MDOT presents The Extra Mile podcast.

(Will) Morning, everybody. Welcome into another edition of the MDOT Extra Mile podcast. We’ve got another great show today. As you’ll notice setup is a little different . We are on site at the headquarters the emergency operations center here for MEMA. My co-host is out today. He’s taking care of some business, but Paul will be back to join us next time for sure.

We got a great guest again with us today. We’ve got the director here for MEMA, Director Stephen McCraney. He is the executive director and was appointed here in January of 2021. Before assuming the role of executive director, he served as the deputy of the agency and the chief of staff since February of 2016. Served 28 years actually as lieutenant colonel in the Army and National Guard, over 35 years of experience in the criminal justice system, Mississippi Army Air National Guard, first responder and disaster management so quite the resume there, sir.

(Stephen McCraney) Thank you. Thank you.

(Will) I know a lot of that certainly contributes to your ability to have this role and be in this role. Tell us a little about your experience the background there.

(Stephen McCraney) Yeah. You know when I first came out of the military it was 1996. I joined when I was 19 years old and came out and decided I wanted to go back to college and one of the police chief actually from Hinds Community College saw me walking across campus and was in uniform and he said, “Hey. Do you want a job?”

(Will) Nice.

(Stephen McCraney) And that’s kind of the way it started. I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Well matter of fact we’ll pay for your school if you come to work here.” So, I was able to work there in that police department, went to the police academy out at Milota the state academy and started my really my responder career there, worked for the City of Raymond and did volunteer fire department as well. So, when you were off you got called back in to do things. And so, it’s just that was the first appetite of service, and the military did that to me as well. And that kind of gets in you and it sticks and that’s kind of the role I’ve been through over the last thirty something years.

(Will) That’s awesome. Where’d you grow up? Where are you from originally?

(Stephen McCraney) Originally from route two, box three seventy-four Edwards, Mississippi.

(Will) There you go.

(Stephen McCraney) So, I throw that in there you know Highway 22 the Old Queens Hill Grocery. I worked there in junior high stocking shelves and working on a farm. And that’s kind of one of those things that you get in stilled with you. You know grandfather and a few others said, “Don’t let the sun catch you in the bed at any point in time” and so you get up early and you do what you have to do. And I had a nice high school career at Central Hinds, played football, baseball, basketball. If they had a ball to it that’s what I loved to play and went to Mississippi College after that to do a little bit of sports.

(Will) I’m a lover of all things sports myself so very much appreciate that. Well as we’re getting into hurricane season here, we are recording this a little bit ahead of time so as this podcast gets released, we will be in the middle or the beginning of a full-on hurricane season. So, we know that it certainly a huge role and responsibility that you guys undertake. But for the people out there what else does MEMA do here? What are some responsibilities and tasks that you guys have to handle throughout the year?

(Stephen McCraney) Yeah. You know when we start at the very beginning if you want to look at it, we do a lot of preparedness. We have a section here in office Loretta Thorpe there and we teach emergency managers and other folks what to do, how to do it, how to run an operations center, how to do planning, how to get ready for those unknown events that come up in your life. And I can say that I have really four that are watermarks in my career.

One is Katrina. Who would have thought I heard my dad talk about previous storms that came but then I saw the boat on the Coast you know looking at the old hurricanes that came, but Katrina was one of those that really just formatted all my training everything that came in and you had to make new decisions every day because it was such a magnitude that the regular plans didn’t fit.

We did those plans because a C-130 dropped out of the sky in the state of Mississippi. Largest plan crash to date in the state of Mississippi. And then we had an oil spill. I didn’t ever think I was going to be working on an oil spill, but we were able to do that and then Covid hit. All those are events you have plans and you’ve done a lot of work for it but then again you have to adjust those plans. You’ve got to be ready to adjust those plans. So, I think that’s what we do in preparedness and other sections like that. We’re preparing people that it’s not a written script during a disaster.

(Will) Sure.

(Stephen McCraney) You must adjust, and you must do what needs to be done. So, that office does a great job. We also train our own staff here as well as those emergency managers and those responders out there in the community. We do education for newly elected officials to let them know what their roles are going to be.

(Will) Sure.

(Stephen McCraney) And what those emergency managers and first responders are going to need for them to do while they’re engaged in that response. So, it’s really a full circle. So, then we run into the response, the actual days before a known event like a hurricane or we know bad weather is coming, tornadoes. We work hand in hand with NOAA, the National Weather Service, with the hurricane center because we’re trying to predict it down to almost an hour. I mean that’s what people want to know. Can I go to school today? What time should I leave work early to get home? So, we do the best we can. Now Mother Nature has here vote in all those types of disasters, so the timing is we give them gauges in getting ready to respond there.

So, our response, we start contacting the locals, the emergency managers in all 82 counties in the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians which is in 14 counties. So, they have a bigger responsibility not just where their headquarters is or where people think that Neshoba County Fair the area right there that is their home base but it’s 14 other counties.

So, we run into a response, and we start talking to them early. We start pre-positioning supplies. We start pre-positioning search and rescue assets where we think that keep them out of harm’s way, but actually put them out there to be ready to respond as quickly as possible to assist. So, there’s a lot of prep that goes into that.

(Will) Sure.

(Stephen McCraney) And then the response happens and then you’re dealt the cards that you’re dealt. So, we move along from there. Once we get the response stabilized then we roll right into recovery. And that is any type of damage to individual homes, businesses, the public assistance side of what we do. We’re still working Katrina.

(Will) Oh wow! Really?

(Stephen McCraney) I’m on public assistance in the City of Biloxi right now so, that’s really the long-haul part of what we do that people might not realize. Mississippi currently has 20 federally declared disasters that are open that we are currently working on whether it’s in the recovery phase. And then right after that we look at the same time mitigation during recovery because we want to build things back harder. We want to build it back hardier where it will make it through another storm where we won’t have the cost of having to put it back together and things of that nature.
So, mitigation is that next piece that we do. We look at floodplains. A lot of people don’t realize that we actually help manage the floodplain and flood insurance the state of Mississippi along with the department of insurance Mike Chaney and his agency. We have our fingers in a lot of different things. And Covid was one of those the department of health and us we partnered up.

We do some things great and so do they and we combine those two powers. And I think Mississippi had a great response during Covid because of that. We just we unify. And our job is to coordinate. We coordinate every state agency that’s involved in the response to make sure their time in the space is where it needs to be. And along with department of transportation, oh my gosh, I just can’t say enough for them what they do to get the highways prepped, to get the signaling prepped on all the highways and things during hurricane season and then get them right back turned on.

(Will) That’s right.

(Stephen McCraney) And be able to clear those roads and that’s the first thing you got to do is clear the roads for the emergency traffic that comes along. You got to be able to get an ambulance down the street. You got to be able to get out there with a fire truck. So, it is a lot of things that go on not just well, “It’s sunny outside. Y’all aren’t doing anything.” Yes. Yes, we are. We are doing a lot. So, it’s a big chore but you take it one step at a time. Got a great staff here at MEMA. I can’t be more proud of them being here with them since 2016, worked with them since Hurricane Katrina from other agencies and other places. But that’s kind of in a nutshell kind of got our hands in a lot of stuff.

(Will) Never a dull moment. I know that you guys are constantly busy. I feel like that word unprecedented has been used so frequently the last few years here you know. I’m ready for a precedented situation to come up.

(Stephen McCraney) I’m ready for one that I’ve already scripted and written.

(Will) That’s right.

(Stephen McCraney) To happen not out of the norm so to speak. And something I really did forget to mention that people might not realize is we have a rep program which is our radiation preparedness program. We actually work hand in hand with Entergy at the for the nuclear station which is in Port Gibson. We develop a response for it as well as safety standards for it as well as any radiological waste that goes throughout the state. The DOT and us we work hand in hand, and we monitor those every mile, every foot that they drive in the state of Mississippi. We know when they’re here and we know when they leave and when they’re going on to the next destination.

(Will) I appreciate that very much so.

(Stephen McCraney) Absolutely.

(Will) How does the public kind of stay informed with you guys? How do y’ all outreach and how could individuals like myself or others stay in the loop when situations are emerging, info coming out of this place?

(Stephen McCraney) Yeah. We’ve got a great department that has grown, and we knew that we needed to grow it. When I first got here the external affairs division department works directly in with the executive and all the other offices in every phase that they’re in. We don’t just put out information just before a storm. We’re actually putting out information about recovery, about the training classes that are going on, etc.

And all the social media we just went to Instagram as well this week. But every social media outlet you can get msema.org is our website. And from there you can sign up and get alerts. We’re constantly improving that product because we want to serve Mississippi.

We want to, the mantra that I have for the agency is people, people, people. And that’s three huge groups. And the first is I’ve got to take care of the employees, that first group of people here and have MEMA train them. Get them ready to do the job that they want to do. And they make them capable. The next is eighty-three the counties and the band of Mississippi Choctaw Indians and then the citizens of the state of Mississippi which is huge trying to serve them and get them the information the things that they need because during a disaster that’s the worst day of their life.

(Will) Sure.

(Stephen McCraney) So, we’ve got to respond and make it better.

(Will) One a little out of the box question here. Do you guys have like a you know the tank bat mobile when you can go out for storms and you know just like bulldoze through stuff, you know?

(Stephen McCraney) You would think that we would, but we’re equipped with just about what everybody else has. I lose a lot of tires when I respond to disasters you know but we here’s the deal. We have standby contracts and we’re ready for that in case of vehicles go down. Because you have debris all over the road and we do have four-wheel drives.

During the ice storm I went to work came here every day. I had a lot of other individuals that came here every day, and we ran these operations and we traded out vehicles with the next shift to make sure that we were here doing what we needed to do and getting those supplies and things out that people needed. Get water supply to kidney dialysis units. You name it. There’s just so many things. If it's an emergency we’re involved in it. If it can’t be done, we’re involved in it, and we make it happen. And it’s something we’re very proud of.

(Will) Up to the task. Load the wagon and they will pull it.

(Stephen McCraney) That’s right. That’s it.

(Will) Contraflow. It’s something that really hasn’t I don’t know again knock-on wood hasn’t happened in my lifetime but it’s something to be aware of, right?

(Stephen McCraney) It is. It is. You know evacuations are a local call. And in Mississippi the emergency managers are very very diligent. We have refresher courses and we’ve done that this year with our partners, MDOT, with highway patrol. All those that are going to be involved in closing down the highway and making it all go north. And if you ever ride down 55 south then you’ll see the gates and you wonder like “Why is that gate in the middle in the median and there’s a road there?” Well, that’s contraflow.

(Will) You going to find out quick.

(Stephen McCraney) And going to find out very quickly that we’re going to push a lot of vehicles up and then people don’t realize that some of you don’t think about okay well how many people are now going to be in Hattiesburg? How many people are now going to be in I mean those populations grow by triple or quadruple for those cities and those towns to service those individuals. And then the medical calls on the way. I mean it’s a stressful environment.

You’ve got to be ready with EMS whether it’s UMC and they’re in their helipad. And then the helicopters that we can get out there because traffic is not moving fast. You’re not going to be able to pass somebody, so you’ve got to be ready for anything that’s going to happen on trying to get all those people out of the way.

And then if New Orleans makes a decision early enough in the state of Louisiana, we know we’re on the call open up that highway to get them to a safe place. And we also have conversations the governor’s office and the governor of Louisiana, both m-dots and then both on the emergency side and the governor’s office of homeland security emergency management.

We’re all in that conversation. Hey north is not the best way because the storm’s going to come through Louisiana and then through the north Mississippi. So, we don’t want to push them there so let’s go let’s go west or let’s go east. Go all the way through Florida. So, those conversations happen with those other EMA directors in Alabama. So, it’s not just a single event. It’s a coordinated event that none of us ever want to see happen.

(Will) I don’t realize how much goes into it but things like that I wouldn’t have even thought about you know but they’ve gotta go somewhere you know? Speaking from personal experience I was one for whatever reason not afraid of bad weather growing up and did not change that until I happened to be in college in Hattiesburg and the tornado came through and it literally almost sucked most of the roof off of our house. So, that’ll change one’s perspective pretty quick on getting ready. What should folks do to individually prepare and be ready for some events like this you know?

(Stephen McCraney) You know it’s if you think about in the wintertime, I mean I try to get people to be prepared for every season. And you can just have a little kit in your vehicle. You can always change out a case of water that’s in the back of your vehicle. Always have a blanket of some sort, flashlights, things of that nature. Always have some food to eat. Imagine getting stuck in traffic and you don’t move for six or seven hours.

Well, you can probably run to the woods and handle some problems but then again, you’re going to be in that vehicle with no food, no water, no nothing. I mean you’ve got a child with you. And now we look at the infant formula and what’s going on there. Gotta be prepared for a delayed travel time. We always say the first seventy-two hours in on the individual and that is

(Will) Mention that.

(Stephen McCraney) And that is what are the basics you need to make it for those seventy-two hours? And if you look at you know we both have a bottle of water sitting on the table in case we need it. A gallon a day minimum.

(Will) Okay.

(Stephen McCraney) Per person so that racks up pretty quick. So, when you think how many are in your home you need to take that into consideration. Also, we’ve been telling people during this time of year be ready and know what your neighbor’s going to do.

(Will) Sure.

(Stephen McCraney) Sometimes we come back from a disaster we evacuate out, we come back in, and we wonder where the neighbors are. We wonder where that elderly family is. We want to make sure that and they know where we are that we can contact them. And then when you’re coming back watch the news, watch the television and make sure it’s safe to come back at that time. You don’t want to come back in while the roads are still not clear. You’re trying to get to we’re not going to let you back in that area until we can get it safe for you. So, it’s a lot of different components there of when you look at preparing for, being able to ride out that storm and then be able to come back in safely.

(Will) And you touched on the 72 hours. If you kind of give us a little more info there. That’s dealing with kind of the federal declaration that you guys are you have to hold off until you kind of get that go ahead in some of those events, right?

(Stephen McCraney) Well, we have an opportunity with the governor that can issue a state of emergency and that turns on every asset that I have.

(Will) Okay.

(Stephen McCraney) So, if we look at a hurricane and we know it’s coming we’ll definitely do that upfront. And in that way that we can mobilize the state of Mississippi things. I can pay salaries for other state agencies overtime that’s going to absolutely come, the fuel the cost there of. And we ask for an emergency measures declaration through FEMA early on so they can reimburse us for that. Because you got to get everything in place to save all life and property that you can.

And it’s just not that for bigger events just not there all the time. For some of the other events we’re able to do an administrative order by the executive director of MEMA myself. And that position is authorized to say we have a need tornadoes come through we’re going to mobilize things and we’re going to go. And then evaluate whether or not we’re going to be able to reach the threshold which is about $5 million right now worth of damage per incident. It’s not like all over the summer I can keep adding things up. Each and every storm like our tornadoes that came through last March and April of this year each an individual storm is like Tuesday and Wednesday of every week we had tornadoes in the state. All of those are separate events. Some caused a large amount of damage some did not. So, we have two federally declared not declared declarations yet, but we’ve asked for that. So, that’s sitting in Washington right now. It’s waiting on FEMA headquarters and the president to review.

(Will) So, it’s not so much you guys holding up yeah, we’re mobilizing and moving out there as quick as possible. But most definitely still good advice on the 72 hours.

(Stephen McCraney) Absolutely. Absolutely.

(Will) Worse situation you have yourself taken care of there for a time. What about kind of the other side of the coin? Once an event happens what not to do? You know what are some things maybe you’ve seen people as soon as the storms over they run out or whatever it is you know?

(Stephen McCraney) Yeah. But I would say that one of our biggest issues problems is petroleum products. You know when you’re trying to run a generator that you probably haven’t really tested on your home.

(Will) True.

(Stephen McCraney) It’s not wired up to attach to your home because if you attach a generator to a home and try to run it through your fuse box you don’t have a switch that’s switched off. So, if you get pulses or the electricity is cut back on at the same time that’s going to be a bad event.

(Will) Sure.

(Stephen McCraney) Others have moved their generators inside their homes. That is not not not not good at all. We always tell them don’t even put it in the carport. Put that generator outside. Have plenty of air flow that goes around it because it’s going to get real hot. You’re going to try to replace the fuel that’s in it when you run out. And cut the generator off when you’re doing that. So, it’s just little small things that we take for granted electricity.

And it is a huge job for those guys to go back in and gals to actually lay those lines back down because they’re going over hills, down in hollows. They’re not all the electrical lines are right on the road. We think they are. But there’s a lot of big power feeds that are out there that it takes the track vehicles to go in and do that.

So, they anticipate that at least 72 hours. We are worried about life safety. That is where we are in the first 72 hours is making sure that we’ve gotten everybody out of harm’s way. We can get folks that maybe are on cancer treatment and other things that takes electrical power at their home. We’ve got to figure out battery packs. We’ve got to figure out those types of sources.

We’ve got some great partners private partners from private industry that really have stepped up and helped us in the past. Hey, look we’re going to put a charging station here or there and looking at those shelters where they can actually make that happen. So, it’s always when you think you’ve got it solved something else comes up.

(Will) That’s right. Sure. Two of the ones that you know this may be just a personal pet peeve or an actual situation that you guys see. I don’t know but like again my personal experience in Hattiesburg when the tornado came through the power lines were down. I was on the phone with my parents they’re checking on me. And I see what’s going on walked outside without thinking about it I was approaching a downed line.

And had there not been an angel an older gentleman that was standing across the street just said, “Hey, you know that power line’s still hot.” And I mean I was two feet from it, and I was like “Thank you, sir.” You know, you don’t I wasn’t in the moment. But those power lines just because they’re not up in the air or they may not appear to be on there’s a good chance there’s still power going through them.

And speaking of getting out and driving and seeing so much lighter side of things here. You spend a lot of time driving and traveling around the state and stopping in for bites to eat here and there. Do you have a local hole in the wall maybe around here or somewhere in the state that you just anytime you’re coming through the area man we got to get a bite here?

(Stephen McCraney) Yeah. You know I’ve been thinking about that and I’m one of those guys if I tell somebody else first seventy-two is on you. If you go and open up my back of my state vehicle that I drive in all over the state during the responses you’re going to find a cooler. It’s full of various water, Gatorade, etc. Also got a box of potato chips. I’ve got peanuts and I usually try to hit a truck stop or two to load up on sandwiches. So, I’m a sucker for a tuna fish sandwich from a truck stop and just you know one I’m prepared to make it through my time frame that I’ve given everybody else to do. But then again you want to also see what’s open what’s not.

(Will) Sure.

(Stephen McCraney) It gives me ground truth when I get out there and start responding at the local responders. I put my hand in the dirt, rub it, okay now I’ve got a true sense of what is needed and what’s going on. But fancy restaurants for me during response that doesn’t really exist. It’s just kind of to survival mode.

(Will) That’s fair. And what about non-emergency events. You know anytime you’re just you know maybe out and about traveling, running around. You got a favorite?

(Stephen McCraney) I’m a sucker for a great Mexican restaurant.

(Will) Okay.

(Stephen McCraney) I love it.

(Will) We religiously celebrate taco Tuesday every week in our household.

(Stephen McCraney) That’s it.

(Will) We’re huge fans. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, director. It’s been very informative. I think there’s a lot of good information. I know I’ve learned some things and I definitely need to update my prepared list at the house. We need to get some water and some things stocked up just in case.

But we’ll go ahead and wrap this up. So, thanks to all our listeners out there who are tuning in. If you want to subscribe or download these podcasts whatever podcasts are available wherever you get your podcast. As always thanks for joining us. We will be coming back to you guys shortly in a couple weeks. My co-host Paul will be back. And always remember drive safe on Mississippi roads.