Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy• Sandy was the second-largest

Atlantic storm on record• Storm surge reached over 13

feet in coastal areas of New York and New Jersey

• The heavily impacted tri-state region is the most densely populated in the nation

• The impacted region contains critical national functions including the financial district in lower Manhattan

These complications caused large scale challenges in emergency

response, including wide scale power outages, housing scarcity, and

freezing temperatures

Sandy’s Impact• 8.5 million people lost power

across the northeast • Fuel shortages immobilized

impacted regions and presented challenges in keeping backup generators running

• Hundreds of thousands were ordered to evacuate

• 650,000 homes damaged or destroyed

• 190,000 business affected• Winter temperatures added

urgency to power restoration and home repairs

Response to Sandy• Incident Management

Assessment Teams were pre-staged to emergency operation centers

• Peak of 17,000 federal personnel and over 11,000 National Guardsmen were on the ground assisting with the response

• The Individuals and Household programs provided assistance to over 520,000 registrations

Response to Sandy• FEMA shipped over 20 million

liters of water, almost 14 million meals, nearly 80 thousand cots, and over 1.5 million blankets to impacted states

• Public Assistance provides funding for the repair, restoration, reconstruction, or replacement of infrastructure that is damaged or destroyed by a disaster

• SBA approved over $493 million small business loans

Whole Community Innovations

• The New Jersey Governor’s Office rallied with community partners to establish an emergency hot-line and coordinate pet search and recovery efforts

• Solar power companies in New York and New Jersey partnered to deploy equipment and volunteers to install and maintain mobile solar power generators in some of the hardest hit communities

A Whole Community team

enlisted the assistance of more than 4,000 on-line

volunteers to conduct aerial

damage assessments

Whole Community Innovations

FEMA’s Innovations• FEMA Innovations Team

composed of a variety of whole community partners was deployed to work side-by-side with disaster survivors and Federal agencies to restore and rebuild communications with mesh WiFi networks

• FEMA gave some of its Community Relations personnel iPads to help facilitate mobile registration for assistance

FEMA’s Innovations• FEMA created the Sheltering

and Temporary Essential Power (STEP) program to repair storm-damaged electrical meters, provide essential utilities, and exterior repairs

• FEMA employees lived on ships so that their presence in hotels did not displace survivors

• DHS Surge Capacity Force and the FEMA Corps program helped the agency surge staff response operations

Initial Lessons After Sandy

• Greater advance planning is needed regarding:• Issues specific to emergencies in

densely populated urban areas• Addressing fuel shortages after

large disasters• Ensuring capacity to lodge

emergency response personnel without displacing survivors

• Rapidly surging a large number of emergency responders into the field

Initial Lessons After Sandy• Recognizing the public’s reliance on

wireless and mobile technology, priority needs to be given to reestablishing communications infrastructure

• Given advancements in mobile technology, FEMA needs to establish a more mobile field presence, bringing its services directly to survivors

• All emergency managers need to continue to and expand upon partnering with the private sector in all phases of emergency management

• Storm Warnings

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David A. Trissell

FEMA Attaché

U.S. Mission to the European Union

32-02-811-5757trissellda@state.gov

www.fema.gov