Skilled Labor Series: Eric Letvin, FEMA
*This episode is part of our Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu. This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure.
Eric Letvin serves as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s deputy assistant administrator for mitigation.
Eric directs FEMA's pre and post-disaster mitigation programs that support sustainable disaster resilient communities to avoid or reduce the loss of life, property and financial impacts of natural hazards. We talk about Eric's career journey, a brief history of FEMA and what the agency does before, during, and after natural hazards or disasters. We emphasize the importance of pre-disaster mitigation alongside talking about a new tranche of funding from the Infrastructure Bill going to support the work here.
*You can also reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded on Nov 16, 2023 (Published on Feb 29, 2024)
In this episode, we cover:
[01:37]: Eric's role at FEMA and career path from engineering to hazard mitigation
[03:43]: FEMA's inception, evolution, and mission within DHS
[05:35]: Hazard mitigation vs. resilience outcomes
[06:29]: FEMA's expanded role in non-natural disaster management
[09:05]: Pre and post-disaster flood mitigation strategies and grant programs
[11:38]: Wildfire mitigation efforts and challenges amplified by climate change
[14:55]: FEMA's operational structure and budgeting for disaster relief and mitigation
[17:06]: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds for resilience efforts
[19:03]: Examples of funded projects in disadvantaged communities
[20:17]: The significance of FEMA's Flood Mitigation Assistance program in the face of climate change
[22:56]: Advances in flood mapping technology and risk communication
[24:40]: Challenges in modeling wildfire risk and the dynamic nature of wildfire hazards
[26:34]: The importance of building codes in disaster readiness
[28:59]: The shift towards prioritizing pre-disaster mitigation funding
[30:00]: Lessons from past disasters on the value of proactive mitigation
Resources Mentioned:
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Yin Lu (00:00):
Hey, everyone, Yin here. I'm dealing with a bout of head cold, so thanks for bearing with me. My guest today is Eric Letvin. Eric serves as the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA's deputy assistant administrator for mitigation. Eric directs FEMA's pre and post-disaster mitigation programs that support sustainable disaster resilient communities in order to avoid or reduce the loss of life, property and financial impacts of natural hazards. We talk about Eric's career journey, a brief history of FEMA and what the agency does before, during, and after natural hazards or disasters. We put an emphasis on the importance of pre-disaster mitigation alongside talking about a new tranche of funding from the Infrastructure Bill going to support the work here, but first...
Cody Simms (00:50):
I'm Cody Simms.
Yin Lu (00:51):
I'm Yin Lu.
Jason Jacobs (00:53):
And I'm Jason Jacobs and welcome to My Climate Journey.
Yin Lu (00:59):
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Jason Jacobs (01:04):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help.
Yin Lu (01:15):
With that, Eric, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
Eric Letvin (01:20):
Thank you for having me.
Yin Lu (01:22):
All right, so I would love to just get into the nitty gritties and every nook and cranny and understand FEMA a little bit better. Before we do that, I would love to get to know you a little bit more, namely your career path and how did you get to working for FEMA and what your current role is.
Eric Letvin (01:37):
I'm the deputy assistant administrator for hazard mitigation. So what does that mean? So I essentially lead our pre and post-disaster mitigation grant programs that flow to states, tribes, territories, local governments to help make them more resilient. I'm also responsible for floodplain management, so that's one of the three legs of the stool of the National Flood Insurance Program, which are essentially how to build in floodplains, what is required of construction and floodplains. I lead our mitigation disaster workforce. Those are my three groups that I have here. How did I get here? Well, it's interesting. I graduated college as an engineer and started in consulting. In college they teach you how to build things, roads and bridges and culverts and buildings.
(02:25):
And when I started in consulting, the firm I worked for had a small contract with FEMA doing post-disaster assessments. So we'd go out after hurricanes or tornadoes and learn how the built infrastructure performed. And that was fascinating to me to see that although we think we know how to build things, there's always things we can learn to improve codes and standards. And so after that I became really hooked on hazard mitigation. So I was in consulting for 16 years and joined the federal government about 13 years ago at the National Institute of Standards and Technology doing their post-disaster research. And then I got called to the White House. I was the director of hazard mitigation and risk reduction policy in the Obama Administration within the National Security Council.
(03:13):
So I helped lead several national hazard executive orders, including one on the flood risk management standard. And then after I was done there, after two and a half years, I joined FEMA. I've been involved with hazard mitigation my entire career, a little over half in the private sector and now about 13 years in the public sector.
Yin Lu (03:33):
I would love if you can give a brief history of FEMA and how the agency was started and what the general structure of the agency is today.
Eric Letvin (03:43):
The agency was started in the 1970s. The part that I work for really came about with flood mapping and flood insurance. It used to be HUD that had the floodplain maps and then that got transferred over to FEMA when FEMA was stood up. So it was stood up as an independent agency. The programs we have now, it's grown, but essentially it's a lot of the same programs we've had since the beginning of the agency, helping with public assistance, individual assistance. Hazard mitigation is a little bit more recent, but going back with floodplain management, that goes back 50 years. So FEMA was an independent agency and then after 9/11 when Department of Homeland Security was stood up, FEMA was brought into Department of Homeland Security. So we are part of and have been part of the Department of Homeland Security now for well over two decades.
(04:32):
So our mission is pretty simple. It's an awesome mission. It's something our staff can really rally behind. It's helping people before, during, and after disasters. What better mission is that? I get involved both before disasters, helping communities become more resilient, helping ensure that they understand their floodplain management responsibilities. And after disasters when a lot of funding is available, like in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. How can we take the mitigation dollars that are made available and help make the community, the island more resilient, power systems and hospitals and public buildings and individual homes? So that's essentially what we do, is working with communities to help them prepare for the next event that's going to hit and helping especially with climate change. A lot of people see us as one of the go-to agencies to help with climate.
Yin Lu (05:27):
You've said the word mitigation and resiliency. Did those mean different things to you or are they interchangeable?
Eric Letvin (05:35):
We sometimes get hung up on definitions, but I think resiliency is really the outcome that we're seeking. Hazard mitigation are steps that we can take to minimize the effects of natural disasters, whereas resilience is really the outcome that we're seeking for that community. What I mean that is, say, children are able to go back to school, people are able to go back to their business. There may be some debris in the streets from the river, but their homes are dry, their school is dry. They're able to quickly go back into that community and resume normal operations. So I think resiliency is really the outcome that we're seeking through a lot of our various programs that we have at FEMA.
Yin Lu (06:15):
I'm curious what FEMA's definition is of natural disasters or natural hazards. Can you talk about what that encompasses and maybe how that has evolved over the past decade or two given the effects of climate?
Eric Letvin (06:29):
So traditionally when we have a hurricane or a flood, we have what we call notice events where we have some idea from weather forecast, there's going to be a tornado outbreak or a high threat of wildfires, and then we have no notice events like earthquakes obviously. So the traditional natural hazard, natural disaster is when that happens, the governor of that state or tribe or territory will submit a letter requesting a federal disaster declaration up to FEMA. That goes into the White House and if that's approved, that really opens the tap for not just FEMA but all the federal government to provide the response for that particular disaster. How it's changed a little bit in recent years is our administrator talks about how we've essentially become the nation's 911. And that's our role, is to really embrace that.
(07:22):
So things like the Flint water crisis from years ago or the salt water intrusion that's happening down in the Mississippi River, we've actually, for terrorist events, we've been turned on obviously after 9/11, even the Oklahoma City bombing, [inaudible 00:07:39] disaster. So these are certainly events that happen, but they're not truly caused by mother nature. And so we've been asked to step up and do more and help in different ways and we've embraced that because we have a workforce that are trained in emergency management. And so a technological hazard, like a train derailment, the way that that's handled by state and local governments is really similar to a natural hazard. So we've really embraced that challenge when asked to step up and handle some events of that nature.
Yin Lu (08:10):
I was poking around on the FEMA website and the motto of FEMA really stood out to me. It's pace ac bello merita, which means service in peace and war and how the agency really helps in all types of emergencies regardless of how they came about or the gravity. Whenever something happens and people need help, FEMA is there. I like the framework that you laid out where FEMA steps in pre, during and post-disaster and what you just talked about is when a disaster happens and the folks from the territory, the state, or the tribal lands sends in a request requesting federal assistance. But what happens pre and post? If you can take us through what is a general playbook like and let's pick a frequent type of disaster, floods, what happens pre-flood and what happens post-flood in your world?
Eric Letvin (09:05):
FEMA does require every state and local governments who have a hazard mitigation plan and they're updated every five years. And the community you live in the United States, if you Google that community and hazard mitigation plan, typically you'll find it pretty easily. And that plan is required to identify the hazards that could affect the community, those risks, and what is the community's plan to address them? A lot of communities will use that hazard mitigation plan and other type of planning documents to apply for grants. If you know you have an area that's flooding in your community over and over for whatever reason, it was built before we had flood maps or it's an undersized culvert or if you look at the National climate assessment, we're seeing increased rainfall, increased river flooding.
(09:53):
So it's an area that a community knows needs to be addressed so pre-disaster, they can apply to us to, so let's talk flooding. That's really the bread and butter of what we do. We fund a lot of local stormwater type projects, culvert improvements, roads, flood walls, levees, stormwater management, dams, things of that nature. And we also work with homeowners. We elevate homes, we acquire homes, we build small levees, things of that nature to mitigate that threat. So pre-disaster, those communities can take that plan and other documents and apply for our grants to address that. That's the real story, is when the floodwaters rise and you see vacant land or elevated homes and those homeowners have minimal disaster suffering and that's really the success of mitigation. Same thing happens post-disaster.
(10:43):
So when there is a federal declaration, depending on the severity... We can talk state of Kentucky. Last year I went to Kentucky, we had extreme flooding there. So people get flooded, whole communities get flooded and they can tap into our post-disaster mitigation grants. Those go right to the state and the governor, he or she or tribal leader gets to set those priorities. So they'll work with their local governments to decide, okay, we're going to give this amount of money to this community and then that community can use those dollars for whatever purpose. As long as it's eligible within our programs, they can use those dollars how they see fit to help them rebuild after an event.
Yin Lu (11:23):
We just talked about flood and what happens pre-disaster and post-disaster. What about other natural hazards that are becoming more frequent? Fires, for example. Hurricanes. What do those playbooks look like?
Eric Letvin (11:38):
Let's talk wildfire for example. We spend around 1% of our mitigation grant dollars on wildfire, and we know from the National Climate Assessment what we've seen in the last even four or five years, wildfires certainly represent a much greater percent of risk in our country. And so that's something we're really trying to work with in a wildfire mitigation, whether it be vegetative management or structural hardening, those are eligible projects. Now, there are other agencies that help fund wildfire mitigation. We're not the only ones. I'd say the US Forest Service within Agriculture and Department of Interior, we work closely with them and they do fund a lot of wildfire mitigation. So climate change is causing more disasters.
(12:22):
There's a famous graphic that everyone uses at conferences from NOAA. It shows the number of billion dollar disasters, and that trend is going up pretty steeply. What does that mean for us FEMA, our other federal partners, state and local governments? What should we be doing to help mitigate the threat of wildfire in communities? So it's really a whole of government, a whole of community type of solution that's needed.
Yin Lu (12:48):
I want to touch on the graphic that you just mentioned. It is a graphic I've seen as well, billion dollar disasters. How many have we had in 2023 already?
Eric Letvin (12:58):
As of November 8th, there's been 25.
Yin Lu (13:01):
25 $1 billion climate disasters this year so far. That is wild.
Eric Letvin (13:06):
One drought event, two flooding events, 19 severe storm events, one tropical cyclone event, one wildfire event, and one winter storm event. Overall, these events have resulted in the deaths of 464 people.
Yin Lu (13:21):
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(13:55):
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(14:21):
So FEMA has a annual budget of around 30 million a year roughly, and I'm assuming that looking at the sheer number of $1 billion disasters, that budget covers a lot of those costs, but I wonder if there are other agencies that also chip in helping with disaster relief and what that looks like. And I wonder how that budget breaks down and what percentage or what portion of that budget is going to the pre and post mitigation work that you're doing?
Eric Letvin (14:55):
For your listeners, I think this would be helpful. When an event's occurring, let's say there's a hurricane that's coming up the west coast of Florida like Hurricane Ian, the state and local governments will turn on their emergency operations center. And we have regional offices across the country that have operation centers and so we will talk and work with those states and local governments to help them even before disaster declaration happens. We're talking emergency operation center to emergency operation center. When there's a big event like Hurricane Ian, we'll stand up our National Response Coordination Center here in Washington DC and you'll typically see the FEMA administrator on the Weather Channel or CNN or what have you, taking interviews from that room when that stood up.
(15:39):
So we're coordinating ahead of time on helping understand what the effects of that storm might be or any models, trying to understand where we need to put commodities like food or water or staff. So when there's a declaration, and I worked in the National Response Coordination Center during Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, I had the night shift from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM. That was quite interesting. What essentially we are doing is helping them with their unmet needs. Do they need supplies to help shore up a hospital or do they need power poles? Do they need cell phone towers? Do they need sandbags, food, water, commodities, infant, toddler kits? And so once that happens and there's a declaration, we have all the different federal agencies, including Interior and Agriculture, including Department of Defense sitting with us in that room.
(16:29):
How we fund that is through something called a Disaster Relief Fund, and Congress gives us that money to help with disasters every year. And so what we do there is we will mission assign other agencies. So even though we're fairly small, you could fit all of our employees inside of a college basketball arena, we have the resources of the entire federal government in our hands. Congress back at the end of September just replenished our Disaster Relief Fund.
Yin Lu (16:56):
Separate from the Disaster Relief Fund, I believe Congress also earmarked $7 billion for a lot of resiliency work that's happening within FEMA. Can you talk more about that?
Eric Letvin (17:06):
The $7 billion that we received from Congress in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a good chunk of that actually goes into the programs that I'm responsible for. So the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law gave Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities $1 billion over five years. It gave our Flood Mitigation Assistance program $3.5 billion over five years. And then we have a new program that was funded called the Safeguarding Tomorrow Through Ongoing Risk Mitigation Act. That's $500 million a year over five years. Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program, that is our pre-disaster grant program. And so states, tribes, territories apply for that. So a flood project in Maine could compete against a wildfire project in Oregon or a tornado safe room in Oklahoma.
(17:57):
So for the most part, those dollars are competitive. We fund the best projects given the amount of funding we have every year. Flood Mitigation Assistance program, that program is aimed at the structures in our National Flood Insurance Program that get flooded over and over again and we're paying claims out. It's trying to get those structures mitigated, might say mitigated. It's typically acquired or elevated. That new program, Safeguarding Tomorrow, so that's like a revolving loan fund where essentially FEMA would fund a state and then that state will run a loan program with their local governments to fund mitigation activities. So that's really a one-time plus up. Those programs existed before. The revolving loan fund was new, but that law essentially said, hey, FEMA, we're going to put more money into pre-disaster hazard mitigation. Those programs got a big slug of funding that we're making available.
Yin Lu (18:56):
Eric, can you give any examples of what communities have been doing with that money so far?
Eric Letvin (19:03):
So we funded microgrids. We funded various types of vegetative management for wildfire. We still fund a lot of acquisitions, elevations of structures. Some of the things we're very proud of is the amount of dollars that are going into disadvantaged communities, and we've done pretty well with nature-based solutions. We funded hospital retrofits and we've undergrounded power lines and we have a list of all the projects up on our webpage. It's hard for me to hold up a single project. They're all so good and they're so diverse. We're really proud to see communities taking advantage of this funding. We still fund about 70% of our projects are flood related.
Yin Lu (19:42):
The sheer amount of times that you've brought up flood had made me realize how much I haven't been thinking about floods, but how much of a present issue it is. So maybe we can look into the Flood Mitigation Assistance program and learn more about that, given that is almost $4 billion of money that is being earmarked. I'd love to learn more about the history of the US and floods and the direction that that has taken as climate change has happened. And what problems are we seeing now that we haven't seen before?
Eric Letvin (20:17):
Wow, there's so many great questions there. So most people don't know that FEMA is, I think, the largest single casualty insurer in the world. So our Flood Insurance Program, we have roughly 4.8 million policyholders. And so that was created by Congress back in the 1960s where there is a small private market for flood, but essentially if you want a flood policy and that is required by your bank for properties in the floodplain, you come to FEMA for that policy. Back when the flood maps were created roughly in the 1970s, mid-'70s, we had a lot of structures that were built before the '70s and there's a lot of people living in those structures. Classic case would be the Tampa-St Pete area. There's a large number of slab-on-grade structures in the floodplain that were built before we had flood maps.
(21:12):
With climate change, we're seeing obviously sea levels rise. That's very well documented. We're seeing increased precipitation. Our policyholders, we're seeing large claims where we see flooding occur well outside of our mapped floodplains. We saw almost half of the flooding our claims come in outside of our mapped floodplains. The mapped floodplain is where you are required to have insurance. So we're very underinsured. So if we go into some of these communities that have a lot of floodplains, we're lucky if we see 15 or 20% of those structures in the floodplain that are insured. So the Flood Mitigation Assistance program is directed at those properties that are insured. And we see a lot of those properties coming in from the states that have a lot of policies are Florida, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, California, New York, New Jersey. That's where the bulk of our policies are.
(22:10):
We're seeing a lot of these older structures that are getting flooded over and over again because of climate change and increased urbanization and future risk. This program is helping address the thousands, if not millions of structures that were built before we had flood insurance maps that were required to be properly elevated. So with climate change, we're just seeing more and more Kentuckys and Vermonts happen every year, and that contributes to those billion-dollar disasters. And that creates a stress on our National Flood Insurance Program. So I think what Congress was saying is, hey, here's some money. Let's try to get these structures properly mitigated.
Yin Lu (22:48):
What technologies have you leveraged in learning more about what the present state is of floodplains and flood risk?
Eric Letvin (22:56):
For flood mapping, and that's an assistive director, And I know that we've acquired a large amount of LIDAR across the entire country. And we get roughly $300 million a year to update our flood maps. We try to prioritize areas that either have older maps or increase urbanization or a big population change, and we try to prioritize those areas where we spend that 300 or so million dollars, but using technology like LIDAR in advanced flood models to help produce better flood maps. And what a lot of people are asking us to do, originally we created flood maps for the purpose of determining who was required to have flood insurance, but communities use those maps to help communicate risk. And so what we're working to do is to put out additional layers of advisory data showing okay, here is your 500 year or 0.2% annual chance flood.
(23:53):
So people that are maybe not in the mapped floodplain for insurance purposes but still have flood risk. And with climate change, we're seeing flooding occur well outside of our 1% annual or 100 year floodplains. And so people are hungry for that data and we're using that funding that we have to make those maps available for people to understand the graduated risks that they face. Just because they're not in the mapped floodplain does not mean they don't have flood risk.
Yin Lu (24:22):
Are there corollaries that horde over to wildfire risk as well? Just seeing that the wildfire risk areas from 30 years ago were probably a lot bigger now in comparison, what can we learn from what we've been doing with floods to wildfires, if anything?
Eric Letvin (24:40):
It is a real challenge with wildfires. So I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the wildfire space using technology. The challenge with wildfire, there's a map that's put out every week called the National Drought Monitor. Just west of us where I live near Washington DC, we have a tremendous number of fires out in West Virginia that actually affected our air quality today. Wildfire risk changes. It changes with winds, it changes with soil moisture, it changes with fuel load. And so a wildfire risk map is very dynamic. It's not the same from one week to the next, which makes mapping and understanding that hazard incredibly challenging. I know California and some other states are trying to work hard to produce some better wildfire maps.
(25:23):
We don't have wildfire risk maps like we do for flooding. Flooding, we can model how much rain will fall and then how much of that rain will flow into rivers that will flood communities. It is much more challenging when you have a 50, 60 mile an hour wind that are blowing embers two, three, four, 10 miles. How do you model something like that with shifting winds and soil moisture? How will that ignite homes and forests is really challenging and there's a lot of work going into that. So trying to understand where it's safe to build and how to build in a dynamic environment like that is a real challenge, and that's talked about quite a bit in that Wildfire Commission report that just came out. What are some of those research challenges that we have? As hard as it is to model flooding, I think it's an order of magnitude more complicated to try to model.
Yin Lu (26:19):
We talked about floods, we talked about fires, and all of those things are happening in the context of the cities and the places that we live. And so curious what your thoughts are on how our built environment should be preparing for more frequently occurring natural disasters.
Eric Letvin (26:34):
It may surprise you, I work a lot with our partners in Canada. They have a national building code in Canada. We don't in the United States. We do have an international code that is put out by a private organization, the International Code Council. However, only about a third of the counties in the United States adopt and enforce one of the latest two editions of that code. And so that's one of the things that we are working hard at FEMA, is to try to encourage and incentivize states and local governments to adopt and enforce one of the latest editions of that code. Why is that important? Because all of our hazard research that we've learned over the last 20, 30 years from all of the disasters that have happened, how to build better for tornadoes and earthquakes and wildfires, those are all reflected in the standards that are now part of that code.
(27:29):
If a community is adopting and enforcing a 20-year-old code, they are essentially adopting and enforcing requirements that exist for our understanding of hazards that are about 30 years old. Our understanding of wildfire, wind and earthquake risk has evolved dramatically over the last 30 years. So it's very important for communities to adopt and enforce the latest edition of the building code. We know that building codes have an 11:1 return on investment. We have a lot of data that shows that communities that adopt and enforce a strong code are more resilient and have less suffering and less damage. So that's something we have a lot of work on collectively, in my opinion, in the United States for... We're doing a lot in the federal government to help promote building codes, but there's a lot of work that we need to do to increase that number beyond about a third to have state and local governments adopt and enforce the latest edition of the building code.
Yin Lu (28:27):
A prevailing theme I'm hearing from you Eric, is the need to really be more proactive and do mitigation ahead of time versus after the fact. So citing the building code example of instead of waiting for something to happen, let's just get all of our buildings up to code as soon as possible so that we can be ready in the event of a natural disaster happening, whatever that might be. The new trend of funding that we're seeing from the Infrastructure Bill to FEMA is following that same trend of can we put more money to pre-event versus post-event mitigation?
Eric Letvin (28:59):
So essentially, a community needed to be hit by a major disaster in order for mitigation dollars to be made available. And that obviously isn't ideal because that community is going through the stress of recovery, trying to rebuild. It's much more ideal, as I mentioned, to take those hazard mitigation plans and make them actionable. Those additional dollars that they gave us, I think Congress agrees with us that we need to spend more on pre-disaster. Let's not wait for an event to occur and have dollars flowing out of the Disaster Relief Fund and have disaster suffering. Let's get those structures mitigated. So it's still only 10 to 20% of our overall hazard mitigation portfolio, but with the BRIC program and the additional funding, those numbers will increase. And I hope to see them increase where we're spending more dollars pre-disaster than post-disaster.
Yin Lu (29:51):
Add on to that question. Are there key lessons that you would cite that we've learned from previous disasters that's helped us think about moving more dollars to pre-disaster?
Eric Letvin (30:00):
Well, I think one of our, we like to call them mitigation success stories, and they don't always make the news, but one example I like to talk about is the Texas Medical Center down in Houston that was hit by Tropical Storm Allison way back in, I believe, 1999 and that freed up a lot of mitigation dollars. It's largest medical campus in the world, I believe. And during Hurricane Harvey, the entire campus was surrounded by water. You couldn't get to their campus. So the people that were there had to essentially sleep there and stay there until the floodwaters receded. However, that medical campus was operational during the entire event. It had power. Those buildings did not flood because of the mitigation work that we did.
(30:42):
Those are the outcomes that we like to see, where we see a future event hit an area that we properly mitigated, and we keep that hospital complex operational, which is obviously hospitals are very important for public safety and life safety during and after a flood event. So those are the outcomes that we like to see with our mitigation dollars, and let's do more of that. If we know that we have medical campuses that are vulnerable to flooding, we saw a lot of that happen after Hurricane Sandy in New York City, New Jersey. Let's get these campuses mitigated now so that they provide the essential services that communities need during and after an event.
Yin Lu (31:19):
That's well said. Before we wrap, it sounds like there's two resources that you've cited a few times for anyone who's interested in diving deeper. One is the Wildfire Commission report that was co-authored by the USDA and FEMA, and the other is National Climate Assessment.
Eric Letvin (31:35):
The National Climate Assessment, the Fifth National Assessment came out this week. My advice to my staff and my advice to your listeners would be to read, read, read. A lot of these reports, there are webinars and Q&As with the authors. There's nothing better. A lot of time and effort went into these reports by a lot of smart people. I encourage everybody just to, even if you skim through parts of it, just read these reports, you will learn so much. I look at the National Climate Assessment, I'm an engineer. This is what the scientists are telling me is going to happen. So I work in emergency management. It's my job to help communities prepare for natural disasters. That report is like a roadmap as to what's going to happen. So it's my job to use those mitigation dollars and work with communities to help them understand their risk, and let's take steps now to minimize what is likely to happen at some point in the future.
Yin Lu (32:31):
Great. I think that's a wonderful note to end on. Eric, thank you. This goes without saying, but you and your team and all of FEMA is doing incredible work that is helping us as a country become stronger in the face of changing climate. And thank you for coming onto the show today.
Eric Letvin (32:47):
Thank you for having me.
Jason Jacobs (32:48):
Thanks again for joining us on My Climate Journey podcast. At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity. If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at mcjcollective.com. And if you have a guest suggestion, let us know that via Twitter @mcjpod.
Yin Lu (33:14):
For weekly climate op-eds jobs, community events and investment announcements from our MCJ venture funds, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our website.
Jason Jacobs (33:24):
Thanks, and see you next episode.
