Answering the Call

When Hurricane Maria—a high-end Category 4 storm with winds ripping around 155 mph—made landfall on Puerto Rico, Debbie Santos, a water resources engineer, worried for her family. Although Debbie, her husband and two children had left the tropical island for Texas the year prior, the remainder of her family was at the front lines of Maria’s force.

By the time Hurricane Maria made its way through Puerto Rico, 100% of the island and its 3.4 million residents were left without electricity. The storm flooded infrastructure, ripping away roofs and knocking down cellphone towers like bowling pins. Debbie sent family and friends boxes of supplies weekly, not knowing if they’d even arrived due to lack of communication coming from the island.

“We sent about nine to 11 generators, and we had no idea if they were receiving anything,” she recalls. “The worst feeling was this sense of powerlessness.”

The following January, Debbie joined the CDM Smith team in Dallas, TX, as a water resources engineer. Shortly after, she was approached to deploy with FEMA to Puerto Rico to assist with Hurricane Maria recovery. Her years of experience as a water resources specialist in San Juan, where she worked on projects involving drought management, flood control and water systems reliability, along with Debbie’s understanding of the culture and language, made her a perfect match for the deployment.

“For me, to be able to work in the long-term recovery of the island was incredibly significant.”

After completing mandatory FEMA training, as every person who partakes in a deployment must do, Debbie jumped into the efforts by working with hazard mitigation to reduce the risk of future damage, making communities more resilient.

“It’s very touching when you meet with applicants, hospitals and government officials because everyone has their own ‘Maria story.’ We can't have this level of destruction again, so we're trying to keep everyone safe while we're working with them to create solutions.”

Years after Hurricane Maria, there is still work to be done both rebuilding and weathering future storms. Back home in the Dallas office, Debbie continued to work with FEMA to train others who are being deployed to the island. Once the COVID-19 pandemic started, FEMA ceased all deployments and trainings became virtual—both in English and Spanish.

In anticipation of a growing number of COVID-19 and seasonal flu cases, Montana Children’s Hospital requested FEMA assistance with converting a vacant hospital floor into a temporary alternative care facility to avoid stressing the hospital’s capacity and resources. Scott Anderson, construction expert, and his team were the people for the job, because they were standing by in case disaster struck.

“To say the least, COVID-19 may not be the disaster we expected, but the team was prepared to assist at a moment’s notice,” says Scott.

Upon the award notice in May 2020, Scott’s team—partnered with Ahtna Design-Build as part of a 5-year contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—was on the clock to finish the $2.6 million project in 21 days.

“The first three days of the assignment focused on the assessment of facility requirements for architectural, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, HVAC and structural elements. We were working at rapid pace even with the precautions we needed to take to keep everyone safe.”

Working on-site at an active children’s hospital amidst a global pandemic, rigid health and safety protocols were established to keep all parties safe and healthy. Everyone involved in the project was subject to daily temperature checks, wore masks and vigilantly maintained a physical distance from one another.

“This commitment to protecting everyone’s health and safety resulted in zero team members testing positive for COVID-19 and zero recordable incidents over the project lifecycle.”

The team stayed focused, working 12-hour days, seven days per week. The project was successfully completed two days ahead of schedule and 10% below budget. The finished product includes 98 patient care rooms for non-acute care, seven nurse’s stations, four restrooms, three pharmacies and one medical supply storage room. The floor is intended for temporary use, and when no longer needed the newly-built patient pods will be stored safely and available for reuse in the future.

Thanks to the efforts of Scott’s team, Montana now has greater capacity to withstand COVID- 19’s onslaught.

One week after the September 11 terrorist attacks, letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, including one letter that was opened in Daschle‘s office. Capital Hill mail operations were shut down and Senate office buildings evacuated. CDM Smith experts immediately traveled to Washington, D.C. to start decontaminating the affected offices from the deadly spores. Michael Grasso, senior project manager, was one of the first to get involved.

“I was one of the first employees asked, and my answer was, ‘of course,’” he recalls. “Everyone who was asked was eager to support it.”

The first day onsite included a safety briefing and antibiotics, just in case of anthrax exposure. With layers of personal protection equipment (PPE), work began in various steps.

Step one was dedicated to developing a strategy to place spore strips throughout Senator Daschle’s office. The strips would then be retrieved from the office and taken back to the lab, where the efficiency of the decontamination method was tested. Step two was focused on critical items. The team bagged up all of the items from the Senator’s office including computers, houseplants and files. Once retrieved from the office, the items were placed in decontamination chambers constructed out of plywood and plastic. However, this process only decontaminated the outside of the bags containing various items. Critical items were sent to an offsite location to go through another round of decontamination. Finally, inventory was taken of everything from the contaminated site.

“This wasn’t quick either—the process was slow because you had to suit up in Level C PPE,” says Michael. “Everything was duct taped so no air could get in or out, except through our respirators.”

Level C PPE is used when the type of airborne substance is known and includes an air-purifying respirator, chemical resistant clothing such as a one-piece coverall, hooded two-piece chemical splash suit or chemical resistant hood and apron, chemical resistant gloves and steel toe, chemical resistant boots.

Ventilation was turned off to prevent spreading spores, so there was no air conditioning or heat onsite. Unsurprisingly, duct taped chemical resistant coveralls get quite hot.

“At the end of the day, while waiting for decontamination, we would take turns laying on the cold marble floors. But you couldn’t do it without have your thumbs up and someone with you, so no one thought you passed out.”

The team successfully decontaminated the office, a project that spanned from November to March.

“There were a bit of nerves, but there was this huge sense of patriotism. I’m not in the military, on the front lines fighting the enemy, but I’m doing it in a different form. It brought this overwhelming sense of pride that far outweighed the dangers.”

A military veteran, project manager Manny Perotin is accustomed to responding in times of crisis. He served on active duty for six years as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officer, including service in Iraq. Now with 16 years of experience in civil engineering, he focuses on natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes and the effects of climate change.

After being with CDM Smith for half of his career, Manny has seen his fair share of the aftermath of natural disasters through a collection of FEMA deployments and works hard with his team to break the cycle of hurricanes tearing down communities again and again.

Manny and his team visited Texas after Hurricane Harvey and evaluated the performance of mitigation measures implemented throughout Houston years prior, following Tropical Storm Allison in 2011.

“Communities can’t have the attitude that, ‘It won’t happen here,’ because it does. And if you’re boarding up eight windows but leave two exposed to high winds and torrential rain, then all the hard work to prepare is lost.”

When teams deploy under FEMA contracts to evaluate building performance after a major disaster hits, there are a lot of precautions taken to ensure that the help isn’t doing more damage. This includes making sure that the accommodations and supplies for the crew don’t take away from locals who have been left displaced by storms.

“You can’t be very picky about what you’re going to eat because you don’t know what’s going to be open—there may be only one thing in reasonable driving distance. We’re conscious of not taking from the only grocery store in town left open. We’ll visit a homeowner and next thing you know we’re leaving all of our supplies with them because nothing has gotten to them yet and they have no drinking water.”

After the post-disaster chaos begins to settle, Manny’s team teaches classes to local architects, building officials and engineers about more resilient rebuilding, helping communities understand why so much damage took place.

“No matter the project, we’re working to create more resilient communities,” explains Manny. “Then we have to respond to disasters less frequently because communities can withstand more.”

On October 8, 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake disrupted the northern territories of Pakistan, causing more than 80,000 fatalities and leaving an estimated 3.5 million people homeless. Public buildings including schools and hospitals, as well as thousands of homes, were left as piles of rubble. Naveed Tariq, a senior project manager working in our Egypt office, was part of the team working to rebuild life for so many.

Working in two districts—one of which was built upon on the Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes—Naveed and his team worked to rebuild infrastructure. Like any project, this one came with challenges.

“We worked in very remote locations and many of the roads were damaged, so it would take up to seven hours for some of us to reach the work site,” remembers Naveed. “On some sites, we had to build roads so contractors could get onsite.”

Once roads were built, the team could get to work—which revealed more interesting surprises about the project sites.

“Within the first month, our office manager opened his desk drawer to find a cobra. These things were almost normal because we were working in such remote locations.”

Throughout 2008–2014, Naveed’s team rebuilt healthcare facilities and schools and made sure to connect with the communities they were working in to keep them involved and meet their needs. The local government started taking charge in rebuilding, providing income to many of those who had lost their jobs due to the devastating earthquakes, such as farmers. Hospitals were built as well, changing the lives of those who lived with no medical care for hundreds of miles.

He recalls, “It was critical for us to ensure that all members of the community were involved in decision making, including women and other previously-excluded demographic groups. We cancelled and rescheduled focus groups since no women were present at village meetings to discuss the designs of healthcare facilities intended to serve these mothers and their children.”

Aside from reconstructing physical buildings, the team’s community involvement also worked to fundraise for schools. 40,000 books were donated to school children and the team even organized an arts competition.

“We wanted to capture the students’ thoughts about the earthquake, so we asked them to draw what they wanted their school to look like. It was probably the first time many kids had used colored pencils to draw because these locations are so remote,” explains Naveed. The illustrations were displayed in the National Art Council in Pakistan, and the Prime Minister of Pakistan and USAID Mission Director were part of the celebration.

“The girl who created the best picture drew a blackboard showing a school building captioned, ‘My school is my life.’ It’s very rewarding to know that we helped give that back to these children.”

Disaster recovery work isn’t always cleaning up after the storm, fire or other hazard. In many situations, it’s working to build such strong, resilient infrastructure that it withstands the disruption. Adam Reeder, civil engineer, is an expert in disaster mitigation, which includes taking measures to reduce the impacts and risks of future emergencies.

In 1999, Adam worked with a team focused on raising houses in Belhaven, North Carolina. The town experienced frequent flooding due to storms and hurricanes, so Adam’s team worked to elevate hundreds of houses, bringing the living areas approximately two feet above the 100-year or 1% chance flood elevation.

“Our team crawled under 250 houses in this small town,” recalls Adam. “It was the program’s goal through a FEMA grant to raise every house they could.”

Almost 20 years later, Hurricane Florence devestated both North and South Carolina, causing damage estimates of up to $16.7 billion. Adam was able to see first-hand how his work in the late 90s withstood.

“Houses were okay because they were lifted prior to the storm. I was able to go back and look at buildings that I’d been involved in—houses I crawled under to evaluate the building, design an appropriate foundation and make sure the lifting process was correct—and ultimately see that flood water didn’t get in. It was shocking to see the house next door, which was never lifted, had debris piled up along the street in front of the house.”

He recalls this as a profound moment, when he knew his work was making a difference.

It’s the homeowner’s choice to work with FEMA and lift their home, and Adam understood the apprehension to let strangers into their residence. A resident of North Carolina himself, he understood how storms could affect someone’s life.

“People need you to understand where they're coming from,” he says about being welcomed by the community to do work on houses. “I'd seen flooding and damage happen before, and they appreciated that I could relate to them, rather than someone who didn't have any prior disaster experience.”

Adam continues to work on disaster recovery and is often tasked by FEMA to look at buildings who have been hit by hurricanes and assess their performance. This assessment is usually done as soon as two weeks after a storm hits, which can present challenges as well.

“Sometimes we have issues finding rental cars or hotel rooms. Everyone’s cars have been flooded, so displaced residents need vehicles and housing too. We’re always trying to get close enough to our study areas, while not disrupting recovery efforts.”

Once on scene, Adam and others on the post-disaster building evaluation team talk to people who experienced severe flooding during the storm, getting enough information to evaluate which buildings take priority.

“It’s a balance of collecting perishable engineering data and knowing what locals have been though, empathizing with that and helping them if they need information.”

On Friday, August 27, 2005, Michelle Beauregard planned to travel to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, for a quiet family weekend, celebrating her newborn niece and upcoming birthday. At the time, Michelle was a contract administrator for a law firm, known for her eye for detail and skills for handling complexity. While Hurricane Katrina was anticipated to hit the Florida panhandle with heavy winds and rain, it seemed like yet another storm event in a normal hurricane season. No one was worried.

Within 24 hours, plans changed. Katrina changed course and doubled in size over the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall as a Category 5 storm on August 29. Michelle and her family packed up everything, including wedding albums, clothes and her small chihuahua and evacuated to Austin, TX. What should have been an 8-hour drive from Bay St. Louis took 22 hours, as residents in Katrina’s path fled the storm’s fury. Michelle was unable to return to New Orleans. The city was shut down. Her employer offered to transfer her to an office in Dallas.

“I just couldn’t leave. I’m looking all around me, and everyone has…nothing. I couldn’t just pick up and leave my family.”

Understanding her desire to help in the storm’s aftermath, her former employer arranged for Michelle to interview with a Mississippi-based accounting firm who had won the state contract to monitor and manage the disaster recovery program for Hurricane Katrina. Michelle‘s skills were perfect for the position.

“And that’s how it started. As I got ingrained in the program and started meeting mayors, supervisors, county administrators and folks that were affected along the Gulf Coast… it seemed like a perfect fit.”

15 years later, Michelle is one of the best in the business. She first joined CDM Smith in 2010 and rejoined the firm in 2016 as the discipline leader for emergency and disaster management. She’s played a key role in disaster recovery across the nation, from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico to flooding in Chicago. After Hurricane Sandy caused devastating damage in 2012, she worked in New Jersey to rebuild the famous Seaside Heights Boardwalk before Memorial Day the following year, so that the news-making roller coaster could be removed from the ocean. She’s responsible for ensuring compliance during Emergency and Disaster Management program processes for clients on the administering of more than $230,724,830.39 of recovery funds in Louisiana, New Jersey, New York and South Carolina.

“Being able to go into communities and give back through knowledge and experience is so rewarding. I truly like being there right after a disaster happens: walking through and telling people what we can do, how we can help and making sure they know they’re not alone.”