How Deanne Criswell blazed a trail from fighting fires to running FEMA

CNN
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Standing in entrance of a ruined warehouse in tornado-ravaged Marietta, Oklahoma, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was stuffed with questions.

“Have you ever gotten any sleep but?” she requested the mayor.

To the sheriff: “Your house is okay? Your loved ones?”

“Do you’ve gotten any questions for me?” she prompted one other official.

It’s a method emblematic of Criswell’s perspective towards catastrophe aid: On the bottom on this small rural neighborhood following a devastating EF-4 twister, her first precedence is the individuals.

After a wave of deadly tornados struck Oklahoma, CNN joined Criswell for an unique behind-the-scenes take a look at how she and her company method pure disasters.

Her message to officers is simple: “You don’t have to do that alone.”

The response from native leaders and survivors alike is uniformly one in all gratitude that the nation’s high emergency response official got here to their city to see the injury and listen to their tales firsthand.

However Criswell shrugged off the reward and thanks.

“That is what I do,” she mentioned.

Lengthy earlier than she turned the administrator of the Federal Emergency Administration Company, Criswell obtained her begin as a firefighter in Aurora, Colorado — simply the sixth girl to carry that job.

“I by no means thought I used to be going to be a firefighter,” she informed CNN in an interview. “That wasn’t on my listing of issues to do.”

On the time, Criswell was going by a divorce and — juggling faculty tuition with being a single mom to 2 sons — determined to affix the Colorado Air Nationwide Guard to assist make ends meet. Given a alternative between loading bombs or preventing fires, she selected the latter.

“The firefighters had been having loads of enjoyable and I mentioned, ‘I’ll give {that a} shot,’” she mentioned with a smile. “I beloved it, I used to be good at it, and I mentioned, ‘I’m going to come back again and that is the job that I’m going to do.’”

It’s a job Criswell would do for greater than twenty years, together with two abroad deployments to Kuwait and Qatar after 9/11. Alongside the best way, she graduated from faculty, earned two grasp’s levels, and ultimately rose to steer Aurora’s workplace of emergency administration, the place she labored to deal with evacuees and reunify households displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

She joined FEMA in the course of the Obama administration, serving to to supervise the company’s response to pure disasters throughout the nation. In 2019, she turned the primary girl to steer New York Metropolis’s Emergency Administration Division, the place — lower than a 12 months into the job — she helped navigate town by the darkest days of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, as FEMA’s high official, Criswell hopes her unorthodox profession path will encourage others to grab alternatives and take skilled dangers.

“You’ve to have the ability to permit the journey to assist information you alongside the best way,” she mentioned. “Have the boldness in your self, take the private danger if needed, and simply do the work to get to the extent that you simply wish to get to.”

When Criswell was unanimously confirmed as FEMA’s twelfth administrator — turning into the primary girl to carry that place — shattering a glass ceiling wasn’t at entrance of thoughts.

“Once I first was requested to come back in and do that job, I didn’t actually give it some thought,” she admittted.

That modified in her first week on the job.

“One in every of my youthful feminine workers had come as much as me after a gathering and he or she mentioned, ‘You realize, a 12 months in the past, there have been zero ladies in my chain of command between me and the president of america,’” Criswell mentioned. “’Now there are 5.’ And so what it informed me is, individuals discover, proper?”

Criswell is aware of from expertise the obstacles ladies can face in her line of labor.

“As I used to be developing in my profession, it was all the time a steadiness between demonstrating your confidence and your competence with being known as the ‘B phrase,’” she mentioned, acknowledging that time period was directed at her “many instances” over her profession.

“You must consider in your self that you simply deserve a seat at that desk, that you simply deserve your voice to be heard,” she mentioned.

Now that she’s a girl in a serious management position within the federal authorities, Criswell makes use of her place to assist elevate the voices of the ladies beneath her.

“I like to observe how ladies are both voicing their opinions, or I can perhaps sense in the event that they’re afraid to voice their opinions and assist encourage them,” she informed CNN. “And when someone says one thing, I’ll instantly step in and say, ‘nicely, that’s a very wonderful concept,’ proper? In giving that validation on the time, I believe it’s vital, particularly because the chief within the room, to all the time be observant concerning the dynamics of what’s taking place inside that dialog.”

That dynamic is already beginning to change — Criswell’s first assembly in Oklahoma, with state emergency administration leaders and regional FEMA officers, was led completely by ladies.

In three years as administrator, Criswell has logged greater than 100,000 miles of journey, visiting catastrophe zones in each nook of america.

Criswell mentioned seeing the devastation firsthand is critically vital to the selections she makes when figuring out FEMA’s response.

“It helps me eliminate the purple tape,” she mentioned. “It helps me break down paperwork to be able to make sure that it’s greater than numbers — it’s individuals.”

Criswell emphasizes the significance of taking the time to listen to immediately from victims. In any other case, she mentioned, “you’ll be able to’t really feel that emotion, you’ll be able to’t really feel the heartache.”

It additionally permits her to get face time with officers at each degree. In Oklahoma, Criswell made some extent of assembly with first responders, native leaders, state emergency administration officers, and representatives from affected tribal nations.

Criswell is aware of that catastrophe aid transcends social gathering, an method that has earned her respect and appreciation from throughout the political spectrum.

“When there’s a catastrophe and there’s individuals in want, we’re all People,” Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt informed CNN shortly after showing with Criswell at a information convention. “And that’s, I believe, the administrator’s perspective. These are federal companies that now we have to work with no matter who’s within the White Home.”

Criswell agrees.

“This type of a partnership, that is completely crucial to ensure we deliver the appropriate individuals into these communities to assist with their particular wants,” she mentioned.

Shaking the governor’s hand, she added, “We will probably be in contact – you’ve gotten my quantity.”

At FEMA headquarters in Washington, DC, the company’s motto is prominently displayed on the wall: “Serving to individuals earlier than, throughout, and after disasters.”

It’s a mission assertion Criswell has taken to coronary heart. Coming into the job, she mentioned, “I needed to ensure that we put individuals first.”

As a former metropolis emergency administration director, Criswell knew all-too-well FEMA’s repute for bureaucratic purple tape and convoluted aid applications that made it more durable to get assist to individuals who wanted it.

“We’re an company that offers with danger day-after-day – that’s the character of what we do, but in relation to our insurance policies, we are able to generally be a bit bit extra danger averse,” she says. “I needed to get away from that. I needed us to essentially perceive what it meant to place individuals first.”

Her resolution was to pay attention.

“I went to totally different open disasters and listened to our individuals, listened to governors, listened to precise people who had been impacted about what their limitations had been,” Criswell mentioned. “After which we had been in a position to handle these by making adjustments.”

The outcome was the most sweeping reforms to the FEMA’s catastrophe help applications in twenty years.

The adjustments, which went into impact in March, embrace:

Criswell believes the adjustments will probably be transformational and make it simpler for FEMA to have a direct influence on the bottom.

“We will really assist individuals on their street to restoration in a manner that is smart,” she mentioned, “as an alternative of being so restricted by a number of the rules that now we have.”

That target serving to individuals extends to her workers as nicely. Recognizing the toll that responding to a seemingly limitless stream of pure disasters can have on her crew’s psychological well being, Criswell applied a “wellness room” simply exterior FEMA HQ’s nerve middle — full with comfy chairs and a soothing livestream of birds at a feeder.

“It is a spot the place they will come take a timeout,” she mentioned. “We now have to have the ability to put money into our workers and now we have to have the ability to give them, not simply the assist, however the permission to acknowledge once they want a break.”

‘Grandma Cookie’

To her workers, she’s “Administrator Criswell.” However to her household, she’s recognized by a distinct title.

“I’m affectionately often called ‘Grandma Cookie,’” she admitted

Regardless of a profession full of demanding jobs, Criswell has by no means overlooked her different job: that of a mother to 2 grown sons and grandmother of three.

It hasn’t come with out sacrifices, between a number of deployments and fixed journey to totally different catastrophe zones. However when Criswell appeared earlier than Congress for her affirmation listening to, her sons had been by her aspect.

“Once they had been with me that day and you might see how proud they had been and the way profitable they’ve each turn into,” she mentioned, “it actually simply gave me a very heat feeling as a mom.”