 Good afternoon. Howard Wake, Code Green, Think Tech, Hawaii. We've got a hazardous show coming up today. Speaking of hazards, we in Hawaii have enjoyed probably the most blissful summer that I anyway have ever experienced and I was born and raised here. But the rest of the world was either burning or flooding. The effects of climate change have come to us in a big way and we know we ain't going to be invulnerable. We're not going to have summer after summer after summer like this. So we need to get prepared and how do we get prepared the national organization that prepares us for mitigating the effects of hurricane tsunamis so forth is called FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency. And the local branch of FEMA is TAIIMA, Hawaii Energy Management Agency. And it gives me huge pleasure to introduce to you the State Hazard Mitigation Officer, Ms. Teresa Wuznick. So welcome to the program, Teresa. Thanks so much for joining us here. Thank you, Howard. Thank you very much. We have a lot of material to cover. So let me dive in and dive in deep. That's what I like. I like this. Take it away and I will ask some questions. Go ahead, Teresa. Great. I work in Hazard Mitigation with Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and what we deal with or what we work with is the emergency management cycle. So I work in mitigation and what we start our emergency management preparedness and planning is on a local level. So here, my job, I work on a state level and then I am in between local and federal grants. And today I would like to discuss BRIC grants and how I can use your help in getting out that message of better building codes and building code effectiveness, so that if we adopt these, then we can be more competitive with FEMA BRIC grants. So shall we start with what BRIC grants are? Yes. And first we will define BRIC. Yes. So BRIC. BRIC is an acronym of many acronyms that we have and it is building resilient infrastructure and communities. So it's BRIC. 2020 was its freshman debut and currently we are in our sophomore version of this grant. So it's brand new with FEMA. And again, it's building resilient infrastructure and communities. So in this grant, it's a competitive grant. And in the competition, we're at 90% competitive and 10% non-competitive. Unfortunately, this iteration of BRIC, our Hawaii emergency management has closed our notice of interest, but it is never too early to start looking at your county and state plans for mitigation actions that you can make project applications for. So bringing up project ideas, the best time is to start now. So with BRIC applications, it starts in fall and it ends in the winter. But we have more than just one hazard mitigation grant program available to us in the next 18 months. So if our audience is interested in that, they can check out our website at haima. And also we will be sending out emails and messaging out the next opportunities for submitting notice of interest in project applications. And Teresa, I understand that nationally, there's plenty of money out there and it would be so nice if Hawaii could snag just a fraction of it, which would still be a big amount. It's very true. The amount of BRIC funding available, for instance, in the freshman iteration, it was up to $500 million. That's still a lot, but on a national level, that might be a little thin. This year, this iteration, it's up to $1 billion of available competitive grants from the federal level to the state. And then the state, we introduce and connect the local level counties with the federal level. So just to make sure we know who all the stakeholders are in this case. Now, the BRIC program for last year, haima submitted 13 competitive grants, but none were considered for further review. None of the projects made it as far as to generate a technical review report. And the technical review report was something that our team was really looking forward to, because we wanted to use it for lessons learned to strengthen our application process and our application projects for this iteration for 2021. So here's the lessons learned that we received from FEMA. With FEMA, they informed us that we lost major ground in statewide building code adoption, because we were not up to the most current codes. The next part that we missed a major amount of points was the building code effectiveness grading schedule, and that we lacked participation in this program. So this program also has an acronym, and it's E-C-E-G-S. And I like to pronounce it E-stakes, but I may be incorrect on that. So if anyone wants to give me a better pronunciation, please share it with me. And Teresa, let me say I just happened to be the chair of the Hawaii Building Code Council. And I am proud to announce that all of the major building codes are current. They're the 2018 codes. And that's at the state level. The trick is now we're a homeroom state to get that down to the county level. And it's the counties that fill in this B-stake. Yeah, exactly. It is so important. Now, let me just add in this little bit. Has your mitigation, one of the stipulations is it has to be cost-effective. So in hazard mitigation, when we make a dollar investment, we expect to get a $6 return over a certain amount of time. So ideally, we want to get that return within 15 years. Okay, definitely within 20. But if $1 that's spent on code adoption, it has $11 return for every dollar invested. And that's by the National Institute of Building Science. So we've got some economists and some science and some math persons that are helping promote building better and stronger is an investment, but it's always a good investment. And the investment protects lives. And our lives is where we live our homes and where our communities are. And that's important to everybody. So I'm so happy to hear that the building codes have been adopted. And in that, we will receive in our brick applications to the federal level, those points. Okay, so that's at about 20 points. Our next part is we don't know if we're going to receive these points. And that's with estates or with building code effectiveness grading schedule. Currently, we don't participate with estates or with building code effectiveness grading schedule. And we would like to make a change on that. And we would like to message out that we want to participate. So let me describe what these takes is. It's a nation, it's a national program that assess that makes an assessment of community building codes and their enforcement with a special emphasis on mitigation of loss from natural hazards. So mitigation means to reduce the severity of something. And in this case, we're talking about natural hazards, such as severe winds, rain, and let's say hurricane type events. In general, ISO or insurance service office mitigation, ISO mitigation, they provide participation in the b-stakes program for most all the nation. But of course, Hawaii, we are different and we are a bureau state. So Hawaii Insurance Bureau runs b-stakes program for us. And currently, Hawaii is one of five bureau states where b-stakes is run by an independent agency at the state level. So Teresa, when we were discussing this, I learned that which I deal with the county building officials all the time. I learned that the b-stake form is pretty long and pretty complex. Is there any way that HAIMA can assist the counties with training on how to fill out these forms? Okay, so we're working on that. If any of the counties need help on filling out these forms, we are here to support that because that is going to help the whole state of Hawaii be competitive on this national level. And that is our goal. Our goal is to be competitive on a national level. So yes, we will assist. Now, when we're speaking of training, I don't have that kind of information yet. But if there's that interest, then we can bring that to leadership and request if we can, a lot that that time of training hours and what we can do with our resources in order to provide that service to the counties. So I am very interested in that as well. Let me intervene and say that I'm the energy codes person for Hawaii within the state energy office. And something I do, we do is when a new code gets adopted at the state level, then a consultant and I go from county to county to county to county and provide training. And that includes a lot of Q&A. How do you do this? How do you do this? How do you do this? And we have found that that training really, really, really ups the level of compliance, the adoption of the code and the level of compliance with the code. So I'm looking at that type of training possibly for all the other codes. It makes sense and to have more education and to share that knowledge on a group level, I think would be very crucial into leveling up our building code effectiveness with helping ourselves educate and to apply what we're learning. So I agree. I'm just not quite sure how we would move into that space, but I'm very open to that education and to sharing that information. Absolutely. One thing I don't think I know you would learn in providing such training is where the county people are getting stuck, where they just can't figure out how to fill out this form. Yes. If you didn't have all the answers, you could take it back to national or to your bosses and say, here's the crucial, crucial questions that need answering. Yes, I agree. And that is the part that we play at the state level, is taking county concerns on their risk assessments and planning tools and boiling that down and bringing it to a federal level or to the state agency of Hawaii Insurance Bureau and ask for their assistance. And they've actually been very helpful to us in that. So this is what I would like for the counties to know is that these states or I will just say the whole word, the building code effectiveness grading schedule will hold Hawaii counties to a higher building code standard than in turn this strengthens the community resilience to impacts of natural hazards. It also demonstrates that Hawaii counties are implementing their building code enforcement requirements. Participation with these days classifications is our proof that building code criteria are being met or exceeded. And ultimately, it directly correlates to lowering insurance costs and participation with these days gives the insured credit and benefits to the policy holder who's carrying that insurance policy. So ideally it will reduce their monthly costs or yearly costs. However, that is paid out. So in comparison, a lower catastrophic related damages means insurance rates would reflect a lower risk. And that's where we want to be. We want to be at a lower risk and have more resiliency in our communities. Compare that to non participation in these days or the building code criteria means that insurance rates would reflect the higher risk which may result into into insurance premiums. Let me posture a metaphor for that and see if I'm on the right track. This would be in the medical field. We read stories about the fact that homeless people do not take care of their health. And it very often they go into a hospital emergency room and they are in really bad shape. And it may take hospitals are obligated to treat them. It may take tens of thousands of dollars to treat this person. And then he goes right back on the street and he's unprotected again. So if we were to train or not to train but to ameliorate the health conditions of the homeless so they didn't have to walk into the emergency room and cost all this money, all insurance premiums would go down in the medical field. Is that a good analogy? Yes, yes. I kind of like to think of it in comparison to car insurance if I was making an analogy but we don't need to be in such bad health or we don't need to be at such a high risk to consider avoiding future damages and future loss. We could start today so we could improve our health today. We could improve our risk today. And sometimes it's just making that plan and getting educated and reaching out to our stakeholders and to our community to lift us up and say, okay, we want to be healthier or we want to reduce our damages or our risks in the future. So let's do it together. And with what we do here at Hazard Mitigation in Haima is we use our state plan as our tool so that we can move forward in reducing damages because of natural hazards. So do you do a lot of outreach, Teresa? Well, I have just started with Haima last December and I have entered into a COVID environment. So we don't meet many people face to face but we do have a lot of meanings. So I've met many of the county points of contact and emergency management and our stakeholders via Zoom or teams or virtual teleconferencing applications. So that's how we connect right now. Hopefully it won't be forever but it'll end soon. And I mean virtually that I can meet people in person. But outreach I think is key, is a key component to socializing these ideas and to making our project applications and our plan stronger. So if I could, the state of Hawaii Hazard Mitigation grants and our participation with beast eggs, we're requesting for the counties and for persons who are interested in building clients and building code enforcement to help us to be nationally competitive in brick grants. So Hawaii counties need to have a beast egg score of between one in five. Ten would be the lowest score in this case. So one in five is our goal, but we would like to initiate participation with beast eggs. And in that case, you can reach out to the Hawaii Insurance Bureau and our point of contact who's been such a help to us is named Stacey Sugamora and he works at the direct business connections and that's an administrative service for Hawaii Insurance Bureau. So if you go on to the website on ISO Mitigation, ECEGS, you can download the application. After you download the application, you can reach out to Hawaii Insurance Bureau and Stacey Sugamora will happily assist you, but also you can reach out to our office as well at Hawaii Emergency Management. You can look us up online, search Hazard Mitigation, and it will give you our emails, it'll give you my phone number, and our team will be happy to help you with that application. And I know, Teresa, from working with the counties all the time that virtually every county is pretty gosh darned short-handed. Yes, especially in the building department and I know that they would love to fill out this specific form, but they have to ask the question who in the world is going to do this? Who in the world is going to spend these hours and hours and hours on this? And that's where the help comes in from yourself or from Stacey to reduce the number of hours because you people are very familiar with it. You know what the answers are and you can help the county with that. That's my hope there. Yes, yes. So we are here to help along the counties and to move forward in stronger building code. So do you want to quiz me on some information, Howard? Yeah, let's see. I think we've covered things. Oh, some counties have pre-existing B-Stake scores. Scores, yeah. Yes. This is true. The county of Kauai and the county of Maui have a score of eight, but that was 20 years ago when the program started. So we can update that B-Stake score and hopefully we can get between one and five. And you can do that by assisting the counties as we discussed. Yes, very true. Do you have to pay to participate in the B-Stake program? No, participation in B-Stakes is complimentary. It's at no cost and it is free. So just fill out the application and go through the process. And a low B-Stake score will increase insurance rates? Okay, this isn't true, but I guess when we're talking about a low score, one through 10, 10 would be the lower score. It's counterintuitive. Yeah, it's a little mixed up. So B-Stake scores are used for insurance rating and underwriting purposes. So on the contrary, participation could reduce the amount of your insurance because you're reducing your potential loss to natural hazards. So the concept is pretty simple. Well-enforced codes should result in strengthening structures which would reduce future damage and insurance should correlate to that. So there you go. I think I'm quoting a Big Fat Creek wedding and there you go. One good example of strengthening codes is one of the building codes. It's called the building code and it covers just about everything for commercial buildings and a structural engineer is very active in this and he looked at the national code and said this for tsunami resistance. The national code says to resist tsunamis, you will have x, y, z structural strength components and he said, no, that's not enough. We need to do more. And one measure that he argued for was in Hawaii, we normally have open parking lots anywhere or parking spaces within buildings. Keep the parking spaces at the lower floors and have them open on both sides so that the tsunami wave will just rush right through it and you build that up to the anticipated height of the tsunami wave and then you have your living and office type of space up above that and you harden the whole structure even more. I think that's a good example. You sound like a natural born hazard mitigator over there. It's me and I appreciate getting that good word out. Yes. And we did the building code council did pass that strengthened amendment by the way. So we have a really good building code. This is music to my example that I would like to give is rather close to home, namely my home where I have a single 2000 square foot single family single wall older residents and I put strong ties that join the rafters with the walls and that goes on those iron devices go on to every rafter around the house and the idea is that if the hurricane force wind is going to try to lift up your roof, it's going to try to lift up the entire home, including the foundation and that's a slightly stronger task and a continuous load path. It is very important. Yeah. And you were saying something about sheer walls. Can you explain what sheer walls are? I am a big fan of sheer walls. So sheer walls goes from now I'm not I'm a science ban. I'm not an actual hardcore scientist, but this is how I understand it. Sheer walls goes from foundation all the way to the rooftop. So those walls are the strongest components in that structure or let's say in your home. So if you're looking for the best available refuge area, you want to look for that sheer wall and stay in that space if you're in a high wind event or if you're in a public or private structure. So that that would might be another podcast as well for us. And we are just about to bid fond adieu, but I want to close my personal story with the fact that I talked to the installer and he said, by the way, you will find that your home insurance rate is going to be reduced by $200 a year. And sure enough, I looked it up boom, days after I'm going down by $200 a year. So you were talking in terms of payback. That's a wonderful payback in addition to your house surviving, hopefully through a hurricane force wind. So we just about have to say fond aloha Theresa any phone or any words of wisdom as we close off. Well, we are about to update our 2018 state has a mitigation plan to the 2023 has a mitigation plan. And we are incorporating elements that include Hawaii 2050 sustainability plan. And we want to include studies and analysis of a broader scope of hazard landscape to include how how is climate change perhaps affecting severe weather weather events and fog and wildfires. So these are going to be elements that we're going to include in our plan. And our team is very excited here to set that up moving forward. And if the vast audience wants to Google something to have access to this, what should they Google? They should Google state of Hawaii hazard mitigation plan. That will take you to the haima website. And you will see our page. And we have best practices of what hazard mitigation has has achieved and how to apply for project applications or how to search for your own county hazard mitigation plans, which I highly recommend. Make sure to look at your hazard mitigation plans in your neighborhood and then see if there's a way to reduce risk. Very excellent sales lady, Teresa. Thank you so much. And we just barely began this discussion. There's so much detail we couldn't be going into. So maybe down the road sometime, we will have a follow up to this. Meanwhile, we bid fond of your from Teresa and Howard, cold green, sink tech, Hawaii September 27th, 2021. See you next time.