VICTORY TWP — As if on cue, 10 minutes before FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was about to speak at West Shore Community College, the lights went out. The mishap was due to nearby construction and Center Stage Theater was only dark for about 15 minutes — much shorter than most of the disasters she’s grown accustomed to in her job.
Criswell is a Free Soil native and a graduate of Manistee Catholic Central High School. She took the stage at WSCC in front of about 100 people on Tuesday. Criswell was the guest speaker for a talk hosted by A Few Friends for the Environment of the World (AFFEW).
“I have had the opportunity to walk with disaster survivors on their very worst day,” she said. “I have listened to them, very harrowing stories of survival and what they have gone through to make sure they have kept themselves and their families safe.”
Criswell has also witnessed the best of the human spirit during those times of tragedy.
“This level of human spirit, level of humanity is often born within the communities that have been impacted by these severe weather events,” she said.
Criswell said she thinks of first responders whenever she is called to the latest scene of a weather event. Those men and women do an amazing job.
“I see over and over again that our neighbors are our true first responders,” she told the crowd gathered at WSCC. “It is neighbors helping neighbors, they are the ones that are going out there, they know who is next door, they know the neighbor who needs the most help and they often get there before our first responders can get there. I alway look at those neighbors as the true first responders.”
Criswell also talks about local officials who seem to step up during times of severe weather events.
“They step up and they lead. They lead with admiration to help their communities through a horrible event, lead them through some of their darkest days.”
Criswell spoke of how powerful of an impact people can have on the nation’s own resilience.
“We are facing an increased threat from climate change. We have to work better together now so we can build stronger so we can build back more resistance, more resilient to face the threats in the future to reduce the impacts that we are seeing,” she said.
She gave some examples of the increased threats due to climate change.
“Over the past five years, the United States has experienced an average of 18 single billion dollar disasters each year. Just in 2022 alone there were 18 disasters that together cost us all $175 billion dollars in damages and 474 fatalities.”
Criswell spoke for more than 20 minutes about her more than 30-year career serving all levels of government before opening up the floor for questions.
One of the questions asked was, “What do you say to climate-change deniers?”
“Just turn on the television,” Criswell replied. “We are having more storms every year. The storms are intensifying more rapidly, they are causing more destruction and creating more complex recoveries. There are an incredible amount of scientific reports out now that will tell you climate change is happening.”
Another question asked of Criswell was, “What does FEMA do in terms of reducing the severity of the impact of these weather events?”
“Our mitigation programs are the best way to do that from FEMA’s perspective, Criswell said. “We do not have the ability to enforce building permits; we can incentivise building codes.”
She took the time to answer everyone’s questions on Tuesday.
She is the first woman confirmed to serve as the administrator, where she leads the nation’s efforts in helping people before, during, and after disasters, according to FEMA. Criswell was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on April 22, 2021, as the 12th administrator of FEMA.
