Pete Buttigieg to unveil disaster relief plan in South Carolina
DES MOINES, Iowa — One year after Hurricane Florence pummeled the Carolinas and just weeks after Hurricane Dorian lashed the U.S. coastline, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg Tuesday is set to unveil new proposals aimed at helping communities withstand and rebuild in the wake of catastrophic weather events.
The plan titled, “Resilient Communities: A New Disaster Preparedness Approach,” aims to reimagine the way disaster relief and preparation works in the United States.
“It’s time to shift the focus from placing the burden of compliance on individuals and communities, to making it the government’s job to actually help people in their time of greatest need,” the policy reads.
Within his first 100 days in office, Buttigieg says he’ll set up a disaster commission comprised of federal, state, and local agencies along with volunteer organizations. According to the plan, the commission will make recommendations on a host of issues including how best to streamline disaster relief applications and creating a permanent source of disaster relief funding.
The plan calls for more federal support on the ground following a disaster by increasing the number of FEMA disaster workers and FEMA Corps members while also building a surge-capacity force that would deploy non-FEMA federal employees to disaster sites.
Buttigieg hopes to equip FEMA workers with wi-fi hotspots to help communities reconnect with the rest of the world quickly and modernize the 911 system to allow calls to be rerouted and for those in need to send text messages and location data during a disaster.
At the community level, the candidate hopes to create a culture of resilience by funding community volunteer programs that could, for example, train people to help with evacuations or assist with weather related displacement. Buttigieg also plans to authorize and increasing the budget for FEMA’s Individual and Community Preparedness Division, with an emphasis on marginalized communities.
In addition, Buttigieg would incentivize private companies to work with state and local governments on resilience planning. The mayor supports proposed legislation that would authorize loans for states and communities working to incorporate resilience and mitigation while also consolidating grant programs so that communities can afford new technology. For example, a solar micro-grid system atop a fire station that would keep the building operational if power were lost.
While many candidates have released plans on climate change that address resiliency, Buttigieg is the first to release a policy solely focused on the issue.