{"id":34,"date":"2019-03-05T19:31:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T19:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/?post_type=podcast&p=34"},"modified":"2020-11-16T19:45:57","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T19:45:57","slug":"episode-6-disaster-relief-with-daniel-sledge-and-herschel-thomas","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/podcast\/episode-6-disaster-relief-with-daniel-sledge-and-herschel-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 6: Disaster Relief with Daniel Sledge and Herschel Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We talk with Daniel Sledge and Herschel Thomas of the University of Texas at Arlington on their new article, “From Disaster Response to Community Recovery: Nongovernmental Entities, Government, and Public Health<\/a>.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We talk with Daniel Sledge and Herschel Thomas of the University of Texas at Arlington on their new article, “From Disaster Response to Community Recovery: Nongovernmental Entities, Government, and Public Health.” ","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2019\/03\/The-Policy-Agenda-Episode-6.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"43.45M","filesize_raw":"45562304","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":""},"tags":[32,34,35,33,38,37,39,36],"categories":[],"series":[2],"class_list":{"0":"post-34","1":"podcast","2":"type-podcast","3":"status-publish","5":"tag-daniel-sledge","6":"tag-disaster","7":"tag-disaster-response","8":"tag-herschel-thomas","9":"tag-ngo","10":"tag-nongovernmental-entities","11":"tag-public-health","12":"tag-recovery","13":"series-the-policy-agenda","14":"entry"},"acf":{"related_episodes":"","hosts":[{"ID":613,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-07-01 18:02:41","post_date_gmt":"2020-07-01 18:02:41","post_content":"\n

Fagan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He studies political parties, Congress, think tanks, agenda setting, lobbying, and economic policy. In particular, he is interested in how legislatures process information and solve problems, and how party elites influence policy. He is also a graduate research fellow and former project manager with the Policy Agendas Project<\/a>. He produces and co-hosts the Policy Agendas Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before graduate school, Fagan worked for five years in Washington, DC. From 2011-2014, he was Deputy Communications Director for Global Financial Integrity<\/a> (GFI), a research and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. GFI works to study and curtail illicit financial flows from developing countries. <\/p>\n","post_title":"E. J. Fagan","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"e-j-fagan","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-10-23 16:53:07","post_modified_gmt":"2020-10-23 16:53:07","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/?post_type=speaker&p=613","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":634,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-10-27 15:44:56","post_date_gmt":"2020-10-27 15:44:56","post_content":"\n

Christine\u2019s research lies at the intersection of law and politics. Her dissertation work examines the policy agenda of the Solicitor General and the separation of powers dynamics at play in Supreme Court litigation. She specializes in judicial politics, constitutional law, and how law interacts with public policy. She plans to complete her PhD in Political Science in May of 2021 at the University of Texas at Austin. Christine holds a juris doctorate and a license to practice law in her home state, Oklahoma.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Christine Bird","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"christine-bird","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-10-27 15:44:56","post_modified_gmt":"2020-10-27 15:44:56","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/?post_type=speaker&p=634","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":638,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-10-27 15:48:58","post_date_gmt":"2020-10-27 15:48:58","post_content":"\n

Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant in the department of government at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in research on local and urban policy, agendas, and Latinx politics.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Brooke Shannon","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"brooke-shannon","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-10-27 15:48:59","post_modified_gmt":"2020-10-27 15:48:59","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/?post_type=speaker&p=638","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"guests":[{"ID":577,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-06-30 19:33:01","post_date_gmt":"2020-06-30 19:33:01","post_content":"\n

Dr. Sledge's research deals with public policy, health, and institutional development. He is currently engaged in a series of projects dealing with health policy, the politics of the COVID-19 pandemic, disaster response and recovery, and the opioid epidemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His recent publications include \u201cThe Challenges of Modeling COVID-19,\u201d forthcoming in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences <\/em>(PNAS), with Andrea Bertozzi, Elisa Franco, and George Mohler, and \u201cFrom Disaster Response to Community Recovery,\u201d published in the American Jour nal of Public Health<\/em>, with Herschel F. Thomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His article \u201cLinking Public Health and Individual Medicine: The Health Policy Approach of Surgeon General Thomas Parran\u201d received the 2017 Paper of the Year Award from the American Public Health Association and the American Jour nal of Public Health<\/em>. His research on the role of non-state service providers in supplementing state capacity after disasters has been funded by the National Science Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Sledge's book,\u00a0Health Divided: Public Health and Individual Medicine in the Making of the Modern American State<\/em>, offers a reinterpretation of the foundations and contours of modern American health policy, focusing on the divergence between policy regimes dealing with public health and with individual medical care. The book explores how public health policies have shaped health outcomes as well as the ways in which these changes have fed back into the health care system and reshaped policy priorities. It highlights the role of entrepreneurial bureaucrats in building new programs, generating support for them, and constructing new networks of intergovernmental relations.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Daniel Sledge","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"daniel-sledge","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-10-27 17:13:09","post_modified_gmt":"2020-10-27 17:13:09","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/?post_type=speaker&p=577","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":580,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-06-30 19:35:56","post_date_gmt":"2020-06-30 19:35:56","post_content":"\n

Thomas is an\u00a0Assistant Professor of\u00a0Political Science<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0University of\u00a0Texas at Arlington<\/a>. \u00a0He completed my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2015. His areas of specialization include public policy and American politics with an emphasis on organized interests, lobbying, and agenda-setting. Recent work explores substantive applications in the areas of public health and disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His research has been funded by the\u00a0National Science Foundation<\/a>, the\u00a0Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics<\/a>, the\u00a0Dirksen Congressional Center<\/a>, and the UT-Arlington College of Liberal Arts (C2C Program). He has published in the\u00a0American Journal of Public Health,\u00a0Policy Studies Journal<\/em>,\u00a0Public Administration<\/em>,\u00a0Politics Research Quarterly,\u00a0Interest Groups & Advocacy, Politics & Gender,\u00a0Cognitive Systems Research,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0PS: Political Science and Politics.<\/em> His book (with Timothy LaPira),\u00a0Revolving Door Lobbying<\/a>, provides a comprehensive analysis of former government officials working as lobbyists in Washington and was published by the University Press of Kansas. Follow-up research explores \u201cshadow lobbying\u201d as well as gender dynamics and representation in the lobbying profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At UT-Arlington, he teaches courses on American national government, interest groups and advocacy, research design and political analysis, and public policy analysis. In 2019, he received the UTA President\u2019s Award for Excellence in Teaching.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Herschel Thomas","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"herschel-thomas","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-10-27 17:15:23","post_modified_gmt":"2020-10-27 17:15:23","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/?post_type=speaker&p=580","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"transcript":"

Hello and welcome to episode. We’re not actually sure what the episode number is of the Policy Agendas podcast.<\/p>\n

I’m E.J. Fagan. I am joined today by Christine Bird. Hey. And Brooke Shannon, hello.<\/p>\n

We’re recording at the Southern Political Science Association conference. The reason why we don’t know what episode number it<\/p>\n

is is the paper we’re going to talk about today. It’s currently under embargo. And so this might<\/p>\n

be coming out in a few months, might be coming on a few weeks. We actually aren’t all that sure. But today<\/p>\n

we are joined by two authors of the paper from Disaster Response to Community Recovery.<\/p>\n

non-Government Entities, government and public health response. Actually, I don’t<\/p>\n

you don’t know the end of that of that of that subtitle, but it is authored by<\/p>\n

from the University of Texas at Arlington, Professor Hershel Thomas. A.J., thanks for having us. And<\/p>\n

Professor Daniel Sledge, Asia, nice to be here. Yeah. Thank you guys for joining us. This this paper is this project<\/p>\n

is is exciting. So, Daniel, I wonder, can you. Can you explain what project we are talking<\/p>\n

about today and kind of where it came from? Yes. So this is a project that<\/p>\n

Hershel Thomas and I have been working on for about a year and a half now. It’s very heavily<\/p>\n

focused on the role of non governments or entities. So nonprofits,<\/p>\n

businesses and religious groups and how these entities identify<\/p>\n

and attempt to fill in gaps in government’s ability to respond<\/p>\n

to disaster. So I have a longstanding interest in non state service provision.<\/p>\n

And Hershel Thomas, of course, has a longstanding interest in groups<\/p>\n

and following Hurricane Harvey. We became really interested<\/p>\n

in disaster response. We applied for and received a grant from the National<\/p>\n

Science Foundation and we proceeded to do field work in Houston,<\/p>\n

in Florida, in Puerto Rico, in Northern California and in<\/p>\n

Southern California. And this project came together very, very quickly. I understand.<\/p>\n

So did you guys pretty much started this as Harvey was was happening? Yes, sir.<\/p>\n

Harvey, it happened. The NSF put out a call for proposals.<\/p>\n

We started preparing our proposal. And during that time,<\/p>\n

Hurricane Irma happened after returned in the proposal, Hurricane Maria<\/p>\n

happened. Even later, the fires happened. So it ended up being<\/p>\n

a situation where we had intended just to study Harvey,<\/p>\n

but ended up with five cases that are geographically disparate.<\/p>\n

Have political different political contexts and allowed for a significant amount<\/p>\n

of variation, allowing us to do what I think is actually a pretty good analysis<\/p>\n

of disaster response and relief. Hershael, I’m wondering, can you describe what you were doing<\/p>\n

in these locations? So you traveled to all the locations that Daniel just mentioned. So you get there. What<\/p>\n

are you what what’s your next move? What’s your action? Yeah. So that the way that we conducted<\/p>\n

the research was essentially we created lists of organizations, not give us entities<\/p>\n

that were involved in disaster response. We did that through looking at media articles,<\/p>\n

through lists of early grantees, from community foundations, from a list<\/p>\n

of organizations to donate to. So we compiled those names. And as as we’ll get<\/p>\n

to we conducted a survey of all these organizations and in the process<\/p>\n

of doing the surveys we then contacted either followed up with<\/p>\n

or while our survey was in the field, contacted organizations to interview our there.<\/p>\n

And we also contacted government officials ranging from emergency management officials<\/p>\n

to elected officials and set up interviews. Semi-Structured interviews while we’re<\/p>\n

here. There in the ground. On the ground. And so the interviews tended to<\/p>\n

be much longer and more in-depth than we originally planned and said that the content that we have<\/p>\n

fifteen survey responses. And so the breadth of the data that we’re able to collect in a very short time is<\/p>\n

really impressive to us. Sorry to interrupt. We had some great experiences on the ground with<\/p>\n

interviewing in terms of snowballs. So, for instance, would be somewhere in<\/p>\n

Florida and mentioned to someone that we want to talk to someone in a different town. And<\/p>\n

there were a few times that people just got on the phone and called someone. We got in the car and drove over and<\/p>\n

talked to them. That’s amazing. So what did you find out? So what what are your what are your big findings<\/p>\n

from from this? I mean, really massive data generation process, yes<\/p>\n

or no one. When people think about disaster response,<\/p>\n

when people think about disaster relief, they tend to think about the government. They<\/p>\n

tend to. Think about FEMA. The things that FEMA does and<\/p>\n

there’s a lot of pressure on governments officials. But<\/p>\n

in reality, the response. The role of nongovernmental<\/p>\n

entities in this response is absolutely critical, so if you look at the National Response<\/p>\n

Framework, religious groups, businesses, nonprofits, according to this<\/p>\n

response framework, just play a crucial role in<\/p>\n

things. That response would not be possible with that. So that’s number one<\/p>\n

on our list, the findings. These organizations are really important. I think number two and<\/p>\n

maybe very critically, these organizations are able to<\/p>\n

see things that government is not able to see. These organizations are<\/p>\n

very often embedded in communities, are aware of where<\/p>\n

the most vulnerable, vulnerable populations in those communities might be and are<\/p>\n

able to engage in outreach that often government is not able to<\/p>\n

engage in. So, for instance, undocumented workers in Texas<\/p>\n

or Florida, these are people who, for pretty obvious reasons, are not excited<\/p>\n

when federal or even state officials show up and say, hey, we’re here to help.<\/p>\n

Right. These nongovernmental entities, however, are able to identify<\/p>\n

where these people are. They’re able to reach out to them and they’re able to<\/p>\n

engage with them and enjoy their trust. All right, so<\/p>\n

there this is a big project. Generally, we’re talking about a specific paper right here. Before I kind of move on to<\/p>\n

that, I want to ask Trey. Mitch Daniels, a public health guy. So I understand where the project<\/p>\n

is from a public health standpoint. You’re one of us, right? You’re a political scientist. You state policy agendas. Where’s<\/p>\n

the politics in this project? Yeah, I think that the one thing it’s really nice to be back in Maisie’s Hall with<\/p>\n

you. All the the the thing that I find really interesting about this project is<\/p>\n

now we’re looking at the politics of disasters in terms of<\/p>\n

government’s capacity to respond and what these energy e’s are able to to do in terms of filling<\/p>\n

in gaps in capacity. And so for me, it’s very much a public policy project<\/p>\n

that looks at public health, but it also looks at disasters and applies<\/p>\n

all these things together in a project that we think, you know, can really help the response<\/p>\n

and recovery from disasters in the future. All right, so what<\/p>\n

we’re going move on real quickly and talk about the paper. So I think there’s a there’s a lot of interesting findings<\/p>\n

in this paper. I think the headline fine that we have to talk about first is the inequality of<\/p>\n

these nonprofits across geographic locations. So I’ve got a graph in front<\/p>\n

of me. This is a podcast. Some is going to do that. And that’s the graph. You can trust me that it exists there.<\/p>\n

I can when you guys explain it. Yeah. Explain to me what’s on this piece of paper that I’m wrestling right now. So this<\/p>\n

this graph shows the was it the weighted nonprofit<\/p>\n

assets per person in by county? So what what findings here? Yes. So<\/p>\n

in the course of doing our fieldwork, we started to realize how<\/p>\n

across these different geographic areas. And talking to many different types of organizations<\/p>\n

ranging from civic groups all the way through international relief organizations that are very professional and fly people<\/p>\n

in that. When you look at the capacity of these groups across space,<\/p>\n

you see a lot of variation in their capacity. And so to generalize that<\/p>\n

and look at that in more detail, social scientists, we downloaded information<\/p>\n

from the IRS business master file, which has information about nonprofits in their<\/p>\n

reporting of assets to the federal government. And so we took those data and we match them with<\/p>\n

the FEMA list of counties for the areas that<\/p>\n

were affected by the five disasters we looked at. Our paper and we combine that with census data<\/p>\n

on population growth across counties and Puerto Rican municipalities and<\/p>\n

essentially created a measure of nonprofit capacity across space for these<\/p>\n

affected areas. And the graph that you’re looking at, I can’t see it’s hidden, but<\/p>\n

the graph that you’re looking at essentially shows that if you look across space<\/p>\n

and across counties within a region, that you see high levels of variation<\/p>\n

in capacity. Right. So the conclusion there is it matters where you live if a disaster affects<\/p>\n

that area. And this is really important because as Daniel mentioned, the National Response Framework calls<\/p>\n

and expects these organizations to do a lot. And the implication there is that if they expect to do<\/p>\n

a lot and there’s a high variation in capacity across these areas, then<\/p>\n

it can really have high implications for response or recovery for individuals. And the big outlier<\/p>\n

among California, Florida, Texas, here’s Puerto Rico that you showed. So I know Brooke had a bunch of questions about Puerto Rico, some<\/p>\n

they handed over to you. Yes. On this graph. It’s really visually apparent that Puerto Rico has<\/p>\n

zero capacity. And most of the places there’s one higher<\/p>\n

level area which we assumed was San Juan bacharach’s really assumption. Yeah,<\/p>\n

we just assumed because it’s like the only big city. But how in y’all’s experience, how did<\/p>\n

resource provision, service provision. And then just like the story of Puerto Rico. How does that differ from<\/p>\n

a big metropolitan area like Houston? What are the resources available? And then is<\/p>\n

it just as as simple of a story is that Puerto Rico’s an island? It’s not a state.<\/p>\n

And what’s happening there with promesa, et cetera? Yes. So the National Response<\/p>\n

Framework assumes that people at the local level from these in g.e.’s will step<\/p>\n

up. As I think our graph makes abundantly clear. There are many areas<\/p>\n

where these Ingeus just don’t exist, as you’ve suggested. Puerto Rico<\/p>\n

is a major outlier on this on this point. San Juan is actually<\/p>\n

somewhere in the middle of all those little dots. And I believe<\/p>\n

the municipality that sort of really stands out has a big Mennonites mission<\/p>\n

in. And that’s the nongovernmental entity that’s present there.<\/p>\n

So, yeah. I think that that with both Puerto<\/p>\n

Rico. The interesting thing in terms of what we saw when we were there. Right. Is that<\/p>\n

we saw that graph I must play out in person and that some areas<\/p>\n

had very little. I mean, if you read the news reports, it kind of verifies that also that some areas<\/p>\n

just had very little nonprofit existing nonprofit capacity. Of course, there are nonprofits<\/p>\n

there. They just tend not to have large amounts of assets like other areas that we studied.<\/p>\n

Right. So like the local is that you all saw, especially in some places, diverse,<\/p>\n

diversified, I guess, Puerto Rico. Is it like American Red Cross? Is this like the big<\/p>\n

energy like example or like local nonprofits? Are we thinking about like churches just<\/p>\n

feeding people? Like what’s the variation in which all thought? Yeah. So we talked to a variety of nonprofits<\/p>\n

there. We talked to some people who’d previously been working with the homeless, for instance,<\/p>\n

and expanded their mission to include all people within the communities. We<\/p>\n

talked with people from a big disease advocacy group in general.<\/p>\n

The Puerto Rican story is sort of similar to the story everywhere else. It’s just<\/p>\n

the case that there are far fewer resources there. And there was a preexisting<\/p>\n

situation in which, you know, Puerto Rico has been bad off for fifteen years.<\/p>\n

Right. The argument that we make in the paper is that<\/p>\n

it’s not just that the federal government fell through.<\/p>\n

It’s that the federal government’s plan for responding to things like this<\/p>\n

assumes things that just are not present in Puerto Rico. And the<\/p>\n

geography of Puerto Rico, obviously, you mentioned Houston is significantly<\/p>\n

different. So a lot of Puerto Rico is mountainous. Many<\/p>\n

of the places that we went and talked to people in had become inaccessible<\/p>\n

even for months following Maria. Obviously, electricity was out there<\/p>\n

for months following Maria. So the situation you mentioned,<\/p>\n

E.J., claimed that I was not a political scientist earlier. I will push back against<\/p>\n

that slightly public health guy.<\/p>\n

You know, I think the politics do matter a lot in Puerto Rico, right? It’s a<\/p>\n

commonwealth, essentially a colony of the United States since 1898.<\/p>\n

They don’t have voting members in Congress. They aren’t able to vote in presidential<\/p>\n

elections. And Raul, including me, political scientists. So<\/p>\n

we assume that elections matter. Right. And that government is somewhat responsive<\/p>\n

to the needs of citizens. And in this case, Congress, you know, just to be honest<\/p>\n

with you, has no electoral incentive to respond to what’s going<\/p>\n

on in Puerto Rico. The president has no electoral incentive to<\/p>\n

respond to what’s going on Puerto Rico. So I think if we did not include that as part<\/p>\n

of the reasoning for what happened there, we would be very mistaken.<\/p>\n

How did Puerto Rico what was Puerto Rico strategy with the federal government<\/p>\n

in terms of political response? I mean, was was it the was Puerto Rico simply asking and<\/p>\n

begging for for for help from the federal government was a weapon? What were Puerto Rican represented by members of Congress<\/p>\n

and maybe a majority Puerto Rican, you know, mainland districts? Well, yeah. What is the situation? So<\/p>\n

there we’ve done a little bit of research into this, into this. And we sort of floated<\/p>\n

the idea of doing a paper on this. But there is some evidence that members of Congress<\/p>\n

from districts with significant Puerto Rican representation,<\/p>\n

for instance, the Bronx or Harlem in New York City, is ragers with<\/p>\n

really large Puerto Rican populations. We also found on the ground<\/p>\n

in Florida that the governor at the time of Florida, Rick Scott, was very<\/p>\n

involved in the issue of Puerto Rican refugees<\/p>\n

in Florida. And, you know, we heard from people on the ground over and over again<\/p>\n

that Governor Scott was doing a fantastic job on this issue. And at some point,<\/p>\n

I asked someone why exactly this was. And we were told that Governor<\/p>\n

Scott plans on running for the Senate in the near future. And he did and<\/p>\n

he won. Governor Scott planned on running for the Senate and was trying<\/p>\n

to shore up the Puerto Rican vote in Florida and also ensure that these new<\/p>\n

voters in his state would be at least potentially within his coalition.<\/p>\n

And so he wasn’t just helping Florida, Puerto Ricans in Florida be in Florida. He was he was<\/p>\n

projecting into Puerto Rico itself. Representing them there. That’s correct.<\/p>\n

I think that some that that that is fascinating. I think I’d love to see you further further work<\/p>\n

on that. I know what these projects going with. That would be very cool, Christine. We want to talk a little bit about<\/p>\n

a broad disaster policy more broadly. And Christine has some experience with this. Yeah,<\/p>\n

I’m from Oklahoma, just up I-35. And so we have these things called tornadoes<\/p>\n

and they happen several times a year. Some of them, you know, being up to a mile wide.<\/p>\n

Some of them being very small, but causing a lot of damage. And I was wondering how<\/p>\n

you see the process of disaster response amongst nonprofits changing where communities<\/p>\n

experience these more chronic disasters. So they have more experience to<\/p>\n

address. They have the capacity because they do it so often. So Oklahomans know how<\/p>\n

to clean up after a tornado. I’m wondering why you guys think about that. Yeah, we actually saw some of that<\/p>\n

during our fieldwork. Right. So. And in Houston, we talked to people who had some experience<\/p>\n

coordinating with each other during previous flood events. And so they already know knew who is who,<\/p>\n

how to contact each other. And they had a system set up to do that. We talked to people<\/p>\n

in California that because of a previous earthquake,<\/p>\n

that they had set up a community organization action disaster and<\/p>\n

had essentially a coordinated body already in place, that when the fires happened in that county, they were<\/p>\n

already prepared to to respond. And so that the learning that’s involved with disasters<\/p>\n

happening now, like you said in Oklahoma, tornadoes, you know, creates a a sense<\/p>\n

of, you know, salience that that you see in the types of organizations<\/p>\n

and in coordinating mechanisms that are in place. You know, we talked to people in Florida who<\/p>\n

said, you know, there hasn’t been a major hurricane like this to hit Florida for 10 years. And so we are a bit rusty.<\/p>\n

Right. And so almost everyone we talked to said that the FCC that play out. And that was really<\/p>\n

fast. And I think that, you know, having multiple disasters, of course, it’s unfortunate<\/p>\n

occur so close to each other, allowed us to really get a sense of variation. And<\/p>\n

that allows us to draw the conclusions we’re talking about. Yeah. Do you think these responses are limited<\/p>\n

to just natural disaster phenomenon or do you think it can be these types of coronation efforts can<\/p>\n

be used to respond to these and the rise in mass shootings that we’re seeing are<\/p>\n

other public. That’s a public health event. Yeah, it’s a really good question.<\/p>\n

So we do think and we have not done specific research into this, so I can’t<\/p>\n

make any particular claims. But we do think that a lot of the stuff that we’re doing is generalizable<\/p>\n

to things like, say, pandemics, terrorist attacks,<\/p>\n

mass shootings, the the ability of these organizations to coordinate with<\/p>\n

each other and with government, at least in my mind, is something<\/p>\n

that should translate across different events. It sounds like you translate against all right.<\/p>\n

Around things that are not even public health or pandemic issues<\/p>\n

like people activating a network for fire based on earthquake like<\/p>\n

that. Sounds like community organizing. That sounds like social. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, it was the<\/p>\n

the Napa County versus Sonoma County in California distinction was an amazing<\/p>\n

one. We went to Napa County. Everyone believed they’d done a fairly good job of coordinating<\/p>\n

with each other. Everyone attributed this to the creation of this community<\/p>\n

organizations active in Disaster, a group that had been coordinating beforehand.<\/p>\n

Then we went over to Sonoma County and we heard the exact opposite. Right. We know<\/p>\n

that in Napa County they had this co ad and we know that we did not do<\/p>\n

as good a job as we might have had we had this resource. Is<\/p>\n

is there something to learn there from my Pozzi recommendation, is there something that the state and<\/p>\n

federal governments can do to encourage these organizations? Is that something that can exist outside of places where disasters<\/p>\n

occur frequently? So, you know, when Superstorm Sandy Sandy hits New<\/p>\n

Jersey. Is it their fault for not having a go at or is that some leaders would never expect<\/p>\n

to be dealt with? Definitely. I don’t think it’s their fault for not having a phone call system down<\/p>\n

upon them. I’m from New Jersey. So my people in New Jersey. I mean, [INAUDIBLE]. You know, it should.<\/p>\n

They should every 10 years. These organizations exist outside of places like Oklahoma<\/p>\n

or Florida or Houston. So one, I think it is very difficult mentally, right,<\/p>\n

for people to anticipate these sorts of events when people don’t want to think that there are<\/p>\n

going to be subject to a fire or an earthquake or a terrorist attack. Right.<\/p>\n

I do think and we suggest in the paper that it makes a lot of sense for<\/p>\n

the federal government’s in coordination with state governments to do everything<\/p>\n

that it can to fund these organizations, these<\/p>\n

volunteer organizations, active in disaster organizations at the local level in<\/p>\n

every single county across the United States. Right. Every county has churches,<\/p>\n

every county has businesses. Every county has some sort of nonprofit.<\/p>\n

And unfortunately, every county at some point is going<\/p>\n

to be subject to something. And it’s really, really<\/p>\n

hard for people to prepare in advance. But if there is an infrastructure<\/p>\n

in place, it can allow for coordination both within these groups<\/p>\n

and with governments. And we think the outcome in that case is going to be significantly better for people.<\/p>\n

And at the state level and at the state level, there are Vlade organizations in national Vlade<\/p>\n

and through that organization there are state equivalents. Right now what we’re talking about, what we recommend<\/p>\n

in the paper is that the funding and support and capacity building at the even more local level,<\/p>\n

at least from our fieldwork. Right. And our surveys, it seems that building capacity<\/p>\n

at the smallest level possible such that organizations who are already there,<\/p>\n

right. Not in a few counties away or at Texas, a very big state. Right.<\/p>\n

And that are very far away can be there and respond and already know<\/p>\n

who’s who and things like that. This is really important for areas like Puerto Rico<\/p>\n

that have really low nongovernmental entity capacity. So we think<\/p>\n

that in a place like Puerto Rico, where there are not significant assets<\/p>\n

for these nonprofits, having this sort of coordination in place<\/p>\n

is going to boost the ability of these nonprofits to perform effectively<\/p>\n

when something like this happens. It’s also the case we suggest in the paper that for<\/p>\n

these outside groups that come in when a disaster happens, having something<\/p>\n

like a voluntary organizations active in disaster group might allow them<\/p>\n

to plug in to the locality and coordinate with people who are already there<\/p>\n

rather than duplicating services, wasting time, money and effort, which<\/p>\n

is something that unfortunately we saw a lot of guys have a great quote in the paper that I highlighted that<\/p>\n

loved it, loved to report here, which is you’re referring to community indebtedness.<\/p>\n

One person I interviewed was working at a I think at a church. It sounds like<\/p>\n

and says that because of our location on the church grounds, people in the community trust that this is a safe<\/p>\n

place for them to come. We didn’t need to advertise that we were disastrous. Eight people know and they just show up.<\/p>\n

I mean, is that is that typical? I mean, is it you know, but before the before FEMA’s there, before<\/p>\n

Feltl Garment brings in emergency money there, the response has already started in the<\/p>\n

immediate aftermath of the disaster. The response and the recovery have started. And<\/p>\n

there’s always a lag between when federal money becomes available<\/p>\n

and when the disaster occurs. In that instance, I think is really notable<\/p>\n

and interesting because the model there, this is a small town, inland farmworker<\/p>\n

town in Florida. They’re the people in the town<\/p>\n

knew this was the place to go. Right. As I’m the Catholic Church grounds<\/p>\n

and other places. We saw non-profits, non governmental entities that went<\/p>\n

out and tried to find people. Right. So there are two different models, right? People coming<\/p>\n

to a place or you going out and trying to map and visualize<\/p>\n

where a need is. And the former is much more efficient, you think?<\/p>\n

Well, I’m not sure that I can make that argument. I think it probably depends on<\/p>\n

where you are. Right. So this is a small town where a very<\/p>\n

large percentage of the population is undocumented. A very<\/p>\n

large percentage of the population was not willing to deal with federal or state<\/p>\n

authorities. So I think in that case, going toward a door,<\/p>\n

trying to identify people is probably going to have<\/p>\n

almost adverse consequences. Right. People trying to avoid help.<\/p>\n

So I do think that in this particular instance, having that model worked well. We’ve talked a little bit about<\/p>\n

governmental energy entities and nonprofits. I think, Christine, one ask little bit about that. Some other people might they might be involved.<\/p>\n

Yes. I I I think this project has some definite undertone undercurrents of political<\/p>\n

economy story. So I was reading through this paper and the thing that jumped out to me<\/p>\n

is. But what about the insurance company? So insurance companies will show up in these<\/p>\n

places. They send teams out to start processing claims and all that, all that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

But I wonder, in the aftermath of these disasters,<\/p>\n

how does this incentivize the way a community is rebuilt? And I wonder if your faith, what it fieldwork<\/p>\n

has reflected. Christine, I love this question. I’m not sure if you’ve<\/p>\n

read the paper that we’re doing here at Sutter and ours in two hours. And I had a discussion<\/p>\n

time that he says the discussion on, but it’s actually called the political economy of disaster.<\/p>\n

So the American Journal of Public Health article that we’ve been talking about a little little bit today<\/p>\n

is really focused on response. Right. Our work going forward is going to<\/p>\n

look both that recovery and long term recovery in the short run. We<\/p>\n

see a lot of these church groups, nonprofits, businesses<\/p>\n

who don’t do disaster response stepping up. But in<\/p>\n

the middle term, it’s contractors, insurance companies, people like that<\/p>\n

who have, you know, a profit motive. Right. Who step in and begin doing<\/p>\n

a lot of the rebuilding. And I think you are absolutely right that understanding<\/p>\n

the political economy of this is critical to understanding disaster<\/p>\n

recovery and long term disaster recovery. And we’re<\/p>\n

just starting on this research. So I don’t want to make any major claims about it.<\/p>\n

But we think that the political dynamics of response are very different<\/p>\n

from the political dynamics of recovery and long term recovery response.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of media attention, political attention to what government is doing. Right.<\/p>\n

Recovery. It’s not politically salient in the major actors<\/p>\n

are people like insurance companies, people like contractors, all of<\/p>\n

whom tend to be fairly good at lobbying Congress, lobbying federal officials<\/p>\n

in maintaining the status quo, maintaining their position within<\/p>\n

the political economy of disaster. Yeah, I think this is really interesting, because if you drive through<\/p>\n

neighborhoods in a community like Denham Springs, Louisiana, which has just been recovering from<\/p>\n

a huge hurricane right before the year before, Harvey, you’ll see for sale signs<\/p>\n

everywhere. And people are not rebuilding because they didn’t have flood insurance. You didn’t have FEMA money.<\/p>\n

And so, you know, how does that affect the overall home prices? This has a lot broader<\/p>\n

effect. Yeah, from what I anticipates, I look forward to reading this paper, but<\/p>\n

probably not in the next two hours. And one of the figures we have in the paper is media attention to<\/p>\n

individual disasters where we search for each of the the five that we’re talking about in New York Times, Washington<\/p>\n

Post. And what you see is a dramatic spike in attention. Of course,<\/p>\n

when the disaster is happening and then immediately decays and there is hardly any attention,<\/p>\n

and then a year later, you get a small like a quarter bump and then back to<\/p>\n

very low levels of attention. But as you mentioned, and as is common knowledge,<\/p>\n

disasters have impacts that last for many, many years. And so that<\/p>\n

the policymaking and the advocacy and organizations involved,<\/p>\n

we think that recovery is something that is really important to look at. And<\/p>\n

so that’s we’re doing this. And the second follow up paper. Yeah, well, I’m going to start wrapping this podcast<\/p>\n

up to the last couple of things I want to ask you guys about recommendations. So what have you read<\/p>\n

in political science, either in disaster recovery with your current work or just something else that you think is worth worth<\/p>\n

mentioning that our listeners should read?<\/p>\n

Political science books don’t have a Star Trek on. And our our<\/p>\n

current paper, the one in two hours. You know, there’s there’s a few that really stand out.<\/p>\n

Literature and policy change in disasters. Thomas burkland book. There’s actually a panel<\/p>\n

and about half an hour looking at that. The follow up to that book, Lessons, Lessons<\/p>\n

from Disaster, that looks at a very kind of policy agenda as agenda setting,<\/p>\n

focusing events, view of disasters and their impacts on lobbying<\/p>\n

and policy change. Baumgartner now focuses on advocacy and maintaining of the status quo.<\/p>\n

And so that’s something that our follow up paper we’re really kind of basing our work on. And then<\/p>\n

Patrick Roberts has a great book on disasters that focuses really heavily on FEMA<\/p>\n

and the federal government and takes Rubin APD approach. Course, you all should also read my<\/p>\n

book, Health Divided. Fantastic. Thank you<\/p>\n

guys for joining us. This has been a great episode. Thank you, everybody, for listening. I don’t know when you were listening to me.<\/p>\n

So all these half hour, two hour things, just remember that was back in January. But other than that, this has been<\/p>\n

your Policy Agendas podcast.<\/p>\n"},"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2018\/12\/The-Policy-Agenda-Logo3-e1545063000555.png","download_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/podcast-download\/34\/episode-6-disaster-relief-with-daniel-sledge-and-herschel-thomas.mp3","player_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/podcast-player\/34\/episode-6-disaster-relief-with-daniel-sledge-and-herschel-thomas.mp3","audio_player":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/podcast-player\/34\/episode-6-disaster-relief-with-daniel-sledge-and-herschel-thomas.mp3<\/a><\/audio>","episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":[],"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/thepolicyagenda\/feed\/podcast\/the-policy-agenda","embedCode":"

Episode 6: Disaster Relief with Daniel Sledge and Herschel Thomas<\/a><\/blockquote>