Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall United States Homeland Security Advisor

11:36PM Aug 21, 2023

Speakers:

Keywords:

fema

president

governor

rescue

fire

work

power poles

people

white house

search

support

recovery

hazardous waste

build

briefing

island

request

quickly

questions

big

So whenever you're ready was spent a few minutes I just teed up on the record and I know you all agree or emulate Sherwood Randall is the President's Homeland Security Adviser. And I understand you could not hear much of the operational briefing that he received. So I'm here to tell you a little bit about what you've heard from the leadership, the various organizations that FEMA Administrator of course started off as well, talking to him about how this was the road from which everybody was trying to escape when the fire came in to behind. People jumped into the water. I talked subsequently to several Coast Guard members who described how they literally went in and rescue people one of them said is probably get rescued 15 People from the water that day, tried to escape lanes by going out into the sea. The major general who was with the State National Guard, thank the President for all the support from FEMA and from indo PAYCOM should emphasize how much indo PAYCOM is doing behind the scenes. They're doing a huge number of important things. In support of this recovery operation, including moving material when it needs to get here including providing mortuary teams additional search and rescue capabilities, offering support they can to fire suppression, they have fire suppression capabilities indigenous to indo PAYCOM they brought them to the various fires that continue to burn up in the valley and other places in Hawaii. You're now shifting mostly as you know, to the recovery. Those who have lost and the next step will be as they complete that process, which we believe is somewhere between 86 and 90% done to do through the remains. The debris will be to shift to a focus on temporary housing. And that's really going to be the critical piece is how we get people out of the hotels and Airbnbs which had been a good thing to have had because people quickly had a place to go if they weren't able to move in with family, but we now need to figure out a way that they can move into something that is more durable as an interim step. Barty who's the head of urban search and rescue commander for all the SAR teams who are here? Just notably, he's out of Rosewell California we've got people from five states to search and rescue as I understand you might notice. Nevada, Washington, Washington state California, and they've been here since Friday, Maryland. With specialized canines doing the search and rescue as I said, 40 dogs are here. They're going through 2000 buildings 4000 cars. He said they're 87% done as of today. This I'll just describe to you something that we're very aware of which is that in all of the experiences the President has had in circumstances like this, this issue of identifying whether there's any way any there are any remains, it's so crucial for people to get some measure of closure. We spoke a little bit about that from the podium back there and it really is incredibly hard work. The dogs are critical to the endeavor with their sense of smell. And we know from the Surfside experience in Florida, for example, even after all of that debris was removed two more times to see if there's anything there's so much anxiety about what happened. And so that's why this is going to see anything that will give us an understanding of what happened to their loved ones and not the satisfaction of knowing that they actually survived.

Governor spoke about how quickly the response took place. I think Olivia talked to some of you about this. There's a very elaborate process when a governor makes a request for an expedited major disaster declaration. The first thing we've learned to do in this administration is actually to ask FEMA to work with the Governor's team to shape the request in a way that we can respond to it quickly so we don't lose any time and bureaucracy. Because in some cases, what happens the state will make a proposal to FEMA, that doesn't actually work. And then that takes time to get fixed. So what we did today, Bob Benton it was you're on the ground working with the governor and his team to make a request we can answer expeditiously. It came through FEMA that comes over to the White House that has to go through me and the Office of Management Budget, the lawyers get signed off on by the President. And that happened within once it got over to the White House. It was I believe 63 minutes, which is a record. But we were so focused on and we were so focused on getting to this place that we would have to make that happen. So that frees up a lot of support for the state. And the governor, the governor was extraordinarily grateful for that. And the mayor also heard from pointedly talking about how he had been a young prosecutor and that just the big column store student was totally burned out. Also expressing gratitude to the president for all the help that has been provided and the appreciation for the concept that will help them go back better and there you'll see in coming weeks the work I'm driving process now on behalf of the President with the cabinet to identify how we can get ahead of this in terms of needs for housing, the need for the Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate all this hazardous, hazardous waste that's here as a result of the fires and get it moved quickly. So rebuilding begin get the Energy Department involved in the work that needs to be done to build more resiliency. We know the power poles came down. That's a big thing that we've seen in a lot of places that haven't invested in modernized polls. And we know that those polls off given the example Florida where we saw in the wake of several hurricanes that investment was made in the Obama administration in new power poles has allowed for a much quicker recovery from hurricanes, if you put in false wouldn't fall. So that's costly. And this is a situation where there's a very expensive footprint, of course with multiple islands so you can't look to another neighbor to help you out. You've got to go to another island to get help. And in this case, they're gonna need to do investments that we can assist with over time and building more resilient, critical infrastructure, which is what the President referred to with his remarks. So watch that thing on the infrastructure. And lots of work ahead for us are multiple facts. Was the President told that it's possible that all the remains may not be identified? absolute, absolute state is indicating that there are somewhere between five and eight are not located. Now, they may be elsewhere and not in communication or haven't registered? We don't know. But, of course, we've had to discuss them now. Did that come? Up With The President told that at the briefing, the President was briefed by me and by the administrator and by Bob Fenton, go to yesterday and other kinds of things about this. So we've discussed that, indeed, again on the plane this morning, Dan was willing I flew out with him. And talk to me about this again, because he continues to ask how many people have not been yet found? And what is the progress that's being made with with respect to search and rescue?

Is there any sort of federal help that would be necessary and kind of organizing? A kind of a, that what that gap is,

I mean, I'm a little bit unclear what FBI is send people in to assist they're very much involved in trying to send in supporting the state and locals in doing that work to create a system, a system for figuring out where people may be calling people using a variety of records that may be available. Before someone Island. A lot of they're both Native population and Hawaiian, and residents and they're also tourists. So there may not be a complete accounting of everybody who was here at that particular but FBI is involved very proactively in in that effort to try to identify as many people as as can be found who are alive and may be here or not.

There have been particular things that the President is asking briefings like how he affected by the

President. This is unfortunately, an experience we've had repeatedly in many contexts in this administration all over the country. He alluded to some of that, whether it's in Louisiana, Kentucky, New Mexico, New York, Florida, California, Colorado, there just been so many extreme weather disasters, where he has sought to learn as quickly as possible, what has happened and what we can do to help and he's always focused on the human experience, and very impatient with bureaucracy. That is the consistent theme. How fast can we move to help people in need, and in particular, how can we help those in need who have the hardest time getting access to that help? So he pushes for more responsiveness in terms of mobile units, going out to find people who can't get to a central location to register with FEMA. He wants to know that we put in as we did here telecommunications capabilities that can enable cell indications with the cell towers have come down that we do that in partnership with FirstNet. We have a big focus due to his emphasis on this housing issue because he knows how much people hurt when they don't have a roof over their head and any place they can call home and they've lost everything. And that's one of the most difficult challenges in the wake of a disaster is to help people get themselves into a place where they can feel at home again and whether that is on the land where they lived, or whether they have to leave that land for a variety of reasons. He has asked us to accelerate our work with Department of Housing and Urban Development. So I'm working with Secretary fudge and with her deputies, Adrienne Teigen on that challenge year, he was very focused also on the hazardous waste removal here, because that is a gating issue for all the work that has to come. So we want to help them to build back better, more resiliently but still, I shouldn't say but still in this place, that is so hallowed for them, that will require that all this debris which includes hazardous material be removed. And so we have been working with the Environmental Protection Agency on a game plan for searching the necessary assessments that will take place as soon as the search and rescue is completed in Lahaina, EPA will come in and do the analysis of what needs to happen and then that material can begin to be removed by the US Army Corps. of engineers with a multi department and agency organism that we have to build and get it running and keep it running as long as it takes as he said

when you're talking about this 63 minutes, can you give it a shed any light on how long it would normally take? For disaster

of comparable size? There's no normal and basically what we've done over the course of our now two years, eight months is build a system internally at the White House to ensure that we lose no time going through the steps we need to take and so for example, we have an overnight watch now when we have a disaster declaration coming through, in which people stay up through the night in the various components of the White House so that they can evaluate and sign off if there's an issue. They can take it up quickly with counterparts into FEMA so that we don't slow down the delivery of the response for people who are hurting. And again, that's directly at the President's request, that we not lose any time in.

meetings with the President has he expressed any concern about how this fire was able to be as destructive as it was? There's been a lot of questions about the sirens, to see want to see some kind of

accountability. So we've had these asked a lot of questions of course and there is no current answer. There is press reporting about some possible explanations. Of what may have happened. Very significant concern, as I'm sure you've seen about the fact that there is a lot of dry, non native grass on private land that may have contributed there was concern about the possible. In one of the fires in particular, there's been press reporting about the possibility that a fallen powerful could have sparked could have ignited the fire. There is there have been questions as you noted about whether the alert system worked whether the cower should have been shut down and all these questions have been raised. There will be investigations of course the governor is is leading in that effort and the euro of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The DOJ has people on the ground working with the state at the state's request to assist in the evaluation of how the fire how the fires were triggered, and then what happened subsequently. So there will certainly be more work done and he always asks why we all ask why. This is and that work is still to be done. where the answers are still to be found. The work is underway, but the answers are still to be found.

Federal officials come up with like a time estimate of how long recovery recovery will take, like, how many years

as you know, recovery on this scale takes years. It's not months, but you go in stages. So there are initial steps that have to be taken to enable further work to enable the plans to be developed for a rebuild for the contracts to be led. And so the first focus is is on can get the people into a situation where they can begin to function again and have some dignity in their lives. Some closure if that's possible. The governor today you will have heard called for a return of tourists to the island because he said this is really important for the economy. We're happy to be able to work out here