JUST IN: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry Holds Hurricane Safety And Preparation Press Briefing

2 months ago

Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA) held a press briefing to provide hurricane season preparation and safety updates.

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Transcript

00:00Okay. Well, good morning. Today, we're picking a couple of announcements as it relates to

00:09weather. I'd like to introduce the folks that are up at the podium with me. Of course, we

00:15have our RUSEP director, John Thibodeau. We have General Prelude, who just promoted the

00:21Major General. He received his second star today. He is the Adjutant General of the National

00:26Weather Board. We have Climatologist Jay Grimes with us. We have our State Police Superintendent,

00:31Robert Hodges. We also have the Chairman of the House Homeland Security, Jay Gallo, Representative

00:39Jay Gallo, and the Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security, Caleb Senefelina Klein-Bieber.

00:46What we're doing today is announcing the introduction of a climatologist who's going to work directly

00:55for GOSEP. This was a priority that was identified during our transition team. With Louisiana's

01:04unpredictable weather, as we see, weather experts reporting directly to GOSEP, we believe,

01:12are extremely important. So what has happened is GOSEP and LSU have entered into a partnership.

01:19The climatologist will be the governor's resident weather expert, and he will also

01:26help LSU teach young folks about meteorology as well. The state's climatologist, again,

01:32like I said, will actually be a GOSEP employee, ensuring that we have one concise voice when

01:41it comes to speaking about weather events in the state of Louisiana. He will also be

01:48a resource for all 64 state emergency managers. Louisiana's former climatologist was actually

01:56not a state employee under GOSEP, and of course, you know, when you're not working directly

02:02under GOSEP, you can have some disconnections. We want to make sure that our parishes, our

02:07industries, and our citizens are getting the proper information directly from the governor's

02:13office of homeland security as it relates to weather events. And so, again, this is

02:18a new position under GOSEP, and it puts, I think, a stronger link in the communication

02:25change here. And so it is at this time that I would like to bring up our new state climatologist,

02:32Jay Grimes. He has more than 30 years of experience in the field of weather and climate, including

02:3925 years in higher education at LSU and the University of Delaware. Probably not a lot

02:46of climate weather in Delaware, Jay. So, again, I'd like to bring up your board, Jay.

02:52Thanks, sir. I'd like to thank Governor Landry and Director Thibodeau for giving me this

02:58opportunity to formally join GOSEP. Some of you may be aware that this will be the third

03:03administration that I've served as a UCG resource, but this will be the first administration

03:09in which I've been formally tagged to work with GOSEP. I also would like to thank Vice

03:14President Matt Lee from the LSU AgCenter, who has seen fit through the LSU administration

03:21to link in the state climatology position, which is housed at LSU, and the Louisiana

03:27Office of State Climatology to bridge the gap between weather and climate information

03:35between GOSEP and LSU. In fact, I think I see, Governor, that the LOSC, the climate office,

03:41the state climatologist, and GOSEP now will begin an expanded relationship in terms of

03:47serving the weather and climate needs in Louisiana, not just for agriculture under the directorship

03:54of Vice President Lee, but for all aspects of Louisiana environment and economy.

04:00I'd also briefly like to send out a big shout out to my family at WAFB. Certainly,

04:07they have been a large part of my life, almost 30 years of television service here in the Baton

04:13Rouge area. That has indeed led to some of the opportunities that I've had with GOSEP and also

04:20with LSU. For some of you, you may be aware that I was the state climatologist before I joined LSU

04:26about 20 years ago. Now, I'm back. The advantage here for me and I believe for the university

04:33is the first step of an expanded role with GOSEP in terms of serving the citizens of Louisiana.

04:41Now, I'd like to introduce GOSEP's Director Jacques Thibodeau.

04:47Wait a minute. Wait. I'm going to get my money's worth out of it. Why don't you address

04:51some of the tropics that we have in there real quick? I need to get put into work.

04:57Tropics? What tropics? Okay. Actually, in fact, this week, the last several days,

05:04I've been perfecting morning summaries for the governor and the GOSEP staff, already starting in

05:11part of the role that I'll take as a GOSEP climate and weather specialist.

05:17In terms of Barrow, which has all everybody's attention, still a monster of a storm,

05:23it is going to certainly clobber Jamaica as it slides on by and also create more

05:29problems in the Caribbean, probably still as a hurricane when it hits the Yucatan.

05:35Barrow is going to get into the Gulf of Mexico, and I know that has a lot of people

05:39in Louisiana alerted. I want them to take the alarm and turn it off.

05:44This is not going to be a threat for Louisiana, but this is going to be a very active season.

05:49Many experts say a hyperactive season, so don't use up your energy with this storm,

05:55which is almost certainly not going to affect Louisiana. This is a storm, though, to use as

06:01finalizing your preps for the rest of the hurricane season. This is kind of like

06:06Christmas shopping. No one wants to wait to the last five days of December to get out there.

06:11Get your preps done now, and they're finished for the season.

06:15Again, Barrow, not a threat to Louisiana the way it looks right now, but given the hyperactive

06:21forecast for the season, I would say it is very likely that between now and November,

06:27Louisiana will be impacted in some way by a named storm.

06:32Thank you. I can take a deep breath now, right? First off, before I talk a little bit about the

06:40LSU partnership that we have, I just want to talk about what Jay brings to the table.

06:45For the last seven days, we've been tracking the tropics. There were three stacked up.

06:49About four days ago, Jay said, I don't think we're going to have an issue in this realm,

06:54and we've watched it since. But what we did is we always have a plan that goes out.

06:59We took it as an opportunity to run through our practice. This morning, we did an internal

07:03conference call. We did a conference call with all 64 parish emergency preparedness directors

07:09and all state agencies, and we had a good opportunity to rehearse because we always

07:14have a plan. Jay brings that capability to us that gives us a coastal viewpoint of how we view

07:22weather events, and he gives us a real accurate portrayal of what we're facing.

07:27Now to the partnership real quick with LSU. When the governor presented it to us in the

07:32transition as an interview question, I thought it was a great idea, and we approached LSU.

07:39We've already got a longstanding partnership with LSU and the Stevenson Disaster Management

07:44Institute, and this was a logical progression where the office of the state climatologist

07:50is housed at LSU, and Jay Grimes now becomes a GOSETS employee. Vice President Matt Lee really

07:58came to the forefront and made it happen. It strengthens LSU. It strengthens GOSETS,

08:03and it puts resources of Jay Grimes. No offense to WAFB, but we need him a lot more than they do.

08:11So with that being said, I can tell you GOSETS are always prepared. Go to getgameplan.org for

08:16all tips on hurricane season. We're linked at the hip with the Louisiana State Police,

08:22Louisiana National Guard, and all of our partners, and I'd like to take,

08:26ask Major General Frilow, newly promoted General Frilow, to say a couple words about

08:31the National Guard and their response in preparation for hurricane season.

08:37Yeah, thank you, Director Thibodeau. As we get into the prime part of hurricane season,

08:43the Louisiana National Guard is trained, ready, and equipped to respond to hurricanes that affect

08:48Louisiana, and we train throughout the year. In fact, last week we completed our final

08:53training event, which was the hurricane block drill that we did here in Baton Rouge. We had

08:58our disaster recovery exercise a few months ago, and we're always conducting our collective and

09:03training tasks to support the state. The key thing is if we train for our federal mission,

09:08and we train hard, that we will be able to execute our state mission and help save Louisiana.

09:14We have personal and equipment strategically staged throughout the state. That includes

09:19over 6,000 service members that can deploy when needed, over 100 boats, 390-plus high-water

09:27vehicles, and 21 helicopters. We also have commodities prepared to support the citizens.

09:33We're talking meals, water, and tarps, and those are staged to support as well over a million

09:39meals ready to eat, 1.2 liters of water, as well as 55,000 tarps, and if we do this,

09:47we'll be able to support whatever needs to be done for the state of Louisiana. The key thing

09:51is we continue to build readiness, we continue to focus on our federal mission, which will support

09:55us for our state mission, and we protect what matters. Thank you. All right, well, there you

10:00have it. In closing, I think it's a couple of takeaways. Number one, the introduction of a

10:05state traumatologist directly in the post-op only strengthens our ability to make Louisiana

10:11residents more prepared and giving them more information as quickly as possible when natural

10:18disasters threaten the state of Louisiana. In addition, I think just like Jay said and as Jacques

10:24said, the residents of Louisiana continue to be vigilant. This gives you an opportunity to go

10:31through your hurricane preparedness list. You can go to getagainplan.org. If you'd like to

10:40check your list against what we recommend, so again, you can go to getagainplan.org,

10:46and there you'll find all of the information necessary for hurricane preparation and also

10:51updated information on storms as they potentially threaten Louisiana. We're all going to keep the

10:56good Lord in our prayers and ask him to spare Louisiana this year. We hope that these are all

11:02drills that we do. Again, as a former military soldier, you can never train enough,

11:07and the more training, the better prepared you are. With that, I'll be happy to take any questions

11:12that you have in the stock. Yes, sir. Governor, the LDH has stated on its website through its

11:17monitoring of dangerous heat events that climate change is part of the reason why they're tracking

11:22the continuing heat trends that we've seen. Can you talk about your understanding and what Mr.

11:28Grimes is understanding how climate is playing into this position and why it's important to have

11:33somebody like Jay Grimes explaining to everyday folk what climate is doing when it comes to

11:39dangerous events like hurricanes and storms? Absolutely. Look, I'm excited about having

11:43Jay on board because, you know, one thing about climatologists is they look at the climate over

11:48very long periods of time. I don't think anyone will deny that Earth's climate has consistently

11:53changed over the years. You know, right now we're experiencing a tremendous amount

11:58of warming. We could be talking in many, many years about how we're all freezing.

12:06And so, again, I think that it's important to have someone like Jay who can create a historical

12:11perspective and then tie that into the current events. Again, I think that is part of why we saw

12:19the need to have a climatologist as someone with Jay's experience in Louisiana. And, again, you

12:25know, he's – the folks in the capital city, it's a very, very familiar face. But those around the

12:31rest of the state, they're going to be real familiar with Jay's face. Can I also follow up?

12:36There's a lot of concern just because of the insurance rates and how quickly they've increased

12:42over the past several years. We don't necessarily need a hurricane to impact Louisiana directly in

12:49certain parts, but in the Gulf Coast, many people are worried that if there is a disaster that our

12:54insurance rates will increase. What's your level of concern about this hurricane season? Because

12:59as we're getting into a very active part of the season, we may get hit, maybe not directly in

13:04Louisiana, but even around the Gulf Coast, which may increase the rates here that we see in Louisiana.

13:09Well, look, I'm continuing to pray that God spares Louisiana this year from a hurricane. It really

13:14am. We could use it being spared from a major storm. Anytime you have a major storm, it is

13:23and you have a lot of claims made that automatically affects our insurance premiums. I think that we've

13:29got two problems in the state of Louisiana. Don't forget that the federal government is not doing

13:34us any favors in FEMA's 2.0 of the flood program, which is causing rates of flood insurance rates

13:44to rise. That's something that we filed a suit on when I was Attorney General. The General

13:48Bureau is continuing that suit. That's an important suit, and we need Congress to respond

13:53to that as well. This year, we signed 26 pieces of tort reform and insurance reform during the

14:01session. We've got two legislators here that played a very important role, as the rest of the

14:08legislature did, in trying to get control about property insurance problems and other insurance

14:13problems that we have. So you bring up a great, great point. The fact of the matter is, if we're

14:20able to be spared from a major disaster, I think that the reforms that we put in place during the

14:26legislative session would have an opportunity to be put in place and create more competition

14:31in the market. Great question. Any other questions? Yes, ma'am. Governor, there's been some concern

14:37from faculty at Northwestern that the design for the next president has been only taking questions

14:43on topic, about climate and weather and hurricanes. Yes. Yeah. I mean, look, if you want to know,

14:51the question is, who leads our universities? Let me explain something. This is on topic,

14:57right? It's not what we hear. I appreciate you trying to stay on topic when you come here,

15:01okay? But since you asked the question, look, I think it's important that the people of the state

15:06of Louisiana are in control of their universities. It's their tax dollars that go there. And so we

15:12respond to the stakeholders in those areas as we look towards trying to take universities who are

15:18in trouble and taking them out of trouble. Any other questions on topic? I have one off topic,

15:24but may I ask you about your reaction about NOPD and the city of New Orleans creating gun-free

15:29zones through the creation of a school in the 8th district around the French Quarter to limit the

15:34amount of concealed carry around? Yeah, look, there's a couple of concerns I have, and I'm

15:39going to be speaking with the Attorney General and the District Attorney and the city leaders.

15:44Number one, I want to make sure that whatever we do in the city of New Orleans in that regards

15:49is lawful, meaning like we certainly don't want police officers believing that they're in a gun-free

15:56zone acting on a suspect using the gun-free zone laws to make either an arrest or to search that

16:05particular person only to find out that maybe they're really not technically in a gun-free zone,

16:12right? That would destroy a criminal case. We don't want criminals getting off on technicalities.

16:18I understand and listen to the concerns of the folks from the city of New Orleans. I can tell

16:24you that Colonel Hodges is here with me today. Troop NOLA is doing an unbelievable, fantastic job.

16:32Again, as we ramp that troop up, it's important for the residents of the city to understand that

16:38we're not at full strength yet. Troop NOLA is not at 100% strength, but they're doing

16:44a tremendous amount of work. And so again, we're going to work to make sure that we're following

16:50the law, we understand their concerns, and we look to work with them on that.

16:55We'll do one more question on topic.

16:59Mr. Grimes, can we have Mr. Grimes in?

17:01Sure, absolutely.

17:03Mr. Grimes, coming off of the record heat last year and now we're kind of in this pattern of

17:08we're seeing some consecutive days, at least in the New Orleans metro area where we've had

17:12several days of excessive heat warnings. Talk to people about what your concern is when it comes

17:18to heat and our understanding of it as a public health threat. Because increasingly, I think in

17:23the past we thought of it as more of a nuisance, but now that we've seen these consecutive days

17:28and years that we've had these extreme heat events, what's your understanding and what can

17:32you tell people about what we should understand about heat?

17:35Well, let's be clear. I'm not a public health specialist, but what we do know is that we're

17:40likely to see temperatures at or above normal for a good bit of this upcoming summer. Now,

17:45there's a combination of factors here. One is indeed the fact that we generally have more

17:52access to air conditioning during the day and nighttime hours, so people are less acclimated

17:59to that kind of heat when they step outside. So when we see these numbers of dropouts, people

18:05that respond negatively to that heat, some of that is simply because they're not being smart

18:12in their decisions about time spent outdoors, maintaining a cooling environment, getting

18:18themselves hydrated. But there's not a question, particularly in some of the urban environments,

18:23that those summers are getting hotter, and that is partly because the environment,

18:29the urban environment itself, tends to retain heat. So folks just need to be a little bit more

18:35wise about this, and just like with tropical activity, there's a level of personal responsibility

18:42that has to be undertaken in terms of being ready for the heat and being ready for active

18:47weather. And I should point out, you have two meteorologists with Representative Daley up there,

18:51but can you talk to people about what we recently witnessed with how quickly Beryl

18:58went from a tropical depression in two days to a category four storm? What are you going to be

19:04advising the governor as we go through this hurricane season, knowing that we're probably

19:09in a pattern where you're going to see very intense and quickly intensified hurricanes?

19:14Well, if you think back the last couple of years of what is often called rapid intensification,

19:19has become a common concern. And the truth is that in many cases, our computer modeling that

19:25drives the forecasting process doesn't have a good handle on that. So it is important that we

19:31be aware that that type of ramp up of tropical systems can happen at any time, anywhere,

19:38that includes the Gulf of Mexico. So it just simply requires that we be more alert to the

19:43potential for these tropical bombs, if you will, to explode into high-intensity storms

19:49in a relatively short window of time. But go suckers on top of that, in terms of their ability

19:55and their willingness to get prepared, even before the storm is knocking at our front door. There's

20:01the response there. Now let's think about these last couple of decades. It has been the most

20:06active 20-year period in terms of tropical weather for Louisiana. In the last 20 years,

20:12we've had six seasons with multiple landfalls. So we need to take this seriously. And again,

20:21not wait for that storm to be in our backyard before we respond to it. So in terms of the heat,

20:27people need to be extra careful and take time and take breaks as they could. And that's also

20:33important for employers to understand that those outdoor workers need to get adequate breaks from

20:39the heat and adequate hydration during the period of time that they're in the environment. In terms

20:46of the tropics, let's get started and let's get ready today so that when that storm likely does

20:53come, we don't have a last-minute rush for materials and resources to get families prepared.

21:00And I want to say it again, personal responsibility is a big part of being prepared and

21:05awareness is a big part of being prepared. Can you just talk a little bit about how these

21:14positional changes for the state climatologists, how is it working before, how is it going to work

21:21now? What is all this shuffling around going to practically do for you guys and for the public?

21:26Yeah, well, let me say this. I'll let either Jay or Jacques say, talk about how it worked in the

21:32past, but let me tell you what are the deficiencies that I saw. So that as we, you know, as we ramped

21:38up or we saw weather events affecting Louisiana, where we saw the dramatic activity that we had,

21:44we did some drills here because we're taking this seriously, right? And so we've done some

21:49rock drills very, very early on in administration. The first thing is I looked up and I said,

21:55I said, Jacques, I said, do we have a climatologist, a meteorologist who can sit by us

22:00and who can talk to us as we're looking at the weather? Because we have made so many great

22:05advances through technology, through satellite imagery, through satellite

22:14that we put up to better prepare us and better plan. And so having someone sitting inside of

22:20this building working directly with Jacques on a more regular basis is a positive. And so I don't

22:28know how it worked before, but I'm telling you how it's going to work now. Will he be based here?

22:36Let me answer some questions. I've got 40 years in emergency management, 31 with the Louisiana

22:42National Guard, 28 with the U.S. Marshals, five with the City of Thibodeau, and now back in here

22:47with GOSEP, it's always been a weakness that we've never had the capability of having a state

22:53climatologist within GOSEP that could reach out to all those 64 parish offices of emergency preparedness

23:01and those 304 municipalities. Now, Jay's been in here in this building since 1992. He is a staple

23:09in the community with us, but more importantly than anything else, he will now become a resource

23:15that we can use to train and teach parish emergency preparedness directors. It was always

23:23a weakness that we've had. When the governor identified it, I was not going to miss the

23:27opportunity to improve that partnership. And sitting in the City of Thibodeau, my hometown,

23:32the last five years, I learned more there at the municipal level because it was just me.

23:37And that's what he brings to the table. In the past, that just wasn't there. It wasn't, by design,

23:43it just evolved that way. So this is an evolution of emergency management. It's a new profession.

23:48We constantly look at it and we look at ways to make it better. And thank goodness with LSU and

23:54GOSEP coming together in a partnership, we're going to be much stronger and give resources

23:59to the people that need it the most. Will that Office of Climatology still be at LSU? Yes, it

24:04will. It is considered to be a partnership. They maintain the Office of Climatology.

24:09Jay has dual responsibility with both LSU in a research and educational capability,

24:14as LSU's mission is. And then he's got an operational and functional mission,

24:19which is what GOSEP is. So he's over that over here, but he's based here. He's based here.

24:24We do it all the time. We have a very similar relationship with the Stevenson Disaster

24:29Management Institute, the Louisiana Business EOC at UL Lafayette. So this is not something that's

24:36in the partnership. It's just new that now we have Jay as an element where we can have him

24:41at a press conference and give us an update. Can I hit you with two more? Do you have any

24:47thoughts on how you're going to communicate? We talk about rapid intensification of hurricanes.

24:52It's not only an issue for you guys to get your resources out, but informing the public.

24:57I mean, even Katrina, people are like, yeah, not a big deal. All of a sudden,

25:00you've got to get out of Dodge. Is there any thought on how or change with all this or how

25:05you're going to communicate this quickly with changing environment in a way that the public

25:11can recognize? Sure. Absolutely. There is. So all rapid intensification does for an emergency

25:17manager is just compress your timeline. Okay. So what we do is where we started planning before

25:23when a storm entered the Gulf and we had those five days, guess what we do now when we see

25:29tropics off the coast of Africa, we begin tracking as we've been tracking these systems

25:35for the past seven days. So in order to avoid having a compressed timeline, we plan further

25:42out. So the rapid intensification for us, we know we're going to have a compressed timeline.

25:46So now we have to make decisions earlier and we develop more information maybe where we didn't

25:52care seven days before or 12 days before, now we do. How does that affect something like Dodge?

26:00Let me just say this. I think that, again, your question highlights exactly what we're here to do.

26:08Right? What having Jay on board does now is give us the ability to work with y'all

26:14when it's not on y'all radar, no pun intended, right? What they have been doing, again,

26:19these last tropical waves, Jay and Jacques have been keeping me updated. And so we've been talking

26:24about this two weeks out, right? And watching it and watching the systems and looking at the tracks

26:29and reading the models and understanding what impact that has on the citizens of Louisiana.

26:34That gives us the ability to then push the information to folks like Gerald Friedman,

26:38like Colonel Hodges, and the 64 parishes, those that are asking those questions,

26:44especially the coastal parishes as well. So again, I think that your question highlights

26:49exactly why we're here today. We're here today because the safety of the citizens of this state

26:56are paramount in this administration and the people that are standing up here right now.

27:01And so we're letting them know that just as we are encouraging them to prepare for hurricane season,

27:07as we're seeing activity in the tropics, we want them to know that we have been preparing as well.

27:13And so with that, we certainly do appreciate it. Last question for Jacques Thibodeau related

27:21to the topic. God forbid Hurricane Beryl makes landfall, but if it does, do you feel like the

27:31Salvation Army will supply more emergency preparedness vehicles since they already

27:37have maybe like three in the Baton Rouge area? Well, first off, the volunteer organizations

27:43are an integral part of emergency management. They're involved in everything we do. Every

27:49volunteer organization, whether it be this one or the numerous ones, they come to all of our

27:53rehearsals. We actually have meetings directly with all the volunteer organizations. They are

27:58prepared. They understand what a GO-STEP strategy is, and they are integrated into our preparation

28:05and response efforts. Very much. All right. Thank you again. Any other questions you can

28:11refer to Team Kelly, we'll be more than happy to fill in any additional questions. Thank you so much.

JUST IN: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry Holds Hurricane Safety And Preparation Press Briefing

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