Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces New York State Citizen Preparedness Corps Training to Resume Ahead of National Preparedness Month in September

Earlier today, following a hurricane preparedness briefing with Long Island officials, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the New York State Citizen Preparedness Corps initiative will resume offering its training courses later this month ahead of National Preparedness Month in September. Established in 2014, the Citizen Preparedness Corps has provided nearly 350,000 New Yorkers with the training and resources necessary for not only preparing for any type of disaster, but how to respond and recover as well. Trainings paused in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good afternoon. First of all, I want to thank Farmingdale State College for welcoming me back. Feels like my 10th or 20th time, but President John Nader said I've been here many times, and he seems always happy when I show up. There's usually some good news, right? Thank you for accommodating us today.

And also, our County Executive, Steve Bellone, who I'm with every other day. But thank you for your leadership, and we look forward to your remarks to talk about the convening, the important convening of individuals that we just held.

Also, Commissioner Jackie Bray, our Commissioner of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, who has become indispensable as part of my team. We had a lot of time together to deal with massive storms during the winter season, and now we're just talking about how to prepared for what could possibly occur this year.

Also, I need you to get to know Kathryn Garcia, who's an extraordinary public servant who has many years of experience dealing with crises. All levels - She's our State Operations Director as well.

Kevin Thomas and John Brooks from our Senate, thank you for participating in an important conversation on behalf of your constituents. Tom Donnelly joined us as well, our County Legislator. Also representatives from LIPA, we wanted to have you in person here, and also representatives from PSE&G, as well as many state agency members and local emergency personnel. So, I thank them for being part of this conversation.

I was just here. We just had our inaugural ride on the first section of the LIRR Main Line Third Track. I don't think I came here once in the last decade without people saying, "Why - when are we getting that done?" So, a major milestone in the next month, and the month following. So, I was just here a short time ago.

I'm also here just to say New Yorkers have been through a lot. Overall, we've battled a lot of climate events, pandemics, and it's just been almost unrelenting. And my number one job as your Governor for almost a year is to protect the wellbeing, the safety, the health of New Yorkers. And that is why on an unexpected day for most, a beautiful Friday, on this gorgeous day here, not far from our beautiful beaches that we're so proud of, we convened members of a seasoned team of individuals, professionals, and utilities and others, elected officials, before any rain falls, before the forecasts start coming, before we start paying attention to our news flash.

We're talking about how we will be prepared to respond to worst-case scenarios when it comes to weather because it's all about being prepared. Don't take my words for it. Take the words of the author of Poor Richard's Almanack, "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." According to Benjamin Franklin. So, we are in traditional hurricane season right now, but historically the hardest-hit storms that, you know, we've now had a decade or so of experience, tend to occur later August, September, October, sometimes November. So, Long Islanders know this is a vulnerable time of year, despite the beautiful weather that we're experiencing on this Friday. Super Storm Sandy, a decade ago, we'll be talking about various ways to commemorate that occasion. Not in a happy way, but in a way of reflection. And that took the lives of New Yorkers - 53, including 13 Long Islanders. Families still grieving a decade later, never forgetting. Knocked the power out of over two million homes, one million on Long Island alone. And the devastation could never be overstated.

Homes, lives, livelihoods, businesses destroyed, and so many were forced to evacuate and find that they came back and lost everything. And it was so powerful, this storm, that literally submerged entire communities in a way that ground Long Island and New York City to a halt. But as is part of our DNA, we fight through it, we persevere and we recover. And today we're still rebuilding. We've had an extraordinary amount of projects to deal with building up the resiliency. I've been to Long Island many times to talk about our shoreline resiliency projects. I'm hopeful that we pass a $4.2 billion bond act in the fall, which will give us more money to respond to the effects of climate because as I've said many times, we're the first generation to truly feel the effects of climate change. And we are the last generation to do anything about it.

So again, reflecting on the last few years, we've had Tropical Storm Isaias touch down on Long Island on August 4th. Peak power outages, almost a million, one New Yorker killed. We've had other storms, Elsa, last July, 35,000 outages. And most recently, Hurricane Ida that I was literally on the job less than a week for. We had peak power outages in over 15,000 homes and we lost 16 New Yorkers, many of whom were drowned in their homes. And I went to their neighborhoods, not one day, not two days, but three days, literally in the infancy of my administration. I walked those streets. I saw the effects. I'll never forget the faces of people who just saw everything just washed away. Many of them were immigrants. Did not know how they were going to rebuild. People - I heard the stories of people who literally had to break windows to try and escape the rising water in their homes. It was terrifying. And never again do I ever want to witness the pain that the New Yorkers, our residents, our neighbors had to experience because they could not withstand the record rain that fell from the heavens over that period of time.

So, as we say here on Long Island, we know what it's all about. And especially our coastal communities that have been pummeled by extreme weather in the past. No part of our state is immune. These so-called 100-year events - just drop that name, it doesn't even. I was up on Lake Ontario as Lieutenant Governor talking about flood waters that were just never-ending. And they said, "Well, this is a 100-year storm," back in 2017. Okay, we're good for now. I said two years later, it was even worse. Same marina, same homes, same communities flooded out. And I said, "They owe us 98 years somewhere. Something bad happened here." So, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, blizzards, everything short of locus, it keeps happening. And as you saw in the cover of Newsday today, droughts. Droughts. Why not? And the federal government upgraded the South Shore Long Island droughts debt as too severe. And the recent rains we've had were not enough. Didn't address the dry conditions that have persevered and persisted over this past year.

So, we are asking Long Islanders to do their part. You've been asked. I'm going to repeat it as your Governor, who's concerned about your wellbeing, and the well-being of our local economy and our watershed. Let's reduce outdoor water use. We can all do this. We all love green grass, but there's always next year. Only water lawns when really necessary, reuse water that you can collect in barrels. Raise lawnmower to higher, doesn't always have to be this short. You can raise up the mower cutting levels as well. And you know, just simple things like not having to hose down a sidewalk, use a broom for God's sakes. You can do this, and fix all the leaky pipes. So, there are a lot of things you can do as an individual. Collectively, it makes a difference. All your neighbors, all of our communities, we do this, just pull through a short time, and we'll just look back and say, "Yeah, we got through as we're okay." We didn't really have to ration water. If you want to find out how bad it can get, turn on the evening news and look out west. It's heartbreaking, what they're experiencing. Their water sources drying up, literally, lakes that had been feeding the irrigation and the homes out there. They're gone. They're just empty. So, we're not in that stage, but let's take some steps. And also, something we've not had to see as much of, compared out west, but that is right now the entire state is in a high risk for fires right now, every corner. Hudson Valley actually is at a very high risk, and outdoor fires can spread quickly, especially if the wind picks up.

And so, we need to be vigilant and attack fires while they're small and be smart about it. We have six active fires across the state, actively burning 47 acres. Most of them started by unattended campfires. Now, we all love to camp. I grew up camping, but that's a shame that we lost beautiful land because of people's negligence. I'll just paint this picture, not to bring you all down on this day, which I feel like I'm doing, but we are experiencing an unprecedented rise in extreme weather. Statement of fact, period, stop. It's what's going on, and that has real ramifications on people's lives and their livelihoods.

So, here's what we have to do. We have to get serious about it now, right now, on a day like today. So, we're preparing for the worst and hoping for the best, but hope isn't a strategy, okay? We have to be ready for everything. And so, that responsibility falls on the shoulders of elected officials. We know that. We've worked through this before. Our first responders, our trained professionals, our volunteer and professional firefighters, and everybody else, and also yes, our utility companies. And that's why today, we just left a very serious convening of people. First of all, I wanted to deepen relationships, because I know it's important for people, as I mentioned when I walked in the room, I said, "When you're in a war, you want to know the people in the foxhole with you." So, our administration's still fairly new. I wanted to see the faces of the people who will be answering those calls, who will be helping direct operations with the leadership of our local partners here in Nassau County. So, we're ready. I just wanted people to have that confidence, that we're already talking about what could happen and how we deal with it. And that's why this was so important. Everybody has to work together because we have a public that we all collectively represent, that needs to be engaged and informed in a better way than has always happened in the past.

And I believe, especially when it comes to our utilities, yes, there's a responsibility to clean up after the storm and bring people to safety and get the medical attention, and that's one of the reasons I'm making sure that our National Guard, New York State National Guard, every one of them will be trained as an EMT. Never before, but I said, "I need more people who can take care of someone who needs medical attention on the ground." So, that is occurring right now. But in addition to that, we take care of people's health, get them out of danger, but if the lights don't come on, the power doesn't come on, life doesn't go on. That's the reality. Now, a few hours of inconvenience a day, but days turn into nights, turn into weeks, and all of a sudden we're in a disastrous situation. I'm here to say, that can't happen. That can't happen. So, it's critical that LIPA and PSE&G deliver for Long Islanders what they do every time. It's their job, they do it every day, but especially in a crisis. And that's why I came here in person to convey that directly, and I need to know that when a storm hits that you have the manpower, the womanpower, to get the job done, to bring the resources, to have a strategy, a game plan. I understand that Mother Nature can just turn on a dime and say, "No, I'm going to Rhode Island instead." And I'm going to say, "Good." Just like it happened this time last year, but I can't always count on that. That's not a strategy. And I need to know that because as of now, we are experienced. A decade ago, kind of new to New York, dealing with hurricanes. Last year, we had more hurricanes than the entire State of Florida right here in the State of New York. So, we have no excuses. We have the experience, though. We've tested our systems. We know it fails. We know it works. And the earlier we have intelligence about what's actually going to happen is really important. So, as part of this leader's background, she's the former Chief of Staff of the National Weather Service in Washington. I have a strong feeling that she's going to be able to make the phone calls, at a time when we're looking for that early intelligence that can help guide the right response to the right place.

And so, but more than that, we have to make sure that we are ready to address anything, and that the utilities can bring equipment from other parts of the state. And I don't ever want to be in a situation where I say, "We saw this coming. You saw this coming. There were resources left in other parts of the state or in other states that were not needed at the time, and they should have been here sooner." That is a conversation I'm having today, on this beautiful day, saying "I don't want to have it when the reality possibly hits." I want to be very clear on that. And so, we're going to continue communicating regularly, with transparency to Long Islanders who need service. We'll need restoration if this happens and I've directed the Department of Public Service to watch everybody like a hawk.

They're up for it, they're doing it right, Gary? Okay. We're on this. Eyes on. Our vulnerable season is now. There will come a time when you don't have to do as much. Well then, we'll have winter ice storms, but we'll get to that later. We might get a month where we don't have to be on as much. In fact, just stay on top of it. But because I'm focused on results - I need results, never excuses. Never. Excuses will never be good enough for me. So, we demand and deserve a utility system that's responsible, reliable, that information is out there, and that's what we expect. Because I don't expect Mother Nature to wait another century again to unleash her anger on all of us. Don't know what we've done wrong, but it's been rough. It's been rough. So, I'm not waiting another day to prepare for our response.

So, I want to thank everyone who gathered today and came in to have a conversation that was important to have, so I can convey my expectations as the Governor of the State of New York and to also reassure the public that we have a team that knows how to do this, and we're ready.

We're ready on this beautiful day. We'll be ready when the rain starts falling, when the rains start swirling. Whatever happens, we've got this. We have to reassure the public that everything has been done that possibly could be done in advance of a situation that we hope never happens.