[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FEMA: PREPAREDNESS FOR THE 2009 HURRICANE SEASON
=======================================================================
(111-28)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
May 1, 2009
__________
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 VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa SAM GRAVES, Missouri
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
RICK LARSEN, Washington SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts Virginia
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CONNIE MACK, Florida
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
JOHN J. HALL, New York AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
(ii)
?
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
Management
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chair
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina SAM GRAVES, Missouri
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri Virginia
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
Pennsylvania, Vice Chair PETE OLSON, Texas
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Almaguer, Ruben D., Deputy Director, Florida Division of
Emergency Management........................................... 6
Hagan, Karen E., Disaster Officer, Florida, American Red Cross... 6
Lord, Jonathon, Assistant Director on Behalf of Curt Summerhoff,
Interim Director, Miami-Dade Department of Emergency Management
and Homeland Security.......................................... 6
May, Major Phil, Regional Administrator, Region IV, Federal
Emergency Management Agency.................................... 6
Rappaport, Edward N., Deputy Director, NOAA National Hurricane
Center......................................................... 6
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Almaguer, Ruben D................................................ 42
Hagan, Karen E................................................... 47
May, Major Phil.................................................. 56
Rappaport, Edward N.............................................. 70
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
May, Major Phil, Regional Administrator, Region IV:..............
Responses to questions for the record...................... 63
Chart of public assistance appeals......................... 68
Summerhoff, Curtis, Interim Director, Miami-Dade County
Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security,
written testimony.............................................. 52
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HEARING ON FEMA: PREPAREDNESS FOR THE 2009 HURRICANE SEASON
----------
Friday, May 1, 2009
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Economic Development,
Public Buildings and Emergency Management
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
the Media Room of the James L. King Federal Justice Building,
99 Northeast 4th Street, Miami, Florida, Hon. Eleanor Holmes
Norton [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Norton and Diaz-Balart.
Ms. Norton. I'm pleased to call the hearing to order. We're
pleased to be in sunny Miami, ahead of the hurricane season. We
think, we hope before a hurricane season, and we would like to
keep our advantage of the hurricane season for the coming year.
But we can't do that by fiat, so we've come to Miami to see
what is being done here, and what we have been doing around the
country to be prepared.
We are pleased to welcome today's witnesses to this hearing
concerning an important issue for both Florida, and the Nation,
as we seek information on preparedness for the upcoming
Atlantic Hurricane Season. My thanks to the Ranking Member, Mr.
Mario Diaz-Balart for recommending this hearing, and inviting
us to South Florida, a location that we have chosen for our
first hearing in preparation for the hurricane season, not only
because of Miami's location, but, also, because of the
leadership this area of the state has had in preparedness and
mitigation. Because our Subcommittee has primary jurisdiction
over the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, this is
our first hearing ahead of the hurricane season for the
country.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st through
November 30th. The catastrophic hurricane, and the failure of
the government on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Rita, and
Hurricane Katrina have captured worldwide headlines in recent
years; but, unfortunately, Florida's hurricanes have also been
legendary. Hurricane Andrew's devastating effects in 1992 is
one example. While hurricanes are not the most frequent
disasters our nation faces, they probably are the most
notorious, and they are often the most catastrophic.
Louisiana and Mississippi notwithstanding, Florida faces a
greater risk from hurricanes than any other state. Since
Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992, Florida has received 22 major
disaster declarations, and eight emergency declarations under
the Stafford Act for hurricanes or tropical storms, a greater
number of declarations than for any other state during the same
period. In dollar terms, FEMA has spent about $10 billion on
these disasters and emergencies; and, of course, that does not
include costs borne by state and local governments, insurance,
and voluntary agencies, and certainly by local citizens,
themselves.
The State of Florida and Miami-Dade County are recognized
as leaders in emergency management, especially in mitigation
and preparedness. Unfortunately, a great deal of this expertise
comes from experience. But since the Miami area was devastated
by Hurricane Andrew, Florida has taken many steps to improve in
all areas of emergency management. One example is Florida's
state-wide building code. The requirements in Miami-Dade County
are the most stringent, generally requiring buildings to
withstand winds of up to 146 miles per hour. Schools and other
facilities that could be used as shelters are required to
withstand winds of up to 186 miles per hour.
The best way to protect citizens who face the risk of
hurricanes is to help make sure their homes, schools, and other
facilities so they can withstand these storms through
mitigation beforehand. As we have heard in other hearings of
our Subcommittee, mitigation is an investment that surely
works. This week, the House passed H.R. 1746.
[The Bill H.R. 1746 appears on p. :]
Ms. Norton.--that Mr. Diaz-Balart and I co-sponsored to re-
authorize the Pre-Disaster Mitigation program. Studies have
shown that mitigation, including pre-disaster mitigation,
return three to four dollars for every dollar invested in the
program.
While empirical studies are useful, it is also important to
show tangible results. A specific example of mitigation
occurred just north of here. In 2005, FEMA provided Pre-
Disaster Mitigation program funds to finance roll-down storm
shelters at five fire stations in Broward County, Florida. Soon
after completion of the project, Hurricane Wilma struck
Florida. The retrofitted fire stations not only were not
damaged, but they were able to operate effectively during and
after the storm.
Mitigation can reduce the vulnerability of homes and other
structures, but it is also imperative that citizens are
prepared for the risks they face. Florida is a leader here, as
well. As Floridians know well, citizens must take personal
responsibility for preparedness for themselves, and their
families, especially in the initial days after a disaster when
responders have limited means, and will need to focus on the
most severely impacted, and the most vulnerable. Governments
and non-profits do have an important role to play in
preparedness, in particular, providing citizens the information
and tools they need to prepare, and often to survive. Here,
culturally and linguistically-rich South Florida is presented
with a challenged that government has stepped up to meet.
Floridians who faced an unusual tornado recently, are aware
that when citizens prepare, they are preparing not only for
hurricanes, but for all hazard, or all the risks they face.
What is necessary to prepare for a hurricane is, essentially,
the same as one needs to prepare for a tornado, aa power
outage, or even the so-called Swine Flu, or what we hope will
never occur, a terrorist attack.
Today we are pleased to hear from government officials at
the federal, state, and local levels, and from the Red Cross,
all of whom play vital roles in preparing our citizens,
especially the most vulnerable, for whenever disasters may
strike. We thank you all for your testimony, which will help
citizens prepare for upcoming hurricanes, should they occur.
I'm very pleased to ask our Ranking Member, Mr. Diaz-
Balart, if he has any opening statements.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me first thank
you for not only coming down here, but for your leadership.
One of the things that you will all see is that, which I
guess is relatively unusual, is the fact that Joan and I work
exceedingly close together. We are friends. I am not only an
admirer of her leadership, and I think you'll see today that
she is tough, but fair, and always on the forefront making sure
that we are as prepared, as possible.
I also want to thank all the witnesses here today from
FEMA, the Red Cross, the National Hurricane Center, Florida
Division of Emergency Management, Miami-Dade Department of
Emergency Management, and, also, Homeland Security. I know how
much work you've all done, and you do, and I really appreciate
you being here today.
I think it's fitting and timely that, as the Chairwoman
says, as hurricane season approaches, that we examine hurricane
preparedness here in Florida. As many, I think, recognize, the
week of May 25th through 31st is recognized as National
Hurricane Preparedness Week. I just this week dropped a
resolution to Congress which, once again, recognizes that
Preparedness Week, and also tries to remind people that this is
coming, once again. And, hopefully, helps you all to make sure
people listen, we've got to do all we can.
From Hurricane Andrew to more recent hurricanes, such as
Charlie, Wilma, and Ivan, Florida has, unfortunately, as the
Chairwoman said, seen its fair share of hurricanes and natural
disasters. Now, imagine, however, a large Category 5 coming
here towards Florida, and making landfall just north of Fort
Lauderdale. Now, the storm then travels northwest as a Category
4, and causes a breach of the Herbert Hoover Dike at Lake
Okeechobee. The hurricane then spends 36 hours over land,
causing tornadoes, and more destruction, and then moves off to
the Gulf of Mexico, before, once again, getting strong and
making landfall on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.
This is a scenario laid out for Hurricane Ono. Is that the
right name, I believe? Hurricane Ono, as a model for
catastrophic disaster planning here in Florida, Madam
Chairwoman. Now, such a scenario could occur. The consequences
would be devastating. It would require the evacuation of three
million people, most of south Florida would be under one to
four feet of water for weeks, actually. And homes of about 70
percent of the population would be destroyed; and, obviously,
millions would be without electricity.
This scenario is not that farfetched. In fact, Hurricane
Ono is modeled after the path of the great Miami Hurricane of
1926. After that hurricane, there were reportedly 373 deaths,
and over 6,000 injuries, with 800 missing. Now, obviously,
today, this is a different south Florida. There are a million
more residents in the area, and much more development than
there was in 1926. So a hurricane similar in strength and path
would, frankly, create significantly more devastation, and
probably loss of life.
This scenario is why preparedness and mitigation is
critical to saving lives, and protecting property. I'm really
pleased that the Florida Catastrophic Planning Initiatives,
sponsored by FEMA again in 2006, and continues collaboration
and collaborative workshops to identify and address gaps and
challenges in the planning process.
Now, as you said, Madam Chairwoman, Floridians,
unfortunately, know all too well the devastating effects of a
hurricane. And, also, the importance of preparation. We all
have our stories to tell about that. Florida state agencies,
counties, local communities, and citizens have done, and
continue to do, an extraordinary job in preparing for the
disaster. We can always do better, though. Local communities
have offered mutual aide and help, and assistance to one
another, regardless of boundaries, or even funding.
I specifically recall running into, for example, the mayor
of a city here, a small city here of Doral, Mayor Bermudez. I
ran into him in a different city--in Medley helping. Medley
actually had gotten devastated. He wasn't asking who is going
to pay for this, or what. It was just, how can we help? I mean,
you see other people. I also recall personally seeing a county
commissioner in Collier County, Commissioner Colleta, going
door to door before Hurricane Wilma in trailers, just telling
people, guys, evacuate. This is a big one. So, again, Florida
and Floridians recognize the importance of preparedness,
because, unfortunately, we've experienced it first-hand.
I'm also, by the way, really pleased that Craig Fugate is
now the President's Nominee to be the Administrator of FEMA. As
Director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management, he has
extremely--I mean, he has a lot of hands-on experience that
gives him the knowledge and expertise to effectively lead FEMA.
Obviously, when state and local resources are overwhelmed
because of a major catastrophe or storm, and communities are
trying to figure out how to recover and rebuild from a major
disaster, FEMA needs to provide the resources, and the
expertise that help communities get back on their feet.
Now, while FEMA's role in disaster response and recovery is
critical, just as important is insuring that there is proper
preparedness and mitigation. Good emergency management, as it
relates to disasters like hurricanes, must happen before the
incident, and not after. Preparedness before a disaster can
dictate how effective the response is, and how well things go
after that, as the Chairwoman was just saying. And, obviously,
mitigation is a key factor in effectively preparing for
disaster.
FEMA programs, such as the Pre-Disaster Mitigation program,
and the Hazard Mitigation Rent programs are important elements
in advancing the goals of mitigation. CBO has determined that
for every dollar invested in mitigation, $3 are saved. I
believe the Chairwoman has talked about that more specifically.
So, insuring that these mitigation programs are funded, and
administered appropriately, can go a long way in saving
taxpayers dollars. And, obviously, citizens here in Florida
know the value and importance of preparing for a disaster, even
though we can all do a lot better.
We understand the benefit of mitigation, and the savings
realized when appropriate measures are taken to minimize the
impact of disasters, like hurricanes. Part of preparedness,
however, is also planning for the response and recovery. As we
saw after Hurricane Katrina, you can't wait until the storm
hits to have measures in place to respond, and to recover from
disasters. Now, one of the biggest lessons from Katrina,
learned from Katrina, was the importance of having a FEMA that
is agile, quick, independent, which is why I'm one of the
supporters of Chairman Oberstar's FEMA Independence Bill.
During Craig Fugate's nomination hearing last week, he
pointed out the crucial issues that also housing can play in
major hurricanes, such as the case similar to Hurricane Ono,
which would result in the need for a half a million housing
units. That's hard to conceive. That's about what we needed
after Hurricane Katrina. We're still trying to resolve the
housing issues in Louisiana, nearly four years after the storm.
So, do we have a housing plan in place should such a storm hit
here in Florida this season? We must, as Craig said, look at
the worst case scenario, and identify the gaps that exist
before a hurricane strikes.
The National Disaster Housing Strategy was released in
January this year, and last week, FEMA issued its 2009 Disaster
Housing Plan. The plan highlights a four-pronged approach to
respond to housing needs following disasters. However, we must
insure that specific plans for housing are in place in advance,
before the hurricane season, which is, obviously, already upon
us. For example, if the worst case scenario happened here in
Miami, how many beds would we have available? What kind of
temporary housing would be used, and who's responsible for
what? I hope that the planning initiative, such as those
undertaken under the Hurricane Ono example, are helping to
answer these questions.
In addition, we have also learned that we must be smarter
and fuller thinking with new technology to help preparing for
the mitigation against disasters, such as hurricanes. I am very
proud of the cutting edge research done at many of our local
universities on forecasting and mitigation, along with,
obviously, the Hurricane Center. FIU, for example, has done
great work. It's derived critical data on building code
standards and mitigation. They have this, which if we had some
more time, I would love to show you. They have this wall of
wind, and they actually replicate wind, and you see roofs
flying off, and the windows blowing in and blowing out. It's a
thing to see. Adopting reasonable building codes and using as
many methods of communication as possible to warn the public of
a disaster coming are just a couple of steps that we should
take to further reduce risk to life and property.
That's why I'm proposing legislation, and I will encourage
states to develop and implement building codes, like the one
Florida currently has in place. Again, reasonable building
codes, as the Chairwoman has said, would go a long way to
minimize damage to homes, businesses, and the cost to the
taxpayers. Allow Chairwoman Norton and others on this
Subcommittee, there is legislation that will create a framework
for FEMA to move forward in developing integrated public alert
and warning systems. We're still relying on old technology
there. And, right now, with Facebook, and Twitter, and
everything else, we've got to make sure that we're
communicating as well as we can, so instead of taking advantage
of new technologies, like cell phones and satellites, we've got
a long way to go, because we're not doing it. So, there's,
obviously, no excuse to not employ as many methods of
communication as possible to warn the public of an imminent
disaster. So, we're working on that, and we continue to take
more steps.
A lack of effective warning can easily undermine
preparedness for a disaster. The more ways in which the public
can be alerted to a disaster, obviously, the better the people
will react. So, the bottom line is that there are many moving
parts, and many, many key issues that must be addressed to be
adequately prepared for hurricane season. And we must insure
that we properly plan for, and address them in a coordinated
fashion. So, I look forward to hearing from all of you today. I
really appreciate you being here, and I want to once again
thank the Chairwoman for being here. I know what her schedule
is. You all need to understand that this is a very busy person.
Madam Chairwoman, I leave you with one more thought, which
is, as you stated, we always have to do better, but nobody does
it better than here in Florida, because of that cooperation
between state, local, and federal agencies. So I am ecstatic
that you're here in particular right now, right before the
hurricane season, and I look forward to the testimony. Thank
you so much, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Diaz-Balart.
I want to begin by setting the stage by hearing directly
from the national Hurricane Center, NOAA's National Hurricane
Center. And I'm pleased and look forward to hear the testimony
from Dr. Edward Rappaport, Executive Director.
TESTIMONY OF MAJOR PHIL MAY, REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR, REGION IV,
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY; EDWARD N. RAPPAPORT,
DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NOAA NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER; RUBEN
ALMAGUER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FLORIDA DIVISION OF EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT; KAREN HAGAN, DISASTER OFFICER FLORIDA, AMERICAN RED
CROSS; JONATHON LORD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ON BEHALF OF CURT
SUMMERHOFF, INTERIM DIRECTOR, MIAMI-DADE DEPARTMENT OF
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND HOMELAND SECURITY
Dr. Rappaport. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman,
and Ranking Member Diaz-Balart. Thank you for your support of
NOAA, the National Weather Service, or NWS, and our Hurricane
Program. Your support enables us to make the best forecast
possible, and allows us to help the people of our nation
understand the potential effects of hurricanes, and the actions
they can take to protect life and property. Today, I will
discuss NOAA's role in forecasting, warning, and helping the
public prepare for hurricanes.
The services and information provided by the NWS are built
upon an infrastructure of environmental sensors, including
satellites, aircraft and buoys, computer analyses and
simulations, and advanced communication systems. Our staff
comprises topnotch scientists and technical experts who
maintain almost continuous interactions with our users. Nowhere
is that more evident than in the Hurricane program.
Tropical cyclone forecasts are issued from the NWS
National Hurricane Center, or NHC, every six hours, and more
frequently during landfall threats. These forecasts include
text messages and supporting discussions, as well as a suite of
graphical products depicting our forecasts, accompanying
probabilities, and the ``cone of uncertainty'', as it has
become known. The NHC is responsible for predicting the path
and intensity of the storm, issuing costal hurricane watches
and warnings, and describing broadly the weather conditions
expected, including projected storm surge levels, as displayed
in the handouts that you have, and the poster that we provided,
as well.
NWS weather forecast offices, or WFOs, also play a critical
role in the hurricane forecast and warning process. WFOs use
their local expertise to refine NHC advisories, and provide
specific, detailed information about the effects from the
hurricane. These include more details about storm surge
inundation levels, and local watches, warnings, and advisories
covering their local forecast area responsibility. Local
emergency managers use this information when making evacuation,
and other preparedness decisions.
The NHC and WFOs disseminate their vital information
through a broad range of methods, including the media,
commercial weather sector, and the internet. These
complementary sources enhance public awareness of the hurricane
threat.
Working with and communicating our forecast information to
emergency managers is essential. Recognizing the need for
coordinating with a large number of federal, and state-level
emergency managers when hurricanes approach land, FEMA, and the
NWS established a Hurricane Liaison Team in 1996. The team is
made up of federal, state, and local emergency managers, and
NWS meteorologists and hydrologists who have extensive
hurricane operational experience. The team is strategically
activated well in advance of potential storm impact to provide
the proper coordination of critical information between the NHC
and the emergency management community at the federal and state
levels.
In addition to storm-specific information, we work year-
round with emergency managers to educate them about weather
effects from hurricanes. In turn, they educate us about
response issues, and their challenges. It is a constant
learning process, and the key is working together to insure the
public takes appropriate action.
This week, for example, NHC Director Bill Read has been at
the Gulf Coast States Hurricane Conference. On Monday, he will
be in Washington providing a Hurricane Basics briefing to
cabinet members, and the narrative for a tabletop exercise
developed with FEMA. One of our outreach activities is NOAA's
Hurricane Awareness Tour, that alternates annually between the
Gulf Coast and the Atlantic Coast. The tour raises hurricane
awareness among our partners, and the public. This year's tour
takes place next week beginning in New Hampshire, and ending in
Key West. The NHC and WFOs also participate in national
hurricane preparedness meetings, and many state-level sessions,
having tabletop exercises, including an annual State of Florida
hurricane exercise. These drills are designed to build pre-
storm expertise for emergency managers.
Coordination and communication at the local level are also
critical. During the past year, for example, NWS offices across
the State of Florida, in Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Melbourne,
Tampa, Key West, and here in Miami, gave numerous
presentations, on-line chats, and training classes to discuss
weather, and the potential effects from hurricanes and other
tropical systems. These outreach efforts raise awareness, and
are designed to teach people how to prepare for the storms long
before they form.
Another example of the training we provide is an
``Introduction to Hurricane Preparedness'' course. For more
than 15 years during the winter, non-hurricane season, FEMA and
NOAA have coordinated to teach the course at NHC. This course
has trained more than 1,000 coastal emergency managers and
local decision makers since the program began.
In conclusion, I would like to state that the NHC hurricane
track forecasts continue to increase in accuracy. Nevertheless,
no matter how accurate our forecasts, our communities need to
hear the forecasts and warnings, and then know what actions to
take. In this regard, the combined preparedness, education, and
communication efforts of the NWS, DHS/FEMA, state and local
emergency management officials and decision makers, and the
media have been key advances in safeguarding the lives and
property of our citizens during the past several decades. These
partnerships will remain critical in our efforts to minimize
future losses caused by these forces of nature. I am happy to
answer any questions that you may have for me.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Dr. Rappaport.
Let me ask you straight out, Dr. Rappaport, this is now the
beginning of May. June 1st begins the Atlantic Hurricane
Season. Forecast for us all you do for hurricanes in this
region in the coming session. What can you tell us as
specifically as you can what is going to happen, if you know.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Easy question.
Dr. Rappaport. Thank you for the question. Perhaps, to
clarify, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center has the lead for the
federal government in generating the annual seasonal hurricane
forecast. That process now is under development and the-
Ms. Norton. Dr. Rappaport, this is a month ahead of time.
That means we could have a hurricane June 1st. Heaven knows,
I'm not wishing that on Florida, or any other part of the
country. I was on this Committee during the debacle of Katrina.
When you say a month ahead of time we are still in preparation,
or are hurricanes such that they only develop so that you
cannot forecast even a month ahead of time?
Dr. Rappaport. I'll answer the second question first. We
are not at the stage yet where we can make forecasts a month
ahead of time.
Ms. Norton. When are forecasts developed? Do we have time.
We have timed this hearing because we are pretty close to
hurricane season. And if a month ahead of hurricane season we
are unable to make any prediction about the coming hurricane
season in the state that has had the largest number of
hurricanes in recent memory, then I need to know what we need
to do in order to make hurricane predictions sooner, or I need
to know whether that is something impossible, because of the
way hurricanes develop.
Dr. Rappaport. I appreciate the question, and the comments.
As it turns out, hurricanes have occurred in the Atlantic
hurricane basin in every month of the year. If you go back
historically, you'll find a hurricane and tropical storm in
every month. The traditional hurricane season, though, begins
in June, because that is the time when there begins to be an
increase. Typically, there are few, if any, storms or
hurricanes before June. The most active period is actually
August, September, and October.
One of the reasons for making final adjustments to the
forecast now is to have in-hand the latest information about
what is going on in the atmosphere at this time, and in the
oceans, so that we can have the best forecasts possible at the
start of when hurricanes actually will begin. So, at this
stage, while a forecast could be made, it's likely not to be as
good as one made several weeks from now, when we have the most
recent information, because the atmosphere does change.
Ms. Norton. The only reason I ask this question, Dr.
Rappaport, is because of an article that appeared this week in
the Wall Street Journal questioning the reliability, indeed,
the utility of a seasonal hurricane forecast. You suggested
that there was not sufficient historical information to make
reliable predictions. That's why I'm asking you questions. I
not only asked was there a prediction, but whether it's
possible to make a prediction. I know science can do what it
can do. I mean, maybe hurricanes don't develop such that one
can predict, but the public needs to know, or how far in
advance, particularly in a hurricane prone region, to expect
some warnings. I ask this question because we are emphasizing
to the public, it's not our responsibility alone. It's not your
responsibility alone. But without good information, then it
becomes nobody's responsibility.
Dr. Rappaport. Yes. NOAA has two components that make
predictions for hurricanes. The Climate Prediction Center will
provide the overall seasonal forecast within the next few
weeks. However, the state of the science has not reached the
point yet where they can say which areas are going to be
affected. So, even if we knew accurately how many storms will
occur, that's not really as important as knowing which areas
are going to be affected, and when, and how strong will the
storm be.
Because of that, because the science is not evolved to that
point yet, we recommend that all areas in the hurricane zone
prepare for a possible strike in a given year. And the best
time to do that is now, and meetings and hearings, such as
today's, provide visibility that's important to the hurricane
risk problem. It's much better for the public to prepare now,
shortly before hurricane season, than in the frantic moments
when a hurricane is at their doorstep.
Ms. Norton. Now, the hurricane zones, the places that
should be preparing now are? Can you name them?
Dr. Rappaport. The United States, for the contiguous United
States it's from Texas all the way to Maine along the coast.
We've had hurricanes as far inland as about 150 to 200 miles.
The most significant component of a hurricane is storm surge,
and those are the maps that you now have in front of you. And
we have several different examples of where the risk areas are.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. There's one here I think is showing the
eye.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Rappaport. Perhaps, just by coincidence we have some
charts for the Miami area, and for the National Capitol region.
And we can discuss those, if you would like.
Again, to emphasize, we don't yet have the skill to predict
the numbers of storms with high accuracy, but I will say, it's
my personal perspective that the seasonal forecasts, while not
being as precise, perhaps, as our short-range forecasts issued
by the National Hurricane Center, do tend to lean the right way
each year.
Ms. Norton. You say they have increased in accuracy. What
has allowed you to increase in accuracy. After Katrina, were
their findings that were directed specifically on accuracy?
Although, I must say, the problem with Katrina was not the
prediction. I think NOAA was right. It was the government,
state, local, federal who did not step up fast enough. Could
that happen again? I mean, that's why I'm making--how much
ahead of time did you predict the hurricane there before that
catastrophe struck.
Dr. Rappaport. In 2003, the National Hurricane Center
extended its forecast range from three days to five days,
because of continuing improvements in our forecast accuracy.
Indeed, over the last 15 years, the accuracy of our forecast
tracks, or the errors, let's say, of our forecast tracks, where
the storm is going to go, have been cut in half. So, in the
case of Katrina, for the last 60 hours or so before landfall,
the forecast indicated a landfall in southeast Louisiana, a
progression up to the Mississippi coast of what would be
considered a major hurricane, at least Category 3 intensity.
So, the forecast for Katrina in the last two and a half days
was spot-on, and did not vary.
That said, we still have a ways to go. While track
forecasts continue to improve, our forecasts for intensity are
much more challenging. And, in fact, that is the component of
forecasting that we've highlighted for the research community
as the area we need the greatest help for.
With that in mind, we're grateful to the Congress for
providing $17 million for this fiscal year for what's become
known as NOAA's Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project. That
project is intended to cut the errors, not only for track, but
intensity, in half, by another 50 percent within 10 years. The
intent there is to use those resources to enhance our computing
capability, to develop better models and simulations, to get
new observing platforms, and to do what's called a transition
process from research into our operations of the National
Hurricane Center. So, there is effort within NOAA's research
arm, as well, to work on the Hurricane Forecast Improvement
Project.
Ms. Norton. I'm going to ask Mr. Diaz-Balart if he has any
questions at this time.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I first have
a confession to make, I almost didn't recognize him when I
walked in because I've never seen him so rested. Usually, I see
him at the Hurricane Center after not sleeping for a few days,
so, seriously, I almost didn't recognize you, you look so fresh
and rested.
Dr. Rappaport. Thank you.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. In my opening remarks, I described the
worst case scenario with regards to a hurricane. And I
understand that that was modeled after the big one of 1926, the
Great Hurricane. What do you think the probabilities are that a
similar Category 5 will actually make landfall in Florida in
the coming year, whenever that might be. Is that something
that, is it going to happen? Is it an issue of not if, but
when, or not really?
Dr. Rappaport. It really is a matter of when. We do look
back at the historical records as an indicator of what's to
come. We can derive some statistics to take a look at what's
the likelihood of getting a Category 5 hurricane.
Unfortunately, for you and us, and everybody in this area,
south Florida has the greatest risk. In fact, what we call the
return period, how often we should expect a Category 5
hurricane in our area is every 33 years. That doesn't mean that
we would be hit directly by a Category 5, but it means that one
will be passing close-by, at least.
Now, if you expand that to include the rest of the state,
you can see that we have a very significant risk of having a
Category 5 hurricane again in our lifetimes. The risk does
decrease as you go farther north, so, for example, the
Washington, D.C. area, the likely most intense hurricane to
expect there would be a Category 2, and that would on the order
of once in 100 years. That doesn't mean we have 100 years to
wait. It could come this year. We could get two this year. But,
on average, that's the kind of frequency that we're looking at.
So, for south Florida, we're looking at a major hurricane in
our vicinity roughly every 10 years or so, and a Category 5
hurricane, like Andrew, in our area three times a century,
every 33 years or so.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. That's a scary proposition. You
highlighted in your testimony, and you kind of mentioned about
it, as well, about how you disseminate warning information, and
information in general. And, as I mentioned, I plan to
introduce legislation that will provide a framework for the
development of an integrated public alert and warning system,
hopefully, dealing with new technologies that are available, et
cetera. I would love to work with you if you have any
suggestions, not necessarily now, but if you have some now as
to what you think are some of the elements that should be part
of that system. I don't know if you have some recommendations
or have any thoughts, but also continue to work with you as we
go along.
Dr. Rappaport. We would be pleased to work with you. As I
mentioned, the major components for improving the technical
part of our work, the hurricane forecasts, are computing
capabilities, the computer models that we rely very heavily on,
the data that goes into the research that builds up all those
activities. And then making sure that those advances get their
way to the Forecast Operations, both here at the National
Hurricane Center, and in our Weather Forecast Offices. And
we'll look forward to working with you on that.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, sir. You also have in your
testimony that FEMA and the National Weather Service,
obviously, the Hurricane Liaison Team in `96, federal, state,
and local emergency managers along with other experts. Can you
talk a bit more about that, and how it operates in disasters,
and what planning is done by this team to prepare for a
hurricane?
Dr. Rappaport. In advance of a hurricane, typically, on the
order of two days before, this team will be activated, which
includes bringing in experts from around the country to augment
our staff. And what it allows us to do is have both emergency
managers, and meteorological experts on site, kind of speaking
their languages to each other, and then communicating to those
outside of our facility. We do that via video teleconference to
the various preparedness agencies. It could be in the state, or
in the federal government, through, occasionally, through the
White House. These are daily briefings, but more frequent, as
necessary. And it allows us to have a situational awareness
where all parties are listening, and talking with the same
information, at the same time. They're able to see what each
other's problems are, what the issues are, and contribute, we
hope, to minimizing those problems.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, sir. A couple of more
questions, Madam Chairwoman?
Ms. Norton. Continue, sir.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Kind of going off the Chairwoman's
question, she was talking about Katrina and New Orleans, how
much advance notice did they have. How much time, usually, does
a community have notice-wise to know that something is coming
their way? Obviously, I know that the cone gets smaller and
smaller, but usually what's that time frame that a community
has to know, hey, the chances are this is going to hit us?
What's that time?
Dr. Rappaport. It could vary a little bit, but I'd like to
commend you, because of the preparedness that we have in south
Florida, Floridians, especially down here in south Florida,
seem to be watching and knowing when there's a hurricane moving
off the coast of Africa, and they've got two weeks of notice.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Oh, yes, we watch.
Dr. Rappaport. As the storms approach the coast, however,
our forecasts go out five days in advance, so you do get some
indication that there's at least a potential risk for your area
that far in advance. The information becomes more specific, and
what we call hurricane watches and warnings are issued
beginning roughly two days in advance. The definition of a
warning, of a hurricane warning is that hurricane conditions
are expected in your area within the next 24 hours, or perhaps
a little bit greater than that. That's really your call to take
action now. And the 24 hours was actually designed to ensure
that everybody had at least 12 hours of daylight to take those
actions. Those actions will vary, of course, depending on your
vulnerability, and your location, and the intensity of the
storm. And we depend very highly on the media to get the word
out, and our colleagues in emergency management to provide the
additional information to the public that interprets the
meteorology so they can make their decisions.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. I would imagine that there's a lot less
sense of urgency as you go more north up the coast. Obviously,
those areas that are expecting it have recently received
damage. I'm sure in Florida-- I see a storm out there, and I
start getting nervous. But I imagine that it's a lot less sense
of urgency as you go up north. I don't know how you do that,
because if you haven't got hit by one, you don't really take
them that seriously.
Dr. Rappaport. Right. Fortunately, there is likely
significant difference in how the public perceives a hurricane
in those areas, and how the emergency management officials and
our colleagues in the weather forecast offices perceive them.
Yes, there are two sides to this. By living farther north where
the hurricanes come less frequently, that's good news. But when
it does come, you may not be as well prepared. Fortunately, the
local weather forecast offices of the Weather Service, and the
emergency management officials all the way up the coast are
doing the same kind of preparations that we do here in south
Florida. It just may not be quite as visible, but they have
their plans ready, as well, should a storm approach.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. And, lastly, Madam Chairwoman. These maps
are a little scary. Could you just kind of describe a little
bit of what we have here?
Dr. Rappaport. Sure.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. I guess, we should look at Category 5,
which is the most-
Dr. Rappaport. Okay. There are two different depictions of
Category 5. Let's look at the one that has in white the various
locations labeled.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. All right. Let's see. Which one is that?
That would be-
Dr. Rappaport. It shows Category 5, and it has Miami Beach.
Yes, that would be it, two feet.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Oh, I'm sorry. That one. Okay.
Dr. Rappaport. What we're showing here in the gray area is
the populated region of south Florida, the metro area. The
brown is also land. The kind of aqua way off to the right side
is the Atlantic. And the vibrant colors in-between are
indications of how deep the storm surge would get for a
Category 5 hurricane that has the center taking a track across
the very lower left of your page. See the little black line
across the lower left, if the center of the hurricane crossed
the coast down there, this is the kind of storm surge you would
expect. Storm surge is worse on the right side, because that's
where the winds are pushing the water ashore.
The storm surge is the increase of water being pushed
ashore by the very strong winds. What you see is that the
entire coastline from south of Homestead, all the way up to the
top of the page will be underwater for at least some hundreds
of yards. And that the depth can be, in red you see on the
scale there, as much as 12 feet. Some areas, though, are much
seriously effected. If you look at Key Biscayne, just offshore,
it's all blue. Key Biscayne goes completely underwater by two
to three, some places four feet. So, in essence, you have just
the buildings sticking above the waterline.
Making this more complicated and severe is that on top of
that are the waves, and the waves are what really have the
power and the momentum to damage buildings. On the immediate
coast, we talked about water levels as high as 10, 12 feet, but
you could look and see that other areas in Miami and south also
flood, particularly going up the Miami River, and then spilling
across to Miami International Airport, which would also be
partly to all underwater. Coral Gables, historic Coral Gables,
would have as much as 10 feet of water. And down south, where
we had problems with Andrew, which was a much smaller storm. I
should say this was a large storm, so it spreads the effect
further north than Andrew, but the same kind of effect we saw
with Andrew, deep water.
The other issue here I'd like to point out is, in the areas
that are not quite as highly populated south of Homestead, look
how far the water moves inland, more than 10 miles. So, we have
an immediate risk at the coast for water levels on the order of
8, 10 feet, and even higher, offshore some of the islands,
including part of Miami Beach will go underwater, and to the
south, the water will spread as much as 10 miles inland. So,
this is a very serious risk. We're fortunate that we don't get
this very often, but we know that we will have another storm
like this some day in the future.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, sir. And, Madam Chairwoman, I
hope nobody takes this personally, but I hope I don't see you a
lot this season.
Dr. Rappaport. I understand.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you.
Dr. Rappaport. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Has there ever been a storm like this in
memory. I'm talking about a Category 5.
Dr. Rappaport. There have been three Category 5 hurricanes
to hit the United States. One was Andrew in 1992, one was
Camille in the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1969, and the other
was the Labor Day Keys Storm, 1935. Fortunately, none of the
Category 5 hurricanes that made landfall have been large, but
that will happen. And the 1926 Miami Hurricane, which affected
so much of Florida, and which would be the most devastating in
terms of damage, dollars lost, if it came ashore now on the
order of--the projections are $200 billion losses. That
hurricane was a large Category 4 hurricane, so on a similar
track to what is showing here, maybe a little bit north of
this.
Ms. Norton. This doesn't have anything to do with dikes or
anything else. It essentially says there's nothing you can do
except be underwater.
Dr. Rappaport. You can prepare for the worst of the
conditions.
Ms. Norton. It may matter to planners of buildings only.
Dr. Rappaport. Well, as I'm sure you know and will hear,
there are plans to move people out of harm's way, and we rely
on our colleagues in the emergency management community to do
that.
Ms. Norton. In the emergency management community, the
great debate is how much the dikes and the like--but there's
nothing here between south Miami and the Port except the kind
of preparedness you are doing.
Dr. Rappaport. If I may comment just briefly on Katrina.
There was a great loss in Katrina in Louisiana in the New
Orleans area. But apart from that, which was caused, to some
degree, by the levy system, or failure there. There was still
on the order of 200 deaths along the coast in Mississippi.
That's the kind of threat we're dealing with here. So, even if
we didn't have the problem in New Orleans, we would have had a
major loss, unfortunately, from Katrina, so there's still much
to do in the way of outreach and education. And that's why we
spend so much of our off-season focusing on that.
Ms. Norton. Did you have much effect from Katrina over
here?
Dr. Rappaport. We did. Katrina did come ashore here first
as a Category One hurricane.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. I remember Katrina. I was out of power, I
think it was--I don't know if it was Katrina. I think it was
Katrina. I think I was out of power for two weeks.
Dr. Rappaport. Yes. There were problems here in south
Florida, but, fortunately, nothing like what they experienced
in the Gulf Coast.
Ms. Norton. A final question about climate change. Has what
you now understand--what we all now understand about climate
change on the one hand. What relationship, if any, does that
have to the development of hurricanes, and has there been any
change in the development of hurricanes that you can attribute
to climate change?
Dr. Rappaport. The relationship between climate change, or
global warming and hurricanes is still a matter of open debate
among the scientists. There are recent publications in the
scientific literature, which suggest that the relationship is
relatively small, that warming of the atmosphere and the oceans
will make minimal difference in the number of storms, but could
increase their frequency a little.
Again, though there are views -
Ms. Norton. Their frequency, but not their effect?
Dr. Rappaport. No. The frequency, I'm sorry. The frequency
would not change much, but their intensity, I'm sorry, could
increase a little. I appreciate the chance to clarify.
There is still ongoing research, and NOAA is sponsoring
some of that as part of our responsibility for dealing with the
environment. And we would think that this will be an ongoing
issue for some time to come.
Ms. Norton. All right. The relationship between melting of
ice caps and what happens with climate is very impressive to
hear. And this research could not be more important, because
here we could have an effect on climate change in the short
run-- the kind of warming that science has now categorically
established in the longer term, whatever that turns out to be.
We have a responsibility. Thank you very much, Dr. Rappaport,
for your opening testimony before this hearing. It's very
important for us to be able to go further and hear from the
other witnesses. And we're going to ask the other witnesses if
they will come forward at this time. And we're going to ask to
hear from the Federal witness first. Then from Florida, then
Miami-Dade, and then the Red Cross with this. I'm going to ask
the witnesses to the greatest extent that they can, to
summarize their testimony in five minutes--because we do want
to hear your testimony, but bear in mind that we'd like to have
summaries of your testimony. Your testimony, and I will
indicate that all your testimony will be received for the full
record. It's very valuable for us to have the full testimony
for the record because we use this testimony in our own policy,
and especially our own legislative changes.
Let me begin with the Regional Administrator, I suppose
that would be with you. Introduce Major May.
Mr. May. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Holmes Norton, and
Ranking Member Diaz-Balart. It's good to be here today.
You already covered in some of the opening comments and
statements some of the many things we're involved with, not in
Region IV, with all of our states, but also the State of
Florida, specifically, some of the planning. I'd kind of like
to go back over some of that now in more detail.
I serve as the FEMA Regional Administrator for the
Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management
Agency. In this role, I oversee FEMA's All-Hazard efforts in
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. I have six coastal
states. As a primary representative and coordinator for the
disaster-prone region, I oversee the planning, development,
implementation, execution of all FEMA Region IV programs and
initiatives. My goals has to been to make sure that FEMA Region
IV has a robust infrastructure, and all appropriate resources
in terms of people, operational systems, planning, assessment
tools, training exercises and equipment are in place.
Region IV has been preparing for the 2009 hurricane season.
We're building our operational capabilities more effectively
with response to recovery, amplifying our stance on hurricane
readiness. And I'd like to provide more of that information
now.
FEMA Region IV administrators have been charged to be more
active and engaged in this state. We work more than ever
before. As a result of PKEMRA, our own initiatives, we're
working to improve our regional communications, performing gap
analysis with each state, undertaking multi-state evacuation
planning efforts, and supporting regional exercises. Among the
lessons learned after the 2005 hurricane season, none have been
taken more seriously than the breakdown of the inter-agency and
intra-agency communications. Over the past four years, we've
taken major steps to make sure this breakdown does not happen
again.
Critical information is shared and problems are solved
among our states and federal partners in the Regional Response
Coordination Centers, known as the RRCC.
Communicating during an event with various responders on
the ground is always a challenge. We recently had an experience
in Kentucky with the ice storms, which allowed us to exercise
with great success our FEMA Strike Force, known as Mobile
Emergency Response System, or MERS. MERS allows us to provide
communication links rapidly in disaster stricken areas.
Continued communications has been improved through the Regional
Advisory Council, known as the RAC. The RAC is a regionally
focused version of the National Advisory Council. Both elements
were established from the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The
RAC provides valuable advice, recommendations on regional
emergency management issues, and has helped facilitate to
further enhance our national and regional planning efforts.
We use a formalized analysis process known as the Gap
Analysis program. The Gap is helping us to identify the
shortfalls in all of our hurricane prone states. It was
validated during the 2008 season when the commodity numbers
that we agreed upon pre-season were accessible during the
event. Some of the improvements we have made based on Gap
findings in the area are in fuel planning and logistics. The
regional fuel planning effort has been derived from a scenario
driven to catastrophic planning development over the last two
years for the State of Florida.
We have worked closely with Florida Emergency Management in
identifying the needs, and coming to solutions. The inter-
agency agreements with the Defense Energy Supply Center is
structured to support FEMA's request, and will supply an
identified supply of fuel within 72 hours.
Logistics. Over the last year, FEMA Region IV has greatly
improved logistics capabilities. Commodities are now staged
near disasters in National Logistics Staging Centers, where
they can distributed to locations specified identified for the
state and the impacted areas. I'd also like to mentioned that
Florida is one of the most prepared states in terms of their
logistics program. Efforts will simply augment and enhance
their very advanced state capacity here in the State of
Florida.
Some of the other efforts we have here in the State of
Florida, we have a joint warehouse in Orlando. We have
completed state-specific logistics schedules for commodity
distributions in sync with the state plan that's described
under the Florida Catastrophic Planning effort, and Gap data
collection. We are using GIS mapping capability to lay out the
state staging area sites, and we're hosting a conference call
among Florida and its sister states within our region, which
offer a perform forum for logistics-specific discussions,
planning, and sharing of best practices.
Our Mass Evacuation Transportation Planning effort goal is
to have updated state evacuation plans with a focus this year
on the Atlantic coast, specifically, South Carolina and
Georgia. To make this effort work, we coordinate with several
key players, such as Amtrak, and also private ambulance
services and bus contractors to make this happen.
In 2008, the focus was the Gulf State region, and we are
confident that the evacuation plans are functional and
effective for the 2009 season.
To further strengthen our partnerships, FEMA is actively
engaged with state governments in joint exercises to prepare
for the 2009 season. In late May, Region IV, in partnership
with the State of Florida, is preparing for the Hurricane
Suiter tabletop exercise. Hurricane Suiter is a state and
federal collaborative exercise to test selected systems and
procedures prior to hurricane season. The exercise will provide
FEMA and Region IV with an opportunity to test new
methodologies, and approaches developed from the Florida
Catastrophic Hurricane Planning process.
In conclusion, I believe we've made real progress in
strengthening our relationships with our federal, state, and
local counterparts. Ultimately, as our Acting Director, Nancy
Ward, has stated, ``If we do not plan together, train together,
and develop policies and procedures together from the start,
we, as an emergency management community, will never be as
effective as we should be. It's that simple.'' I look forward
to taking your questions. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. May. Now, I think our
next witness then would be Mr. Ruben Almaguer. Is that right
pronunciation?
Mr. Almaguer. That is correct, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. Deputy Director, Florida Division of Emergency
Management.
Mr. Almaguer. Thank you, Madam Chair, Congressmen. My name
is Ruben Almaguer, Deputy Director, Florida Division of
Emergency Management. I've served in this capacity for about
two and a half years, appointed by the governor of Florida,
Charlie Christ. I've had the blessing to serve under Craig
Fugate, as well as a former administrator of FEMA, Dave
Paulison, who is my fire chief. I previously served as a
Division Chief and a Paramedic for Miami-Dade County here in
south Florida for the last 20 something years, and so I've
experienced first-hand, as a firefighter paramedic Hurricane
Andrew hitting south Florida. I'd like to just briefly share
with you this simple question, is Florida prepared today? Is
Florida better prepared than we were in 2004-2005 hurricane
season? I'm going to focus on a couple of things that are
unique to our state.
First of all, it comes down to people. States need to be
focused at not only the state, the federal level, and the local
level, that you've got to have the necessary people to do the
job to respond to these disasters, and remind everybody that
the aggressive approach that Congress has taken in the Post
Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act to make sure
professional standards and emergency management for the FEMA
Administrator of the State of Florida, from my state's
perspective, as well as the local, are hiring the best and
brightest, and making sure people are qualified and trained to
do their job.
Second of all, one of the unique things that we learned
that we did not have in place that Mr. May mentioned was
commodities. Really, most states in this country still today
have focused on when disaster strikes, we get contractors in
place. We get resources that we purchase, and that means you're
a day late and a dollar short. So, Florida, through the
leadership of this governor, as well as the legislature, has
put dollars on the table through a state statute that forces
that the Division of Emergency Management has a 200,000 square
foot logistical resource center pre-stage in Orlando with over
$16 million of commodities in place that we own, that we
manage, and we will distribute for disaster. That gives us the
ability to get in front of these events, and push out water,
and food, tarps, and key resources that will affect the
survivor of these disasters within hours of the event, and even
before the event. That way it will allow us, the contractors,
as well as the federal system, to come behind us, three, couple
of days later and bring those resources. But, generally
speaking, if you're relying on contractors and contracts,
you're very late in responding to a disaster.
Second of all, there's technology. And Congress, you
actually talked about the ability to get effective
communications out to residents of these communities. But,
also, the technology to receive the information. So, being
located in Tallahassee, Florida, one of the things we've
realized that you've got to be on the ground. For as much as we
have significant enough technology in an emergency operation
center, and expanded that to have unified command with FEMA, we
want to make sure this governor and the Director of Emergency
Management are on the ground at the disaster site to see the
impacts of this event, so we can effectively respond to those
counties who will request assistance from the state.
One key thing that Florida has done, and has taken the lead
from FEMA, establishing a full-time disability coordinator.
Many times, people with disabilities are forgotten. People with
physical disabilities, mental disabilities, hearing impaired,
visually impaired, and so we have a full-time person who works
for the Director, who his job every single day, and this is a
gentleman, Chip Wilson, who, unfortunately, is wheelchair-
bound, his job every day is to remind me and this state that
there's people out there with disabilities. On the average,
potentially 20 percent of the population has some sort of
disability. Are they being reached in the proper way being
prepared? How are we responding to them, as well as how can
they get through the recovery efforts of these disasters?
I will also emphasize that we can have all the people, and
all the resources in place, but if you don't practice, you'll
never play well. And that being said, as already mentioned
here, and I won't go into detail, but Florida will conduct the
largest scale hurricane exercise in its history the last two
days in May, and the first two days in June. We will replicate
the great Miami Hurricane of 1926 that affects south Florida,
Tampa-St. Pete area, as well as the Panhandle, and we will put
huge resources to make sure that we find out what gaps are in
place in case that event happens this year.
In closing, the last two things I want to emphasize, it's
about public outreach. We have a simple plan in Florida, every
state does it a little differently, we tell people get a plan.
It's real simple. There's civic responsibility. If you rely on
the federal and state government, and even local government to
save the day during a disaster, unfortunately, I'm not proud to
say that they will come to the table. We will still assist
people who are affected by disasters, but the best way to solve
a catastrophic disaster is for residents of these communities
to have the message of being prepared themselves, and that
means food, water, commodities. Where are they going to go?
Where are the closest shelters they should go to? Those are
things that I cannot do for them. With almost 20 million
residents in the State of Florida, I would need 50 warehouses
the size that I have today to reach all of the residents of our
community. So, the more people that are prepared, who have the
resources, and have plans to take care of them, their family
members, and their pets during disaster, the better the state
can focus and use those commodities for people who are living
paycheck to paycheck, the elderly, and the people living in
south Florida in the communities that have very little to live
on, and have no family members. Those are the people that these
commodities should go to. And, so, we've talked about a very
aggressive outreach program, which this year we kicked off
``Kids Get A Plan.'' We realize that we have to get to the
children, almost 3 million children in school every single day
in Florida, so we are asking kids across this entire state to
go to KidsGetAPlan.com, so they can actually put together a kit
on line in a very friendly interactive way to take these kids
and plans home and simply tell their parents, mom, where is our
flashlight? Where is our water? Where is our kits?
And, in closing, I will tell you that Florida is only good
because, unfortunately, the state has been impacted by more
disasters than 47 other states in this nation. And it's nothing
to be proud of, but also in Florida, out of the top 10
disasters in the state, seven affected Florida, so we gain a
lot through experiences. We do some things well, and every time
that we fail to meet the mark, we improve and use the best
practices for future disasters. Madam Chair, I'll be available
for questions, as well.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Almaguer. Now, I'm
going to have to be through with this hearing before 12:00, and
I want to get all this time to ask questions, so I appreciate
that you all have your testimony reasonably within the 5 minute
summary period. And I want to especially go to Mr. Lord now.
Jonathon Lord is Assistant Director, Miami-Dade Department
of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
Mr. Lord.
Mr. Lord. Thank you, Chairwoman Norton, Ranking Member
Diaz-Balart. Good morning, and thank you for asking me to speak
before you today about Miami-Dade County's Department of
Emergency Management and Homeland Security, and the County's
state of readiness for the 2009 hurricane season.
Miami-Dade County is approximately 2,000 square miles in
size, and has a population of about 2.5 million people. In
terms of square miles, Miami-Dade County is larger than the
District of Columbia, the states of Rhode Island, and Delaware.
Miami-Dade government provides municipal government services
for roughly 1.1 million of those residents in unincorporated
areas, employs more than 30,000 people, and has an overall
annual budget of $7.5 billion, and an operating budget of $4.9
billion.
The other 1.4 million residents live in 35 municipalities
throughout the county. The cities of Miami, Hialeah, and Miami
Gardens are the most populous municipalities in the county.
Miami-Dade County is bordered by two national parks, to the
southeast, Biscayne National Park, and to the west, Everglades
National Park. Miami-Dade County is one of only three locations
in the United States of America that has ever been struck by a
Category 5 hurricane. And, as you all know, that was Hurricane
Andrew in 1992.
Since 1992, Miami-Dade County has activated its Emergency
Operation Center 45 times; 20 of those activations were because
of the threat of a hurricane or tropical storm. Since then,
since 1992, Miami-Dade County has ordered evacuations and/or
opened hurricane evacuation centers 20 times because of those
same threats of a hurricane or tropical storm. The 2004 and
2005 hurricane seasons were, by far, the busiest for our
county. Our Emergency Operation Center was activated seven
times to deal with those threats.
The last three hurricane seasons have been relatively
uneventful. The county did activate its Emergency Operation
Center in August of 2006 for Hurricane Ernesto, August 2008
because of Tropical Storm Fay, and September 2008 because of
Hurricane Ike. Thankfully, those storms did not cause any
significant damage or injury in Miami-Dade County.
While we are thankful for three consecutive years of
relatively uneventful hurricane seasons, we are always
concerned that complacency could set in amongst residents
because of inactivity. The Miami-Dade County Department of
Emergency Management and Homeland Security works tirelessly to
keep residents prepared for hurricane season. The county
produces all hurricane and emergency preparedness publications
in English, Spanish, and Creole to serve the three major
languages in our community.
The Department actively organizes and participates in local
hurricane preparedness fairs, and expositions, no matter how
small or large they are, and where they take place. The county
works very closely with local municipalities to insure that all
residents, not just those in unincorporated areas, are prepared
for hurricanes.
While Miami-Dade County is rich in resources, the county
works closely with Florida Division of Emergency Management
when certain resources cannot be identified within the county.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management then works to
provide those resources to our county.
Our Department manages Miami-Dade Alerts, a wireless
emergency notification system that alerts residents whenever a
hazardous situation, like a hurricane, threatens the county.
This system currently has more than 120,000 subscribers. The
Department also engages private sector businesses through our
Local Mitigation Strategy. This program actually just
celebrated its 10th year anniversary last year, and its
participants include major corporations, and small businesses.
Together, the public-private partnership has completed more
than $250 million in strengthening infrastructure around Miami-
Dade County. This program's members are represented in the
Emergency Operations Center, as well, during activations. Some
examples of the work completed by the LMS Group, the Local
Mitigation Strategy Group, include several major flood
mitigation projects, and the shuttering of critical
infrastructures, such as hospitals, and public safety agencies.
Miami-Dade County has completed approximately $800 million in
public assistance enhancements when restoring infrastructure
after declared emergency events.
The County also works very closely with Miami-Dade Public
School system to establish hurricane evacuation centers that
can be open, should their County Mayor order an evacuation.
Presently, there are a total of 56 hurricane evacuation centers
throughout Miami-Dade County, with a capacity of over 85,000
spaces. These totals include primary, secondary, and tertiary
hurricane evacuation centers. In addition to these hurricane
evacuation centers, the County has six special needs evacuation
centers to serve our vulnerable population.
The County established an Emergency Evacuation Assistance
Program. This program provides transportation to special needs
centers that are operated by medical personnel. There are
currently 2,000 people registered for this program. The Miami-
Dade County Department of Emergency Management and Homeland
Security works also very closely with the National Hurricane
Center. Any storm within 1,500 nautical miles, and with a
forecast track to bring it in the general direction of south
Florida, is closely monitored by our Department, as well as any
system that initially develops in the Gulf of Mexico, or the
Caribbean.
The Department issues readiness advisories to all of our
Emergency Operations Center partners, and engages in conference
calls with local agencies, and the National Hurricane Center.
These advisories including things like the storm's position,
and forecast track. We also provide a tentative planning
schedule in which we enter data provided by the National
Hurricane Center, such as direct path calculations, forward
speed, and potential arrival of tropical storm force winds in
our community. These advisories provide a time line for
preparedness activities, including the issuing of press
releases, conducting special needs population call-downs, and
the opening of evacuation centers. And, additionally,
establishing EOC activation levels, and considering a Local
State of Emergency, and beginning general evacuations or Bus
Pickups for assistance of those who cannot get to an evacuation
center on their own.
Let me conclude by saying that maintaining local, state,
and federal partnerships exhibited here in south Florida, are
key to ensuring our community's preparedness. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman, for this opportunity.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Lord.
Ms. Hagan.
Ms. Hagan. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Norton, and
Congressman Diaz-Balart. I am honored to represent the American
Red Cross. My name is Karen Hagan. I'm the State Disaster
Officer for the American Red Cross in Florida. And I know that
you've read the written testimony, and I'd like to just focus
on a couple of key points.
Behind me is Sam Tidwell, and he is the CEO of the Greater
Miami and the Keys Chapter. And any specific questions related
to this area, I'd like to engage him in that.
Today's issue is preparedness for the 2009 hurricane season
beginning June 1st is important to the Red Cross, and it's
especially important to me, and my colleagues around the state.
The Red Cross stands ready to respond this hurricane season,
and we continue to improve our coordination and relationship.
We have a wonderful relationship with FEMA Region IV, with
state Emergency Management, local Emergency Management
agencies, other state organizations, and, of course, the other
non-governmental and faith-based communities.
Specifically, what we bring to the table, the first and
most foremost is mass care, that presence, that opening of a
shelter where survivors can go. They can expect a place to
sleep, a safe place to exist, food, mental health. And one
thing I want to say about sheltering is the survivors that go
into either a hurricane evacuation center or a shelter, when
they are in that building, they do not know when they leave
there whether or not they'll find a home to go back to. So, the
mental health component to that is very important, and very
critical.
We have been participating with the Catastrophic Planning
Process since its inception. We're prepared to test some of the
planning scenarios, and some of our planning assumptions at the
statewide hurricane exercise at the end of May and beginning of
June.
The other thing I want to mention is the difference between
a hurricane evacuation center, a place where people need to get
out of harm's way, a lifeboat, and a shelter. Once we can move
people from an evacuation center into a shelter, then that's
where they can expect a place to sleep, the food, and the
support that is more traditionally thought of when we talk
about a shelter.
I can say that in the State of Florida, Florida Division of
Emergency Management has utilized the American Red Cross
National Shelter System as its shelter database of record. Last
year, as we prepared to enter into hurricane season, we had
about 695,000 shelter spaces in that system. Today, we have
842,000 plus shelter spaces. That's an increase of 150,000
shelter spaces, which is very exciting. With that increase,
however, is a need to train more shelter managers, more shelter
workers, et cetera. So, it's an ongoing process of readiness
and preparedness.
Along with sheltering, we provide feeding, both feeding
within the shelters and mobile feeding for folks that haven't
left their home. We'll be able to bring food to them, as well
as bulk distribution items, such as: comfort kits, cleanup
kits, and other necessities. And we have a whole system to
provide that.
I mentioned mental health services in a shelter. We'll also
have that available to folks wherever they may congregate
because it is such an important component. We're available to
do client case work, advocating for people, connecting
community resources to the needs that the people have, and
working with our partners, both government, and non-government
partners.
We also have a tool, our Safe and Well website, which will
allow survivors to communicate with family members outside of
the affected area, just to allow them to know that they're
okay.
Mr. Almaguer was talking about the outreach to people with
disabilities. The American Red Cross is making it a nationwide
priority to ensure that services and shelters are accessible,
and as accessible as possible to people with disabilities. And
we have initiated two big programs in Florida, both working
with our State Disability Coordinator, Chip Wilson. One is to
train emergency managers, the Centers for Independent Living
and American Red Cross representatives to survey buildings for
accessibility so that they can meet ADA requirements. The other
is to teach disability etiquette to our shelter workers, so
that we can provide the kind of services that we should be
providing to people with disabilities when they come into our
shelters.
The demographics of this state are diverse. We are trying
to recruit the type of volunteers who can truly meet the needs,
and communicate with people that we're going to be serving all
over the state. And from training, to case work, to public
messaging, everything we do is in Spanish, and much is in
Creole.
Our collaboration with our government and non-government
partners cannot be understated. We are in this together. We are
actively working with many groups. This year, for example,
besides the myriad of faith-based, community, and other
religious organizations, we have worked significantly with the
NAACP, with our Florida Association of Centers for Independent
Living, and with our CERT, the Community Emergency Response
Team, because with that increase in shelter spaces, we need to
see an increase in training and capacity building.
Are we ready for 2009? I believe that we are and will share
some of our efforts taking place at the national level. We're
expanding and pre-positioning supply inventory to support
feeding and sheltering. We have on hand 500,000 meals, and MREs
that we're storing. We've upgraded our IT systems to have
greater controls over our financial management, and to share
sheltering client information with our partners. We have pre-
positioned communications equipment. In fact, in Florida, we
have 20 Red Cross shelters serving all 67 counties, and every
one of those chapters has a satellite communication unit, so
that we can make sure that we're communicating. We have built
more effective logistics, supply chain, and inventory control
systems.
And, as far as our trained disaster workers, we have more
than 80,000 people in the disaster response database; 93
percent are volunteers, and we've had an increase in Florida in
that database of 11 percent since last year. So, we are ever-
increasing our capacity.
I am confident, in closing, that the plans, processes, and
partnerships that we have with our federal, state, local, non-
profit, and faith-based organizations positions us well as we
look to this hurricane season. Thank you, and I'll be happy to
answer any questions.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Ms. Hagan.
In his home jurisdiction, I'm going to defer now to the
Ranking Member for the first set of questions.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
First, Mr. May, the National Disaster Housing Strategy,
which was released in January, and FEMA recently issued its
2009 Disaster Housing Plan. And, as I mentioned before, the
plan advances a four-pronged approach to addressing housing
units. And I think I'm going to have a couple of questions
later about housing, as well. What plans specifically have been
made here in Florida, and do they improve how housing would be
managed in a worst case scenario? If you look at those flood
lines, you realize that could be a huge issue.
Mr. May. Right. And, yes, we have been working with state
and local government to identify that. And, as the Strategic
Housing Plan, one of the big parts of that is, not only does it
bring some of the old pieces of the FEMA housing opportunities,
which were mobile homes and travel trailers to the scene, but
also takes a look at the community, helping us make decisions
how they want that housing to look in their communities. And,
yes, we're working with them. A catastrophic event, though, is
a catastrophic event. And we will have to work our way through
a catastrophic event. The housing plan specifically does not
address the catastrophic event. It creates a framework to
establish a housing plan for the State of Florida.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Last year, I co-sponsored a bill that
would provide incentives to states, and also to enforce
statewide building codes. And how often do you think that
building codes are for mitigation purposes?
Mr. May. How often do they contribute-
Mr. Diaz-Balart. How successful are they, building codes-
Mr. May. I think they're tremendously successful. And
normally, after an event, we will go out and do a survey to
validate the flood heights, especially in the flood surge area,
to determine if the mitigation efforts have been successful.
And you heard, and you mentioned in your opening statements, I
think both of you did, about the 4-1 ratio on mitigation
efforts. They do work, and most cases, the maps are pretty
accurate, and are reflective in the type of construction, and
the height of construction, and those things do work.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Mr. May, one of the things that I think is
a concern always, is you guys have to develop a balance, when
FEMA should step in, and, obviously, who inlocal government has
jurisdiction, or whatever. And you're doing a heck of a job, by
the way, as I see it firsthand. Madam Chairwoman, I know that
FEMA sometimes gets a bad rap, but you know, number one is
they've done an incredible job of improving, and they've done
some really good work. So I want to commend you for the work
that you do. It's a delicate balance. How do you make sure that
you don't overstep in order to make sure that you don't
disincentivize local governments, and state governments from
doing what they need to do. Obviously, they're closer to the
ground than you are, so how do you balance that out?
Mr. May. Well, it is a partnership, and we're at the table
in a partnership today. Second, we understand the
responsibilities under the constitution of the governor and the
state and local government, what their responsibilities are for
the protection of the citizens of the community.
We mentioned the Gap Process earlier, how we engage, or are
more engaged in asking probing questions of local officials
about what their capabilities are, and then suggesting that
maybe we could provide some assistance there; understanding
it's their responsibility.
I think the catastrophic planning effort we're doing with
Florida with the hurricane is a perfect example. Normally, when
FEMA would let a contract to support an exercise, we would let
a contract in Washington, and set the work schedule, things we
want, the outcome of the exercise. This time, we went to Craig
and said, ``Craig, what do you want this exercise to
accomplish? And you tell us what to put in the contract.'' And,
so, by engaging that contract in that way, and it really is a
bottom-up effort, and many of the folks who are at this table
have been engaged in that process, so I think that's helpful,
and how we approach the engagement with local government, and
state government.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, sir.
Also about housing. If the worst case storm were to happen,
and 50 percent of the homes and apartments were destroyed, how
do you deal with that? How do you deal with that in the short
term?
Mr. Almaguer. Well, one of the things we recently did that
we'll be publishing is what Floridians want to do. We did a
survey statewide, and we've realized, and we've already known,
people want to stay either next to their house on their
property, or very nearby, while their community rebuilds. It's
their neighborhoods, it's where their churches are, it's where
their jobs are. And, so, to displace people outside of these
communities, and move them to other states is not what they
want, and not what's going to happen in Florida. So, even
though it's the federal responsibility for the housing plan, it
is a partnership with the state and locals, so the state
already has in place contracts for implementing and assisting
FEMA to get temporary housing units in these areas. We call it
haul-and-install, and so, one of our responsibilities is to get
as many travel trailers into these communities quickly to
assist. But during catastrophic disaster, Congressman, I'll be
very clear, for an exercise that we're going to conduct to
replicate that great Miami Hurricane, there is not a housing
plan in this country, in this world, that will be able to come
to the table to assist in that event. We are still planning for
that, but our focus is to focus on disasters in which we can
get temporary housing in communities, but there will be
situations where we have to move people outside of these
communities, hopefully not outside of Florida, because
generally, when they leave, they don't come back.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Well, right. And I think one of the things
that we ought to realize is that there's something to be said
about personal responsibility. Now, we're the ones that have to
have--individuals have to have plans, have to have alternative
places to stay. And I think the government always has to be the
last gap approach, obviously. But let me restate the question
that I asked before about the balance between FEMA and the
state and local communities. How do you deal with that? How
much is too much of a stretch for FEMA to be involved in the
states and local communities? And how do you deal with that
balance?
Mr. Almaguer. The public today would ask the media, or ask
us where is FEMA? Which is actually the wrong question. Really,
all these disasters, all the fire truck, police officers,
paramedic, nurses and doctors, nobody owns any -- the state
doesn't have any of that stuff. FEMA doesn't have any of that
stuff. It's the locals. So the question always needs to be at
the local level.
The other side of this, sir, is, there is a very cautious
approach in which a state doesn't want to be, and the counties
in which we want them to grow their emergency management
capabilities, and them to be as self-sufficient as possible.
I will tell you the worst thing Congress can do would be to
embold and empower FEMA to the point where they become so
heavy-handed that it disincentivizes states to prepare, and
have resources, and have the personnel to manage their own
disasters. In our state, we love to be very proud to manage
some disasters, and we do, many tornadoes and wildfires, and we
don't ask for federal assistance. But there will come a day,
and right now we have a Presidential declaration for the floods
in north Florida, no one even knows about, that FEMA was right
there at the table, very low-key assisting us, but the reality
is, FEMA needs to--excuse me, the federal government needs to
strengthen states and locals, and allow FEMA to have the
resources for those large events that we would have to reach
out to the federal government to assist us.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. You talk in your written testimony about
building--which I thought was interesting--a survivor
mentality, rather than a victim mentality, and that citizens
should be encouraged to-- and to empower the state to help in
recovery efforts themselves after a disaster. Now, what are
some of the steps that can be taken to help empower individuals
in preparing for a storm, and for the consequences after a
storm?
Mr. Almaguer. I think we would all agree that it's a
psychological dynamic in which, when we call ourselves victim,
we feel like something has happened to us outside our control
that now we can't do anything about. But now we deserve for
someone to take care of us as a victim. We've been violated,
something has happened, and that we are now traumatized. We
actually look at victims are those unfortunate people who
actually, we have to bury. We want very few of those people to
ever happen in Florida. But, you know what, disasters will
happen.
We believe that anybody who survives a disaster is a
survivor. That means you have the responsibility to take care
of you and your family, more importantly, check on your
neighbor. Reach out in your community. There is not enough
federal, state, and local resources for a large-scale disaster
for everybody to come to the table and save the day. It's going
to be Floridians in Florida who help neighbors to recover from
these disasters, recovery that goes on many times for up to 10
years, so we want people in Florida to be survivors, not
victims. And the way to do that is to get a plan, and be
prepared for you and your family.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. You know, one of the things that is
interesting is because when you have--you obviously warn people
that these things are coming. You also help them to get
prepared. You also have to tell them what's available, when it
will be available, and that's also an interesting balance. We
saw that after a few of the storms that we had able-bodied
people standing in line for water and ice, when we never lost
water in parts of the county. All you had to do was open the
tap, and there were people waiting in line for hours, waiting
for water, which I thought was interesting. So, that's a very
interesting balance, to make sure that we continuously remind
people that it's really our responsibility. The government is
not the first line of defense, it's the last line of defense.
Once you've--you can't do it for yourself, that's a very
difficult balance to achieve, obviously.
Mr. Almaguer. If I may, one of the things that has not been
mentioned here is the private sector. The private sector, the
Publix, the Home Depots of all of Florida, as well as many
other private companies really are the saving grace in Florida.
It's easier and cheaper for the federal government and the
state to get a Home Depot and a Publix open, to allow people to
go in there and have the resources that these companies on a
daily basis have the capabilities of reaching out and getting
resources on the table, much better than the state and locals
will ever be able to do. So, if they just need a generator,
they need fuel, I'd rather get Publix and Home Depot open,
where you can go and get your stuff. That means, guess what?
It's not for free. And that's not the responsibility of
government, but there is going to be times in which we can't do
that, and those isolated communities is where we will open up
points of distribution to get food, and water, and key assets
to those areas that are very isolated. Our focus is generally
to get private sector open to partner with the state, and get
more resources on the table much more quickly.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, sir. Mr. Lord, kind of the same
question. How much is too much of an overreach, and what's the
kind of relationship that you have with the state, and with
FEMA?
Mr. Lord. I think the most important thing for us,
actually, in looking at the partnerships is for us, at the
local level, to truly take emergency preparedness very
seriously, and help our residents build that culture of
preparedness, whether it's housing, or having your supply of
food and water, or having your place to go. And our concern is
to make sure that all of our residents are always prepared for
that. We have a great partnership with the state and the
federal government.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. How do the local-
Mr. Lord. Yes. And the cities. You know, while we have
the--the onus is on the county to provide emergency management
services in the State of Florida, we have a very-- like I said,
35 very strong municipalities in our county, that also do take
emergency management very seriously. Even in the non-hurricane
season, we focus on them, and meet with them on a regular
basis, and address the concerns they have, make sure they're
prepared for not just hurricanes, but other disasters, as well.
Many things, such as providing ice and water when the time is
needed for that to be provided, those municipalities do look to
us to help provide those services. Many of them can provide it
themselves, some rely entirely on us, depending on their size
and their ability. And we take a look at the community as a
whole, and try to find those areas that need our assistance the
best.
We can also expect the same from the State of Florida,
while we try to do as much as we can on our own, there's a
point where Miami-Dade County cannot provide services any more,
need assistance providing those services. Our great
relationship with the State of Florida allows us in a matter of
a phone call or an email to get those services and items we
need almost instantaneously from the State of Florida.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, sir. The Chairwoman has been
very generous with me, so I'll be quick.
You spoke about outreach efforts to people with
disabilities, which is something that I know the state has been
very active with, and so has the local municipalities, and the
county. But I'm also pleased to see that you're expanding your
language bank, ensuring effective communications with those who
speak Creole and Spanish. Can you talk about the progress that
you're having there, and how you're doing there? Are you
satisfied where you are there? I also want to thank you for,
you and your's for the efforts that you make. I've also,
unfortunately, I went to see not only with the shelters, but
also in your trucks out there, feeding people in different
areas, which is one way to keep people in their homes, which is
great. A lot of people just don't have access to food anymore,
so, again, thank you for your efforts. But talk to us a little
bit about the language challenges, and how you're doing.
Ms. Hagan. Okay. And let me first answer your question
about disabilities. It's a national priority. It's a state
priority. It's a local priority, and we're really in this
together to make sure that we meet the needs of people with
disabilities and can accommodate them. And I think I
articulated that in my testimony.
I'd love to ask Sam to share some examples of what they're
doing here locally with the language banks, and their training.
Sam?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, let me just say that certainly here in -
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Sir, give your name.
Mr. Tidwell. Oh, Sam Tidwell, CEO of American Red Cross,
Greater Miami and the Keys Chapter. Certainly, here in greater
Miami and the Keys, our culture is so diverse. Seventy-five,
eighty percent of our volunteers are bilingual, mostly in
Spanish, but more and more in Creole, as well. And so,
everything that we have, all of our communications, everything
that we do is multi-lingual. And we have volunteers at every
shelter, every evacuation center, and every feeding process
that have people who are bilingual, or trilingual. And we
certainly work closely with our partners in local government
and state government to make sure that all the communications
that we have going through that same process are in multi-
language.
We engage so many partners from community organizations to
traditional organizations that deal with the specific cultural
communities that we have, as partners in the American Red
Cross. And they are our volunteers, they are our sites for
sheltering after storms, and they are communications with the
communities.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thanks so much. Madam Chairwoman, can I
ask one more.
Ms. Hagan. Thank you.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Again, I apologize for abusing your
generosity, but I'll ask Mr. May, the status of the Long-Term
Recovery Office in Orlando. You talked about a little bit. Is
it operational, is it fully operational there? There was plans
I guess last year to downsize it, and closing it. Where are we
on that? How is it going? What insurances do we have that it's
going to continue to be there?
Mr. May. It's up and operational, and we continue to
rightsize that office, when appropriate, based on workload. We
use those personnel throughout the State of Florida for work to
work in other disasters. We've used them also because of their
expertise in other states around the country to work disasters,
sometimes several months at a time, so it's a valuable resource
for me. And I consider that's so, but it is our intent at long-
term to watch, to continue to rightsize that office, like I
have an office also in Biloxi, one in Alabama, also, that have
been stood up as a result of previous disasters, that we also
look at the needed staffing levels on a daily basis, on a
weekly basis, excuse me, and determine what that should be. The
staffing level there is very stable right now, as far as the
workload is concerned. The state is staffed up their resources
there, and we're making great progress on the 2004 and 2005
storms. And it's a valuable resource for us.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman. That's one of the reasons I need to talk to you
about the drywall later.
Mr. May. Chinese drywall?
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Chinese drywall, yes.
Mr. May. I've heard about it.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Yes, I', sure you've probably heard about
it, and there's a bill that Congressman Wexler and I have spent
some time on.
Mr. May. Yes, sir.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton. Certainly. I wish all of you would tell me what
resources have been pre-positioned, and how that works as of
now for any upcoming hurricane season. Which of you goes in
first with resources? How are the others clicked in, if at all?
What resources are we talking about? Where are they? Would you
briefly give me answers on this.
Mr. May. Ms. Norton, I cannot specifically give you all the
numbers, but FEMA does have strategic storage sites around the
country.
Ms. Norton. I'm only talking now about the Florida area.
Mr. May. Okay. We have co-located with the State of Florida
in Orlando, we have resources there. And we do logistics
planning with the State of Florida to determine what their
logistics needs would be, and bring those resources in,
primarily in the area of water and MREs, or meals ready to eat.
And they'll be available based on the State of Florida's need.
Mr. Almaguer. Madam Chair, to be very specific, the State
of Florida has 300 tractor trailers load of water, pre-
positioned in Orlando. We have 50 tractor trailers pre-loaded
of water in Homestead.
Ms. Norton. So, does the state go in first?
Mr. Almaguer. Well, the state will always be -
Ms. Norton. How is that coordinated with water, for
example, that FEMA has?
Mr. Almaguer. The local county administrator, mayor,
emergency management official will ask the state for
assistance. At that point, we are going to mobilize all the
resources.
Ms. Norton. So, Miami-Dade goes in first?
Mr. Almaguer. Yes.
Ms. Norton. So, it's Miami-Dade in front of Florida, the
ultimate source is FEMA. Is that the way it works?
Mr. May. That's correct. We bring the water to a staging
site, and the state takes it from there.
Mr. Lord. Obviously, our supplies are much smaller, our
stockpiles, but we do every year make sure we have supplies of
mass-care items, sheltering items. Actually, our school
district is very good, which serves as our shelters, actually
having three days supply of food on throughout the entire
hurricane season. So, in the event we have to turn those
schools into shelters, they can actually be self-sufficient for
three days, and provide feeding, and water, and care to those
residents in the shelters. At that point in time, when we can
no longer provide that care level, probably even before that
when we know we're getting close to that breaking point, we
would make the request up to Tallahassee, and the state would
then help push out more items for us, if we do need them.
Ms. Norton. Now, I want to find out, Mr. May, who is going
to bear responsibility for Puerto Rico? You closed the center
in Puerto Rico. How does this enable you to provide assistance
to a largely Spanish-speaking island?
Mr. May. We've closed the NIPC, which is the application
taking center that was established to serve the Spanish-
speaking population there.
Ms. Norton. Also, the people.
Mr. May. Yes, ma'am. We have three sites around the
country, and we have-
Ms. Norton. You have what? I'm sorry.
Mr. May. We have three NIPC sites.
Ms. Norton. NIPC, what's that?
Mr. May. That's a site-
Ms. Norton. Speak English.
Mr. May. It is a center where we take the applications for
disastrous needs after a disaster.
Ms. Norton. Now, why did you close that? It is a very
vulnerable, to say the least, area for hurricanes.
Mr. May. It was determined that the operational need for
the facility based on capacity and the other sites that were
located in this country could still take those applications.
Ms. Norton. What about how isolated it would be, if people
have to get there. We're talking about an island right off our
coast, and if there's no center to take applications, and
you've got to go from here to there?
Mr. May. Well, these applications--the NIPC Center
applications are taken by telephone or by electronic means. We
would still provide individuals in our mobile disaster centers
to take applications.
Ms. Norton. But who do you have on the island to-
Mr. May. We would have people-
Ms. Norton. -- to receive telephone-- applications that
would be relayed to where?
Mr. May. To three locations in the U.S. We have people
standing by to take those applications.
Ms. Norton. I hope you all have done some tabletops on
that. We do not need to leave people who are very vulnerable in
hurricanes-
Mr. May. Based on the workload-
Ms. Norton. -- with any delay whatsoever. These are
American citizens, they just happen to be a little offshore.
Mr. May. Yes, ma'am, we understand that. And we think we
have capacity to meet that need.
Ms. Norton. Let me ask you about trailers, Mr. May. I
understand that, from the Disaster Housing Plan, that you're
going to get the trailers with improved quality of air care
exchange and the rest. How many of those do you have? What's
happening with the older trailers that caused so much pain, and
lawsuits, and all that goes along with that? Are there trailers
available should they be needed here in the Atlantic, Florida,
south Florida area?
Mr. May. There are trailers available if they're needed
here.
Ms. Norton. And what kind of trailers would they be, these
new improved air quality, air exchange trailers?
Mr. May. We have some of those available. And I don't have
those numbers. I can get back with you and give you exact
numbers on those. We also have some trailers that meet a
standard.
Ms. Norton. Are any of these refurbished older trailers, of
the kind we already had on-
Mr. May. Some of the trailers are refurbished, and meet the
formaldehyde standard that we need to meet.
Ms. Norton. I don't have any problem with that, so long as
they meet the standard.
Mr. May. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. The problem I had was throwing away stuff. I
never did understand throw-away society, and we're seeing a
structural change in the American standard of living. I hope
everybody knows, everybody--get you to throw your credit cards
away. The United States is going to have to throw its away,
too. But this is not just Wall Street's fault. Everybody has
been living this way in a society that no longer makes
anything, but thought it could still keep making dollars.
Mr. May. We will get back with you-
Ms. Norton. So, we've got all these trailers out here that
turned out to cause sickness, if not death. I wish you would
get to this Committee within 30 days, the disposition of all of
these old trailers, particularly for reconditioning them
so that they are so safe for human beings, for long-term
occupancy, if necessary. We certainly hope that won't be
necessary. Have there been any recent--are people still in
trailers here in Florida?
Mr. May. I think we have seven families, maybe, in the
State of Florida that are in trailers from the 2005 and 2005
season. And those trailers did not have a formaldehyde issue,
if my understanding is correct.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Almaguer?
Mr. Almaguer. That is correct. We still have the Long-Term
Recovery Office managing 18 open disasters out of Orlando, but,
Madam Chair, I think you're bringing a point well taken, that I
don't think has a final answer to. I think the long-term
temporary housing solution is not a Florida issue, it is a
national issue. So, the next event, and it doesn't have to be a
hurricane, it could be a massive catastrophic wildfire,
tornado, and any other event, housing, after food and water, is
a long-term issue that this country needs to address. And we'd
love, as the State of Florida, as well as with the other
states, we'd love to partner with FEMA, try to come up with
those solutions.
Ms. Norton. This, of course, continues to be an outstanding
problem. You have jurisdiction over several states, that
includes, you said, Biloxi. How much of Mississippi do have?
Mr. May. The entire state. How many trailers there, ma'am?
Ms. Norton. Is that your jurisdiction?
Mr. May. Yes, ma'am, it is.
Ms. Norton. I'd like you to get to this Committee within 30
days how many people are still living in trailers in the State
of Mississippi following Katrina, and Rita. This was a
particularly troubling state, Mississippi. The state has spent
a lot of their housing money on other economic development, in
other ways, and we had to extend the period for care for
people. That's something we very much want to hear. You don't
have Louisiana?
Mr. May. No, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. So, 30 days get us that information. The state
of the trailers, how many people are still in trailers, and
what are the plans for getting people out of trailers. Those
are the most vulnerable people. Those were the most handicapped
people. Those were the disabled people, so we would like a
status report on that, if you will.
Now, how much has each of your jurisdictions used on
mitigation, preparation and mitigation for hurricanes or other
disasters? How much in funds have you used? And could you give
me examples of where mitigation preparedness has been useful to
you?
Mr. Lord. Actually, I don't have exact numbers, but we can
get back to you with those.
Ms. Norton. With those numbers in 30 days.
Mr. Lord. But we actually have a very good example of a
partnership with the state, and local, and federal mitigation
project. One of the big things that keeps south Florida dry is
our canal system. It's actually managed primarily by the South
Florida Water Management District, which is a quasi-state
agency. But, obviously, for us to keep our communities dry, we
rely very heavily on these canals.
When a storm comes, the storm surge on top of the rainfall
in one of these tropical systems actually fight against each
other, and actually double the impact in South Florida, because
you have storm surge coming in from the ocean, as well as
rainfall we're trying to drain through the canals. One of the
huge mitigation projects, I think at this point in time, is
actually the largest mitigation project in the country funded
through FEMA, was actually reverse pumping stations, and
retention basins built actually in Central Dade County. So, at
times when we can't pump water out to the ocean to keep Dade
County dry, we can actually pump back into these gigantic
retention basins. And that was a project that was primarily
funded through the Mitigation Program through FEMA, and
partnership with the State of Florida, as well.
Ms. Norton. Any examples we can get. Mr. Diaz-Balart and I
are both great supporters of mitigation and preparedness
funding. This goes against the grain of the federal government,
to spend money to keep something from happening. It is almost
anti-American; that is to say, if it happens, we will be there
for you. If you get terribly sick from cancer, or heart
disease, or high blood pressure, and you get so you can't work,
we will get you some disability, and we will get you to the
emergency room. But if you ask us for wellness programs,
because you have high blood pressure, you don't have health
insurance, we will tell you I'm sorry, we don't fund that. If
you get so living in your home, if you are an elderly person,
and you are declining, and you finally get so you're among
those in the elderly, of course, because they are elderly, need
more hospital care than anybody else, we will take care of you
in your final days, but we will not provide you with someone to
come into your home to help you take care of yourself. And the
reason I have this historical sense of our country, it's
because it seems to me we live in this vast continent-size
country--well you go to the next place. You know, we own the
world. We don't own it any more. So, when we come and say there
hasn't been a disaster in Florida yet. Louisiana and
Mississippi got by without a hurricane. Then we ask for money
in advance in order to help the states to take the kind of
action that Mr. Lord has taken. We've got to be able to show
what our studies show you were able to get this reauthorized.
Huge savings, just huge savings to the American. We'll take
care of you one way or the other. And we're going to take
care--let us take care of you with our funds behind the fact,
as possible, because we will spend any more of those funds.
I would like to ask you about reimbursements following a
disaster. What has been the experience here when there need to
be reimbursements from FEMA? How long does it take to get a
reimbursement? What happens when there are disagreements? How
do you work out those disagreements?
Mr. Almaguer. Madam Chair, on behalf of the State, that's
the value of having the Long-Term Recovery Office in Florida.
Director May, even allowed the State of Florida to sit on the
interview panel of a gentleman who actually is the Director of
that office, because it truly is a partnership, so when you say
if there is a problem, I call Robert Ives, the Director in
Florida. If not, I call Phil May. I'm not sending memos from my
governor to the White House, and these are relationships that
have been built over the years. And I will tell you, it's been
very successful in Florida, my short two and a half years, and
that I know of right now, there is not an outstanding issue in
Florida that either a Congressional Member, or a state
legislative member have brought to our attention, or that we've
identified that could not have been resolved on a phone call,
or a face-to-face meeting.
I will tell you, it will never be fast enough. These are
long-term, complex projects. Road repavements, drainage,
ditches issued, to be rebuilt, as well as homes and communities
that have been devastated, especially, we're still-
Ms. Norton. I'm talking about who is responsible for what?
Mr. Almaguer. Well, it's really--three people are
responsible, the locals are-
Ms. Norton. I'm talking about disagreements between the
state and FEMA over who pays before--I'm talking, Mr. May,
about the kind of disagreements, if I can give you an example,
that we have outstanding, shameful, in Louisiana. In Louisiana,
more than $3.5 billion hung up because the state and FEMA have
been unable to resolve who should pay for what. In Mississippi,
Mr. May, a billion or more, same problem, less, of course, than
Louisiana, except they only had more of the--so much so, and I
understand this was an unusual catastrophe, but it really
brought to light very, very terrible issues that we didn't have
in place, mechanisms in case you got to that point. And so what
we have here was they could build their major hospital down,
Charity Hospital. Well, they're hung up, and FEMA tells me
well, we have a field mechanism, as if we're fools. The problem
is not with appeal. They can't agree first where the
disagreement is. It's like being in District Court, and the
District Court doesn't come to a decision, to you can't go to
the Court of Appeals. That was the kind of gobbledygook I was
getting back from FEMA. So you know what happened? In that
case, Mayor Landrieu, whose state this was, put something in
the Omnibus Appropriation Bill that had the President appoint
an arbitration panel. Now, isn't that disgraceful? Instead of
doing so, he and I got together and now what is supposedly
happening is that there's some ALJs that are supposed to work
it out.
We are prepared to deal with differences, different
situations in different ways. My great disappointment in FEMA
was that it didn't see that wait a minute, you know, this is
outsized. And we just can't--and I can understand the position
of the federal government. The federal government say okay, we
give up. Here's the money. Meanwhile, the state is always going
to want more money than the federal government has to give.
What bothered me was that nobody had the sense to sit down and
say well, wait a minute, do we have anything in our arsenal
that could enable us to find some objective way to deal with
this?
I'm asking, of course, and I'm getting good answers here,
but then you haven't had a catastrophe since 1992, I'm asking
you, Mr. May, where are with, between one and two billion
dollars lying up there, when the federal government is having
to distribute money out in order to get jobs for people? Where
are we on that money in Mississippi?
Mr. May. I can't give you the specifics. By the way, I was
just given the responsibility for that disaster, Katrina, about
two weeks ago.
Ms. Norton. Well, are you new, or is that-
Mr. May. No, they had a construct called the Gulf Coast
Recovery Office that ran that operation out of Louisiana. And
just recently, the Director Ward changed that relationship, and
has given me the responsibility for that disaster for
Mississippi, about two weeks ago.
Ms. Norton. I hope that means that you've been so
successful in dealing with respect to disputes, that they
decided that you are--that's the biggest thing there. That's
the biggest thing going, Mr. May, as far as I'm concerned.
Mr. May. Yes, ma'am. I understand. And I know the
arbitration piece is not set up for Mississippi, but it is set
up for Louisiana----
Ms. Norton. So that means you're under real pressure.
Mr. May'. And I have been on the phone with the governor.
We've been talking about projects that need to be turned, dirt
projects that need--and we've been working. We've met with
local officials in the Gulf Coast to talk about the fact this
could be Mississippi's economic stimulus package, just get this
money going. So, we-
Ms. Norton. I don't know if this affected how much money--I
think it sort of affected how much stimulus money both
Mississippi and Louisiana got. I don't know why the federal
government, trying to stay struggle ready, shouldn't have given
a cent to people who have been sitting on billions of dollars
for many months. I could not believe it when the amounts came
forward at the hearings, which got us to move in this
direction. So, Mr. May, 30 days, we want to know how much money
is left. What mechanisms you are using to rapidly dispose of
this backlog. I am not, as you well know, as a guardian of
federal funds, I am not saying just to go out and spend money,
because then it reverberates on you, and on us. Well, how come
you paid that money to Mississippi when they clearly weren't
ready to use the money, or they misused the money. So, the
reason that I'm pressing is precisely because of stimulus,
precisely because if we're talking about getting jobs for
people, who has been jobless more than the people of
Mississippi and Louisiana? So, in 30 days I want to know the
status of these funds, what is the mechanism for disposing of
those funds, and any information you can give us to restore our
confidence, the confidence that was completely lost with the
outstanding number--I understand you weren't there, but if you
were moved, whether they moved it to your jurisdiction, I would
take that as a compliment, that you can resolve it.
Mr. May. Some of these issues are hung up on insurance
issues, settlements, FEMA pays a portion, insurance company
pays a portion, if they have insurance. One of the other issues
in mitigation-
Ms. Norton. Insurance issues of individuals. Are you
talking about-
Mr. May. No, ma'am, I was talking about the public
projects, not the individual projects.
Ms. Norton. No, see I'm interested in the public projects.
Mr. May. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. Charity Hospital couldn't have been insurance
issues. The whole thing--the London Bridge fell down there.
Some of it, and here you will have that in spades, because we
have this question of wind versus water.
Mr. May. Water.
Ms. Norton. That has to do with housing, as I understand
it. I'm interested in public projects.
Mr. May. Right. And some of the other public projects or
applications for mitigation grants have required cost-share. We
approve a mitigation project for say the State of Mississippi
for a particular local government, they have to come up with
their cost-share. And that's difficult to do that sometimes, so
there's monies sitting aside for mitigation that local
governments cannot access then because they don't have their
cost-share monies to make that match.
Ms. Norton. Where local governments don't have the money,
then we spent--you need to--then where is the State of
Mississippi? I mean, I don't understand--see, that's what we
don't want to hear. If Miami-Dade didn't have it, I would
expect Florida not to let a whole lot of money go to waste,
just sit there, with a deep recession, with people with no
jobs. You've got a double reason wanting to get this money
going, so I'm telling you, I am in no mood to hear excuses.
Now, what is it, Rainwater? The one person I have heard since
Katrina who had a problem solving approach looking at what he
has as his disposal was this person who is charge of Louisiana.
What's his name, Paul?
Mr. May. Rainwater. It is. It's Rainwater.
Ms. Norton. I don't know the--I'm a former law professor,
and as I heard him, I would ask him hard questions, even
hypothetical questions, and this is somebody who didn't have at
his disposal anything more than anybody else when they began.
What was so impressive, and he went down there without--he's in
the National Guard, a lot of managerial experience. He had an
analytical approach to questions. Disaggregate the problem,
let's disaggregate the problem. Let's look at what we have
here. Let's not look for bureaucratic obstacles. The sign posts
of an obstacle are very clear that you can't cross.
What really bothered me was that that administrative
authority that FEMA had that it was not using. Some have said
that we have enacted Post Katrina Act mostly because the Post
Katrina Act simply tells FEMA to do what it already could do.
You know, if you think you're crossing the line, all you've got
to do is go to our Subcommittee or the Homeland Security
Committee, and we will tell you if you're crossing the line,
rather than say we didn't think we could do that. We don't
think the law allows us to do that.
Now, I understand that Florida spends a lot of its own
money on mitigation. Is that the case?
Mr. Almaguer. Well, one of the successes, and I would
encourage most states to do this, FEMA has got a program that's
called Enhanced Mitigation Program, which means after a
disaster, states generally get 7.5 percent of the cost of that
disaster for mitigation. It's a great success story.
Ms. Norton. Oh, that's amazing.
Mr. Almaguer. But, if you're a state that has enhanced
mitigation, which means the federal government, FEMA has come
in, evaluated your state programs, looked at your locals, and
has blessed you for to be an enhanced state, which Florida now
is as of last year, we get 20 percent of that disaster dollars
towards mitigation. So, we recently got declared for the North
Florida floods, those 20 percent, which now is a huge advantage
to Florida, that we can work with locals, and to have governor
statewide initiatives for mitigation, are great success stories
in Florida. I believe only 20 states in the union actually have
the enhanced mitigation.
I would encourage every state in this country to have
enhanced mitigation. There are dollars that are being left off
the table post-disaster. But, to the point of mitigation,
Florida has had, historically, a program called ``My Safe
Florida'', which uses state dollars to go to the locals. One
specific example is West Florida Coast Rebuild, which actually
has rebuilt in hardened homes the entire envelope. Not just
hey, we're going to give you some money for redoing your
windows, but we've emphasized the importance of the entire
envelope, strap down your roofs, harden the windows, the garage
doors, the front doors. So, Florida has put millions of dollars
on the table. But, more importantly, these years forward will
have more federal dollars because of disasters to enhance
mitigation efforts statewide.
Ms. Norton. What you had to say about people leaving money
on the table is really of interest to me. Mr. May, how come
people are not picking-up these funds? Do you have any idea?
Mr. May. It, primarily, is, every county that's in the
plan, the program, has a mitigation plan. And in that plan,
they identify projects for future disasters.
Ms. Norton. Now, he said it's only 20 states?
Mr. Almaguer. I'm aware of only 20 states that are enhanced
mitigation states.
Mr. May. There are some standards they have to meet, and
some of the states have not met those standards to come into
that program.
Ms. Norton. I know that you're only in-charge of three
southern states, but would you take it back to headquarters
that we would like a report within 30 days of who are the
states that have-
Mr. May. Right. And I have six of mine that are in it, so
I've got-
Ms. Norton. Are already-
Mr. May. Yes. Six of my eight states are in the enhanced
program.
Ms. Norton. It may be states that have experience.
Mr. May. That's correct.
Ms. Norton. Yes. But I, therefore, would like to know what
states have, the amounts, and especially what the 20 would be.
It looks you all account for a fair number of them.
Final question is for Ms. Hagan. The bane of our existence
has been transitioning. We've heard some discussion of it here,
from temporary housing. Indeed, I understand we are at the end,
Mr. May, that the Katrina Temporary Housing program was
supposed to end literally as of today. Does that mean that all
the families are out of FEMA housing as of today?
Mr. May. No, ma'am. They're still in FEMA housing.
Ms. Norton. What is going to happen then to those families
still with the Housing program?
Mr. May. The program will be extended. We're working with
HUD to try to provide a bridge to place those people, using
case work, and local assistance to provide a bridge for those
individuals to get in appropriate housing. But, yes, it is a
tremendous challenge.
Ms. Norton. So, it's going to have to be extended for
those--as long as you all can't find housing for people, you
realize you're going to have to take responsibility for that.
Mr. May. That's correct. We have to continue to work for
them, work with them to get them to a point where they can move
onto other housing.
Ms. Norton. I need to know how many, within 30 days, how
many people are still in housing as of today, when the Housing
program was supposed to end, the status of those families that
you expect--because if the program is supposed to end, I have
to send the assume the money-- what do you-
Mr. May. We will be giving notice to some families, I think
in Mississippi we're giving notice, that they have two weeks to
find alternate housing. And then, at that point in time, we
will address the issue of their housing need----
Ms. Norton. Good luck, Mr. May. Mr. May, you're new, but
our hearing last year shows that those were mostly the most
vulnerable people. They were the older people, I mean, really
old. They were disabled people. They were people that somebody
is going to have to place, not sort of bridge. You're going to
have to find a place for people like that. Those are the only
ones left.
Mr. May. Yes, ma'am. That's why we need to work very
strongly with HUD to see if these people are eligible for HUD
housing vouchers to move them into more stabilized housing.
Ms. Norton. We know they are. But we also know that there
are long lines, and I don't know priorities they have. That's
what I want to know in 30 days, what priorities, in your areas,
what priorities do they have? We keep extending them. I just
need to know how many of them are there in Mississippi. I want
to know how many of them right now, how many as of the last
time you extended, so I can see the progress that you're
making.
Mr. May. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Hagan, have you had any such-or, for that
matter, the state and local officials here, have you had any
such problems?
Ms. Hagan. I'll start, and then pass it over to Mr.
Almaguer.
You know, when people are in a shelter environment, we're
really planning to move them out of that sheltering environment
into some sort of transitional housing. And it is a challenge,
especially when there's not housing stock, especially when the
schools need to reopen so we can get a community back to
normal. So we would work with federal, state, and local
government organizations to see what kind of housing is
available, both transitional-
Ms. Norton. Has it been a problem, or-
Ms. Hagan. It's been a problem in different communities, at
different times, depending upon the availability of
transitional housing, and long-term housing.
Ms. Norton. That's true. Red Cross is not a government
funded organization. When you perform these services, how are
you funded to perform the services? When you come straight into
a community and you have to stay there longer, who funds it?
Ms. Hagan. Well, we are primarily funded by the American
people, not primarily funded by government.
Ms. Norton. We know, at least in the United States,
government, that we're the American people.
Ms. Hagan. Yes. By donations, by voluntary donations of the
American people. But if I could just say, as we look to long-
term recovery, in Florida we have a pretty strong system of
long-term recovery organizations that is primarily made up of
faith-based and non-governmental organizations to look at the
people, like you were talking about in Mississippi, and help
work them through, get them back into their community, and move
forward. But that's where the partnership between government
and non-governmental organizations is so critical, because
everybody has a piece of the pie to bring to the table to try
to help these people move forward.
Ms. Norton. What has the state and city, I'm sorry, county
representatives here. Are there people still in, if not
trailers, I think you said not trailers, but not placed back in
some kind of permanent housing from any recent disaster?
Mr. Almaguer. I think we discussed there may be seven
people or less in the State of Florida. Even though we had 57
counties affected by the recent Presidential declaration of
Tropical Storm Fay last year, we got hit with Ike and Gustav,
most of those events did not cause widespread housing problems.
So, anybody who's really still affected by the housing issue
are people who have already been affected in the 2004-2005
storm. So, if there are any, there's probably none, but just to
not know the exact number, it's very small. And it's not our
problem today. Probably, the bigger issue today is to continue
working the recovery efforts for long-lasting storms.
I mean, we talked a little bit about ice, Madam Chair. I
think the most important visual effect for people to know is an
iceberg. In an iceberg, what you can see above the surface is
no more than 20 percent. That's response. That's the nice
exciting thing that people like, and see. Recovery is that 80
percent of that iceberg beneath the surface of the water that
people forget about. People have been impacted, they've lost
their jobs, they've lost their homes. And, in Florida, that's
my full-time responsibility on behalf of the governor, so these
long-term disasters, people are not forgotten. And that's what
recovery is, that's the hard part about emergency management.
It's not the response. People forget about that, and so FEMA's
long-term success, when people ask about their ability to
respond to disasters, I say FEMA's long-term success is to have
more resources for getting dollars to states and locals in the
recovery effort, and that will never happen fast enough.
I'll tell you, with the leadership of Craig Fugate, and
leadership of Phil May, I have trust in FEMA now. I will tell
you that. And my governor feels the exact same way. We have
leaders, we have people who know about how this works. They've
been at the local level, the state level. Boots have been on
the ground. But I'm going to tell you right now, it's about
recovery.
And, in closing, I will just tell you that I encourage the
federal government, like you said, Madam Chair, to get more
dollars for mitigation. This is no different than fire
prevention. The day that there's no fires, is a great thing,
which means a lot of people put a lot of dollars into sprinkler
systems, standpipe systems, into homes and businesses so they
don't burn down. This is no different, and so the more dollars
that can harden locals, and the state, the better off all these
states will be in future disasters.
Ms. Norton. You've closed this hearing with some wise
words, Mr. Almaguer, that recovery is the point, and mitigation
is the other part.
As much of a scandal as the evacuation debacle of Katrina
was, the worst part surely was the aftermath. After the
evacuation, people left on the rooftops. That's the part you
see. I guess that's the tip of the iceberg. But then they
developed catastrophe after catastrophe, the trailers, the
long-term rebuilding, the recovery. And the answer to that, of
course, is mitigation, mitigation, mitigation. But one thing
that our experience and our coming to Florida as the first
hearing of the season on hurricane season tells us, is that
Florida is the model for the country. And Florida's experiences
come out of what Florida could not control, that it is located
where these disasters occur. And instead of sitting around
waiting for the next one, the state here in Miami-Dade, has
seen itself as the guard of the country, frankly, to be most
proactive on disasters. We think you have much to teach us, not
only in terms of disasters, natural disasters, but parts of the
country where we must prepare even for disasters of the kind we
saw in 9/11. We are poised for an all-hazards approach. That
what you do to prepare for a hurricane, and there was even a
tornado down here in recent years, what you do to prepare for
one is essentially the same. What we're doing in the National
Capitol region area to prepare in case there is, God forbid,
some other attack on those parts of our country that would be
highly targeted for some kind of terrorist attack is in a real
sense no different from what you are doing. So I think we have
a great deal to learn, and probably more to learn from Florida,
especially South Florida, about an all-hazards approach than
any other section of the country. I think people from the West
Coast, who are petrified that there's going to be an earthquake
need to come here. They've done a lot of mitigation, of course,
but whether they've done enough, or whether they've had to go
through some of what you had to go through, is something that
they need to look at.
I don't know of any other part of the country, there may be
parts in the Midwest that have constant floods, but the people
who had the ice storm in Kentucky, and Midwest, were facing a
very different kind of hazard, one that was much harder to
prepare for. But, in a real sense, the very same issues came
up.
I want to thank Mr. Diaz-Balart for recommending that we
come here for our first hearing of the hurricane season. I
particularly want to thank each and every one of you, because
your testimony is valuable to us, as we recommend to the
Administration, and as we contemplate whatever changes we ought
to make in our own jurisdiction. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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