From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: FEMA's National Preparedness System and Disaster Workforce Description: As federal efforts continue during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, Chris Currie joins the Watchdog Report to talk about FEMA's National Preparedness System and disaster workforce. Related GAO Work: GAO-20-297, National Preparedness: Additional Actions Needed to Address Gaps in the Nation's Emergency Management Capabilities AND, GAO-20-360, FEMA Disaster Workforce: Actions Needed to Address Deployment and Staff Development Challenges Released: May 2020 [ Intro Music ] [Chris Currie:] COVID-19 is showing us that we have public health preparedness gaps that we need to build and address moving forward. [Matt Oldham:] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. FEMA's mission includes mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery efforts for things like natural disasters, industrial accidents, cyber attacks, and pandemics, like what we're currently experiencing with COVID-19. GAO has released two reports covering FEMA's National Preparedness System, and their Disaster Workforce. And with me to talk about those reports is Chris Currie, a Homeland Security and Justice director. Thanks for joining me, Chris. [Chris Currie:] Thanks. [Matt Oldham:] So, let's talk preparedness first. Would the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic fall under FEMA's plans? [Chris Currie:] Yes, absolutely. FEMA's responsible, as you said, in the front, for preparing for all hazards. That includes natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and even though they don't happen as often, naturally-occurring pandemics. And also bioterrorism events as well. So, FEMA's responsible for something called the National Preparedness System, which sounds really big. But basically what this is, it's a nationwide system set up in law and doctrine that aims to assess preparedness at all levels of government, and more importantly, fill gaps. And FEMA does this in several ways. One, it assesses preparedness gaps and works with state and local governments to do that. Two, it helps fill these gaps by providing grants to state and local governments to build preparedness. And then lastly, you know, it conducts exercises and after action reviews to identify the gaps and hopefully address them as well. [Matt Oldham:] Chris, when you're talking about gaps, could you talk a little more about those gaps? What do they look like? What does it mean? [Chris Currie:] Absolutely. So, I think it's surprising, there's actually a very specific system, and there are 32 capability gaps that are identified. And this includes everything from response and telecommunications to recovery, like disaster housing. And the idea is that each of these areas needs to be assessed at different levels of government to identify where strengths are and where weaknesses are. And then actually there's a scoring system that's used. FEMA works with state and local governments to do risk assessments. They compare their capabilities against all of these 32 areas. And they come up with a score to identify areas where there are weaknesses or strengths. And then all of this is rolled up into a National Preparedness Report. [Matt Oldham:] Moving onto the subject of the other report, their Disaster Workforce, are they ensuring they have enough people and enough people with the right qualifications? [Chris Currie:] You described it really well. I mean, one of the challenges FEMA's had in recent years, particularly since Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria in 2017, is one, having the number of people it needs to spread across the country to fill all the needs across these disasters. But two, you know, FEMA has people, all sorts of different types of employees, everything from engineers to social worker type folks that are trained to work with disaster survivors. And it has 23 cadres in its incident management workforce. And what does that mean? That basically means 23 different work groupings that it needs to fill response and recovery needs after a disaster. So, they have also struggled with filling and having the adequate number of people in certain groups of the workforce. And if you think about a disaster, each in and of itself, you know, you need all of these types of people to fill each. And when you have a number of large disasters happening across the country at the same time, you know, having the right number of people, and, you know, the specific qualifications you need is a challenge. [ Music ] [Matt Oldham:] So, it sounds like FEMA has some gaps in their ability to prepare for disasters. And they also have some difficulty with their workforce when it comes to response and recovery efforts. Chris, are we seeing some of these issues with the current emergency response with the COVID-19 efforts? [Chris Currie:] Yes, directly and indirectly. So, you know, we don't see huge domestic pandemics like this. Well, we haven't seen one in maybe even a century. So, it's really difficult to apply some of the lessons we've learned, some of the gaps that have been identified in the last say 20 years since 9/11 for this particular case. But what we're talking about absolutely relates. What we're talking about is trying to assess preparedness and identify gaps before something bad happens, so hopefully you've mitigated those gaps and you're more ready. So, within FEMA's own National Preparedness System, there are a number of public health related gaps and areas that state and local governments assess. So, public health, mass care services, you know, how many people can you take care of at the same time, you know, those types of things, those are things that state and local governments do self assess. So, that does feed into the National Preparedness System. [Matt Oldham:] So, how could FEMA improve their preparedness efforts, and how could they improve their response and recovery workforce efforts? [Chris Currie:] A couple things that we found that I think are important, in the preparedness area, since 9/11, we have spent over $50 billion at the federal level on state and local preparedness grants. And a lot of these grants have been spent on what we call response and prevention capabilities, primarily in the counterterrorism area. And this makes sense because a lot of these were born out of 9/11 and the terrorist attacks. But preparedness data show us today that a number of gaps exist. I mentioned cybersecurity. But also in disaster recovery. Things like post-disaster housing and planning. And we've seen some of these challenges after some of the large hurricanes we've had. Another thing we found is that FEMA is not routinely completing and tracking its after action reports that are done after these disasters, or sharing information with state and local partners. For example, since 2017, FEMA's completed after action reports for only 30% of disasters. And this is concerning because we don't know what gaps were identified, and more important, how to close them if these aren't completed. And also, you know, if we're not sharing these with state and local partners, they don't have that information either. On the workforce side, we went out and talked to field officials throughout FEMA that manage disasters actually throughout the country, really ask them, you know, do you have the right numbers of people you need with the right qualifications? What we heard consistently is that we don't have a good system for making sure we have all the right people, which causes a lot of challenges for people that are actually trying to work these disasters in the field. So, we made a number of recommendations to try to address that and develop a plan so they can have the right number of people deployed throughout the country and make sure that they have the training they need to do their jobs well. [Matt Oldham:] So, what are the bottom lines from these two reports? [Chris Currie:] You never reach an end state in preparedness, first of all. I think we have come a long way since 9/11 in addressing a number of gaps. But what our systems and our data show us is that there are still a number of areas where we have identified gaps. Even before COVID-19, we knew that. And real life events, they show us even more. COVID-19 is showing us that we have public health preparedness gaps that we need to build and address moving forward. On the workforce side, FEMA has an incredible challenge of; it doesn't know what disasters are going to happen in the future. So, it has to have enough people that it feels confident that it can address whatever is going to happen in the future. This is especially relevant today. When they have, there are 50 states that have pandemic disaster declarations, FEMA staff are going to be stretched thin. And we're approaching hurricane season. So, having the right number of people is going to be critical moving forward. But not just that. Having, having the people with the qualifications that are needed in all the different areas that are needed is going to be equally as critical too. [Matt Oldham:] Chris Currie was talking about two GAO reports on FEMA Emergency Preparedness, and Disaster Workforce efforts. Thank you for your time, Chris. [Chris Currie:] Thank you. [Matt Oldham:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. Make sure you leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the Congressional Watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov. [ Music ]