1. Crisis Management Dynamics and Program Implementation Group A Members: Christy T. Abraham Ikenna Anyanwu Nicole Braxton Thomas Cheng Mimi Chong Michelle Yaw Professor: Anne Ferraro
Mimi: This is Mimi – We are team A, our members include Christy, Ikenna, Nicole, Thomas, Michelle and me. We are bringing you this evening the real live taping of 20/20 show talking about the hurricane Franco on October 4th, 2009. Mimi: Next slide please professor
Music played by Thomas Cheng (aka Mayor) Michelle: “Good evening and welcome to another edition of News for New York on 20/20. All New Yorkers were affected by Tuesday’s devastating events when hurricane Franco hit.” Michelle: Professor Next Slide Please
Michelle: Tonight we will discuss the impact hurricane Franco had on New York City. We will also get the chance to meet with several individuals who were affected by Franco when Special News Correspondent Nicole Braxton interviews them. Michelle: But first let’s take a brief look at how hurricanes have affected us in the past and what was predicted for the future. Michelle: Next slide please
Michelle: Hurricane Frances was the last major hurricane that affected New York City in 2004. The remains of Frances in September flooded city subways flooded city subways, stranding some passengers aboard trains that had to be stopped by flooded tracks Statistically, experts have estimated that the New York area is hit by one of these monster storms every 75 years or so. With ever increasing denser population across New York City, hurricanes cause incredible destruction. AIR Worldwide Corporation, an insurance-industry analyst, estimated $11.6 billion in New York losses alone. On AIR’s list of “the top ten worst places for an extreme hurricane to strike,” New York City is No. 2, (behind only Miami.) Michelle: Next slide please
Michelle: On October 4, 2009 a severe tropical storm gathered enough heat and energy from its trip across the Caribbean Sea to reach the northeastern seaboard of America. By the time it reached 50 miles from New York City, it had winds of up to 96 miles per hour making it a category 2 hurricane dubbed Franco. Along with these strong winds, heavy rain and waves added to storm surges. The sea-level also rose over 4 feet. The storm surges caused severe coastal flooding throughout New York City, particularly the low-lying areas, including lower Manhattan. All subways in Manhattan also became flooded, halting services for three business days. The severe coastal flooding also affected the water supply. The City’s attempts to raise electrical equipment at the Rockaway Wastewater Treatment Plan were not completed by the time the flooding overcame the system. Bacteria counts grew and there was much toxic pollution caused by the saltwater runoff. A number of glass windows in high-rise buildings from the financial district in lower Manhattan through Midtown, including the Empire State Building also dislodged and became air-borne. A few rescue personnel were struck and received minor cuts from the broken shards. Other misplaced loose outdoor items such as chairs outside the midtown Manhattan Library became projectiles causing additional damage. Several curious onlookers were struck and injured and there was one fatality. Numerous large tree branches in Central Park also became loose, broke off and fell upon cars. Additionally, several smaller trees throughout Bryant Park snapped and/or uprooted. The damage to the population of smaller animals that depend on these ecosystems is unknown currently but estimated to be significant. Extensive damage to power lines and poles also resulted in widespread power outages throughout the outer boroughs for several days. Emergency responses were made more difficult with these outages. Thankfully all hospitals throughout the region had emergency power generators with enough energy to back them up throughout the emergency. Michelle: Professor – Next Slide Please
Michelle : “Now let’s turn our attention to the interviews that Special News Correspondent Nicole has prepared. Nicole, during your research I’m sure you learned a lot about the impact of Franco. I’m curious to hear what you personally think. Do you feel the city was adequately prepared for a hurricane of this magnitude?” Nicole : “Michelle, the city was very much prepared for this type of hurricane. Forecasters had been warning for years that New York City was in a sense “overdue” for a hurricane. I think the city had learned from the mistakes made during and after hurricane Katrina.” Michelle : “That’s good to hear. Great, thanks Nicole, take it away then. We’re all really excited to hear from those at the forefront of Franco.” Michelle: “Professor next slide please”
Nicole: Back in 2007 the city unveiled a New Hurricane Preparedness Plan that definitely in my opinion made a difference in the overall outcome of this disaster. This preparedness plan included a color-coded hurricane evacuation zone map which helped residents determine whether or not they live in an evacuation zone, sending out 200,000 hurricane preparedness brochures to all households considered most vulnerable to coastal damage, a team of more than 35,000 city employees organizing a mass roundup to take evacuation zone residents to evacuation shelters including the FDNY which is also on hand to help evacuate people from hospitals and nursing homes, 400 shelters, as well as getting the state to waive tolls, and MTA to waive fares. During Franco, there was a team of more than 35,000 city employees that organized mass roundup that took evacuation zone residents to evacuation shelters and then onto one of the some 400 shelters that the city had setup. The FDNY part of the team of 34,000 employees was also on hand to help evacuate people from hospitals and nursing homes. On another note in 2007 New York City passed a new building code, this code mandated that new buildings be designed and constructed to withstand a force of a hurricane. Aside from the new Hurricane Preparedness Plan and the new mandated building code, in an effort to maintain focus on the need for city and individual preparedness for a hurricane, the Governor of New York took steps to make sure that the public would be ready for a hurricane like this. From the Executive Chamber, the Governor made a proclamation that would get the attention of those living in areas (Big Apple Residents) that could be in trouble should a hurricane hit. The governor used his power to proclaim June 2007 “Hurricane Preparedness Month”. This month was really centered on preparing for the “what if” situation. And last but not last 311, 311 is one of the center hubs of communication for the city having record messages for city residents to update them on any relevant information. Michelle, I really got the sense that there was also a lot of community help, which is a great thing during a disaster like this. All and all New York City was very prepared for this. Now me being in LA at the time, I did not witness Franco, but today I have four people here that were basically at the eye of the storm. They are here to give their account of the events that took place during and after Franco. I have Mayor Thomas Cheng, Forest Bank VP Mimi Chong, Superintendent Christy Abraham Lets go ahead and see the interviews Nichole: Next slide please
Nicole: My first guest is Mayor Cheng. Hi Mayor Cheng, thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to sit and talk with me about your experiences during and after hurricane Franco. I know it must have been a stressful time for you, but it seems like the city was pretty prepared. I just have a couple of questions for you. I know being the Mayor you have a very significant role in this catastrophic event. Could you please elaborate on your role? Nicole: Next slide please
Thomas: Good evening Nicole, first I’d like to thank the National Weather Service for providing accurate and up to date information about Franco as well as my gratitude to NY’s finest police and fire departments for their efforts in assisting with evacuations as well as search and rescue. Without their help, many more people would have been affected by the ferocity of Franco. I’d also like to thank the MTA for their generosity and assistance in the evacuation process by providing the use of their buses and subway as transportation for the evacuees free of charge. My role when I first heard of a Category 2 hurricane bound for NYC was the safety of the public and it’s residents, I immediately initiated the Emergency Operations Center as well as speak to local emergency program managers to discuss the plan and make sure there are emergency personnel on hand to perform search and rescue to assist folks who were unable to make it to the shelters. Then with the help of all public media outlets (TV, Internet, newspaper, and Radio) I was able to inform the public about New York City being in the path of Hurricane Franco as well as a city wide evacuation has been declared. To inform the public of their nearest shelter and transportation to get there, information was posted on the internet, newspapers, brochures that were handed out, as well as leaflets posted around the city. Thomas: Next slide please
Thomas: This map was included in the evacuation information documents that we distributed and informs the public of the areas to be most affected by a hurricane as well as their nearest evacuation shelter. Thomas: Next slide please
Nicole: So, what was happening around you? I know that FRANCO caused a lot of damage Thomas: Indeed a lot was happening around this great city before, during, and after Franco. Fortunately most people were cooperative and evacuated when informed of the hurricane, thus resulting in minimal injury reports which I’m happy to report. However, some people did not evacuate early enough as a few people suffered minor injuries from flying shrapnel while others were trapped in high rise buildings. Franco brought in heavy wind and rain when it made landfall. The city’s sewer system was not designed to drain water at the pace Franco was bringing, which resulted in the overflow of the sewer system that eventually brought heavy flooding to the streets and subways systems. The heavy winds, rain, and flying shrapnel also caused much havoc to the city’s communication and power grid. Thomas: Next slide please
Nicole: So Mayor, what happened after the hurricane as far as clean up and other mayoral duties? Thomas: When Franco left, he made certain he had left his mark. With the events that New York City has endured in the last decade, people have always come together in times of need to help each other out, and this was no exception. I’ve got to say, we are very fortunate to have the emergency personnel we’ve got on hand in this great city, despite their needs at home; most of them on-duty or off contributed their time in search & rescue efforts. For my mayoral role, the next few steps all seem to happen very fast as many items were on my agenda that needed attention to, for example getting power and telephone communication restored, updating the public about the latest news and updates via news conferences presented by me or one of the emergency program managers, warn the public about flood waters possibly being toxic with E. Coli and tap water deemed temporarily unsafe for use I also requested additional assistance from Governor Paterson in declaring New York City as a disaster area. Thomas: Next slide please
Nicole: What lessons have you and the city learned after the events of Franco? Thomas: A hurricane hitting New York City is extremely rare. My staff and I were caught off guard a bit, if there is a lesson to be learned it definitely is preparedness for the next hurricane or any disaster in general, that is why I am implementing a plan now to set aside budgeting capable of handling a disaster of this magnitude in order to be more self sufficient in the future. The residents of New York City can also contribute their part by enrolling in an emergency notification system that we have rolled out this year called NotifyNYC, it’s a free service to the public that alerts them via email, text and voice messages to their home, office, and cell phones of important alerts such as events and public health notification as well as public school closures. In the future, I’d like this system to be able to contact everyone in any type of disaster including disruption to the power grid for a significant amount of time. I’d also like to have training classes on the use of SMS texting. As most of our younger population already uses this service on their cell phones on a daily basis, this program would be geared more towards the older population. Some may not know, SMS texting takes up less bandwidth than regular cell phone calls; therefore text messages may be sent and received in areas where phone calls can’t. This would be a very useful tool for someone trapped to stay in touch with search and rescuers. New York City has many resources that we can tap into and use, with a few additional implementations such as a integrating NotifyNYC to all outer boroughs and a back-up POTS (plain old telephone service), it will allow us to be one step closer to being more self sufficient and prepared for any emergencies. I must say, given the circumstances and timeliness of Franco, I can’t say enough about our emergency personnel who contributed their time to help others out and how proud I am to be the mayor of this city. Nicole: Thank you again Mayor Cheng for your time, and recapping the events of Franco. And also a great thank you for preparing the city so well during and after Franco. I know the people of New York truly appreciate it. Nicole: Next slide please
Nicole: My next guess is Mimi. Hi Mimi, thank you for taking the time to sit with me today and discuss hurricane Franco. This hurricane really caused New York City problems, but I think the city did a great job in preparing for it. Being VP and managing functions in risk and business continuity I am sure you have your own opinion on how well the city was prepared for Franco. I would just like to ask you a couple of questions. I know you are a VP at Forest bank. What was your role in this event? Nicole: Next slide please
Mimi: My pleasure to be here, Nicole. Over the past 18 years I’ve managed functions in technology audit, information risk management (IRM), and business continuity (BC). My responsibilities include strategic planning, governance, physical and logical security, risk assessment of network and application controls, gap analysis and remediation, awareness training, monitoring and reporting, compliance and audit, as well as the ability to recover and maintain business continuity efforts in the event of any natural or man-made disaster. Mimi: Next Slide Please
Nicole: What happened when Franco hit? Mimi: In the event of hurricane Franco, I considered myself as a conductor of the business continuity efforts. I had a team of people dedicated in IT focusing on preserving the data integrity, power backup, updating the emergency website. Also, I work with Investor Relations personnel to provide any up-to-date media contact. On the other hand, I stayed in touch with the government especially FEMA and some government officials to learn about how government responses to the situation. Of course, there is another team responsible for monitoring the security of the many buildings and ATM machines locations we have to ensure minimal damages. Prior to the hurricane, we had up-to-date information about our emergency and evacuation plans on our emergency websites, which contained directions to contact us and our emergency plans. Immediately after receiving the category 2 warning, we activated our Emergency Operation Center. The location was in Armonk, NY, we quickly assembly a team to standby there where we knew the hurricane would not be directly hitting there. We arranged 24/7 coverage for that location receiving phone calls and keeping in touch with the government for special emergency plan. Because of a major telephone line failure in New York area, major players of the emergency plan team had satellite phones to ensure continuation of communication. Therefore, the communication was not interrupted. A major contribution of us was we sent buses to help the evacuation. When an employee of ours call in for buses for evacuation, they can bring up to 4 other family members with them. We have designated bus locations posted on the website. We also arranged inter-boro buses for employees who wished to travel to their relatives in other part of New York Mimi: Next Slide Please
Nicole: How did your company recover after Franco hit? Mimi: I am proud to say that my company employees not only help our company recover quickly, they assembled a volunteer rescue team to assist the Policy force in assisting rescue efforts. Each of these employees gets a paid day off to do so. Our IT department sent 16 employees per request by ConEdison to assist their system restoration so that all the residence can have power sooner and they were able to modify the ConEdison protocol so that less start up time was needed once the electricity poles have been restored physically. There were a few ATM machines being attacked in total but insurance covered most and we would allocate part of the losses in the company this quarter for the effort of Hurricane Franco. All of our buildings were able to be restored within 48 hours, the most, there were physical damage but I am happy to report there is no Forest Bank report death in the event of Franco. Mimi: Next Slide Please
Nicole: In your opinion what are some lessons that you learned in this disaster? Mimi: Think of every possible ways that can happen and also have plan B and even plan C or D. This thought process will pay off. A dollar paid in mitigation will take a lot more than in recovery. Purchase satellite phones for critical emergency personnel because communication is the key and if you cannot always get the key people on the phone, things cannot move and decision cannot be reached quickly. More planning for emergency operations center (radio coverage, satellite dishes, and PC, etc) will help the emergency plans transition smoothly. Also know there things can happen especially during this kind of emergency, things do break down so always make sure there are enough of equipments Insurance is essential part of your emergency plan because the physical loss damage were all covered by the insurance payout because there is a foresight of needing to buy the insurance, we saved a lot of money in the recovery. Finally, as a company contributing to the community is important especially during the crisis situation. I cannot be happier to see the united community and this is the prime example of a great community especially in the largest city in the United States Nicole: Mimi, thank you again for your time. We truly appreciate hearing your take on the events of Franco. Mimi: Thank you! Nicole: Professor Next Slide Please
Nicole: And now were here with Christy. Hi Christy, thank you for being here today to answer some questions about your involvement in hurricane Franco. Being a superintendent I know there were tones of things going on that you were responsible for. As a superintendent of XYZ what were some of your responsibilities and involvement in this disaster? Nicole: Next Slide Please
Christy: Hi Nicole, thank you for having me on your show. It is unfortunate New York had to face this tragic experience. However, I firmly believe we fought hard through this storm. When I learned about hurricane Franco, my first thought was naturally the safety of the children in our schools. Along with the physical impact I was very concerned about the emotional impact Franco would leave on these children. The first thing I did was coordinate with all the school districts to make sure we communicated thoroughly with the students and their families. We created a mass phone messaging system, which called up to 8,000 homes per hour and delivered a pre-recorded warning message about the hurricane. In the event no one answered, the system redialed the number up to six times. We also focused on educating the children and their families on the cause and effects of a hurricane. In this effort, we created pamphlets that provided information on rescue hotlines, list of essential food and other supplies, ways to protect your home, zoning maps, and methods to up with academics in the event schools were shut down for a long duration. Upon the evacuation of the students and faculty, we were able to convert the school buildings into public shelters. Christy: Next Slide Please
Nicole: What happened when the hurricane hit? What were some of your duties? Christy: After turning the school building into a public shelter, we were able to accommodate many people seeking safety and shelter. As the hurricane approached us, we felt the strength of the wind because glass was shattering around us and objects were flying and crashing outside the building. During this time we experienced power failure, which frightened everyone, but we were prepared with flash lights and back up generators. However, the next day after the hurricane passed we discovered their was sever flooding in the lower level of many of the schools and the water damage caused a substantial loss in school supplies. Some schools were also faced with structural damage which will require these schools to remain closed for the next few months. Christy: Next Slide Please
Nicole: What happened to the schools afterwards? Christy: In preparation of dealing with the aftermath of the hurricane we placed counselors in each school. When dealing with children, we need to be aware of their fragile minds and make an serious effort in providing them with the appropriate counseling. We are also reaching out for help with the restoration process. Due to the structural damage caused by the hurricane some schools will be closed for a long duration of time. Therefore, we will need more funding and assistance in the re-building process. Meanwhile, we are focusing our attention on providing new student enrollment opportunities for students who are at a stand still due to their school closing. From an administrative point of view we are looking to hold fund raisers in order to replace school supplies that were destroyed in the flood water. Christy: Next Slide Please
Nicole: What were some lessons that you and the school district learned after this disaster? Christy: I speak on behalf of New York Public Schools when I say this, but we are very proud of the way this situation was handled from start to finish. Our mass communication technique was an excellent way to letting people know about the hurricane and have them prepare for safety. However, after the hurricane we learned that some student information was not updated in our systems, which is something we definitely need to improve as part of our emergency procedure. Nicole: Thanks again Christy for being here today. We definitely learned a lot about your experiences as well as the schools. Nicole: “Now back to the studios with Michelle. Michelle?” Nicole: Next slide please
Michelle : “ Wow, Nicole, thank you very much. Your hard work has given us an insiders view to emergency management. Thank you for this special opportunity. And now to our viewers thank you for watching us. We hope you learned a lot from this program. Hopefully each and every household will be able to prepare its own emergency plan. Preparation will be key in situations like this. Good night.” Mimi: This concluded the live taping of 20/20 show about Hurricane Franco. We actually have our host and the four interviewees live here with us, if you have any questions, you will have the privilege to ask them.
![News for New York - 20/20 All About Hurricane Franco – October 4 th , 2009 ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)