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Lakeland Public Television presents Currents with host Ray
Gildow. Sponsored by Nisswa Tax Service.
Offering tax preparation for individuals and businesses
across from the City Hall in Nisswa. And on the web at
nisswatax.com. Ray: Hello again everyone,
and welcome to Lakeland Currents where tonight we're going to be talking about
disaster recovery. And I have three
experts on the panel this evening that are...have all been
actively involved in different disasters. And we're talking about
natural disasters. It could be anything from a
tornado to a train blowing up in a community.
And so much attention is given to the
disaster. The cameras come in and people get all the
attention. What happens when that's all over and those people
are all gone? That's where these folks come in. It's a very
...very unique things they're doing and I think it's something....
If you're a city planner, if you're a person that's working in your community
and you're looking at putting some plans together, these
folks are the people you should be contacting. Uh, to my immediate
right is Dan Frank whose a senior program manager with the
Initiative Foundation. And to his right
would be to his right is Nancy Beers. And she
a Director of the Midwest Recovery Fund,
Center of Disaster Philanthropy. And she's from Anoka
or from Albert Lea, [Albert Lea] sorry. And to her
right is Brian Curtice who is a long term recovery
specialist with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety
and Homeland Security and Emergency Management
Division. Welcome to the show. It's nice to have you all
come. And I know two of you have come from a long
ways and we really appreciate that and the kind of weather we've been
experiencing sometimes. [Laughing] So who wants to
start out and talk a little bit about the overview of what it is that
you do? Do you want to do that Dan? Do you want to start? Dan: Sure, I can do that.
Uh, you know we as a foundation
we cover 14 counties in central Minnesota. And probably our wake up
call on this subject was the tornado in Wadena.
Uh, back in 2010. And
that was a fantastic
event. They were very fortunate. There was really no loss of
life to speak of. I think there was one individual that was affected
that later passed. But
for the most part they were very fortunate in terms of
injuries, loss of life. But they lost
well over 100 homes. They had their school
wiped out. Their community center wiped
out. They had a lot of impact and
so after all that first part was over they had a lot of
rebuilding to do. So really for the first time we as a foundation
got involved with, how do you set up a long term
recovery team? And how does a local community come together
to really rebuild? And it takes a number of years
and it took them that long. But because of the fact that
they paid really good attention to it and that we really learned
a lot along with them,
you know, they've had a pretty good outcome from that
disaster in the long term. So that really woke us up to the fact
that there's a lot to this whole idea of who does a community
come together? Plan for the future after a
disaster? And then try to bring people back together
as much as possible to where they were before
it happened? And uh, so we learned a lot through that
and so we've been a lot more sensitive thinking about the other
162 communities we serve. And what happens if something
like this happens to them. How can we help them be better prepared?
Ray: And I remember listening on the radio to the folks
from Wadena talking about they did have a plan in place
for a disaster. And I'm sure a lot
of communities do. Uh, and
you know I don't know how much that impacted their recovery
but... Dan: Well most of the plans unfortunately
most of the plans that are in place, most of them are
for the initial response [Right] [Mmhmm] so it's the lights and siren
phase as I call it. So you know, they make sure their fire department, their
police department, the county police department, the county emergency management,
all of those people are talking. We're pretty good at that.
What we're not as thoughtful about is we need
to be is what happens after that? How do you organize
what we call a long term recovery group or team?
Which actually is made up by and
controlled by the local community. How do you get that thing
together and then reach out to the other resources both internal
and external, which you're going to need, depending on your disaster
to rebuild and to recover. And it's not just about
buildings. It's about people's mental and
emotional state. It's a whole raft of different
issues that don't normally think about they're going to be affected by
a disaster. Ray: Nancy, you've been doing this for a number of
years, you said. [Mmhmm] So what is it that you do as a
specialist in this field? Nancy: Well, my job right now with the
Center for Disaster Philanthropy is I
run a grant making program. And we go into communities like Wadena
and we help put money
into building local capacity.
Um, so that local people can get the right training
and hire people to take on some of the more
specialized and difficult tasks.
So when Dan was talking
I was thinking about, what often happens after
a disaster is people don't quite know what
to do. So they start trying to do something.
[Mmhmm] And I often come in and say,
"But you're not the first community whose ever had to go through
a recovery". And so there are some best practices
that are used nationally. Um, some
of them from the federal government. Certainly from some of them from the state
government. But there's also a national organization called
National Volunteer Organizations Active and Disaster.
Who have been doing recover work for
years, really, years and years [Long time] And they're
mostly made up of non-profit groups and faith based groups. But
so they're some best practices. So we try to help those
communities understand what those best practices are.
But understanding that they have to be
invested in their own recovery. We're not going to come and do it for you.
And it can be a challenge. It can be a challenge.
And we were, when, in my previous job I was a senior director
of disaster services for Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota.
And we were in Wadena and we had a case
manager and a reconstruction manager and we had invested
in some of those....um those
front line jobs. Those people who are really working directly with
clients. Ray: If we haven't lost a home
it's hard to imagine what it must be like to have everything you had
gone. [Yeah] And so it must be really, they must be
very emotional and... Nancy: I always say that disasters are not
respecters of persons. And so when
a disaster hits your home, you might be in
the best place you've ever been. Right? You might be financially sound
and your kids all did great and went onto college
and everybody's independent and everything's going well.
But many people aren't there when that disaster happens and I've
met people who are dying of cancer. I had a client one time
who was getting, was in the hospital when he lost his house
getting his leg amputated from cancer. [Wow] I mean there, so
what ends up that you have to integrate this
loss into the story that's going on at that time.
Or you might have had a lot of medical debt or
you might be getting a divorce. I mean, there's all kinds of things that are already going on
in your life. And now you're homeless basically.
And you've lost may be your biggest asset.
And in a flood, most people aren't insured. Tornadoes
Wadena... most of the people were insured. I think about 89% of the people
were insured in Wadena. Ray: We're insured? Nancy: In the flood that were...
about 89% were insured. Some under insured of course. But still insured.
But then the flood that Brian and I working right now is
in Southern Minnesota, I think it was 2%.
Brian: Had any flood insurance at all. Nancy: 2% of the people had
insurance. [Wow] So we're talking about
98% of the people... their losses are not covered by anything other
than now FEMA's coming in and doing some grant making.
But if FEMA wasn't coming in, that money would have
to be generated locally. [Yup] And that's a lot of money.
And so it becomes really a challenge. Ray: Is there
a typical response or is it just all over the place when people
get floods? How do they, how do they cope with
that? What do they do? What's the first thing they usually look to do?
Brian: I think it's usually... it sort of depends on the situation.
Where the floods of ah,
2012 in Duluth in the...
northeastern Minnesota was
a widespread...it was... Ray: That was really devastating.
Brian: And it was sort of all over the map. You had some ah,
some damages that were in the city of Duluth.
It was able....they were able to manage some of that to a better degree
whereas some of the more rural counties, rural areas
ah they had a lot more difficulty in reaching out and getting
assistance to the people out there. And so
that's kind of where some of these things kind of come into play here with long term
recovery planning. In that it's not a
quick and easy fix kind of thing. The responses
may be fast. You know, usually as
Dan was pointing out, we're very attuned to
life safety. We want to make sure that anyone who's
in any threat or any danger, gets assistance
right away. You know whether it's
a...you see the dramatic films on television and things like
that of rescues and things like that. But it's
sort of the day after than what happens in the
long planning that takes, that needs to take place. The planning that
needs and the actions that need to take place to
put the communities back on their feet and um
make them whole again. You know, we use the term now
a whole community recovery. Because it's
that what it takes. It's not just well it's just this
business or this institution. It has to be
the entire community coming together. Ray: And Brian you said you're with
public safety but also homeland security. Brian: I work
for the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management which is
part of the Department of Public Safety in Minnesota.
My job as community recovery specialist I'm
I work with groups like
Dan's Initiative Foundation and
Nancy's Center for Disaster Philanthropy
and a number of other volunteer organizations and foundations.
Trying to get working to help communities
plan for these kinds of events
that have been happening. Through sort of the school
of hard knocks, we've learned that the more planning you do ahead of time,
and this goes all the way down to your own family
kind of thing. You plan for emergencies kind of thing but what
happens to a community? The one thing we
do know is that the communities really need to take
this on for themselves to help rebuild them as part
of their identity to a certain extent. We can provide some
technical assistance. We can provide a lot of information ah,
and that's kind of what my role is with working with
them. Ray: Let's...maybe use an example
of Melrose. Because Melrose had a couple disasters
last year. They had...well this ah this
church, one of the major Catholic churches
had a serious fire. Then it wasn't a whole lot later
they had a serious fire downtown Melrose, didn't they? Dan: Right
and that's a nice little example that ah...
could be a good one to look at. Well, and as part of that example
here, the church actually is pretty well insured.
And so they're really going through a process right now
I've been in the church to look at the damage. Very,
it looks a lot worse on the inside than it does on the outside I can tell you right.
Ah, but they're pretty well insured
and so you know now they're just trying to decide you know,
it's a historic building. What we do, etc? And they're
meeting as worship somewhere else. So, really a challenge and difficult
for that faith community. But pretty much financially
under control for the most part. Ah, now
the downtown fire displaced 11 businesses
and about 50 people. [Wow!]
Who were in apartments upstairs of those businesses.
And so we're involved as the Initiative Foundation
and other organizations, including Catholic Charities
whose doing our case management there. You know we've talked about
the importance of that piece. Um, involved
in trying to find housing, etc. long
term. Now that you know they had initial housing that Red Cross and
others helped with. But in the long term, housing is in short
supply in Melrose. So now they've got these families that are
looking for housing. There's are about 11 or 12 families.
And most of these families by the way are
relatively new immigrants. Most of them are Hispanic.
And most of them do not have english
as a first language. Which is why Catholic Charities was chosen
to do case management. Because they have people that speak spanish.
Something they're very familiar with in the area.
And then of course we have these businesses that we're working with
in cooperation with a number of funders.
AgStar helped out with that. Some of their local banks and credit unions
helped out. The Blandin Foundation helped out. So,
in the long term recovery there we have a business area,
which is true in almost every community. Businesses need to recover too.
It's very important. It's great if you have a house. [Simultaneously] But what if your
business...you don't have a job now. [Yup] You know?
Or you can't the services you need because the business is gone. So you need both of those
areas. And so we're working with the
community through a long term recovery team and a long term
recovery fund where we help them raise
money through all these different sources. Some of it,
much of it local. And so now we're working day to day
with the hard work of actually getting those people back
into houses. Having the furnishings they need. And
getting those businesses relocated
and an opportunity to come back. And that's probably going to take
a good year or so at least for that.
And then of course you've got the business owners. They lost four pieces
four businesses in their downtown that were totally wiped
out. And so now those people that own those businesses have
got to decide if they're going to rebuild or not. And needless to say the
insurance that most of them had probably most of them
that insurance is not quite adequate to rebuild what they
had at today's standards. Ray: I was going to say
that's probably... you know you see the disasters
on the national television. And so many times you see small
business owners saying there's no way I can get back
into this business again. I just have to quit. [Mmhmm] [That's right.] That's a real
tragedy. Ray: I would guess that maybe
a part of the planning process is to make sure people understand
how much insurance they have to have. [Yeah]
Would that be true? [Yeah] Dan: That's helpful. How much insurance
they should have. And then also, once it happens, what are the resources
available? [Right] And for instance, we never used to think
that we could make grants to businesses. Because they're
not really a technically
speaking, they are not a charitable organization.
[Mmhmm] But actually there are methodologies that
we've been able to work with others. Where we do grant some dollars to
businesses to help them reestablish to help make up the
short fall between their insurance that they have
and what it's actually going to cost them. It doesn't make it up
totally. They still are hurt. But if we can make
it possible for them to get back in business and help the local community
do that, then that's worth doing.
Ray: So if you were to walk into a community like Brainerd, and I have no idea
what Brainerd's planning stages are here but
what, what's the first things you do to start working
on this? Nancy: Well, I don't do that. I.. don't
do planning stages. My job is specifically
I always say, I'm kind of like the non-profit FEMA person where
I go into the community only if a disaster has happened. [Mmhmm]
And I help them build capacity. But I always say
to the communities the best time to build your capacity
for a disaster, is after a disaster. [That's right.] Because nobody
wants to be more prepared when they...[Yeah] ...until they
realize how poorly prepared they were, right? [Yeah] So it's
really a great opportunity. So, one of the things that we're trying
to do with our program, and I know other philanthropy's are doing as well is
trying to understand this idea of community resiliency
and how that ties into disaster recovery work. So as
we do recovery work, we're also building resiliency for future
disaster. [For the next time.] So making sure not putting people back in
harm's way. Making sure that we're better decisions about
you know, placing trees or taking old trees down. If you
live in a community with a lot of old trees. And
like we do in the midwest. Um, really talking about flood
plain, and what flood plain means. And making sure....
because our most vulnerable people live in flood plains. [Mmhmm]
Most people that are building today aren't building
on or near flood plains. But the older houses that
live there... Ray: Cheaper land, I suspect. Nancy: Cheaper land... a lot of
rental properties, right? [Mmhmm] And so were adding
vulnerability to vulnerability. And so we really
need to be making better decisions. And you know, we were talking
a little bit earlier about the fact that disaster recovery is also
about community development or redevelopment,
right? So, if things were located in areas that
weren't really good for the community, it's also a chance to redevelop.
And so those opportunities come along. I know they
came along in Wadena as well. [Yup] But
the planning part that Dan's talking about [Mmhmm]
which is really this idea about, getting people understanding the
process of recovery, it's pretty new.
A lot of, I mean a lot of communities, unless you live in New Orleans or
in hurricane alley, where you know, it's a given [Right]
that this is going to happen. But you know, we're seeing
more and more catastrophic events in the midwest. More
drought versus flash flood. They almost happen simultaneously
and it really exacerbates the situation.
Brian: Yeah. Making the case for these kinds of ideas
is actually becoming easier because we can show people
that these things have happened. We can show, we talk about Wadena.
You know later, next year we're going to be talking
a lot more about Waseka [Yeah] and all these kinds of things. One of the
hard things though is to figure out how do you do this?
And that's kind of one of the things that we've been talking about. Dan and I
have been talking to some communities where we've we reach out to
some of the local civic leaders and local governments
to talk about these sort of things and ask them how
would, you know, and provide some technical knowledge
and talk to them about engaging their local communities
about these kinds of topics. Who would lead
a long term recovery effort in your town? They may not know
but we can give them some ideas of who would be
good people, you know, civic leaders of some sort. It doesn't necessarily
you don't want necessarily to have a mayor or
an official kind of thing because you want it have it be more
of a civic project kind
of thing. [Mmhmm] So one of the things that we do is we go out
to these communities across the state where
they can identify some vulnerabilities you know from
floods, or tornadoes or anything else. Like I just said,
you know, perhaps some kind of an oil train
or something like that. Where you can say, these are things you need to think about
and what happens after? And who would you, who would you
go to, you know? How would you put this together?
There's a lot of technical aspects to this stuff where
you can say, you'd should plan for this stuff
and they say ok but what does that really mean?
You know, you're going to be collecting money. People give donations.
You know, who manages that? Who gets the money? How do you
you know prioritize the needs of the community?
And those are the kinds of things that these long term recovery committees
that we're encouraging communities to create
would be tasked with. And we can show them
through both from good and bad examples, I think along
through history where these things have, are...
obviously, hopefully the good ones to say... these are some thoughts you need to
put behind this as you move forward. Dan: What we've been doing
with we did two pilots this last year. We did one in Staples
and that's why we were...Hope put on the list to be able to be here but she
wasn't able to. Ah, and we did one in Millaca. And
what we actually did is we went in and we set up
a skeleton a small long term recovery team before they have
a disaster, of about ten people. And then we
train them in what kind of disasters might they
expect. And if they did have a disaster, what are the elements
that they would have to deal with as a long term recovery team? And
then we give them resources and materials, we spend a day with them
and when we leave, the idea is is that
next time their fire department or their police department
does a....a disaster drill like say,
an oil train derailment, ok? Because that's been the news
in the past. Or a flood. Ah, and
so they do that. And when they do those disaster drills they
practice the initial response. You know, how do you get people
health and safety. But then we're saying, now...now that you have
that team for long term recovery and they have some knowledge
the day after the disaster drill, that team
then has a drill to say, ok...we just practiced an
oil train derailment. Now if we would have had an oil train derailment
what are the things we would need to be dealing with if that would've
happened? And then, they go through what we call a table top
exercise to talk through, ok we would have needed this
this and this. Where would we get that, etc? And
we've already given them the information and training so they know where
to go for the help. To organizations like for instance,
to ah the Homeland Security Emergency Management
and their local emergency manager who can then reach out
to MInnesota VOAD, the Voluntary Organizations
Active and Disaster, who can bring in other
people even for long term recovery. They can help them with that
process. Or people like Nancy's organization
and or Homeland Security itself, they can help
connect them with resources. So it gives them a head start.
They've got a team of people who've already thought about this. So that's
what we did in two cases. In the ah,
the ah evidence won't be in until and if they have a
disaster and we see how much that helps. Ray: Are most of those folks volunteers
or are some of them...? Dan: Yeah, most of them are volunteers. We
try to get....for instance most of them have been like somebody from the
city, the local emergency manager, somebody from local
hospital or clinic. Somebody from the school district, somebody from the chamber
of commerce. Faith community. Ah and if you
have anybody in town that does psychological type services
and emotional services. And of course, non profits.
Like for instance, when we had the wind storm here in Brainerd in
2015. Bridges of Hope actually and Lutheran Social
Services and the Salvation Army and
Tri-Cap, you know community action agency all worked together
to do case management. So those are the things they need to think
through. So what were trying to get them to do is just give them a
little training, help them get organized. And then once they have a disaster
they're ready to go into action quicker.
Which is really key if you have a disaster. Even long term
recovery groups need to get started very
quickly after the disaster happens.
Nancy: I think the other thing that we ah, take for granted
is that a community is going to be able to organize. But the community has been
traumatized. [Yes] And we forget that the
that everybody in the community is traumatized usually. [Is effected]
If it's a significant event. And so really
the fact that the three of us
kind of can stand in that gap while the
community sort of mourns their losses and
and kind of gets past this
initial...you know, this is what always happens,
Or, "I'm Ok. I'm Ok." But
the truth of it is, you're ok today. And that's
great and we're all grateful for that. But in two months
when you....you can't repair your home because you have
no money and you don't know where to turn
for help, that's when the community really needs to stand in that gap.
And in between those two stages, I think
people like us come in and say, let's get you organized so
when that part comes we can...we know that we
can have the resources available. It's really about developing
resources. [It is.] At the end of the day all of this organization
and all that we do happens because we want to make sure
that every single person who has lost their home
in a disaster can be...go back home.
And that can be really complicated. Because you have to work with
people on an individual basis. Everyone has different insurances
different needs. Has a different payment
plan on their house. Has different people living in their house lots of times
and especially in places like Minnesota. And this
is true. I work in the midwest, I work in ten states in the midwest. We have
a lot of people for example who aren't deed holders of their homes. [Yes]
Ray: Oh really? Nancy: There's a lot of legal issues so you know
a lot of small towns in the midwest
um, families have moved into...you know into town but they still own
their homes in the rural towns. Like the small
200-300 elevator towns that we have all across southern Minnesota.
Um, those homes might
your cousin might live there. Or your nephew might live there. And if you're not
the deed holder for the home, you can't get help
from a lot of organizations. [Oh, sure] Right. So we bring
in legal aide. We bring in all kinds of people. Ah, animals
and farm....um, farming communities
[Pets] pets. There's all these different layers
of um...Ray: That you don't think about. Nancy: That you don't think about. Ray: Until you don't
have it. Nancy: You don't have it. Brian: One of the terms that we use with a lot of our planning is called
meeting the unmet needs. [Yes] That's looking for
ah, when FEMA comes to town or with other
ah, assistance's out there we can....we can help rebuild
in some of these cases and things. But it doesn't cover
everything. Um and often times there
are needs beyond what um, you know the
grant from FEMA or from the state or anything else, any other local
can do. And that's where these committees
need to get together. And because we live in
a, in a good place here where you know there's
generally not...no shortage of getting donations from local
ah, benefactors here.
You know from the local communities. But then you know
how does that money get to the people who need it the most? Ah, and
what is it for? And how can we make sure that these
gaps, ah that Nancy talked about are
filled? And sometimes they don't show up right away.
And so the long term recovery committees are something that often times
can take months, years to fulfill their
mission. If you just look at things even as the
large scale things like hurricane Sandy, there's still
they're still out there trying to put people. Ray: Isn't that something? [Yeah, yeah]
[And Katrina, yeah] Nancy: Well the....and the recovery in Rushford took 18
months. [Yes] That was a large disaster in southern Minnesota.
And the recovery in ah, in ah northeast Minnesota
took 18 months. [Wow] That committee....that committee was
standing for 18 months. Brian: It's not completely over yet either, I mean there are still things that are
popping up now and then that ah, were a
result of that event. [Wow] So being able to
ah keep a committee together ah, and committed
to rebuilding those communities often takes a lot of
commitment from the local people. [Yeah] Ray: We're down
to our last minute. What advice would you give? And
we're going to post your website on the end of this. [Yup] Is that the place that people should
start? Dan: That's one place they can start. And it connects to resources
from both that ah, have come out
that ah, Nancy certainly used and referred to.
And also with Homeland Security.
Ah, so that's not a bad place to start. One thing is there's lots of resources.
And on that website that they'll see we tried to narrow it down
just to a good sampling both for communities and businesses.
So that's a good place they can start. And it will connect you to our other
key partners that are sitting here at the table.
Ray: Well, it's really... good work that you folks are doing
and I appreciate your taking the time to jump on the show with us today. [Thank you]
And talk about this. And we'll have that information posted and ah [Great]
if you're city manager or whatever ah this
is the place to start. So thank you folks very much, appreciate it.
[Thank you, Ray.] Ray: You've been watching Lakeland Currents where
we're talking about what you're talking about. I'm Ray Gildow
so long until next time.
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