>>This week on NewsNight fro Helene to Milton, Florida deals with a catastrophic hurrican season.

We'll hea from an emergency manager about how agencies prepar and we'll discuss issues aroun equity in storm response.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-dept look at the top stories and issues here in Central Florida an how they shape our community.

Tonight, as Florida count the cost of two major hurricanes in as many weeks, we wanted to spend some time looking at how agencies typically prepare for storms like Milton and Helene.

First, a portion of a conversation I had with one of Central Florida's emergency managers in 2022, after Hurricane Ian hit our state.

I sat down then with Alan Harris, the emergency manager for Seminole County.

>>As long as we ar in the cone of uncertainty until we conside a direct strike as the only viable optio for preparedness.

So we look at what would the worst case scenario be.

So we look at all the model runs.

We look at how fast it's moving to us.

How, what the projected strength of the storm would be once it gets here.

And then we make determinations based on that.

And there's a lot of modeling that goes with that.

So we know about how many people would evacuate based on the different categories and approximately how long it would take individuals to evacuate from their home, including those that have transportation dependencies.

From that, then we can make decisions on when do we need to start preparedness, when do we need to open up shelters, when do we need to start transportation service to get people to the shelters?

And about how long do we have to make sure that all of our critical infrastructures are protected before the storm gets here?

>>Hurricanes are easier than some natural disasters in that you can see them coming, they're trickier in that they're all different.

How do you prepare when each stor are all such different events?

>>So it's really getting people out of the mindset.

In Florida we're pretty used to hurricanes.

Most people at least, that have lived in Florida for a while.

So we had to, get those individuals to reevaluate what they though because they may be considering everything based on their last storm.

And then for all the new people that have moved into Florida, trying to educate them on what to expect.

>>When the sun comes up and you can see firsthand with your own eye what the scale of the damage is.

What's your first instinct as an emergency manager?

What do you want to do?

Do you want to get out there and help people yourself?

>>So, I I'm, I have a fire background, so certainly I want to be in the field and helping people, but I also understand my role and my role in emergency management is to coordinate.

So, give the first responders, give the individuals that are out there the tools that they need to accomplish the mission, whether that's bringing a National Guard, whether it's ordering hundreds of thousands of sandbags, whether that's bringing in dams to go around critical infrastructures, whether it's gettin commodities, food, water, tarps, those types of things to individuals in flood prone areas and, making sure that our shelter were equipped and ready to go, that they had ample supplies.

There were people there, for persons with disabilities, for individuals that had pets, all the different types of services that need to be there as well as crisis, mental health, certainly.

We can we we've learned quite a few things over the years in hurricanes.

One of the things that we need to make sure that we have is ample high terrain vehicles, vehicles that can go into flood flooded waters.

So making sure that we have ample vehicles that can do those types of things and I know there's a lot of resistance to that in the in the world that the there's a talk about militarizing the law enforcement.

But these are no although they are old military vehicles, they're not used for that type of activity.

They're used to evacuate individuals and their pets.

And, over and over and over again, you see these Army type vehicles, these large trucks, in the, in the neighborhoods and they're pulling individuals of special needs and wheelchairs out of their homes, not used i military militaristic settings.

So it's it's really changing the culture.

And unfortunately, in the United States also, and really everywhere people are used to instant, instant response.

So you push a button and the groceries show up at the front door.

They expect that for debris as well.

They expect that they will be able to push a button or the garbage truck that comes by will come and pick up the debris.

And and it's just changing the mindset.

We are so used to instan and immediate response to things now, it's hard for people to understand or really grasp what it is for a long lasting disaster which unfortunately does happen.

>>Do we need to change our mindset as well in these inland communities as to what a disaster might look like?

You know, resiliency and flood mitigation has been a thing in coastal areas i Central Florida for a long time.

That's not new in our state.

For a lot of people here in a fast growing area that may have moved here fairly recently, they might think, boy, I thought we were safe here.

We're you know, 50 miles from the sea.

Do we have to adjust our mindsets?

>>Absolutely.

And that's really for, not only just people in general but our elected officials.

Individuals in the media because what do they love to go?

What are the reporters love to go?

They love to go out on the beach.

They don't go inlan to see what's happening there.

We're only 30 miles from the coast.

We're not going to lose a category in strength of hurricane if it comes in off of the East coast, and if it comes on the West Coast fast enough, we're not going to lose much here either, that it's still going to be very, very heavy winds.

The only thing that we don't have, which is horrific on the coastline, is the storm surge but we get the flooding instead.

And that sits with us for a long period of time.

It's different risks for the same hazard.

>>Seminole Count Emergency Manager Alan Harris.

Well, next tonight, Hurricanes Milton and Helene and the homeowner's insurance crisis in our state.

Last week, NewsNigh held a public event in Kissimmee on issues facing Florida voters this election.

As part of that conversation, I talked with former Republican state Senator Jeff Brandes, one of the state lawmakers who led the push for reforms to the state's insurance industry.

>>Well look, 750 people mov to Florida net every single day.

And so I think tha that highlights it.

But let's just take one dat point of housing, because housin is clearly top of mind.

You know, back in during the Covid era of jus just 2019, 2020, you could buy at house in Central Florida for about $250,000.

Today, that's $400,000, right.

And so what we're seeing is the demand has well outstripped supply of housing.

And that is one thing that I think is going to hold Florida back going forward.

We have to address these issues like housing, property insurance, general affordability.

These are the top three issues in the state of Florida.

A poll was just released today by the Associated Industries of Florida.

And really tying neck and neck in that state, in the state was, general affordabilit kind of things are everything's costing more.

And property insurance at 23%, both of they - they said that was the number one issue in Florida.

The number three issue i Florida was was housing at 12%.

Saying housing was becoming the most challenging issue.

So I think, you know, we can see all of these things beginning to play out.

But I think what's going to slow the migration to Florida is, frankly, that just housing is costing so much more.

Property insurance is costing so much more.

And there's general affordability issues.

Florida isn't the super affordable state i was just a handful of years ago.

>>I can certainly attest to that.

The legislature, of course, passed the live local act.

You were one of the leaders, on pushing for, homeowners insurance reform.

Is the legislature, do you think, doing enough to tackle these things?

>>No.

Look, I mean, here's the thing.

We have these great public universities.

We have some students from UC in the audience with us today.

What what university is doing any research on housing or doing any research on property insurance?

None of them.

The legislature, to my knowledge, has zero research studies.

We had no pagar.

We have no research studies going on in the state on the issue of housing of of of housing affordability, or on the issue of insurance, there's a lot more we should be doing.

We should be the nation's leader in best practices on both of those issues.

Instead of, you know, what we're currently doing, which is just kind of a big question mark.

>>Jeff Brandes, former Republican state senator, the reminde you can always find information on hurricanes and severe weather affecting our region by visiting the WUCF Storm Cente Well, as federal agencies in Florida and North Carolina work to help residents pick up the pieces, an impending election mean even more attention than usual is being paid to the work of FEMA and the job the federa government is doing in response.

After Ian, I spoke with Chauncia Willis, the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management.

We talked about systemic inequities in the response to disasters such as hurricanes.

>>Why are marginalized communities, disproportionately impacted?

Quite honestly, it' because of the systems that we have in place in our country, and we see a lot of the sam issues all around the world.

Unfortunately, our country has, created a construct that pits the wealthy, more affluent, individuals and families in a position where they're able to prepare more adequately and have more acces to resources before a disaster.

And for those that do not have adequate resources and those that do not have the socio economic status, of others, they essentially don't do well in disasters and they face disproportionate impact.

>>What about those agencies that distribute aid?

Do we see systemic issues in organizations like FEMA, for example, that might contribute to this issue?

>>Well, you know, FEMA has done a great job in terms of really focusing on equity.

However, the reason they're focusing on equity is because there are so many pervasive, inequitable policies that are systemic that have negatively impacted, communities of color and marginalized communities throughout our country.

And those policies include everything from individual assistance after disaster, public assistance even before a disaster.

Just the amount of funding that goes into lower income communities is almost negligible.

And so the infrastructure support, the mitigation in lower income communities is not there.

And so after a disaster or when a disaster strikes, they are not in a position to adequately, be able to respond to a disaster such as major flooding, because they just don't have the infrastructure.

There's been a lack of investment.

So we saw that with Jackson, Mississippi, as well.

>>Well I was going to ask you about Florida as a specific example of this issue.

Would you agree?

It's almost like, a perfect storm if you like, because Florida communities, Tampa, for example, Orlando, large minority communities, larg numbers of underserved people.

Also, as we now know from Hurricane Ian, very vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters.

Does that make this issu all the more pressing in Florida in particular?

And in other places in the South?

>>I think Florida is is like the perfect example of the haves and the have nots and how that impact a person's ability to recover.

We looked at Sanibel Island down there in Lee County, that Fort Myers Naples area, and all we saw in the news every night was what the yachts crashing into one another on the beach.

We saw the yachts and we saw the big boats.

And you never heard about the people who didn't have access to, a house and didn't have access to food before the storm.

And Florida has all of those communities, in some cases living within five miles of one another.

So at the same tim that you're seeing these houses that are huge and coastal and they chose not to evacuate, at the same time, we go ou to communities that are nearby wher they were living in trailers, and they didn't have acces to, to the internet.

They weren't receiving warnings and so they couldn't evacuate.

So you have a choice to evacuate, and you say, no, I'll stay because I want to make sure my home is okay.

But then you have a group of people over here who had no choice, and they didn't even receive initial response first.

They were the last to receive that initial response.

And they're going to be th last, unfortunately, to recover unless we do something about it and change the way we think about, these underserved communities in times of disaster.

>>Chauncia Willi from the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management.

Meanwhile you can find much more NewsNight content on our website.

Be sure to visit us at wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay, finally tonight thi hurricane season has once again highlighted the issue of resiliency along our state's coastline.

Earlier this year, we brought togethe a panel of experts on resiliency for a special edition of NewsNight.

Here's a portion of that discussion.

Joining me in the studio now to talk about resiliency efforts here in Central Florida are Leesa Souto.

She's Operations Director for Applied Ecology.

Applied Ecology works with cities, counties and the state on environmental resource management.

Ecological studies and more.

Doctor Souto has been working in the field of Florida's water resources for more than 30 years including shoreline restoration.

Darcie McGee, Assistant Director of Brevard County Natural Resources Management Department, Breavard's beach management program, administers several beach restoration projects to protect property and maintain healthy beaches.

Courtney Barker She's been city manager of Satellite Beach since 2013.

Satellite beach established a Green committee in 2015.

It's also published its first sustainability action plan in 2017.

And Jennifer Rupert, she' the regional resiliency officer for the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council.

The council, established in 1962, is an are wide association of governments.

Its members provide projec policy and planning assistance to governments and organizations within eight counties in the East Central Florida region.

Thank you guys so much for coming in.

Really appreciate your time today.

Let me start with a broad question for each of you.

How do you define coastal resilience?

I mean, if you had to explain it to somebody in the ride up an elevator, what does it mea to have a resilient coastline?

And I'll start with you, Leesa.

>>Well, I think resiliency is about planning and being adaptable.

So trying to understand what's coming at you so you can be prepared for it.

So it's really just a matter of, you know, being abl to collect the information that you need to know to predic what's about to happen to you in the next time frame, be it 50 years or 100 years.

So you can be prepared.

So with cities and counties and governments, it's a big deal.

We do a lot of installations with the military to prepare them.

They've got missions tha they need to get accomplished.

But even households, we're always planning right for maintenance for things that are coming at us.

So resiliency is really just a different kind of a planning mechanism.

>>Sure, what do you think Darcie?

>>We define that as the ability to bounce forward, to look at people, places and prosperity and plan for the future so that we can bounce forwar and not bounce back from any kinds of shock and stressors.

>>Yeah.

Courtney how do you view resiliency?

>>I view it as, you know, the term came out really as a way to describ how cities and counties and local governmen are going to respond to the impacts of climate chang and, and sea level rise, and that includes everythin from the increased heat to the eroding shorelines to even water quality issues and storms.

I mean, flooding.

So being a resilient communit for us means that we can survive that we can bounce back faster because we know and we're prepared for what is coming.

So and that really is i the face of a changing climate.

>>And you mentioned storms.

And of course, that's particularly relevant this year because it's predicted that we'll have a fairly busy season.

Hopefully we don't.

Of course, Jennifer, what do you think?

>>You know, we do use the ability to bounce forward, respond to and recover from I think shocks and stressors is the kind of common theme.

So those short term shocks, hurricane infrastructure failures, those kinds of things and those longer term stressors, that does include climate change.

It does include affordable housing.

It includes, shifting economic trends.

So kind of looking at i holistically, from that people, places and prosperit perspective is, I think, what all local governments and people are challenged to.

And I think for late, in layman's terms, it's really, you know, how are we setting ourselves up for success?

You know, as you're walking out the door in the morning, what do you do to set your family yourself up for success?

And I think local governments are applying that same type of mantra and things that we do and plan for.

>>You guy mentioned there about the causes of the resiliency issues that we face and I wonder whether we can pinpoint everything.

I mean, there's there' climate change, sea level rise, but there's also other things, right?

I mean, the development that we've done on dunes over the years, stronger storms.

What do you see as the the main causes for the resiliency issues that we face today Leesa?

>>We're really struggling with what to do with our floodplain areas in Florida.

We've got an awful lot of low lying wetland areas and flood plain areas.

That is where everybody wants to live.

And so historically, that has been compromised.

And now they're about to be taken back.

Right.

So with sea level ris and groundwater rise, there are there are just low lying areas are going to fill in.

And that's not just on the coast.

So the rivers are going to fill up.

The low lyin wetlands are going to fill up.

Everything is going to fill up very slowly, gradually.

So that's that's a big issue where we're still seeing, you know, developers going in and getting variances today to build right in those flood areas.

So that's a big change that needs to happen.

And that's a sentiment, a political change, a political wi that needs to change entirely.

We need to stop building in the area where we have potential storage for all this water that's coming.

>>Does the way we tackle zoning, construction incentives have to be tailore specifically for our region, because I've covered the resiliency effort that have taken place.

For example, in Miami Beach where they've kind of jacked buildings up.

I mean, the whole city is essentially higher, the streets are higher.

Businesses have been raised up, pumping stations, walls and so on.

I wonder whether there are unique challenges to doing resiliency where we are in Central Florida Leesa?

>>There is a process that, called the vulnerability assessment that cities and countie and regions can participate in, and that gets funded by the state of Florida, where they can go into their community and understand very specifically what their issues are.

Each communit has their own unique situation in the inland here in Central Florida, temperature migh be more of an issue than water.

Or it could b that because they have parched aquifers, their stormwate doesn't have enough, anywhere for it to drain down.

So when it rains, i sits on the surface for longer.

So everything is going to pond different different than mayb farther south or farther north.

So each community kind of ha to look at their vulnerability themselves.

What do they think is vulnerable?

So trying to redesign the entire stormwater infrastructure to deal with what is probably going to be the 500 year storm that's coming, you know, every couple of years is is going to be unique for each, for each community.

>>So what we're trying to do from our perspectiv in terms of, comprehensive plan and land development regulations, is we're in the middle of doing our, what they call the ear every seven years.

You look at your comprehensive plan and see where it needs to be tweaked.

Now we need to figure out how do we take these concepts we came up with that were adopted by the board of County Commissioners.

I mean, it was a very successful activity.

How do we now implement those?

How do we get out of the way of innovation?

Because some of the stuff that we have, we recognize is not allowing people to be innovative if they want to be.

So that's what we're working o now, is to how do we get the parallel flood policies implemente for developers to use?

They have to have the tools to use them or they're not going to use them.

>>One thing that Hurricane Ian showed us was that resiliency is not just an issue in coastal areas, right?

I mean, there are resilience, resiliency issues being faced everywhere, huge amounts of flooding in Seminole County and in Osceola County.

How do you tell people that they should be concerned about these issues if they live 50 miles away from the coast?

What do you think, Leesa?

>>Yeah, it's hard to.

So it is hard to get humans to get excited about something that might happen to them in the future.

Right.

We've seen that.

So I think once Ian goes through, then people are more likely to listen to you so you can wait for the emergency to happen.

And now you've got an active listening audience.

Unfortunately you know, we're very reactive.

We humans.

I'm a planner.

You're a planner.

We're probably all planners here.

So we like to we like to be more proactive.

We like to plan for things to happen.

But as a species, we tend to be reactive.

We do.

So, you know, once the storm goes through, that's the tim to make the political changes.

That's the time to make the move.

The state is investing, right?

The state is is coming to the table with force and money and ideas and technical capabilities.

And we need it.

So I'm more optimistic than I've been in my career ever, in Florida with what changes are being made with what, local governments bring to the table with our governor and our state government is bringing to the table, in the federal government as well.

You know, we're doin a lot of federal work right now, but I'm really encouraged with the vision that we have in Florida and the momentum that we're beginning to, aspire to.

We're just getting rolling.

But I can feel the momentum coming.

>>Well, let's talk about whether you guys are, optimistic.

What do you think, Darcie?

Are you optimistic for the future of our coastal areas and our inland areas, too?

>>Of course.

Depends on what day you ask me.

But in general, yes.

Yes.

I mean, Brevard County, when you talk about differences of other areas, you look at Volusia County where their beaches are hardened, they're already hardened wit giant, massive condos on there.

Miami same thing.

Brevard County still has natural shorelines even where they're developed.

We do not allow hardening, seawalls on the beach.

And so seeing the benefits of engineering with nature and how do you use natural infrastructure to actually address these issues?

Living shorelines, West wetland restoration and preservation and trying to, use what we have left to to assist us in managing water and not just not just on the coast.

>>Whe I first started with the city, the first meeting that we had about climate change, and we put the words climate change meeting here, you know, on our marquee, and we we had a lot of people, why are you doing this?

This is not, necessary.

This is a waste of money.

And now we have the meetings.

Now we're talking about what is the city going to look like, you know, where are we going to go ahead and create codes to elevate structures?

What?

How is that going to happen?

And and they're great conversations.

So it's very exciting to see that.

And I think if we can continue on and marching forward and making some good land use policy statewide as well as statewide transportation changes, investing in our public transportation and start reducing emissions, I would be really happy.

>>Jennifer, last word to you.

Are you optimistic?

Do you agree with what you've heard here?

>>Yeah, absolutely.

And there is a lot of hope in this work.

There is nothing like a hazar to be the great unifier, right?

We all experience things, in the shared humanity the same way, whether it's flood, fire or whatever that impact is.

And I think when you talk about efficiency and effectiveness in government structures and really working from a whole of government perspective, you're seeing that at every level of government, whether it's federal, state, regional and local.

Even thinking about the women on this stage that I have, I find a lot of hope in the work that we're doing the relationships we've built, and the connections that we continue to, work together to for the greater good.

>>Jennifer Rupert, rounding out our discussio on resiliency earlier this year.

Next Friday night at 8:30, we'll return with the first of two special episodes of NewsNight Conversations previewing the upcoming election on November 5th.

We hope you'll join us then.

In the meantime, from all of us here at NewsNight.

Take care and be safe.