Editors note: This interview was edited for brevity, you can listen and watch the full interview at the bottom of the page.
WILMINGTON — On Tuesday morning, Lynda Wylde from our partner radio station, The Dude, sat down with FEMA spokesperson Pamela Saulsby to discuss the federal relief agency’s ongoing efforts in North Carolina seven months after Hurricane Florence — and the need to prepare for June 1, the start of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season.
LINDA WYLDE: I grew up in Wisconsin. FEMA was, to me, something you saw on TV – FEMA rushing in to help people. Then we really saw it last year, full force, when Florence came and stayed for so long. And so many of us were left in conditions that we never thought we’d be in.
PAMELA SAULSBY: Here’s the thing — if you fly into the city or take a drive downtown, you would never know that something really serious had ever happened here. But if you go into neighborhoods, into communities, you will see the impacts are still so strong. You’ll see stripped-down homes, places that seem to have not been touched at all since the hurricane came through. The homes are in different forms of disrepair.
That is part of the reason why FEMA still has a presence seven months into this disaster. Progress since Florence has been significant: in federal dollars, $1.2 billion have been approved and dispersed to businesses, homeowners, and renters to try to get them on the other side of the disaster. That’s been in the form of FEMA grants, low-interest loans from the Small Business Administration, and from the National Flood Insurance Program.
But there are still large pockets of folks in the 34 impacted counties who still need assistance. So we are still very much at work — boots on the ground — trying to connect people with the right resources if they were unable to get them from the federal government.
If someone still has problems, things they need help with, what is the best way for them to get that help?
If they are registered with FEMA and maybe they want us to review their case, if their housing situation has changed, if they would like to have a program they are in continued, they can call our helpline at 800-621-FEMA (800-621-3362). And the state also has a disaster helpline (211).
It doesn’t matter what they’re income is, whether they are insured or uninsured, whether they are documented or undocumented; they are there to help people and connect them with resources in this community.
When something like this happens, it’s such a huge disaster that spreads over so many counties and affects so many people. How do you manage that with FEMA being such a big organization?
Well, that’s what FEMA is tasked with — orchestrating what that recovery will look like and making sure that the communities get the resources they need; that we make sure Governor Cooper and the state gets what they need.
It’s hard for a lot of people to navigate through this because it’s a bureaucracy, there’s no question about that. There is red tape, there are steps and delays. Sometimes you just get paralyzed because it is so overwhelming.
So the state is managing a FEMA-funded program called Disaster Case Management. And the people who run this organization are there to get people to find a new ‘normal’, however that looks.
If you’re just unsure what to do, what resources are out there, or you didn’t get assistance from FEMA or you need someone to fill in the gaps – there are so many resources out there. People just need to know where to go. And the Disaster Case Management program was designed for just that purpose.
That’s crucial, because when you get in a situation like that it’s easy to say, “I don’t even know where to start. I don’t even know what the first step is going to be.” It’s overwhelming and emotional.
People are naturally concerned about just getting their homes back together, building back what they lost. And sometimes you lose track of the fact that — yes it created trauma in a neighborhood — but it’s also traumatizing for the people who went through it.
We keep reminding them what we can do to help them, but it still brings back those days immediately after Florence. We know there are people in distress. FEMA is funding a state-managed program, Hope4NC, to offer crisis counseling. And there’s no stigma or shame because it’s almost expected that going through something like Florence will leave a mark. It changes you – families, grownups, and children.
It’s unbelievable — the fact that we’re almost seven months recovering from Florence and yet we’re 53 days from the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season. What do we need to know going forward here?
To be prepared. Yes: after a disaster, state, federal, and nonprofit resources come in. But you have to recognize that you are responsible for your recovery. And so you need to make sure that you are prepared and that your family has a plan.
It’s hard to think about that when you consider folks are still in the throes of just trying to build back their lives, their businesses, their communities. But you have to be mindful of the reality that June 1st is the start of the hurricane season.
There’s a FEMA app you can download, called Ready.gov, that shows everything: tips on what to do with your pets, how to really make a plan — like what are you actually going to do if there’s a warning, if a watch turns into a warning, and where are you going to go?
And we often say the first line of defense in a disaster is to have flood insurance. And homeowners insurance doesn’t cover it. A lot of people are wishing now that they got a plan for their family.
I know this isn’t great timing to talk about it, because folks are in the throes of pulling their lives back together. But June 1st is the start, and it’s time to be prepared.
With the insurance, I know the companies require the plan to be in place for a certain amount of time before it happens. So you can’t call a couple of days before a hurricane and ask to add a plan.
That’s right. It’s a way to finance your recovery. Folks rebound faster when they have that National Flood Insurance Plan.
There’s a lot of relief in that. And so we’ve been encouraging people to enroll. Because they say that it’s not a question of if we’ll be hit by another superstorm, it’s just a question of when.
