 2017 winning houston astros. I was raised on the louisiana texas border so houston was a second home. Hosted his second super bowl. And has investment in Renewable Energy and won the bid to host Petroleum Congress in 2020. Now i will turn it over to mayor turner for comments. Thanks. Thanks, bob, and certainly secretary duke. Thank you so much. Good to see you again. The other mayors, all of you. Ea and certainly pleasure to be here. Secretary, you can hold my hand any time you want to. It may cost u littyou a little. In fact, lets just continue to hold hands. But no, thank you, and thank you for coming to houston and i know youve been there several times and to the region. So i very much appreciate it. Let me go straight into my comments. Harvey was the second costliest storm in the history of our country but more rain fell on the houston region than any storm than anywhere in our history. I appointed the former president ceo of shell to lead our recovery effort. Because its not enough to just rebuild us and put us back where we were before is to make sure that houston is stronger and more resilient as we go forward. So i asked marvin, he led the recovery effort after hurricane katrina. I asked him and he is doing an enormous job. What we certainly have learned is that mitigation efforts should come before the disaster, not after the disaster. Then let me start with that. Mitigation first, not mitigation second. We know Mother Nature is going to come. And it rained quite a bit and flooded in houston in 2015, memorial day flood. Flooded again four months into my first administration. Tax flood on april 17. Again, flooded harvey last year. With what we do know if there was srn mitt gracing strategies put in place, thousands of homes would not have flootded. For example, in houston, widening the channel. Houston is the biocity for a reason. It is built on a bayou. There is a project already shovelready. Took 47 million complete it. That project was delayed, instead of completed in 15 or 16, it is delayed to later. If harvey was complete, thousands of homes would not have flooded. I recommended to city council, we cannot wait. Lets go and borrow the money. We forwarded it on to the Harris County board of engineers. That project is scheduled to start in march of 2018 in a few months. But thats after the fact. There are a number of other projects to expand bayous at capacity. Shovelready. We need to take place. And quite frankly, the funding needs to come like yesterday. If that takes place, thousands of homes won have flooded. We know if there were Detention Basins for example put if place, shovelready, ready to go, hundreds of homes would not have flooded. So the city of houston began engineer work on Detention Basin, one of which would be big enough that would hold more water than the astrodome in the city of houston. But turning that into a Recreational Park as well as Detention Basin and we know that hundreds of homes would not have flooded. That project cost about 45 million. It needs to take place. A Third Reservoir needs to take place in the city of houston. Weve known about it for years. Its been on the worst list for a long time. Those repairs and another Third Reservoir need to be put in place. The cost of that is about 400 million to 500 million. Add Third Reservoir been put in place we know thousands of homes in west houston would not have flooded. That is what we know. 400 million to 500 million. If harvey would have hit the Galveston Bay and the storm surge had come 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. Water flows from streets to the bayou. The corps of engineers control the bayous, then it goes into the gulf. If the hurricane had come into Galveston Bay, backed water up to the bayous and the streets, it would have been horrendous and the port of houston that 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 about 12 billion. Thats a huge sum. But after hurricane katrina, the feds gave for mitigation strategy. This is about 12. We know storms will come. Those are mitigation projects we know if we put in place, you build a city thats stronger, more resilient, and then we wont be knocking on the door of fema and congress saying, give us money. If we have 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, you are only provided funding for failure. Because storms will come. If you dont put in mitigation, it is funding for failure. For example, theres a project on the bayou, it caters to low income tennants. It flooded in 15. They went to hud, got money to rebuild it. It flooded in 16. And went to hud. Got money. It was rebuilt. It flooded in 17. They prepared to go to hud. As mayor, i slowed that down to permitting process. And insaid this makes no sense. Because unless you expand the bayous and provide added capacity, then hud and youre providing funding for failure and will 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 a lesson learned. Another thing is that communication, communication, communication. Leaving out hurricane of whatever may be coming your way is important to communicate. We start communicating with people before harvey came. Before, they didnt know what was on the way to prepare, medicine, food, whatever you need. Communicate, communicate, communicate. No one knew where the storm was going to go. It is hard to tell people to evacuate when you dont know where the storm is going. You tell people to go here and the storm hit you there. We didnt know where the storm would hit really until about a day before. Okay . And we will communicate in between the city and county, county judge and we were communicating very, very closely. When we did find out where the storm was going to two and people say evacuate, what we said to people, if you evacuate, how do you evacuate 2. 3 million and another 4 people in the county in one days time. You put them on the road and create a chaotic situation. The city did evacuate for a storm in 2005. But the state, county, city, had not made preparation along the evacuation routes. So literally all the major interstates turn into parking lots. You literally would be on the freeway, can you go to target. And shop a little bit. Come back. And your car is in the same spot on the freeway. And we lost 120 lives. And so, in this particular case, we were not facing a hurricane. We were facing the rain water. Rain. So we told people, make sure youre sheltering in place and you have the supplies you need. What we did in learning from previous flooding before, is that we knew that certain areas that were prone to flood, and so we set up prepositions shelters. And just in case we needed them. With information from the weather bureau, each storm coming carrying 7 to 9 inches of rain, we knew then that these areas were going to flood. We sent in First Responders to the lowlevel areas. And said you have to come to shelters. And in a matter of an hour and half or two we had 2001 and opened up additional ones. So this time we didnt have people on the street, bridges and come rescue me. They were already in. And then we turned to the Convention Center into a shelter during storm and we were able to house more than 10,000 in record time. So preposition shelters and what i would do even more the next time around is that preposition shelters for people, elderly in particular, especially in lowincome 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 your assets where you think you will have some problems and additional thing is that city is the fourth largest city. What we discovered and what i discovered is you dont have enough assets. How water rescue vehicles and trucks. Okay . So you come into a situation where here comes water. And it is raining all over. And you are needing niece assets all over the city. And cities simply dont have enough. And maybe fema and the feds can help to make sure the cities have hot water rescue assets to meet the needs. Then youre not in the storm. And you have as else and you call all over trying to find them and thats important. We have preposition contracts for debris removal. Fema is very particular on preposition process and we have preposition contracts paying about 7. 69 a cubic yard. A good deal for the city already if place. But when the storm hit and the storm hit us, then it hit florida, and so we had contractors that were waiting, in alabama and other places, waiting to see who was going to offer the better deal. They were waiting to see. So we went back and said, if you hold us to the deal prior to the storm, this will be here a long time. Allow us to pay a little more to entice more contractors to come into play. Im grateful fema did. We put 453 trucks on the streets, and loaders, on the streets everyday for receive se. Everyday. Im thankful to san antonio, austin, dallas and other cities where we entered into mutual aid agreements. They allowed us to bring their trucks in. Where fema said it would take us until christmas to pick up the debris in the first wave because people were literally dumping out their homes. It was not vegetative debris, it was their homes. We got it done by mid october. We moved ahead of schedule. But thats because we were able to bring on additional contractors to meet the demand. I asked governors to have landfills open past 7 00. I stayed at the Management Center for several days and night answers in that, just like a room like this, it wasnt just my directors but people from the energy company. The private sectors. Just my dir from the energy company. The private sectors. A room liket my directors but people from the energy company. The private sectors. Room like t my directors but people from the energy company. The private sectors. My public director came to me and said, in three hours the system is totally submerged, we will lose power, you have to give a command that everyone will have to boil their water in the whole city and the region. I said to them, ill do it if i have to. But make sure you tell me that you have talked to everybody that has experienced this problem in the public and private sector and if you tell me you have talked to everyone and everyone concludes, it is going to fail, then ill do it. But you better tell me that you have explored owl possibilities and at this point cost is not an option. Three hours later they came back and said we bought you six more hours. And later on that night, they said we can keep it open, keep it going until tomorrow. I said keep going. And it stayed up. And that was a crisis avoided. I appreciate that. Same thing on Wastewater Treatment plants. We ended up putting down four miles of pipe and wastewater and two systems in the bypass system. It 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. And then the Economic Stabilization disaster fund. You got have money to work with until federal dollars can come in and we have that disaster stabilization fund. We put it all in because we had to and you could never have enough. But thats important. Then weve today reevaluate our insurance. Prior to harvey we never had a claim that exceeded 40 billion for public buildings. Hurricane harvey, the claim has exceeded 270 million. And so weve today reevaluate and up our insurance. And thats just another element. Those are main things. I want to talk about preparation. Communication, knowing which assets are. Having Economic Disaster fund. Reevaluate insurance needs. But most importantly, whaen i want it stress for the second here, and others, mitigation is critically important. You cant control Mother Nature. But we can work to minimize the risk. 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 city of houston dont complain and because we we move debris within a short period of time and the zoo is open three days later and trance sit working the houston one of the won the world series and people or on the street, does not mean that people in houston are not deserving of quick assistance from the federal government. Dont penalize us for being efficient and not complaining. When i still have thousands of p em in homes, 140,000 homes affected. 160,000 Apartment Units affected. And thousands of people that need to be remediated, repaired or rebuilt and they are waiting on federal assistance to get to 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, 98yearold woman in a home 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. One day one of her Church Members took her home. It happened to a woman inside her house and discovered she was sleeping on the sofa in the living room because all of the other parts of her house were inundate end moldinfested. She never complained. In a lowincome community and never complained. There are literally hundreds of others in the same neighborhood and they are waiting on help and they need it, they deserve it and hopefully we are ask egg in government to respond with a same debris of urgency as quickly as possible. Thank you. Thank you, mayor turner, for those comments. [ applause ] and you are right, many times you can be a victim of your success. As we all know, unfortunately, what the folks see in d. C. , especially members of congress, are the things that the positive things that are happening, not the negative things happening. Even sometimes when they see the negative things, they avoid it. I think that the fema does a good job of administering fema assistance but on the other side and we will get into it later about the transition from short term recovery to longterm recovery, waiting for is up mmtal bills and block dollars take a long time to get to communities and elderly woman you spoke of. Thank you very much for comments. Our next speaker is mayor craig kates of key west. Fourth generation key wester. He is born and raised in the city. He didnt like the direction the city was headed and he knew running for office was the only way he could make a change. He ran in 200 the, been the mayor ever since. Long time businessman kates is working on keeping taxes low. Preserving island history. Making sure residents can can enjoy the best possible quality of life that key west has to offer. I would like to turn it over to maror kates. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here and thank you for inviting me to speak. Thank you deputy secretary. She came down after the storm and brought a lot of her contacts down to help the keys recover. I would like to talk a little bit about wind damage from a hurricane. And i know puerto rico has more wind damage than water damage. Same with us. When you, and i would like to talk about what mayors need to do immediately, because under is longterm recovery and median to get food to resident that dont evacuate or water. All of those are priority right away. I will talk about that a little bit. Luckily threatened with category 5 hurricane. I say luckily because a lot of people evacuated because of that. Normally we were only about 20 stayed we would have been about 80 if it was category 3 and moved up to 4 that hit us. It would have been completely different. That being said, communication is the very very important. Not only communication for people to evacuate but also when the storm hits we had our eoc set up. Category 5 buildings. We were all prepared. Video conference in with the government agencies. Then power went out and went out for hundreds of miles we had zero communication. That was an eyeopener for all of us. That being said, all thee had was police radios. Fire had fire radios. The repeaters were down. They only add short distance. We had roadblocks to keep people from coming into the keys. Looters. Residents returning. They couldnt communicate who could come back to the keys. Thats an important priority. We look at your Communication Systems and say what if we dont have any electric . Weve got the most modern systems available but everybody around you has no electric, what do you do . Thats very important to look at, satellite, internet, satellite, telephones. We had little satellite phones that didnt work for a darn. Everyone Walking Around without it working. The two elevators in the hall had analog, those were the only ones that worked. But no one knew the numbers to call for assistance. That is something we will correct and something you can easily look at in your community if you are threatened by hurricanes. The other thing is, local private organizations that can help with the recovery. The government can only do so much. Fema comes down. They bring resources. They have to be distributed. Local government, youre trying to clean up the city, you need an organization which started keystrong. Org now. Which will have all of the contacts to all of the faithbased units and volunteers and that will update during Hurricane Season so when people call, they want it call the mayor. Were a major league company. We want to send down supplies, help your community. I dont have any place for it to go. 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. It seems simple when you look at the big picture. But in your recovery, that is very, very important. You get things cleaned up and operating but the hospital needs open. Stores need open. We needed an operating unit down before we could get our First Responders out, fixing power lines. There is a lot of basic stuff to do so you can immediately get back to helping citizens. I wanted to touch base on that and the recovery of rebuilding. Everybody wants to rebuild quicker, faster, stronger, but you dont want your character that made you what you were before that. Were a historic city. We lost a lot of trees, power lines, damaged houses from trees going down. Work force right up from us, which is like our suburbs, but the keys. We say north but it is actually east of key west. Their houses werent as much up to code. They were lower income. And they hadnt been rebuilt. They were older houses. They were damaged more. They dont have houses to live in. Thats our work force. There are a lot of things to plan for that if you get hit. Because we think that one little speck that hurricane has to hit me directly. But eventually, if you live in florida, you will get hit. It is important to look at those little things. Thank you. Thank you, mayor kates. And thank you for discussing that character of your community. Obviously key west is a very famous place to go for the summer and have fun and enjoy. Obviously youre trying to protect that culture. We resnaekt and the longterm planning recovery process. We also have today with us mayor of pons, mayor melinda. As i understand, your citizens call you majita, is that correct . Thats your name . And so, the mayor is currently the mayor of pons, elected during puerto rican general elections of 2008 becoming the first woman elected in office of ponss political history. Very graduated from the Puerto Rico School of medicine. She worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in pons. Dmedici. She worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in pons. Emedici. She worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in pons. Nmedici. She worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in pons. Tmedici. She worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in pons. Imedici. She worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in pons. Smedici. She worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in pons. Tmedici. She worked as a dental assistant until she established her own dental practice in pons. Rmedici. She worked as a dental assistant until she establisheistrymedshet thank you for the opportunity to address our fellow mayors. Before i address you, i would like to say to the mayors here, there has been suffering. What mayor kates and mayor turner have suffer end their people also. The mayor from central part of the island, east coast, and to the north. The mayor also from the south. And my neighbors in south. Three in the the south. One in the north. West coast. East coast. And other one in central part. This hurricane hit 78 cities of puerto rico. Deputy secretary went to pons. She went to visit puerto rico. And she knows what she saw. She knows everything. She can tell all of you why we have been suffering also. We are american citizens, even though we are territory. A discussion with a brief overview with the situation before the hurricane hit because we have different situations and puerto rico is below and has now an Oversight Board controlling the financial aspect of central government. Even though the municipality control their own budget. This is essential to understanding where puerto rico and all municipalities find ourselves today because crisis and disaster dont occur in a vacuum or in a there may be some general patterns. Certainly there are no universal cause and effect. It is difficulty has a particular they are indispensable. Not only to understand the nation pl scope and magnituda. There is solutions, problem solving. Reality is not a function of the event. But of the relationship of that event to pass future event. Roads, energy, dams, they are subject of capital. There are cities but they are going after irma to draw up a deficit. He has been mayor for how many years . 32 years. 32 years. But we need, a big country that we have to modernize the energy, power system. Energy prices in puerto rico are the highest when compared to the 50 states with the exception of hawaii. 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. That is controlled by the system agency. We dont have control of energy. It is control by State Government. They are controlling. We all lose power. They want more than half Million People of puerto rico just right now after four months without energy. And there are communities without water. Every generator that has come to puerto rico come from mailing. We dont have any generators already. We dont have generators. We have to ask fema. We have to ask corps of engineer to help us. Because it is different. Texas, california, florida, they have different way. You can go expressway, by railroad. Going to puerto rico, you have to take a ship. Take a plane. So it is different. Very different. The situation of my city, our cities, is fiscal challenges we face everyday. As a result of Economic Opportunities on the island, we compare it with the u. S. Mainland from 2006 to 2016. Thankful for its population, it is dramatical increase the past few months also. We have here in the state, in mainland, more than 300,000 people who leave the area. They left. They left puerto rico. We expect 85,000 more will come to mainland. And nearly about 20 degrees for island revenue. In 2017, we have 6. 5 loss of revenue due to shrinking tax base. And every municipality has a shrinking tax base. From 2012 to 2016, the State Government impose a lot of our cities, millions of dollars, in a special solution answers taxes to bailout the government pension fund. S answers taxes to bailout the government pension fund. Dswers taxes to bailout the government pension fund. Wers taxes to bailout the government pension fund. Ers taxes to bailout the government pension fund. Rs taxes to bailout the government pension fund. S taxes to bailout the government pension fund. Taxes to bailout the government pension fund. Finally the Oversight Board, to municipalities for the next two years. Which for our city alone, it means an increase of 10 of my budget. The day i send the budget to the central government, i receive a letter from the pension agency, and they say they were charging me more than 20 million more. Even though the municipality just approve the budget. One hour later they send a letter. Can you imagine the situation of this city and all of the municipality. We inherit a municipality. We fight the effect of the crisis. Whether implementation, i did it. I measure. I took measures. I cut for example, i slash our budget. From 116 million to 82 million. Furlough employees. More than 67 million in contracts. Eliminate 57 of my cabinet. We are operating in the leanest possible terms. There is not much more to cut, slash or eliminate to move forward. But before irma and maria, many mayors like here, had begun to implement new versions to continue to operate and serve the people. That why we are elected for serve the people. And we are passionate about that. And the deputy secretary knows that. The municipality was called into question. Despite my medical background, i have an analysis typical of scientific method. A solution or simplistic answers. However the program was that the discussion was driven by dissemination of inaddat analysis which transform state to local government. And their road as primary Service Provider of the people. This is a discussion ignored. Some of the basic roles and functions of municipalities, movements in the government. Most expenses are incurred to fund direct services to constituents. The essential nature has come to light. Irma, maria, harvey, fires, long lasting position that the municipality is indispensable. We are the First Responders. Always. Even though we matake measures before. Call every mayor, he took measures before. But we were not prepared for category 5 hurricane. Impossible. It wasnt possible. We dont control those agencies. We took people out of the areas where the flow is over there. Were left lands slides goes on. Places are floating. Other places landsliding. There are no roads in many cities. We cant connect cities. Bridges were broken. Roads are still closed. I have to tell this story. Last night i tell a story, i will tell my story but i will tell a story because each one has a story. I began with the story the mayors told me a person died during the hurricane. After the hurricane, they have to for four days because they cannot take it to someone, to the capital. Where do they go to a forensic institute. Four days. This happened many other places. I have this guy, 75 years old, who lives in rural area. The rural area doesnt have power. Four months later. And this guy, i told last night, he has 75 years old. A year ago, striking his house, costing about 35,000. Because of regulation of his house. At 6 00 in the morning, when the hurricane began to hit us, his son call him. He live just across the street. Move right now. They cross the street and move to his sons house. In five minutes his house was all destroyed. Now he lost 25 pounds. He has been in the hospital. It is maybe one or two times a day he eats. He doesnt have no power. We get first generator for special community. Rural patter system. A special system in water working with them in the community. We get the first generate over about three weeks ago. And a week later somebody destroy the generator. Things like that happening in other places. Disaster are confirmed. We have to be prepared. I have to be thankful to mainland, fema, corps of engineer, because they have people. Without you we would not, cant manage this. We were first spopders, yes. We were prepareed. We have water, we have food. No more communication. No more communication. We have to be out and be in. There are clouds. I brought satellites. We have satellite phones. We have ports. Only one open is san juan. In ponce. Government says, yes, well open the port of ponce. After 20 years we wait for that port. And it is open. Army corps of engineers goes in. Drop power and Energy System for private companies. We need much 60,000 for electricity to be install again and for puerto rico they have 40,000. There will be people who have power. Power system said Power Company said in 30 weeks from now. 30 weeks from now. On june 1 we will have season of hurricane. Season of hurricane. From june 1 to december 1. More than maters of he was the mayor of texas also. I have to say, we mayors, you know that, with pride. With a great sense of commitment with other people. We are citizens also. American citizens. Our islands work with heart, mind and soul, like you all mayors do. We all do. The same thing. It is important that the consequences of this situation is not a financial indicator. Less money for us mayors. And affect changes and implement solutions. We need it to move forward. In power, in every help we need. And before to be prepared before a disaster comes again. This is special for me. That it was a situation. I work for almost 90 days, 98 days continually. Without taking a break. They did the same thing. But we are still hurt. Have people with no power. No water. No roads. Sending food with rope from one place to another. We are well educated people. We are welleducated people. We have gone to university. Educ. We are welleducated people. We have gone to university. Edu. We are welleducated people. We have gone to university. We need help. We were with congress tloo three weeks ago. Treat us equally. Hree weeks ago. Treat us equally. We have a voice. The communities, latinos communities, latinos for new york. Many other places. People who went from puerto rico living here, they are here living p. Went over there and back helping people. An last night, in an event, latino, leaders network, and how many people come to us an say, we want to help you. Mayors, im grateful to be a mayor. You work for the people. You serve the people. And we like to be like that. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you so much. [ applause ] [ applause ] i will not cry, but mayor, thank you so much for your heart felt words. Ive been to puerto rico. And having served in the military and in iraq and afghanistan with puerto rican soldiers, a soldiers, american citizens, i think all of the mayors support what you are trying to do for puerto rico. Thank you so much for your energy and your time and your passion. And im amazed. When i was in puerto rico, the people are just so positive. So thank you so much for your spirit. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank our speakers, deputy spekt, tha deputy secretary, thank you for staying as long as you have. We were going to open it up for questions but we had a lot of conversation just through the mayors. Think i we all learned lessons, lessons to Carry Forward into the next Hurricane Season. As we know, Mother Nature does not stop. She will be knocking at our door again soon. Whether it is a fire or flood or storm. We thank you for the federal partnership that we have. Thank you for the experience of the mayors. Thank you all for coming today. Thank you very much. Thank you