Gov. [Chris] Christie in New Jersey and some of the other states in the mid-Atlantic [region] and up in New England really haven’t dealt with hurricanes for some time. Seeing them apply the lessons learned in the Gulf Coast and other places where you need to make sure you’re getting the message out, you need to be in front of this along with the federal government as a supporting role – I think this really illustrates some of the lessons learned being applied across a lot of different threats. But again, it’s something that is relatively rare. It does happen, but it’s not as frequent as most people would think. I think their reaction in the mid-Atlantic and in New England is testament to really building a team around local, state, and federal partners working together versus everybody out here lined up like dominoes waiting to fall.

 

What’s the one threat or hazard you wish people would take more seriously that they are not paying attention to today?

Pretty simple: It’s flooding. Everybody always thinks instead of the big things, but there are very few places in the United States that do not have flood risk. It’s the one hazard your homeowner’s policy will not cover unless you have flood insurance. It occurs with such frequency that many times, it won’t even result in any type of federal disaster declaration. Even if it does, there’s not a lot of assistance for people who don’t have flood insurance.

It’s probably the one hazard that we see the most of. You would think that because of the frequency of it, people would understand the need for having flood insurance. But by and large because flood insurance is usually only a requirement if you have a federally backed mortgage in a high-risk area, when it’s an option to purchase outside of that, many people choose not to buy it, thinking, “I’ve lived here all my life, it’s never flooded.” We [FEMA] went to a lot of places this year that had not had any recent or significant floods […] and again people did not have flood insurance. Many of them were saying, “I was told I didn’t have to buy flood insurance; it wasn’t required.”

Well, that’s not the same thing as “needed.” Something that you would think that, because of its frequency, because of its impacts, and because your homeowner’s policy won’t cover it, you’d have a greater understanding of it. Still, far too many people outside of the special risk areas don’t have flood insurance, and they oftentimes end up losing everything they own when there are damages.

 

You’ve been the most visible and probably the most recognizable advocate for better preparedness on electromagnetic pulse and solar storms. The forecast for 2013 warns of some very real threats and potentially harmful impacts. What is FEMA doing to better prepare for this threat? And what should state and local and private-sector members be doing to also get ready?

I think you’ve got to deal with two pieces here. One is within the industries that deal with this from the standpoint of how they can mitigate the threat, and then a lot of this comes back to when you’re talking about the power grid, pipelines, and satellites. I think they’re working with the better forecasts and tools coming out of the space weather prediction center.

I think, from the standpoint of the emergency management community, we are going to have to understand that we’re going to be dealing with the consequences if something happens. For most of the problem models for disasters we respond by bringing resources from the [unaffected] areas to the area of impact.

The problem with geomagnetic storms is they’re not going to be so localized. They’re going to be widespread and they’re not going to have an even impact – it’s going to be uneven. The ability for the industries to be able to make critical decisions about when they have to shut down the grid to protect [it] and how that is communicated to local and state emergency managers who may be dealing with the outcomes is going to be a challenge. About a month or so [ago], San Diego [Calif.] had something like this occur when the power went dark at rush hour.

I think we need to be prepared for the consequences of what could happen in a geomagnetic storm; to understand its impacts to communications, its impacts to the transmission systems, the grid, and our vulnerabilities to it and what we would do.

I think a big challenge is that we may not have a lot of lead time, depending upon when we get some type of early warning that there’s been a mass ejection from the sun. Key industry sectors have to make some pretty drastic decisions about either turning their systems off or shutting down completely to protect themselves during the storm. Then they have to try to get back up.