[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY'S RESPONSE TO THE 2008 HURRICANE
SEASON AND THE NATIONAL HOUSING STRATEGY
=======================================================================
(110-172)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
----------
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
JERROLD NADLER, New York VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
CORRINE BROWN, Florida STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
BOB FILNER, California FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas JERRY MORAN, Kansas
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi GARY G. MILLER, California
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa Carolina
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
RICK LARSEN, Washington SAM GRAVES, Missouri
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York Virginia
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois TED POE, Texas
NICK LAMPSON, Texas DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa York
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina Louisiana
MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
JOHN J. HALL, New York MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
JERRY McNERNEY, California
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
(ii)
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
Management
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine SAM GRAVES, Missouri
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Virginia
Pennsylvania, Vice Chair CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee York
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota JOHN L. MICA, Florida
(Ex Officio) (Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Becker, Joseph, Senior Vice President of Preparedness and
Response, American Red Cross................................... 38
Fagnoni, Cynthia, Managing Director of Education, Workforce, and
Income Security Issues, Government Accountability Office....... 38
Johnson, Admiral Harvey, Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating
Officer, Federal Emergency Management Agency................... 20
Nagin, Hon. C. Ray, Mayor, City of New Orleans, Louisiana........ 4
PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Graves, Hon. Sam, of Missouri.................................... 52
Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia......... 60
Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................ 62
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Becker, Joseph................................................... 64
Fagnoni, Cynthia................................................. 69
Johnson, Admiral Harvey.......................................... 139
Nagin, Hon. C. Ray............................................... 158
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
HEARING ON FEMA'S RESPONSE TO THE 2008 HURRICANE SEASON AND THE
NATIONAL HOUSING STRATEGY
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and
Emergency Management,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:07 p.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eleanor Holmes
Norton [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Ms. Norton. We are pleased to welcome all of you today to
our hearing, especially our witnesses, on FEMA's response to
the 2008 season and on the National Disaster Housing Strategy.
This year's hurricane season has been unusually active and
once again has had dramatic impact on America's Gulf Coast
region. The President has declared 13 disasters or emergencies
under the Stafford Act hurricanes and tropical storms in the
2008 season, however, including Tropical Storms Edouard and
Fay, and Hurricanes Bertha, Dolly, Gustav and Ike. More than 2
million people were evacuated in the wake of Hurricanes Ike and
Gustav. American people must be assured in the midst of yet
another powerful hurricane season that the country is prepared
for seasonal and terrorist events alike and that FEMA has
developed a coherent housing strategy for addressing the
inevitable aftermath of large scale disasters.
We can make no final judgment until all the evidence is in,
but the Federal, State and local authorities appear to have
done a credible job in evacuating citizens away from hurricane
danger.
At the same time, despite improvements from 3 years ago, a
number of problems may remain, such as emerging complaints that
New Orleans' poorest residents were transported on buses with
no announced destination and warehousing and crowded and
substandard conditions. If so, we fear that the next time many
residents may choose to remain in place as they did during
Hurricane Katrina.
I spoke with FEMA Administrator David Paulison as the
evacuation was beginning. His assurance concerning complete
evacuation materialized, but he also spoke of specific
destinations and prepositioned supplies that complaints from
Louisiana now call into question.
To address the issues of accountability that were on stark
display during the Katrina response, Congress passed out Post-
Katrina Emergency Reform Act 2006, which described directives
that were necessary to prepare for the next disaster. Among the
most important was a mandate to FEMA to submit a report to
Congress describing the National Disaster Housing Strategy.
In response FEMA drafted a housing strategy and requested
public comment on July 24th, 2008. In anticipation of this
hearing, which was previously postponed at FEMA's request, I
appreciate that FEMA extended the comment period on this
important policy so that comments from today's hearing could be
included on the public record.
The Post-Katrina Act requires the FEMA Administrator to
ensure that a new National Disaster Housing Strategy provides a
comprehensive approach to housing victims of a disaster for the
immediate and for the long term as needed, consistent with the
Administrator's role as the principal emergency management
adviser to the President.
In reviewing and analyzing the National Disaster Housing
Strategy, today's hearing will help the Subcommittee understand
the strategic strengths and weaknesses within the context of
the Post-Katrina Management Reform Act. The aftermath of
Hurricanes Gustav and Ike also should help us gauge the
effectiveness of the Post-Katrina Management Reform Act and of
FEMA's first significant test under the act.
We especially appreciate testimony we will receive today
from Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans about the most recent
responses after Gustav and Ike came ashore, the evacuation, the
ability of FEMA, the city and State to provide the needed
assistance and progress in New Orleans since Katrina. It will
be important to hear of improvements that the City of New
Orleans, the State of Louisiana and FEMA have made in
responding to these hurricanes, but equally important is
testimony concerning other important elements of preparation
and response, including planning and consultation among the
authorities that were involved, as well as the remaining
challenges that they see.
As we focus on the condition of citizens after the storm,
this Subcommittee also is particularly concerned about the role
and responsibilities of the American Red Cross, a
congressionally chartered organization which has major
assistance roles to play in recovery from disasters.
A recent GAO report found that the Red Cross and other
disaster relief charities such as the Salvation Army and the
United Way of America are unprepared to meet mass casualty
needs in the aftermath of a major disaster. We have called both
GAO and the Red Cross to testify today in light of the GAO's
finding that a large scale disaster could overwhelm the Red
Cross and other charities that have Federal responsibilities
for assisting the government and providing assistance to
victims of disasters.
In the aftermath of the devastation of Katrina, we must
look at issues differently and more broadly and take the
required action. If the Red Cross is expected to play a role in
recovery from major disasters, we must work with FEMA to define
the function that the Red Cross and other relief charities
realistically can perform to supplement the Federal
Government's role.
We look forward to hearing from today's distinguished
witnesses and thank them in advance for preparing testimony.
I am pleased to ask the Ranking Member, Mr. Graves, if he
has a statement at this time.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chair. If it is all right, I
would like to yield to Representative Mica, who is Ranking
Member of the overall Committee.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Well, thank you for conducting this hearing
today. I won't be able to stay for the entire hearing, but I
use my opening statement to raise a number of issues. As you
know, my area has been hit with hurricanes, floods, tornadoes,
fires. I think we have had everything but locusts and we are
working on a plan to possibly deal with that.
So we have had a little bit of experience with FEMA and
some of the FEMA witnesses I see here. These will be my
questions. In fact I want some written responses from FEMA on a
couple of these issues.
One of the things we found dating back to our hurricanes is
we have multiple FEMA officials coming in, I guess like in
Katrina or all the different hurricanes that we had. We had
three in my district. We had different officials come in and I
think it was well intended, they came in and gave direction to
local officials. Those preliminary officials were changed out
with other officials who came in and made other decisions and
interpretations of rules, regulations and all of the above.
Then we had, as time progressed and the agency changed
their personnel out, we had other people coming in and giving
us other opinions, suggestions, recommendations and edicts,
sometimes countermanding the previous two. In some instances we
are now on our fourth set of officials, giving the fourth
interpretation of whatever opinion we were seeking. So this is
something we are going to have to work on to do better.
The other thing is multiple audits. Congress created this
as a result of Katrina, but--and we don't want fraud, we don't
want waste, we don't want abuse, but we have got audits upon
audits and agency upon agency involved in this process. Somehow
we need to get this straightened out. In fact, I have got
auditors down in my district still auditing from other audits.
So that is number 2 and I would like a little response on that.
Number 3, the debris removal problem related to public
versus private land. In many instances you couldn't get to
public land unless you went across private land. Somehow we
have got to figure out a better way for reimbursement and
better definition of who gets reimbursed in what situations,
because now we are running around in circles chasing our tails
on reimbursement, public versus private land.
Travel trailer loans and transfers, that requires some
Stafford Act amendments, still a disaster. We will even take
them with the formaldehyde. Just what people need in a
disaster. I have had six attorneys on the phone during a crises
trying to get 150 trailers on an emergency basis while FEMA is
paying rent on them down the street in a lot and couldn't--it
just makes absolutely still no sense, but that oneis under
Congress, so chalk that one up.
Finally, the grant approval time frames need expediting,
and that I guess is somewhat in our corner, too.
Madam Chairwoman, I just wanted to add my two cents to this
and hopefully at least on the first three we can get some
response from FEMA in writing after this hearing or verbally
transmitted to the Committee. Thank you for the hearing, and I
yield back.
Ms. Norton. Well, thank you, Mr. Mica. Mr. Graves, do you
have anything to say at this point?
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I will just
submit my entire statement for the record. But I would like to
asked Admiral Johnson, if you would, please convey to Chief
Paulison and all the folks at FEMA how much we appreciate your
dedication and hard work. We know this is a work in progress,
the post-Katrina reforms. We have got a lot of ground to cover
yet before we get there, but I would appreciate you doing that.
Madam Chair, I will submit my entire statement for the
record so we can move on with the hearing.
Ms. Norton. Could I ask Mr. Arcuri if he has any statement.
Mr. Arcuri. No questions.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. I would like to call our
first witness. I am very pleased to welcome the Honorable Ray
Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans. The mayor knows we have been
trying to get down there. We discovered the first time we tried
that because Katrina decided to arrive as Labor Day approached,
you couldn't get anyone to go with you, and therefore every
anniversary we are plagued with the same issue. And I am
delighted to welcome you so we could get your progress report,
this time apparently not only on Katrina and what has happened
since then, but the fact that you have been subjected to yet
other hurricanes since. So we pleased to have your testimony at
this time.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. C. RAY NAGIN, MAYOR, CITY OF NEW ORLEANS,
LOUISIANA
Mr. Nagin. Thank you to Chairwoman Eleanor Holmes Norton,
to Ranking Member Sam Graves of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings and Emergency Management and to all distinguished
Members of the Committee, panel and guests. I am C. Ray Nagin,
Mayor of the City of New Orleans.
Our great city is facing the challenge of rebuilding after
2005 Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural and man-made disaster
to occur in the United States of America. We also had the
challenge of dealing with Hurricane Rita right behind that one.
We were threatened and touched by two more devastating
hurricanes this season that recently hit the Gulf Coast region.
Those were Hurricane Gustav and recently Hurricane Ike.
I have submitted my testimony to this Committee. I would
like to briefly touch on a couple of different areas. First is
to update you on 2008 and what happened this year as relates to
FEMA: talk to you a little bit about our updated plans; our
city assisted evacuation plan; and talk to you about a need for
a national evacuation plan and sheltering proposal. I will
touch on FEMA and supplies and some issues that we saw this
past season. I will touch on hurricane protection and some of
the things we are working on: housing, trailers and a few
Stafford Act revisions. Hopefully I will do that in a short
period of time.
Hurricane Gustav posed a serious threat to New Orleans as
it approached the coast of Louisiana. We are fortunate that
although parts of our city had damage and our electrical power
infrastructure received a temporary crippling blow, the
partially restored 100-year flood and levee protection system
in the city held and we were spared the widespread destruction
that the other areas of our State experienced.
America's investment in the levee protection system in New
Orleans seems to be paying off. We just need to pick up the
pace and finish that great work and get to the 100-year flood
protection.
My prayers go out to the people of other parts of Louisiana
and our neighboring State, Texas, who felt the brunt of two
devastating storms, Gustav and Ike. I personally visited
Terrebonne Parish and other parishes around our State and we
have offered our assistance there. I have also spoken to the
leadership in Houston and Galveston and have committed to doing
anything that my city can do to help them in their response and
recovery.
It is my hope and prayer that they will not encounter
difficulties that we experienced during the past 3 years in
accessing assistance from Federal agencies charged with
supporting response and recovery. However, based upon my
preliminary conversations with leaders in this area, they are
still having some of the same experiences even though things
have gotten somewhat better.
We appreciate all that Congress has done to support us, and
we urge you to continue to work to implement changes that will
be valuable to us and all communities preparing for emergencies
and rebuilding their homes and lives.
Let me briefly touch upon our city assisted plan that we
have been practicing for 2-1/2 years. We have a plan that is
called our City Assisted Evacuation Plan, a comprehensive plan
to evacuate citizens who cannot leave on their own because of
financial, medical or other reasons. This plan utilizes city
buses to pick up residents from 17 designated pickup locations
throughout the city and transfer them to a central location for
processing, the Union Passenger Terminal. At the Union
Passenger Terminal those residents are then transported by
buses contracted by the State of Louisiana, Amtrak trains and
airplanes contracted through the Department of Defense to
shelters in northern Louisiana. And as the Chairlady mentioned
earlier, there were significant problems with some of the
shelters in northern Louisiana as far as where they were set
up, how they were set up and what types of services were
provided. We got many complaints.
Fortunately, using this process we evacuated approximately
18,000 of our residents who were our most vulnerable citizens
to safety. Our capacity for this process is around 30,000
citizens that can be processed effectively. Combined with those
who use their own means of transportation, every resident who
heeded our warning was able to leave this time.
The New Orleans Police Department did a great job, and
their estimates are there were only 5,000 to 10,000 people
remaining in the City of New Orleans. That is an evacuation of
97.5 percent of all of our citizens. During Katrina we thought
we had done a pretty good job, but we only got out 90 percent
of our citizens. So we just about got everybody out of our
city. We were part of a much larger evacuation of 1.9 million
citizens.
As we move forward there are many things that we can
improve upon, but we have seen some improvements already. I
would like to make a couple of points. First, I would suggest
to this Committee that we need a national plan for regional
evacuations that use assets such as Amtrak and airplanes for
transportation. We found in this latest example with Gustav
that that was the most efficient way that we could get people
in and out of our city. And we did something that I didn't
think was possible: we emptied our city out and repopulated it
in about 4 days. And if we had had power we probably could have
done it a little bit more quickly on the back-end side.
We also suggest to you that we need to have a Federal
sheltering plan in place. Really the sheltering problem that we
experienced with the State is one that could be solved if there
was a Federal plan in place. This can be utilized both pre-
event and post-event, because we saw after Gustav and Ike is
that there is a need to house people even after a disaster has
passed. We think the Federal Government can help to coordinate
that.
We did notice some challenges this time also with ice and
MREs and tarps. We did have an immediate supply, but we think
that that needs to be stepped up. There was a shortage of
supplies and when Ike came down, Texas was also challenged.
Tarps sometimes took 7 days to access.
I would encourage this Committee to help us to finish the
flood protection system, the 100-year flood protection. The
Corps of Engineers is telling us that they won't be finished
until 2011. That is 6 years after Katrina. We can no longer
afford to play Russian roulette with these storms. We need that
100-year flood protection.
On the housing front we still have many of our citizens who
are in travel trailers. And Congressman Mica, if you want a few
travel trailers we might be able to accommodate you. We have
more than our fair share in our great city. And if you like
formaldehyde we have plenty of those, too. We are working to
get people into their homes.
Part of the problem that we are having is with the Road
Home Program, which handles the grants that citizens need to
rebuild their lives. Only 69 percent of those applicants have
received awards from the State. So many people are kind of
stuck in these shelters, in these travel trailers. So we are
hoping that we can move that expeditiously, those grants, so
people can get out of those shelters.
As far as FEMA and a comprehensive housing policy, we have
not seen that yet. We are hoping that we can get to a better
place other than just travel travelers, but we haven't seen
that yet. And we are concerned because the housing assistance
program that FEMA does have is scheduled to expire March 1st.
We still have people waiting on Road Home checks and still in
trailers. So we hope that that program can be expedited.
Another issue is with the Stafford Act, and I am closing
now. The Stafford Act has been modified somewhat, but we think
there are still some significant areas for change for major
catastrophes. FEMA seems to be able to handle a hurricane or
minor flooding, but major catastrophes still cause problems. We
think that a significant area to look at is having a
catastrophic disaster category where there will be special
rules associated with that, whether it be advances for
municipalities that have been shut down or other things.
We also think that there needs to be a third party dispute
resolution process put in place. If you have a problem with
FEMA right now on anything dealing with restoring a public
facility, there is nowhere for you to go outside of the FEMA
system. So a formal, public dispute resolution process would be
great going forward.
Madam Chair, I think I am going to pass on the rest of this
because it is in my testimony. I want to thank this Committee
once again for helping us throughout this Katrina experience
and the 2008 hurricane season. New Orleans and our region are
critically important to this Country and we are significant in
terms of our contributions to the Country's energy supply,
international trade, fishery industry and culture. But
unfortunately hurricanes as a force of nature will continue and
they are affecting many States, from Louisiana, Texas,
Mississippi, Florida, et cetera. We must resolve to work
collaboratively to make sure that we have a response that is
appropriate for these type of disasters.
Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mayor Nagin. I want to
first ask you how you would characterize the status of
recovery, leaving aside for a moment the visits of Ike and
Gustav, how would you characterize the status of recovery in
New Orleans for years later; for example, population return.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Return to schools, and businesses reopen and
help from FEMA, et cetera, any way you would like.
Mr. Nagin. We are still a tale of two cities. We have about
72 to 75 percent of our population back in the City of New
Orleans. There are many people still waiting to get back into
the city, but we have challenges still with affordable housing.
We still have four of our major housing developments that are
going through the HOPE VI transition but haven't broken ground
yet. Our school system is back up and operational; we are
building new schools. We have about the same percentage of our
students who are back, but the public education system in New
Orleans is transitioning into a model of not only elected
officials running the school district, but we have charter
schools. You name it, we have it in the City of New Orleans.
The jury it still out on that.
As far as businesses are concerned, our hospitality
industry is doing quite well. Major businesses, about 90
something percent of them came back after Hurricane Katrina and
they are doing okay. Our health care sector is still fairly
stressed. We are hopeful that a new VA hospital will be built
in our city and it looks like that is going to happen.
But if you go into areas like the Lower Ninth Ward, which
has gotten a lot of profile from the press, you still will see
devastation. And there are lots of slabs from demolished homes
in that area and throughout the city. We are still working back
and forth with FEMA on whether the cost of removing those slabs
will be a cost that is eligible for reimbursement. So we are a
tale of two cities.
Ms. Norton. That sounds like there is progress.
Mr. Nagin. There is progress.
Ms. Norton. And New Orleans is rising again.
Perhaps I should--because I know he can't always stay--this
hearing is of such importance that the Full Committee Chair, we
have already had the Ranking Member of the Full Committee Mr.
Mica come, the Full Committee Chair is here as well, Mr.
Oberstar.
Mr. Nagin. Good to see you, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Madam Chair for the hearing. Mayor
Nagin, we welcome you back to the Committee room, it is always
good to see you.
Mr. Nagin. Good to see you.
Mr. Oberstar. We didn't usually see you in a tie and shirt.
We see you in some state of distress with your shirt sleeves
rolled up.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. Or short-sleeved shirts and a worried look on
your face.
Mr. Nagin. Yes, yes.
Mr. Oberstar. I would just repeat what I said at the first
hearing 3 years ago. New Orleans taught America how to cook,
how to eat, how to live, how to preserve culture. It was the
Battle of New Orleans that united America, made us realize we
were a nation, not just a collection. And we owe it to New
Orleans to rebuild this city, we still owe it, and that job is
not by any means done.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. Ms. Norton has hosted 12 hearings on post-
Katrina issues and FEMA. She has been relentless in pursuit of
the need for the Federal Government to do a better job in
responding, supporting our citizens and responding to natural
disasters. Those are calamities not of the city's doing, not of
the State or the Nation's doing, they happen.
While terrorist acts can be a long time in the plotting and
we never know when they are going to come, we know every year
there is going to be a hurricane. We know in the north there is
going to be a snowstorm. We know there are going to be droughts
in the West and floods in other parts of the Country, and we
need to be prepared for those.
So preparedness. There was an Office of Emergency
Preparedness at one time, it was an Office of Civil Defense in
its origins. There was a time in 1987 when the then Reagan
administration proposed to effectively eliminate the Federal
role in disaster response. It was a Subcommittee on
Investigations and Oversight of this Full Committee, which I
Chaired at the time, which mobilized the Nation. We held
hearings bringing civil defense authorities from all over the
Country. And out of those hearings we crafted the bill that
created what we know today as FEMA.
Now a little historical footnote, I gave that bill in draft
form to the Republican Member of Congress from Pennsylvania who
first brought the issue to our attention. And my Ranking Member
at the time was Bill Clinger, a Republican of Pennsylvania. I
told this Member, I want you to introduce this bill. He said,
but I am in the minority. I said yeah, but you had the courage
to bring that issue to our attention. We have crafted the bill
and you ought to introduce it, besides the Republican
administration needs to you to lead the effort. We got the bill
enacted. His name? Tom Ridge.
When he became Secretary of Homeland Security he came up to
see me. He said you started me on this course. Well, that
journey is not finished and FEMA does not belong in Homeland
Security, it belongs in the independent Office of the President
or in a Cabinet level or sub-Cabinet level, an independent
structure with a liaison, a linkage to Homeland Security, but
not messed up in the Interior.
What happened with FEMA when Homeland Security was created
was exactly what I predicted would happen at the time the
Homeland Security Department was created. That money would be
siphoned off and personnel would be drained away from the
agency. And in the first 6 months of Homeland Security 250 of
the top personnel of FEMA were sent elsewhere in the Department
and $500 million of the budget was siphoned off elsewhere. And
when the Katrina disaster struck they didn't have the key
personnel in place to help you, to help the State and to help
other States, Mississippi and Alabama, and east Texas, to
respond.
Now, we are going to take the lessons learned. We have
already passed the bill last year to reform a good deal of
FEMA. I would hope that, as we affectionately call them, the
other body will move that legislation. There has been some
action over there, and quite possibly Madam Chair will be able
to conclude the action on the bill before the end of this
session. It is still up in the air. It isn't going to address
all of the needs, but it will address a good many of them.
But we are going to restart next year. We will need your
contribution again, as you have done so willingly many times,
and reshape top to bottom. We need a top to bottom review of
FEMA and restructure it and recreate it. There already have
been 13 hurricane events in this season.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. If you look at a chart going back into the
1980s, the cost of natural disasters just escalates
extraordinarily, and the cost to the private insurance sector
and to the public sector, both Federal and State and local.
That is one thing we know is going to continue to happen with
global climate change. So with what we have done in the Water
Resources Development Act to rebuild the wetlands in Louisiana,
to close out the Mississippi River Gulf outlet----
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. --that caused the disaster that over topped
St. Bernard Parish that nearly wiped out the Islenos culture,
that should never have happened and didn't happen when that
wetland between Lake Borgne and St. Bernard was intact.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. But once the Mr. Go was developed, the salt
water came in, the intrusion killed the wetland, the marsh
grasses landed on top of the houses. I have never seen a
situation where whole homes were lifted up, floated away with
their concrete pad intact and went as much as three blocks.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. One home I saw, Madam Chair, stopped only
when it bumped into a house that didn't move. And after 6
months the homeowner of the intact home sued the other guy for
collision damage. I said, why did you do that? He said, what
else are we going to do? The Corps isn't helping us out, FEMA
isn't helping us out, no one can help us out. So we just
thought for a little excitement we would have a lawsuit. That
shows a lot of resiliency in the people, but it shows a failure
of the public sector.
You have experienced a great deal of dislocation and
disruption. You have led the effort to rebuild your community.
You have been a stalwart and we need to reward that effort with
a much better Federal partnership and response. And under the
leadership of Ms. Norton and Mr. Graves on the Republican side
and a bipartisan effort, we are going to do that. I pledge that
to you.
Mr. Nagin. Thank you, sir.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Graves, do you have any questions at this
time?
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mayor, for
coming in. We appreciate it very much. You were talking about
some of your city recovering and some things. Population wise,
how much population have you lost?
Mr. Nagin. About 75 percent is back, and around 100,000
people that still have not been able to come back.
Mr. Graves. Do you think they are just never going to come
back or they still don't have their homes?
Mr. Nagin. I think a percentage have settled in where they
are, but there is a significant percentage of those individuals
that still would like to move back to New Orleans, but because
of affordable housing issues and Road Home issues with their
grants, many of our citizens struggled with their insurance
companies, the whole wind versus flood debate, and there are
some financial gaps, but we are trying to help them out as best
we can.
Mr. Graves. And how about in your local government changes,
what changes has your city government made to get ready for
hurricanes in the future or changes you made as a result of
what happened in Hurricane Katrina?
Mr. Nagin. Right after Katrina, while we were starting the
rebuilding process, we started immediately planning for the
next major hurricane. We have evaluated just about every one of
our processes. We went up to Emmitsburg, Maryland, I think it
is, which is a FEMA training facility. I took my whole team
through that. We practiced, had exercises throughout the year.
We have adjusted our evacuation plans and re-entry plans, and
we have put more resources in our disaster management group.
And we performed pretty well during Gustav.
Mr. Graves. I congratulate you on being able to remove--
what did you say, 96 percent?
Mr. Nagin. No, it was about 97 percent of our citizens in 4
days, emptied and repopulated the city in 4 days.
Mr. Graves. Big job.
Mr. Nagin. I don't know of any other city that can do that.
Mr. Graves. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Mr. Nagin. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Arcuri?
Mr. Arcuri. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mayor, first of all,
thank you very much for being here. I just want to thank you
for what you did. You symbolized for the rest of the country
the resiliency and fight in New Orleans. Thank you for what you
have done.
Mr. Nagin. Thank you.
Mr. Arcuri. Mayor, I am from upstate New York, and we have
had a few 50-year floods, nothing to the degree that you have
had, but we have had some serious damage. One of the things
that we talk about is the importance of FEMA in doing some of
the--the actions beforehand, buying up some of the homes in the
flood plains in the areas. You are sort of in a unique place.
You have seen what happens on the front end and then you have
seen what happened this year, granted not to the same degree of
Katrina, but when the right things are done the prevention that
can take place. Can you share with us just some of your
thoughts in terms of, you know, on how important it is to spend
money on the front end so you can save money on the back end?
Mr. Nagin. Well, there are a couple aspects that I can
refer you to. First is our hurricane protection system. I know
Congress worked very hard, but the billions of dollars you put
forward we didn't have any catastrophes as it relates to that.
We had to confiscate some land or help the Corps to confiscate
some land from our citizens, but that allowed the Corps to
build the protection systems that we desperately needed.
The other thing I can point you to is that FEMA was able
this time to preposition some assets, some MREs, some water,
some ice. Even though we ran short of supplies, that saved us
time and effort on the back end, if you will, once the storm
hit. So those are two things that I think we could continue to
work through.
And I will tell you another thing that would help a lot.
FEMA is starting to prioritize the types of repairs that you
can do after an event, whether they be police stations, fire
stations or what have you. I think they have taken some of the
lessons they learned in New Orleans and are applying those to
Texas and some other places. The reason why I bring that up is
because it took us such a long time to get our criminal justice
system back up and operational; we experienced damage, and we
experienced crime that cost us and the Federal Government a lot
of money. By prioritizing those efforts, I think that can be
avoided in other places.
Mr. Arcuri. After Katrina did FEMA buy some of the area or
some of the land where houses were in dangerous areas or
dangerous zones?
Mr. Nagin. The State did through the Road Home Program. So
for example, if a citizen was in a low lying area that is
repeatedly flooded, you can opt to either rebuild your home
higher or safer or you could sell that property. And there were
a significant number of people who took that option.
Mr. Arcuri. Was it successful?
Mr. Nagin. We are still in the middle of it, but based upon
the properties, a map of the properties, it looks as though
some really low lying areas, just about everybody sold their
properties, which was smart because the marketplace made an
intelligent decision. We kind of gave them the guidance, here
is the levee protection system, here are the risks, here is
what you face going forward, and people made intelligent
decisions.
Mr. Arcuri. I guess the big question is, is it worth it
financially, do you save money on the front end by buying up
those parcels as opposed to, you know, the back end after the
damage already occurs?
Mr. Nagin. Well, normally I would have totally agreed with
you. I think that still makes some sense. But these storms are
different now. For the first time this year I have noticed
with, let's take Gustav and Ike, they came in so fast that
normally storms run at about 5 to 8 miles an hour when they
come in. These were coming in at 12 to 15 miles an hour. They
had so much momentum that they went so deep inland. I mean, Ike
had flooding that it caused in Ohio. So, I don't know if you
are going to be able to buy up enough property with the type of
storms that we are seeing. The only thing I can see us doing is
work on global warming and let's get some coastal restoration.
Then I think we are going to be okay.
Mr. Arcuri. Thank you very much, Mayor, appreciate all of
your work.
Mr. Nagin. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Arcuri. Mayor, I want to ask you
about something in your plan and also some reports we have
heard. I mean in your testimony you speak of some issues
involving information between the city and the State. I ask
this because I spoke with Mr. Paulison as the evacuation was
occurring, I think it was Labor Day, I know everybody was home.
I managed to get him. He gave me a very good and full report
and assured me there would be evacuation, and there was a full
evacuation.
He told me as well that there were destinations. He gave me
examples of destinations, a number of destinations all the way
into Alabama. And he said that there were not only
predesignated shelters, but there were predesignated supplies.
First, I have to ask you about the predesignated shelters,
because if there were predesignated shelters why did so many of
them--the figure we received was as many as a thousand of the
poorest people who were apparently transported by buses and
apparently didn't know where they were going--I don't know why
not tell them, they are going to come home--found themselves in
something, shades of Katrina, in some huge warehouse, and there
were no bathing facilities, they were crowded. It was
apparently a very serious substandard state.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Ms. Norton. They may have been there for a week. Did you
know ahead of time that people would be going there? And do you
have any idea how that happened? That is the only one we heard
of.
Mr. Nagin. I will just give you what I know. The city's
responsibility is to get our citizens from their places, if
they need it, to a central location, utilizing our
transportation medium, and then get them to the point where we
can hand them off to the State for transportation to the
shelters, whether they be in State or out of State. That is our
responsibility. FEMA----
Ms. Norton. Are you saying that you can't take them even to
a shelter in State if it is not in your jurisdiction?
Mr. Nagin. No. The State of Louisiana is responsible for
that.
Ms. Norton. So they might have to get off something and get
on something else or they just pick up the responsibility?
Mr. Nagin. Only one time. We get them to the Union
Passenger Terminal, we register them, and then they get on
either a bus, plane or train and they go somewhere that is
basically out of our control.
Now, it is my understanding that FEMA was coordinating out
of State shelters with the State and those were pretty well
determined. I think we had Alabama and Memphis. Tennessee and
Texas were taken out of play because of the direction of the
storm. But those were pretty well established and we knew about
them. The problem was in State. There were buses that we would
put our citizens on, but the State contractor didn't know where
they were going because the State locations had not been fully
articulated.
Ms. Norton. But it was not on a bus to nowhere?
Mr. Nagin. Some were. And we had to direct some--because we
were getting a backlog at the Union Passenger Terminal. We
directed the buses just to start moving north. And we would
communicate with them the exact location, which ended up
working out. But it seems as though the State----
Ms. Norton. Does that mean that the State was late in
finding sheltering space and hadn't preplanned for where people
might go after in case they left New Orleans?
Mr. Nagin. It appeared as though everything that should
have been prepositioned as it relates to shelters in the State
was not completed until a very late time.
Ms. Norton. You suggest a need for planning in the future
been the State.
Mr. Nagin. Yes, either the State needs to let us know much
earlier or FEMA can take responsibility for in State and out of
State sheltering. I don't know if that is something they would
want to do, but there are three different levels of government
that are dealing with these disasters and it just needs to be a
little better coordinated on the sheltering side. That is if we
have any trouble going forward. I worry about that aspect of
what we did.
Ms. Norton. Well, you mention that there were shortage of
some supplies like ice and so forth.
Mr. Nagin. Yes, that happened from the standpoint of after
a few days, I think we were able to set up what they call PODs,
which are basically distribution centers for people to pick up
ice, water and MRE's. We were only able to man three PODs
throughout the entire city, three locations. And then we ran
out of supplies after 2 or 3 days.
Ms. Norton. Who was providing those supplies?
Mr. Nagin. That was through the Corps and through FEMA.
Ms. Norton. We will have to find out what happened there.
We heard also of food stamps that had to be activated. Now
I understand that there were--with all the overwhelming
catastrophe of Katrina, you would expect somebody to take
advantage of it. So there were some people who got food stamps
who never should have gotten it. But there were complaints from
some that you have food stamps and then you can't use it until
it is activated. I can't even tell how you get it activated or
how you know when it has been activated. I mean does it buzz?
Mr. Nagin. There was a program, a benefit that people who
normally do not qualify for food stamps can come in and get a
card and, based upon your income level and how many people in
your household, you can get up to $500 worth of value on that
card. The problem was they forced everybody to come in and do a
face-to-face process, which caused one problem. And then
secondarily the system was overwhelmed. Their technology was
overwhelmed where it took 72 hours before the card was
activated. In some cases it was never activated. So it was kind
of a mess.
Ms. Norton. So this was after they had done the face-to-
face?
Mr. Nagin. This was after. It was a mess and I think
somebody resigned at the State as a result of it.
Ms. Norton. In the State or at FEMA?
Mr. Nagin. State.
Ms. Norton. I see. So that activation of food stamps----
Mr. Nagin. Was a State responsibility.
Ms. Norton. Was a State responsibility, not a FEMA
responsibility?
Mr. Nagin. Not that I am aware. I am sure the Admiral will
come up and correct me, but I think it was a State
responsibility.
Ms. Norton. I can't but help and ask you about the levees.
We were all nervous about the levees, and please don't do this
to New Orleans again. What does that tell us? Does it tell us
that the storm wasn't so strong as to test the levees or does
it tell us that the levees are truly stronger because of the
work that you have done?
Mr. Nagin. I think it tells us that America's investment is
starting to pay off, but we are just not finished. It tells us
that we can handle a Category 3 storm that dissipated once it
got to shore.
Ms. Norton. Katrina was a Category?
Mr. Nagin. Was at least a 3.
Ms. Norton. So it has already done its damage there, and
yet you can handle a 3 now?
Mr. Nagin. Yeah, we think we can handle a 3 coming in that
direction. Katrina came in a different direction. So we didn't
test the system exactly.
Ms. Norton. It wasn't the same levees that were being
tested, was it?
Mr. Nagin. Yeah, but it was much more comprehensive. Gustav
came more from south to north. Katrina came from the east going
west over Lake Borgne and hit the Lower Ninth Ward in New
Orleans east. Much, much stronger. The levees held. Now what
was scary to some people is that the water levels got to the
maximum levels that that particular levee could handle.
Ms. Norton. Yes, we saw water going over.
Mr. Nagin. Yeah, but it was wind. And I think we are going
to have that even in the best of scenarios; we may have some
over topping. As long as the levees do not fail and start
crumbling, I think we will be okay. We have a pumping capacity
once the water gets in the city and as long as those pumps are
not under water we should be okay.
Ms. Norton. Your folks have shown extraordinary courage
coming back and building and coming back to maintain
themselves. Can they get insurance on their homes?
Mr. Nagin. They can get it, but it is very expensive. One
of the things that most of the coastal communities are
experiencing is increased cost of insurance. At the time when
the insurance companies are recording record profits, it is
really kind of puzzling to me.
Ms. Norton. Really at some point we are going to have to do
a hearing to see whether or not it is possible. I mean people
coming back, I know some of them can't afford insurance. They
are taking their chances because of a love of New Orleans.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Ms. Norton. We have to come to grips whether or not it is
possible to rebuild whole areas if insurance is unavailable.
Now there is flood insurance, there are some kinds of insurance
that the Congress makes available.
Mr. Nagin. Now, Madam Chairperson, if I could get this
Committee to understand one thing, even if you can get
insurance in Louisiana your deductible is the problem--the
rules were changed right after Katrina. There are no longer
$500--and I don't know if anybody else is experiencing this,
whether they are experiencing it in Florida--there are no
longer $500 to $1,000 deductibles. They are a percentage of the
value of your home. My personal deductible at my home is
probably $6,000. And I hear people tell me this story; it is
like 3 percent or 2 percent of the value of your home. So even
if you have insurance, unless you have a major catastrophe,
normally you are self-insured.
Ms. Norton. You are self-insured. Are people building, are
people rebuilding? What does that say about a business, are
they self-insured, too?
Mr. Nagin. No, businesses are handled a little differently.
They have a higher deductible, but a business can only handle
that kind of situation.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Graves, do you have a question for him? I
have a series of questions. I want to make sure anybody else
that has questions also get a chance that come from your own
answers.
I need to ask you, I remember you came to my office, you
were very concerned that people were meeting a date where they
had to get out of shelters and the city didn't have the housing
to accommodate these people. We have had a hearing because many
of these needed continuing case management. As a result of that
hearing, we asked FEMA to extend the case management for these
residents. Many of them from Louisiana was extended until March
2009. And we are prepared to asked again. We realize we are not
dealing with people who have simply been displaced. We are
often dealing with the elderly, with disabled people, and
people who need very special help. Are those people still in
trailers and are they formaldehyde trailers? Need I say
formaldehyde infected trailers?
Mr. Nagin. Yes. There are still a significant number of our
citizens who are still in----
Ms. Norton. What percentage of those displaced would you
imagine or believe are still in trailers in particular?
Mr. Nagin. There are still about 3,000 trailers in the City
of New Orleans. I think the last number I saw there was about
6,000 trailers statewide. That is units. So there are two to
three people living in each trailer. So the math is pretty
easy. Those benefits are scheduled to expire, not only those
but anyone in an apartment complex or in a hotel, in March of
2009. We still do not have the Road Home checks, as I mentioned
in my testimony. There is still about 30 percent of our
citizens who still have not received those benefits. So they
are forced to live in a trailer or in temporary housing. Until
the checks are processed and the trailers are removed, I would
argue that the benefits should be extended at least until the
end of 2009.
Ms. Norton. When you talk about people having not received
their Road Home checks, you really raise this question that we
need to understand, and that is that Congress has appropriated
a great deal more money.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Than has been distributed. Now people are
always afraid when you have that much money that has been
authorized, and they want to make sure we are not in a
situation where we have an unmanageable distribution and
problems occur. What is your view of the pace of distribution
of authorized funds to the city? Are you able to get the funds
that are authorized?
Mr. Nagin. It is a painfully slow process. Whether it is
Road Home checks or whether it is FEMA reimbursements, you name
it, whether it is hazard--and we haven't started to tackle
hazard mitigation dollars in a real way. There is still $1.2
billion worth of hazard mitigation money that the State is
trying to figure out how to spend. The regulations are complex
and the money flows slowly.
Just to give you an example, the difference between the
amount of money we think we need to fix all the public
facilities that were damaged during Katrina_that we feel as
though we need_and what has been appropriated or authorized by
the FEMA PW process is about 40 percent. And the number goes up
but we still are nowhere there.
Ms. Norton. Forty percent.
Mr. Nagin. Forty percent of the value that we think we need
to repair a lot of these public facilities.
Ms. Norton. So what kinds of public facilities are not up,
for example?
Mr. Nagin. You name it, fire stations, police stations,
community centers, playgrounds, parks. We got our criminal
justice system_the main complex up, but we still have some work
to do. So we are actually managing right now about 400
different projects that are at some various stages in the
process of being reimbursed, and it is just complex.
Ms. Norton. I want you to know, Mr. Mayor, that this
Subcommittee is experiencing some frustration because this
Subcommittee processed through a bill which we proudly named
the Katrina and Rita Recovery Facilitation Act of 2008. It was
drawn after consultation with you, the then Governor. We had
hearings here where Members, the entire delegation came to
testify. The whole point was to try to find quick fixes for New
Orleans and Mississippi in particular. These quick fixes would
apply under the Stafford Act only to the Katrina ravaged areas.
This became while we processed the bill--it was a leadership
bill, it really began at the top. So our Subcommittee, we put
it through, it went through as one of the first bills. Then we
put it to the repository of all bills that then go to sleep.
Now this one didn't go to sleep--and perhaps you know more than
we know. This bill contains some of what we know the State
needs. Perhaps the cardinal feature was the waiver of the
Stateshare of much of the funding, 100 percent funding. So I
have to ask you without that bill, are you managing to come up
with a State share?
Mr. Nagin. The State has appropriated the money. They
pledged, the Governor has pledged to present the match. But
what we are hearing from the Corps of Engineers, if you are
talking levee protection is that they need an appropriation at
the Federal level to award the contracts because they are going
to get a reimbursement from the State. And, because they don't
have that money appropriated they cannot move forward with some
of the contracts to finish up the 100-year flood protection.
So like I said, this is very complex and frustrating at
times because a lot of the congressional intent--we come to
you, you do great work and then there is some bureaucratic rule
that slows things down or----
Ms. Norton. The bureaucratic rule is called the Senate of
the United States in this case. Now I know that my good friend
and your Senator has been trying her best to get this bill out
and she has more to gain than any other.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Ms. Norton. But she deals with a body that has trouble
passing bills because of its rules. Someone mentioned
alternative dispute resolution. There is an alternative dispute
resolution section there. There are all kinds of things that
nobody else will be able to do under the Stafford Act, but that
you could do because of this constant issue that comes before
us about a hold up. And again I know that the bill has been
reported out. I have before me the report. I cannot believe
that the Senate will leave without getting that bill done. And
I have every hope that they will. Sometimes in the very last
days people see the kinds of things that they simply can't
leave town without doing. That is why we are working now on the
collapse of Wall Street.
I want to just ask you a couple more questions that we need
to understand. The trailers bothered everybody. Not only do we
have hearings in my other Committee, the Oversight Committee--
which is basically an investigatory Committee--had hearings
showing its shameful way in which the notion that there was
even formaldehyde in the trailers finally got exposed.
Now, you have for interim housing something that would be
very important for the Nation if it works, Katrina cottages
that were apparently initiated 2 years ago. I don't know how
much of the $450 million has come down to allow the Katrina
cottages. Tell us about the Katrina cottages, what is the
difference between them and other housing and the temporary
housing and how many cottages or whether those cottages are
ongoing or are a viable way to put people in Louisiana at this
time.
Mr. Nagin. Well, the Katrina cottage is a concept that I
think the State of Louisiana and Mississippi both embraced. It
is my understanding that Mississippi was able to move a little
quicker in setting up their program than Louisiana.
Ms. Norton. So what is the difference? Tell us what a
Katrina cottage is and what is the difference between it and
other temporary housing?
Mr. Nagin. It is a small modular home, if you will, 600 to
800 square feet, I think. It is something that can really be
constructed very quickly and put up in a manner that would
allow citizens to have a dwelling place other than a FEMA
trailer. The State of Louisiana has struggled with that
program. I don't think we have any in the city of New Orleans
that I am aware of.
Ms. Norton. So it has to come through the State, the funds
have to come through the State? So there is not a single
Katrina cottage in New Orleans?
Mr. Nagin. Not that I am aware of, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. I know you would know.
Mr. Nagin. A big part of the disaster that has been
frustrating to me, and I understand why it is done, but the
Federal flow of funds always goes through our State first. Then
not only am I fighting with one bureaucracy, but I have to
fight through two before I even get to my own bureaucracy, so
that has been really tough to deal with.
Ms. Norton. Finally, let me ask you, because our concern is
also about the very poorest people for whom permanent housing
would be hardest to come by, and there was great controversy
because some of the public housing was torn down.
Mr. Nagin. Yes.
Ms. Norton. And I would like to know what alternative there
is for people who might have found homes in public housing. Is
there comparable housing? What about FEMA and HUD's role in
rehabbing public housing?
Mr. Nagin. As far as public housing is concerned we worked
really hard with HUD and with Congress to make sure that there
was a firm commitment that every one of the public housing
residents that were there pre-Katrina, which was 5,200 units,
there would be permanent support of vouchers that would
accommodate them until their homes were rebuilt. We have four
major housing units.
Ms. Norton. Until the public housing was rebuilt?
Mr. Nagin. Until the public housing is rebuilt. So they are
supposed to have--and we have not gotten any contrary
information that suggests anything otherwise--if they are in
New Orleans they have supportive housing; and if they are in
another location they have supportive housing. And that should
stay in effect until the new units are constructed.
Ms. Norton. Are there going to be new units? I know the
difficulties in public housing. We have had the same
difficulties here, just as we had difficulties in our school.
And I commend you on your charter schools. I think charter
schools are the best thing since sliced bread because they are
small schools, they are alternatives, they will keep people in
the city, they do as well as the public schools usually. And
because they are small, they are publicly funded, they are
accountable in the same way, in order to keep from building
public housing, as all cities,.
New Orleans was like every other city. They built the
public housing where they could, large numbers of units in one
place. You put a lot of poor people with no upward mobility, no
way to get out, no jobs, and then you are surprised that there
are problems there.
Is there going to be public housing in New Orleans and how
will you construct it? I mean, you have land now that was not
available before. Do you believe you will be able to replace
those units or come anywhere close to it with public housing
units of some kind, perhaps spread and not bunched together?
Mr. Nagin. We are working with HUD, as we speak, to
dedensify a lot of the public housing units and not have a
concentration of poverty in any one particular section of the
city. We are going forward with some Hope 6-like developments,
which are mixed income. We have a plan in place to restore most
but not all of the public housing units that we had pre-
Katrina. But anyone who does not go into a unit is guaranteed
to have a voucher. They will be able to go into the community
and be involved in a mixed-income neighborhood in that respect
also. That seems to be moving forward.
Our challenge, though, is that HUD is making noises that
the financial crisis that we are in is starting to strain those
four developments. And they have asked us to help lobby for a
couple of things. One is the 901 fundability issue where they
have some vouchers that are not being utilized and they want to
use those to fill some gaps in this construction. We have been
talking to people about that.
Ms. Norton. Before you leave, we are going to have the Red
Cross before us as well as GAO. And you know that the Red Cross
in many ways has served the country heroically, very often with
volunteers. Of course, they do have some staff. How would you
evaluate the role of the Red Cross in this last hurricane, for
example?
Mr. Nagin. Well, the Red Cross has been there all the time
in all the disasters. If I had any complaints with the Red
Cross, it is that during the disaster they tend to go up north
to kind of get out of harm's way, and I understand that. So
getting back into the disaster area was a little bit of a
challenge during Katrina. But for the most part I think they
are a valuable organization. I think they are probably
stretched to the limit right now and probably need some more
support. And I think they come into a community right after a
disaster and do really good work of feeding our citizens.
Ms. Norton. Well, I want to thank you, Mayor Nagin. We have
kept you longer than we might have had we had an opportunity to
speak with you about the progress in Louisiana since then. And
now we not only had to ask you about that, but we had to hear
about these latest visitors. And it has been very valuable
testimony, very helpful to us. And I thank you very much for
coming today.
Mr. Nagin. I thank this Committee and I thank you,
Chairlady Norton, for everything that you have done. New
Orleans wouldn't be back to the level it is, we are at about 75
percent there, if it wasn't for this Committee and Members of
Congress, so we are indebted to you all. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, sir. Could I ask Admiral Harvey
Johnson, the Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer
of FEMA, if he would come forward and offer his testimony?
Thank you Admiral Johnson, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF ADMIRAL HARVEY JOHNSON, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR AND
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Admiral Johnson. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Norton and
Members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here today to
discuss the National Disaster Housing Strategy and our response
thus far to 2008 hurricane season. Fortuitously, as we are now
in the recovery phase of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, these two
topics have become intertwined as we also were able to employ
many elements of the strategy in the ongoing response efforts.
However, before I go any further I do want to thank you,
Madam Chairwoman, for allowing us to delay the hearing that was
scheduled for September 11. It was sort of to our benefit, and
I hope to yours, to delay and combine the hearings today.
I do believe that the draft National Disaster Housing
Strategy is likely one of the most significant documents
prepared by FEMA and released under the umbrella of the
national response framework. The strategy describes how the
Nation currently provides housing to those affected by
disaster, and, more importantly, it charts a new direction for
our disaster housing efforts must focus if we as a Nation are
to be better able to understand and meet the emergent needs of
disaster housing needs of victims and communities.
The strategy captures lessons learned from Hurricane
Katrina and subsequent disasters, embraces the larger issues of
disaster victims beyond simply providing a structure, seeks
innovative and creative housing options, elevates the issues of
safety and security and access to those with disabilities,
emphasizes again and again the value of planning,
differentiates a catastrophe above all other disasters, and
suggests that these issues merit full attention before and
between disasters, not merely just in time short-term sporadic
attention after a specific disaster.
A national strategy is the first step in developing
integrated disaster housing plans across the Nation that all
support a common vision and goal. This strategy would be a
common basis to synchronize disaster housing plans at the
State, local and Federal level.
Addressing the challenge of disaster housing should not be
driven from the Federal level; rather, we must provide the
leadership, set the pace, and actively encourage and gain
commitment from individuals, communities, States, Federal
partners, nongovernment organizations and the private sector.
This strategy also embraces the need for immediate action
by framing FEMA's establishment of a National Disaster Housing
Task Force, charts specifically to aggressively implement the
strategy. In fact, since the release of the strategy for public
comment, FEMA has now activated the National Disaster Housing
Task Force. And though it is still in the embryonic stage of
development it is deployed to Austin, Texas and to Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, to work with the State-led housing task forces in
responding to Gustav and to Ike.
I would also like to comment on the combined activities of
the Federal, State and local efforts in response to these two
hurricanes. These two storms both projected at one time that a
life span Category 3 or stronger storms at landfall both had
the capacity to impose catastrophic damage simultaneously to
multiple States along the Gulf Coast. Each posed a worst-
nightmare scenario: one, a direct hit on New Orleans, and the
other to communities in the core of our Nation's energy sector
in and around the complexes of Houston, Port Arthur, and Lake
Charles. And each made landfall only 12 days apart.
These storms served as proctor to the most severe tests of
the National, State and local individual preparedness since
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And where the 2005 storms exposed
the Nation to a lack of preparedness, to indecision, and an
absence of coordination across all levels of government and
among individuals, the test of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike
presented just the opposite.
The response and, thus far, the recovery from these two
2008 storms provides evidence of extensive levels of
preparedness, decisiveness by elected and appointed officials
at every level of government, as well as by citizens who
elected to evacuate in record numbers at a level of engaged
partnership among States with the Federal Government to put the
right capability in the right place at the right time to save
lives, to minimize damage, and to establish a much smoother
road to recovery. When our combined efforts were not perfect, I
believe that combined efforts at the Federal, State, and local
levels made great strides to reinstill confidence in the
American public that our system emergency management
preparedness can and does work effectively.
In my view, there are three keys to our combined response:
preparedness, command and coordination, and strong
partnerships.
And the first, FEMA and our State and Federal partners
worked purposefully together to coordinate, assess, plan,
train, exercise and evaluate to ensure that we each had
independently and interdependently the capabilities needed to
succeed in disaster response and recovery. And second, there
was solid coordination and command at the Federal, State and
local level. The emergency management structures in the State
of Texas and Louisiana were impressive.
At the Federal level, and consistent with the national
response framework, we were fully integrated into the unified
command with a State. Together we were forward looking, we
executed our checklist thoughtfully and methodically, we
adapted with a change in route and intensity to the storms, and
we provided the public with timely and consistent warnings and
messages. We performed as we planned and trained and we did
well by doing so.
And I wish to note that Governors, parish presidents,
mayors and other elected officials fulfilled their
responsibilities visibly and decisively as commanders,
coordinators, and communicators. Secretary Chertoff was
deployed forward himself in both States prior to and
immediately following hurricanes, as was Administrator
Paulison. They encouraged evacuation, they provided assurance
that all actions that could be taken were being taken, and they
actively got into the response and recovery, though a number of
challenges and tried moments, forthrightly and with directness
and without name-calling or finger-pointing.
Thirdly, there was a strengthened partnership among the
Federal agencies, and with States and with the local
communities and among nongovernmental agencies from the
Secretary to Governor to mayor, from Federal coordinating
officer to State coordinating officer, and consistently through
the field where there were individual team members who
coordinated airbus to train evacuations, planned out delivery
of commodities, registered evacuees, opened Federal medical
shelters, opened medical stations and staffed deployable
medical assistance teams. And they did so through the combined
efforts and were impressive as they performed.
Madam Chairwoman, I don't want to view the response and
recovery of these hurricanes through rose-colored glasses, but
collectively we demonstrated a capability to respond
effectively to disaster. At times these efforts were admittedly
a bit rough. Not all evolutions were according to plan. And we
learned many lessons. We were challenged to get all the
commodities to the right place at the right time. We learned
that evacuation, for all of its challenges, can sometimes be
easier than measuring the reentry of evacuees back in the
damaged and marginally safe communities and homesteads.
And we know that we need to strengthen certain elements of
our workforce and to find ways to make registration process
more timely and efficient. But from where I sit, the public was
well served and we made great strides in instilling confidence
in the Federal, State and local emergency management system and
showed that it can work together effectively.
Thank you for your time. I will be glad to answer your
questions.
Ms. Norton. Well, thank you Mr. Johnson. And may I commend
FEMA for the assistance you gave the State and the city in the
evacuation, apparently evacuation also in Texas. And you had
these events back to back or front to front.
Could I ask how the decision to evacuate is made, who makes
it, what parties are involved, using as an example Ike and
Gustav that has just occurred.
Admiral Johnson. I think certainly the one who makes the
decision to evacuate are the local elected officials. And I
think you had a good example of that in Mayor Nagin, where all
were concerned that after 2 years of like hurricanes that
people might take the next hurricane too likely. Mayor Nagin
and others stood up in front of their constituents and talked
about the dangers of Hurricane Gustav, that at the time was a
Category 4 hurricane, and made it very real from the local
elected officials that people must evacuate. And so it is to
the credit of Mayor Nagin, of parish presidents across
Louisiana, of county judges in Texas, and Hurricane Ike, to
make those calls early for mandatory evacuation and for
voluntary evacuation. And as the mayor reported in his
testimony, 97 percent of New Orleans evacuated, and that is
setting a record for what can be done when the system works as
it should.
Ms. Norton. Now, most of those went on their own, didn't
they? Didn't you have more people use their own transportation
means than before, and, if so, why?
Admiral Johnson. There were. I think I have seen estimates
that maybe 1.9 million people across southern Louisiana
evacuated, mostly on their own, because they had the means to
do so. And in some parishes, in some cities, there are a
population that don't have the means to do so. And they need
assistance from the State and local government and from the
Federal Government to evacuate safely.
Ms. Norton. You perhaps heard me ask Mayor Nagin about the
people who were warehoused, and he indicates that the State was
responsible for finding places beyond boundaries of the local
jurisdiction. Does the State have any communication with FEMA?
Does FEMA have any responsibility since you are reliant so much
on the States, for example, in your State housing plan, to
ascertain that the State has found suitable facilities?
Admiral Johnson. No ma'am, FEMA doesn't have
responsibility. The responsibility lies with the State. But of
course in hurricane planning we work with the State, we work
with the Red Cross, to identify requirements and standards for
shelters. And it is our expectation that as the State
establishes State shelters, that they will do so following
those recognized standards for service, for cleanliness, for
security, for safety, for medical support, for food and water
and those types of things.
In Federal shelters, for example in the shelters that we
establish with State out-of-state, we actually have a host
State agreement where we lay out and identify what services we
expect a host State to provide shelterees in order to be
supported and reimbursed by FEMA.
Ms. Norton. That is the out-of-state host State. But what
about the in-state, the State that is primarily involved?
Admiral Johnson. In-state, it is the State's
responsibility.
Ms. Norton. Do you tell them what you expect as well? Why
tell the people out-of-state without telling the people in the
State who may be responsible for most of the citizens what to
expect, at least what to expect?
Admiral Johnson. I think, being fair to the State, they had
a number of State shelters, and we have heard about a couple of
them, so there were a number of State shelters.
Ms. Norton. Well, I want to ask about one. I can't imagine
if there were a number of State shelters how 1,000 people wound
up crowded in a warehouse in northern Louisiana, crowded in so
tightly, with absolutely no way to bathe, feeling like herded
animals. How did that happen if there were a number of State
shelters? Were they crowded too?
Admiral Johnson. Well, Madam Chairwoman, I think many
people are asking that exact question: How did that happen? No
one would have wanted it to happen. And it certainly does not
comport with any requirements or guidelines.
Ms. Norton. So there are guidelines that the State should
follow in designating shelters within State?
Admiral Johnson. Well, the Red Cross has standards for
their shelters, and we certainly encourage and adopt those
standards. And we encourages States to use those as they
establish shelters.
Ms. Norton. So you would find that the warehouse of 4,000
people with no way to bathe, and cot against cot, did not meet
the standards that FEMA recommends to States?
Admiral Johnson. They would not meet our standards, and I
think Governor Jindal will tell you that they do not meet his
standards either.
Ms. Norton. I recognize the State has got to come to grips
with that itself. But I am very concerned for FEMA in this
regard. There were newspaper reports that were fairly chilling
that, quote, many poor residents avowing never again, that
never again were they going to get on a bus to be warehoused
this way, they would rather ride it out.
Now, that is the last thing we want to hear, because then
it gets back to FEMA. That is why I am suggesting that you
review your responsibility to advise the State. States may or
may not be ready to shelter people because States aren't in the
same business FEMA is, which is knowing much more about this.
And it does seem to me that if States that shelter people from
other States have guidelines, there is no reason why States
themselves shouldn't have such guidelines.
And we would ask that those responsibility of States not be
recommendations. Of course it is--it could be, for that matter,
an emergency where you could only do so much.
There was warning of this hurricane. I talked with Mr.
Paulison. He told me about out-of-state schools, places on
military bases, he told me about places in community college
facilities. And so I was stunned to hear that there was anybody
who was housed in Katrina-like conditions.
The one thing we are not going to tolerate is finger-
pointing. We are really not going to tolerate, well, the State
should have done that or the city should have done that. And
the reason we are not going to is because if in fact these
people don't evacuate next time, then of course the whole job
will fall to FEMA to do something about people left in place.
The Federal Government will have to evacuate them in very
costly ways, as we did with people left behind before.
So I am very concerned that Louisiana didn't meet its
responsibilities and apparently didn't feel that it had to do
anything but this, had plenty of time to prepare. After
Katrina, it should have had shelters all over the State nearby
ready to receive people.
So just in the planning process that FEMA supervises, I am
at a loss to understand this, and very concerned about it not
only because of the condition of those people, because it may
mean that we are going to have another problem the next time.
Could I ask you in particular about some of the mayor's
testimony? He indicated that FEMA would not pay, in his written
testimony, for foundation demolition which could spur, of
course, rebuilding and economic development. And he also said
that you did not support panelized or modular construction for
damaged properties. Would you explain why in both of those
circumstances?
Admiral Johnson. Certainly. In the demolition of a
structure, FEMA has traditionally paid for the demolition of
the structure itself but has not paid for the removal of the
slab. That becomes a cost that, in Louisiana, the State has
paid for some of that out of their CDBG funds.
Ms. Norton. Removal of the slab; do you demolish it?
Admiral Johnson. Right.
Ms. Norton. And what is left of it, FEMA will not pay to
remove?
Admiral Johnson. That is correct. Our job is to remove the
health and safety impact on the community, so in our view that
is to demolish the structure itself.
Ms. Norton. I don't know if that is one of the quick fixes
that we put into the act that we are still waiting to come out
of the Senate. But I have to say if we were willing to waive
the State's share, the notion of not paying to remove what you
demolished does strike me as being a very frustrating way to
proceed, and maybe that we have to do more if you believe that
you are proscribed by statute. And I would say then you
shouldn't demolish unless there really is a danger, because you
are making a mess.
Now, I understand--what is this--FEMA resolutions do permit
debris removal. This is not debris? You don't characterize this
as debris for economic recovery? One of the things we had with
FEMA was that it was reading its regulations so narrowly that
we had to pass a whole bill. And what I objected to was that we
thought a fair reading of the bill often meant that you could
have proceeded. And instead we had to enact a whole bill.
Now we have passed resolutions to permit debris removal for
economic recovery, and you are telling me that you believe that
you have to leave those slabs there. That is frustrating. I
need you to look again and have your counsel review whether or
not, in light of the resolutions--we will give you the
numbers--there may be some removal of those.
Now, can you talk about the panelized and modular
construction for damaged property? You don't believe you can
pay for that?
Admiral Johnson. The Katrina cottage that you discussed
with Mayor Nagin, as you recall, Congress gave $400 million 2
years ago to have an alternate housing pilot project among the
States on the Gulf Coast. Mississippi, as the mayor indicated,
got out ahead of the other States, and they have procured and
installed these Mississippi cottages, now sometimes called
Katrina cottages. They are a panelized house. They are in very
good shape.
Ms. Norton. So they are done with modular construction and
panelized houses. So you will pay for it?
Admiral Johnson. Well, these are modular--it is a modular
construction. It is an improvement on a mobile home. I don't
think I would call it panelized housing. It is a different
style of housing. Panelized housing is much, much more
expensive, and basically is sort of like a house in a box. But
this cottage is transportable and it meets--again, it is an
alternative to a mobile home or a travel trailer. The States of
Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama also receive funding in this
pilot project, but they have yet to produce a unit, and
actually installed one for testing.
Ms. Norton. So what do you think is the hold-up in those
States?
Admiral Johnson. It has taken those States longer to
organize their governance structure to identify what their
contract would be and how they would actually choose sites and
install units. They have each had varying degrees of
difficulty, but they are all about to come on line and soon
will produce their units for testing.
Ms. Norton. We are very anxious to see how those units
work, particularly the fun we had with trailers.
I called it a resolution; I am sorry. I asked your counsel
to look at debris removal regulation 44, CFR 206.224(b)(3). I
believe you--based on this resolution, the staff tells me you
do have the authority to remove these slabs. We are just trying
to do what we can to move this thing along. So I would ask your
reporters to report back to us within 30 days what your
counsel's view is.
Admiral Johnson. Certainly.
Ms. Norton. I am going to ask the Ranking Member if he has
any questions for you, Admiral Johnson.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks, Admiral, for
coming in. I want to talk to you about, or have you talk to me
about the transitional voucher program.
During Hurricane Ike it has been reported that 4,000 people
checked into hotels underneath that program, but there were
107,000 that qualified for it, but there wasn't any space
available for them. I am curious how you are going to deal with
that or what you are looking at to try to deal with that.
Admiral Johnson. The transitional housing program,
sheltering, that we put out basically does say that we need
very minimum requirements; that a person can call and register
with FEMA and they would be assigned an authentication code.
They could go to a hotel or motel that is part of the program.
And thousands are. I think there are 8,000 hotel and motels
that participate. And based on them having a room, they will
accept an applicant and FEMA pays the bill.
But as you would imagine during a disaster, these hotels
and motels are filled and they don't have a whole lot of spaces
available. We have heard reports that in some areas, because of
prior bookings at hotels and reservations, that they didn't
have room. And so we have checked them to find out, to make
sure that all those who comply with the program and participate
actually fully participate. But we had a number of people--
about every day 500 or more people move in and move out. It is
a transitory type of a thing. And I think it has been fairly
successful. We had about 800 or 900 at one time in Louisiana,
and we have had up to 3,500 in Texas who have taken advantage
of the program.
Mr. Graves. And then one other question. The Red Cross has
requested a $150 million bailout for its disaster operations,
and I am just curious what the administration's position is on
this.
Admiral Johnson. I am not sure what the administration's
position is, if they have actually offered the position. We
have certainly--one of our strongest partners in preparedness,
as well as in response to recovery, is the Red Cross. We have a
great relationship with them. We have their staff members on
our staff. We consult with the Red Cross. We establish our
policies and do as many policies as we can in concert with the
Red Cross. We were able to work with them during feeding
kitchens, for example, in both Gustav and Ike. And so I am
aware of the proposal and believe that there is support for
that.
Mr. Graves. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Graves. Mr. Arcuri.
Mr. Arcuri. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Johnson,
for being here.
Mr. Johnson, the FEMA interim rule that eliminates
administrative allowance in-state management administrative
allowance, I want to ask you a couple of questions. They are
utilized in New York to cover, as I imagine in many States, to
cover direct and indirect costs. According to the National
Emergency Management Association its costs States an average of
6.21 percent of their public assistance allocation to manage
the administrative PA program, yet FEMA's rule would cap the
allowance at 3.34 percent and States will be forced to cover
that gap of 2.87 percent. I mean, in New York we estimate that
is going to cost about $33 million.
Any thoughts on how the States are going to make that up or
what we are going to do, or any rationale as to why FEMA has
cut that out?
Admiral Johnson. We had a rulemaking out--covering
administrative costs is always a controversial subject. We want
the States to administer as much of the response recovery as
they can. We want to reimburse them fairly for the cost of that
administration. And it becomes a debate between us sometimes as
to exactly what are those costs and how do we reimburse the
right amount.
We put out a rulemaking some time ago that offered a
construct that was a change in the way we did business. We felt
there was a bit of misinformation about that. It wasn't very
well understood. And we have recently pulled back that
rulemaking and are engaged now with NEMA and other
representatives, again in the States, and talking about how we
can fairly arrive at a formula that will reimburse the cost of
the States.
So it is still active discussion between us and the States
to make sure we can identify what those costs are. Like
anything else, I think that you have seen what are the numbers
and what makes up those numbers. And we would be glad to meet
with you or your staff and go through what our processes are
and give you a sense of what our assumptions are and how we are
engaged in discussions on the administrative cost.
Mr. Arcuri. I would appreciate that. It just seems to me
that with global warming, with the change in the environment,
we are seeing more natural disasters. And this is not the time
that we want to cut out programs that the States need but,
rather, help the States more if we can. So I would greatly
appreciate the opportunity for us to get together and chat
about it. Thank you, sir.
Admiral Johnson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arcuri. [presiding.] We are beyond the midpoint of the
2008 hurricane season. Do you think that we are in a position
where we are going to be able to respond if there are any
additional hurricanes that we encounter this year?
Admiral Johnson. Yes, sir. We certainly think that--we have
gone through about 5 weeks now. And hurricanes, this should
only happen on weekends. But we went through about 5 weeks
between Hurricane Dolly, Fran, Gustav, Ike, and I think that we
have been tested, all of us, on a Federal, State and local
level in this hurricane season, and we have done very, very
well. I think it affirmed for us that we have invested a lot of
time and resources over the last 2 years in fairly light
hurricane seasons to focus on preparedness, on command and
control, and on partnerships. And I think we have shown that
that effort was worth its investment. And I think we have,
again, reinstilled confidence that we can respond well to
disasters. Part of our focus has been to put a stake in the
heart of Katrina and put that behind us. And I hope that by the
performance in Gustav and Ike so far that we are able to do
that.
Mr. Arcuri. Obviously it is a learning process. Did we
learn anything so far in this hurricane season that you can
tell us? We are always asking you about things. Are there
things that we could do that could help FEMA in the future that
we learned this year?
Admiral Johnson. First of all, this Subcommittee is always
intent on helping FEMA learn. And sometimes it is tough love,
but we appreciate it. But I think from this hurricane season,
maybe a couple of things to point out. First, as was indicated,
commodities really point up--that is a problem we didn't
expect.
Now, how that system typically works is FEMA provides
commodities to the State's staging area and the State manages
commodities from there to distribution to PODs, to four points
where they distribute PODs to commodities individuals. It
didn't work very well. What we found in a large storm, we could
move hundreds of truckloads of supplies into a staging area,
but we couldn't get them out very efficiently. We actually sent
our director of logistics, Eric Smith, down to Louisiana and
sent him again to Houston to work through these issues about
how do we really distribute commodities and get them out on
time to the right place? And it is a very difficult, complex
process and we eventually worked through it.
So I think one of our focuses for next hurricane season is
to work with the States on the full supply chain, end-to-end
logistics, and to see how we can make sure we get the right
supplies to the right place at the right time.
I think a second area that we are working on is
registration. And we have made huge improvements over Katrina.
We have more than 1 million people who have registered between
Gustav and Ike. At one point, at the same point in time, 12
days after the storm, we had 500,000 registered in Gustav and
there were 350,000, same point in time, for Katrina. So they
had huge improvements. And yet back-to-back storms really
tested our system.
What we have found is that we need to look more at new
technology and to establish kiosk computer centers where people
can register more on line. And so I think we need to look at
new technologies to be more efficient in registrations. Those
are two practical things that have caught us up a little bit in
response and recovery that we are going to work on for the next
hurricane season.
Mr. Arcuri. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson, I appreciate
it. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. Thank you Mr. Arcuri.
Let me ask you, I suppose perhaps I don't fully appreciate
the difficulty of getting supplies out if there is planning.
For example, if there are--if the State is required to say
where the shelters will be in the event of a disaster it should
not even be difficult to break that down in the event of a
Category 2 disaster, 3 disaster: Where will the shelters be? If
the States are required to do that, then everything, it seems
to me, should flow from that.
If I know that the shelters, in the case of a Category 3
type, will be in northern Louisiana, then I have a geographical
area and regional area that I know I have to get to.
I don't understand why preplanning won't take care of most
of the issue. You make it sound as if you bring supplies in and
then decide, oh my God, how are we going to get it out there?
Indeed, I heard Secretary Chertoff say on television or radio
that he had 18-ton trucks, or whatever, ready to go into Texas,
but then they had to clear the roads.
Well, Galveston, for example, was always going to be a
complete disaster. Flooding was predicted to be the major
issue. So I don't even understand 18-wheelers. I mean are
helicopters, for example, an alternative to get food in, if as
much food has not been prepositioned as you anticipated?
Indeed, most of it should have been prepositioned. So I guess
once you know where the shelters will be in the event of
Categories 2, 3, 4, 5, it does seem to me that you have
something going for you. You might not know where it is going
to strike, but if planning means anything, then once it hits,
you know exactly what you have got to do and you have
prepositioned transportation of the kind that will be
necessary, supplies of the kind that be will be necessary.
And I hate to use this analogy, but I am going to have to,
and maybe we need to consult with them. I bet the military will
know what to do. They have got to figure out in advance what to
do when they have got people located in much more unpredictable
conditions than a hurricane.
So I think this raises questions of planning, planning with
the State, and particularly since your housing strategy says
that you are very reliant upon the State, establishing some
closer nexus besides we-recommend-to-the-State and we-hope-we-
will-do-it kinds of things, because it is going to be in your
hands largely, normally, to get supplies to areas that the
State will often lack the kinds of transportation means to
accomplish. Witness what the Secretary was trying to do with
18-wheelers.
Admiral Johnson. Well, Madam Chair, what sounds easy in
this room, absent a disaster----
Ms. Norton. It isn't easy. It is planning. Planning is the
hard part.
Admiral Johnson. What sounds easy in this room is if we
were to lay out a plan for PODs in your city, in Washington,
D.C., and expect that that plan would work perfectly in a
disaster, it would be easy and the plan would be good. But what
happens in reality is that in D.C., in Houston, in New Orleans,
in Shreveport, as local elected officials evaluate the impact
in their city, on that very night they determine where do they
want the PODs established to meet the needs of their citizens,
looking at who has evacuated, who has not, what part of the
city has restored and what has not.
Ms. Norton. And, of course, communication wasn't down as it
was in Katrina.
Admiral Johnson. Well, what happens is that every night
they reestablish where they want PODs. So the plan you had
before the disaster becomes ineffective when it gets changed
late at night, and for good reasons. But once you have had a
lot of PODs and you get a plan late in the evening it is hard
to move inside--imagine the city of Washington streets. To move
POD supplies, you need time to physically get it done.
What happened in Gustav was that because of the reaction of
the power outage and the change in the dynamics, the plan got
put together too late in order to move all the trucks in time
to open the PODs, when people were sitting there waiting.
Ms. Norton. How do you account for that? Why do you think
the planning occurred later than it might have?
Admiral Johnson. I think it was people trying to react to
the latest information, to really anticipate the needs of their
citizens. And perhaps they haven't done it before. Everyone
learned a lot of lessons. And by the third day, POD plans were
put together at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and gave everyone
plenty of time to supply for the next day. So they started off
okay, they got bad for a couple of days, and got fixed again in
a few more days. So it eventually worked itself out, but it
took a little bit of adjustments along the way.
Ms. Norton. How about activated or nonactivated food
stamps, the frustrations of long lines and getting food stamps?
It took some days to get them activated. Were you trying to
avoid fraud and did it need to take so long?
Admiral Johnson. I personally don't have any knowledge of
that. That is another program. We observed that happening in
Louisiana, and perhaps it could happen in Texas, but that is
beyond FEMA's scope and I don't have any details of that.
Ms. Norton. Was it beyond FEMA's scope because the State
provided the food stamp activation?
Admiral Johnson. Well, the food stamp is with USDA. And the
USDA worked with the State in trying to coordinate the
efficient delivery. And I think there were just some logistics
issues about times and locations, and it got backed up. But I
don't have any personal acknowledge of that program.
Ms. Norton. Well, I am not going to ask FEMA to provide us
with that, but those were among the loudest complaints that we
heard.
Now, I would like to quickly go through this housing, new
housing strategy. And I recognize that you are still in
comment, that is why we wanted to have the hearing before the
comment period was ended. It would be helpful for us to know
what the major elements of the strategy is, especially those
that differ from FEMA's Disaster Housing Strategy, previous
Disaster Housing Strategy? How do you think--why do you think
this is better?
Admiral Johnson. Well, perhaps the most significant issue
is it does delineate, again, what are the roles and
responsibilities of the Federal Government and of the State.
And during Katrina, where FEMA took over almost the entire
management of the housing program, those roles and
responsibilities became too blurred.
And so, for example, in Texas today, Texas has identified
today what their level of acceptable formaldehyde is. FEMA
doesn't have to do that. That is their responsibility. Today
Texas requested, the government request, first, to provide a
direct housing program in the city of Orange in Jefferson
County. That is their job, ask for direct housing. Texas will
tell us what type of housing they want, which is their job. We
provide options, they select the option, we implement. And then
over the next several days now, we will implement that program
to meet the objectives of the State.
And so in this case, the State should make those decisions
that FEMA should implement and help them achieve their
objectives. That is a primary focus of the strategy.
Ms. Norton. Now, the States on whom you, of course, rely in
your housing strategy, I think appropriately so, we then need
to look at your relationship to the States. Now, according to
your own people, only eight States have their own disaster
housing programs. That is bothersome. I am not sure which
States those are. But how can you rely upon the States if they
are not required to have a disaster housing program by FEMA?
Admiral Johnson. Part of what FEMA will do to implement the
strategy, for example, when we put EMPG grants--and you are
familiar with those grants, those are focused on emergency
management--we will require States to devote some portion of
those grant dollars towards disaster housing planning. We have
not previously done that.
In a disaster, for example, in Iowa, in Louisiana, and in
Texas, we have asked the State to stand up a State-led housing
task force. They each have complied and done that. So what we
are finding is the States are receptive to the objectives of
the strategy. And it has worked out very well thus far in Iowa,
I think it will work out well in Texas, and work in Louisiana
with Gustav implementation, and I believe it will work out
there as well.
Ms. Norton. Now, we had a situation in Katrina we hope we
will never have again. But because FEMA is best suited, in fact
its mission is to help people to find short-term everything,
everything is supposed to be short term. But after Katrina, as
you now look at who is left, we find that 12 percent of those
displaced were over the age of 65.
Now, how does--your self-sufficiency approach, of course,
is the correct approach--how does it take into account when we
are dealing with people who can hardly be expected to start all
over again in providing housing? Some of them are living in
senior citizens housing, some of them live in their own homes
and at their age will not rebuild, and therefore whatever the
State's responsibility, you are going to be left with these
displaced victims.
How do your present policies enable you to in fact account
for these victims? Because you can keep setting dates when they
have to find housing all you want to, but the fact is that
given their vulnerable state, the Nation is going to look to
you, considering the increasing number of elderly people.
Consider the baby boom, for example. They are not there
yet, but they will be there and they are living longer. What is
needed? Is it new statutory authority? What are you going to do
now about the thousands who are among those still without
housing in trailers and otherwise not in permanent homes? How
do you expect to deal with them in your new housing strategy?
Admiral Johnson. In a disaster where there are elderly or
other perhaps more challenged community groups, as in Katrina,
what will end up happening, I believe, is that some of those
people will eventually filter into another existing government
program. For example in HUD, HUD has a program for section 8
housing. HUD has a program for some of the elderly that have
been exempted, by the way, for some of the payments on their
rent. And eventually when it gets down to that smaller group,
at this point in the disaster they will likely be placed by
case management into some existing program.
We are very focused, as are you, on looking and learning
more about effective case management and how to identify these
people earlier and to put them in the right program to meet
their needs.
Ms. Norton. Long-term needs were really put on the map by
housing needs by Katrina. And you did something that seemed to
make sense. States were told that they could lease apartments
for up to 12 months. But then you told the States to terminate
those leases after 6 months. How will lease management be
handled under the new housing strategy?
Admiral Johnson. That did occur before. And what we have
now, partially in response to Congressman Graves' question,
what we have now is our transitional assistance program that we
just implemented here for Ike and for Gustav, where now we put
people into hotels and motels and we pay that hotel and motel
bill. It is 30 days at the outset, and if we need to extend it
we have the option to do that. And so we will try to manage
that individually. We can also pay the hotel directly, as in
this case. We may look at leasing portions of hotels so that we
can move people in and out of a room that we are already paying
for.
So I think we have come up with some good lessons learned.
We are implementing a more targeted program that allows us to
manage the cost a lot closer.
Ms. Norton. We were concerned that the GAO's 2007 report
said they found certain kinds of shelters without feeding
capabilities when they did a survey of selected States. Do you
look at feeding capabilities in particular? I suspect that the
warehouse in north Louisiana would have been such a place. Must
a shelter that the State designates have the capacity to feed
people--kitchen, some way to make sure that food can be stored
and the like?
Admiral Johnson. Well, I think perhaps Joe Becker or Red
Cross can answer that question better than I can. We don't
require every shelter to have a kitchen, but we require
shelters to be able to provide food and water and basic life
sustaining support.
Ms. Norton. I don't mean an actual kitchen, I mean the
capacity to have running water, a makeshift kitchen.
Admiral Johnson. And we require that. We also have worked
with the Red Cross and with the nongovernment organizations on
building feeding kitchens and feeding capabilities. For
example, in Houston where we have shelters, we also now provide
a separate feeding kitchen that provides--all through Texas I
think--it is a phenomenal number of meals that are able to be
prepared every single day. And so we now are taking a much more
focused look at how we provide shelters and how we provide
feeding capability.
Ms. Norton. You work with the State. I need to know within
30 days what FEMA tells a State its shelters are expected to
look like.
Admiral Johnson. Yes ma'am.
Ms. Norton. This question keeps coming up as I find out
about the kitchens, the shelters and the feeding. So rather
than ask that question over again, it would help me with this
blanket question to say what is it that FEMA tells States that
a shelter must provide; where shelters must be?
Admiral Johnson. We can provide that for the record.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. Finally, I would like to ask you
about the Red Cross. Our final witness is going to be the GAO
and the Red Cross. We were very concerned to hear about the
nonprofits on whom you rely. How much do you rely on them, and
what is your view of their capacity to handle the mission you
expect from them as these hurricanes and other disasters become
more frequent?
Admiral Johnson. We rely on the Red Cross and nongovernment
organizations, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, we rely on
them a lot. They are in the local area, they know the local
people, they know the geography, they understand the culture.
Ms. Norton. Well, what did the GAO mean when they said they
believe they are overwhelmed? Is that your view? Have you
worked with them in Ike and Gustav? Did you find them able to
manage the responsibilities as expected?
Admiral Johnson. Well, I think as you saw in our comments,
we don't think very highly of that particular GAO report. We
believe that the report----
Ms. Norton. In what way do you differ from the report?
Admiral Johnson. Well, I think the report, for example, I
think it expected the Red Cross and nongovernment organizations
be the primary provider of support to disaster victims. To my
knowledge, the GAO did not interview the emergency managers in
the State of New York, in Texas, or California or Florida. All
of those States have magnificent well-organized local support
programs. And the State is responsible for providing for that
support.
Ms. Norton. So how did they get the impression that they
couldn't handle--that the Red Cross in particular, if they got
the impression the Red Cross was responsible for the bulk of
it, they most have gotten it from the Red Cross. They must have
told them it was falling to them.
Admiral Johnson. I am not sure how they got that idea. I am
not sure if they had a visitor's shelter before. They didn't
get that idea from us, and I don't think they got it from
talking to----
Ms. Norton. Well, I am not going to put the burden on you.
I just thought you would like to give your opinion of the role
of the Red Cross. Do you feel that they are doing an adequate
job, in terms of their funding, in terms of the carrying out
their mission and the like?
Admiral Johnson. They have been phenomenal partners. They
help us immeasurably, in measurable ways and immeasurable ways,
in helping to organize the delivery of mass care services to
disaster victims. They do a great job, in and of themselves,
they do a great job to link with all the other NGOs and to
coordinate them and help bring together disparate groups.
Ms. Norton. So you have no recommendations for improvement
by Red Cross and other nonprofits who assist FEMA?
Admiral Johnson. Well, I think our recommendation on
improvements is we can always continue to work better today,
communicate better, and to be better organized.
Ms. Norton. Well, you have had two recent hurricanes.
Admiral Johnson. And they have done a great job.
Ms. Norton. All right. As far as you are concerned, you are
perfect so we will pass on that.
I have to ask you one question, since you talked about the
States and prepositioning. You even mentioned the District of
Columbia. There may be other big cities like the District of
Columbia. They are located in a State that doesn't have many
big cities. We are not even located in a State. We treat it as
a State for all purposes except to vote. But when you hear for
the 50 States and the District of Columbia, that is us.
If there were to be a disaster, and not more than 5 years
ago we had a major flood here--but of course it was positioned
in part of the city, not the rest--but if for some reason, it
would likely be a terrorist attack where somebody set off
something, and we had to be moved, it has crossed my mind more
than once whether FEMA has determined where residents of the
District of Columbia, not a State, very small area, less than
10 square miles, where would the residents of the District of
Columbia go if they needed sheltering tomorrow?
Admiral Johnson. We have a program called gap analysis,
which we may have briefed you on before. And we work with the
hurricane--18 hurricane impact States, the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and we assess them on
how ready they are for a disaster. We work with the emergency
manager in the District and have gone through sheltering,
transportation, communications, medical services, have a sense
of what their capabilities are.
Ms. Norton. Admiral, I asked where would we go. I am
assuming that a certain percentage of the population had to
leave town. Do you know where such residents would be directed
from the Nation's Capital to go?
Admiral Johnson. There is an existing national capital
regional evacuation plan that identifies routes in the city,
and they would go to the suburbs and go to the neighboring
States. I would be glad to have a staff come by and brief you
completely on that.
Ms. Norton. I would like you in 30 days to tell me exactly
what you say if you have got to go to a shelter out of state,
that there is planning, prepositioning, where you go. And I
realize some people live in Southeast, some people live in
Northwest. In 30 days I would like to know where the residents
of the District of Columbia--a fair number are Members of
Congress, a fair number are Federal officials, and many are
residents of the District of Columbia. I don't want to know the
routes, I know the routes. And about the last thing you want to
do--in fact, we tell people stay in place--the last thing you
would want to do is say they will go to, quote, the suburbs.
The notion that the suburbs would say you all come is hard to
believe.
Admiral Johnson. We would be glad to review that shelter
plan with you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. We want places that have
been designated. I am going to ask the Chair of the Full
Committee if he has any comments or any questions for Admiral
Johnson.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Admiral
Johnson, for being here with us today. I think the Chair has
covered a wide spectrum of issues that we anticipated to cover
in this hearing. The question that may have been asked while I
was attending to other Committee business is what research,
development, testing, has FEMA accomplished on housing, that is
mobile housing, that does not have the adverse health effects
that have been associated with the FEMA trailers?
Admiral Johnson. There are two things.
First is that we have new contracts for mobile homes and
park model units that require formaldehyde to be at the level
of.016 parts per billion of formaldehyde. There has never been
a requirement that low before for construction.
We worked with the manufacturers of mobile homes, changed
out building materials, changed out manufacturing processes to
ensure that they can actually produce units that are that
virtually low in formaldehyde.
We have already taken delivery on some of the units, and we
will take delivery on additional units at the end of October.
So our first effort has been to reduce the level of
formaldehyde in these units.
Mr. Oberstar. Repeat that figure that you said a moment
ago. I didn't write it down.
Admiral Johnson. It is .016.
Mr. Oberstar. .016.
Admiral Johnson. Second is that we have looked extensively
for alternatives to mobile homes and park models. We recently
put a contract out on the street asking for innovative ideas,
and we are going to buy and test different concepts for how to
replace a mobile home and a travel trailer. And I think we are
going to find a number of alternatives that will give us more
flexibility based on where we might need units, in dense, urban
areas versus in colder climates or the gulf.
Mr. Oberstar. What are your requirements for mobile
housing, that is, standards or requirements for ability to move
these units from one place to another? Do they have to be of a
certain size, certain weight, dimension and readiness to be put
into use? What are the standards that you have established for
the housing?
I ask the question because I get, and I am sure Chair
Norton as well, visits from various organizations that say,
well, we have something really hot for FEMA. And I haven't sent
any of them to you, because I don't know what your standards
are. What are those standards?
Admiral Johnson. Mr. Chairman, first let me just correct:
It is .016 parts per million. I said parts per billion. So,
.016 parts per million.
Mr. Oberstar. I thought that was----
Admiral Johnson. We will provide for the record. It is a
one-sheet requirements in our contracts for mobile homes. But
it defines the length of the mobile home so it fits on the
highways, the width of the mobile home, what the equipment is
required inside the mobile home. So we can provide that to you
for the record, if you would like.
Mr. Oberstar. That would be very useful, Because there are
many people who are interested in these issues. It receives
such nationwide attention, it is hard to run into a
constituent, let alone people from other parts of the country,
who aren't aware of FEMA trailer problem. It is one word, there
is no hyphen, there isn't even a space. It is a "FEMA trailer
problem."
Admiral Johnson. Mr. Chairman, don't be bashful to send
them on to FEMA. We have established a joint housing solutions
group, and they are looking for new ideas. And they will meet
with a vendor, and they will talk with them about our
requirements. So if you want to forward them to us, we would be
glad to talk to them about our program.
Mr. Oberstar. In the interest of full disclosure, my wife
is from New Orleans, born and raised there, still has family
there. We visit there frequently. And we went into one of those
trailers, closed for quite some time, and the aroma would knock
you over.
Admiral Johnson. Yeah. We have learned a lot----
Mr. Oberstar. This is not a figment of anyone's
imagination. I can't imagine living in this thing.
Admiral Johnson. It is not. We have learned a lot of
lessons from the units that we bought for Katrina. And, again,
I think you are seeing us reflect those lessons learned by
finding alternatives and by requiring now a very, very, very
low level of formaldehyde. And, by the way, we test these units
to make sure that they meet our specification. They don't pass
the test, we don't buy the unit.
Mr. Oberstar. Do you have energy consumption standards for
those trailers as well?
Admiral Johnson. I don't believe we have energy
consumption. There is a rating, depending on the climate that
they are involved in, a level 1, 2 or 3 climate.
Mr. Oberstar. Okay. I welcome that information whenever you
can provide it.
What is the status of the Disaster Relief Fund for the
balance of this year?
Admiral Johnson. Dire. We just went below a billion
dollars, which sounds like a lot of money but in disasters is
not much. And so we are looking at the cost of--right now our
projected cost for Gustav and Ike is both--let me say each,
about $800 million each. And so these are catastrophes.
When we project the life of the Disaster Relief Fund, we
typically plan for a hurricane season absent a catastrophe. And
now we have had the Midwest floods and Ike and Gustav. So we
are concerned about the size of the Disaster Relief Fund.
Mr. Oberstar. Do you have data available in FEMA on the
amount that the private insurance sector has paid out on the
Iowa floods, Ike and Gustav and so on?
Admiral Johnson. I don't know that we do, but we will
check. If we can get that, we will provide it to you.
Mr. Oberstar. Our staff regularly tracks that information,
at my direction, and have done over a period of years, and they
have seen this very sharp escalation of private-sector
insurance costs in FEMA States' local disaster assistance. We
are running into the dozens of billions of dollars of cost.
Admiral Johnson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. And it is a steady progression over the last
20 years. I mean, this is parenthetical to the discussion at
hand, but for anyone to say that we are not experiencing global
climate change, they are not living on the same planet. Those
figures are unavoidable.
Will FEMA have to ask for supplemental funding, do you
think?
Admiral Johnson. Well, of course that is a judgment for the
administration. But we are working with them to----
Mr. Oberstar. But you say you are below a billion dollars,
and we are still not finished with the hurricane season. There
is another one brewing in the south Atlantic, I heard this
morning on The Weather Channel.
Admiral Johnson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. We could be facing more.
Admiral Johnson. It is true. You know, we are concerned
about the balance, and we are working inside the administration
to see if the President wants to propose a supplemental. I
don't believe a decision has been made on that yet.
Mr. Oberstar. We had passed, with Chair Norton's leadership
and effort, a bipartisan bill from the House. The Senate, there
are stirrings over there. You just never know what is going to
happen. Every now and then, the water moves, like the Old
Testament, water stirs, you jump in it so you will be saved.
But every now and then, we see stirrings. And it may be that we
will have a FEMA authorization bill.
Is there any additional authority or expanded legislative
authority you might need to address the recovery from Gustav
and Ike?
Admiral Johnson. We are looking at that to see whether we
think we need more authority.
One thing that we are doing, Mr. Chairman, and I think
Madam Chairwoman mentioned as well, we think over the years our
regulations and our policies have become increasingly
restrictive. And so we are currently in a program to look at
rewriting our regulations to give us more flexibility in
changing policy to reflect lessons learned. And so that is our
primary focus, is fix the regulations and policies. And
Stafford, in itself, is still a pretty good piece of
legislation, as you know personally.
Mr. Oberstar. All right. I don't need to pursue this any
further. We have two more witnesses to accommodate.
And, Madam Chair, thank you.
Mr. Johnson, thank you. Admiral, thank you very much for
being here. We look forward to receiving your response to those
earlier questions.
Ms. Norton. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
By the way, that was a blockbuster, that last thing you
said, that during the review of your legislations, in light of
present-day realities, to eliminate some of the rigidity. When
do you expect that to be completed, please?
Admiral Johnson. We are working right now on--we have
looked at our individual assistance program, and we have
identified three regulations in individual assistance, three
regulations in public assistance, and 10 policies that we are
reviewing right now to, again, reflect lessons learned and
provide more flexibility.
We are working the reg packages as we speak and reviewing
those policies, and we certainly hope to get those out within
this calendar year.
Ms. Norton. Would those be out for comment?
Admiral Johnson. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. Yeah, well, we would be delighted to see you
able to do that before this administration ends.
Admiral Johnson. So would we.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for very
helpful testimony, Admiral Johnson.
And could I ask the final two witnesses if they would come
forward?
Thank you for your patience.
They are: from the Government Accountability Office,
Cynthia Fagnoni; and from the American Red Cross, Joseph
Becker, who is the senior vice president for preparedness and
response.
We will go with Ms. Fagnoni first.
TESTIMONY OF CYNTHIA FAGNONI, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION,
WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; JOSEPH BECKER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF
PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE, AMERICAN RED CROSS
Ms. Fagnoni. Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee, I
am very pleased to be here today to discuss our findings from a
report we issued last week on voluntary organizations' disaster
response.
This afternoon I will highlight what we found in four
areas: the roles of voluntary organizations in providing mass
care and other services in large-scale disasters; their efforts
to improve since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; their current
capabilities in four large cities; and the remaining challenges
for these organizations.
In doing our work, we focused on the Red Cross, the
Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Convention, Catholic
Charities, and United Way. We also visited Los Angeles, Miami,
New York, and the Washington, D.C., region.
First, the five voluntary organizations we reviewed are
highly diverse. The American Red Cross is the only one with a
designated role as a support agency for mass care under the
Government's National Response Framework. Both FEMA and the Red
Cross agree that the Red Cross will support FEMA with staff and
expertise in responding to a catastrophic hurricane or
earthquake. However, this agreement is not clearly documented
in the Catastrophic Incident Supplement to the framework. In
our report, we recommended that FEMA update and document its
expectation for the Red Cross in a catastrophic disaster, and
FEMA agreed.
Second, our report also found that the voluntary
organizations we reviewed have taken steps to strengthen their
service delivery. For example, the Red Cross has initiated
thousands of new partnerships with local community and faith-
based organizations, particularly in rural areas with hard-to-
reach populations. These organizations also are collaborating
more on feeding and case management and on improving their
supply chain management and communication systems.
Third, our report found that voluntary organizations have
substantial sheltering and feeding resources both locally and
nationally. However, without government and other assistance, a
worst-case, large-scale disaster would likely overwhelm
voluntary organizations' current mass care capabilities. For
example, a catastrophic earthquake striking Los Angeles could
create the need to shelter more than 300,000 people, but the
Red Cross can shelter 84,000 locally under the best conditions.
And a nuclear terrorist attack in Washington, D.C., could
require 300,000 more meals per day than the Red Cross can
currently provide.
Because such disasters call for a communal, all-hands-on-
deck response, government employees in New York City and
elsewhere are being trained to provide sheltering and feeding
in a catastrophic disaster. FEMA has also developed some
contracts with private-sector companies to provide resources as
well.
Our report found that FEMA's initial assessment of mass
care capabilities in selected States did not include the
sheltering capabilities of all voluntary organizations and did
not address feeding capabilities outside of shelters. Our
report recommended that FEMA take steps to better incorporate
voluntary organizations' capabilities into its assessments of
mass care capabilities. FEMA disagreed, saying that Federal,
State and local government cannot command and control private-
sector resources.
However, FEMA is required, under the Post-Katrina Act, to
establish a comprehensive system to assess the Nation's overall
preparedness. Such an assessment should account as fully as
possibly for voluntary organizations' capabilities. Taking
steps to assess capabilities more fully does not require
controlling these resources but, rather, cooperatively
obtaining and sharing information. Without such an assessment,
the Federal Government will have an incomplete picture of the
mass care resources it could draw upon in large-scale
disasters, as well as of the gaps that it must be prepared to
fill.
And finally, voluntary organizations continue to face
challenges in preparing for large-scale disasters. Reliant on
volunteers and donations, many organization struggle to raise
private funds to help them better prepare for future disasters,
especially potentially catastrophic ones.
While FEMA told us some Federal emergency preparedness
grants could help, its guidance did not clearly state that
voluntary organizations could be considered among those as
eligible subgrantees. In our report, we recommended that FEMA
clarify States' ability to consider voluntary organizations as
among the potential recipients of Federal preparedness funds,
and FEMA agreed.
In conclusion, recent events bring home once again the
critical role of the Red Cross and other voluntary
organizations at such times, as well as the importance of
preparing for large-scale disasters. As it stands now, the
Nation is not yet as prepared as it needs to be to shelter and
feed survivors of a catastrophic disaster.
This condition includes my statement. I would be happy to
answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Ms. Fagnoni.
Mr. Becker, of the Red Cross.
Mr. Becker. Chairwoman Norton, good afternoon. My name is
Joe Becker, and I lead the American Red Cross disaster relief
efforts nationally. Thank you for your invitation to speak here
today.
I was asked to address two issues: the GAO report on mass
care capabilities in catastrophic events and how the nonprofit
sector organizes and responds to disasters.
I will start with how the sector works. I think the best
word to describe how the nonprofit sector works is "layers." If
today is an average day, the American Red Cross will respond to
about 200 disasters around the country, and most of these will
be very small. It is an apartment fire, it is a transportation
incident. We are called on the scene by a local fire
department, and we respond. We don't pick and choose which
disasters we respond to; we always respond when called.
The things we do in a very small disaster, say, an
apartment fire, are the same things we do on large disasters.
We provide a safe shelter for people, and we feed them in the
shelter. We feed the community at large, driving through
neighborhoods that are affected. We distribute supplies that
are over and above what Admiral Johnson was referring to in
points of distribution, or PODs. We provide mental health with
volunteer psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health
professionals. Our nurses provide first aid and minor health-
care treatments. And we provide safe blood and blood products.
I described the very small disaster that the Red Cross
typically responds to alone. If something is a little bit
bigger than that--you live here in the District; remember the
recent flooding adjacent to here in Fairfax County--if a
disaster is a little bit bigger, we will be joined by great
partners that we work with very closely. They are typically
faith-based groups. Catholic Charities, Southern Baptists and
the Salvation Army would be the primary ones that typically
join us on larger-scale relief efforts.
Then, if something is quite large--the Midwest floods, Ike,
Gustav--we are joined by a large number of organizations. On
something that big, everyone wants to help, and no one more so
than the faith communities. And you will remember in Katrina,
that was one of the frustrations people had. A church or local
group would want to open up a shelter or open up a kitchen,
and, frankly, after 2 or 3 days if they fatigued, if they
turned to the American Red Cross for support, they got varying
answers depending on where they were. Our biggest lesson--and
you heard the GAO report address it--is, how do we bring
community groups together to serve? And that is what we have
been about post-Katrina.
In a disaster, 90 to 95 percent of the people take care of
themselves. They check into a motel, they go stay with mom,
they stay with friends, they stay with family. It is the 10
percent, maybe 5 percent, of people who can't care for
themselves or don't have those options, that is who the
American Red Cross cares for in disasters. They are older than
the population at large. They are poorer than the population at
large. And, typically, they are less healthy than the
population at large. It is the frail elderly, in particular,
with which we spend an awful lot of our time and service.
And what we have been about post-Katrina is bringing other
organizations who can help with those people into the
operations. Nationally, we have about 150 partnerships with
organizations that don't have a disaster mission but can help
in time of disaster: examples like the Urban League, the NAACP.
In fact, in Mayor Nagin's city, the NAACP is who helped the Red
Cross distribute meals post-Gustav.
We have done a lot here. We have thousands of partnerships,
particularly on shelters where we train a church, equip them,
supply them, pay their bills after a disaster. That way, we
make sure we are serving a very inclusive response;
geographically and demographically, we are reaching everybody
that we should. The best outcome is local people helping local
people before the Red Cross brings large numbers of volunteers
from all around the country in to respond.
How is the sector coordinated or organized? The American
Red Cross has a primary mission of disaster relief. There are
eight other national nonprofits who don't have a primary
mission for disaster but who take a role and bring value in
time of disaster. The new National Response Framework tasks the
American Red Cross with integrating the efforts of the nine
national nonprofits who deliver service and disaster relief,
and we do that. We share information, and we plan service
delivery.
Locally, though, in over 3,000 counties, that organization
is done in various ways. Sometimes the Red Cross coordinates
other nonprofits. Sometimes the local emergency manager does.
Sometimes another organization will. That is a local decision.
And we receive great support from FEMA, who has people in each
of its regions who help coordinate the voluntary sector as
well.
Addressing the GAO report, I would like to be very clear
here. We have used the word in this hearing several times
today: ``overwhelmed.'' What we are talking about is: are we
ready_the Red Cross and our nonprofit partners_for a
catastrophic event? That is not the California wildfires or
Hurricanes Ike or Gustav or any of those disasters. I think we
have demonstrated in those disasters our ability to respond and
to respond well.
Post-Katrina, the American Red Cross made significant
efforts and investments to improve our capabilities. And part
of that was to quantify our worst-case scenarios. Not
necessarily disaster scenarios with large numbers of fatalities
or casualties. Rather, we were looking at what scenarios would
most stress our ability to feed, our ability to shelter, our
ability to distribute supplies. And we picked six scenarios, as
outlined in the report.
So, for example, the most catastrophic thing that could hit
New York was a hurricane, not in terms of number of fatalities
or casualties, but in terms of demands on sheltering, demands
on feeding. Another scenario was a terrorist attack here in the
District, and we looked at other scenarios as well. We fed that
information to FEMA as part of their gap analysis, but our
internal data is what the GAO used in the report.
For example, here in the District, you said we would need
to shelter 300,000 people and we only have spaces for 13,000. I
think what the report from the GAO might not recognize is, if
something happens here in the District, the sheltering is not
going to happen here in the District. To your point, Madam
Chairwoman, they are going to go to a multi-State area. And we
have modeled this out. And we have 718,000 shelter spaces in
the multi-State area around the District. And if we needed to
add Pennsylvania, that would add another half-million shelter
spaces. And, again, typically, we are only sheltering 5 to 10
percent of the people who evacuate.
The bottom line: we obviously agree with the GAO
assessment--it was our data that they used--that we are not
ready for the worst things that we can imagine. We were trying
to look at disasters that would make Hurricane Katrina look
small, and those were the scenarios that we were working with.
The Nation is not ready for disasters that would make Katrina
look small, and the American Red Cross is not ready to deliver
mass care on that type of scale. Our numbers show that we have
a long way to go.
But it is the nature of a catastrophic event that no one
organization can handle it all and Government can't handle it
all, the Federal Government, nor the Red Cross, nor our
partners. It is the collective capability of the country that
we need to address and make sure is big enough for a
catastrophic event.
And, finally, Madam Chairwoman, my key issue, and it has
been covered several times in this hearing: it is the money,
where it comes from, and who pays for what in terms of
nonprofit mass care service delivery. Our work is typically
funded by people who give. And, typically, when Americans see a
large-scale event, they are very generous in supporting
nonprofit service delivery. Our recent experience has been
different from that, however. We have had so many disasters,
and in a tough economy we have been having trouble raising the
cost of our relief effort.
But it is one thing to ask a donor to pay for feeding and
sheltering and caring of people. It is very different to ask
Americans to pay for what it costs to be ready to respond to a
disaster: for warehouses, for call centers, for recruiting
volunteers, for training those volunteers. That is very, very
hard. And the GAO report correctly states that nonprofits are
an integral part of mass care. We are the service delivery. It
is not a layer-on or a nice-to-have. We are who do that work.
And if we falter, the Nation's response will falter.
The GAO report also correctly states that the Red Cross and
its partners need to build greater capacity. We do, and we
understand that.
The GAO report, finally, correctly says that nonprofits are
largely shut out of the grant process to build this capacity.
While FEMA intends nonprofits to be eligible, we have to go
through a county or State to receive grant money. And, frankly,
they are the decision-makers as to whether we would be included
in that grant process or not.
A simple solution to this that I commend to your attention
is to allow national nonprofits, particularly those with NRF
responsibilities, to apply directly to FEMA for capacity-
building grants. This is simple; this is relatively easy to do.
It makes a lot of sense, and it would make a big difference.
In closing, the Red Cross has built a lot of capacity in
recent years, we have been repeatedly tested, and we have
performed well. But there are catastrophes that we can imagine
that will make Ike and Gustav and all the recent events look
very, very small. These will make Katrina look small by
comparison. We can imagine these events, and we need to get
ready. And, Chairwoman Norton, we appreciate your support.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Norton. Well, thank you, Mr. Becker.
Let me start with Ms. Fagnoni.
You indicate that the Red Cross and similar organizations
would be overwhelmed, in the context of having to deliver
services. Was the Red Cross overwhelmed in Katrina, for
example, during Katrina?
Ms. Fagnoni. We did issue reports after Hurricane Katrina
that highlighted issues and problems that the nonprofit sector
did encounter, including the Red Cross, and made some
recommendations, both to the Red Cross as well as to FEMA, on
how to make those improvements.
I think the Red Cross would agree with me that Katrina
really tested that sector and the Nation's ability to respond
to that kind of disaster in a way that they hadn't really been
tested before, in terms of the scale.
Ms. Norton. I know that the State was overwhelmed. I know
that FEMA was overwhelmed. I am asking, in your view, was the
Red Cross overwhelmed as well?
Ms. Fagnoni. It definitely faced challenges, yes, and had
difficulty----
Ms. Norton. I am trying to find out what "overwhelmed"
means in the context of service delivery.
Ms. Fagnoni. What we were really looking at and what we
were asked to look at by a number of the congressional
requestors who asked us to do this work was to look at the
catastrophic incident supplement; what would happen in a really
major catastrophic event, Katrina or larger----
Ms. Norton. And so, how do you define catastrophic
incident?
Ms. Fagnoni. For purposes of our report, we based it on the
kinds of scenarios that had been developed by FEMA and by the
Red Cross to look at a situation where there was widespread
destruction, potentially large loss of life, significant
communications destruction, really major----
Ms. Norton. So would Katrina----
Ms. Fagnoni. Katrina or worse, yes.
Ms. Norton. Okay. We can't even imagine worse. But I think
Katrina gives you all you need to know to know about a
catastrophic event. Although, Congress does not define--I guess
that is left to the President.
So I am trying to, given the scenarios you have looked at,
to understand when would we know that the Red Cross was
overwhelmed? When it didn't have enough people to deliver the
service, is that what you think is going to happen? I mean,
after all, they only have the supplies that they have, and they
usually come from the government.
So I am trying to understand what makes you believe--
whether there has been an event that made you understand that,
based on their performance at that event, they were overwhelmed
there, so they would certainly be overwhelmed in event of a
catastrophic event? Or whether you were looking at certain
indicators to say, in the event of some scenario?
Ms. Fagnoni. That is right; we were looking at the scenario
planning.
Ms. Norton. As far as I am concerned, you have had the
scenario. If Katrina wasn't a scenario, then I don't know what
we are waiting for. Normally, we have to do these things by
computers. There it was done for you.
But go ahead. Was there a scenario that, for example, fed
off of Katrina?
Ms. Fagnoni. Yes, I believe there were scenarios that
looked at hurricanes that were at least as large as Katrina.
Ms. Norton. Okay. So, in what way would they be
overwhelmed?
Ms. Fagnoni. We were looking specifically at the mass care
pieces of the puzzle, which is where the voluntary sector
really provides the services. And it was a combination of, in
some cases, the capacity in terms of sheltering space, combined
with the availability of trained_whether it is volunteers or
staff_trained people to staff those facilities.
For example, in New York City I believe, the Red Cross
identified a lot of bed space, shelter space, something like
300,000. But what they also identified was a limited number of
volunteers or staff who were trained to staff those shelters.
Ms. Norton. Now, who does the training?
Ms. Fagnoni. The Red Cross does a lot of its training, and
they also cross-train with other voluntary organizations.
But what we also note in the report is that the local
governments, in conjunction with the Red Cross, are planning
and doing their own training. For example, New York City has
plans to and is training its own city employees, so they can
staff shelters in the event of, let's say, a catastrophic
occurrence.
Ms. Norton. That is unusual. So the training has to come
from Red Cross or Red Cross volunteers. New York is a mega-
city.
Ms. Fagnoni. In Los Angeles, I understand that the Red
Cross is helping train city employees there.
Ms. Norton. So do you believe that cities should be
training city employees to assist the Red Cross so that it will
not be overwhelmed?
Ms. Fagnoni. I think the way New York City is approaching
this is they have plans to staff up shelters initially, and
then the plan is, in working with the Red Cross, that they
could turn that capability over time to the Red Cross, but they
would be able to step in to try to provide some surge capacity.
Right now, for example, what you had in Katrina is there
were a lot of entities that stepped up. There were places, as I
think Mayor Nagin made reference to, where the Red Cross didn't
set up shelters and these, what were called, pop-up shelters
emerged, where churches and other organizations would set up
sheltering. But what we and others found is that the people who
set those up were very well-intentioned but often didn't really
understand what they were getting into; didn't have the
training, didn't understand all the things that go with trying
to set up a shelter.
So I think people are learning from this and trying to
understand. The voluntary sector, as important as it is, cannot
do it alone and wouldn't be expected to do it alone in a really
large-scale disaster. So this kind of gap analysis and
assessments that the Red Cross and FEMA have been doing we
think are helpful in helping people understand what might be
needed, and how these various entities that have responsibility
can work together to provide the necessary capabilities--State,
local, Federal, nonprofit, business sector, all of the
different players.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Becker, how do you receive the suggestions
that maybe city employees could be equipped to step in until
Red Cross came or to assist the Red Cross in large cities, for
example, or perhaps elsewhere?
Mr. Becker. Madam Chairwoman, we ask them to. That was our
request of the city.
I think what we have to be clear about is there are no-
notice events, like earthquakes, where what we have there right
then is all we have to respond with. And then, in the case of
hurricanes, we can move thousands of people in before the storm
hits, we can make sure we have all of our supplies. We were
focused on the no-notice events, because I don't want to take 3
days to get thousands of people brought into San Francisco
after an earthquake. I want to have a lot right there.
Ms. Norton. So the city employees could be useful, is that
what you are saying?
Mr. Becker. That is who we are training to help work with
the Red Cross and shelters.
Ms. Norton. In how many cities is that happening?
Mr. Becker. I would have to get you that information. But
we have gone to multiple States and asked them to pass
legislation to free their workers up to become Red Cross
workers.
Ms. Norton. I just think that is very important. When you
talk about trouble in raising money and volunteers, I expect it
to get worse, not better. You know what is on the Hill today
and this week. So, as we think about where is the money, where
are the people going to come from, I must say, Ms. Fagnoni's
notion, which you now say is something that you have been
doing, has legs, as far as I am concerned.
Now, you say that each State would have to, of course,
indicate that its employees, while still employed I take it,
could assist in the shelters. And so far, LA and New York----
Mr. Becker. San Francisco.
Ms. Norton. --have done that. It does seem to me that that
is an idea that the Federal Government should encourage,
because I don't know where more resources or more people are
going to come from.
Ms. Fagnoni, I am not sure what shelters you are talking
about. You are talking about Red Cross shelters. Like, what is
the Red Cross shelter in D.C.?
Because, you know, there may be shelters that would not be,
quote, "Red Cross shelters" that the city provides. So when you
say the Red Cross doesn't have the ability to shelter, I am not
sure what sheltering you are specifically referring to.
Ms. Fagnoni. We used the available data we could get. And
the data that were available--we used FEMA data for trying to
estimate some of the need, and we used the Red Cross's own
internal data, as Mr. Becker mentioned----
Ms. Norton. Mr. Becker, in a place like D.C., I don't know
what she's calling a Red Cross shelter.
Mr. Becker. Sure. Thank you for asking. We don't own any
buildings----
Ms. Norton. That is right. So why is she assigning it to
the Red Cross? Because there is a pre-existing agreement?
Mr. Becker. Correct. We have 50,000 buildings in this
country that we have inspected and put into a database and know
the capacity of that are ready to be shelters. And the issue
here is who declares a shelter. The local emergency manager
declares a shelter. I can't take over a high school and say the
gym is now a Red Cross shelter, but the local emergency manager
can and does.
So working within the county level or in the district level
here, everyone knows what the buildings are that could be
shelters. We have already identified them, we know where they
are. Now, depending on the----
Ms. Norton. And so, are there lots of people running
shelters besides the Red Cross?
Mr. Becker. We are the primary shelter organization. Most
communities turn sheltering over to the Red Cross. Most States
turn sheltering over to the Red Cross.
Ms. Norton. Where would they be in D.C.? Do you know off
the top of your head? Is it the Armory?
Mr. Becker. The Armory was one. That is where we put people
during Katrina who came here. The Red Cross ran that shelter.
Typically they are schools--
Ms. Norton. Well, if there was a catastrophic events--and
she was addressing catastrophic events--many of these people
might have need to go outside of the District. Perhaps you
heard me give the Administrator 30 days to provide me with
where residents in the District of Columbia, not part of a
State, would go.
Have you been involved with localities like the District,
where people may not be able to be sheltered in the State,
almost surely would not be sheltered within the State, and thus
would find themselves on somebody else's territory? How would
that work?
Mr. Becker. We have modeled out, if we evacuated the
District, where we think the people would go. Now, that is not
a precise science, but we believe they would go to Maryland,
Virginia, West Virginia and Delaware.
Ms. Norton. Does Maryland, West Virginia and Delaware know
that?
Mr. Becker. I am sorry?
Ms. Norton. Do Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and
Delaware know, "Here we come"?
Mr. Becker. Yes, they do. Yes, they do.
Ms. Norton. And they are prepared with shelters to receive
residents of the District of Columbia?
Mr. Becker. There are 1,821 shelters in those States that
can handle 718,000 people.
Ms. Norton. Now, they are prepared to receive out of State,
and that is why, for example, Texas received people from
Louisiana?
Mr. Becker. Sure. The American Red Cross's job is to be on
the receiving end and open up adequate shelters wherever the
people evacuate to. So, during Gustav, we sheltered in 11
States.
Ms. Norton. So, wait a minute. The pre-existing agreement
that this is a Red Cross-designated shelter goes not only for
residents of that State, but whoever may need to come to use a
shelter in that State?
Mr. Becker. One of the fundamental principals of the
American Red Cross is that that shelter has to be open to
anybody.
Ms. Norton. This is very important for the residents of the
District of Columbia who know there is not enough room here to
hear.
Well, Ms. Fagnoni, don't you think it was a little
misleading to say that there are only 13,000 shelters available
for the residents of the District of Columbia in a case of a
mass casualty, since they would have been to evacuated almost
surely to other States?
Ms. Fagnoni. We were using the Red Cross's data, and,
actually, those data do include the surrounding counties.
Ms. Norton. 13,000?
Ms. Fagnoni. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Well, wait a minute. Because have you Mr.
Becker right here. Now, Ms. Fagnoni now says the 13,000 that
could be sheltered includes not only the District of Columbia
but the, quote, "surrounding----
Mr. Becker. Counties.
Ms. Fagnoni. Counties, right.
Ms. Norton. Now, a mass shelter would mean perhaps as many
as 150,000 people being evacuated. Where would they be
sheltered?
Mr. Becker. I would suggest that if the District evacuated
in a terrorist incident, they are not all going to go to
Fairfax County and Montgomery County. It is not just a very
close-in evacuation. Experience shows us that people disperse
over a multi-State area. When Katrina hit, the American Red
Cross sheltered in 26 States. That is where the people went.
Ms. Norton. So, Ms. Fagnoni, I understand why you looked at
the--and I think a lot of people would head toward the nearest
shelters. But I would hope--and that is what the Administrator
is going to have to get me--that they would be directed, as
they were in Katrina. Katrina didn't take everybody to the
closest shelter; they took people all the way to Arkansas and
to D.C.
Mr. Becker. Right.
Ms. Norton. So they would apparently have to be directed.
And if there was the kind of planning that I think is
necessary, they would have to be directed to shelters where
there are places to go, so that you wouldn't crowd up on people
who were closest here.
I am just saying to GAO, you know, that could have raised
alarms if we hear this, because the uninitiated think that that
means there is no place else to go once you get past 13,000.
You indicate, Mr. Becker, that there are capacity
improvements. Ms. Fagnoni has noted that, since they were
there, there have been some improvements. And you talk about--
you, after all, are quite decentralized organizations; that is
why you are so valuable. Agreements signed with 150
organizations at the local level. Is it the local level, the
national level?
Mr. Becker. National level.
Ms. Norton. It is the national level. Okay. Since
everything depends upon what is on the ground, who monitors
these agreements to assure that the capacity levels are kept
current? Because, as you say, there could be unexpected events,
and a terrorist event would be just that.
Mr. Becker. Sure, it is one thing for us to have 150
national agreements. I would suggest the most important
agreements we have are our local chapters with local
organizations. And we have thousands of those, post-Katrina.
The model here is we reach out to a church that might be in
a difficult-to-serve part of the community or might speak a
language we don't speak or more better represent the community.
And we ask them long before the disaster, can we train you, can
we give you our cots, can we give you our blankets and
supplies? And what really gets their attention is we say, can
we pay your bills if you are willing to become part of this
community's disaster response? We don't ask them to become part
of the Red Cross; we ask them to become part of the community's
response. And those are the thousands of local arrangements
that we have put in place.
When Gustav hit Louisiana, we sheltered about 18,000 people
in Louisiana on the second night, and a fourth of those
shelters were those partner shelters. They weren't all run by
the American Red Cross. That was a good thing. We wanted----
Ms. Norton. Do you think that shelter in northern Louisiana
that a thousand poor people were shipped to was run by the Red
Cross?
Mr. Becker. No, ma'am. That shelter was part of the
evacuation strategy for the people who left New Orleans on
buses, that, as the Admiral said, was controlled by the State.
And the State chose to operate the shelters on the receiving
end of the buses. So the State----
Ms. Norton. Probably because there wasn't any Red Cross
shelter they could go to at that point?
Mr. Becker. I would suggest to you that if you look at the
State of Louisiana, there are buildings that could handle
67,000 people.
Ms. Norton. That could handle 6,000 or 7,000 people?
Mr. Becker. In Louisiana, 67,000, almost 70,000. And we
only had 18,000 people in our shelters the second night of
Gustav. We had excess shelter capacity in Louisiana when Gustav
hit, but part of the plan for the bus evacuation--the State was
very concerned that they would know where the buses were going,
and they wanted to be the ones on the receiving end to take
care of them. And, frankly, Madam Chairwoman, made several
attempts to offer our support for those shelters after the
first night.
Ms. Norton. Well, wait a minute. You were on the receiving
end. You are the service deliverer that Louisiana and everybody
else is most accustomed to. Why did they decide to bypass the
Red Cross shelters and go to a warehouse with a thousand people
with no place to bathe and no privacy? Why would they have done
that if you offered them shelters?
Mr. Becker. There was a concern the storm was coming in on
such a level--I mean, remember, it was a Category 4.
Ms. Norton. Were you too near the storm?
Mr. Becker. No. The issue was we all thought that we were
going to fill our shelters up in Louisiana. That was a very
distinct possibility. We did it during Katrina, and that we
would be sheltering further away. And so the State made the
decision to add shelters for the people who were bussed and
that they would operate those shelters.
Ms. Norton. I see. So it was anticipated that you would
have people coming to your shelters, and that did not occur.
Mr. Becker. Everybody who got in a car and evacuated
themselves went to Red Cross shelters. What the State opened up
were several buildings----
Ms. Norton. But you were under capacity in the Red Cross
shelter. If everybody went to the Red Cross shelter and you
were under capacity, they thought that those shelters would be
full? I see.
Mr. Becker. We were planning on the worst. You have to plan
for the worst----
Ms. Norton. I see.
Mr. Becker. --and we were all pleasantly surprised.
Ms. Norton. I see.
Let me ask Ms. Fagnoni, we know that your report was in
before Ike and Gustav, but if you look at Galveston, fairly
catastrophic. We have seen problems with government, FEMA for
example, getting supplies there. But when it came to
distribution of supplies, the Red Cross is also involved in the
point-of-delivery distribution with prepositioning of supplies.
Is it your view that where the Red Cross has prepositioned
supplies, I guess it is their responsibility to then get the
supplies to their centers, that in a mass casualty they would
have difficulty doing that?
Ms. Fagnoni. You are right, we didn't look specifically at
Gustav for our report. But we do talk about some of the actions
that the voluntary organizations have taken since Katrina to
try to better deal with some of the logistical issues that came
up. And, actually, I know the Red Cross and the Southern
Baptist Convention tend to work together a lot, in terms of
supply chains and prepositioning. And a number of these
voluntary organizations have started prepositioning more
supplies, putting global positioning systems in their equipment
and things like that. So, in a general sense, they are trying
to be responsive.
But the scenario and to what extent the Red Cross is
working in conjunction with others I think would depend on the
specific scenario. They may or may not only be managing their
own resources, they may also be working in conjunction with
other voluntary organizations.
Ms. Norton. Yes, Mr. Becker, did you want to respond to
that?
Mr. Becker. Thank you very much.
The points of distribution that you heard the Admiral refer
to and where we had some issues, those are different supplies.
That is ice and water, which FEMA, through the Army Corps of
Engineers, prepositions into a community to support people
post-disaster.
We don't typically receive our supplies from government.
When we feed people, we buy that food or we get it donated.
When we distribute rakes and shovels and clean-up kits and
toiletry kits, we buy those or we get those donated. We don't
receive those from government.
Sometimes on those PODs, or points of distribution, you
will see Red Cross workers there, our volunteers, because there
is just not enough people to hand things out, so we will give
volunteers to local government. But those PODs are giving away
ice and water and MREs from the military, frankly. That is a
different supply chain than what we use to feed community, to
shelter people, to distribute in communities.
Ms. Norton. Well, I am sure Ms. Fagnoni would agree that
the country regards the Red Cross as heroic in times of
disaster. We don't, by any means, assign to you all the mass
care responsibility. After Katrina, we know that much of that
responsibility would be beyond anybody, except the government,
to help take care of.
Indeed, Mr. Becker, you say that even with Gustav and Ike,
Louisiana thought it would have to set up its own facility. And
look what it did. It shows you that, when you are armatures at
it, as the State clearly was if they put a thousand people in a
warehouse with no bathing facilities, you are not likely to do
it very well.
So we are very, very concerned that the Red Cross continue
to work closely. We understand the funding difficulty. You have
heard me ask those questions. This is not an appropriation
hearing. We are trying to find out how it works, following the
GAO report. We recognize that the Red Cross is being put in an
untenable position, but we think so is government.
And one of the things we are going to have to figure out,
as we become overwhelmed, is how to make sure the Red Cross,
who has been doing it virtually by themselves as an agent of
the government, but with volunteers, with donations, we are
going to have to ask ourselves some tough questions, whether or
not we can expect you to continue to do what you do. Yes, there
is some Federal funding for certain kinds of missions, but we
are going to have some tough questions to ask ourselves,
particularly before any catastrophe strikes of the kind that is
now unexpected.
Your testimony, both the GAO report, has been helpful to
us. I am sure it will be to Mr. Becker.
And, certainly, Mr. Becker, the Red Cross is continuing
activities essential to the United States of America. We want
to thank you for it. We will continue to work with you. And
your testimony has made us understand, as has the GAO report,
how we as a Subcommittee have to proceed in order to make sure
that FEMA works closely, even more closely, with the Red Cross
to maximize its internal capacities and responsibilities.
You have had your own problems. I am not going to ask you
about your turnover and presidents and the like. Because it
looks like when you get a problem, you try to then go to the
next step and get a new manager. As long as you do that and you
continue to do the kind of work you have been doing on the
ground, all we can do is thank you.
I thank both of you for very helpful testimony.
Ms. Fagnoni. Thank you.
Mr. Becker. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. And this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:00 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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