Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / LED's Pierson on Economic Impact of the Louisiana Flood (Audio)

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LED's Pierson on Economic Impact of the Louisiana Flood (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: In to hear live breaking news over your Bloomberg Time
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  Speaker 1: That's a Bloomberg business flash you're listening to taking start
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  Speaker 1: with Fox on Bloomberg Radio. The flooding in Louisiana. It
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  Speaker 1: has killed nine people so far. Approximately forty thousand people
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  Speaker 1: are currently homeless, and a sixty thousand plus people have
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  Speaker 1: had to be rescued. Here to tell us more about
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  Speaker 1: the flooding and its effect on the economy of Louisiana
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  Speaker 1: and its rebuilding process is Don Pearson. He is Louisiana's
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  Speaker 1: Secretary of Economic Development. Don Pearson. I wish we had
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  Speaker 1: a better a reason for having you on, but I'm
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  Speaker 1: wondering if you could just tell us a little bit
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  Speaker 1: about what is happening in Louisiana, not only to the people,
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  Speaker 1: but to the businesses in the region. Hey, Pim and Kathleen,
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  Speaker 1: thank you for the opportunity to share that information today.
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  Speaker 1: You've correctly characterized it Uh, we have quite uh, quite
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  Speaker 1: an event to deal with here in Louisiana where some
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven parishes you would call them counties, have been
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  Speaker 1: impacted by just this very strange weather event, which was
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  Speaker 1: a forty eight hour lingering storm that brought between fifteen
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  Speaker 1: and thirty of water onto our impacted communities. Um. It's
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  Speaker 1: kind of a rural section of Louisiana that lies between
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  Speaker 1: Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Uh, there are some significant
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  Speaker 1: population centers because their bedroom communities out there, but our
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  Speaker 1: major metros are up and running. But we've certainly got
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  Speaker 1: a very significant search and rescue operation set of circumstances
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  Speaker 1: that are underway right now. Well, don of course, the
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  Speaker 1: the loss of life, the people who have been forced
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  Speaker 1: out of their homes. We've just heard a report here
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  Speaker 1: on Bloombrick News that's something like seventy eight percent of
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  Speaker 1: these homeowners don't have flood insurance. So the devastation is huge,
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  Speaker 1: and that's that's the thing I think that hurts the most. However,
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  Speaker 1: what about the economy of this area, what about the
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  Speaker 1: kind of businesses that are there, and how people's livelihoods
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  Speaker 1: may be affected, well, especially during this time of search
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  Speaker 1: and rescue and then clean up. Several great points to
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  Speaker 1: touch on there. We've been very active in reaching out
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  Speaker 1: to our industry partners, and what we're finding is that
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  Speaker 1: they've fared very well. The major industrial sites, the major
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  Speaker 1: economic driver companies are largely not impacted by this event.
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  Speaker 1: What's a little different here, and you're familiar with the
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  Speaker 1: Katrina or maybe a sandy where you get these high
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  Speaker 1: wind events that knock over trees and power lines and
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  Speaker 1: transmission lines and it gets very difficult, timely and complicated
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  Speaker 1: to restore power. With the flood situation, the water rises
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  Speaker 1: and blows up transformers and apparatus, and we come back
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  Speaker 1: up much more quickly. So they're really to our major
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  Speaker 1: industrial users and UH manufacturers are challenges more along the
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  Speaker 1: lines of workforce and UH. As you touched on these
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  Speaker 1: UH many thousands of people UH more than eight thousand
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  Speaker 1: and shelters right now, more than thirty four thousand customers
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  Speaker 1: that have no power at their residents are are largely
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  Speaker 1: what's being impacted here and UH are big part of
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  Speaker 1: our challenge going forward. Don I understand that the vegetable
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  Speaker 1: crops says well as dairy production, they're being affected by
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  Speaker 1: these by the flooding, You're absolutely correct. We're in the
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  Speaker 1: early stages of evaluating the UH impacts of flooding on
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  Speaker 1: the agricultural products and UH and certainly dairy is. Along
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  Speaker 1: those lines, we have hosted Administrator Fuget from the Federal
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  Speaker 1: um UH FEMA organization. His goal has always been to
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  Speaker 1: see us UH correctly and effectively and efficiently organized community,
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  Speaker 1: state and federal resources and situations like this. They've done
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  Speaker 1: a beautiful job of helping us achieve that. I think
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  Speaker 1: one of his organizational goals is a federal response within
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  Speaker 1: seventy two hours, and certainly we've seen clear evidence of
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  Speaker 1: that here. We've had the National Guard mobilized with more
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  Speaker 1: than thirty six hundred guardsmen that are joining forces with
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  Speaker 1: our wildlife and fisheries are our police from various localities
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  Speaker 1: coming into the impacted areas and joining with our state
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  Speaker 1: police force to UH to make as much organization possible
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  Speaker 1: on the ground to affect this important search and rescue
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  Speaker 1: opportunities will move from there into recovery with with FEMA
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  Speaker 1: and the SBA B and strong partners for us so
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  Speaker 1: don UH. Louisiana's recently plan a corn crop appears to
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  Speaker 1: be the biggest agricultural has a casualty from recent flooding.
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  Speaker 1: Is is this the kind of thing that farmers get
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  Speaker 1: hit by things all the time. Do you just say, oh,
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  Speaker 1: well this was a bad storm, bad luck, move on,
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  Speaker 1: or is there anything you change in the region from
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  Speaker 1: from this tragedy. Well, it is a good point you make,
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  Speaker 1: and I would want to clear understanding. Some of these
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  Speaker 1: people that have been uh lost everything because they took
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  Speaker 1: three or four foot of water in their house have
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  Speaker 1: been living in that house for thirty or forty years
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  Speaker 1: and it's never been threatened before. So uh, certainly you
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  Speaker 1: always want to get as much elevation as you can.
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  Speaker 1: We're in a state without a lot of topography, were
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  Speaker 1: for essentially flat, so when our drainage systems are smaller,
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  Speaker 1: rivers and tributaries back up, there's nowhere for the water
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  Speaker 1: to go, and it's stacks and when you get up
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  Speaker 1: to thirty inches of rain, very difficult circumstance. So we
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  Speaker 1: certainly will try to learn from the event. But certainly, uh,
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  Speaker 1: those that have been impacted, it's not like they built
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  Speaker 1: glued too close to the shoreline or or anything of
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  Speaker 1: that major. Well, Tom here's I'm so glad you point
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  Speaker 1: that out. Thank you so very much for joining US
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  Speaker 1: Secretary at Louisiana Economic Development, joining us from Baton Rouge.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Kathine Haze Lama, Pim Fox, and this is Bloomberg.
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