Transcript for: Cuppa' GAO: Coffee With Our Experts - Disaster
Assistance

Description: Chris Currie, a director in GAO's Homeland Security and
Justice team, discusses federal disaster assistance efforts and
challenges.

Released: October 2017

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Welcome to CuppaGAO. This is your coffee break with
our experts, where we take the time to sit down and answer your
questions. Sorry, we got off to a little bit of a late start, but thanks
everybody who's tuning in and joining us. My name is Sarah Kaczmarek.
And I'm here today with Chris Currie, a director in our Homeland
Security and Justice team. Chris, thanks so much for joining us, today.

[ Chris Currie: ] Thank you for having me. And thanks everyone for
watching.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Yeah,thanks so much for everybody who's tuning in.
Be sure to like and share this live video. And we're going to be
talking, today, about natural disasters and how the government has
responded to these disasters. Before we get into this topic, Chris,
could you tell me a little bit just about your work, here at GAO?

[ Chris Currie: ] Absolutely. So, here at GAO, my teams and I, we
evaluate federal programs for responding to, recovering from, and also
preparing for disasters like the hurricanes that recently hit.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And you have done a lot of work on disaster
preparedness and responding to disasters. Tell me a little bit more just
about that body of work that you've done.

[ Chris Currie: ] Absolutely. So, we have looked at, like I said,
preparedness, response, and recovery and made a number of
recommendations to federal agencies for how to improve those. So, a good
example of that would be-how do we better oversee the billions in
contracts that we provide? How do we better prepare our federal
workforce? And how do we provide better and quicker assistance to
individuals?

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Now, you already started to mention hurricanes. And
we've seen three major hurricanes hit the U.S., so far. There's also
been wildfires out in California. How is the federal government
responding to these natural disasters and getting people the help and
the aid that they need?

[ Chris Currie: ] Well, there's really two buckets of help that the
federal government provides. The first is direct help. So, think about
things like Coast Guard search and rescue and DOD and military
delivering supplies. The other part, though, that I think most folks
don't understand as well, is all the financial assistance that the
federal government provides. Not just to individuals, but also to state
and local governments to rebuild infrastructure. Things like schools,
water treatment facilities, and the like.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Well, we're going to unpack a lot of that. And I
also want to make sure that we get to your questions, as well. So, as
you're watching and if you have questions, please do type in your
questions in the comment box to the live video, using the hashtag today
CuppaGAO. So, be sure to send us your questions, your comments, use the
hashtag. And also, don't forget to share and like the video. Again,
we're here in GAO's cafeteria doing CuppaGAO. It's a coffee break that
we do with our experts. I'm here with Chris Currie, today. And we are
talking about how the government has responded to natural disasters. So,
Chris, you were mentioning some types of aid that the government
provides. Tell me about aid that goes to individuals impacted by
disasters.

[ Chris Currie: ] Sure.there's a whole suite of programs. And FEMA
provides most of those. So, right after a disaster hits, people can
apply if they've been affected for what's called Individual Assistance.
So, that's basically to help people just get back on their feet. So,
that's things like rental assistance, or to repair a damaged car, or
replace a damaged car. Just things they need to get help in the months
after a disaster. But there's also longer term loan programs that are
provided to help rebuild folks' houses and things like that.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, how does somebody go about getting that
assistance if they need it? If they've been impacted by a hurricane or a
wildfire, what steps can they take?

[ Chris Currie: ] Well, the most important things is that if you're
affected by it is to go to disasterassistance.gov. And that is a FEMA
website. But it basically brings together all of the federal programs.
So, for example, not just the FEMA programs, but the Small Business
Administration provides loans to homeowners and businesses. And there's
information about flood insurance programs and things like that.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, you mentioned FEMA, and I know that that's an
agency that has, of course, a really big role in how the government
responds to natural disasters. But what other agencies are involved in
this?

[ Chris Currie: ] That's a great question, because that's often not as
well understood. So, another major player is the Department of Defense,
obviously, the military. And they have a huge role in responding to
these types of catastrophic disasters, because they have the equipment
and the people to get things where they need to go. Such as in Puerto
Rico. But almost every agency in the federal government's involved. The
Environmental Protection Agency gets involved if there are chemical
spills, like what happened after Houston. But also, Health and Human
Services to provide medical care, things like that.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, again, we're doing CuppaGAO. This is your
coffee break with our experts. We're talking today about natural
disasters and how the government can respond to hurricanes or wildfires.
We're in GAO's cafeteria, having coffee. This is your chance to join us
and ask us questions. Please feel free to send us your questions and
comments. Just write in the comment box on Facebook Live. And for all 40
of you who have joined us, so far, thank you so much. And be sure to
like and share this video as you're joining. A question that I want to
pose to you, Chris, as we're talking about this, is how much money has
the government spent so far in responding to the disasters that we've
seen recently?

[ Chris Currie: ] So, it's hard to know exactly, because we don't yet
even know what all the damage is going to be from Hurricane Harvey,
Irma, and Maria. But it's safe to say the government has already spent
several billion dollars providing assistance, both to individuals, but
also to state and local governments. So, just to give you a sense, you
know. After Katrina, the government spent almost $100 billion. And I
think between these three storms, it's well going to eclipse that. But
it often takes a lot of time for those costs to be borne out. Many, many
years.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] We've got our first few questions, here, from our
audience. Thanks again, for everybody sending in questions. Our first
question is, "How has all the hurricanes affected FEMA?"

[ Chris Currie: ] So, great question. Bottom line, is they are stretched
very thin, right now. And they are actually hiring thousands of
temporary employees to try to fix that issue. They are utilizing other
federal agencies and other federal staff. This is actually one of the
few times that FEMA has actually brought in other employees from the
Department of Homeland Security, other volunteers to actually help them
respond to the disasters. So, these three parallel storms is a really
unique thing.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Okay. Just because of the scope and also.

[ Chris Currie: ] Absolutely. There's just not enough bodies to do all
the work.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Okay. And how is the money that's being spent being
appropriated? How, is Congress doing more appropriations? Or is the
money already in place, and then being allocated? How does that work?

[ Chris Currie:] Sure. Well, every year Congress budgets and provides
funding for disaster relief. But in the case like this, where you have a
catastrophic storm or several catastrophic storms, it's nowhere near
enough to cover. So, Congress provides additional funding or what we
call supplemental funding. They've already provided one supplemental
funding package. It's about $15 billion. Actually, the Senate was taking
up another one, today.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Okay. Wow. Just to cover the scope of responding to
all of the disasters.

[ Chris Currie: ] Absolutely.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] The destruction. Okay. We have another question,
here, from Denise. "Are agencies committed to opening high value data
to track recovery and align recovery efforts? And is there anyone
coordinating open data efforts across agencies, to plan a more complete
picture over time?"

[ Chris Currie: ] That's a great question. So, actually if you go to
FEMA's website, FEMA.gov, they compile a lot of data and information,
historically, by state, and then by jurisdiction. For how many disasters
have been federally declared and how much federal funding has been
provided. I think what gets more difficult is trying to figure out the
total cost for disasters, both private citizen cost, insurance cost,
state and local government cost, and the federal cost. I'm not aware of
anything that brings all of that information together. So, it's just
very difficult to come up with a complete cost picture for something as
large as these hurricanes.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Because if you're a homeowner in an area that's
been affected by one of these hurricanes, for example, you might be
putting some of your own money into rebuilding or insurance money. But
then, there's also the money that the federal government is spending.

[ Chris Currie: ] Absolutely. And that's been a major challenge that
we've pointed out, too. Is that, you know, for everyday citizens, and
even state and local officials. They're trying to navigate all these
different federal programs and the rules and regulations. And the money
comes in at different times. Very confusing. And they're doing this when
they're trying to get back on their feet after having their homes
destroyed. So, it's a huge challenge.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Well, Denise, thank you so much for that question.
And thanks to all of our viewers who have tuned in as you're watching.
And please be sure to share this video with especially others who you
think might be interested in this topic. And also, like the video.
Again, we're here doing CuppaGAO. It's coffee with our experts. I'm
Sarah Kaczmarek. I'm here with Chris Currie, a director in our Homeland
Security and Justice team. And we're talking about how the federal
government is responding to natural disasters like hurricanes or
wildfires. As you have questions, please do send them in to us using the
comment box and we're also using the hashtag today CuppaGAO. I see a
couple more questions that have come in. We' have one from Joe. "Does
the government play a role in rebuilding in a resilient way?"

[ Chris Currie: ] That's a great question, Joe. Absolutely. There are a
number of different federal funding streams that are supposed to go to
rebuilding in a resilient way. We call that mitigation. So, you're
mitigating against future risk. One of the challenges we've seen,
though, we've made a number of recommendations. Is a lot of these
programs are not designed to all work together to make sure we're
mitigating our biggest risks. So, for example, after large storms, large
pieces of public infrastructure like wastewater treatment facilities are
damaged. These are hundreds of millions of dollar facilities. And so,
it's very important that if we're going to rebuild those damaged
facilities, that we do so in a way to where they're not going to flood
again or they're not going to be damaged, again. But the federal
government plays a role in that. But we have a long way to go, I think,
to really be where we need to be on that.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Well, and our next question comes from Leslie, who
says, "In the past, news stories have documented lots of waste, fraud,
and abuse. And can you talk about how FEMA and other agencies are
beefing up their antifraud efforts to ensure that taxpayer dollars are
being spent wisely?"

[ Chris Currie: ] Sure. Well, based on the work that we've done at GAO,
we've actually seen progress over time. For example, after Hurricane
Sandy, we saw huge progress in the improper payment rates compared to
after we saw in Katrina. Which were upwards of 20 percent. I think they
were down to around three to five percent, Hurricane Sandy. So,
technology has really helped about how we gather information and how
FEMA's able to vet applicants to make sure that. For example, they're
not applying for assistance and they really live in Washington State,
when they're applying for a disaster that hit Texas. But having said
that, the point is a great one. Especially, with contracts, federal
contracts. There's so much money. There's already been couple billion
dollars sent out in federal contracts for the three hurricanes. And it's
very important that FEMA has the people to oversee those contracts. And
that's been a challenge in the past.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, and you mentioned once before, that just
because of the scope of the hurricanes and what we've seen this year,
that has also just had a really big impact on FEMA. Can you talk a
little bit more about how that's impacting the work that FEMA's doing?

[ Chris Currie: ] Absolutely. Well, one of the things, the biggest
challenge right now for FEMA is having the right number of people
helping these different jurisdictions recover. And having the right
skillsets. And that's been a huge challenge. As you can imagine, within
FEMA's employee group, they need people with all sorts of different
skillsets to help folks. They need public affairs specialists, they need
engineers, they need all sorts of people. So, making sure you have the
right mix in each disaster location is a huge challenge. And that's
actually why they're hiring so many people to try to respond to these
three storms.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And how is FEMA or other government agencies
helping to support state and local governments or working with them as
they respond to all the disasters that we've seen?

[ Chris Currie: ] Sure. So, on the response side, right after an event
like a hurricane happens, and even before so, there's a lot of work and
planning with the locality or that state. Afterwards, there's a number
of things FEMA does. They provide urban search and rescue teams to help
people get out of their houses that they're flooded. They provide
logistical support, getting commodities; food, water, where it needs to
go. But one of the, on the recovery side, it's really money. That's
really the big thing. Money to help in rebuild local infrastructure.
Money to help citizens get back on their feet and get their homes
repaired. And those, and so, it's really direct assistance and money.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, again, for those of you who are tuning in and
joining, we are doing CuppaGAO. This is your coffee break with our
experts. I'm Sarah Kaczmarek. We're here in GAO's cafeteria. I'm here
with Chris Currie, a director in our Homeland Security and Justice team.
Who does a lot of work on how the government prepares for and responds
to natural disasters. So, as you are watching, please be sure to send us
your comments, your questions. We definitely want to be sure that we
answer those for you. I see one just came in from Juan. So, we'll jump
to that. Thank you, Juan. And Juan would like to know has FEMA reported
on the funding it committed and the plans to commit in each place
affected by the hurricanes?

[ Chris Currie: ] Well, thanks for the question, Juan. So, yes.
Actually, you can go to FEMA's website right now and you can search by
hurricane, by state, and you can see how much funding they have provided
to each state.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Mm-hmm. And I'm going to turn next to a question
from Patty. We got a few in all at once, there. So, thank you guys for
sending in your questions. Keep them coming. Patty would like to know
what is the agency's role in emergency preparedness process.

[ Chris Currie: ] Great question, Patty. So, actually, that is one of
the biggest areas we've seen progress since Hurricane Katrina. Is that
FEMA has, they've been, Congress has given FEMA the lead role for
preparedness across all of government. So, even before an event like
this makes landfall, FEMA often declares an emergency as does the state.
And they're able to go in ahead of time, set up people and
infrastructure, and start planning for this. And also, task other
federal agencies with certain response efforts, even before it happens.
So, and that's really been the biggest change since Katrina. Rather than
being reactive, it's very, very proactive.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Hmm. Okay. And I'm going to get to a few of our
questions that we've gotten in here. I also want to remind folks, please
be sure to share this live video. We want to make sure to get the word
out, give lots of people a chance to tune in and ask their questions.
I'm Sarah. Again, this is Chris. We're talking about how the
government's been responding to natural disasters. I want to go to our
next question from Shannon. And Shannon would like to know about needing
money to rebuild, but coming back stronger and safer. What would you say
about that?

[ Chris Currie: ] Well, I think absolutely. Shannon's making the point
that we need to use our federal funding and all of our funding to not
just rebuild the way it was. But rebuild so we can be stronger. And many
of these areas that have been hit by these hurricanes are clearly going
to be hit again. With Texas, Florida, and certainly, Puerto Rico. So,
actually, this is a major point that we've been making in a lot of our
work. And as we talk to the folks in Congress, is that we have to be
directing our dollars post-disaster to rebuilding in a resilient way.
So, we're not rebuilding this years down the road, again.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Okay. And have you seen progress in that?

[ Chris Currie: ] We have seen a lot more focus on trying to use the
money that way. The problem is that a lot of federal programs were just
not designed to rebuild for resilient purposes. And then, we're not
designed to come together and do it together. They have different
regulations, different time frames. And it just makes it very difficult
particularly after a storm hits, and it's pretty crazy to make that
happen.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Okay. So, I want to go to another question from
Denise. Thanks again, for sending this in. She says, "Having gone
through Katrina in New Orleans as a resident, and later as an employee
in local government. I know the bureaucracy from personal assistance,
and also assistance from local government can be crippling. Any efforts
to improve the delivery of these services to local governments or to
people on the ground?"

[ Chris Currie: ] Absolutely. I think what she is referring to is the
regulations and the challenges of providing the funding from the federal
level to the state and local government. Because often, how this works
is that FEMA provides funding to the state and local government. And
then, it's up to them how they want to spend it. And so, what gets
created, especially in an area, a populated area of multiple
jurisdictions is a lot of different things are going on, differently in
different places. And I think that's very confusing for people, because
they may see decisions being made three counties over, and they're being
made differently two counties over. So, absolutely. I can see how it can
look very inconsistent.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, I just want to remind folks we are here in
GAO's cafeteria doing CuppaGAO, coffee with our experts. I'm Sarah
Kaczmarek. I'm here with Chris Currie, a director in our Homeland
Security and Justice team. We're talking today about how the government
is responding to and preparing for natural disasters. Thanks for all the
questions that have been coming in. We're going to keep getting to your
questions and comments. And also, be sure to like and share this video
as we spread the word about this. And Chris, I want to ask you kind of a
different question. You know, GAO has sort of a different role in the
government. We're not providing the response.

[ Chris Currie: ] Right.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Two disasters. So, how would you explain GAO's
oversight role, here?

[ Chris Currie: ] Absolutely. Well, in short, what we do is we go in and
we provide independent oversight for Congress. So, in cases like this
it's very important, because as you've seen, there are a lot of
differing news stories and a lot of information out there about how the
federal government is responding. And so, what we do is we go in and we
talk to all the officials. We gather data and information and we make an
independent assessment. And I will say that does take a little bit of
time. We are still taking in and digesting all the information from
these three hurricanes. And I think it will be some time before we
actually can make an assessment of where the gaps were and what
challenges there are.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, I do have a question, actually, kind of getting
to that part of that challenging, now, that we have here about how the
government could improve its response to Puerto Rico. And so, Chris,
could you paint a picture for us about what the government has been
doing to respond to Puerto Rico? And then, any areas that you see there,
that they could potentially be improving upon?

[ Chris Currie: ] Sure, absolutely. Well, there is no doubt that it has
taken much longer to respond to the situation in Puerto Rico, as opposed
to what you saw in Texas after Hurricane Harvey or in Florida after
Hurricane Irma. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. I will
say, you know, we are still assessing the overall response. It's very,
very difficult, particularly with the lack of communications on the
island, to really get a full picture of what's happening at any given
time. I know there's been a lot of news stories and they've talked to a
lot of people. But it's going to take some time to figure that out. But
essentially, the federal government is doing what it does in all
disasters. It's providing resources, it's providing search and rescue
assistance, it's providing coordination on the ground, and logistical
support. Trying to get food and water where it's needed. And then,
ultimately, it's going to provide assistance to rebuild public
infrastructure that's been damaged. And also, provide individual
assistance to citizens. And so, that's something I'm not sure folks
understand, too. Is that the citizens that live in the territories are
actually eligible, as are the governments, for the same assistance as
any state in the continental U.S. would be.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, if folks wanted to know more about GAO's work
in this area in addition to the other government agencies work, you
mentioned some websites specific to FEMA. Where can people go to find
out more just about what GAO is doing?

[ Chris Currie: ] Sure. I mean, the best place to go is www.gao.gov. And
we have all sorts of search options for our reports. You can type in
disaster assistance, emergency response, emergency preparedness, and
you'll get a pretty good list of all of our reports.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And we are also looking to soon put out even more
information on disaster assistance. Really, make our work readily
available. That's part of why we're here today, also, so that we can be
talking with our expert on the topic, Chris Currie, about questions that
you have on how the government is responding to natural disasters. Like
hurricanes and wildfires or preparing for them, as well. So, for all of
you tuning in, thanks so much for doing that. Again, if you want to like
and share this video, we have a couple more questions here. We'll
definitely take some more. We're using hashtag CuppaGAO, today. So,
please be sure to like, share the video. I'm going to go back to a
question that we got a little bit ago, from Joe. Joe said, "I
understand the federal government should help with immediate cleanup.
For rebuilding, why can't private insurance pay for rebuilding from
natural disasters. If this hadn't happened, wouldn't private insurers
require more resilient rebuilding?"

[ Chris Currie: ] That is a fantastic point. And it's a major issue with
disaster assistance. And one of the reasons that the federal government
provides so much in assistance. In short, Joe, the risk is too high for
private insurers to pay. No insurance company would want to take out a
policy to cover anywhere in that state of Texas or Florida or Puerto
Rico for storm damage. And we've seen these catastrophic disasters, the
payouts are just so incredibly high, you know. Like I mentioned, before,
in Hurricane Katrina, the federal government providing well over $100
billion in assistance. So, the bottom line is private insurance just
does not want to take on the risk. They can't afford it.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Well, and while we're talking about insurance. I
also want to ask you about flood insurance. So, if you're a homeowner,
do you need to have flood insurance in one of these areas? Or if you
don't have flood insurance, what's that going to look like for you,
after a hurricane hits, for example?

[ Chris Currie: ] That's a good question. Because there's been a lot of
confusion about this, particularly in Texas, where a lot of folks that
were flooded, they thought they were not in a high-risk flood zone. And
thus, they didn't have flood insurance. But the bottom line is,
traditionally, in order to be required to have flood insurance, you live
in a special hazard flood area or a high-risk flood area. And if you
have a federally backed mortgage, you have to get flood insurance. But
the problem we're having right now, is that many places are not in high
hazard flood areas. We're seeing 50 inches of rain. In Hurricane Harvey
we saw well over 40 inches of rain in Louisiana, last year. And they're,
you know, places that we never thought would flood are flooding. So,
it's I think folks are beginning to ask themselves whether they need to
have flood insurance.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] All right. Well, I want to turn to another
question, here, we have from Rick. And this gets to something we touched
on a little bit earlier, about Puerto Rico. And he's asking about why
the response may be taking longer in Puerto Rico than in Texas or in
Florida.

[ Chris Currie: ] Okay. Rick, great question. You know, I think the
bottom line is we don't exactly know the exact reasons and what happened
in the response. I mean, certainly, what we saw in Hurricane Harvey in
Texas and Irma is huge assistance and aid provided by neighboring
states. And not just neighboring states, but states all over the
country. For example, in Florida we had a historical influx of power
company trucks from all over the country to restore power. And we had
power restored very, very quickly. I think it's safe to say that
logistically, that it was just not as easy in Puerto Rico. You do have
states, a lot of states, many of you have seen it on the news, providing
mutual assistance, I think. New Jersey police department and
firefighters have gone down there. So, states are providing that help.
But it just took a while to actually deploy people. You know, the
airport was shut down for a short amount of time. So, there were limited
abilities to actually logistically get stuff in there. So, I think,
absolutely, the fact that it was logistically difficult is the reason.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, I'm going to turn to a question from David, and
it's a little bit of a long one. So, I want to make sure I get it right.
Thank you, David, for sending this in. It often seems to take years to
get hazard mitigation funding, actually, on the ground, to do voluntary
buyouts, and relocation of repetitive loss properties. Have you looked
at what's the average time it takes to implement these kinds of
investments, and what could be done to get them in faster? And is it
just simply impractical for resident?

[ Chris Currie: ] Well, actually, so David, that's a really great
question. And I think a good point. It's something that we've looked at.
You are right that hazard mitigation often, not only does the money take
a little while to come in, because often, you know, folks are more
focused on the response aspects. And hazard mitigation it though of
later. But what we found is actually that makes it more difficult to do
it in the long run. Because if you don't start thinking about mitigation
right when you're starting to think about rebuilding, then chances are
you've missed your window of opportunity. So, he's absolutely right. I
think we need to come up with something where we can start making
decisions very early on in the rebuild after these disasters, on how to
start incorporating mitigation.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Okay. So, for those of us who don't work in
disaster assistance every day, when you say hazard mitigation, what do
you mean by that?

[ Chris Currie: ] Okay. So, good questions. It's a technical term. So,
basically, what I mean is a mitigation is an investment in anything
that's going to buy down your risk in the future. So, I'll give you a
good example. You might be able to build a wall around a piece of
infrastructure so it does not flood again. So, the idea is that you make
a smaller investment to avoid a much bigger investment down the road.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] All right. That makes sense. And we have a comment
from William, that he likes the cafeteria. Glad he likes the cafeteria.
We are live from GAO's cafeteria, doing CuppaGAO, coffee with our
experts. I'm Sarah Kaczmarek. I'm here with Chris Currie, a director in
our Homeland Security and Justice team. We're talking, today, about how
the government is responding to natural disasters. Taking your
questions. We're going to take a few more, here. So, please be sure to
keep sending in your questions. And you can also like and share this
video so others can send in their questions and comments, as well. I'm
going to go now, to a question from Joseph. How does a town or huge city
like Hoostin, Houston, excuse me, recoup the property tax income all the
way to the state level? Some feel that the city will increase taxes to
make up some of the loss. Can you clear this up for those who are not
affected by flooding in the home?

[ Chris Currie: ] Good question. We were actually just in Houston in
Harris County a couple weeks ago, talking to officials about these
issues. And it's a great point. I think that is something very difficult
for states and localities to consider. Especially, with buyouts. And
when he says buyouts, what he's referring to is that if you have a
neighborhood or particular area of the city or a county that has been
flooded. Especially, multiple times, the question is, should you just
buyout those homeowners and return the land to nature so it doesn't
flood again? You're not having to repair it. But absolutely, I think
that's one of the many challenges that cities and counties have in
deciding whether they want buyouts. Because if they buy people out, they
may leave the jurisdiction and they no longer have the tax revenue.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Hmm. So, let me turn to a question we have from
Joe. Does federal emergency aid funding give people incentives to live
in riskier places than maybe they would live in, otherwise?

[ Chris Currie: ] I think it's a fair point. Absolutely. I mean, there
is no doubt that our population centers, and thus, our public
infrastructure has gravitated towards water, towards the coast, towards
lakes, towards rivers. People want to live near water. I think that,
absolutely. And with the federal government providing more and more
disaster assistance, you know, it definitely could incentivize that.
We've also found that federal assistance also plays into the state and
localities preparedness. We issued a report a couple of years ago that
showed that many states don't even budget and with rainy day funds for
disasters. And they flat out told us it's because, you know, they know
the federal government's likely going to pay for it, if it's past a
certain amount of money.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So, looking back at that report or other recent
reports that you've done on this topic, what are some of the
recommendations that GAO has made in this area?

[ Chris Currie: ] Sure. Well, we have made a number of them. But just a
couple I'd like to highlight. One goes back to the discussion we had
about mitigation and the resilience building. I think, we've made
recommendations that the federal government, in general, needs to do a
much better job of bringing all of its programs together. So, we're
rebuilding to the areas with the highest risk in the future. And if
we're going to spend all this money rebuilding, that we do it so we're
not having to do it again, down the road. Because, ultimately, that's
going to bring down the cost in the future.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Well, and I also want to make sure to ask you, you
know, taking a step back and looking at this issue and the work that
you've done on it, over time. What do you see as the bottom line, here,
for folks?

[ Chris Currie: ] Well, I think the bottom line is disasters are always
going to occur. And I think, many times enough time passes in between,
it's almost as if we forget they can happen and we're surprised. So, I
think preparedness is key for everybody involved. But certainly, once
something happens, the most important thing in my view is that we make a
smart investment, so we're not having to rebuild the same infrastructure
down the road.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] All right. Well, Chris, thank you so much for
joining us, today, on our second segment we've done on a CuppaGAO.

[ Chris Currie: ] Thank you, for having me. And thank you, very much,
for watching.

[ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And I also want to thank everybody who tuned in and
joined us, today, for our segment "CuppaGAO: Coffee with Our Experts.
And I really appreciate everybody who sent in their questions and
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