Witt: Prepare. Far worse storms are coming

James Lee Witt, a co-chair of ProtectingAmerica.org, is chief executive of Witt Associates and was director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bill Clinton.

Thousands of families up and down the Eastern Seaboard are still feeling the effects from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. The storms hit many people who thought they were immune from hurricanes and remind us of the risk we face every summer and fall.

On Long Island, as a tropical storm, Irene flooded roads and basements, and uprooted trees in communities from Great Neck to the Hamptons. Nearly 4,500 people spent the night in shelters.

But even this destruction pales in comparison to the great Long Island Express of 1938, which killed hundreds -- at a time when Long Island had more fields of potatoes than housing tracts and businesses. The 1938 storm was more intense, but Long Island is immensely more vulnerable now because it's more densely populated.

This time, it was fallen trees that caused the most widespread damage to homes across the Island. Winds of up to 70 miles per hour left more than 470,000 Long Island Power Authority customers without electricity -- nearly half its customers -- making it LIPA's largest outage in more than 25 years. Many were without power for up to a week following the storm, even with extra crews working around the clock to repair wires downed by falling trees.

High wind was not our only foe during Irene -- water and flooding caused significant damage as well.

A storm surge 6 to 10 feet above normal caused flooding in South Shore communities like Freeport, Merrick and Atlantic Beach. People kayaked through Lido Beach's flooded streets. Water reached over Long Beach's boardwalk and knocked down its lifeguard headquarters. Beaches from Robert Moses State Park and Fire Island to the Hamptons are dealing with erosion.

Again, history reminds us that we will inevitably see much worse. The hurricane 73 years ago had a flood surge that severed the South Fork and temporarily turned Montauk into an island. It continued past Long Island to Providence, where water reached the third floors of downtown buildings.

County governments are still assessing the economic damage to the region. Across the East Coast, total economic loss from Irene could total $10 billion, according to modeler Eqecat. That's a staggering figure, yet we could see future storms that cause more than 10 times the amount of damage. More must be done well before the next natural catastrophe to better prepare our first-responders and our financial system. Irene showed that many places beyond Florida and the Gulf States are vulnerable.

In order to expedite a successful recovery from unforeseen incidents, communities need to focus on having financial components in place that are designed to ensure continuity of government, economic revitalization and restoration of public trust. To do so, every local jurisdiction should institute the following essential steps:

Augment the local and state emergency management staff. Maintaining the necessary capacity of response staff on a full-time basis is cost-prohibitive to most communities. Additionally, many past employees from nonemergency agencies previously assigned to support emergency operations in a disaster have been laid off. That further limits response capability. Having an adequate number of well-trained staff on standby to activate when disaster strikes is not only prudent, but can be included as part of a pre-event contract.

Maximize public infrastructure grants, and have access to personnel experienced in managing FEMA public assistance programs. It is important that a community not be exposed to public assistance programs for the first time when disaster strikes. Employees familiar with eligibility criteria, applicant responsibilities, mitigation opportunities and documentation guidelines can be critical to a jurisdiction's ability to maximize eligible reimbursement dollars.

Keep an eye on cash flow. Most communities, at all levels of government, encounter a cash crisis immediately after a disaster, and don't have the matching funds required by FEMA available to kick off their long-term recovery processes. High-risk communities should consider establishing a "rainy day" fund well in advance of a disaster to provide the seed funding needed for initial recovery efforts. The availability of such funding can help fill the gaps between the time a disaster occurs and when insurance and government financial help arrives.

These steps might seem obvious to individuals thinking of their families' own disaster plans, but many communities simply haven't addressed some of the most basic issues that could disrupt their financial solvency. The current economic volatility makes it imperative for local communities to look at these critical components of financial planning for response and recovery efforts.

One approach is the creation of a public-private partnership that would help communities achieve these steps by pre-funding the financial costs of large-scale natural catastrophes. This solution would create a privately financed national catastrophe fund for the states that chose to participate, publicly administered by the federal government. Private insurance companies would pay into the fund, which would provide a backstop for major events and be available to provide relief to victims. A portion of the fund's earnings would be used to support first responders, improved building codes and grants to mitigate the risk of natural disaster.

Such a fund would enable the private market to provide more homeowner protection at a lower cost to consumers, while building additional capacity and stability in the homeowner insurance markets that serve our most vulnerable citizens. Explicit requirements would guarantee the program would be fully funded and operated with no cost to the American taxpayers.

New Yorkers experienced a taste of Mother Nature's fury -- and Irene was just a tropical storm here. There's no telling when the next Long Island Express will arrive. But we can control the actions we take to prepare -- if we do it now.