EP 076 Anthony Hurley & Richard Mroz talk about Hurricane Sandy and why collaboration is key for successful crisis management

Richard S. Mroz

Richard Mroz He has a long and distinguished career in law, government, and public service. He is Founding Member and Managing Director of Resolute Strategies, LLC and Senior Director of Archer Public Affairs in Trenton, NJ and Washington, DC.  He advises clients in the energy, utilities, infrastructure and financial industries.   He is also Senior Adviser to Protect Our Power a national non-industry non-profit advocacy organization supporting best practices and investments in cybersecurity and resilience measures for the energy, utility and critical infrastructure industries.

Mr. Mroz is the immediate past President of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) serving as chairman and chief administrative officer of the agency and functioned as the chief energy officer for New Jersey.  He was President of the NJBPU from October 2014 until January 2018 and remained as a Commissioner until April 2018.   He was Chairman of the Critical Infrastructure Committee for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC).  He led efforts addressing cybersecurity protection, workforce development, and infrastructure improvements in the electric, gas, water and telecommunications industries.  He was also the NARUC liaison to the Electric Sector Coordinating Council (ESCC) and served as President of the Organization of PJM States, Inc (OPSI).  

Mr. Mroz served as Chief Counsel to Governor Christine Todd Whitman after serving in various capacities in her Administration and was involved in many infrastructure development issues and public private partnership issues, and public finance matters.  He has served as a Commissioner of the Delaware River & Bay Authority and began his career in local government as in house solicitor to Camden County, New Jersey.  He was for many years counsel to the New Jersey Conference of Mayors.

 Anthony L. Hurley, MEP, CPP®, PCI®, PSP®, CPD, F.ISRM
Consultant/Partner, Critical Preparedness, LLC 

 Anthony Hurley is Partner/Consultant with Critical Preparedness, LLC, specializing in Utility Operations, Emergency Management, Business Continuity, and Physical Security. Upon his retirement, Mr. Hurley had celebrated 37 years in the utility sector, working for a Fortune 200 corporation that owned ten (10) utilities in five (5) states. During his career, he served in leadership roles in five (5) of those electric utilities in three states (OH, PA and NJ). He retired in 2017, as Vice President of Operations for an electric utility that served 1.1 million electric meters in New Jersey, where he managed an operations workforce of over 1,250 professional and represented employees. He has managed all aspects of operations, including transmission and distribution, substations, dispatch, engineering, asset management, project management, work management, facilities, vegetation management, fleet, stores, metering.

Security Circle ⭕️  is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:16

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Yoyo 0:59

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel, and where we can make a positive difference to our members mental health and well being. Our listeners are global. They are the decision makers of tomorrow, and we want to thank you, wherever you are, for being a part of our Security Circle journey. If you love the podcast, remember to like and share on LinkedIn, and we are across all podcast platforms, so make sure you give us five stars. Okay, I have been very excited to introduce these two gentlemen to you. Richard Moroz and Anthony Hurley are here today to talk about one of the most catastrophic. Storms in American history, commonly known as Hurricane Sandy, Tony coming to you first. Welcome to the security circle podcast.

Rick 1:56

Thank you very, very much. And congratulations on the success of your podcast

Yoyo 2:01

only made successful by outstanding guests. And here's another one, Richard, welcome to the security circle podcast.

Tony 2:08

It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Yoyo 2:11

Well, let's go back to October 2012., what were you both doing before this storm hit? Tony, why don't you take us from the top?

Rick 2:21

So I worked for a large utility in the Northeast First Energy that had 10 electric utility companies, one of them in New Jersey. But I actually was a director of operations for one of our Western divisions. Heard about the storm coming in. We were all briefed on it, and what we did is that we selected a management team and also a workforce to start heading to New Jersey, because what we wanted to do is we wanted to be there when the storm hits so we could immediately start restoration. So, what I was doing is I was finding a hotel right down the street, knowing that everything was going to be, the roads were going to be damaged, trees were going to be down, so I could quickly get to work and start restoration.

Yoyo 3:05

Well, it sounds like you were making some really sensible decisions. What were you doing at that time?

Tony 3:12

Well, interestingly enough, I was in the private sector. I had not yet at that point joined what later became one of the critical agencies for the response and recovery to Sandy, the New Jersey board of public utilities, which is the public utility commission and regulator for New Jersey. I was actually in private sector and I was at home. I was waiting for that storm to come through the area. And I live in the southern part of New Jersey. Not too far from Atlantic City, New Jersey. And in fact during the tracking of the storm, it was not clear exactly where this, hurricane, this super storm would land. There was some thinking it would come up the Delaware River in between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There were preparations in all of the surrounding states, from Virginia. up to New York and beyond because it was not clear how this storm would pass. Eventually it came up, the Atlantic Ocean made an almost immediate left turn to the New Jersey coast and was a direct hit on the New Jersey the New Jersey coast and the barrier islands. And one in particular story I like to tell is that, one of my good friends, the, the CEO. Of one of the casino hotels in Atlantic City stayed at the hotel, even though they were shut down to sort of make sure operations were there. And if anything happened to that building that he would be there to deal with it, the eye of the storm went directly over that city over Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the impact was dramatic, not so much to the southern part of the state, but to the north, north of Atlantic City. Along the barrier islands in the coast and the resulting storm, the rain, wind and storm surge were absolutely dramatic to the New Jersey coast. So I was to answer your question, as I said, in the private sector watching as most people were, thankfully never lost power in our, in our house, but about approximately a half to almost two thirds of New Jersey's residents lost power or service of gas and even water system service after that storm.

Yoyo 5:26

for those that don't know, the barrier islands, they're like a coastal landform, aren't they? Made of sand and it's quite narrow, the strips. So there's, there's so much vulnerability if they're facing bad weather. There's no shelter, there's no trees, there's no forest, you can't go inland. Tell me, Rick, I want to come back to you on this. Why was it so unusual for New Jersey to have this type of storm? We all know what can happen further south, certainly around the Florida coastline.

Tony 5:55

Right there actually had been many, many years ago, decades past, actually before electronic media. Back at the turn of the century, there were actually some direct hits of storms in New Jersey. So there's history there. And quite frankly, anybody that lives along a coast of, uh, the ocean,,you know, that is a potential vulnerability. But as you pointed out, these barrier islands made of sand literally separated from, the coast, usually from a with a bay in between and some sort of, causeway or bridge that connects it, gets people out to those often, summertime resorts,, the, but the The impact of a storm like this was so dramatic, in several of those barrier islands, and this had never occurred in the history of the state, was in particular the need to, and they were evacuated, these, the towns, because of the potential storm, the entirety of the natural gas system in one of those service territories along these barrier islands was completely depressurized. That kind of effort, a decision to do so, had never been done before in New Jersey. They depressurized the system knowing that they would probably be flooded anyway, and they would have to be rebuilt. They literally depressurized those systems along the barrier lines. For fear that otherwise, which did occur in the hours after the storm, there were explosions along the barrier islands that, that were literally, blowing up homes in that area. The other visual, and if anyone goes to take a look at it. There were homes. From those barrier islands literally swept out into either the ocean or in some cases into the bay where they were seen floating by during the recovery operations. This is an absolutely dramatic event on so many levels people display service interrupted and literally homes washing off their foundation into the into the Bay or to the ocean.

Yoyo 8:01

Thank you, Rick. Tony, it's now known as Superstorm Sandy Hurricane Sandy. It was only a Category 3, but it was incredibly destructive. What was it about this storm that made it, in your opinion, so destructive? Because it, it took 233 lives across eight countries. I'm surprised more people didn't die.

Rick 8:26

Yeah, a lot of it had to do with the timing of high tide. So areas that normally wouldn't have flooded with a, with a hurricane or to that degree were impacted. That was one. The second was the, the size, it was 1100 miles wide. And uh, and I've been on trips along the coast the Gulf Coast where, you know, you get hit, but you can drive for. To one direction and you can see areas or find areas that weren't as impacted. So it gives you the ability to, go into a grocery store and or, just be able to get supplies. But this was so wide, and it impacted the most densely populated state. There's more people per square mile in New Jersey than anywhere, that there were so many people impacted, and the size of it, and New York City, that it just had this devastating effect. There was nowhere to go. You can get in your car, and you could have driven for several hours, and you're still not going to find an area that wasn't damaged, or an area that, that had power, or, Had stores open. And I think that had a lot to do with it. And the fact that remember, it was one year after Hurricane Irene. So everybody had that memory in their minds, because that again was another devastating storm. So, when this storm hit, there were many people that were probably were more prepared, but the fact was that, it came on the heels a year later of another devastating storm. And I think that resonated with people who were impacted.

Yoyo 9:59

Tony, back to you. in our pre chat, you told me that a lot of people tend not to evacuate their homes because they have pets and there's nowhere for their pets to go. And I think there'll be a number of, certainly Security Circle podcast listeners who have pets. I'm thinking, would I want to leave my house and just leave my pets? I don't think I would. This is a really big human factor, isn't it? With these types of disasters. Thank you so much.

Rick 10:25

Yeah, this really came to light during Hurricane Katrina. There were quite a few high percentage individuals that did not vacate because of their pets. And because of that, you now find, centers, that will take individuals in, emergency centers that now have they're pet friendly. And you have a lot of companies out there to donate cages. But the fact was is that it did have a big factor. And when I was part of any kind of planning organization, with the county, with the state, it's a factor that actually, is discussed. Because quite frankly, there's individuals that, just are not going to leave those pets behind. So,

Yoyo 11:04

and understandable, and it's nice to hear that there's provisions being made because it's a critical human factor to consider. Rick, to you now, we've seen the news, and we've seen movies, certainly this side of the Atlantic Ocean. And we know that sometimes it's very hard for authorities, if you do make a big announcement, and you request everyone evacuate the area, and some people do, some people don't, and some people listen, and some people don't, and then, if you're wrong, and it goes a different direction, it's Really damning and no one really seems to win. Let's go back to Hurricane Sandy. What was instructed at the time to the populations that were suggested to be affected?

Tony 11:45

there was a statewide order issuance of a, an emergency statewide emergency by the governor and the encouragement to evacuate the coastal areas and particularly the southern part of the state. And I think there's sort of famously our governor Chris Christie at the time, who is a guy that does not pull any punches. I've known the governor a long time. Well, people ask them what, people should do. And there were reporters who said, well, we've seen pictures of people still going to the beach because that the day before it was actually nice. And, I think his response was get get the hell off the beach. And and rightfully so, because even though, if the predictions aren't not quite accurate, the worst thing that could happen is that people stay, they remain in their homes, and then the storm does get worse. And with what could be devastating effects if someone's still in their way. The, the the thing, though, that there was sufficient planning in the entire region. As I mentioned, it wasn't clear what that path was going to be. There was indications it might come up the Delaware River, and therefore places like Philadelphia, Southeastern Pennsylvania would have been affected. So it was planning there, or even up into New York City. So there were preparations being made appropriately. Because wherever the storms path is going to be, it was near certainty there would be, there would be impacts. In fact, they were across New Jersey, some of those other surrounding states a number of the waterways in New York, for example we're in the particular in lower Manhattan lower part of New York City. The, the, the storm surge was so significant that it actually ended up flooding subway tunnels in, in lower Manhattan. The water, water raised such levels that it actually flooded Southern, the portions of Southern Manhattan, flooding those, those transit tunnels including the, the, the most significant, the, the tunnel that runs between New Jersey and New York, it carries. Not just commuter traffic, but our Northeast corridor Amtrak our, our, our national rail service into and out of New York City. So, there, there was planning, but no one really knew exactly how bad, but the, the best thing people can do and should do is heed those warnings when there are these kinds of natural disasters that are being predicted.

Yoyo 14:10

I mean, look, when you're on any type of underground transportation, the last thing you need to see is it, is it being flooded? In fact, that was demonstrated quite well in the movie 2012, ironically. And I think it, Causes a bit of panic then, and people realize sometimes all too late, they didn't listen to the warning. Do you find this is quite common, Rick, with these types of,

Tony 14:32

oh, oh, yeah, people, they, they see that the stuntsville still signing and shining and, the storm somewhere down in the, Caribbean or on its way. And they're not going to do anything. And it's not until the storm actually shows up that, that they realize that they're in a bad place. There's a, there's a great story about that. If you may have heard it, I'll just convey it a story about the guy and a big flood like this. And first responders come as the floodwaters were coming up to his house. And. They said, You need to get out. And he said, Oh, no, God will save me. The floodwaters continued to rise even higher, started the flooding his first floor, and he went to the second floor. And this time, one of those high water vehicles came through with the fire department. And they said, You need to get out. And the guy was up in his second floor window. Water was already up there. And they said, You need to get out. And he said, No, God will save me. I'll be all right. Water kept rising. He had to go up onto the roof. And the Navy and National Guard had to come and circle around in a helicopter and say you got to get out, you got to get off of that roof. And he said, no, God will save me. Well, of course, the water continued to rise. The guy drown he ends up in heaven and he gets up there to St. Peter and he said, what happened? I thought God was going to save me. St. Peter said, well, we sent you the fire truck. We sent you the boat and we sent you the helicopter. What were you thinking?

Yoyo 15:54

In fact, there's a, there's another joke that's very similar where the guys got ill family and everything like that. I need God to help me, blah, blah, blah. And, and, and basically God says something to him, like, you need to buy a lottery ticket before I can bestow you with all this money and yeah, so, oh, yeah, what a story, but look Tony, the, the actions of humans in these. cases, they don't ever shock us. Do they really? There's always something new that comes along. What have you seen certainly in relation to Hurricane Sandy around human responses and behaviors that shocked you?

Rick 16:26

I have responded to hurricanes with our own utility. I've responded to hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, the Caribbean. You always see, The good in people and you'll always see stories of the bad in people. And one of these days I'm going to sit down and write a book about it. But, the fact is, is that an incident like this, from a, a positive perspective brings people together. Rick talked a little bit about it and I will tell you that now I've been to several States working prior, but while I was in New Jersey, I was when I eventually had the opportunity to take an assignment in New Jersey on a permanent basis, the working, cooperation between agencies and states was amazing. There's all these stories that we could talk about during Hurricane Sandy that will never get published. Individuals will never get the credit they deserve. But the bottom line is it was individuals working together. We're all You know, if you would go to, academia would, be hosting some type of an emergency management forum and folks from Connecticut and New York and New Jersey would be there and we would all think that we did it better and everything. But when an emergency happens, it's all bets are off. Everybody puts their differences to the side and it is all about the recovery of people, property, and the community. And I'm so proud of many, many things that occurred that again, we'll never be in the paper, but it's all because of working together. And I think of my own experience. I started off when I when I came out of the hotel that morning and I started working on restoration, they asked me to go to the New Jersey EOC, it's called the ROC, the Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, and there's everybody in there, starting from the utility companies, to the regulators, to, Department of Energy, FEMA, all the military branches, all the state branches, prison system, EPA, you name it, they're in there. And it was all about working together and just example after example of putting a problem on the table, the right people, approach the problem and come up with a solution. And then we broke and then we went off and we executed it. And we did that for 18 straight days. And it was to me, The single greatest effort I've ever been a part of when it comes to an operation. And again, nobody grandstand. It didn't matter where you were from. It was a better, it was about what you brought to the table to help everybody else. So pretty proud of that.

Yoyo 19:16

And Tony, back to you. One of the biggest criticisms for Hurricane Sandy is that both the federal and state governments failed to preposition supplies as the storm came in, and that there was very little pressure on local residents to evacuate, and emergency responders took days to get to the scene after the storm to rescue the tens of thousands stranded in the city. What's your sort of lived experience in relation to some of those lessons learned?

Rick 19:48

Well, in regards to, individuals that, didn't evacuate, there were plenty of that and individuals then were, a lot of them had to call emergency services to come out, which really complicated, all the workload they had. But again, I was in the EEOC at the state level. And there were certainly issues with supplies, but most of them that I was dealing with was because of traffic you have individuals that either evacuated and we're trying to come back or you get individuals that were trying to just get into the state and get into those damaged areas. There were many times, and I talked about getting folks together where I would, come over to say. We've got a truck that's sitting on this particular route. They are stuck in traffic for three hours. We need a, an escort and we would then get a police escort to go over and kind of reroute them and get to whatever location. And so certainly, I mean, if you've ever, sat in. Traffic in New Jersey or New York. It's certainly complicated, and I think that had a lot to do with it. But I'll also tell you that I think everybody did a lot of good planning again ourselves. We knew this storm was coming. Our utility. We we called our vendors and we got extra poles delivered and wire and transformers well in advance, just like the other utilities did. We had individuals that had supplies that maybe we brought as far as Pennsylvania and said, stop, don't come any farther. We don't want your vehicles or your personnel to be in harm's way because we knew the hurricane was going to turn, but eventually we're going to make a phone call, tell you to come in. So once we were able to get the resupply going, we were able to get roadways open. And then remember, we had a lot of highways that were closed because of debris. Somebody's barn would blow into the middle of the road and it's closed. That was it. Nobody's moving. The prioritization was also very impressive. And in the EOC, you had a group of people to figure out what we could do. So if a public works organization was overwhelmed, you had the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers step up and say, we'll give you, we'll supplement you with the staff and equipment, or maybe it was New Jersey Department of Transportation would come up and say, well, let us take that assignment and then you can focus on other areas. And there's all this just thousands of assignments that are being negotiated and teams, coming together and working together to a very prioritized approach. And when you take a look at the way everything was prioritized again, there's always going to be criticism. It's very easy. For that. And I've had events where I've had to sit through it, but I also, set, in the rooms where I know what efforts were taking place. And so, you're not going to do anything about criticism, but the fact is, is that also after, hurricane Sandy and Rick led much of this, his organization, his agency, where we talked about what could we have done better. And we worked on it and we put plans in place and we practiced it and we're ready for the next one. That was the dynamics. So,

Yoyo 22:52

Rick, I want to go back to you, really, and just ask you the same question as Tony, in relation to those criticisms around federal and state governments, failing to preposition supplies. And also, the time it took to get responders in afterwards. What would be your take on this?

Tony 23:10

Yeah there are two Issues that I, I think are really important or salient that people should keep in mind that the first just to just take a step back and just remind you what we're talking about of of the roughly roughly 8, 000, 000 people in New Jersey, 5, 000, 000 people were that were without power. The storm affected about 325, 000 housing units, small businesses, all 70 percent of the gas stations were without power, so they couldn't fuel anybody's cars water systems, about 40 percent of the state's water systems were offline boiled water alerts, and like, in half of those transmission lines, 100 separate transmission lines, 5, 000 transformers were damaged. More than 9000 utility poles were down or had to be replaced, and there were over 100, 000 separate areas where the roads or areas were blocked because of downed trees. So, it was just a dramatic widespread event. And 1 of the things that was worth communicating. And we'll come back to this because communication is key in these, in circumstances. The scope, the sheer scope, the dramatic scope was being accurately conveyed to the people of New Jersey and the region how bad it was, how long it might take for recovery. And to that point, One of the things that was learned during Sandy was this, is that while people weren't happy that they, when they were hearing that they might be without power for two, three weeks, at least they had some real information about the impact and could plan. They could plan. Go and visit with their, mother in law in another state, or whatever, or prepare somehow, or get a generator, or whatever, whatever it was. So people at least appreciated the fact that as dramatic as this was, at least they were getting real, accurate information, and that's really an incumbent of, and it is what needs to be done by public officials. And industry, people like the people that are in positions like Tony had when they're trying to restore service is to be honest and fair with people about the extent. And what those anticipated recovery times are so that their expectations are managed so that they're not hoping against hope that the whites are gonna come back on one when they're actually not. That's where the frustration comes in. So that's the most important is accurate communication, accurate information about the extent of. the impacts and about what restoration really will be so people have a better sense of it. That's really important in these kinds of dramatic situations.

Yoyo 26:10

Yeah, because when people can't charge up their mobile phones and they can't connect loved ones and they can't let somebody know they're safe, that becomes a massive issue rather than knowing how they can charge up their phones and communicate. Yeah, I get that. And food. Food, look, and looting and all of the other issues, Rick, how does, how, look, it's difficult, isn't it? It becomes a kind of survival fight or flight.

Tony 26:37

It is, and, and, that coordination that Tony talked about, making sure that all of the appropriate leadership of both government and industry are sharing information, are, are, are in a place like New Jersey's. Emergency management center to said that they can coordinate. We talk about this a lot, not just around storms now, but with cyber security threats about the vulnerability of 1st and foremost, the electric system and how it supports all these other critical subsectors, water, Logistics, healthcare, hospitals, the financial services sector, right? If we don't have power to keep all that going, the communication sector we're really in a bad place. And there's a now, and, and by the way, at least in the United States, Sandy is the reason that there are enhanced coordination efforts. There was created after Sandy, a thing called the Electric Sector Coordinating Council, which has all the large electric companies. It's chaired by the D. O. E. and the industry jointly, the Department of Energy in the United States and an industry. And it's an it is a platform to manage a large scale sustained outage like Sandy. It was created after Sandy. We didn't exist before that. So we've learned a lot in, a little over 10 years on how to prepare. How to then manage how to respond more effectively and recover. And that's exactly what we did in New Jersey. That's where Tony and I got to work together on those recovery efforts, which are so important.

Yoyo 28:18

So really, Rick, I'm going to ask you now, have, have we learned lessons? Are we learning lessons or is there still a lot to do?

Tony 28:28

So we're, we're learning lots of lessons, have learned many. So what I just mentioned a coordinating council on a, on a national level, like the one I just mentioned state by state, states taking more, Active preparation to have facilities where they convene doing exercises, having tabletop exercises routinely, which people would sort of say it's nice, but in New Jersey, we have a long history of convening those kinds of collaborative events. Exercises those simulations between federal agencies, state agencies and with the industry. We have a long history of doing that here, whether it's around natural disasters. Or intentional acts, whether it's an intentional act of destruction against our critical infrastructure. Remember, here in New Jersey, we are literally in the shadow of 9 11 attack in New York. So here, at least in a place like New Jersey, we have a long history of doing those things. Other places, not so much. And, but those are so important virtually anywhere to go through those playbooks to do those exercises, look at where the gaps are, how and question how you would respond. And Tony and I, and he'll probably want to talk more about this. We do this for clients now and give them advice and help them write those response playbooks. The worst thing that can happen is you do a nice tabletop exercise and that report sits on a shelf somewhere and you never implement what has to be done, when the event really occurs.

Yoyo 30:03

Well. In fact, Tony, Rick has almost asked your question for you, hasn't he? Tabletop exercises are great. I've seen them at regional police levels where all of the, relevant organizations, fire, ambulance are involved, and I know that they are incredibly good for helping everybody to understand where they're fit into the kind of crisis community, so to speak. Tony, so much for joining us. Tell me what you think about the relevance of tabletop exercises and other training tools,

Rick 30:33

which is like anything else. One of the analogies that I use whenever I, kick off with any client or even when I was with the utility is I talk about, professional sports show me a professional sports organization that doesn't have a playbook and doesn't practice. It's unheard of. Why? Because you want that muscle memory. So one of the directives, as an example, that the Board of Public Utilities under Rick's leadership put out is that instant command system, ICS, be implemented at the utilities. Or critical infrastructure. And what we did is that, we had a large organization of 1300 employees and we had to train all the way down to the front line, although maybe not to the degrees, some of the individuals in the EOC, but the fact is we had to train everybody. So what we did is that we broke it up just like you do in band practice in high school. That's the way I kind of showed everybody, Monday, the. The horns play and Tuesday, the percussion and the, Wednesday and so on. Then on Friday, the whole band comes together and you make music. Well, that's what we did in that we would take the planning section and we would do an exercise just for planning. Don't worry about everything else. Let's make sure planning knew how to do it. And then we would do logistics and then we would do operations. And we did that. And then eventually everybody became so comfortable in their roles. We brought the band together. We brought everybody together and then did exercises. And then it was about working with others, being able to look and say, this does not belong here. It needs to go over and logistics. Or yes, this is our responsibility. I'm going to give this to a unit leader. And that's what we tested on. And then what happened is that then we started doing with the board of public utility exercises with other utilities, other electric utilities. And then we started doing it with other utilities, including gas utilities. So the fact was we became very good of going through and knowing the plan, knowing what to do. And we learned from that. We learned that we had antiquated processes that no longer applied. We knew realized that the priority, the prioritization list had to be dynamic, it was a list, but you had to use common sense to see if maybe something changed in prioritization. And then we did one exercise. It was probably the largest exercise I've ever been a part of that. We had to have an auditorium to put everybody in it, believe it or not. But when you talk about working together, it was simple to get up and walk over to where the New Jersey state troopers were to talk to him about we need this or go over to New Jersey Department of Transportation, because that would normally represent a phone call. But then they learned to come over to us. What we found is that as we started having storms, nothing the size of Sandy, but when we started getting an ice storm or a wind storm, we found out that we were getting done with these storms quicker than we had ever got done in the past. It was reflected in some of our numbers that had been given to the commission. So we realized that it, it worked. And I made a comment one day to one of our executives saying, man, if we ever had a, A redo with Sandy, we would probably get it done a couple more, a couple days early. And of course, people are saying, Tony, please don't wish for a redo. We don't want that. The fact was we had absolute documented performance that was better, so we realized we were becoming more efficient, and it was really driven by individuals, the Board of Public Utilities, the utilities getting together, and I've said this many times, they could have come out with a thou shalt, but they didn't, they came up with a what if, what if all the utilities did this, and we worked together on that, And we brought in people from other states to talk to us about some of the benefits. And then we would say, yeah, this makes sense. And it was a very good, post Sandy was a very good time for relationship building and learning and coming up with improvements that were going to help the overall response for everyone involved.

Yoyo 34:45

I was in Barbados in 1992 where Barbados was fortunate enough to catch the very tail end of Hurricane Andrew. And it's quite funny actually because a few of us went out for drinks one evening and the whole town was dead. And we were like, where is everybody? And somebody from a rum shack said, there's a hurricane. We all went, what? Because nobody in our hotel had told us. So we went back to the hotel, very privileged, actually, that we were in some concrete walls and albeit not far from the beach, but certainly in, certainly in a secure foundational building. And we literally did get the tail end of it, but the next day, you could see the sea was really churned up, you wouldn't go in the sea, lots of big waves, it was really choppy. That beautiful turquoise color had turned into a kind of muddy green. And the palm trees were like, bending right over, like the green parts upside down and you think they're almost going to touch the floor. They were bending that much with the strength of the wind. And it was just something special to see that. And what, what we witnessed was just, nothing. In comparison, Tony, I've got to ask you, because otherwise I won't be able to sleep properly tonight. The guy who was in the casino hotel, did he survive? And did his hotel survive, even though he was in the eye of the storm?

Tony 36:15

That was me. And yes, he did. And but he said it was the most strange thing when was howling as the storm came aboard. And since the eye literally said the building shook for a few minutes. And then it was clear. It was midnight or thereabouts. And he said he went outside, looked up, could see the stars. And it was eerily calm for about 15 minutes. And then the wind really picked up again and then moved around as the storm sort of moved further north. But yes, they survived without damage but a very peculiar and anyone who I've never been, but anybody that says that they've had that experience of being in the eye, it's really dramatic.

Yoyo 36:57

Yeah, absolutely. Tony, you told me about a story about being in the eye of the storm.

Rick 37:04

Yeah, we were positioned to get ready for a gulf storm. So what we were doing is that we took our whole fleet of individuals and we moved to a location. It was supposed to be out of harm's way, but the storm actually turned. Direction did not turn as much as they anticipated and we had to write it out. And we had to get to a hotel and everything, but I remember watching a we had a mobile command trailer. We pulled with a semi truck and it was my decision. They asked me if I wanted to go and I went ahead and I moved in closer and I literally watched that command trailer tip over to one side and I just envisioned it going over and my career going away with it. Because I had been the one that's okay to be pulled in there. And then literally the, the wind stopped a little bit and it, came back on all of its wheels. And I thought I'm, I'm never going to do that again. It was the longest one minute of my life, but yes, I've I've been through two, actually I've been through that one and I actually rode through a Sandy and a hotel right down the street.

Yoyo 38:06

I think both of you are super handy to have around if a storm is coming. What's, what's, we need to have these bracelets that say, what would Tony and Rick do if we're ever in a storm? Rick, what's coming on the horizon? What are you planning for now? You've got the benefit of hindsight and looking at what happened with Katrina. The weather is becoming more unpredictable. This isn't a geopolitical issue. It's a real climate change issue. What kind of things are you factoring into your plans now?

Tony 38:40

Well, let me just for a moment tell you some of the more particular issues that we undertook after Sandy, which are still occurring. They're enduring in 1 in many ways. So, Tony referenced it that what what happened in New Jersey often unlike other places is the industry and the staff of the. Board of public utilities sat and mapped out what this recovery would look like. And there were specific rebuild plans that the board required the companies to file both recovery and response specifically from the storm, but more particularly infrastructure hardening capital improvements for the future. And the companies, the large electric companies and gas companies and the water companies all made similar filings, different types, as you can imagine. But each of them in their own way came forward with what was an enhanced planning effort of their infrastructure replacing, for example, gas lines to ensure their integrity for the future raising of electric substations so they wouldn't flood larger and more resilient stanchions for transmission lines. All of these efforts were really, in one way, a discussion, a collaboration, even almost a negotiation of sorts, between the kinds of investments that the companies said they needed to make or wanted to make to be more resilient, to withstand these kinds of challenges. Dramatic events. That's what is still being done before we left. When I left the administration in 2018, we adopted a rule that allows the utility companies to actually make a specific filing for infrastructure investments. So, we set in motion through that collaboration with the industry, a real process to identify the needs. needs for the future, the, how the investments will be made to make sure that our infrastructure is hearted from these kinds of dramatic weather events, most particularly. And then beyond that we set in motion other efforts efforts like how to make the investments and recover them on cybersecurity. Threats and that was emerging about the same time is as the infrastructure hardening that in the physical hardening efforts that are necessary for severe weather events. So a long way of telling you that we're very proud of the fact that at least in New Jersey. What we were able to do is in a collaborative fashion with the industry, identify what they thought had to be done to make the investments to make sure our systems are more resilient, that they can withstand threats, or if they are realized to respond and recover and restore service in a much shorter period of time. So we set in motion a whole series of events, including those real important issues about how to recover the cost. Which the companies, even today, are still making such violence.

Yoyo 41:54

Tony, what's your take in the sense of how do we look forward? I mean, Rick, I've got to say to your point around cyber security, because it's not often that you talk about cyber security and hurricanes at the same time. Thank goodness a cyber security attack can't bring a hurricane or, or after the events of the flooding in Dubai, or maybe they could in the future. Maybe we've just predicted something catastrophic, but Tony, What's your scope for the future? What's what sort of things are you focusing on?

Rick 42:26

It's all about working together. Collaboration. I'll as an example, we had the Super Bowl up in the Meadowlands before I left. And, we brought everybody together for the planning. But. Since everybody had just went through Hurricane Irene, we'd went through Hurricane Sandy, we were on all these committees, private and public sector. It was, it was, we were already working together. So planning for, for the Superbowl was, pretty easy task because at all the agencies and, and all the private sector were already working so well together, it was a simple lift it's gotta be like that for absolutely everything. And you've gotta be willing to reach out. And I'll give you an example. I, I do a four or five, presentations, speeches a year. And in one particular area, I was asked by an association CEO I'd like you to kind of give me an idea from a security perspective, what's the posture? Are, are my members really engaged with who they should be engaged with? So I went in front of probably 45 executives and mid level executives. And I says, I'm going to ask you this question. If you raise your hand, I'm going to ask you to prove it. I'm going to ask you to bring up your cell phone and bring up the number. I said, how many individuals in this room right now have the number for a coordinator with the local FBI office, a federal agency that in case of a cyber attack or a terrorism attack, You would be reaching out to, and not one individual had that. And I was Rick and I were talking in my role. I did not go through a month that I did not have some type of interaction with our local FBI office. Either they would tell me what they could about, this is what's going out there with chatter, or I would share with them, here's some activities that we'd like you to know about, but the fact is, is that you've got to be willing to reach out. Public to public, private to private and public private back and forth and work together because it's not about us. It is about our ability to support what really our directive is, which is the community.

Yoyo 44:31

I'm really quite impressed, but this is happening all over the United States, Tony.

Rick 44:37

No, Rick and I talk about it. Matter of fact, there was an incident and I won't bring it up where, but they a couple of companies

Yoyo 44:44

and

Rick 44:46

a couple of companies and a couple of agencies were pointing fingers at each other and my phone rings and it's Rick. And Rick said they're not working together. We're both watching CNN and he's saying they're not working together because we didn't have that again We all went through we all made mistakes. We all did some very good things But we just had this years of working together to say we'll never make that mistake again And how are we going to bring others in? And it I know that when rick and I have an opportunity to partner and speak to folks That is really what it is about. We talk constantly I You've got to be able to will be willing to reach out, embrace others, bring them in, share your mission and figure out how to utilize each other's resources and talents, respect each other and move forward and support the community and the mission that you've been assigned.

Yoyo 45:42

So, Rick, how could you tell that they weren't talking to each other? What was coming across? And let us see the signs so that we can spot them when we're watching CNN.

Tony 45:52

Well, we won't name names, but you could tell that there, there was a bit of a blame game going on and, and they were, assuming too much. And as Tony described what happened here and happens here in New Jersey and these kinds of events is that. Everyone that needs to be involved from the government as well as the industry are all in one place, literally in the same same facility. And when we see these kinds of reports, like, something like that on the news, where it's clear, the industry is not talking to the government, the governor or the governor's people aren't talking to, decision makers elsewhere or local government officials. That's a gap or federal government officials aren't talking to state government officials, which which happens a lot as well. So people need to be actively talking with each other in the midst of these kinds of emergency management operations, coordinating the response. And that's the only way that you can make those effective decisions. And that's the kind of thing that Tony and I talk about all the time about the experience we had here in New Jersey.

Yoyo 46:57

In fact, that was one of the findings from the Manchester arena bombing. But the, the, the, the ambulance service weren't communicating with the police enough and, and the on ground, the onsite emergency management weren't letting the ambulances in. And there was a whole lack of communication and a big learning going forward around why they all need to be very present. To, to help support people and save lives. Both of you, honestly, super thrilled to, I, I understand Tony, you hosted Dr. David recently in Texas. I saw the photograph on LinkedIn. Nice to see you both together.

Rick 47:32

Yeah, Dr. Rubens visited Texas and him and I had an opportunity to sit down and talk about the, the, the, kind of the vision of ISRM going forward and then some great risk conversation. So it was a very enjoyable conversation.

Yoyo 47:46

He's just delivered a podcast that came out a few weeks ago, all about Fukushima and, and how we looked at that from a crisis and risk management perspective, managing dynamic crises. It was, as he's one of the best. In the world to talk to that sort of thing Rick do you have any kind of lasting messages that you want to leave everyone? It could be something funny. It could be an anecdote. It could be a three things you need to do next time. I told my joke earlier, so no.

Tony 48:14

Oh yeah,

Yoyo 48:15

you only got one. I,

Tony 48:16

I, I think that the, the biggest piece of advice, two, maybe two pieces of advice is to reinforce. The case study, the experience we had of that active discussion, communication between government officials, regulators and the industry is a must in some places, particularly here in the, in the United States my friends who are public utility commissioners are reluctant to do that for whatever reason. Don't think they have the authority to engage the industry in these kinds of conversations. I encourage them all the time. Tell them, we tell them the stories, Tony and I do, about what we did here in, with Regatta Sandy in New Jersey, and it works. So that's the first, is an encouragement of people to be talking to each other to, to, to, to do that. The other is just to, in those planning efforts, those tabletop exercises. To think about considering the unexpected. What is it? What are the n minus 1 minus 1? What are the cascading failures that could in fact befall people because of the lack of critical infrastructure? Electric, as I said earlier, effective failure of electric to be continuing that impacts other services. And beyond and the human element of employees that are so important to make sure that there is continuity if they can't or or or have challenges in doing their job getting to the right sites. You got to think about those cascading failures and how that impacts both response to a threat like this and then and then the recovery from it.

Yoyo 49:54

Thank you, Rick, coming to you, Tony, for your anecdote before we leave. I always, I think I've drawn a conclusion. My observations are that we don't want to see people on roofs. If we see people on roofs, we've failed somewhere. It's a good title for a book. Tony, you can have that one if you like.

Rick 50:12

To say that you have to respect each other's operations, each other's missions, each other's assignments, and you need to work together to plan and Rick talked a little bit about it, that you have to think of what could happen. There's just been so many examples of individuals who have done a very good job of identifying maybe some unusual things that could happen. And then when they did happen, it resulted in a quick recovery, lives being saved. So get innovative. I mean, no, zombie apocalypse. But, the fact is, is that, come up with a scenario that truly, could happen so that individuals have that muscle memory. And and don't be afraid to say that you don't know something. I've been in this game for a long time, over four decades. And last week there was something that came across my desk that. I made a phone call to a colleague and said, Can you give me kind of your insight to this? I'd like to understand a little bit more. Don't don't think you know everything. And you keep growing and learning. And even after four decades, I'm still learning

Yoyo 51:17

decades. Three. Surely. Look, I think for me, I think anyone listening. would, would remember this line that you said, Tony, where you said, show me a sport where they don't practice. It's about muscle memory. I think that's really pivotal to anybody in the security profession, whether it's cybersecurity or physical security, it's about getting that muscle memory, getting people to think about using better passwords, down to making sure they enter buildings in the correct way. Both of you, thank you so much for joining me on the security cycle podcast.

Rick 51:48

Thank you

Tony 51:49

It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.