Alright, good afternoon everyone. My name is Andre Cimenez and I'm the senior director of government affairs for citizens climate lobby On behalf of our group and our co-host the environmental and energy study initiative Institute We want to thank you for joining us today for a briefing on climate resilience in the real estate sector We have a great panel for you today, but before we begin I want to introduce and thank our co-sponsors Representative Zeldin from New York's first congressional district and representative Chris from Florida's 13th district Congressman Chris serves on the House Financial Service Committee, which has jurisdiction over the National Flood Insurance Program a Program critically important to Florida He also sits on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, which oversees climate change and environmental research at NASA, NOAA and the EPA Congressman Chris is also a proud member of the Bipartisan Climate Solution Caucus and co-chair of the Coastal Community Caucus Congressman Zeldin serves on two committees in the United States House of Representatives the Financial Services Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee He is also a member of the Bipartisan Climate Solution Caucus and the Co-Chairman of the Bipartisan Long Island Sound Caucus So please join me in welcoming them today. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here I appreciate the opportunity and all of you for coming out today I want to specifically thank the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and Citizens Climate Lobby for working with us to arrange this briefing today And I want to thank my friend Congressman Lee Zeldin We both are coastal congressmen if you will and so the issue of climate change is very important to to both of us and All of you Most of all I want to thank our panelists for being here today. We have some very special people with tremendous knowledge Ryan Coker from the National Institute of Building Sciences John Miller from the New Jersey Association of floodplain managers and a dear friend of mine Brandy Gabbard She's a realtor and a new member of my city council in my hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida So please give them a round of applause Now to sum this may not sound like a particularly exciting topic, but to to me it is and I know it is to the congressman Tongue-in-cheek it's kind of a hot topic and the reason that's the case is climate change We have seen evidence over and over again Increasing every single year and as a Floridian we see the power of our hurricanes increase exponentially We had some bad ones this past year But it's inevitable that this is going to continue and I think the opportunity for all of us to be here today Gives us a chance to learn Again some more about this important issue how to face it how to confront it and how to deal with it Because we have these wonderful experts that we're going to hear from on this panel today So thank you all again. It's an honor to be with you today Well, it's great to be here co-hosting with congressman Christ. I To have a district located on the water. I I have a district. It's almost completely surrounded by water There are only maybe 13 miles or so on the the western edge of the district and the rest of the district if you look at the east end of Long Island Geographically, it's the eastern half of Long Island's that's the first congressional district of New York the greatest congressional district in America And that's not a slight at all There's nothing wrong with being representing the second greatest congressional district in America But we're very proud of the areas that we get to represent and call home citizens Climate Lobby and ESI Both invited us to co-sponsor today's program. I Have a very special place in my heart for the approach That these organizations take I have met So I got to Congress in January of 2015 I've probably met with CCL 30 times personally And The approach of first off identifying what kind of an office it is that you're working with because some will be very open-minded So I'm not so much Some will understand the issues that you're there to talk about some are willing to learn and Trying to not just develop a very strong productive healthy relationship with that members office But advance the ball however possible on whatever you're passionate about the bipartisan climate solutions caucus Would not have been created and would not have grown to the number it now is at without the way that these organizations approach members on the hill and Ensuring that Republicans and Democrats are both coming to the table and talking through solutions cause We might not have the same idea of how to Ensure a clean air and clean water for our constituents But when we you talk through it, you'll find a lot of common ground that you didn't realize existed and dialogue Across the aisle is a huge step forward in figuring out ways to address our changing climate and to Provide for a better environment for our families That's what Charlie and I serve on the House Financial Services Committee and one of the top priorities of this Congress Is the need to reauthorize the flood insurance program and you're gonna be talking about coastal resiliency and I'm That I'm really excited that you're here to talk about coastal resiliency because when you're moving the ball forward in Washington There are a few districts you could even try to argue that would benefit more than districts like that We represent coastal resiliency is incredibly important for homes for businesses for local governments The investment that we make and not just recovering from the last storm but to rebuild stronger than you were before For us Something that you might have heard of if not it's called a fire island to Montauk point plan now You all have heard of it It's a little over a billion dollar project that includes everything from mitigation Of the ability to raise homes to raise businesses To the need to secure Our barrier because if fire island for example was gone all of a sudden my home right now I live about a Quarter mile or so from the ocean that would change quickly one storm Can result in my home being hundreds of feet from the ocean That's how important coastal resiliency is and how personal it is for families like mine and my neighbors The other thing too is that people who look at districts that have I mean my district includes the Hamptons But not everyone lives in a home. That's a valued at a quarter billion dollars Yes, we do have homes that are valued that high We have one one guy has a house is a hundred and ten thousand square feet My entire like neighborhood could probably fit inside his house I live in an area where people are you know lower middle to middle income Struggling to make ends meet and the reauthorization of the flood insurance program to make sure that is fiscally solvent That is on a pathway so every time there's a storm you don't have to go bailing out the program That you have a plan long term making sure that the maps are right but also rewarding for mitigation You care about coastal resiliency the ability to maybe you increase your your boiler to a higher floor It's a priority of people live in the city for homes that should be raised and for the taxpayers They save as you all know well at least three dollars for every one dollar. That's invested in mitigation. I Have a bill with Carolyn Maloney That passed the the house of representatives That we need to get through over the finish line over in the Senate that has strong bipartisan support and We definitely would appreciate if I could put a shameless selfless plug But I would say you know for us, you know, it's important for all of us I guess any of your conversations you have while you're here storming the hill To reauthorize the flood insurance program But to also pass the the Zeldin Maloney bill which was added to the house past version Because it will also provide mitigation credits So that individuals who invested in mitigation will see directly on their policies but Really why we're here is to say welcome and thank you Welcome to the hill today for this purpose, but thank you most importantly for your efforts To build bridges You might have heard that there's some partisanship on the hill I've asked crowds With the the last Congress there were it was a Republican Congress and Democratic president I'd say we'll take you guess how many bills would you say were passed by a Republican Congress on by a Democratic president? And the answer I get most often is zero Well, it is actually well over 350 bills Passed by a Republican Congress on by a Democratic president There were some real bills in there like reauthorizing as a droga act There was a big Medicare bill and five year transportation bill that I'm sure you were all involved in an education bill But people they heard about take this droga act for example Everybody heard about when it wasn't getting done You know what wasn't news When I actually got across the finish line There's partisanship here But there are people who are here who want to work on both sides of the aisle on Areas of interest that are really important to our district important to our country And whether it's cosponsoring a bill or cosponsoring an event like this or were letters or op-eds There's a lot of things that we can do But I would say on this issue There is a zero percent chance That you would have the type of progress that you've seen in the house over the course of the last couple years in building bridges where possible Zero percent chance of being where we're at right now If not for these great organizations hosting today. I've seen it firsthand when I did interview it I did interview for New York Times about CCL last year and the reporter was eating it up She couldn't believe I was just I was praising this organization like it was the best organization on Capitol Hill because of their approach Some people are more open-minded than others you take notes. You do your homework.  So thank you for being here and thank you for everything you do I'm Brian Lashira the ESI And along with Andres at Citizens Climate Lobby first of all, we'd like to thank all of you for being here I think to thank those of you who are tuning in on the web and especially we'd like to thank our co-sponsors Congressman Chris and Congressman Zeldin For this for participating in this event and for letting their voices and their leadership to these issues I'm going to introduce our our speakers that we have today who are to my left obviously First up is Brandy Gabbard who is a council member who sworn into the St. Petersburg City Council second district See in January 2018 In addition, Brandy serves as a prominent realtor with the firm Smith's and Associates real estate in St. Petersburg prior to public office She served for over a decade in leadership Becket she has over a decades experience in leadership with Florida state local and national real estate associations And she is previously briefed the governor of Florida and his cabinet on these very issues including the effects of flood insurance accessibility for communities Next is Ryan Kolker who is vice president at the National Institute of Building Sciences where he leads the Institute's efforts To improve the built environment through the collaboration of industry stakeholders from both the public and private sectors He directs the consultative council which develops findings and recommendations on behalf of the entire building community and transmits those recommendations at the Congress and the administration Prior to joining the Institute served as a manager of government affairs to the American side of heating refrigerating air conditioning engineers Third we have John Miller who was a water resources engineer in legislative committee chair of the New Jersey Association of Floodplain Management Which he also helped found He is the vice chair of the city of Lambertville, New Jersey's planning board a member of the city's emergency management council And as a city's FEMA community rating system coordinator Mr. Miller currently serves as a fellow and Senator Robert Menendez office where he works on flood related issues while pursuing a master's environmental policy at the University of Pennsylvania So you could please join me in greeting our speakers and The first to present will be miss. Miss Gabbard. Thank you very much Thank you, Brian Well, hello everyone as mentioned in the intro I get to wear two hats before you today As a realtor working for over a decade in a coastal community and now an elected official making decisions that impact almost 260,000 people. I'm honored to be here today to discuss an issue that is vitally important to my community and countless others namely my 1.2 million realtor colleagues across the country. I Want to say a special. Thank you to congressman Chris He reached out to me and offered me this opportunity and I want to thank all of you for coming to take part in this important conversation It's my belief that resiliency is a tool that we can use to make things better and more equitable for our communities Our property owners those who choose to invest Develop and use real estate to drive their portfolios and impact the overall tax base Resiliency at its core is the ability to prepare and plan for absorb and recover from and more successfully adapt to adverse events Across the country realtors and communities are currently working together to proactively seek solutions in Cities everywhere you will find realtors who are working with buyers and sellers Renters and investors and who are beginning to ask many of the same questions that we're asking here today Is real estate still a good investment in a world where environmental impacts are evolving? And there is a chance that what is affordable and sustainable today may not be so in the future I think we can all agree that these are hard questions to answer many times because the available risk information and resources are limited There are some very specific things that Congress can do to help. I believe that by us sitting here today We're beginning to tackle the first item We need to quantify and understand the cost of doing nothing at all Can we afford to stick with the status quo as it pertains to issues such as sea level rise? Can they incentivize public-private partnerships and loan programs that include a mitigation component similar to those that Fannie Mae Currently offers for energy efficiency Can we invest in more reliable risk mapping? Technologies such as those that are used in North Carolina that I know we're going to talk a little bit about later We also need to reinvest in our aging infrastructure and finally we need to support national and private insurance options and flexibility I Want to take a few moments to talk about my city st. Petersburg, Florida? As was mentioned, I was just elected to the st. Petersburg City Council sworn in on January 2nd and We are located in Pinellas County. It's one of the most densely populated counties in all of Florida We are actually ground zero when it comes to the number of property owners that are affected by flood insurance reform and sea level rise The Tampa Bay region has nearly 700 miles of shoreline 3.2 million residents in over 50% of the population lives less than 10 feet above sea level our economy is closely tied to both the Gulf of Mexico and Tampa Bay and We generate over a hundred and seventy billion dollars in economic impact from those two bodies of water as You can see my city alone has approximately 60 miles of coastline frontage and we're surrounded by on three sides by water 48% of people live within a special flood hazard area and those are all the little blue Houses that you see on there. Those are all of my residents that live within those special flood hazard areas 95% of the district that I represent, which is about 30,000 people all have are all in the AE zone You can't discuss resilient impacts on a city without talking about socio-economic disparities in 2015 over 22% of our population was below the poverty line a Large number of our jobs are tied to hospitality and service industry, which are historically hard to recover post disaster Many of these residents have been in our community for generations and many are renters Having a high percentage of renters in your community makes small business recovery Especially vulnerable because as we have seen in other disasters such as Katrina Most renters do not return to an area after a major disaster We have two very large neighborhoods with over 2,000 approximate homes each that lie within repetitive lost neighborhoods and once again one of those is in the district that I represent in various studies and reports our region has been deemed as one of the most vulnerable regions in the world susceptible to flooding and rising sea level Okay, so full disclosure. I'm not a scientist. So you know when I'm handed a chart like this Takes me a little while to digest it But what I see here is some very good data from Noah that actually shows that we have an issue with the From 1990 to 20 or 2100 a projected sea level rise just for my city alone This information was collected by my city through One of the oldest tide gauges that actually Noah has in the southeast region They've been collecting this data since 1946 and what they see is that over the last decade or The last many decades we have already been rising about an inch per decade They use four different adjusted projections to account for various condition fluctuations However, they recommend based upon this data that our community should plan for between one to seven feet of sea rise by the year 2100 Luckily, though, I live in a very progressive and proactive city In an initiative led by our mayor Rick Christman and city council They acknowledge the threat and they're working diligently to protect our city and residents so that we can sustain a community for generations to come We have a long way to go, but we have begun to create a culture of sustainability and everything that we do in In 2015 our mayor issued an executive order that created the office of sustainability and resiliency Which works with all city departments? businesses and the community to develop innovative environmental solutions that foster equity a vibrant community and shared prosperity in 2016 our city council unanimously approved an allocation of BP settlement funds for an integrated Sustainability action plan that which was a vulnerability assessment Project partnering with our county government and an energy Efficiency and retrofit analysis this demonstrated the city's commitment to sustainability and resiliency Including a roadmap to 100% clean energy transition Then in 2016 we were very proud to lower our community rating with FEMA We are now a category five saving property owners over 1.7 million dollars Just this January during my first week in office I was very proud to also vote to begin an integrated water resources study That will help in our quest to lower our rating to a four Which will provide an additional 5% discount on flood insurance premiums throughout our city If we do nothing the cost is too great It's too great for our residents because as sea levels inevitably continue to rise Regardless of the rate the ability to affordably ensure against risk and the lack of access to mitigation Will continue to affect lower and fixed income residents as the congressman was talking about earlier in his district As an elected official, these are the things that I worry the most about How do we protect the most vulnerable of us all the single parents the elderly the disabled and How do we help those that are living paycheck to paycheck try to keep a roof over their head all while taking pride in living The American dream of homeownership regardless of how modest that dream might be it's our responsibility to budget to invest and To plan for long-range solutions so that people can continue to enjoy the beautiful Communities that they have for generations to come As a realtor Brian was mitching earlier. I have spent a long time working on affordable and sensible Issues with the national flood insurance program I first got involved back in the days of bigger waters, and I'm sure many of you remember that When the unintended consequence of legislation began pricing people out of their homes Many longtime residents like those that I spoke of before that were giving getting by paycheck to paycheck Woke up one morning to find flood insurance renewal policies 200 to 400 percent higher than what they were paying just the year before Due to no fault of their own They were suddenly finding themselves faced with the choice of losing their home or trying to sell it And who was going to buy it with rates like that now you fast forward to 2017 the program's up for renewal again, and we're faced with many of the same challenges We believe that the National Association of Realtors that there are a few simple reforms that will ease the burden on our property owners We need to create a climate of resiliency in the face of sea level rise and create a more robust program Where more property owners bite into the program and therefore protect themselves? The first issue as we had heard earlier was lack of access to mitigation resources for our communities and our property owners Financial assistance is limited We need to incentivize lenders to offer loan programs that would assist in mitigation Much like current programs that do the same for energy efficiency The approval process for a lot of the mitigation programs that currently exist are difficult most people Would never be able to navigate the bureaucratic red tape that these go through I heard a story earlier today where there was a floodplain manager that was very excited that he Got through one of these for someone in eight months So if it took him that long how long would it take the average person? Many times home owners are actually offered the assistance after they have already come out of pocket to rebuild their home after a disaster a lot of these hurdles can be overcome by prioritizing the ease of the process the access to the tools that are currently available and growing public-private Partnerships and leveraging those for more toolbox more tools in the toolbox for our consumers We also need accurate maps Currently maps do not reflect risk Two properties are identical could be side to side But one could actually need to have flood insurance and the other not I actually own a property That is an investment property of mine that right across the street a home very identical is in a flood zone My home is not in a flood zone. So I don't have to have that insurance that someone else has to have deemed by their lender We really need to go back and make sure that we are mapping for Individual properties and not necessarily broad-based mapping Whenever you do the broad-based mapping you put the burden on the home owner to determine their individual risk by obtaining an elevation Certificate and then going through a letter of map amendment process And if you've never been through that that is not an easy thing to do either Congress can invest in the latest technologies to remove this burden on property owners and Properly assess risk at a more granular level and then finally Making sure that we talk about a long-term extension to the program that also opens for a more robust private market Every month that the flood insurance program gets these one month extensions or God forbid lapses for a little while It costs almost 40,000 home sales a year across the country So the economic impact of these short-term Extensions is great. We must reauthorize the program We believe for at least a period of five years longer would be better But five years at least in addition we must encourage and get out of the way of private insurance carriers They want to offer flood insurance the duplicative and unnecessary Federal regulations that exist on private companies that are already licensed by states and grandfathered and The grandfathered property owners who leave NFIP are then punished when they try to return because they're considered to not have a history of continuous coverage We must open the door for a more robust private market They want to play a role in helping to protect our residents We believe that more low-risk property owners will ensure Because their rates will be closer to risk and when more are insured we have a better chance for better and Faster recovery after a disaster So with that I will leave you with just as I started out with the ways that Congress can help And I think that just by starting here today and having this conversation and this open dialogue I'm looking forward to listening to what the gentleman here have to say as well And I thank you and I'll look forward to your questions after Good afternoon. I definitely appreciate the opportunity to be here today as Brian mentioned earlier I'm Ryan Kolker vice president at the National Institute of Building Sciences First let me give you a quick rundown of the Institute and why we're particularly interested in this topic area The Institute was actually established by the US Congress in 1974 to really solve some of the deep issues within the building industry at that time And so we work by bringing together folks from the public and the private sector to address these challenges Identify opportunities for moving forward and bring those to the broad industry. We do that through a variety of different mechanisms We have councils and committees as you can imagine on any sort of topic Relative to the built environment from finance insurance and real estate issues to disaster and hazard mitigation To tools that are used within the building industry like building information modeling and so kind of with that broad background Certainly natural resource natural disaster issues have been on our radar since the very establishment of the Institute But I think it's become increasingly obvious that we need to address these issues I'm sure many of you have seen the next few graphs. I'm going to show but 2017 saw 16 disasters causing a billion dollars or more in damages If we look at that trend across recent years That trend is increasing 2017 was tied as the most number of billion dollar disasters And I think the bigger piece of the puzzle is the actual costs of those disasters as you'll see 2017 far outweighed any sort of prior Cost relative to disasters So we need to do something to address those costs and address the risks that folks face with those growth and disasters So back in 2005, I'm sure many of you have heard the statistic $1 invested in mitigation saves $4 in future benefits That was actually a study directed by Congress for the Institute to conduct Specifically looking at investments that FEMA makes in mitigation programs now We've seen that statistic provided for any sort of mitigation measure imaginable and certainly that was a valuable Contribution to the dialogue on why we should be investing upfront instead of waiting for a disaster to occur But we still had many questions that were left unanswered by that particular study What are the impacts of things that are done within the private sector to address? Hazard risk. What are the impacts that building codes a fundamental basis for providing resilience in a community? What benefit do they provide and then looking at some of the lifelines and utilities and Transportation infrastructure what impact is mitigation within those particular sectors provide and so we really wanted to address the more holistic picture of what the value of investing in mitigation up front is so we actually undertook an update and expansion to that 2005 study with the support of both public and private sector entities to move this forward We actually released the first set of results from this study in January and hopefully that'll provide a bigger perspective To the broad opportunities to invest in mitigation. So we did go back and look specifically at federal Agency investment in mitigation this time expanding beyond FEMA to also include economic development administration and HUD available grants and Found that those actually provided a six dollar benefit for every one dollar investment and then looking to the private sector and Opportunities that individual homeowners business owners and developers have to invest in their properties We looked at opportunities to exceed the baseline minimum code and found that those that did that Resulted in a national benefit of four dollars for every one dollar invested Certainly that builds a bigger picture of the opportunities for mitigation In addition to the national high-level numbers across all sorts of different hazards We all should also dug down into the individual hazards themselves to really provide folks that are interested in addressing particular hazards with an idea of what the potential benefits are for those individual risks and then digging even further we looked at Depending on the availability of data either a county level or a statewide level about what some of those mitigation Opportunities are and so being able to drill down to that level really tells the story to folks of what the real opportunity is to invest in mitigation I Think one of the important things to think about as we talk about the results from this study and the results moving forward Is that we're we're still not able to capture all the benefits that mitigation provides So certainly the impacts on educational pathways that are disrupted from a hazard event Family heirlooms cultural resources within a community the disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations Pets and their impacts and certainly a lot of the ecological impacts that it has on the surrounding community And I think one important message for this particular discussion We were only looking at the risks that we can quantify today and not calculating the Changing risk in the future due to things like climate change But it's important to really recognize How those benefits are quantified within into each individual stakeholder group who benefits who bears the costs and how do we Potentially come up with a strategy to even those out so we get the best possible benefit that we can to achieve mitigation and Smoothing out that cost effectiveness curve In addition to the two areas that I mentioned where we've particularly defined results at this point We are looking at other areas of mitigation that would really help to build out that conversation around Where do we invest? How do we make sure that we're effectively achieving mitigation? So we're going to be looking at the adoption of building codes themselves And the benefit cost ratio for those that's currently in progress and we should have results for that in October We're looking at the retrofit of existing facilities business continuity planning, which is certainly a valuable tool But we currently don't have funding for that, but we'd be looking to complete that sort of work Looking at impacts of mitigation within the transportation and utility infrastructure networks And then public sector direct mitigation efforts. So thinking about Army Corps of Engineer levies National Weather Service early warning systems and those sorts of things and that will really help us build out the complete picture of Where the opportunities are to mitigate where they make the most sense? But having just that benefit cost ratio is not going to get the sorts of investments that we really need in mitigation We need to think about what are some of the strategies across government, across private sector, across financial and insurance Institutions that if we brought them together could collectively result in mitigation investments So the kinds of things that Brandy mentioned relative to energy efficiency programs What about a mortgage that incorporates resilience aspects into the mortgage and provide that as an opportunity and an encouragement For folks to invest in resilience at a state or local level One important thing, you know, we're talking today about buildings in particular, but one thing Important to recognize is that focusing on buildings alone is not going to get community resilience These are two examples of building owners that did everything right for their particular property But the surrounding community around them was not resilient This poor family in Galveston, Texas had no grocery store to go to no school to go to no utilities Similar situation New York City Goldman Sachs building had power on was ready to go But subways were flooded. No one could get there. And so basically that investment was stranded So if we don't think about the broad community aspects of resilience, we're missing the real opportunities One kind of last area that I want to focus on is particularly addressing Climate risk within the designing construction community in particular As folks may know the current designing construction standards are based off of past events and past risks So how with changing climate do we address future risks that may be uncertain as far as their localized impact So how do we transition the building design construction and even operations community to be able to capture those risks Understand those risks and design and construct to respond to those risks So there are efforts underway to really define what that process looks like There are certainly some valuable inputs from the federal sector side to support that research And I'll provide a few recommendations on what that actually looks like in a second There are activities within the building industry that are going on to work collectively to address Resilience, this is the industry statement on resilience signed by 40 building related Organizations that have identified the opportunity and the need to address resilience collectively And to work across our disciplines across our various different stakeholders to really identify what the pathway forward is So if you're at an organization interested in the built environment and interested in looking at the industry statement and signing on I would definitely welcome your participation So let me get to some recommendations that we've identified through our work on Disaster and hazard mitigation and resilience related issues Certainly first and foremost is assuring the federal investments go towards mitigation to reduce future federal obligations in disaster recovery I would also recommend that federal government encourage state and local governments to adopt and enforce the latest building codes Building code adoption and enforcement is a state and local issue But certainly federal government and taxpayers nationwide have an interest in assuring that federal disaster Dollars are protected and saved for for the most critical events There are a few mechanisms to be able to encourage Adoption enforcement of codes at a state and local level certainly coordination across the agencies within the federal government responsible for engaging in codes and standards development HUD Department of Energy FEMA in particular and NIST and then any sort of federal funding that goes to community should certainly include requirements that codes be adopted and enforced I Mentioned the need for research into a corporate incorporating climate risk into design and construction guidance Encouraging innovative federal programs through Fannie Mae Freddie Mac small business administration. They really encourages investment in mitigation in the private sector and Removing barriers that would potentially hinder those types of activities. We've seen pace Property-assessed clean energy programs at a state and local level being start to incorporate resilience strategies Some federal agencies are not keen on pace programs So that's one area that we would probably want to increase discussion around and then from a federal perspective Ensuring that investments recognize the current and the future risk that those assets Will face over their entire life cycle. That's both a benefit for The federal infrastructure itself, but it also builds capacity within the private sector to be able to bring those That expertise into the the broader building industry. Thank you Well, good afternoon as I was announced John Miller. I'm with the New Jersey Association for floodplain management We are a chapter of the Association of State floodplain managers So I want to give you a look from a post Sandy perspective. This is something that as a resident of New Jersey Sandy affected just about the entire state if not Flooding and wind damage It was certainly an economic issue for the entire state of New Jersey But I want to start with Well, let me overview what what I'll be covering here. So I'm gonna look at Hurricane Sandy and the devastation to homes We're gonna take a look at the federal flood risk management standard we'll look at the HUD's guidance that was just recently issued for community development block grant a disaster relief with higher standards We'll look at the flood insurance program. That's been mentioned in the last two Presentations but the reform and reauthorization of the national flood insurance program What I'm studying in school and what my capstone is is looking at municipal bonds and the influence of climate change And then finally local government's role in planning adoption of higher standards and the implementation of risk reduction So I wanted to start with some photographs of sandy damage because I think that sort of reminds us What why are we here? What what happens after a major disaster? The first photo is from Leonardo, New Jersey And this is overlooking In the distance you can actually see the tip of Manhattan from this location this house lost its entire first floor and It is it was just It was very impressive in terms of the power of Hurricane Sandy and the the energy that the waves have Some storms you get more inundation Sandy was definitely an energy of that. It really did quite a bit of structural damage This is Maniloc, New Jersey, and once again the the power this was not a demo project. This wasn't a You know a raising of a home. This was this was sandy did all of this And this was about six months after Hurricane Sandy is when we're looking at this photo Ortley Beach, so we're moving down the coast here. We started in Mammoth County We went down and now we're into Ocean County, New Jersey, and this is Ortley Beach People might know Tom's River Township Tom's River is and we'll look at this in a chart later But is a very very exposed community to flood risk This is an example of where you had that erosion issue with Hurricane Sandy the waves came in the moving water washed The the sand under the home from outside from under the home and you see how basically a masonry Portion of the home just collapsed masonry is good under compression Weight loading, but it's really bad intention and that's what it experiences when When you have wave action and finally we saw examples many examples of where homes were not only move but actually struck another home an adjacent property and This is wholegate. This is the very southern tip of Long Beach Island and This was a dramatic and even the yellow house kind of really really Is a dramatic example of Hurricane Sandy's power So how did the administration at the time the Obama administration? How did they respond to Hurricane Sandy? It was such a large event And there were a number of actions that the administration took there was the president's climate action plan Which basically It looked at a bunch of different climate risks We had the hurricane Sandy rebuilding task force which was made up of all the federal agencies representatives from those agencies led by HUD and In 2013 Then we also pulled the president pulled in people from around the nation to form the president's state local and tribal Leaders task force on climate preparedness and resilience. So these were these were major initiatives that came after Sandy again Sandy was really a an inflection point in terms of the nation Looking at climate change looking at future risk and in coming out of these activities came the executive order 13 690 that president Obama issued That contain the federal flood risk management standard and these were standards that and I think you heard Ryan say that You know when we do codes when we do Standards we generally look in the past and see what has happened We need standards that look into the future and that that's what this standard was was accomplishing So there were three different ways that you could look at higher resiliency The first one had to do with basically using science and using Projections of climate Changes sea level rise those type of things And using that in in the best available science So and then there was an alternative to use A two or three foot elevation depending on whether it's a non critical in a critical facility And then looking at the 500 year Flood plane, which is the point two percent annual chance floods So these were all and not only looking at the elevation but also the horizontal Extents, you know, how wide is that higher flood plain? So President Trump actually rescinded That executive order only weeks before we had the impacts from Hurricane Harvey and then of course in the 2017 hurricane season We also saw Hurricane Irma and the the massive destruction of Hurricane Maria, so Sometimes things remind you of the importance of You know in this case higher standards and HUD came out with rules very very recently That basically took that federal flood risk management standard and actually improved it a little bit it It requires the use of local Standards if those standards are higher and it also uses either the the three feet or the 500 year flood elevation the higher of One or the other so that's basically It was a really really promising thing that we saw coming out of HUD and HUD gets quite a Amount of money. I believe this particular guidance that came out was for around seven billion dollars of CDBG DR We're gonna see more we're gonna see more money coming out of HUD for the massive disaster I believe the estimates we're seeing You know coming out of You know the 2017 hurricane season something like 300 billion dollars in damages and we were seeing Congress Supplemental appropriations of around 130 billion dollars, so So let's talk about the National Flood Insurance Program. I deal with this. I used to do models Make mapping I've been involved as a local official. I've been involved in policymaking and that type of thing so the National Flood Insurance Program is is Very important in the world that I operate in Would you do you realize that the National Flood Insurance Program? Which was initiated in 1968 we still have the same standards in the National Flood and in the National Flood Insurance Program now that were in Existence in 1968 there have been no higher standards there have been no Required freeboards now. We'll look at in a couple slides in a little bit Where communities and states have taken their own initiative in applying higher standards But the program itself does not require higher standards it you're building you can build To what's called the base flood elevation which is where the maps say this is the elevation of the 1% annual chance storm the so-called hundred-year storm Another thing that's really important in this Reauthorization and again the set what we're stuck in the Senate right with the Senate hasn't made progress on this reauthorization But one of the huge points and it's already been made is by Ryan I just heard him say talk about mitigation and I would like to define it as front-end mitigation Let's not wait until everything's destroyed after an event. Let's do mitigation beforehand It actually is cheaper to do it that way The economies of scale are better and you're not dealing with all the other issues that go on after Disaster when you're recovering from a disaster, so we need to front load mitigation. That's a really important point This is a house elevation going on in Union Beach, Monmouth County, New Jersey You can see the cribbing that they use they have a universal jack that lifts the home This cribbing is holding it up there Hopefully it won't be up like that very long because You know high winds would be an issue But this is this is an elevation happening here One of the other things that happens after disaster is a tax-based loss Fortunately the federal government I fortunately for New Jersey and local and communities in New Jersey The federal government for a while starts to pick up some of those tax-based losses, but that's limited That's only for a short period of time And then you you get into issues and there are some communities in New Jersey now five years after Sandy That don't have their tax base back And they are getting assistance from the state of New Jersey with the state of New Jersey oversight But that's something to keep in mind that even you know, you may have heard from Katrina or You know, this is of course sandy affected towns The revenue gets very affected by by the storm event And what i'm looking at in in my capstone for my masters is A credit downgrade threat as a what i'm calling a non-regulatory driver. It's a market driver here This is an investor driven issue For flood flood risk mitigation and sea level rise adaptation. So the most recent Report that came out from Moody's basically looked at The issue of exposure looked at the the community resilience issue And it will be impacting the way that municipalities are rate our credit rate it And when they issue bonds, this is something that the credit rating Agencies the credit rating companies are basically going to start looking at this And I think this is just the start of what we're going to see and this is going to grow Is they're going to ask these towns, you know, they're going to ask the broker They're going to ask the towns the issuers What what are they doing about these uh growing concerns? What are they doing about sea level rise? What are they doing about flood risk? So this if you haven't seen this report, this is one to take a look at And it has been covered well in in the media So new jersey has some bad grades, right? We we always hear about The the a se report card on infrastructure This is another report card that climate central did And these are unfortunate Grades, but I think they're pretty accurate For the state of New Jersey, we haven't done any resilience planning at least, you know We have a new administration in the state of New Jersey We're expecting, you know, some of these things to get done But we are we are behind some other states in terms of sea level rise and resiliency issues And some of our exposure is this right this is just I pulled google earth These are This is long beach island as you enter on route 72 And it's just wall-to-wall buildings. There is not You know, everything's been built on And this is a barrier island. This is an island that wants to move, right? It's it should be a temporary landform We have now made this that we have to keep doing beach nourishment We're gonna have to do something probably with bulkheads. Who knows what's gonna happen, right? We what will happen to this barrier island And New Jersey has some, you know, we're number three in terms of claims paid dollars But even some of our counties rank up much higher than other Whole states do And I really want to point out Tom's river township that is has more Flood claims paid dollars than the whole state of california. I mean, it's remarkable That one municipality one municipality in new jersey is above the entire state of california And here's what we're expecting in the future This is showing that same area of long beach island with three feet of sea level rise again Likely not happening before 2050 but happening in this century that we're in right now. This is what this is what we're expecting. So Pretty remarkable changes So finally, I'm gonna leave you with some things and we do need, you know, while there is federal interest federal investment issues federal regulatory issues There's also towns, you know going states and locals that need to Deal with these things and I I give you an example of the city of hoboken in new jersey that got hit Really hard by sandy In 2012 and ever since has been doing a lot to predict to address the future and to Deal with everything from building codes to planning codes, I should say to You know emergency management activities to rebuild design, which was a HUD program And and just really really not just say we've recovered from sandy on we go really dealing with their future risk So I worked on this post sandy assistant grant They got five grants that were for different purposes In resiliency planning and this was the resilient building guidelines What this does and this is online is not only look at, you know, substantial damage, which is which is a definition for FEMA recovery, but also Looks at what homeowners can do even if they have minor damage in terms of retrofitting their properties To make sure that there's less damage after After a storm event And then looking at some communities that these are states That and I got this from asa p.m. But these are states that 22 states that have adopted higher standards a free board standard and That's equaling from a population standpoint 41 of the u.s population so This does cover a lot of the towns and you heard about the community rating system Brandy talked about being a class five, which is pretty awesome. I have a On the community rating system Coordinated in my town. We're only a class seven. So I defer to her to brandy in terms of Going further into the program, but I call these the good kids, right? This is what I call the good driver discount program of the flood insurance program Basically most of the good kids are adopting a higher standard And that's like just about 70 percent of the communities that participate in the community rating system have a higher Higher than that base flood elevation standard and combining that with the state. So you take the states You take the crs communities you pull out the ones You don't you don't include the ones that have already been included in the state higher standards But you add the ones that are not included in a in a state higher standard and upwards of 62 percent of the u.s population is covered by One foot or more of these free board higher standards So finally I want to leave you with you know, who's watching some of this stuff, you know, you're you're adopting free board standards It's making your community safer. You're having you know over time you're having less damages But is anyone looking over your shoulder on these higher standards? Is this making any other difference and there's moody's, right? They have a 2015 report on the hampton roads area of virginia the region of hampton roads So you have virginia beach and hampton and hampton and You have Norfolk, you know, which is very well known for for its chronic flood issues But they're looking at this this is something that they can look at they can use it as a metric to say You know, what are you doing? What are you doing about some of these future risks? So I point out that some of these standards and maybe I should have titled my presentation as as you know higher standards But that's the that's the message i'm giving you is that higher standards are going to be used in multiple ways Not only making your community safer But in rating your community, they're going to look at things like this So i'm going to leave you with that This is a photo of Of sea bright new jersey that has a flood wall. It was originally a trolley Right of way But it they do call it a flood wall, but the flood wall was overtopped And you can see what makes what happens to masonry structures when when waves hit them. So thank you very much I appreciate your attention Thank you once again to all of our speakers for their perspectives and all the fantastic information we've heard today Next we will be opening up For questions for the from the audience. There's a microphone roaming around. So if you have a question, uh, raise your hand And we'll bring microphone to you. I see one in the back there Thanks very much an excellent presentation. I must confess i've sat through Many of these presentations and you you guys are hitting the ball out of the park and trying to give us a guideline on What what can be done in particular your new jersey getting referenced where where you need to work My question for all three of you and maybe ryan, it's to you I heard uh deputy administrator of uh femus speak many times to this issue of repairing destroyed properties only to a minimum standard not being permitted under Maybe staffer act or other restraints to put federal resources into building To exactly the standards you guys want to see A can we get that change? I understand there was some movement on that in in a supplement appropriations and b Can we make consistent pressure so that it doesn't fall backwards? Yeah, I think you you certainly hit um, one of the challenges Exactly is how do we when a disaster event occurs? How do we learn from that immediately? And uh, identify opportunities to address those particular risks I think one of the particular areas taking that even one step further Is allowing folks to use insurance money whether that comes through nfip or a private insurer To actually build elsewhere Recognizing the risk that that specific parcel faces and using that those funds to make a better decision on where they should actually be located I don't know Yeah, I mean the only thing that I would piggyback on that Speaking to the point of using those funds to help people relocate Is um for communities to be able to use mitigation funds to possibly purchase those properties and then use them for green space Because those then um those green spaces would help us be able to improve our community rating even more Because you know, it's very very hard to get to a category three And that's one of the things that you actually have to have is green space in your community So that would be something that I think communities would be interested in looking at Yeah, it's a good point. I I I have this expression. I like to use I said, we don't have a flood problem We have a land use problem and um, that's what we're that's what we're Encountering now. It's um, we have built in areas that are at high risk and We are paying the price for that, right? So there are there are programs like the crs program. It is hard though. It is hard for um, a local government that depends on a tax base To aggressively go after and do voluntary buyouts I mean, it may be the best solution and and certainly from a first responder standpoint From a municipal services standpoint, I mean, there's there's some real positives to doing buyouts, but What a lot of elected officials see is is a loss, you know, rateable and um, and that you know but I think that's why you need to look long term too and You need to think these things out And and do it, you know in a strategic way Is is looking at these different mitigation techniques Yes, I see the gentleman in the middle there to your to your other side, sir. There you go um David Conrad Consultant in water policy area um but I uh was Really impressed with the design competition that was put together after sandy that brought in architectural firms engineering firms and um, I think there was a certain brilliance in having that exercise because we are These disasters that we're having now Are really alert should be a learning exercise for for our Well for the world If we're predicting that we have a lot of transitioning to do as we go forward Then putting some of the best minds to work on The techniques that we're going to use to help communities Instead of doing things completely on a ad hoc basis But actually do some thoughtful planning and I think hoboken is very excited about what they came up with they They're still going to be implementing a lot of those ideas going well into the future. So the question is um, should we institutionalize that kind of thing at least for a For a you know 10 years or something like that after some of our major disasters um in order to Engage more of the best thinking that we can Marshall So I I want to point out david took some of the photos that were in my presentation We he and I drove um, this was six months after sandy down the coast over two days And some of the photos we weren't even allowed to park the car He took them, you know while I was driving and and took the shot. So I appreciate that The rebuild by design that you're talking about again a HUD initiative Um, I think was really really healthy competition. Um, and coming up with some very unique type of projects and and what we have going on in new jersey right now is We have a meadowlands project and then we have a hudson river project that includes hoboken we hawk in in jersey city The only the only challenge I would say of such a thing is getting a concept which is you know Nice nice renderings and things like that and actually getting it down to Um to building it um and and going through and that's what they're going through now The the meadowlands project had to be downsized for the money that it got Hoboken or I should say the hudson river Uh project um has a lot of ancillary things that need to happen with it So they need some more money to um to get that project realized but um overall I think it's a good approach to and it and it raises so much good awareness, right? That you have a whole bunch of firms Putting together uh interesting. I was actually on a team At the time looking at amphibious homes. We we didn't make it to a final round of that program But the idea is that you know, you have some of these um in in highlands new jersey a very poorly named community because it has a lot of lowlands but um The highlands community has a lot of these bungalows that are very small and could you somehow Retrofit those so they would be buoyant during a flood event again You couldn't do it in an area with wave action. It would only have to be inundation and it is a little crazy, right? Um, you would have to have utilities that are you know have extra play in them So they could go up and down, but these are these are good like these are creative good Things to ponder and and we will have to get more creative in the future I think we we have to focus on that collaborative approach of bringing together expertise from the federal sector state and local sectors community advocates citizens You know architects engineers hydrologists It's the only way we're going to be able to solve this problem And so bringing together, you know Everyone to identify what the issues and the solutions are is the only way we're going to get to community resilience I mean you saw the picture of you know the the guy who did you know the the great house But you know the the infrastructure around him wasn't there And so you know we have to have that collaborative approach to be able to identify solutions at a local level I mean this is the first that i'm hearing of this but um, you know I didn't come here today just to give information. I came to learn as well. So thank you for bringing it up um, you know, I definitely would agree uh that we need to have very broad community conversations continue leveraging those you know private and uh, you know public partnerships and making sure that You know, we're incentivizing people to want to get involved to invest in kind of Forward thinking no matter how kind of out of the box. It is uh, you know technologies Because um, this is a big problem and it's going to take all of us to solve it I don't think anybody has you know the magic bullet answer for any of it um, but uh, thank you for sharing that because uh, I'll definitely be looking in and uh, Collin john for more information on that Good afternoon Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, good afternoon stacey turn to that. Um What you guys talked about how a second community We should be resilient and it's not just up to the government to be able to come up with programs and like for you guys to be able to do everything as um citizens and Possible future home owners We need to also take consideration the fact that we need to be resilient as well What is the likelihood or how would you advise uh, the average citizen to be able to afford? We already have high interest rates. We already have high more uh, insurances premium mortgage insurances. How can an average citizen be able to afford or even be able to implement the resilience models into the homes that we're purchasing that were built so many years ago if we already have high interest rates High insurance premium mortgages. I myself own four properties and none of them have earthquake insurance because And and and that taken in consideration that they already don't pay the mortgage premium insurance So I could just imagine how hard it is for the average American to be able to purchase Home premium insurance earthquake insurance or flood insurance or any other things that we're trying to say that we should implement as part of our resilience Well, uh, certainly as the realtor on the panel, um, I can speak to that because that's what I deal with every single day My community is what we call a built-out community So we have much older housing stock. Um, a great portion of it of it is slab-on-grade homes That are very modest And you're right, you know, how do we raise those homes? How do we help our everyday? residents be able to continue the affordability And that's where we go back to, you know, really looking for congress to help with accessing these mitigation resources you know, kind of breaking the bureaucracy with the programs helping to be able to You know, free up and create those loan incentivizing programs that are going to help our residents because you know over time it does get more and more unaffordable and so, you know, that's something that we care about greatly as a community because those are often our most vulnerable citizens And so, um, you know, we really we need that help from congress to be able to Continue to open the doors to those mitigation resources as we've all discussed So take a look at um, what we call the safe act. It's uh s 1368 And there's a provision in there that incorporated the warden school of business at the university of pennsylvania's concept and this is my advisor howard cunruther who basically Said, you know, we should We should help people with loans To do mitigation instead of just helping them with with their flood insurance premium from an affordability sense Let's help them with loans Do mitigation, you know, let's say raise a home And then you have a reduced flood insurance premium and then you basically use that savings to help pay off the loan It's a great concept. It's something that People don't have that upfront cash as you're saying But could could we get them help? And and again reducing their exposure, which is a great thing in itself But then you're also reducing the flood insurance premiums I would like to Amplify the question on rebuild by design that you raised Because after hurricane sandy There was another program that had sponsored With two billion dollars that were left over from the from the sandy appropriation And that was the ndrc the national disaster resilience competition I don't know right now if either florida or Communities in new jersey received the biggest grants were awarded to new orleans and louisiana and norfolk But but they are doing a lot of the work Again bringing in expertise from the netherlands Who have learned how to live underwater for centuries? and I'm wondering if any of the speakers Can relate Or or have information on what's going on with the recipients of the ndrc funding And whether there can be some learning and some sharing of their experience Of course all the staff at hard to design that program are gone And haven't been replaced so it would be interesting to see whether you think that can be captured I mean, I've got an easy answer as for florida I don't believe that that's anything that we have had any Part of that. I mean the congressman's office. I don't think we Have been a benefit of any of that so Yeah, I'm I'm not sure exactly where you know the the programs are at this point either but certainly something that we should Get a handle on and share lessons learned if we can Um new jersey did get a little bit of money. I I don't want to go into the full story but But uh, we we did get a little bit in that round But but much smaller than than the initial round, which was for the sandy affected area But you you're correct that we do need to learn from each other, right? We we need to pick up and this is why The new jersey association for floodplain management we pull in people We we pay for people to come and speak to our conference from other parts of the country because They may have experienced something they may have encountered something That is is unique to us and we do need to learn this is going to be a huge learning experience Is it's kind of the nicest way to say it? It's going to be very expensive But we're all going to have to learn from each other on how to deal with these increasing rest I've got the mic Thanks for a great presentation. I learned a lot. I found myself googling while you guys were talking Nothing about the quality of the presentation But I was I was getting confused between adaptation and mitigation and this is a cross-sector question for you because My people talk about mitigation as something you do before so that you don't have to get around to raising houses three feet As an adaptation technique. So just Give me a sense for what you're thinking is about are we talking at all about mitigation? Or is this all just a big adaptation exercise? to in the face of inevitable So, um, it's it's great. You bring this up because um in in the floodplain management world, which I exist in We use the word mitigation for what the climate interest call adaptation So, um, I have been shifting my word usage More to that adaptation, but you know FEMA programs and others still use the word mitigation. So Just to be clear most of what I talked about if well actually everything I talked about was adaptation coming from the climate science aspect So that's certainly one of the areas that we need to work on as we begin to engage the climate science community And the building science community to be able to identify What are the science needs to address future risks in designing construction? Is really having that communication of being able well if one person says that adaptation that actually means mitigation And you know figuring out that intersection between the climate science side and the designing construction side And I I do think that we use the two words interchangeably a lot But I think for myself. I mean it's easy, you know when I'm wearing the two hats From the city point of view You know adaptation is more about responding to the future impacts and how we can plan and within our office of sustainability and resiliency You know, we're working a lot on our adaptation But from the national association of realtors standpoint, you know when we're looking at You know nfip and the reform one of the things that you know, we advocate for is mitigation resources So I think maybe that kind of can separate the two a little bit depending on which hat i'm wearing Hello, thank you for a great presentation My question is kind of more related to the changes occurring currently in HUD Specifically in the president's fy 19 budget There's a proposed elimination of the cdbg grants and I was wondering if you could speak a little bit to kind of like how that pertains to mitigation and Getting funding for community communities to focus on mitigation So I mentioned, you know our study looking at federal investments in mitigation Including HUD Eda and fema and the sole program that we looked at from HUD was cdbg as the mitigation mechanism For communities. So that certainly feeds into that six to one dollar benefit We didn't break it out, you know by individual federal program But it contributes to that overall six to one. So it's certainly a valuable Initiative to get mitigation out at a community level So and that was very well said and maybe I shouldn't say anything but CD bg dr comes from the stafford act And that's something that you know these supplemental appropriations that we've been seeing coming out of congress after the 2017 Hurricane season that's where that's going So that isn't a budget issue I mean I say that without you know knowing too much about phasing that out or getting rid of it, but The stafford act is its own Its own animal that You know gets gets triggered after a major disaster I'm gonna leave that to them Hi, I'd like to add my thanks also to everyone else I was actually my home was evacuated during hurricane sandy and I went and volunteered for the cleanup at rockaway bay So those pictures brought back some memories. I'm a volunteer with citizens climate lobby I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about carbon pricing if it affects the Climate resilience in real estate or or any drawbacks that you might see So I will say it probably will eventually. I think folks are still trying to figure it out one Somewhat parallel that I can draw is in the energy efficiency space. So we're certainly seeing increased interest in zero energy building So buildings that create as much energy as they use And there's an interest in actually expanding that definition beyond just an individual building level But thinking about potentially at a campus level a community level or a portfolio level So thinking about you know a hospital would probably have a difficult time getting to a zero energy building But if there's a warehouse next door That warehouse probably has a pretty good likelihood of being able to achieve zero energy building So combining those two. Can you start to think about sharing? Energy generation and energy use to get to the same net benefit that you would expect So I could potentially at some point in the future Um start to see that interest in A carbon focused strategy rather than just an energy efficiency focused strategy We have time for one final question and it's to this gentleman here. Uh, well, I have two. I hope that's okay, Brian Yeah, yeah, I also would like to thank the panel. This was a really fantastic Set of presentations and conversation and thanks to cclesi and our hosts Are as well So the the first question I have for you all is from the perspective of developing mitigation and adaptation strategies From a local level and from sort of a national level. How important is land use management in that conversation? and second question Ms. Gabbard mentioned Noah tide monitors and I was hoping you could comment on the importance of ocean and other environmental observations for Communities on the ground in terms of developing their strategy and again as we move up to the state and the federal level Well to your first question I mean, absolutely. I think it's a land use management issue for our cities and municipalities and uh, how we Redevelop how we grow and how we grow in a very smart way and taking into account Things like, you know, the the tidal gauge that I showed and making sure that we're looking at those things You know in in my city, we have an aging infrastructure issue that we're currently looking at and looking at You know rainfall predictions and using past Kind of, you know, historical data to make our budgetary decisions moving forward as to how we Invest in our infrastructure. So I think all of those things tie in together And we definitely need to make sure that we are using long-term thinking Um, you know as I showed with the the chart up there I think that was definitely well put. I would agree And write this one down we don't have a flood problem. We have a land use problem. Yeah, I'm gonna take that home. Yeah so, um, absolutely it it is the crux of what we're dealing with so land use policies now I go back to the 1967 Senate banking report that talks about, you know, the the start of this nfip and and that it was basically going to Cover existing infrastructure. I should say interesting existing building stock But the committee at that are the the the banking committee at that time was saying well, you know As we move ahead, it's going to be the states and locals and their land use will will do better things Here we are Well, thank you again that concludes our briefing. Um, thank you all for coming and please join me in thanking our presenters once more Thank you very much


We started off doing some just-not-an-infantry cold-weather training that was really just about how to survive and how to operate. How do you drive a tank on ice, what type of gear or modifications you need to make to the vehicle themselves to be able to operate in this type of fire? Following that, we moved into a battalion life-fire exercise. This is the first time ever in the history of this battalion that we have done that life-fire exercise at this time of year. Just implementing another unit into our unit. So we have a tank platoon, a light-armor platoon, a M-77 howitzer platoon.


Now back to Myers, Myers, targeting Smith.  Oh, that is spectacular! Brace yourself, J. Smith memes are coming.


こんにちは。私の名前はトモノリカガヤです。私のプロダクトで英語を話すのが初めてです。今日は私のプロジェクトについてお話しします。そして私の想像は未来のコミュニケーションです。3年前、私はニューロウェアのプロジェクトを始めました。私の目標は新しい経験を作り、テクノロジーを使って、コミュニケーションの中に新しい経験を行います。ネコミミは私の初めてのプロダクトです。私はこれを教えてください。この年は私の脳の中で、私の脳を作っています。ネコミミは日本のキャットイースのキャットイースです。フェンシーを注文して、お碗をかけ、フェンシーを落下して、お碗をかけ、このプロジェクトは非常に簡単です。しかし、私はそれが新しい色のコミュニケーションです。人々は、私に問いながら、何故私はネコミミを作っているのか?3年前、私たちは、毎日、コミュニケーションについて話していました。2種類のコミュニケーションがあります。バーバルとノンバーバル。エメル、チャット、SMS、コンバシーション、ネット、ベースのワーズ。しかし、コミュニケーションは、フェイシャルエクスプレーション、トーンのボーイス、ジェスチュースなどではない。私たちは、もちろん、今では別のフォーマーションを使用していません。グレーンアクティβディーションが、私たちはそれをわずかとしています。私たちは、そのワーズと、私たちは、それを改めており、コミュニケーションを使用していません。その時にライトアランドに行き、シーコンバレーに行きましたニューロスカイのカンパニーで、サノゼのベンチャルカンパニーに行きましたニューロスカイは新しいCPUモジュールを建てましたこのモジュールは、シンクギアのモジュールですネコミミを建てましたこの小さなモジュールはフェインスイグナルを使用していますエクストリニアの音を取り出してくれますこのモジュールは、ネコミミのモジュールを使用していますシンクギアをマジュアルを立てることができるかもしれませんシンクギアの前に、ネコミミのモジュールには多くのシンクをつけますシンクギアを立てますデバイスの販売は非常に下がっています日本に帰ってくる時にブレインストーリングがありますこのテクノロジーで何を作られますか?ブレインストーリングセッションの後で一つのアイデアが出てきましたネコミミが出てきましたネコミミのスケッチフォルトはこのドキュメントを取り出していませんネコミミはこのスケッチフォルトから出てきましたカナは一人のメンバーです彼女は非常にシャイクリエイターです彼女は彼女の気持ちを表現することができません彼女は彼女の気持ちを表現することができませんそして言い方を表現することができませんこのスケッチフォルトはヘアのモーターでパワーと音をチェックしています次はブレインウェブセンサーのモーターをコネクトすることができますでも私と彼女のコーファンダーのニューロウェアが大きな問題を出てきました彼女は彼女のコーファンダーをモーターで生産していませんでした彼女のコーファンダーをモンターでパーティーのメンバーや彼女のコーファンダーに困難な動作を見つけましたいい idea let's try i said so we did next one is very impressive moment for usplease got next to moving all of our lovefmvc this movement this one is sample type i show you previous right just addedpaper ears on the motor but impression is completely different something new washap something new was born i felt after this moment we decided to create nekomimi on full powerwe define shapes and positions over and over because a little change makes big differencenext we connected nekomimi with smart smart device to see the status of brainand one month later nekomimi was completedwe had a demo at tokyo and many people tried nekomimi not only adultbut also kids enjoyed nekomimi and two days after first demo loiter's reporter found usand came to interview me or cat ears in japanese and it doubles as a communication deviceshe's kana she's very shy but she is the mother of nekomimiafter loiter's report nekomimi spread all over the world in a few daysthe end of 2011time magazine selected nekomimi as one of the best invention of the yearI was very surprised they send time magazine send me email we selected your nekomimias the best invention of the year so please send your product to new york next within next weekit was a really interesting experience for meandone year after first demo we did this nekomimi for consumer version this oneI think we were so lucky and it was a wonderful experience for usand after nekomimiwe started next project music that was our next theme why did I choose music as a next themeI think many innovative services and products had happened or had appeared in the field of musicbefore as a field by watching on the field of music I thought that perhaps we could discovera few hints about the future first we made music player called new turn table this turn tableworking with our brain waves put the records on the turn table and get the brain wave sensorand focus on the music turn table start playing but when he lost concentrationturn table stops automatically next one is brain disco it's a system for partyusers put brain wave sensors on their head and their brain wave status are showing on the screenand dj have 60 points if user felt bored dj lose their pointsand all points disappeared dj have to change another dj maybe we could use thisthis system for yesterday's night karaoke partywhile developing those products we had many discussions about music listening environmentthen we found there was a big problem now we can listen to over 10 million songs if we usemusic subscription service like Spotify pandora or audio but how do we encounter new musicuser search box but you cannot search for something that you don't knowif you don't know the title artist name genre then how can we find song we need another approachlet music find us don't go searching for music let music find us that must be a new experiencethis is our answer miko it's short for music inspiration from your subconsciousnessmiko detects your brain wave and play the music automatically that fits your moodI'll explain about miko system from your self-consciousnessmiko frees the user from having to select songs and artists and allows users to encounter new musicjust by wearing a devicethe miko system is made up of two parts the miko headphone and the miko app for iphonethe miko headphone detects brain waves through the sensor on your foreheadthe miko app then automatically analyzes the user's condition of the brainand searches for music that best matches from the miko database and plays the selection that fits the user's moodown on the indicator of the miko headphone when the user is focused when user is in drowsyand stressed provides a new experience which we call music serendipity by detecting the user'sself-consciousness through their brain waves that is miko system and thank you thank you very muchand this is a demo with julie watai she's my friend now she is trying miko headphonepro type miko headphone detects her brainwave and searching the music that fits her moodand she is a gadget lover so she she excited about mikoand so the miko system recommends her to the song that is uptempand this led indicator also shows her statusshe's a photographer so fenshi folding cameraand we had a demo at south by southwest in this yearmany music lovers visited our booth and tried miko systemthat was exactly the band i was thinking ofyeah that's crazywowthat's really coolthat's really awesomeit's gonna play yeah this is music from your subconscious i like it okay does it fit your moodthis is karla's songmany people enjoyed our miko system this is great and oh my god that's awesomeand now we are still developing miko system and implementing sequential running system for miko databaseto provide the miko for everybody please let me arrange a flow up till nowby nekomimi we did the designs human to human communication by miko we did designscommunication between human and music selecting music from our subconsciousnessnekomimi and miko and other our products are not tools for controlling somethingit's not our purpose that turning the lights on changing tv channels by using brainwavecomputer interface brain computer interface but we want to communicate with all things around uscommunicate with person communicate with machines communicate with room communicate with homecommunicate with cities communicate with transportationin the near future they understand our feelings and we will start new relationship between themlet me talk about future how will computer evolvethis is nbds roadmap for computing compare tegrously with parka in just two yearsprocessing power increasing 54 this is an incredible rate of growth but the point is differentat the same time current generation cpu's will have developed dropped to one tenth of their price todayand size reduces also important our left at left is the modulesusing nekomimi in just two years it will reduce in this size three millimeter squaremy focus is not on high end performance high end cpu performance will continue to growthon the other hand the cost and size of low end cpu's will dramatically decrease for meme this is the trend to look at as cpu's becomes small and their cost radically reduced computerwill become embedded everywhere the computer would be everywhere tables chairs walls curtains windowsエアコンディショニングランプドアーズ everything around us there will be an estimated more than37 billion device in everywhere and connected each other by 2020 it means everything will be smartwareable device a lot of wearable device will appear they will connect us with smart objects andautonomously develop new functions i think it's a emergence of new intelligencethen the rules of our information society will change from searching information tocreating information and communicating with new intelligence will require require new interfacesi believe those interfaces will respond to feelings and emotions i think it's a kind of emotional interfacelust week i saw a movie pacific dream from this movie this movie features newbrain computer interface called drift when you drift with someone you create an incrediblypoignant connection both pilots can see all of each other's memories and all of each other'ssecrets and information in each other's brains every memory good bad everythingthey become one two pilots share their memories senses and emotions by using brain computerinterface called drift if this this technology really appeared it will be incredible howeverthere is a big problem to realize drift maybe we can measure brain waves and convertfeeling into parameters but we still don't have a feedback system that can transmitthose feelings directly to others then i found a report about new technology this robot handgivens sense feedback to users the users nerves and the robot armor fused together with conductive polymersto create a bio hybrid neural bridge that gives touch feedback and dna nanotechnologydna nanotechnology will probably develop these sense and feeling based interface furtherdna nanotechnology use dna as a component to design and buildmolecular robots and structure in the same way we might design an object incard software if we start communicating with new intelligence produced in connectedenvironment by using emotional interface developed by dna nanotechnologywhat might happen serendipity i believe evolution of information technologies will create newinformation society where we can encounter many serendipities information technologies willdeliver the right information to the right place at the right time leading us to new exciting experiencesthat is my vision of our information society and communication in the not sodistant future and when i get back to japan i will start new project called serendipity machinesto create a serendipity using communication tools and technologies if youinteresting this project please join me join us and one thing i have to tellthe end of september we willnearware release our new product called new com i cannot talk about details nowbut please look forward to our new product thank you very much


I'm also glad to meet you. My name is Tim and I want to tell you about a wonderful adventure I had with Jump Jump the elf. The elf was only three inches tall. Maybe you don't believe in elves, but you will when you've heard my story. It's Tim again. Have you heard about Jump Jump and Mary Holiday who live in Holiday House? At Holiday House, every day is a holiday. Something like Christmas all the time. I know because I've been to Holiday House and I've seen Mary Holiday. She's awfully pretty and I know Jump Jump the little elf who jumps up and down backwards and forwards and sideways and who talks so funny and so fast that you can't understand him all the time. We saved Christmas, Jump Jump and I. We really did and in just a minute I'll tell you all about it. To some of the other kids at the orphanage where I know where the Santa Claus will be. Remember I? A little fella, only four. Lily said maybe Santa Claus only cared about whole family, but there are mothers and fathers and lots of brothers and sisters and all. Maybe he wouldn't bother to stop in an orphanage. Lily was worried. I was kind of worried too. All of us kids were. So when I went to bed that night, I couldn't go to sleep. I kept looking out the window at the big dipper in the North Star and I kept thinking if I could just follow the North Star. I bet I'd get the North Pole before long and I'd find Santa Claus and I'd just ask him if he planned to visit everybody at Christmas. Then I could tell Billy. So I got up, dressed myself and went downstairs out the back door. It was dark, but I kept my eye on that North Star and started off into the woods. It seemed I walked for hours and hours and then I started to get sleepy. Sleepy? I just had to rest off my jacket, lay down and covered myself with it. And then, as fast as I was getting comfortable, something tapped me on the knee. I thought maybe an air-con had fallen on my knee. Just then, something tapped me on my other knee. And then I heard the funniest noise.  And he was dressed in bright red pants, a candy-striped shirt, yellow shoes, and had a pointed red cap. He never stopped jumping and he didn't stop talking either, talking that funny elf talk of his. He was so funny that I laughed. And you know what he did then? He laughed too. He jumped back and forth from one knee to the other until I was dizzy from watching him. He kept talking too. I couldn't understand a word he said, no matter how I tried. That's what I said to him. I'm sorry, elf, but I can't understand a word you're saying. And with that, he got quite red in the face till he looked like a cheery with arms and legs. And then he jumped onto my collar and started to tug at it, as if to pull me onto my feet. He stood up and then he jumped right onto my right here and gave it a pull. I started to walk to the right, which pleased him for he laughed. And he sounded so jolly that I laughed too. Well, he guided me along jumping from ear to ear. And as I walked along, he sang the gayest little song. Before long, we came to a garden gate. And there stood a house just like a picture in the storybook. It had a peek of luck, diamond pane windows, and a bright red door. The elf tugged my ears while I unlatched the garden gate, and we went up the garden path to the door. He tried to get me to open the door, but when I wouldn't, he jumped onto the door knocker and swung back and forth on it. Then we heard someone calling it to us from behind the door. Jump, jump. Oh, jump, jump, is that you? My ear so hard that instead I said, ah! The open door was a very pretty young lady with bolder hair, and she was smiling down at it. Well, there you are, jump, jump. Oh, and you've brought a new friend. Hello. Won't you both come in? I'm Mary Holiday. That little elf jumped right to Mary Holiday's shoulder, and we all went in. The inside of the house was wonderful. There were heart-shaped picture frames on all the walls, with golden arrows through them. Over the manor were tall green hats with shamrocks and clay pipes. On the sofa, there were red, white, and blue sofa pillows, shaped like 4th of July firecrackers. The table in the corner of the room was set for a birthday party, and as we walked in, an Easter bunny scampered out of the kitchen door with a basket of colored eggs.  But to my surprise, she seemed to understand every word he'd said. But tell me, jump-jump, who is this you've brought to Holiday House? My name is Tim. How do you do, Tim? I hope you'll pardon jump-jump for not introducing us. Sometimes he quite forgets his manners. Yes, ma'am. But he's so small and so busy jumping up and down. And besides, he talks much too fast to make proper introductions. Mary Holiday is him, Mary Holiday. I know. Talk so I can understand him. Well, of course, he can talk slowly if he tries. But he forgets, and he talks fast when he's excited. It would be much better if he talks slowly all the time. Tim, jump-jump and I are very happy to welcome you to Holiday House. Thank you, Mary Holiday. Here's my friend, Tim, some pie. Mary Holiday, here's him some pie.  Would you, Tim, with a glass of milk? Thank you. It would be very nice.  You're welcome. Jump-jump sat on the table and had his pie on a penny. I had to laugh, for he jumped about so much that I had my pie eaten long before he'd finished his tiny little piece. Mary Holiday didn't eat any pie at all. She kept looking out the window and glancing at the telephone. That's if she were waiting for someone. Every time she looked at me, she smiled. But still, I thought maybe I should thank her for my pie and milk and go on my way. But just as I started to, what do you think? I looked over a jump-jump who had just finished off the last crown and he was sound asleep.  Well, while I put him in his bed, you must tell me all about yourself, Tim. I live in an orphanage, Mary Holiday. You do? Yes. And Billy, a friend of mine, was only four years old. He's worried. Worry? Yes, ma'am. He thinks maybe Santa Claus won't come to see us at all. Oh. Oh, I see. So I thought, Mary Holiday, if I followed the North Star, maybe I'd find Santa Claus, and then I'd ask him, and then I could tell Billy not to worry anymore. Oh. Oh, yes. You know, Tim, I'm worried, too. Are you afraid Santa Claus won't come to see you at Holiday House? Yes. Because, well, maybe, maybe, jump-jump. Oh, that's the door knocker, Tim. Maybe that's a message from Santa Claus now. Greetings, Mary Holiday. Oh, it's you, Archie Pogli the Clown. Come in, Archie Pogli, come in. I came to wish you, Mary Holiday, a Mary Holiday. Oh, it is a holiday, isn't it? Yes, of course. It's a holiday. You didn't happen to bring a message from the North Pole? At this hour? Or what hour is it? It is an hour, isn't it? Oh, yes, yes, of course. It's a late hour. But you haven't heard from Santa Claus at this late hour? No. No, I haven't. And I'm so worried, Archie Pogli. This has never happened before. Oh, excuse me, Tim. This is Archie Pogli the Circus Clown. I'm a jolly old clown, and I never do frown. And I make little children laugh with glee. I never do wine, because I haven't got time. I'm a jolly old clown, as you can see. And what a funny clown he was, dressed in green pants, a yellow shirt, and a red hat with a feather in it. And his hair, his hair was bright pink. I'm afraid I sturdied his pink hair, for he said... I'm afraid the famous man once said, please to meet you. You like my pink hair? Well, I do. Well, as you can see, I'm feeling in the pink today. Oh, Archie Pogli, you are silly. Well, I'm a jolly old clown. I never do frown. I make little... Oh, but you're frowning, merry holiday. Oh, oh, I'm sorry, Archie Pogli. Well, it's just that I... I'm so concerned about Santa Claus. And then, merry holiday told Archie Pogli about me and the other children at the orphanage being worried about Christmas, too. I wanted to stay awake, and you, what Archie Pogli might suggest, brought our going to the North Pole. But I was getting sleepier and sleepier again. I tried to stay awake, but... The day I was asleep, right in my chair. However, the next day I was to find out why merry holiday was so worried. And it had to do with my trip to the North Pole, too. Tomorrow, if you'll meet me here at this same time, I'll tell you what happened next morning when I woke up.


Hey there, NJRoot22.com vlog, episodes, whatever. I want to talk today about something, a little flyer that's been going up at several places along Route 22. It's called the Inclusion Festival for all ages and ability. It's a sensory-friendly music, arts, yoga, and wellness festival. It includes everybody except poor people because you need to pay 25 bucks now until May 15th and then it goes up to like $35 a person, an adult, all kids under 12 are free.  They have some sort of Jerry Garcia connection as well. And they have all the buzzwords here. It's inclusive, it's immersive, it's, they practice relaxation and mindfulness. It's all fine and dandy to us, I guess. This could also be considered perhaps maybe a safe space festival also. But it's, I guess they make accommodations for troubled people or people with autism and stuff like that. Just people who don't quite fit in well. I'm gonna take, get rid of this. Who don't fit in well in society. Maybe I can hide my cheese stains from the previous episode. That's what you get for crappy bags at the supermarket. Anyway, here's the Inclusion Festival. So you might want to know what it's about is they're using these words, like I said, mindfulness and hula hooping. They do hula hooping. So I'm gonna read from their frequently asked questions when they say sensory friendly. What does that mean? Sensory friendly is individuals with autism and other neurological differences may experience challenges related to sensory processing. This means their brains and bodies may have difficulty interpreting and responding to information collected by our five senses, smell, sight, taste, touch and sound. So that's what they mean, sensory friendly. I guess they have special places that are quiet and they laid out the festival in a way that it won't be too crowded. I guess for those who get, what do you call it when you're claustrophobic? I guess claustrophobic people are also invited to this festival. And the music, I guess some of the music is like easy listening music and that helps a lot of troubled individuals relax and have a good time. And they said there are very, very many quiet places to take a break from this excitement. And there's workshops for all ages, not just kids. I mean, this could technically be called a kids festival as well. You could call it a kids festival with accommodations for special needs individuals. But the inclusion festival seems to be the more appealing buzzword for today. And here they talk about mindfulness here. And they explain what that means. This apparently doesn't seem to have anything to do with the festival, it's just a thought process. They say, pause and take a deep breath. Now intentionally tighten the muscles in your body.  Notice how it feels to hold this tension and then relax your muscles. Notice how it feels to relax. Oftentimes we move through our days holding this kind of tension in our bodies without noticing. And they go on to say, mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing relaxed awareness to the present moment. Through breathing and meditation techniques those who practice mindfulness can learn to tune into mental, physical, and environmental sensations without judgment. I guess that's a judgment free zone.  I don't know. In this space we can teach our bodies and minds to release tension, strengthen trust, patience, and acceptance. I mean, I'm not sure how that intercorrelates as well. But either I should say. Scientific evidence documenting the positive effects of mindfulness continues to grow and strengthen.  And that's called mindful eating. I think I lasted a whole day doing that because I just want to eat and get it over with. Anyway, they say mindful activities have been shown to improve attention, emotional regulation, and sensory processing abilities and to increase our capacity for compassion and empathy. Inclusion festival aims to share tangible mindfulness strategies and accessible techniques with participants so they can, so they are able to experience the benefits of mindfulness all year round. Anyway, they go on to tell you what you should bring, good vibes, bring some good vibes. And they talk about why festivals are important. It's they tend to invoke a sense of joy and appreciation and you feel positive energy radiating. It sounds like the, I might smell patchouli oil there as well. And then they call it talk about neuro diversity. Neuro diversity is another catch phrase they use and it says it's a new concept that challenges conventional thinking about ability and individuality. The term suggests that cognitive differences like autism and ADHD are the result of normal natural variations in the vastly complex and diverse human genome. And they say instead of viewing these variances as pathological in nature, proponents of neuro diversity assert that cognitive differences have been present throughout history and have added immeasurable value to human evolution and society. One, tend to think that ADHD is probably of a human, the rise of it.  I think if you just eat normal meat and stuff like that, you should be fine. And maybe ADHD also has something to do with the technology and the toys that the kids are using today and the helicopter parenting and just letting, I don't know, I can go on with that. The concept of neuro diversity is gaining traction. It provides a broader model. Dow also means it's usually gaining extra money and funding from the government. It provides a broader model for acceptance and understanding which will ultimately help people with neurological differences more easily obtain the accommodations and supports they need in order to be the best versions of themselves.  So that's about it for this inclusion festival. It's, like I said, it's no further than a two hour drive, almost anywhere on the root22.com coverage area. If you're, you know, Bridgewater or East, your best bet's to hop on Route 80 to get there. You can look on a map. I'll have a map inside the blog post this is on. And if you're out in like Peaburg or PA, you have to take some side other county and state roads to get there. That's about an hour and a half drive from Phillipsburg, but two hours from either Branchburg or Bridgewater or even as far as Union, it only takes two hours to get there because it's really easy to get to 80 from there. And that's it. Something you might wanna consider if you fall into one of these categories or have a special needs child or mate. It's not a bad thing. It's cool. I guess it's hard for some of the more challenged people to go to like really loud rockin' festivals because they won't fit in. So this will help many people fit in. So that's it.