Brunswick County Commissioner appointed to national disaster task force
LELAND, NC (WWAY) — As wildfires continue to devastate the Los Angeles area, disaster response and relief are in the spotlight and a Cape Fear official will help lead potential reform.
Brunswick County Commissioner Frank Williams has been appointed to the newly formed National Association of Counties Intergovernmental Disaster Reform Task Force.
The task force was created in November to discuss and possibly present changes in how disasters are responded to at the federal level.
Brunswick County Commissioner Frank Williams was selected for the task force.
He said he plans to speak with residents and officials in the Cape Fear about how they were impacted by last year’s storms.
“People here who were affected by PTC 8, talk to towns and others and people just to get feedback on how their interaction with the federal government was,” Williams said. “Is there anything where they see a specific thing that may be needs to be changed.”
Williams said he also plans to talk with people in western North Carolina who were affected by Helene.
He said he hopes the task force can make the process of distributing funds to disaster victims more efficient.
“To me, we need to simplify it, streamline it, expedite how funds are delivered to the people they need to go. And then I think the fourth component is educate the people on the ground on what FEMA does and does not do, educate local officials on how to work with FEMA and also educate FEMA on how to work with local officials.”
Williams added that the task force is still gathering information and hopes they can make some important changes.
“We want to offer solutions and I don’t know what those will ultimately be. We’ve got a diverse group on the task force. We’ve got people from Louisiana, people from California. So there will be a lot of different input, but we want actionable ideas that can actually be implemented to hopefully make things better in the future than they were in the past.”
He added that any policies won’t be implemented until the Association’s national conference this summer.
