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The Government Fix
The Government Fix for Disaster Response
00:40:48
Disaster response is about far more than what happens when a hurricane makes landfall or wildfires spread. In this episode of The Government Fix, Amanda Renteria speaks with disaster researcher and emergency management expert Dr. Samantha Montano about what it really takes to prepare for disasters. Drawing from her experience in post-Katrina New Orleans and her book Disasterology, Montano explains why disasters disproportionately impact marginalized communities, how government systems often fail during recovery, and why “returning to normal” isn’t enough. Together, they explore what governments can do now to build resilient systems, invest before disaster strikes, and ensure communities aren’t left behind when the crisis fades from the headlines.
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- [00:05]
A
Today we're talking about the government fix for disaster response. When you hear the words disaster response, what images come to mind? Maybe you envision downed trees, flooded homes, newscasters struggling to get the words out as heavy winds swirl around them. Well, turns out responding to disasters is not just about what happens in that moment while the hurricane rages or fires blaze. Welcome to the Government Fix. I'm your host, Amanda Ranturia. I've worked on Capitol Hill, in the classroom, on Wall street, and now I'm the CEO of Code for America, an organization focused on using tech to improve public services and make government work well for everyone. We know. At Code for America, it's not just about responding quickly. It's about creating systems ready to respond in the moment. And today's guest understands that too. Samantha Montano is a disaster researcher and expert in emergency management. She's the author of Disasterology, which builds on her own academic experience. Engaging with disasters firsthand as well as her academic expertise, Samantha looks beyond the immediate moment that disaster strikes towards a way to build a more resilient preparedness network, as well as long term strategies to help communities rebuild. This is the government fix for disaster response. Welcome, Dr. Samantha Montano. A lot of your experience was really early on your experience in Katrina. So can you take us back to that first trip to New Orleans as a high schooler and how was it that you found things different than you expected to find? And what really pulled you into this work?
- [01:57]
B
I was in high school. We had an opportunity, as many people across the country did, to go down to New Orleans and volunteer help with the recovery efforts. You know, you see these things on tv, but to actually physically be there and see the extent of the destruction, you know, to look down a street and for as far as the eye can see, just see these like monstrous piles of debris, it completely altered my understanding of, like, what disasters, or in this case a catastrophe is and really ultimately how much help is needed, not just during the response when all the life saving things are happening, but also for years and years, in some cases decades into the recovery.
- [02:41]
A
When you went down as a high schooler, had you done any work in disaster relief or had you studied it? Like, what did you know before even getting down there? And then I'm curious on your ride back, what you processed in that moment.
- [02:55]
B
Yeah, I mean, I really didn't have much disaster experience at all. And I went to a Jesuit high school. So we had a lot of education on like the concept of social justice. So that was kind of my framing going into it. And, you know, what I saw in New Orleans was clearly an injustice, and much of that damage and impact was rooted in social injustice. But. But pretty immediately when I was there, it was clear to me that I personally felt like I wanted to do more to help and that, you know, spending a week there was nowhere near enough, and that it was really this, like, all hands on deck kind of moment. And so I decided to move to New Orleans. I lived there for four years, working with different recovery nonprofits on kind of all aspects of the recovery.
- [03:49]
A
I think it is interesting, right? It sort of in the news cycle, comes on, comes off. And yet there are years afterwards where it really does take a reinvestment in what's happening in the community, just even for the community themselves to know, hey, we see you. We're here with you. And I think one of those things that I have loved about your work is that not only did you go down there and you were in it on the front lines, but you also coined some terms that has really opened up a dialogue so people could understand this work. So you wrote a book called Disaster Ology and coined the term disaster ologist. For folks who are listening in, they might not know those terms. How do you define that? And you just said a little while ago, justice. What is disaster? Justice?
- [04:35]
B
Yeah. So when I got to grad school, so I spent several years doing this disaster recovery work around the country. And when I got to grad school and was actually, for the first time, getting, like, a formal education in emergency management, I was excited about what I was learning because it gave me a vocabulary for what I had seen in a lot of the work that I had actually been doing in New Orleans. And I had kind of like a bit of an epiphany of, like, oh, wait, people have been studying this for a century, and we actually know a lot about disasters, and we know a lot about what the best way for communities to recover is. But that information does not seem to be making it into practice and onto the ground. And so because of that kind of disconnect that I saw, I was excited about sharing what I was learning in grad school. And so I started a blog where I really, truly was just, like, writing, like, here's what we talked about in class today so that, you know, my other friends doing this work could kind of follow along. There was a lot of, like, I don't really get it. What is emergency management? Are you a firefighter? Like, what does that mean? And so I started using this term, disasterology, to describe it, it's a term that was like referenced one time many decades ago, buried in a academic article somewhere. But really disasterology made it easier for people to understand what it was that I was doing which was studying disasters. And so the term kind of caught on and stuck and is really the way I'm using disasterology is to describ the very broad field of disaster research. There are tons of people in all different disciplines who study disasters. And that kind of combined effort is what we could call disasterology.
- [06:39]
A
And I, I really love that that you have coined a term but that you also talk about it in real time. I think so much, having grown up in the Central Valley of California, very rural town that faces a lot of drought and different things because it's very ag oriented. And so we're very tied to the land and what happens to the land. And oftentimes people feel quite invisible there. And the idea of being able to talk about it and continue that dialogue, how important it is not just for people to understand what's really going on on the ground and what's really happening to real people, but as much for the people themselves to be seen as well. And so one of the things that we think about, talk about at Code for America is how do we make sure that people are seen and not just in a disaster. But I'm curious to hear your perspective on what can government do to make sure they actually see these communities before disaster strikes.
- [07:36]
B
Yeah, it's a great question. So part of what we study in emergency management is not just the response and the recovery, but also what we do to prevent disasters from happening and what we do to prepare for them. So kind of the book for side of things. And there is no community in America that does not need to do more mitigation and like, does not need to do more to prepare. And certainly it's a case that some communities need to do more than others, you know, have a greater vulnerability, greater risk. And that makes things kind of complicated if you're FEMA or if you're the federal government, because there is so much need across the country, particularly in the context of climate change and our increasing risk risk across the country. And so one of the things that FEMA has done in the past is have mitigation grant programs that help to identify mitigation projects across the country that need to be done, whether it's, you know, helping with updating building codes or building a flood wall or what have you. And through those grants, they, they have looked different and kind of evolved over Time. But that's like one way that the government can know what are the communities that are in need. There are requirements for communities to have hazard mitigation plans, which helps to ensure that communities are actually looking at what their risks are. And FEMA or other government agencies can use those to start trying to figure out, you know, what needs to be prioritized here in terms of funding. It doesn't work quite as well as I just described it, but that's kind of the underlying theory there in terms of like what government could do. Right. Is identify what those mitigation projects are across the country, prioritize based on need, and start getting that funding out the door to state and locals.
- [09:35]
A
I'm excited to see that you are part of being on the front lines and continuing to do the research around it, because the quicker we learn, the better government will be and we all will be as a community when disasters happen. And it is true, we are seeing more of them all across the country in places we never imagined we'd see them. And so this work is so incredibly important. We also recognize in our work at Code for America that government services are particularly harder in more marginalized communities. And I'm wondering whether you have seen that as well. And if you could just unpack it a little bit of the differences when a disaster hits communities that have a little bit more resources versus others and what we can really do to design it. So it actually helps both of those kinds of communities equally when disaster strikes.
- [10:25]
B
Yeah. So, you know, this is a kind of a common refrain that you'll hear especially from politicians kind of in the midst of a disaster, is that disasters don't discriminate. And the research very clearly shows us that that's not true. They do discriminate. And when you look at why that is, it's rooted in the pre disaster vulnerabilities of communities. Right. Some communities have more money, which they probably have better infrastructure that can better withstand a hurricane or a tornado or what have you. You have. If you have wealthier people who live in that community, then they have probably done more mitigation efforts on their property, you know, built their homes in ways that can better withstand those hazards. If you have people who live in your community who have money, that means they also have money to do things like evacuate and to go, you know, foot the bill for two weeks in a hot. So they have those kind of resources when they actually need to respond to these types of events. They have the money to stockpile food and water and the other kinds of supplies you might need during a disaster. If you are in a community that does not have money, that has been historically marginalized, that is working through, you know, being ignored by your local or your state government, and your infrastructure is failing and you don't have public transportation, right. And those basic kind of social, social systems aren't haven't been invested in, then you are going to likely experience greater impacts. Right. That same storm that hits a wealthier community is probably going to cause less damage as compared to that same storm hitting a poorer community. Right. So what that means is you are like already starting from behind. Well, so if you are a community that is more politically powerful, if you have a lot of wealthy white people who live in your community, you're probably going to get more media attention. There'll probably be greater support coming in because you've gotten more media attention. We know that's associated with things like donations to nonprofits and whatnot. Then once you get into recovery, things can get even more kind of severe again. If you are somebody who has millions of dollars in the bank, then you can afford to, you know, walk away from your house and go buy a different house. Whereas if you are a renter or you are somebod who is living paycheck to paycheck, you do not have the money to rebuild. And that leads to a situation in recovery where you have kind of more compounding impacts. And I, I think like, if you take an equitable approach to emergency management, you would see that, you know, the communities who have greater need are getting more assistance, and that's not really happening. There's been some reviews of some of the previous mitigation grant programs in fema. And you can see that there's more money going to whiter, wealthier communities. A large part of that reason is inherent to this idea that communities need to apply for those grants. And if you are a poor community without the people working in your emergency management agency, you don't even have enough people to actually apply for those grants to compete to get them. So all of these inequities kind of pile up onto each other across the entire disaster life cycle.
- [14:06]
A
We see that too on our tech side of the work. Right When Covid hit, we could see what cities and counties really had technological capabilities and which ones didn't from the very beginning. And so getting out resources was much easier. Of course, in those areas, who could invest in good infrastructure before anything even happened happened.
- [14:26]
B
Right.
- [14:26]
A
And on the backside of that, it also means it's a little messier to Fix it. Because you're starting with a system that's a little outdated or it's not right for the community that's there, or it's not really built for the community that's there and now they're under stress. Right. I, I think, you know, everyone always talks in a disaster. Time is not the time to be trading business cards, right. In the business world because people are all just acting in the same way. It's really hard in those moments to say, oh, the infrastructure's not there, but let's try and put it together now in this moment. Moment of crisis, as I think about the recovery. Right. So that leads me to wasn't ready before now, how do we make sure to take the lessons learned and truly invest? And so in your experience of going to New Orleans and really staying there afterwards, when I think about how government needs to show up both in the crisis, but then in the recovery to really be there to help people at their moment of need and on a going forward basis. Do you have any real world ex. And I know this, this podcast is Government Fix, but any examples of a failed disaster recovery?
- [15:36]
B
Yeah, I think there's a lot of examples.
- [15:39]
A
That makes me sad to hear.
- [15:42]
B
Yeah, I'm like, no, don't say that.
- [15:44]
A
But it's true, right? I mean this is the spirit of learning.
- [15:47]
B
It is tough, right? Because I think is, has a recovery failed is not necessarily a yes or no question, right. Different people are going to have different opinions about whether or not recovery has been success. And I think it is the case that in many communities across the country you will find disaster survivors who say, I have a failed recovery, my community has a failed recovery. You will also find people across the country who say, yeah, I'm good now. Like I've moved on, things are, are fine, my community's fine. So it is a mixed bag. You know, it was just the 20 year anniversary of Katrina and so that is very fresh in my mind. I was down in New Orleans this past summer just before the, the 20 year anniversary and you know, driving through the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, which is a historically black neighborhood that was particularly affected by Katrina and had a lot of attention on it afterwards. You know, when you drive through the Lower Ninth now, there are people who have rebuilt and are back in their houses and you know, the, the school is rebuilt and there, there's all of these things that are, are back in that particular neighborhood. Also though, when you drive through lot after lot that have no house on them, right. They were torn down and nobody has come back to rebuild. And so that I think is an example of like, in some ways, yeah, it was successful. Like, some people came back and there was a period of time where it was not immediately clear that that was going to actually happen based on how the government was funding the Kat recovery. But there's also a lot of people who didn't come back. And many of those people wanted to come back and couldn't get the resources to do so. You know, when I think about recovery, I tend to not think about putting things back to normal one just because you, you know, normal is what got you into the disaster in the first place. Right. We always want to make those positive changes to reduce risk. But it's more I have found about yet and research kind of supports this is getting people back into some kind of a routine that they're okay with. Right. And that's going to look radically different for everyone.
- [18:06]
A
Yeah. You know, it's interesting hearing you talk about this because I was wondering, for folks who experience or people who experience a disaster and you're part of sort of the recovery team or the government or infrastructure team, how much do you think about the future as? Sure, there's some sort of rapid response, but in the recovery process, how much do you think about, let's put these things back to where they were versus how do we make them better? How do you. How does one government leader, how should they think about that?
- [18:40]
B
This is why I think recovery is actually the hardest thing we do in emergency management. In many ways, response is the easy part. I think like, like ideally and from like a theoretical perspective, you want to make as many changes in terms of reducing risk as possible in the recovery. Right. Like, logically, if you have to rebuild your entire house, why would you not rebuild it to be more resistant to the next hazard? Right. The problem is that when you bring that into practice, you start running into some pretty massive barriers really quickly. One, you have a knowledge issue. Most people would not know even where to begin with rebuilding their house, let alone figuring out, oh, how do I raise it 15ft off the ground? Or like make all of these other changes. Right. So there, there's a knowledge issue. There's also primarily a financial issue. It is already incredibly expensive to rebuild your home. Raising it up off the ground makes the that even more expensive. Right. And people already are struggling and in many cases cannot find the money that is needed to rebuild. So to say, now you have to also do all this extra stuff on top of it is impossible and overwhelming to many. People there also is kind of mental side of this too. A lot of people who have been through a disaster have been traumatized by that event and they do like in their minds, they want to go back to normal. They don't want to make changes, they want things to just to go back to the way they were. So there can also be some barriers there that need to be worked through. And so that's at, you know, the individual level. When you back up and you look at this from a community level or like from the perspective of a local or state government, you have similar issues, right? You like if you're the mayor of a town, you need to try and figure out like, who do we go to for advice on like, like what mitigation we should be doing. At the same time, you're trying to figure out everything about the recovery. You also have the funding issue, you know, the same funding issue. Where are you going to find the money to do like community mitigation projects? There's also this like time crunch, right? The longer people are in recovery, those impacts start piling up. And so we really do want people to kind of move through that recovery as quickly as possible. However it is possible to do it requires doing some things ahead of time though. So one of the things we know from the research is that communities who have pre disaster recovery plans, often that integrate, you know, into their mitigation plans, you can hit the ground running, right?
- [21:32]
A
Of those places that do have mitigation plans, how close do you follow those in an actual disaster? Like, I know they help because you have a place plan, but do they deviate when all of a sudden now you're in the moment?
- [21:45]
B
They can, yeah, of course they can. I mean, the benefit of having these plans isn't always necessarily what exactly is written on the page. It's that you've gone through the planning process which involves thinking about these things, like kind of that simple, but also meeting with, you know, the various stakeholders who would need to be involved in that. Right. You start to have an idea of like, oh, we talked to that engineer, oh, we talked to that planner. You already have those contacts, those contacts pre disaster that you can rely on.
- [22:18]
A
I was thinking about when you were saying, you know, how do you make sure that you can put some processes in place? I suspect when, if you wanted to do some changing of your house or things like that, the unglamorous processes have a role here, right? So the insurance battles, contract shortages, and in that moment, what have you been able to flex or what can the City or the county or the state flex in real time to sort of help you move quickly and also in a better way. But those are all just logistical systems around the whole piece. You know, I'm interested to hear your experience with that and I would love to hear a successful disaster recovery story that you've seen and the lessons you drew from the, that you know, all
- [23:10]
B
of these like processes that need to be in place ahead of time are related to having strong local emergency management agencies that have enough resources to do these things. Right? Like having plans in place ahead of time, having a, a plan for how you're going to open the permit office back up in your city as quickly as possible. Those are all things, things that fall within the purview of emergency management and that emergency managers should be doing. Unfortunately, across the country, most emergency managers are not planning for recovery in their communities. And the reason for that is that they don't have the resources to do it. There was a new study that just came out from Argonne National Labs that looked at the capacity of local emergency management and agencies across the country. And frankly, it's a pretty dire situation. We have a lot of part time emergency managers in communities that need more than a full time emergency manager. We even have some communities that are relying on a volunteer emergency manager. So there's just no possible way that they're going to be able to do that preparing for recovery that we know is necessary to, to speed up these recoveries. Now in terms of a community that recovered, well, I think like you can look at other places in New Orleans, right? And if you go walk around uptown New Orleans like you would not necessarily, you know, you wouldn't know Katrina happened 20 years ago. Whereas when you walk through the Ninth Ward, you know, it happened. Right. Of course, that's talking about like physical recovery, there's economic recovery, mental health recovery, social recovery. Those might look different from place to place.
- [24:59]
A
I mean, Even in your 20 years ago you were there and now you're going back and you're looking at these different communities. What is different today of emergency management that wasn't there 20 years ago in Katrina. That is probably the biggest difference you see now as people navigate disasters.
- [25:19]
B
If you'd asked me this a year ago, I would have had a very different answer. Right. So, you know, after Katrina happened, there was an acknowledgment in the field of emergency management that emergency management had failed and that FEMA in particular had failed, as I think has been well established at this point. And the people who work in emergency management are like, they are passionate about emergency management. It's a very hard field to work in. If they're in it, they want to be there. And so this, you know, the failures of Katrina were something that many people in our field took very personally and said, this is like my guiding light. We're never going to let this happen again. Like, and it's also an event that inspired many people, not just me, to become involved in emergency management. And so based on that idea of Katrina's response as failure, the field has made tremendous changes. It has become much more focused on the need to address vulnerable populations.
- [26:21]
A
Right.
- [26:21]
B
People who have different needs than we had traditionally been planning for. Their, you know, widespread conversations about the need to create more equitable recovery programs. The, you know, full, you know, total support for increasing mitigation funding across the country. Right. So, you know, and then also laws and policies changed at the federal level, state and local levels across the country as well. And unfortunately in January we started to see all of those efforts from the previous 19 years start to unravel in August on the 20 year anniversary. The headline story about it being the 20 year anniversary is that FEMA is back to how it was when Katrina happened and that we are not ready to respond to another event like Katrina. And so, you know, a lot of those efforts that had been put into changing the field for the better have just kind of disappeared overnight. I think maybe like one good thing is that we still have the knowledge of what we need to do, do, do better, which we didn't necessarily have in the same way in 2005. But unfortunately we are in a, in a really tough position right now that looks remarkably similar to the pre Katrina situation.
- [27:43]
A
What are your suggestions for those mayors or for those governors to really think about this shifting landscape so that they can prepare, prepare now for disasters? Given the changes that are happening at
- [27:56]
B
the federal level, I think governors and mayors need to make sure they have an emergency manager and be staffing out those emergency management agencies because those are going to be the agencies that are making the decisions in the absence of FEMA being there. And you know, and FEMA always is a support coming in, not the decision maker. They are going to be on their own. Right. That extra help is not necessarily coming out at this point. So staffing emergency management agencies with state and local funding, many of those agencies are staffed using federal funds that have either been lost or are potentially at risk. The other thing that state and local governments broadly need to be doing are creating rainy day funds so that they have money set aside if they need it in an emergency. And I recognize that that is a hard ask, especially now with, you know, budget's probably getting thrown up in the air and shook all up given the loss of federal funding. But that really needs to be a safety net. I think at the individual level it is important more than ever to do what you can to prepare yourself for disasters. All the normal advice you hear like signing up for alerts, having extra days of food and water, having an evacuation plan for yourself th. Those types of things. And obviously people have different resources and whatnot to do that, but it really is more important than ever. Right. That expectation that FEMA is going to come in and save the day was always a bit over general for what actually happens, but especially now, it just isn't realistic that that is going to happen. So I think people do need to rely more on their local community than has necessarily been the case in the past.
- [29:52]
A
Yeah, not only local communities, but their own household, their own neighborhood. And we often tell our kids this. I'm married to an Eagle Scout and so he's very prepared and he went through a course to make sure he's very prepared. And, and then you try it out like one of our. Apparently our alarm system is different. So our alarm went on upstairs and both my kids, kids got out and went to the point that they were supposed to meet us. And then we're there for like 30 minutes. They're like, where's mom and dad? Right. And from there we were, we learned that our wiring wasn't quite right. When our 15 year old runs in, he's like, what are you guys doing? But I do think a lot about that. And as the landscape is shifting on us from government or what government can do, how are we all ensuring that we're not only educating families on how to do it, but like run through the trial, right? See what's missing. I know we all are really busy and you never have time to think about it, but what I'm hearing from you, Samantha, is just how important that is so that we can be ready for those moments. But also do it with your neighborhood, right? Do it with other folks. Ask the state, see the policy, what, what can be done too. So some of this I think we're all probably going to need to roll up our sleeves a little bit and ask more of how do we do it now together so that we are better prepared. And so one of the things that has me thinking is, you know, we are going to face this a little bit more with climate change and are seeing that. Have you seen technology at all help change or has it evolved or does it need to evolve as we think about these disasters going forward?
- [31:30]
B
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, for a long time I was, was a huge advocate of emergency managers using social media more. You know, during Hurricane Helene, I made a comment on Twitter saying, this is Twitter's last disaster, right? That was clear at that point forward that the disinformation, misinformation on there was just so extreme that, you know, it wasn't going to be useful anymore. So right now, in terms of social media, which again has like always has been for the last 15 plus years, such like a critical aspect of how we respond to disasters, we're in kind of like a weird place where it's not really clear what's going to happen and like what the best way of using social media in these instances are anymore. So we're, we're kind of in a holding pattern there in terms of like broader kinds of technology. I mean, certainly like things like warning systems are saving lives all over the world, right? That, that is like one of the main things we credit with lowering disaster death tolls in many parts of the world. So there, there are all of these positive things that technology can bring us at the same time. I always tell my students, I need to know first that you can respond to a disaster with a pencil and a piece of paper. Because we're dealing with situations where technology may not work by the nature of the event that happens. And so it is kind of a weird situation where like, yeah, if you can use, use cool tech and it works great, but you also need to know how to do it without it. Harvey was an interesting case because that was a massive storm, right? A lot of people kept Internet, kept cell service, kept power even during the storm, which allowed for communication to happen. If you. Again, this was. Twitter was so helpful. Here you have people posting their addresses saying, okay, our street's filling up with water. We need somebody to come. You have, you know, all the formal search and rescue teams, but also, you know, volunteer search and rescue teams that are coming to help. There was a couple of folks who made a website called Crowdsource Rescue in the middle of Harvey that still exists and is used today, which is a platform to coordinate search and rescue resources with people who need rescue. So that, I mean, that was an amazing example of technology, communication all coming together. And like, was it perfect? No, of course not. Right there, you know, never perfect. In an event of that Size. But you see how like, you know, having people be able to have a, to have something like Twitter to post that and share that information is incredibly valuable.
- [34:17]
A
Yeah. I think about just these platforms and systems that have now come up and the idea that when you're in that moment, I'm not sure it's part of our plan to go, oh, don't forget to, you know, let folks know on whatever social platform you have, have where you are, what your situation is. And that is one tool that is now out there. But it is a little scary with mis and disinformation.
- [34:41]
B
I was going to say too, like the, the comparison to Harvey was then Hurricane Maria a couple weeks later, where all of Puerto Rico loses power. You know, we didn't even hear from people in Puerto Rico in some cases for days, in some cases weeks. And they were reliant on like ham radio operators and like, you know, using the radio in Puerto Rico to send messages across the island. Right. Like, it also took people flying from the mainland in with like satellite phones for the mayors across the island, but it took a long time for that equipment to actually get into, especially the remote areas.
- [35:21]
A
Yeah. It's one thing we think about in our work at Code for America is how are we reaching folks? Because if we can reach folks in the everyday for food assistance, how do those lines stay robust and resilient in times when a lot of these communities who already feel left out in that moment, how do we make sure we build those pathways going forward? After 15 plus years of doing this work and you've been studying it and you've been all over this, what keeps you hopeful?
- [35:49]
B
So I have the great fortune of working with people who are just at the start of their careers in emergency management, who are really excited about joining the field and helping people who are worried about climate change, who understand these equity issues and are really excited and interested in trying to find unique ideas for solving these problems. So they keep me hopeful. The next generation is, is coming, Samantha.
- [36:21]
A
That keeps me hopeful, too. And I, and I know my kids definitely think they can do emergency management
- [36:27]
B
better than, better than us parents do it.
- [36:31]
A
Our experience. You're right. Exactly. We're all going to be in good hands. I'm for that. My last question that we like to ask all of our guests is, if you had a magic wand to change one thing about how government works, what would you fix first?
- [36:50]
B
Yeah, great question. We really need to change the way we're approaching emergency management to one that really emphasizes people's needs. And throughout our recovery programs, our mitigation programs. Right. If we really kind of zero in on, like, what are the needs of actual communities, which looks different across the country, and how do we get funding to them, resources to them, I think we'd be in a much better position, not only in emergency management, but kind of have healthier communities more broadly.
- [37:25]
A
I couldn't agree with you more. I think there's so much we can do together, and I'm just excited to have been able to spend some time learning with you. And I hope all of our listeners tune in and make sure they make those plans, understand what they need to do, have an exit strategy, and all those kinds of things. Because I think what the big lesson here is, what works not just for government, but really even at home, is what is your plan so that you know what to do in those moments? Moments. And so I appreciate the work that you do and for being with us today. Samantha, thanks so much.
- [37:57]
B
Thanks for having me.
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A
Today's conversation with Dr. Samantha Montano revealed something crucial. Emergency management is so much more than the images we see on tv. It's not just firefighters battling flames or rescue teams in floodwaters. It's about the unglamorous work that helps before a disaster strikes and the long road of recovery that follows. What struck me most was Samantha's point that recovery isn't about returning back to normal. Normal, after all, is often what got us into trouble in the first place. Real recovery means building something better, something more resilient. And that's exactly what we do at Code for America. We reach toward innovation and create system systems that actually serve everyone. We know you can get really powerful results by just getting everyone in a room together before a project even starts. That helps folks not just reimagine a system, but to reimagine what working together means. I hope you'll consider having those conversations, run those fire drills, know your evacuation routes. Because in a shifting landscape where federal support is less certain, our local communities, our own preparedness matters more than ever. The next generation is going to play a key role. As Samantha said, her students keep her going. And honestly, that gives me hope, too. That's all for today on the Government Fix. Thanks for listening. This podcast is brought to you by Code for America, the country's leading civic tech nonprofit. For over 15 years. We believe that government can work for the people, by the people, in the new digital age. We work with government at all levels across the country to make the delivery of public service better with technology. We partner with community organizations and governments to build digital tools, change policy, and improve programs. Our goal? A resilient government that works well for everyone. Learn more@codeforamerica.org if you like this episode of the Government Fix, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. If you listen to the Government Fix, chances are you're an innovator, a problem solver, the kind of person who thinks outside the box. If that sounds like you, then Code for America Summit is the one event you absolutely cannot miss in 2026. We're having our annual conference in Ch. Chicago on May 7th and 8th, and we'd love for you to join us. To find out more, Visit codeforamerica.org Summit2026. We can't wait to see you in Chicago.