Transcript TALKING POINTS

Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy
• Sandy was the second-largest
Atlantic storm on record
• Storm surge reached over 13
feet in coastal areas of New York
and New Jersey
• The heavily impacted tri-state
region is the most densely
populated in the nation
• The impacted region contains
critical national functions
including the financial district in
lower Manhattan
These complications caused large
scale challenges in emergency
response, including wide scale power
outages, housing scarcity, and
freezing temperatures
Sandy’s Impact
• 8.5 million people lost power
across the northeast
• Fuel shortages immobilized
impacted regions and presented
challenges in keeping backup
generators running
• Hundreds of thousands were
ordered to evacuate
• 650,000 homes damaged or
destroyed
• 190,000 business affected
• Winter temperatures added
urgency to power restoration
and home repairs
Response to Sandy
• Incident Management
Assessment Teams were prestaged to emergency operation
centers
• Peak of 17,000 federal
personnel and over 11,000
National Guardsmen were on
the ground assisting with the
response
• The Individuals and Household
programs provided assistance to
over 520,000 registrations
Response to Sandy
• FEMA shipped over 20 million
liters of water, almost 14 million
meals, nearly 80 thousand cots,
and over 1.5 million blankets to
impacted states
• Public Assistance provides
funding for the repair,
restoration, reconstruction, or
replacement of infrastructure
that is damaged or destroyed by
a disaster
• SBA approved over $493 million
small business loans
Whole Community
Innovations
• The New Jersey Governor’s Office
rallied with community partners to
establish an emergency hot-line
and coordinate pet search and
recovery efforts
• Solar power companies in New
York and New Jersey partnered to
deploy equipment and volunteers
to install and maintain mobile solar
power generators in some of the
hardest hit communities
Whole Community Innovations
A Whole
Community team
enlisted the
assistance of
more than 4,000
on-line volunteers
to conduct aerial
damage
assessments
FEMA’s Innovations
• FEMA Innovations Team
composed of a variety of whole
community partners was
deployed to work side-by-side
with disaster survivors and
Federal agencies to restore and
rebuild communications with
mesh WiFi networks
• FEMA gave some of its
Community Relations personnel
iPads to help facilitate mobile
registration for assistance
FEMA’s Innovations
• FEMA created the Sheltering
and Temporary Essential Power
(STEP) program to repair stormdamaged electrical meters,
provide essential utilities, and
exterior repairs
• FEMA employees lived on ships
so that their presence in hotels
did not displace survivors
• DHS Surge Capacity Force and
the FEMA Corps program helped
the agency surge staff response
operations
Initial Lessons After Sandy
• Greater advance planning is
needed regarding:
• Issues specific to emergencies in
densely populated urban areas
• Addressing fuel shortages after
large disasters
• Ensuring capacity to lodge
emergency response personnel
without displacing survivors
• Rapidly surging a large number
of emergency responders into
the field
Initial Lessons After Sandy
• Recognizing the public’s reliance on
wireless and mobile technology,
priority needs to be given to
reestablishing communications
infrastructure
• Given advancements in mobile
technology, FEMA needs to
establish a more mobile field
presence, bringing its services
directly to survivors
• All emergency managers need to
continue to and expand upon
partnering with the private sector in
all phases of emergency
management
• Storm Warnings
David A. Trissell
FEMA Attaché
U.S. Mission to the European Union
32-02-811-5757
[email protected]
www.fema.gov
13