Hurricane Helene from the perspective of a former FEMA chief

When Hurricane Helene devastated his home in Hickory, North Carolina, Brock Long lost power for four days. Once his family was safe, he headed to the mountains of western North Carolina to help. He knows the area well: He graduated from Appalachian State, which is in Boone, one of the hardest-hit towns in the state. Long also knows a few things about charging into the breach after a major disaster. As a career emergency manager, he led FEMA from 2017 to 2019 and is now CEO of Hagerty Consulting, which specializes in emergency response.

When I spoke on the phone yesterday, Long sounded exhausted. But he provided a clear overview of the challenges emergency managers face in the wake of the storm, including ongoing efforts to rebuild communications networks and reach residents living in remote mountainous areas where hurricanes are not a common threat.

Long told me that he was encouraged by the willingness of ordinary citizens to get involved and help, but he cautioned against “getting involved yourself” in the midst of such a complex task. And while he understands some complaints about the rapid response to the storm, he stressed that recovery from events as massive as Helene is inevitably slow. “No one is to blame for this terrible catastrophe,” he told me. “It’s not the FEMA disaster. It's all our disaster. The entire community must come together to solve this problem.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

David Graham: How are you doing?

Brock Long: Tired, brother.

Graham: I bet. What was that like for you personally?

Long: We were without power for four days. Luckily, as FEMA Administrator, I practiced what I preached and we were prepared as a family. But I am deeply pained for many other communities that have truly borne the brunt of the impact. I was up in Boone in Watauga County. I made it to the top of Beech Mountain today. I was in Asheville, working with local leaders and emergency managers, trying to just say from a volunteer perspective: Hey, listen, this is what you need to think about, protect yourself and prepare for the long-term recovery that will take place in the next few yearsand try to penetrate some of these communities. Getting to Beech Mountain was incredibly hard. Beech Mountain was completely separated. We had to find an old forest road to get to the top.

Read: North Carolina was prepared for disaster

Graham: The loss of cell service was a real challenge. How do first responders deal with this?

Long: When there is a storm like this, communication is the worst thing you can lose. It is very difficult for local, state and federal officials to get a picture of the situation without hearing from communities. We often have mobile communications capabilities, or what we call “communications on wheels,” that we can use to create temporary mobile and landline capabilities. Everyone wants power and communications back, but there is too much debris for them to get in and do the work they need. In some cases, removing debris from infrastructure that needs repairs results in power and communications being out for longer than necessary.

Graham: Is there a way for emergency managers to break down response phases?

Long: Right now it's all hands on deck for search and rescue and life support operations. The death toll in North Carolina will be enormous. This is already the case, but unfortunately I think it will continue to grow. In some of these communities, people still live far down dirt roads. Up in the cut-off mountainous regions, they are still conducting health checks and understanding who may be in their homes. Once the life support mission calms down, you are already thinking about initial recovery and then long-term community recovery.

Graham: Something that amazes me is the number of different timelines and directions one thinks in at the same time.

Long: Disaster relief will never progress as quickly as people would like. There's a reason we call them catastrophic disasters. Things don't work. They are broken. And you don't just say: Oh, let me flip the switch and turn it back on. You need to set expectations and be honest with people: Listen, we've suffered a catastrophic blow. And it's not just your area; There are several states. People tend to see only their local picture of the entire disaster event. I can't tell you what's going on in Florida, South Carolina, or Georgia right now because I'm in my own little world in western North Carolina. There are only a limited amount of resources that can be deployed. I never blame anyone. Nobody is to blame for this terrible catastrophe. It's not the FEMA disaster. It's all our disaster. The entire community must come together to solve this problem.

Graham: For someone familiar with catastrophic disasters, how does that compare?

Long: I never like to compare them, but I can tell you that I grew up in North Carolina and Hurricane Hugo in 1989 was incredibly bad. We probably had 14 to 20 trees in our yard. I had no power for eight days and it seemed like I didn't go to school for two weeks and that was a wind-only event. When hurricanes pass over mountainous regions, the geographical impact of the mountains increases rainfall, and that is catastrophic.

Graham: What influence does the terrain have on the course of this disaster?

Long: The supply chain is interrupted. I probably saw as many as 150 collapsed or partially collapsed roads today in and around Watauga and Avery Counties alone. They are everywhere. When there were no ruts, there was a mudslide and downed trees covering half the road. Some of these communities become inaccessible, depriving them of the fuel they need to run their generators. They can't bring the supplies up there to feed the staff. There are limited resources available to troubleshoot any issues that arise. Therefore, the difficult task of emergency managers is to figure out which road systems to repair first at the expense of others to ensure that they can fulfill their life-sustaining missions.

Read: Hurricane Helene left a 30-foot-deep chasm in my street

Graham: Who is the contact person for these decisions?

Long: All disasters are carried out locally, managed by the state and supported by the federal government. Locals know their areas of responsibility best and communicate their specific needs to the state. The state is trying to fulfill what it can, and anything beyond its capacity goes to FEMA. It's a bottom-up system. FEMA will not have visibility or familiarity with some of these areas that are completely cut off, these cities that they don't work in every day.

Graham: What do policymakers need to do to respond?

Long: If Congress pays attention, the areas of North Carolina will have the ability to make municipal disaster loans because some of these communities will lose sales tax revenue, tourism taxes and revenue, and their economy will suffer a setback. Over time, the revenue will no longer be enough to sustain to cover the bills and maintain the city or community.

I think there is a way out of this negative cycle of disasters. Congress must compromise and come together to incentivize communities to do the right thing. By that I mean we need to start rewarding communities that do proper land use planning, that implement the latest International Code Council building codes, and we need to reward communities that work with insurance companies to properly insure their infrastructure.

Graham: I remember hearing your predecessor at FEMA, Craig Fugate, say the same thing years ago, but it hasn't happened yet.

Long: I believe the emergency management community needs to build some pretty strong advocacy capabilities. They must come together to tell Congress how the laws and system should be redesigned to create more resilient communities in the future, rather than Congress telling FEMA how to do it. Because we've done this several times and in my opinion it doesn't work.

Graham: What have you noticed about the way local people help each other?

Long: Donation management is really important because if not done well it can lead to a disaster within a disaster. The beauty of this reaction is that the neighbor helps the neighbor. People are full of goodwill. They want to give things. But what actually needs to happen is that you need to get people to volunteer their support and their time to national volunteer organizations that respond to disasters, what we call VOAD agencies. These agencies are connected to the system. They can handle the problems that local, state, and federal governments cannot handle because of the extensive, comprehensive laws, policies, and processes.

Graham: People want to help, but end up doing things that don't really help?

Long: Well, her Are assist, you know? It's great, but we need to organize this effort. And there is one more thing I would like to recommend to North Carolina residents: give yourself time. I know everyone wants to jump in right away, and there are missions that can be accomplished immediately, but the needs of these communities will remain for many years from what I've seen. While the cameras are rightfully focused on Asheville, in North Carolina there are Avery and Mitchell Counties and Ashe Counties, which are mountainous and rural and do not have the capacity that some of their larger neighbors have and are also needed Great.

The losses these communities suffer will be generational losses. This is peak tourism season in North Carolina. In autumn the leaves change. If you tried to get a hotel room in any of these cities for October last week, it was fully booked everywhere and impossible. Then start the ski season. I fear that the most important part of these tourism-driven economies has been wiped out. One of the things people can do and help later is not cancel your plans to visit the area in the winter. If you want to volunteer your time and help, later spend money in these communities. Help them get their economy back on track.