    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [February 26, 1998]
    [Pages 298-300]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Disaster Assistance in Oakland,
    California
    February 26, 1998

        The President. First, let me thank all of you for meeting with me
    today. I'm very interested in this project. One of the things that I
    promised myself when I ran for President was that if I got elected, I
    would give this country a first-rate disaster response operation through
    FEMA. When I was the Governor of my home State, Mayor Harris' other home State--[laughter]--and Mr. Witt was my State emergency services director, we had
    the highest frequency of tornadoes in the country. And we had some very
    serious flooding and a lot of other natural disaster problems. And it
    seemed to me that the United States Government owed it to the American
    people, basically in a completely nonpolitical way, to have the highest
    level of confidence, as well as common sense and humanity, in response
    to emergencies. And we have worked very hard to give that to the
    American people, and unfortunately, we've had more opportunities to
    practice in California than any other place in the country because of
    all the difficulties that the people here have faced. But it's terribly
    important.
        Yesterday I was in Florida dealing with the worst tornado there in
    50 years and had, as you know, almost 40 people killed there. And we are
    very well aware of all the difficulties of El Nino here. But I just
    wanted to begin by saying I think this is an important part of our
    national obligation to one another, to deal with these things in the
    proper way.
        Now, I want to talk a little bit about the project here, but first
    let me say that the people of California and now the people of Florida
    are giving the people of the United States some very painful examples of
    the excesses of this El Nino, which is apparently the strongest one in
    this century. We are doing what we can to help. Mr. Witt and I have been talking about this now ever since we were
    in Florida yesterday and flying up here.
        Based on his recommendations, we're adding four more California
    counties to the disaster list: Los Angeles, Orange, Stanislaus, and
    Trinity. We're announcing that all 35 counties are available for public
    assistance, and they will be eligible also, the ones on the disaster
    list, for individual assistance and for help with debris removal and
    other emergency proceedings.
        The Federal Highway Administrator is here. We are releasing another
    $20 million, in addition to the $20 million announced last week by the
    Vice President, to help rebuild the road
    system. FEMA has already sent about $5 million for disaster housing
    assistance. And SBA, HUD, and Labor are also providing support. But we
    are going to provide another million and a half dollars for emergency
    watershed funding from DOA to repair flood damage in Santa Cruz and San
    Mateo counties. So we're going to do the very best we can to help deal
    with these problems now.
        The thing that I think is important as I have seen Californians deal
    with flooding, earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, you name it--I told
    somebody after the Northridge earthquake that California had been
    through so much I kept waiting for the pestilence to appear. [Laughter]
    But one of the things that I've been most impressed by is how quickly
    some visionaries in California have moved from dealing with the
    disasters to trying to prevent them and trying to accept the fact that
    there is a high probability of natural hazards in this area but that
    with enough work they might be prevented, or at least some significant
    number of them might be prevented from becoming devastating disasters.

    [[Page 299]]

        For every dollar we spend on prevention, we save two or more in
    future disaster cost. We know that. Therefore, the balanced budget plan
    that I presented contains $50 million to launch this Project Impact to
    build disaster-resistant communities through partnerships with the
    private sector, volunteer groups, community organizations. FEMA has
    already launched seven of these pilot projects, and we will have a
    Project Impact community in every State by this fall. So I think that's
    very good news.
        I'm glad that Harris Wofford is here. Our
    AmeriCorps volunteers are going to be joining our efforts by the spring
    break initiative, coordinating disaster reduction efforts in communities
    of Project Impact. And in Oakland, the Collaborative Agencies for
    Responding to Disasters is joining the Corporation for National Service
    and FEMA to mobilize hundreds of high school students to carry out
    preventive measures in over 500 low-income and elderly housing
    complexes. That's very, very good news.
        It seems to me that Project Impact can become a real model for every
    community in the country. And it's an example of my idea of the proper
    role of Government as partner, as catalyst, as giving people the tools
    to deal with their own challenges and make the most of their own lives.
        In Seattle, the business community has matched a million dollars
    that we put into Project Impact with $6 million in private money. And
    they're undertaking a really very impressive comprehensive effort. We'll
    have 50 Project Impact communities, and we need 500 business partners by
    the end of this year. I hope we will get them. I think we will.
        Let me say I look forward to the discussion today. I want to hear
    from you. I want to get the best ideas I can about what else we can do.
    We want common sense, innovative opportunities to help people deal with
    profoundly human challenges.
        Mr. Witt, you might want to give us a
    little update on where we are in southern California, and then we'll
    just go around the table. I'd like to hear from everybody here.

    [At this point, the roundtable discussion began.]

        The President. One of the things that I hope will happen is that
    Project Impact and all the communities where it operates will be able to
    get a higher percentage of people who are willing to basically continue
    to be prepared, continue to train, and then continue to do things like
    you just talked about on the gardening on a systematic basis.
        Interestingly enough, this is a problem that is common to all human
    affairs. If you think about the last time something bad happened to you
    in some way, the longer ago it was the less likely you are to worry
    about it anymore. It's just human nature in all human affairs. And one
    of the big challenges we have in maintaining the readiness of our
    military forces is the fact that, since the cold war, the general
    perception is that, well, there are all these things we don't have to
    worry about.
        And then you say, ``Well, why don't you have to worry about it?''
    Well, because you have this military force. But if all of a sudden you
    forget it and you act like you don't have to worry about it, then one
    day you don't have it anymore.
        So this is a common problem in all human affairs. And one of the
    things that I was so excited about this thing was that maybe we could
    actually get a high density of people, real citizens in every community
    in all these various walks of life we've been hearing about here, who
    will at least maximize the chance that people will be ready the next
    time something bad happens, and that they will have done as many things
    as you can possibly do to minimize the damage of whatever it is that
    occurs.
        That's all you can do in human life. The rest of it's up to the good
    Lord. That's something we just--there aren't any guarantees. But I think
    it's very important what you're saying, and I just hope that this
    project will get more people either like you or to listen to you.

    [At this point, the roundtable discussion continued.]

        The President. One of the things I was going to suggest--and it may
    be a hair-brained idea; wouldn't be the first one I had--but the
    position you're in with this mudslide business, it's not as if you
    deliberately ignored a clear and present danger. For example, the last
    time we had a big flood at home in the 1990's, we had all these little
    towns just flooded out along the Arkansas River. Now, there were some
    people who had built in the 100-year flood plain and some people who
    built below that, that basically, reasonably should have known that
    every 25 years that was going to wipe out. I don't think we had three
    100-year floods in about 10 years,

    [[Page 300]]

    so I guess we can wait 300 years before we have another one. [Laughter]
        But anyway, it's not that sort of situation. It's just a question of
    what happens if you have a vulnerable ecostructure, as you do in
    California, and you have a lot of people that have to live somewhere;
    there always may be kind of unforeseen circumstances. And one of the
    things that I was kind of interested in was whether you might be able to
    devise some partnerships with insurance companies where you get all the
    people involved in litigation, all the people involved in all this and
    then you say, okay, give me the laundry list of things everybody in this
    neighborhood has to do, but if they do it, then you can get kind of a
    blanket insurance policy. Even if it's got a fairly sizable deductible,
    it would protect you against what you're worried about now.
        And I think that in a place like California where--see, all these
    things relate to one another. For example, if you have an earthquake
    that doesn't damage your home profoundly, but loosens the foundation a
    little bit, then you're more vulnerable to a mud-slide that may come
    along 6 years later. I mean, all these things reinforce one another. And
    so if there could be some way that, growing out of this Project Impact,
    there could be some more comprehensive look at insurance plus prevention
    plus mitigation plus all these things going together, I think it might
    bring a lot of peace of mind to all those people on your block now, for
    example, that are worried to death they're going to have a study and the
    study's going to say, come up with 3 times your annual income if you
    want to save your house. That's like saying if I were 25, I could jump
    higher. [Laughter] It's nice to know, but you've got a pretty good idea
    before you do the study.
        Let's talk a little more about mitigation, though. I know a lot of
    you have been involved in this.

    [At this point, the roundtable discussion continued.]

        The President. Well, let me say this. One of the things--I would
    like to ask you all to think about this, and I want to call on our host
    mayor here in a minute to close, but I--one of the things that I would
    like to see come out of this--keep in mind, I have asked for a
    substantial amount of money but spread across the Nation the $50 million
    is not a great deal of money--what we want to do is help get as many of
    these projects put together as possible. And if they work, then you can,
    coming up out of this project here and in other places like it, kind of
    give us a sense and provide evidence that if we shifted some of our
    spending programs priorities--whether it's in housing or highways or
    whatever--to do more prevention, this is something that would not only
    meet with widespread public support but actually that the money would be
    well spent because you've actually gone through a grassroots planning
    process, and you know kind of what needs to be done; you've identified
    the things and you can guarantee that we will get that 2 to 1 return we
    were talking about.
        So I hope you'll all be thinking about this. As you go along, you do
    all this work you're going to do anyway just think about--just for
    example on this whole business of vegetation. You know, in addition to
    planting gardens, there are plenty of places that, if they were more
    properly vined, you'd have all kinds of other stuff going: You would
    reduce soil erosion; you would reduce the impact of a flood. Now, if the
    flood is big enough, it will wash anything away, but we're talking about
    within range.
        All these things there are possibilities for, should this be part of
    the conservation reserve program, for example, the agriculture program,
    all these kind of things. There's a gazillion options we could have here
    that will present themselves to us as you work through this.

    [At this point, the roundtable discussion continued.]

        The President. This has been very interesting to me, and it's a
    wonderful reaffirmation of the citizenship of all of you, not only our
    AmeriCorps people, but all this is really ultimately about citizen
    service. I thank you very much. And we'll try to do our part, get this
    going, and get it going across the country.
        Thank you. Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:24 p.m. in the auditorium at the Scottish
    Rite Community Center. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Elihu Mason
    Harris of Oakland.