Andre Dickens, Mayor, Atlanta Ali Zaidi, White House National Climate Advisor Moderator: Sheryl Estrada, Senior Writer, Finance, Fortune
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00:00Hey, hey there.
00:02Hi everyone.
00:03Thanks for joining us.
00:07And Mayor, thank you for hosting us in your great city.
00:09Yeah, absolutely.
00:10Thank you all for being here.
00:11Welcome to Atlanta.
00:14Enjoy our great city.
00:15Spend lots of money and see things, OK?
00:23Ali, I'd like to start the conversation off with you.
00:26Some of the same areas hit hard by Helene
00:29to see flooding again by Hurricane Milton.
00:32Some expected to make landfall as early as Thursday.
00:36What steps has the administration
00:38taken to bolster climate resilience?
00:43Well, first of all, I'm grateful to be with you.
00:46And this storm is just catastrophic.
00:51Overnight, essentially, charging up to a Category 5.
00:56And you see more and more storms
00:59draw their fury from a Gulf of Mexico that is warmer.
01:04And that's directly related to climate change.
01:07We have prepositioned assets, brought
01:10the whole federal government shoulder
01:12to shoulder with state and local officials
01:15to take on what the impacts will be
01:18from this storm and the next one.
01:20But to your point, it's really important for us
01:23to be in the long game of adapting
01:25our cities and our rural areas to this new reality.
01:30So when I think about climate resilience,
01:32especially in the face of flood, in the previous administration,
01:36they had rolled back these things called flood risk
01:39standards, basic minimum guidelines
01:41that when you build infrastructure using taxpayer
01:44dollars, how high do you build it?
01:47In this administration, not only did we
01:50go and undo that reversal, we actually
01:53integrated climate-informed science
01:56into a new set of flood risk standards.
01:59So thing number one is, when you spend federal bucks,
02:03make sure you build it in a way that
02:06responds to what we know about the risk in front of us.
02:09But that's for things going forward.
02:11How do you improve the things that are already
02:14built all around us?
02:16And there, in the form of the bipartisan infrastructure law,
02:19we made the biggest investment in resilience in the country.
02:23And very specifically, what that means
02:25is money to raise roads and bridges
02:28so they don't wash away during a storm,
02:32with a particular mind to things like evacuation routes
02:35that we have funded in the state of Florida,
02:37for example, through the infrastructure law
02:39well before a storm showed up so that those evacuation
02:43routes are available.
02:45Hardening our grid is a second strategy
02:48that I think is absolutely essential to the success
02:53of future cities going forward.
02:57Because we have, whether it's a hospital or a senior center
03:04or it's the command center or it's, frankly,
03:07the water treatment plant, all of it plugs into our grid.
03:10So if the grid gets washed out, you have a very big problem.
03:14And that's why we're investing in increased transmission
03:18capacity, strengthening the substation assets
03:23so those don't flood when a storm or storm surge passes
03:26through, and then also getting after the opportunity
03:29that distributed energy represents.
03:32So I could go on and on, but I think it's about codes.
03:36It's about standard.
03:37It's about building new things smarter
03:40and upgrading older built environment
03:43to meet the test of the climate crisis.
03:46Thank you, Ali.
03:48I wanted to ask you, Mayor Dickens,
03:50Hurricane Helene made landfall September 26 in Florida,
03:54eventually moving into parts of Georgia, South Carolina,
03:56North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.
03:58Metro Atlanta spared most of the storm.
04:02Can you tell us the approach of your Office of Emergency
04:05Preparedness during this time?
04:07Yeah, absolutely.
04:08We didn't know what was going to happen,
04:10so we prepared for the worst.
04:12So we, of course, seeing this big storm Helene
04:14coming through the Gulf of Mexico, a lot of attention
04:18was on Florida, the Tallahassee area,
04:21and thinking that southern Georgia would get it.
04:23But it never stopped.
04:24It just kept going all the way up to Appalachia,
04:26to North Carolina, South Carolina.
04:29But it made a turn just as it was coming towards Metro
04:33Atlanta, and it went easterly and up,
04:36just literally circled around Atlanta.
04:38So we got a lot of flooding, a lot of wind,
04:41but not as much as we would have received had we
04:44been on that direct path.
04:45But we prepared.
04:47The day we knew it was coming, two days earlier,
04:50we started to prepare as heavy rains were in Atlanta.
04:53And the heavy rains persisted for days.
04:56And so we knew that if the hurricane did come,
04:59if heavy winds came, the ground was
05:00going to be so soft that the trees would start to fall.
05:04And we have a lot of power lines here that if the trees fall,
05:07then that means that the power grid is now affected
05:09and people's ability, whether they're
05:12medical devices that are in their homes, of course,
05:14their cell phones and other things.
05:15So we began to prepare.
05:18These type of events, you have to be coordinated.
05:21You have to have a lot of collaboration.
05:22And then communications is key.
05:26And I think that in order to get it right,
05:27you have to really, really have a good communications
05:31network with your television, but also with social media,
05:36with the devices on people's phones,
05:38and the pre-conversations.
05:39Atlanta's very hilly, as you may know.
05:43We're the city of 1,000 hills, it's been said.
05:45And so low-lying areas collect water
05:48in normal heavy rain events.
05:51In a thunderstorm, but something that's
05:53the magnitude of a hurricane, we had to prepare ahead of time.
05:57So communication was telling people to move
06:00their cars to higher grounds.
06:02Some houses have hills, and we want
06:04you to put your car at the highest point.
06:06We want you to put your, don't have your birth certificate,
06:10social security number, and your life insurance
06:13in that little Nike shoe box in the basement
06:15that sometimes floods.
06:17So you have to tell people these things.
06:19And then the other coordination was
06:22key to make sure we went and cleaned out
06:24all of the storm drains every day,
06:27particularly in areas that we know
06:29are low-lying areas in the city, like where our college
06:32students are at Clark Atlanta, Atlanta University Center,
06:35some other low-lying areas that flooded in 2008,
06:38flooded in 2002.
06:40So we looked at history as a guide to say,
06:42these areas flood in certain conditions,
06:45so we need to get ahead of it.
06:47Luckily, those areas didn't flood as bad.
06:50We did have some areas that did.
06:51The creeks and the river did get a really high level.
06:57So the other part of our plan, the collaboration,
06:59working with Georgia Power, and having all of our agency
07:03relationships in order, FEMA, GEMA, et cetera,
07:07I'd like to say that we came through that storm pretty well.
07:10We lost 6% of the power.
07:136% of the residents lost power for some period of time
07:15due to downed power lines.
07:17About 220 trees fell down.
07:19And we had our emergency crews on standby,
07:22our Atlanta Fire Rescue Department
07:25had to get in boats to get some people in some apartments that
07:28were very low-lying.
07:30And they had to be rescued.
07:32They were trying to drive in the vehicles,
07:34and the floodwaters just came over them.
07:37And so no one lost life, but we were
07:39able to coordinate in a way to take boats onto this property
07:45to be able to get people.
07:47So we learned a lot in this exercise,
07:51as we are now experiencing what's in the Gulf right now,
07:55unfortunately.
07:56While it looks like it's going to go across Florida,
07:58we don't take any chances.
08:00We're collaborating right now.
08:02And the last thing I'll say is part of our collaboration
08:05is a whole-of-government approach.
08:07Every single department head that
08:09may have thought they weren't directly into the flood
08:12mitigation, public safety, everybody,
08:15we had routine calls every three hours.
08:18And we stood up our joint operations center.
08:21We have a room about this size with TVs and monitors
08:24and communication devices that the first, the second,
08:27the thirds in the department all
08:29rotate every eight-hour shift.
08:32And we treat it as though it's an operation, if you will,
08:37for everybody.
08:39311, 911, parks and recreation having to say,
08:44when are we going to close after school programs?
08:47Are we going to make sure they're closed today?
08:49And even mayor's office of special events.
08:52I'm doing ribbon cuttings and all those things.
08:54You have to give advance notice that these things are
08:57canceled and you should cancel yours, too.
09:00People take their cues from the government.
09:02So we were making sure that we sent messaging out
09:04to our Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and our school system
09:08and others saying, we're not working in person tomorrow,
09:14what have you.
09:15We're going to work remotely.
09:16But emergency personnel will be on standby.
09:19And that helped clear the roads as well.
09:22That's amazing, the information you're sharing with us.
09:26I was wondering, as you were speaking,
09:27are there any learnings or best practices from this experience
09:31that you plan to take into a potential other catastrophes?
09:36Yeah, don't take any storm for granted.
09:40When they start talking about it on the Weather Channel,
09:45on the news, if it's in the Gulf,
09:47our Office of Emergency Preparedness
09:49starts to have weather forecasts.
09:52We start having screens available for us
09:54to watch this storm.
09:57Because they shift.
09:58They can make rapid shifts or even
10:02shifts that are undetermined how large they're going to be.
10:06And so don't take any storm for granted.
10:09Make sure that you stay ready so you
10:11don't have to get ready in some kind of format that's
10:16not planned.
10:17You want to be ahead of it.
10:19But it's also to make sure that people
10:20have some self-resiliency.
10:23Government has a tremendous role.
10:25And local government, people come to local government
10:28for everything.
10:30And you have to know that.
10:31People are going to ask me about postal service.
10:35People are going to ask me about their food stamps,
10:38their SNAP, their whatever.
10:39And that's not a local function.
10:41But I have to be aware of it.
10:43People are going to ask me about a number of things.
10:47So it's being prepared.
10:48Being collaborative is so important.
10:52And government, the local government,
10:53the ones that they see in the grocery store every day,
10:56the ones that they hang out with, they come to us first.
10:59And so we have to know everything,
11:02have a good feel for what weather patterns are,
11:05be able to communicate with the power companies,
11:07with the various entities that help us.
11:10But everybody has to have some self-resiliency.
11:14We think about our critical infrastructure,
11:16which are our hospitals, our airport, our rail system,
11:21the various water systems.
11:24But we also think about our challenged communities,
11:28those that are experiencing homelessness,
11:30our seniors and those, how do we get,
11:32make sure they have provisions?
11:33Is there water in this senior center?
11:35Do we have the ability to get them water?
11:37Is there battery backup at this senior center?
11:40We have to bring all of the people
11:42experiencing homelessness into our shelters,
11:44making sure there's enough shelter beds,
11:47et cetera, so we did all of that.
11:48And luckily, most of it wasn't as necessary
11:51because the storm changed.
11:52But then a few days later, there was a bio lab
11:57that had this chemical fire, so it put chlorine in the air.
12:03So we had to protect people a week later.
12:06It wasn't in the city of Atlanta, it was 50 miles away.
12:10But we share the same air, we share the same water,
12:12we are in one community now.
12:15What affects one directly affects another indirectly,
12:18as Dr. King would say.
12:20So having self-resiliency, so we have now these packages
12:23that we're sharing with people to say,
12:26in your home, you should at least have these things.
12:29Because we might can't get to you in five minutes
12:31like we can on a sunny day.
12:33We might can't get to you in 10 minutes or 20 minutes.
12:36Have these things, prepare these things.
12:37So that's part of our initial communication,
12:40and particularly to our vulnerable population
12:43like our senior citizens and those
12:46that are in our homeless shelters.
12:47Thank you for sharing that, Mayor.
12:49Ali, I wanted to ask you, as the mayor has explained
12:52a lot of the measures that he's taking on a local level,
12:55how does the federal government partner
12:58with local government for some of these initiatives
13:01like educating citizens on best practices for their homes
13:06to endure climate events and things of that sort?
13:11Well, the mayor just walked through,
13:14I think, the masterclass of what leadership looks like
13:17on the climate crisis.
13:19And, you know, he's talking about it.
13:22Tell me, for you, that's awesome.
13:24Thank you, thank you.
13:27Look, you know, we're hearing about what he's done
13:29in just the last week or two, but let me say,
13:33the reason he's able, I think, to pass the ball around
13:37to play that point guard function on the ground
13:40is because right out of the gate,
13:42he established an Office of Sustainability and Resilience
13:46in his city hall.
13:47So one of the things we've been trying to do
13:49with mayors and local leaders around the country
13:52is to have them establish that capability, that capacity.
13:57Sure, everybody in local government or federal government,
14:01for that matter, is now, for better or worse,
14:04in the climate business.
14:05We are all enveloped in the crisis,
14:10but you need a capacity, a central clearinghouse
14:13that gets information out, even to the government,
14:17so that folks are doing what they need to.
14:19So that's thing number one that we've been trying to do
14:22is work with local governments to build their capacity
14:25to coordinate themselves.
14:27The second is, you know, again, he talked about,
14:31in this very colloquial way,
14:33about going and clearing out the storms, the storm gutters,
14:39making sure that the absorption capability
14:43for these new precipitation patterns
14:45that are potentially deadly,
14:47that they got out in front of it.
14:50How do you do that?
14:51The way you do it is by harnessing
14:53the data we now have available
14:55that helps us try to pinpoint what those risk spots are.
15:00So we launched this new tool called CAMRA two years ago,
15:04using new satellite data and new climate projections
15:09through our weather agency, through NOAA.
15:12And it's designed specifically so that local leaders
15:16can actually take that information
15:19and then use it to deploy their resources more effectively.
15:23So the second thing we've been trying to do
15:24is workshop these data tools that we have available
15:28with local leaders so that they can do exactly
15:31the use case the mayor laid out.
15:34Take the data from our scientists
15:37and then translate it into resource deployment
15:40that's smarter and more effective.
15:43The third thing is trying to integrate the use
15:46of more technology to this adaptation challenge.
15:51I think for a really long time,
15:53we've looked at the root cause part of climate change,
15:55right, the solar panels, the electric Rivian
15:59that the mayor drives, getting the pollution
16:02out of the sky that causes the climate change.
16:06But we've got to apply that same technology innovation
16:11to the resilience challenge,
16:13which is why we're actually bringing together innovators
16:16who are deploying drones to figure out
16:20where those power lines are maybe the most vulnerable
16:24issues spot that early.
16:27Figure out how the mayor talked about vegetation management.
16:31That is a massive issue around the country.
16:35But we now have folks actually using satellite data
16:39and artificial intelligence to spot where
16:42that vegetation mismanagement is most likely
16:46to cause a down in the grid,
16:50go and surge solutions to that place.
16:52So I think what we have been trying to do
16:56is really to get all of these tools
16:58in the hands of local leaders.
17:01And of course, recognize that a big part of it all
17:04is investment.
17:06In Georgia, we've invested 2 million bucks for culverts
17:10in those types of geographies
17:13that the mayor is talking about
17:14so that the water can flow more effectively
17:17and not pool up and cause a big problem.
17:21You've got to invest in the raising of the roads
17:24and the hardening of the infrastructure.
17:25So it's helping them build the capacity,
17:29helping get the data and tools and the best practices,
17:32and then helping out with the resources.
17:35I think that's a good ending point.
17:37You need the technology,
17:38you need the resources and the investment.
17:41I want to thank you both for being here with us today.
17:43Thank you for sharing your insight.
17:44Thank you so much.