Kickoff to Hurricane Season 2020: An update on the mitigation efforts in Puerto Rico from Hurricanes Irma and Maria
What we’re talking about
Puerto Rico was devastated in 2017 by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which left behind billions of dollars in damages. In this episode, we’ll hear from the lead of FEMA’s Mitigation Assessment Team for the 2017 storms and have an update on the island’s current mitigation efforts from the previous State Hazard Mitigation Officer for Puerto Rico.
The Building Science Branch of FEMA’s Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA) oversees the Mitigation Assessment Team project to support the identification of mitigation requirements after a major disaster. After Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, the Mitigation Assessment Team, led by our first guest Stuart Adams, identified several key mitigation needs for Puerto Rico, including adopting an updated building code. The key to any successful mitigation program is ensuring recommendations are implemented by state and local communities. Our second guest in this episode, Tidal Basin’s Senior Director of Recovery Jose Valenzuela, will share how Puerto Rico implemented FEMA’s mitigation recommendations from the 2017 Mitigation Assessment Team report.
Transcript
(0:04 – 0:21)
This is Disaster Recovery Roundtable, a platform to explore, engage, and educate the emergency management community. Our topics are timely and relevant, intended to promote the exchange of ideas and best practices. You’re listening to our special coverage of Hurricane Season 2020.
(0:22 – 0:34)
Now, here’s your host, Greg Paget. And thank you, Steve Henderson, and welcome to Disaster Recovery Roundtable. We continue our special kickoff week covering Hurricane Season 2020.
(0:34 – 1:35)
Today, we take a look at how mitigation is helping Puerto Rico prepare for the next hurricane. Our mitigation folks here at Tidal Basin say, in the emergency management cycle, you begin and end with mitigation. Let’s see if our first guest agrees.
Stuart Adams led FEMA’s mitigation assessment team in Puerto Rico in 2017 and helped put together the report from the consulting team on recommendations on the mitigation needs for the island as they began the recovery process. Stuart, welcome to Disaster Recovery Roundtable. Thanks, Greg.
Happy to be here and definitely echo what you said, where mitigation is a foundation of resilience. You must mitigate to be able to withstand the next hurricanes, and we’re definitely there alongside FEMA making that happen. Let’s first begin a little bit about yourself.
What’s your background? How do you become part of the mitigation assessment team? And then what does that team process look like? Sure, thanks. So, I’m a structural engineer and project manager. I’ve been working alongside FEMA for about eight years, and I’ve also worked with FEMA previously through academia.
(1:36 – 2:02)
I currently lead a consulting support for FEMA Building Science, which hosts the mitigation assessment team. I’ve been doing that for a few years now and really enjoy it. When a mitigation assessment team is requested or required, I guess any major disaster, that’s part of the process at some point, right? You come in a few weeks or months after the impact and you start the process.
(2:02 – 2:43)
How does that actually work? Yeah, so the mitigation assessment team has been visiting significant disasters for over three decades now. So, after a significant disaster, FEMA looks at building performance and determines if there’s something that could inform the codes, the standards to build more resiliently. And if there is a determination that there can be something significantly learned from the event, a team of national experts partner with local stakeholders, including government officials and local engineers and architects to assess building performance and develop the mitigation assessment team report.
(2:43 – 5:56)
You know, 89 was a really bad year for Puerto Rico with Hurricane Hugo. Did you see any improvements from Hugo from a mitigation standpoint that helped with the impacts from Irma Maria, or was there not enough done after Hugo? So, that’s a good point. Within the mitigation assessment team, we actually had, there is a mitigation assessment team report for Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane George’s previous events.
And we did have the lead of the report on our team. And so, they were able to convey their recollection of the events. We also, of course, worked with local stakeholders, local government officials that have lived through George’s, have lived through Irma, lived through Maria to understand their thoughts.
And, you know, one thing that was definitely a major positive since 1989, since, you know, Hurricane George’s in 1998, was the adoption of a latest consensus code or a recent consensus code. And that was the, in 2011, Puerto Rico adopted the 2009 international codes. And so, that meant that, you know, since 2011, 2012 time period, if you went through the permitting process, you were building to consensus design standards that are hazard resistant.
They don’t have the latest provisions, and Puerto Rico now has adopted the latest provisions. But it was definitely very much a positive. But, you know, as people know, Puerto Rico has gone through an economic hardship over the past decade.
And so, there hasn’t been a lot of construction since that code was adopted. But you did see some commercial buildings, some new residential developments that had adopted, you know, and were utilizing the 2009 codes. And we saw good performance there.
So, but we did still see opportunities to improve. And we think that with the adoption of the 2018 Puerto Rico Building Code, it really takes it to the next step to be more resilient and better prepared for the next hurricanes. Stay with us.
Our conversation with Stuart Adams, who led FEMA’s mitigation assessment team in Puerto Rico, will continue right after this. You’re listening to Disaster Recovery Roundtable. Now, here’s a preview of our next episode.
Our coverage of hurricane season 2020 continues as we visit with emergency managers on the front lines in hurricane-prone communities across the U.S. We’ll hear how preparations are going in Palm Beach County, Florida, the city of Houston, and in Virginia Beach, Virginia. One of the biggest challenges we have in Hampton Roads is getting around, traversing our transportation network, which is filled with bridges and tunnels, which makes evacuation extremely challenging. Now, back to your host, Greg Paget.
And welcome back. We are discussing mitigation as we continue our coverage of the start of hurricane season. Our guest today is Stuart Adams, who led the assessment team process for Hurricanes Irma and Maria down in Puerto Rico.
(5:56 – 11:05)
Would you say the major recommendation out of your report, the mitigation assessment team report, was that there needs to be an updated building code? Not only adopting the building code, but enforcing the building code. I think that was really what was the major recommendation and making sure it’s a holistic consideration, you know, from the, you know, a more rural area of Puerto Rico, making sure that they have the resources, they have the knowledge that there is a building code. You need to go through permitting process.
You need to do this because not only does it protect you and your family, it can protect your neighbors. There’s a lot of, you know, areas in the mountains of Puerto Rico where your neighbor lives above you. And if there’s a, if their home is damaged, it could land on your home and or a piece of it could fall on your home.
And so when you protect yourself, you’re protecting your neighbors, you’re protecting your, you know, grocery store down the street because, you know, when you’re financially secure because your home is still intact, you now can support the local businesses and everybody can get back to normalcy a little more. And that’s really important. So, you know, we consider the adoption of the latest consensus building code, which was the 2018 international codes.
Puerto Rico also enacted several hazard resistant provisions that amended the code to make them a little bit stronger and also reflect the characteristics of Puerto Rico. So, you know, not everything’s the same in Washington, D.C. as it is in Puerto Rico. So, you need to add a little bit of local amendments to it.
And I thought Puerto Rico, the Code Committee did a wonderful job with that. And then, you know, adoption is definitely important, but so is enforcement. And so working with the planning board, working with OPE, making sure that the process in place for inspecting, permit review, all that is, you know, make it as easy as possible for somebody to go through the process.
And I think that along, you know, the Commonwealth alongside FEMA really, you know, took some unique initiatives that are really forward thinking about how to make, you know, enforcement after Irma and Maria possible and also how to really think about how can we make this sustainable in the long term. So, I think that was really the two major aspects of the mitigation assessment team report was adoption of the latest consensus building codes and standards and the ability to actually enforce them. This podcast is for emergency managers and those in the community who work with emergency management.
But would you say mitigation really is a message that needs to be shared with political leaders, elected officials, those the people that really are making the decisions or need to make the decisions for our community to mitigate better for disasters? 100 percent. You know, I think that politicians, a lot of what really resonates them is with commerce and protecting the tax base. And so when you’re building, like I said, that example in rural Puerto Rico, where when you protect your house, you’re protecting your neighbors, but you’re also protecting the grocery store down the street.
So when you can, you know, go to your job, not worry about whether or not your home is destroyed, you can continue to bring commerce to your area and continue to allow jobs to stay there, allow businesses to operate. And that really resonates with politicians. And so I think, you know, it’s really, you know, now that we have COVID-19 and people are seeing, you know, resilience is very holistic in so many different aspects.
But, you know, being able to maintain a resilient infrastructure and buildings is so important to maintain that tax base. And honestly, a lot of what I know is politicians really focus on that. They do look for the well-being of their constituents, but they really want to protect that tax base.
And I think if you’re if you mitigate, you are protecting that tax base. And, you know, it’s something that needs to be done. If you could give a recommendation to a community emergency management program, from a mitigation standpoint, what are like your two, you know, top three or four key recommendations, key things to always keep in mind, key things to implement into a mitigation program? So the way I see mitigation is, you know, you have to look at all of the different stakeholders and put yourself in their their eyes, you know, what is the average homeowner thinking? What is the average business owner thinking? What is the average politician thinking? And what do you can put yourself in each one of those eyes, you can figure out what’s important to them so that and showcase why mitigation and resilience is critical to everything that they do.
(11:06 – 11:44)
You know, with a homeowner, they want to be safe in their home, they want to be healthy in their home, they want to be able to come back there and be their oasis. And if you know, you’re building to the latest hazard resistant provisions, and you can help enable that, you know, with a business, they want to be open, you know, they don’t want to go through a period of time where they’re repairing, you know, their, the roof, because it, you know, was damaged in a high wind from a hurricane, they want to be open, because there’s a lot of needs right after disaster. And it’s shown if you can, you know, be open immediately, a lot of times you can get good business.
(11:45 – 18:10)
And then also the politician, you know, protecting the tax base, protecting their constituents, and making sure that things can carry on as normal, or even improve. And so I think mitigation is within every single aspect of those different stakeholders. Stuart, thank you so much for being part of the podcast today as we continue our coverage of hurricane season 2020.
Now I want to lead folks to the FEMA website if they want to learn more about the mitigation assessment team report there on Puerto Rico and Irma and Maria. It’s FEMA P-2020 mitigation assessment team report, hurricanes Irma, Maria and Puerto Rico. If you do a search there on the FEMA library, you should be able to find it.
But we’ll also include a link with the notes section with this podcast. Stuart, thanks so much for being part of this discussion today on mitigation. Thank you so much.
Appreciate it. Okay, when we come back, we’ll hear how the recommendations that Stuart shared are being implemented by Puerto Rico, and where they stand today with another hurricane season starting while still dealing with the impacts of COVID-19. Stay with us.
Our coverage of hurricane season 2020 continues right after this. You’re listening to our special coverage of hurricane season 2020. Now back to your host, Greg Paget.
Our next guest served as a state hazard mitigation officer, or called SHMO for Puerto Rico after hurricanes Irma Maria hit the island in 2017. He oversaw the biggest HMGP award in FEMA’s history of nearly three billion dollars, and was responsible for the biggest code enforcement mitigation grant awarded by FEMA of 144 million. Please welcome to the show Title Basin’s Senior Director of Mitigation, Jose Venezuela.
Welcome, Jose. How are you doing, Greg? Doing well, thank you. Now before the break, Jose, we heard from Stuart Adams, which I understand you know very well from his role leading that mitigation assessment team process for hurricanes Irma Maria back in 17.
Stuart explained to the listeners how that whole process works and some of those key recommendations that came from the report. From your standpoint as the state mitigation officer, what advice would you give to other state hazard mitigation officers who may be have to prepare for or support one of those mitigation assessment processes after a major disaster? So one of the key roles or key opportunities that we have as a SHMO is to interact with other agencies and that for us to be able to support the mitigation process, we have to have a greater communications with the infrastructure directors of the islands or the states, the counties, building code officials, and planning officials. These usually are the ones that are the ones that are capable of helping the SHMO identify opportunities to do mitigation to either infrastructure.
It could also improve the codes, building codes, and enforce the building codes. So I think that a great communication with them will help, will ease the problems or ease the job of a SHMO from any of the counties or states, I’m sorry, any of the states. So I think that that would be a great recommendation if a SHMO sit aside and try to manage strategies by our own means and ways, it will be a very difficult job to do.
Of that report that Stuart and his team put together, what do you think was some of the most significant pieces that came out of that, some of the most important recommendations? So one of the key recommendations that we found was the building codes. At that time, the building codes in Puerto Rico were outdated, and it was a lengthy process to adopt new building codes. And when Maria hit us, the international building codes was, about 2018, was about to be released.
And the decision was made to utilize those building codes as the new standard to rebuild the island with the federal investment. And when I say federal investment, I mean funds from FEMA and also from funds from HUD through their program of this CDBGDR, or Community Development Grant. DR stands for Disaster Relief.
So once we set up the scenario, we said all the investment that will be brought to the island to repair the infrastructure or rebuild it, repair the houses or rebuild the houses, will be done in accordance to 2018 building codes, which has also embedded a lot of the techniques for mitigation. I think another great thing to stand out here in the island is that here in Puerto Rico, we have a very different topography. So we have steep slopes, we have valleys, we have mountains, and they vary a lot in height, right? So as we know, depending on the height of the topography, the changes of slope, is how the wind loads behave.
So one of the recommendations that they made was, why don’t we adopt a strategy? We call it wind microzoning. In that way, we can determine specific wind loads for the structure to be designed upon, right? We didn’t have that. We estimated the amount of wind load in the valley and up in the mountain, which behaved very differently.
So in some cases, we were under-developing, under-doing codes. And in other areas in Puerto Rico, we’re over-exceeding the requirements for a structure to sustain wind loads in accordance with hurricanes, right? So those two stand out very hard for me. And those two recommendations came from the mitigation assessment team.
(18:11 – 18:43)
Yeah, Stuart talked about that, the whole process of, you know, really from a meteorological standpoint, when you have a hurricane coming through a particular area, if you have high elevation, you may have a Cat 2 along the coastline at sea level, but you could have a higher category level well up into the mountain regions of, say, Puerto Rico. And so I can see why that would be very important for them to have stricter codes or need to have a higher, you know, building capacity there the higher up you go into the mountains. So very important there for Puerto Rico.
(18:43 – 21:13)
Where would you say the island is right now in implementing all those recommendations from that report? So currently, the government of Puerto Rico is, they were awarded, or we were awarded at that time, as you mentioned, with a building, sorry, with a code enforcement grant. It doesn’t give you any good if you have a good building codes and you don’t have a body to enforce it, right? So FEMA awarded us close to 144 million dollars, awarded the government of Puerto Rico. I’m not part of the government, currently I’m not part of the government of Puerto Rico, awarded the government of Puerto Rico 144 million dollars to enhance the capacity to code enforcement, right? So at this stage right now, Puerto Rico has adopted the building codes, is currently training, it did, is performing a lot of training to the engineers in putting the island with the new building codes, and it’s also at the same time hiring and training building inspectors.
So at the time, just to give you an idea, where was Puerto Rico before Maria? We only had 11 inspectors, building inspectors for the entire island. Now with the grant, the grant will allow the government of Puerto Rico to hire close to 110 inspect, building inspector between building inspector engineers, so it gives a lot of strength to that part, to that enforcement part. So there’s a lot of, and also the grant awarded a lot of outreach to the public.
You don’t want to put a lot of a building inspector out there if you don’t have a good outreach and you don’t tell the people that you have to comply with a set of rules or regulations when you do some kind of a repairs to your home or some build or expansion to your houses or you’re building a structure. So you have to do a lot of outreach in both ends, right? Both in the professionals and also for the end user of that structure. And right now, the government of Puerto Rico is in that, we’re probably in 30 percent of that stage between hiring, training, and performing some inspection and performing some rebuild.
(21:14 – 22:38)
Unfortunately, COVID-19 has delayed the process, right? The curfews, the COVID has delayed that process. Also, the funding stream has been very, very slow to get up on the island. So the island doesn’t have yet reached that point where the real build or the very hard reconstruction process is undergoing.
So that gives a lot of window of opportunity for the government of Puerto Rico to catch up and continue the hiring of the inspector and the engineers and continue the training process. Thanks so much Jose for providing that insight into Puerto Rico. Now to learn more about Jose and his experience in mitigation, you can visit our website at titlebasinggroup.com. Also join us on our next episode as we continue our special coverage of hurricane season 2020 from Virginia to Florida and over to Texas.
We’ll visit with local emergency managers preparing for the start of hurricane season while mitigating for potential impacts from COVID-19. You’ve been listening to Disaster Recovery Roundtable, a platform to explore, engage, and educate. For more information on this episode, visit our podcast page at titlebasinggroup.com. You can download previous podcasts, learn more about the programs we discussed, and suggest a topic for a future episode.
You can also find us on your favorite podcast provider. This has been a Title Basin production. Thanks for listening.