• The death toll from Hurricane Helene topped more than 120 people on Monday across six states in the southeast. Hundreds are still unaccounted for, and the number of casualties is going up. Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the author of ‘The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters,’ explains what the next steps in recovery will look like.
• And in headlines: Israel launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, schools outside of Atlanta closed Monday because of toxic smoke from a chemical plant, and a Superior Court judge in Georgia struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, October 1st. I’m Jane Coaston and this is What a Day. The show where we want to congratulate former president Jimmy Carter on joining Kleenex, Band-aids and Menthol cigarettes on turning 100 years old today. Real mixed bag that year. [music break] On today’s show, Israel starts a ground invasion into Lebanon. Plus, a Virginia congressional candidate borrows a family for his campaign ads. But first, the death toll from Hurricane Helene topped more than 120 people on Monday and hundreds are still unaccounted for. Because of that, the number of casualties is expected to keep going up as six states in the southeast continue assessing the damage from the storm. In western North Carolina, entire towns are still cut off from cell service and electricity. Many don’t have clean running water and aides still can’t get in because a lot of roads are impassable, leaving people stranded. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is working with the Defense Department to airlift supplies into areas with severe storm damage. On Monday, Governor Roy Cooper surveyed some of the wreckage in the state and spoke with reporters. 

[clip of Governor Roy Cooper] The devastation was beyond belief. And even when you prepare for something like this, this is something that’s never happened before in western North Carolina. 

Jane Coaston: Speaking to Politico on Sunday, Cooper also said he’d spoken with President Biden and told him, quote, “It’s not the right time to come.” He said the state didn’t need elected officials that require a lot of security coming through while people are still trapped and resources are scarce. But in southern Georgia, former President Donald Trump took the opposite approach. He claimed to have brought in truckloads of supplies to residents in Valdosta, along the Florida border. 

[clip of Donald Trump] And that’s why today I’ve come to Valdosta with large semi trucks, many of them. Filled with relief aid and a tanker truck filled up with gasoline. We have a couple of the big tanker trucks filled up with gasoline, which they can’t get now. 

Jane Coaston: Trump also took the opportunity to spread some bullshit, saying that Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, couldn’t get in touch with President Biden. 

[clip of Donald Trump] He’s been calling the president, hasn’t been able to get him, but they’ll come through, I’m sure. 

Jane Coaston: But just hours earlier at a separate press conference, Kemp said he had spoken to Biden. 

[clip of Brian Kemp] The president just called me yesterday afternoon. I missed him and I called him right back and he just said, Hey, what do you need? And I told him, you know, we got what we need. We’ll work through the federal process. He offered that if there’s other things we need, just call him directly, which I appreciate that. 

Jane Coaston: For his part, President Biden called Helene a history making storm during a press briefing on Monday. Later, Biden responded more forcefully to Trump’s lies about not speaking with the governor of Georgia. 

[clip of President Joe Biden] I don’t know why he does it. And the reason I get so angry about it, I don’t care about what he says about me. But I care what he what he communicates to the people that are in need. Implies that we’re not doing everything possible. We are. We are. 

Jane Coaston: The president also said he may have to call members of Congress back to Washington to approve more recovery aid. They’re currently in their districts campaigning ahead of the election, but no decision has been made. Biden will visit North Carolina on Wednesday. So for more on what the recovery effort will look like in the next few days and weeks, I spoke with Juliette Kayyem. She’s the faculty chair of the Homeland Security Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the author of The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters. Juliette, welcome to What a Day. 

Juliette Kayyem: Oh. I’m glad to be here. Thank you for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So when you see a disaster of this scale with major destruction spanning six states, what are the first steps to recovery? 

Juliette Kayyem: So and I want to be clear here, is that recovery is the phase that is sort of follows the response. We are still–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Juliette Kayyem: –in the response. So we are that’s the deployment of resources, the surging of all sorts of capacity to essentially save life and stem the flow. At some stage honestly, as you start to get the money to where it needs to get. So that’s the disaster relief system. And that’s what you’re going to see next, which is just lots of money flowing to individuals, housing and public entities to start to essentially rebuild. 

Jane Coaston: Parts of western North Carolina. I think you were getting at this, including the Asheville area. They don’t have clean running water right now. Many still don’t have cell service or electricity. So what’s the hierarchy of needs here in terms of mapping out an emergency response plan? 

Juliette Kayyem: It’s a great question. I mean, we talked vaguely in terms of functionality. So that’s going to include basically your food and water distribution. I know it’s shocking to say, but people can live without their data service for a while. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Juliette Kayyem: Um. And so it’s going to be your food and water distribution and it’s something that’s like not commonly understood. We have a system that’s called emergency support functions that gets a little wonky, but it does create a hierarchy. And the the community is best in deciding what its priorities will be. Maybe it wants its schools to be next, or maybe if they have a single industry that keeps the community alive and they need to build a road to it because it’s isolated. Now, as we’re hearing in some of these jurisdictions, they’ll focus on that. So it’s a really it is a horrible decision making process, especially when you see this kind of devastation where everything seems important. 

Jane Coaston: What role does the federal government play in recovering from a storm like Helene, aside from just sending money? 

Juliette Kayyem: So this is where the interesting and all the horrible ways um point in disaster management right now. And this is where my work is focused on which is, you know, we have a disaster management system that was built in the ’70s when there was a belief by the government that disasters were random and rare. So that meant that basically you had these systems that built up, get everyone back to normal, spend a lot of money, and then there but for the grace of God go I, right? And we’ll just brace for the next one. That could be anywhere at any time. Well, we know that’s not true anymore, but the systems have not adapted. So the federal government’s role now is these communities cannot do this on their own. So it used to be that recovery was very community focused. The devastation that we’re seeing now is they’re going to need planning, infrastructure, investments, technical expertise as well as money. And that is sort of the focus right now. The problem isn’t so much who’s doing what, it’s actually the what, which is the incentives are for speed, which is obvious, but are not for necessarily the most resilient planning. They are essentially to get back to functionality and then true what we would call true recovery. 

Jane Coaston: It feels gross to talk about it. But Georgia and North Carolina are, of course, major swing states in the upcoming election. So it’s obviously tempting for both campaigns to be staging events and talking about this in political terms. But generally speaking, what’s helpful behavior from political figures in these moments and what’s not helpful? 

Juliette Kayyem: Yeah, I love that you ask this because, I mean, here’s a dirty little secret amongst liberals in disaster management, that iconic picture of George Bush in the airplane flying over New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina drowned the city. That became an image for him for the lack of response or whatever. Nobody in disaster management wanted him out of that plane. Right. I mean, the whole the big thing became I would get out of the plane. I would do, first of all, it’s unsafe for the principle. But it is the amount of distraction it is for there to be those photo ops is insane and people don’t quite realize it. But like a presidential visit in the middle, you’ve got to make sure the president is safe. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Juliette Kayyem: And make sure others are safe. Who’s there? So Atlanta is fine. Atlanta is not hit. And you could do an event there. But I hope that no one goes down there before Friday or Saturday. We’ve got another and also, by the way, we’ve got another hurricane coming that we’re all monitoring that’s likely to hit as well in the Gulf. So that is what people on the ground hope is that principles stay away. 

Juliette Kayyem: So you mentioned this a little bit earlier because you were talking about how our systems assume that disasters are random and that they won’t happen very often. But let’s say we’re we’re looking forward. How do you prevent short term fixes and patches in infrastructure that inevitably have to happen after a disaster? How do you prevent those from becoming permanent? 

Juliette Kayyem: That’s exactly it, this is the challenge. The good news is that there’s been a lot of research now on recovery. It used to be no one really paid that much of attention because it’d just be like, oh we’ll rebuild the building and we’ll rebuild the road. Now we realize this is this opportunity in the most horrible of ways to go from functionality to resiliency is a basically what you want to do. You have a very short window and it’s too soon now. But I would say in the next, you know, four to eight weeks in which communities can think about how they will build better, so to speak, in terms of being more resilient. So what kind of planning, for example, do you want for hospitals? We saw some hospitals survive the flooding because they had essentially flood walls, temporary flood walls, or you create, say, regulations around what new home buildings ought to have in terms of should they be up four feet or uh secure roofing or whatever it is, depending on what the problem is. I spent some time this summer in Oklahoma studying the tornadoes there for a documentary that I was co-hosting, and they created regulations that were minimal, a couple thousand dollars extra for each house. That basically what you want to do is sort of bound the house together. So they use that time to create the regulations that then guide the long term building in the future. So that’s what we would hope. The politics often cut against that and um at some stage something’s going to have to give in this country because either we won’t be able to insure most jurisdictions or the government’s going to be paying multi gazillion dollar disasters not once every ten years, but ten times a year. 

Jane Coaston: So that’s what resilience and mitigation would look like. What can states and the federal government do? Because you’re talking about in Oklahoma having housing regulations change, but that seems like something a state or the government could  mandate to help people minimize the risks they face. 

Juliette Kayyem: Yeah, And this is where you do see some of the politics come into play. So some good news is in this administration, there has been changes to some of the regulations over critical infrastructures in terms of their resiliency to climate. That’s good because that’s the private industry. So the challenge is, of course, the politics of this and red states. So the interesting thing that you see is red jurisdictions don’t call it climate change. They’re doing climate mitigation. And so that’s fine. And when I was out in Oklahoma, or when I’m in in the Panhandle or wherever it is, I’m doing work, I sort of learned not to call it that. And you can call them hypocrites and whatever. I get that. But just like for these communities, they are able to create this window. And as you are right that in states like Oklahoma and Florida, it would be great for the state to take leadership over it, but they haven’t yet. 

Jane Coaston: Juliette, thank you. This has been so informative. 

Juliette Kayyem: Thank you so much. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the Homeland Security Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the author of the book The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters. If you want to help survivors of Hurricane Helene, Vote Save America Action and Crooked ideas have partnered to raise money to support disaster relief efforts in states throughout the Southeast who have been impacted by the storm. Check out VoteSaveAmerica.com/helene. We’ll get to the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch it on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: And now the news. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of President Joe Biden] I’m more aware than you might know, and I’m comfortable with them stopping. We should have a ceasefire now. 

Jane Coaston: Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon Tuesday morning local time, just hours after President Joe Biden again called for a cease fire in that conflict. The Israeli military called the operation limited and aimed at sites with ties to the militant group Hezbollah. Late last week, Israel killed the group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, with an airstrike on a building in southern Beirut. American made bombs were reportedly used. California Governor Gavin Newsom has had a busy couple of days. On Sunday, he signed a new law requiring large insurance companies to cover in vitro fertilization treatment. Newsom also vetoed a major AI safety bill. The bill was designed to put limits on the fast growing technology. Newsom said the bill was too broad and could give the public a false sense of security. But Newsom is open to regulating the industry, saying in a letter to the legislature, quote, “We cannot afford to wait for a major catastrophe to occur before taking action to protect the public.” Newsom wasn’t done. On Monday, he signed a law banning university legacy and donor admissions preferences. The ban applies to private and nonprofit institutions, including USC and Stanford. Legacy admissions are already banned at public universities in California. The law also requires all private colleges and universities to submit an annual report proving they didn’t play favorites. Schools outside of Atlanta were closed Monday, and residents were told to stay home as toxic smoke filled the air after a fire broke out Sunday at the Biolab, a chemical plant in Conyers, Georgia. Rockdale County officials say a sprinkler malfunction at the plant. It released water that mixed with a water reactive chemical, which then started a fire and emitted a plume of toxic chlorine with a strong chemical smell. Officials said the fire was under control early Sunday evening and has since been put out. Here’s Rockdale County Fire Chief Marian McDaniel at a press conference. 

[clip of Marian McDaniel] As you see behind me, what you’re seeing is still that chemical reaction from that water reactive chemical product. And once we can get it out, it will still off gas. But once again, the fire is out and that is the status of where we are right now. 

Jane Coaston: The bio lab fire caused the evacuation of 17,000 residents with an indefinite shelter in place order for 90,000 people as of Monday. The company says all of its staff members are accounted for. A superior court judge in Georgia’s Fulton County struck down the state’s six week abortion ban on Monday. In his ruling, Judge Robert McBurney wrote that, quote, “Liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning and its protections and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body.” McBurney actually struck down this same exact law two years ago on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. But his decision was overturned by a Georgia Supreme Court. The judge’s ruling this week will almost certainly be appealed. But for now, abortions can once again be carried out in Georgia until roughly 22 weeks into a pregnancy. Don’t forget, tonight is the vice presidential debate on CBS between Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be joined by Pod Save America’s Tommy Vietor to give you a 20 minute rundown of everything that went down in New York City. And that’s the news. [music break] Families. They are weird and complicated and the subject of movies that win many Oscars. But if you’re running for office, families are essential. Well, the right kind of family that is. A New York Times article from the other day titled GOP Candidates Looking to Soften Their Image Turned to their Wives, had a detail I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. Derek Anderson, a Republican running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Virginia’s seventh district, posted a video of himself with his family, all looking very normie, which is fine. We’re a big supporter of normies on this podcast. The only problem that’s not his family. They’re the wife and children of one of his friends. Anderson has a dog and a fiancee, but no children. And that’s just not good enough for today’s Republican Party, with J.D. Vance spending so much time yelling about how childless people are America’s greatest problem. So, of course, a Republican candidate might feel the need to just borrow a woman and some kids to take photos with for political purposes. It’s not family. It’s the performance of family. Like when J.D. Vance suggested that a solution to the lack of child care in America would just be having grandma and grandpa do it. Because obviously everyone lives close to their parents and has a tiptop relationship with them. Oh, and obviously grandma and grandpa want to spend their golden years watching their grandkids all week. That’s not thinking about what works best for families. That’s thinking about what looks good. But it’s also a performance of normalcy, which seems weird if you think about who’s running for president. But it’s pretty clear to me that in the GOP it’s really, really important to sound insane, but look normal, especially when you make it to the general election. Let’s take North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, for example. We’ve talked about him a bunch lately, especially since CNN broke the news of his years of commenting about wanting to own slaves and being a Black Nazi in a porn website’s comment section. And few people have worked harder to sound insane, but look normal than him. Here’s an ad he ran in the general election, sitting next to his wife, Yolanda. 

[clip of Mark Robinson] 30 years ago, my wife and I made a very difficult decision. We had an abortion. It was like this solid pain between us that we never spoke of. 

[clip of Yolanda Robinson] It’s something that stays with you forever. 

[clip of Mark Robinson] That’s why I stand by our current law and it provides common sense exceptions for life of the mother, incest, and rape, which gives help to mothers and stops cruel late term abortions. When I’m governor, mothers in need will be supported. 

Jane Coaston: That’s good enough for a Republican running for office in North Carolina. Almost sympathetic, vaguely supportive of, quote, “common sense exceptions” permitting some abortions. Look for anti-abortion people that’s almost permissive. And he’s sitting next to his wife. Very normal. But that’s not how he came across in the primary or any time before the general election, as this ad from Attorney General Josh Stein, Robinson’s opponent in the gubernatorial race points out. 

[clip of Josh Stein ad] Let’s say I was the governor. I had a [?] and legislature, we could pass a bill saying you can’t have an abortion in North Carolina for any reason. For me, there is no compromise on abortion. It makes no difference to me why or how that child ended up in that womb. Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers. It’s about killing the child because you aren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down. It’s not your body anymore. 

Jane Coaston: I wonder why he changed his messaging so much. If you’re running as a Republican for office right now, you’re in a fascinating position. You can say the wildest shit imaginable. You can accuse minority groups of eating pets. You can lie like it’s a competitive sport. But while you lie and denigrate and threaten everyone you don’t like. You also have to look normal. Strange. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Rent a family for your political campaign and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just exceedingly rare, good news related to abortion like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter? Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and here’s to another 100 years of Jimmy Carter. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded by Jerik Centeno and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Tyler Hill, JoHanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Collin Gilliard and Kashaka. 

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