Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas delivered the following remarks to open the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s virtual National Conversation on Resilience event.
Chris, thanks so much for the kind words, and thanks to you for your extraordinary work. Everyone, I had planned to deliver my remarks from my office, but my desk is an official disaster zone, so I’m speaking to you from a more formal setting and my apologies for that.
I want to start with an anecdote.
In the 1730’s, the most prominent, consistent, and deadly threat facing Philadelphia – then our nation’s largest city – was fire. An enterprising 29-year-old named Benjamin Franklin took to the Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper and wrote a column that proposed combating this threat by establishing the nation’s first professional firefighting department.
But he also admonished his readers that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” He wrote that, if every home had a leather firefighting bucket readily accessible; if chimney sweeps were well-trained and licensed by the city; if straw roofs were replaced with tile ones; and if smoking was banned in places with lots of sawdust, Philadelphia could lessen the frequency, severity, and destructive capability of the fires it faced.
Local leaders heeded Franklin’s advice. They founded the first-of-its-kind Union Fire Company, passed new laws, updated building standards, and distributed fire-prevention tools to families across the city. It worked: within just a few years, Philadelphia was widely renowned as one of the safest cities in the world.
Three centuries later, the threats facing every American community have dramatically evolved and expanded – not just fires, but floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme heat and cold, and other climate change-fueled disasters; cyberattacks; terrorism and targeted violence; and everything in between. Franklin’s two-pronged strategy still guides emergency management best practices.
Like his firefighting brigade, we at the Department of Homeland Security and at FEMA, one of our Department’s agencies, are there for communities in their moments of need. We are committed, as President Biden often says, to being there every step of the way as Americans respond to, recover from, and rebuild after a disaster.
And, an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure. Taking forward-looking, meaningful steps today to increase resilience before tragedy strikes will save lives, property, critical infrastructure, taxpayer money, and jobs tomorrow.
Meeting that mandate – and doing so quickly, efficiently, and effectively – requires all of us, at every level of government and across the homeland security enterprise, to work together closely.
That is why we have convened this National Conversation on Resilience in America roundtable discussion. We are here to help streamline communication and coordination, to help cut through red tape, and to help you access the critical support and resources you need.
That includes hundreds of millions of dollars in grant funding the Biden-Harris Administration has allocated to help communities increase their preparedness and resilience. Today, in fact, we at DHS announced over $700 million in preparedness grant funding opportunities that will help state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, transportation authorities, nonprofit organizations, and other community organizations prepare for and prevent major disasters, terrorist attacks, and other emergencies.
Over the next hour, my colleagues will detail these grants programs; others like them, including our Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, grants; and additional valuable and impactful federal resources available to you.
Just as important, though, this convening is an opportunity for all of us to connect with and learn from one another. What are the challenges and threats your community is facing? What have you already done to help mitigate their impact? Which tactics are working, and which are not? How can we take your efforts and help adapt them to fit the unique needs of other communities?
The lessons learned in Philadelphia 300 years ago guided fire mitigation work in cities across the world for decades. So, too can the lessons learned in your communities today prove valuable to the rest of our country tomorrow. Homeland security is fundamentally an exercise in partnerships, and the impact of our work together will be measured in lives saved and tragedies averted.
I am grateful to each of you for joining us today, for your partnership, and your commitment to ensuring the resilience of our country. I am sure that you will find this conversation time well spent. Thanks so much for joining us.