[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FIVE YEARS LATER: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE POST-KATRINA EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT
REFORM ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE,
AND COMMUNICATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 25, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-53
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
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__________
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Peter T. King, New York, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Daniel E. Lungren, California Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Michael T. McCaul, Texas Henry Cuellar, Texas
Gus M. Bilirakis, Florida Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Paul C. Broun, Georgia Laura Richardson, California
Candice S. Miller, Michigan Danny K. Davis, Illinois
Tim Walberg, Michigan Brian Higgins, New York
Chip Cravaack, Minnesota Jackie Speier, California
Joe Walsh, Illinois Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania Hansen Clarke, Michigan
Ben Quayle, Arizona William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Scott Rigell, Virginia Kathleen C. Hochul, New York
Billy Long, Missouri Janice Hahn, California
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania
Blake Farenthold, Texas
Robert L. Turner, New York
Michael J. Russell, Staff Director/Chief Counsel
Kerry Ann Watkins, Senior Policy Director
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
I. Lanier Avant, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE, AND COMMUNICATIONS
Gus M. Bilirakis, Florida, Chairman
Joe Walsh, Illinois Laura Richardson, California
Scott Rigell, Virginia Hansen Clarke, Michigan
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania, Vice Kathleen C. Hochul, New York
Chair Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Blake Farenthold, Texas (Ex Officio)
Peter T. King, New York (Ex
Officio)
Kerry A. Kinirons, Staff Director
Natalie Nixon, Deputy Chief Clerk
Curtis Brown, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements
The Honorable Gus M. Bilirakis, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Florida, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Emergency
Preparedness, Response, and Communications..................... 1
The Honorable Laura Richardson, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications........... 2
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security.............................................. 3
Witnesses
Mr. W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 5
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Appendix
Questions From Ranking Member Laura Richardson for W. Craig
Fugate......................................................... 33
FIVE YEARS LATER: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE POST-KATRINA EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT REFORM ACT
----------
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response,
and Communications,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:59 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Gus M. Bilirakis
[Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Bilirakis, Marino, Farenthold,
Richardson, Clarke, Hochul, and Thompson (ex officio).
Mr. Bilirakis. The Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness,
Response, and Communications will come to order. The
subcommittee is meeting today to receive testimony from
Administrator Fugate on the progress FEMA has made since the
enactment of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act 5
years ago.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement. I want to
welcome Administrator Fugate to the subcommittee. Welcome, sir.
We appreciate you appearing before us and I thank you for your
flexibility in scheduling this hearing.
FEMA certainly has had a busy year with a record number of
major disaster declarations. You have responded to tornadoes,
hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, and severe winter storms. A
number of Members of Congress on this committee represent areas
that were impacted by natural disasters this year and we thank
you for all of FEMA's efforts.
This hearing is a follow-up on a field hearing the
subcommittee held in Clearwater, Florida, which of course is in
my district, in June, at which we received testimony from State
and local emergency management officials and the Red Cross. The
witnesses gave their perspective on the Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform Act and working with FEMA, and let us know
what is working well and gave us their suggestions for
improvements that could be made.
Today we continue that discussion, of course, with
Administrator Fugate. I am pleased to note, Administrator
Fugate, that your response to these recent disasters has
received positive feedback from the Members and emergency
management officials with whom I have spoken. That is good news
and it is in some cases due to the authorities in the Post-
Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which was signed into
law just over 5 years ago on October 4, 2006.
I think we can all agree that FEMA has come a long way
since Hurricane Katrina, but we have, of course--we know that
there is always room for improvement.
Administrator Fugate, I am particularly interested in your
assessment of what is working well with FEMA, what
requirements, again, of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management
Reform Act could be working better, and what new authorities
would enhance your ability to prepare for, respond to, and
assist in the recovery from disasters.
A topic also worth discussing is efforts to mitigate
damages to homes and businesses before disaster strikes. I am
pleased that you mentioned this in your testimony, your written
testimony.
As Benjamin Franklin said, ``An ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure.'' That is why I have introduced the
Hurricane and Tornado Mitigation Investment Act of 2011, which
would provide incentives to individuals and business owners to
make improvements to their property that will help mitigate
hazards. These efforts can help reduce loss of life and
property damage, speed recovery, and also save money in the
long run. Administrator Fugate, thank you again for appearing
here today and I look forward to your testimony.
The Chairman now recognizes the Ranking Minority Member,
Ms. Richardson from California, for any statement she may have.
Ms. Richardson. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Bilirakis, for
convening this hearing to evaluate FEMA's progress in
implementing the mandates of the Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform Act. I would also like to thank Administrator
Fugate for appearing before the subcommittee today. I look
forward to hearing your assessment of FEMA's present ability to
manage effective emergency preparedness and response efforts.
We are here today because just over 6 years ago, Hurricane
Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast and was a sobering test of our
Comprehensive Emergency Management System. History reports that
FEMA failed that test. As a Nation we learned how ill-equipped
the Federal Government was to manage disaster recovery and
response activities. Determining who is in charge, who should
coordinate Federal, State, and local response efforts, what
resources are available and how to acquire the needed supplies
efficiently was not done well.
In the mean time, a Nation watched television coverage of
this horrific disaster. Ironically, television news crews were
able to get to the scene, but relief supplies were not.
In response, Congress enacted the Post-Katrina Emergency
Reform Act. Although the bill was not perfect, it made much-
needed changes to our emergency response infrastructure,
notably extreme line emergency preparedness and response
operations, by consolidating all components of the
Comprehensive Emergency Management System into the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. It established a clear chain of
command for disaster response activities by giving a Federal
coordinating officer, FCO, statutory authority to head disaster
response coordination. It directed FEMA to administer grants
and guidance to State and local governments to improve their
preparedness capabilities. It established something that you
have been known for, Administrator Fugate, for implementing. It
established 10 regional offices charged with coordinating with
State and local governments and nongovernmental organizations
to develop effective regional disaster preparedness and
response plans.
The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act directed
you, Administrator Fugate, to appoint the disability
coordinator to ensure that vulnerable populations have access
to and knowledge of and means to evacuate emergency housing and
any other necessary resources in the event of a major disaster.
Under your leadership, FEMA has made progress in
implementing the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act.
For example, you have taken significant steps in implementing
the integrated public alert and warning system, which I am a
strong proponent of, which will facilitate effective public
warnings regarding future disasters. These warnings will give
people like those in American Samoa the opportunity to seek
safe shelter in the wake of a major disaster.
Despite the progress 5 years after the enactment of the
Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, significant gaps
remain in our comprehensive emergency response system. I am
concerned that a combination of budget cuts and other obstacles
will hinder our ability to realize our preparedness goals. For
example, another issue of particular importance to me is one
that I would like to address later in my questions,
specifically regarding the disability coordinator and whether
that coordinator has the adequate resources to carry out the
responsibilities of this act. This coordinator was appointed in
June 2009; however, in the full year 2011, the Office of
Disability Coordinator had a budget of just $150,000, and I
asked about this last year. There was no request for additional
funding in the full year 2012 budget request. I am concerned
that this budgetary amount may be the clear sign of the
priorities FEMA places on the mission of this office.
I would be interested to hear your comments on this issue,
and others, regarding IPAWS as this hearing progresses. Again,
I thank you for being here today and I look forward to your
testimony.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you.
I now recognize the Ranking Minority Member of the full
committee, Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
for holding this hearing to review the Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform. A perfect storm is a popular expression. It
describes an event where isolated conditions merge to create a
radically worsening situation. In the process, deep and
profound problems are revealed. Katrina was a perfect storm.
Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast revealed a
Federal emergency management structure that was disorganized,
uncoordinated, and seemed uncaring.
In the aftermath of the storm, numerous investigations led
to suggested changes in the organizational structure and the
culture of FEMA. These changes were not to be merely window
dressing. FEMA clearly needed to find a way to fulfill its
mission, improve the response, and regain the trust of the
American people.
Congress acted and passed a Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform Act. Five years after the passage of that
legislation, I think we can all agree that FEMA's
implementation of the legislation is a mixed bag. Improvements
were made, but challenges remain. I am pleased that
Administrator Fugate is here today to report on both the
improvements and the remaining challenges. I look forward to
hearing his testimony.
But before we get to Mr. Fugate, I want to take this
opportunity to talk about disaster relief. I hope that we can
all agree that funding for disaster relief should never be held
hostage to political ideology. When a hurricane, wildfire,
earthquake, strikes a community, it does not ask about party
affiliation. This is why I was troubled to read that some on
the other side of the aisle are now accusing this
administration of using the Federal disaster declaration
process as a way to turn low-cost storms into Federal
disasters. Instead of addressing the underlying need to ensure
adequate money in the disaster relief fund, claims are being
made that the act of declaring a disaster is some kind of
political game. They are saying that declaring a disaster is
simply a way to drain FEMA's aid from the Federal Government,
weaken the capacities of the States to respond to disasters
without Federal help, and divert FEMA from preparing for
catastrophic events. These are conspiracy theories worthy of a
Tom Clancy novel.
So before we begin this hearing, let me set the record
straight. In 2010, there were 81 major disaster declarations.
In 2009, there were 59 major disaster declarations. While the
numbers are clear, the reasons for the increases are subject to
interpretation. It could be more disaster declarations occurred
because more disasters have occurred. It could also be more
disaster declarations occurred because States were stretched
thin; budgets are seeking disaster assistance.
It is unlikely that FEMA is forcing States to take disaster
declaration funding. But whatever the reason, given the
increase in disaster declaration, a compassionate Congress
would hear the cries of those who have lost everything and
provide help. Instead, this Congress has called for fiscal
discipline. FEMA's budget for management and preparedness
program has decreased. FEMA's management budget was reduced by
$10 million between fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011.
FEMA's pre-disaster mitigation fund was cut from $100 million
in fiscal year 2010 to $50 million in fiscal year 2011. FEMA's
Grant Program Directorate was cut from $4.165 billion in fiscal
year 2010 to $3.38 billion in fiscal year 2011. This is a
situation that is not sustainable.
As we move forward, I am hopeful we can focus on the facts
and provide the help that people in the United States truly
need. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for calling today's hearing and
I yield back.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you, Mr. Thompson.
Other Members of the subcommittee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
I am pleased to once again welcome Administrator Fugate, of
course, before our subcommittee today. Mr. Fugate was appointed
by President Obama to serve as the administrator of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency and was confirmed by the United
States Senate on May 13, 2009. Prior to coming to FEMA, Mr.
Fugate served as the director of the Florida Division Emergency
Management, a position he held for 8 years.
Mr. Fugate began his emergency management career as a
volunteer firefighter, emergency paramedic, and finally as a
lieutenant with the Alachua County Fire Rescue. Mr. Fugate and
his wife hail from Gainesville, Florida.
Administrator Fugate, your entire written statement will
appear in the record. I ask that you summarize your testimony,
please. You are now recognized, sir.
STATEMENT OF W. CRAIG FUGATE, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Fugate. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Richardson and Ranking Member Thompson. Staff spent a lot of
time coming up with a bunch of facts and figures on how we have
gotten better and how we have improved under the Post-Katrina
Reform Act. After I kind of read it, I kind of took the
approach that I also heard today: We have done a lot, we still
have got a lot to do. So I want to focus on what I think are
some of the key elements of the Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform Act and how they played out in the last
couple of years that I have been here in response to disasters.
I think one of the key things that came out of that Act was
we were able to move away from utilizing only the Stafford Act
as a tool to look at how we prepare and respond to disasters.
That is important, because if you look at the Stafford Act, you
must wait until you have a request from a Governor. It then has
to go through the process and determined from the President
whether or not to declare a disaster, and then you begin the
elements of that response.
But as we saw in Katrina, as we have seen in other
disasters up and down the seaboard this year across numerous
river floods that reached records, if you wait until it is that
bad, the response will take time. This is one of the things,
really, I think we spent a lot of time in FEMA trying to
educate our own staff, that we no longer start with the
Stafford Act. It is not our enabling legislation. It is the
Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act. It establishes
FEMA. It establishes our mission. It establishes our
structures, including the regional office structure, including
the findings of many activities that we are to engage in and
prepare for in recovery, respond, and mitigate activities.
But I think it is most important that we recognize that
access. In the likelihood that an event would be declared or
would potentially require Federal assistance, the Federal
Government must not wait until a Governor request identifies
that they are overwhelmed. It says we shall be prepared and
will begin response with the tools that we have, including the
ability to use, as Ranking Member Thompson spoke about, the
disaster relief fund prior to the President getting a formal
request from a Governor.
Now, this may seem rather bureaucratic, but I think it is
important that if you wait until you know how bad something is
to begin a response, you have lost time. You have to be able to
respond in those events that are likely to require Federal
assistance by anticipating needs, not waiting for formal
assessments nor waiting until the full impacts are realized.
Other aspects of that allows us to do things such as pre-
staging teams or equipment in areas that we think will need
help.
When you look at what happened with Hurricane Irene, we
were actually starting down on the Virgin Islands and in Puerto
Rico. Then as it approached the U.S. East Coast, everywhere
from Florida to Maine and inland, as we saw in Vermont, were
potentially going to be impacted by this hurricane. We didn't
wait until the States had made formal requests for assistance.
We were able to send teams in to link up with the States and
began working with them as they go through the preparations and
decisions about evacuations and sheltering, and not wait until
they are hit and then ask for help. That ability to get teams
in place, to have equipment prestaged, to really work across
the Federal enterprise with our State partners as their
supporting local government, integrate in our volunteer faith-
based and community-based organizations, and I think really
start to embrace and be able to integrate the private sector,
particularly those sectors that provide goods and services so
that we are not duplicating what they do best, but focus on the
areas where they are either expecting significant outages or
challenges.
That response sped up, in many cases, the time from when
incident occurred to actual results were happening. People were
on the ground, resources were available. I think this is one of
the things that we really continue to focus on, is that the
Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act gives us speed,
not haste, but speed in responding to and ensuring that we get
resources in there.
I would be remiss if I said this was entirely a FEMA effort
in that much of the response we saw, particularly in the
tornadoes across the southeast and up in the Missouri area from
Joplin, much of what people saw on television, the search-and-
rescue teams, the mobile communication command post, all of
that response was actually generated through State and local
resources mutual aid, paid for and built and trained and
exercised with the preparedness dollars this country has been
investing since 9/11. If those dollars had not been invested,
those teams built and trained and exercised and equipped, the
response this spring would have looked vastly different because
those local teams would not have been there. The equipment
would have come from further away. We would have had to have
deployed more of our Federal assets to those disasters, which
would have taken more time to get there. As it was, as we saw,
unfortunately time and time again in tornadoes--which
oftentimes give us little warning--rescuers and teams from
throughout the area across State lines, using the emergency
management assistance compact which also receives funding
through our grant program to enhance that, were there on the
ground doing their job. We were able to focus quickly, then, on
the recovery challenges that were going to be faced by those
communities.
So if anything else, the legacy of this Act has been able
to speed up the process and ensure we work as a better
integrated team to focus on the survivors and local
communities, with a clarity that we don't have to wait until
everybody is overwhelmed before we begin the response.
[The statement of Mr. Fugate follows:]
Prepared Statement of W. Craig Fugate
October 25, 2011
INTRODUCTION
Good morning Chairman Bilirakis, Ranking Member Richardson, and
distinguished Members of the subcommittee. My name is Craig Fugate, and
I am the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA). It is an honor to appear before you today on behalf of FEMA to
discuss our progress since the enactment of the Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) 5 years ago.
The importance of PKEMRA to the emergency management community
cannot be stressed enough. For the first time, it gave FEMA clear
guidance on its mission and priorities, and provided us with the
authorities and tools we needed to become a more effective and
efficient agency, and a better partner to State, local, territorial,
and Tribal governments.
Today I will highlight some of the great strides we have made using
this guidance and the additional authority given us by PKEMRA. In
particular, we have made significant improvements to our approach to
preparedness. We now focus on engaging the Whole Community in
preparedness activities. We have realized that a Federal-centric
approach will not yield success and that instead we must collaborate
and engage with partners at every level of government as well as the
nonprofit and private sector. But there is more work to be
accomplished.
Going forward, FEMA is committed to working with State, local,
territorial, and Tribal partners to develop innovative and effective
ways to communicate both with first responders and with the individuals
and entities affected by disasters. We will build upon the foundation
that PKEMRA created to identify best practices and lessons learned from
each disaster. By having a culture that continuously looks for ways to
improve, FEMA can continue to be a capable, innovative, and effective
agency.
RESPONSE AND RECOVERY
PKEMRA gave FEMA the authority needed to lean forward and leverage
the entire emergency management team in response and recovery efforts.
This team includes not only government, but also private, private non-
profit, and citizen partners--the Whole Community. This Whole Community
approach emphasizes the importance of working with all partners to
successfully prevent, protect against, respond to, recover from, and
mitigate all hazards.
Prior to PKEMRA, Federal incident response duties were shared by
two separate teams: Emergency Response Teams (ERT) and Federal Incident
Response Support Teams (FIRST). Due to cost constraints, ERTs were
comprised of staff with primary day-to-day duties in other areas and
the FIRSTs had only a small dedicated staff in two regions. This
limited our ability to quickly and adequately deploy Federal response
teams. PKEMRA changed this by consolidating response teams. As a
result, FEMA now has Incident Management Assistance Teams (IMATs)--13
regional and three National--staffed with full-time, dedicated
personnel.
These resources proved invaluable during the response to Hurricane
Irene. In preparing for and responding to Hurricane Irene, FEMA pre-
positioned a majority of the IMATS along the East Coast to coordinate
with State, Tribal, and local officials to identify potential needs and
address shortfalls in the disaster response and recovery. Additionally,
Mobile Emergency Response System (MERS) assets are strategically
located in disaster-affected areas to support emergency response
communications needs. Because of all the advance preparation and pre-
positioning leading up to the storm's landfall, State, Tribal,
territorial, and local officials consistently reported no unmet
communications requests.
Some other examples of FEMA leveraging the ``Whole Community''
during response and recovery include:
In Missouri, FEMA Emergency Support Function No. 14 (Long-
Term Community Recovery) provided planning, organizational, and
on-site support for the Joplin Citizen Advisory Recovery Team's
efforts to engage residents about the recovery planning
process.
In Georgia, following the severe spring storms in the
Southeast this year, FEMA and Georgia Emergency Management
Agency collaborated with the State's Bar Association to provide
free legal assistance to survivors.
In Alabama, FEMA partnered with the Alabama Department of
Mental Health to activate Project Rebound in the tornado-
affected parts of Alabama to provide free crisis counseling for
an extended time period after the disaster. This initiative was
conducted under the auspices of FEMA's Crisis Counseling
Program (CCP). FEMA administers this program in conjunction
with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services'
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA).
In Missouri, FEMA worked with the State-led Housing Task
Force to place families with school-aged children in mobile
home parks first, successfully housing all families identified
before the start of the school year. In addition, along with
State and local partners, FEMA formed a Schools Task Force to
support and help Joplin local officials establish temporary
facilities for schools to meet their goal to open schools on
time in the fall.
The agency is also leading substantial response planning, including
the development of plans across the Federal Government for catastrophic
incidents; planning for future operations for potential/actual
incidents; regional planning for all-hazards events; and evacuation and
transportation planning. There are also special programs focused on
planning for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and
explosives (CBRNE) hazards to communities throughout the Nation.
Another way that FEMA is engaging with its partners is with the
National Mass Care Strategy. This strategy will provide a framework to
strengthen and expand resources available to help shelter, feed, and
provide other mass care services by pooling expertise and identifying
partnership opportunities. The newly created National Mass Care Council
was launched in June 2011 and is co-chaired by the American Red Cross,
FEMA, and the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster
(National VOAD). FEMA's role is to represent ESF-6 and all Federal mass
care components on the Council.
In addition, the American Red Cross and FEMA are now jointly
leading the mass care portion of Emergency Support Function No. 6 (ESF-
6), to better facilitate the planning and coordination of mass care
services. During Hurricane Irene, FEMA worked closely with the Red
Cross, local voluntary agencies, and impacted States, to ensure
emergency shelters were open locally along the East Coast to provide
shelter to residents who had evacuated from the storm. FEMA also
coordinated with trained disaster workers from partner organizations
such as AmeriCorps, National Civilian Community Corps, The Salvation
Army, and Southern Baptist Convention among others. These volunteers
helped provide food along the entire East Coast. The effort included
more than 250 feeding vehicles, tens of thousands of prepackaged meals,
and temporary kitchens prepositioned in numerous locations.
PKEMRA required FEMA, along with its partners, to develop a
National Disaster Recovery Strategy to guide recovery efforts after
major disasters and emergencies. Through additional direction in
Presidential Policy Directive-8 (PPD-8), FEMA and its interagency
partners have developed the National Disaster Recovery Framework
(NDRF). The final draft of the NDRF was released in late September
2011.
The NDRF clearly defines coordination structures, leadership roles
and responsibilities, and guidance for Federal agencies, State, local,
territorial, and Tribal governments, and other partners involved in
disaster planning and recovery. The NDRF introduces six new recovery
support functions (community planning and capacity building, economic,
health and social services, housing, infrastructure systems and natural
and cultural resources) and identifies specific recovery leadership
positions that help focus efforts on community recovery such as the
Federal Disaster Recovery Coordinator (FDRC). The FDRC will be deployed
when a Federal role is necessary and significant interagency resource
coordination is required due to the large-scale, unique, or
catastrophic nature of the disaster. The FDRC's sole focus is
coordinating available resources to assist the community with
rebuilding and recovering.
FEMA has been field testing certain aspects of the NDRF, including
the appointment of a FDRC. For example, in the wake of the 2011
tornadoes that tore through Alabama and much of the South, a FDRC was
appointed to work with Alabama State officials to develop a recovery
strategy that emphasized coordination. In addition, the Governor
established a lead State agency to manage State coordination efforts
and staff were co-located within the Joint Field Office to provide a
direct connection between Federal and State partners. The NDRF
recognizes the importance of engaging and utilizing the entire team--
Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments, non-profit
organizations, and the community--to help a community maximize
available resources to recover from disaster.
FEMA has also improved its disaster case management services. On
December 3, 2009, FEMA signed an interagency agreement (IAA) with the
Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The IAA specifies each
agency's responsibility for a two-phased Disaster Case Management (DCM)
Program for future deployment. On March 11, 2011 FEMA signed a
Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with ACF to strengthen areas of mutual
support and coordination in the development, administration, and
implementation of the DCM. Phase I of the DCM Program consists of the
ACF DCM model of rapid deployment with immediate assistance to
applicants. Phase II is a State-managed DCM Program that will assist
applicants with long-term unmet disaster needs. Additionally, FEMA has
developed and released a DCM Application Toolkit and is currently
developing a DCM Program Manual.
These are just a few of the many examples of FEMA's efforts to
utilize the expertise and resources of our stakeholders at every level
and use the newly developed tools to improve response and recovery
capabilities and activities.
PREPAREDNESS
Part of FEMA's mission is to ``develop and coordinate the
implementation of a risk-based, all-hazards strategy for
preparedness.'' FEMA's Protection and National Preparedness (PNP)
organization includes both our National Preparedness and Grant Programs
Directorates, which work to ensure the Nation is adequately prepared
for disasters of all kinds. PNP strives to promote National
preparedness through a comprehensive cycle of planning, organizing,
equipping, training, exercising, evaluating, and continuous
improvement.
Our National Preparedness Directorate has met some of the
preparedness goals envisioned for the agency through PKEMRA, including:
Issuance of Credentialing Guidelines;
Promulgation of a National Incident Management System (NIMS)
Training Plan; and
Refocusing and improving our National Exercise Program.
These are only a few of NPD's accomplishments that will contribute
to National preparedness. Our Grant Programs Directorate continues to
focus and improve upon our many preparedness grant programs, which have
provided tens of billions of dollars in critical aid to our State and
local partners in advancing their preparedness.
This September, we held a National Recovery Tabletop Exercise
(Recovery TTX) in the Washington metropolitan area. This exercise
involved players from the Whole Community, with over 200 participants
from Federal, State, Tribal, and non-governmental organizations. The
Recovery TTX consisted of both plenary and breakout group sessions and
focus on three planning horizons: Short-term, immediate, and long-term
recovery. This exercise was the first opportunity to explore the
applications of the National Disaster Recovery Framework using a large-
scale, multi-State catastrophic disaster scenario.
An important part of the Whole Community is the private sector, and
FEMA works to incorporate them into its preparedness activities as much
as possible. In addition to being strong partners in our most recent
National Level Exercise, private sector representatives also
participate in FEMA's no-notice ``thunderbolt'' disaster response and
recovery exercises. To further connect directly to the private sector
during the most crucial disaster response efforts, a rotating
representative from the private sector works in FEMA's National
Response Coordination Center during activations to communicate and
coordinate with all members of the private sector including small
businesses.
FEMA also stresses the importance of individual businesses
conducting emergency planning. In order to raise awareness, the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Ad Council launched the
Ready Business Campaign as an extension of the Department's successful
Ready Campaign. Ready Business helps owners and managers of small- and
medium-sized businesses by providing them with practical steps and
easy-to-use templates that include information on a variety of
preparedness topics including creating an evacuation plan, fire safety,
and protecting business investments by securing facilities and
equipment. In addition, DHS grant programs managed by FEMA allow a
tremendous amount of flexibility for State and local jurisdictions to
include private-sector companies as part of their all-hazards planning
efforts. Allowable activities include the development of public-private
sector partnership emergency response activities, development of
assessment and resource sharing plans, and the development or
enhancement of plans that engage with the private sector to meet human
services response and recovery needs of disaster survivors.
In addition to engaging the private sector, a realistic approach to
emergency management means not only conducting exercises that reflect
real disaster scenarios, but incorporating the needs and abilities of
real disaster survivors into planning and preparedness efforts. Our
planning must be inclusive of people of different ages and abilities
and it must meet the access and functional needs of children and people
with disabilities. In February 2010, FEMA established the Office of
Disability Integration and Coordination, and in July 2010, established
the first-ever Disability Working Group within FEMA. The Disability
Working Group is responsible for ensuring that the access and
functional needs of children and adults with disabilities are fully
integrated into all aspects of FEMA's disaster planning, preparedness,
response, recovery, and mitigation efforts initiated and coordinated at
the Federal level. As an example, when we pre-stage commodities in
preparation for disasters, we include basic items such as water, meals,
and generators. However, military-style Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and
other provisions are not necessarily suitable for the entire
population, especially young children. So we transitioned from MREs to
commercial shelf-stable meals and we pre-stage commodities including
infant formula, baby food, electrolytes, and diapers to anticipate,
understand, and specifically plan for the needs of children. By
improving the preparedness of the Whole Community, FEMA is better able
to respond to catastrophic events in an organized and efficient manner.
MITIGATION
In addition to our preparedness and recovery activities, disaster
mitigation is an important part of preparing for disasters. In the
April 2007 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, ``Potential Cost
Savings from the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program,'' the CBO estimated
that future costs are reduced by $3 for every $1 spent on mitigation
projects. By encouraging and supporting mitigation efforts, FEMA leads
the Nation in reducing the impact of disasters and helping to break the
``damage-rebuild-damage'' cycle in America's most vulnerable
communities. FEMA has the lead role in helping communities increase
their resilience through risk analysis, reduction, and insurance. One
mitigation tool is the Flood Hazard Mapping and Risk Analysis Program,
which addresses flood hazard data update needs and preserves the
successful Flood Map Modernization investment. The National Flood
Insurance Program (NFIP) provides flood insurance on a National basis
to owners of properties located in vulnerable areas through the Federal
Government, through both a premium revenue and fee-generated fund
called the National Flood Insurance Fund (NFIF).
In fiscal year 2010, the NFIP reduced potential flood losses by an
estimated $1.6 billion. The Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) program
offers an annual funding source for qualified mitigation activities
that are not dependent upon a declaration of disaster by the President.
In fiscal year 2010, the PDM program has reduced administration costs
by $800,000. Furthermore, Risk Mapping, Assessment, and Planning (Risk
MAP) is FEMA's program to provide communities with flood information
and tools they can use to enhance their mitigation plans and better
protect their citizens. FEMA initiated 600 Risk MAP projects in this
past fiscal year, which assisted 3,800 communities by addressing the
highest priority engineering data needs, including coastal and levee
areas.
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
The ability to effectively communicate during and immediately after
a disaster is essential to fulfilling our mission. In the past 5 years,
we have--in response to changes in technology--completely overhauled
the way we communicate with each other and with the public in a
disaster environment. We now leverage cutting-edge technology as well
as important social media tools to communicate in a more effective and
dynamic way.
PKEMRA included the support of National communications capabilities
as part of FEMA's mission. As a result, in 2008 FEMA established the
Disaster Emergency Communications Division (DECD) within the Response
Directorate as the lead integrator of tactical Federal disaster
emergency communications. DECD provides tactical emergency
communications support utilizing its Mobile Emergency Response Support
(MERS) and Mobile Communications Office Vehicle (MCOV) assets, to
emergency managers and first responders when Federal, State, local,
Tribal, or territorial infrastructure cannot support communications
needs for disaster emergency operations. Some of DECD's activities
included offering support to emergency responders in the field for the
establishment of State-specific disaster emergency communications plans
to improve the Nation's interoperability and response capabilities.
PKEMRA also requires the establishment of a Regional Emergency
Communications Coordination Working Group (RECCWG) within each Regional
Office to report to the Regional Administrator and coordinate its
activities with the Regional Advisory Council. RECCWGs have been
established in each of the ten FEMA Regions. The Working Groups
continue to mature, enhance membership, and collectively evaluate
inter- and intra-State interoperability programs, share best practices,
and advise the FEMA Regional Administrators on the state of regional
communications interoperability.
Looking to the emergency communications of the future, FEMA is also
developing a next-generation infrastructure for alert and warning
capabilities, known as PLAN (Personal Localized Alerting Network). Cell
phones are data centers, capable of quickly accessing and storing a
large amount of information. One of the major lessons we learned from
the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti was that even if the physical
infrastructure of an area is completely destroyed, the cellular
infrastructure may be able to bounce back quickly, allowing emergency
managers to relay important disaster-related information and enabling
the public to request help from local first responders. This new, free
public safety system allows customers with an enabled mobile device to
receive geographically targeted messages alerting them of imminent
threats to safety in their area whether nearby cell phone towers are
jammed or not.
We are also expanding our use of social media tools. Social media
is an important part of the Whole Community approach because it helps
facilitate the vital two-way communication between emergency management
agencies and the public, and it allows us to quickly and specifically
share information with State, local, territorial, and Tribal
governments as well as the public. FEMA uses multiple social media
technologies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to reach the public.
Rather than asking the public to change the way they communicate to fit
our system, we are adapting the way we do business to fit the way the
public already communicates. We value social media tools not only
because they allow us to send important disaster-related information to
the people who need it, but also because they allow us to incorporate
critical updates from the individuals who experience the on-the-ground
reality of a disaster.
CONCLUSION
I am very proud of the progress we have made since Hurricane
Katrina. While we still have more work to do, I am confident that with
the authorities and tools given us by Congress and the lessons we have
learned through their application during disasters, FEMA will continue
to be an agile and innovative agency that is consistently improving its
processes. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
today. I am happy to answer any questions the subcommittee may have.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you very much.
I have a couple of questions. So I recognize myself for 5
minutes.
Again, FEMA has clearly made strides in its capabilities
since Hurricane Katrina. I know you addressed some of this.
What lessons have we learned from more recent disasters about
gaps in our preparedness and response capabilities, and what
additional authorities do you need to further advance FEMA's
response capacity?
Mr. Fugate. I am not sure yet about additional authorities,
but I do know that there are some areas that we are working on
and this comes back to some of the technologies. We have been
working very aggressively with the geospatial NGA in providing
us better information. One of the things we know is our ability
to get information, before people actually get on the ground,
to begin describing impacts can help all of the team make
better decisions in early response. So this is an area where we
have a tendency to wait until we are down there in an area to
get information or we are waiting for things to come up through
official channels when they are busy responding.
Two things we are focusing on is how do we get information
from various types of sensor platforms; but on the other hand,
how do we get more information from the public? This is one of
the things I think that I am seeing more and more of and the
benefits we saw in these recent disasters. Oftentimes we were
getting faster and more accurate information from people that
were sending out everything from social media to local and
National news media that had reporters on the ground. They were
sending uplinks of those disasters. Looking at that and going
just based upon that, I am seeing a lot of damage.
We can go. But how do we do this in a way that we can get
this information out that is actionable and speed up that
response, and the faster we are able to adjust to those issues,
the better our response is. So I think it is one of the
challenges that we look at: How does the public share
information, how are they communicating and are we listening to
what they are telling us? Then combine that with a lot of the
capabilities that we now have working with NGA on how to use
better GIS and geospatial information to put together a better
operating picture so we are responding faster.
Mr. Bilirakis. Good. As part of the National Preparedness
System, PPD-8 requires that the development of various
frameworks to enhance our ability to prevent, protect against,
respond to, mitigate, and recover from natural disasters and
terrorist attacks. As part of this requirement and a
requirement of PKEMRA, FEMA recently released the National
Disaster Recovery Framework. I understand FEMA is in the
process of reviewing the National Response Framework. What is
the status of this review and what is FEMA's role in the
development of the other frameworks? What is the status of that
effort?
Mr. Fugate. Status is on-going. We have various delivery
dates that are published. The National Disaster Recovery
Framework was in its inception when PPD-8 was being developed.
So it conformed to and met those requirements as one of the
elements to the framework. The National Response Framework and
the other frameworks will be updated as we go through the
process of implementing PPD-8. FEMA has been charged by the
National security staff and Secretary Napolitano for the
coordination role, but some of those goals will actually be
managed by other agencies that are more focused on some of
those activities. But we have the overall responsibility for
coordinating all of those documents and all of the frameworks
under PPD-8.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. Earlier this year, the
subcommittee held a hearing on the IPAWS program, and Ranking
Member Richardson had mentioned it, and I am also a supporter.
We heard from Assistant Administrator Penn about the plans for
the implementation of the Personal Localized Alerting Network.
Would you please provide an update on the status of PLAN? When
you and Chairman Genachowski and Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the
program in New York City this summer, the intent was for the
plan to be operational in New York and Washington, DC by the
end of the year. Give us the status. Are we on track for that?
How would you say the cooperation between the FCC and FEMA has
been through this process?
Mr. Fugate. Well, let me start with the cooperation of the
FCC. The Chairman and I have been working closely on this and
other activities, including the National emergency alert system
test November 9, and there is a lot of activities that I think
we have built a good partnership in working in their role as a
regulatory in dealing with licensed carriers and the broadcast
industry, and our role working with the user groups and the
warning systems.
As far as I know, things are on track but I will go back
and make sure we are doing that. One of the things that we
hoped that we are seeing is there was a time frame for industry
to adopt, as we published the rules, the technology to do the
plan, so you had the personal location capabilities and cell
phones. From my understanding, we are actually seeing industry
adopt to that faster, and so that they are actually going to
exceed a lot of those deadlines. But I will go back to Damon
Penn and get an update on the status of all of those.
Mr. Bilirakis. Please do. I am very interested. I know the
Ranking Member is, too.
I yield 5 minutes to the Ranking Member, Representative
Richardson.
Ms. Richardson. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I said, Administrator Fugate, regarding the disability
coordinator, in each region is there a disability--is there a
person responsible for disability coordination?
Mr. Fugate. As far as I know, I think we finished hiring
the last one and several of them, in fact--in all of the recent
disasters they have been deployed, and particularly across the
tornadoes were deployed into those joint field offices. Most
recently, the recent hire in Region 4, which is based in
Atlanta, was deployed into North Carolina, which was a
tremendous asset helping us work with the hard-of-hearing and
deaf communities.
Ms. Richardson. Is that that person's sole responsibility
in each region?
Mr. Fugate. It is their primary responsibility. Again, we
also like to remind ourselves that we are all emergency
managers and we do what we have to do during disaster. But
their primary responsibility for preparing for, responding to,
recovering in the mitigation, is looking at being inclusive
across our programs. So not only do we look externally at our
response functions, but we also look internally at our own
practice to make sure we are being inclusive, everything from
meetings to just accessibility in our buildings.
Ms. Richardson. What else are those individuals responsible
for?
Mr. Fugate. I would not be aware of any additional specific
tasking, but I can get that in writing.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. What I would like to know
specifically is, is there a specific person responsible for
disability coordination in each region and, if so, what
percentage of their work is inclusive in doing that? Of their
other work, what is that and how much time does that take? The
disability coordinator has a budget of approximately $150,000.
What is used for that?
Mr. Fugate. I am not sure that is the full extent. I am not
sure how we are accounting for it. We just hosted a conference
that I know was far in excess of that. On the disability
integration hearing in Washington, the Chairman spoke at that.
We have deployed these folks out. We have done training. We
have been working on guidance. So one of the things I need to
look at is this being reflective of all of the money we are
spending across the various programs, or is this just one part
of that.
So I would like to respond in writing and get you the full
accounting of the total staff that are assigned to that office,
all the resources we are pulling from other elements. You are
correct, I did not ask for a line item. We took a lot of these
out of activities we were doing and focused on disability
integration and basically got different parts of FEMA to
provide the resources.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. So we look forward to that in
writing.
As you know, I represent the largest amount of Samoans
outside of Samoa. What current emergency system do they have
there working right now?
Mr. Fugate. As last I knew, we were going through the
testing phase of the island-wide siren system. That was one of
the concerns we had after the tsunami, that there had been
previous studies but they had not actually carried out and
implemented the warning system for the island. My understanding
is it has been going through the test. I don't know if we have
certified it yet. But that was to address the issue of not
having island-wide warning for a tsunami warning which occurred
when they were hit with a tsunami in 2009.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. At our July hearing, the Federal
alert and warning effort witnesses identified a need to
increase IPAWS training for emergency managers as a critical
area to address. What status have you taken to increase
training for managers with IPAWS?
Then further, I would like to build upon, it is my
understanding that there is a test of the emergency alert
system scheduled for November 9, 2011. Although I understand
the test is not a pass/fail, I am interested to know the
performance of the system and how it will be evaluated. Can you
speak to that?
Mr. Fugate. I will ask Damon Penn for an update on
training. I know they have been working to do more training on
IPAWS both in the broadcast industry and the emergency
management community.
Regarding the National emergency alert test, this is the
first test outside of Alaska of an emergency alert
notification, which would be a Presidential notification. Since
the creation and all of the history of the emergency alert
system back as far as the emergency broadcast in Connorel, it
has never received a National test. So this will be the first
time that we will actually begin the activation as an emergency
action notification from the White House as the origination.
We utilize this to look at how the system performs and how
that message is carried out. Because this is a legacy system,
it does not have a test function. So we are using the actual
alert notification message, and it is important that we remind
people of that on the test date, that this is just a test. We
are working with the FCC and the broadcasters to ensure that.
But this will be the first time of a historic test of the
system on a National basis.
Ms. Richardson. Mr. Fugate, I just want to say, although we
can all make improvements, it has been very assuring to see you
at the numerous disasters that we have had. I think you have
been very proactive. You have been very visible on television,
providing updates and reports, and I think it has been a huge
change and I want to thank you personally for your work.
Mr. Fugate. Thank you.
Ms. Richardson. I yield back.
Mr. Bilirakis. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the
full committee, Mr. Thompson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much. I would like to echo the
sentiments of Ms. Richardson. I have been here pre-Katrina,
post-Katrina, and I have seen a different FEMA. Obviously it is
always a work in progress, but I have never seen you as
administrator not address whatever problems you were presented
with, and I thank you for that.
Just for the record, Mr. Fugate, just so the public
understands that a declaration from the Presidential level is
only after the State and local requirements based on some kind
of request have been made. Can you just kind of walk us up that
chain?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir. This goes back to under the Stafford
Act. Only the Governor of a State or territory is authorized to
request from the President a disaster declaration, and that
disaster declaration is based upon the Governor certifying that
that event has overwhelmed State and local capabilities. We
look at impacts on a per-capita basis for public assistance to
determine part of that, but it is not the sole determination.
It can oftentimes be based upon the significant impacts of what
the trauma is to a community.
In addition, when we look at individual assistance, again
it is not based on a homeowner's destruction, it is based upon
the overall impact of the State, it is based upon the size of
that State. So you will see disasters declared in much smaller
States because of the population that in a much larger State
you would assume would have more resources to deal with that.
So it is not based upon a numerical formula for that
assistance. It is always based upon the Governor certifying
that this exceeds their capabilities and they are formally
requesting the President to declare that a disaster.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. So the President on his own, by
law, can't do it without the necessary request from that
Governor?
Mr. Fugate. The President has some limited abilities, but
in most cases and in all of the disasters that we have dealt
with, the only time that we have responded to is when a
Governor has made that request.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. If, in fact, FEMA, in its
prepositioning and mobilization efforts, was limited in doing
so based on some standard of offset, what would that do to
FEMA's ability to respond to a wildfire, hurricane, tornado, if
an offset had to be identified before you would be able to
move?
Mr. Fugate. To be honest with you, sir, what I am looking
at is what is the fund balance in the DRF and how the money
gets there really is now secondary to that. What I did see as
we approached the end of our current fiscal year last year, our
response funds dropped to a level that we would have been
extremely compromised in our ability to respond to a no-notice
disaster such as an earthquake. We looked at what the various
options were. But when that balance drops below a certain
amount and that amount is oftentimes, you know, up to about a
billion dollars, when you look at the cost of the response to
some of the large-scale threats this country faces, whether it
is earthquakes in California or a major hurricane making
landfall in, let us say, Miami or Tampa or New York, response
cost is in not tens or hundreds of millions, it literally can
very quickly escalate into the billions of dollars.
At our National level exercise we did this year on the New
Madrid Earthquake, initial response cost estimates were about
$1.5 billion. So when you are sitting there with a fund of only
100-or-so million dollars in a fiscal year, it begs the
question, Mr. Chairman, how will we respond to the next
catastrophic disaster? That is one of my greatest concerns is,
we should not look at the DRF just for the disaster to have
been declared. It is also those funds needed to respond to the
next no-notice disaster that we have to be prepared for.
Mr. Thompson. To what extent have you directed your staff
to close out past disasters that are still on the books?
Mr. Fugate. We have taken a tiered approach. Our first goal
and looking at open mission assignments from previous disasters
that the Federal agencies had completed but they still had fund
balances, so we closed those out, that returned over $2 billion
back into the DRF last fiscal year.
The next steps, versus closing out the entire disasters,
has been looking at projects that had been completed and the
States were no longer drawing funds against, but they had
outstanding balances in the obligations. In working with the
States, we were able to deobligate those dollars, and that was
over a billion and a half that we were able to recover in the
past year. We expect there to be about another billion in the
next fiscal year is approximately what we are looking at.
As we get to those recoveries, then we will start looking
at these older disasters which still require a financial
reconciliation. There is no more money, but we still need to
get them finalized to officially close them out. But our first
goal was to get money that was obligated, but was not going to
be used, back in the DRF so we can continue paying for the more
recent disasters.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. Just for the record, can you
provide the committee with a status report on those disasters
that are still open?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir.
Mr. Thompson. Whatever the accounting is. Thank you, I
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman
from Pennsylvania, Mr. Marino, for 5 minutes, who was obviously
affected by the storms, his Congressional district.
Mr. Marino. Thank you. Director, it is good to see you
again. Yes, we were affected by the storms in Pennsylvania. But
I want to commend you and your staff. I know we had
communications during our hurricanes and Irene. I see Pat
sitting behind you and he is quite a trooper. He was on the
phone with me a dozen times when we needed water, we needed
food, and we needed strategic changes made. I want to thank him
for the service that he provided. I know he got a promotion,
but, Pat, I still have your cell phone number and I am going to
take advantage of it.
You brought up a good point on being notified. Just
briefly, going into how important it is for States to be in
touch with FEMA so you can get on the ground running and that--
many indications that that--you didn't have that in Katrina.
There are also indications that just the request--the requests
weren't asked or they weren't asked for in time. How important
is it?
Mr. Fugate. I think it is absolutely critical. Of all the
lessons I have learned over history is we really--when we are
dealing with these types of events--and I am going to break
this into two pieces, those that we are dealing with that are
recoveries and those that are an active response such as we saw
with Irene. It is really hard to be effective if you are always
identifying yourself as a local, State, or FEMA Federal person.
You have really got to work as one team. So to get in there
quickly, work as one team, be responsive in anticipating needs,
versus waiting for things to get so bad before they are
overwhelmed before you get the next request.
So I think that is one of the hallmarks of the Post-Katrina
Emergency Management Reform Act, is really getting rid of these
artificial divisions. Saying, look, when it hits that level, we
have got to work as one team. It shouldn't be something where
we are literally passing paper up the food chain to get an
answer. We should be able to work together and work and solve
problems quickly.
Mr. Marino. Do you have the authority that you need now
post-Reform Act to step in even if a State fails to request,
for whatever reason, and say, look, we see this as a disaster
and we need to come in and assist you in doing preventive
measure? Do you have that authority as far as you are
concerned?
Mr. Fugate. We can do quite a bit without a formal request
from the Governor to pre-position supplies and move resources
in. But I don't know if the Post-Katrina Emergency Management
Reform Act can address this, sir. You are actually getting into
a Constitutional question. As we reserve the police powers for
the States under Article 10 of the Constitution, we could take
some actions. But I think, again, we find it much better to get
our teams in there with the State and work through those
challenges, behind the doors, to get things done versus waiting
until people fail.
So I would say that our goal is to get there early, work
with the State, anticipate need, not wait on the request and,
where we can, advise and help get to a better decision faster.
Mr. Marino. Well, I will certainly be supporting you in
that aspect. If we need more legislation, I will be taking the
lead on that with you as well. I know we did a lot of things
right in Irene the last few weeks and over the month, and in my
district--just an example of it, I have never seen the Feds,
the State, and the locals work so closely together. So tell me
what we realized from this last round, what was not effective
and what can we do differently?
Mr. Fugate. Well, I will pick on one aspect of this because
it is going to come up, and particularly when we deal with
flood events, is looking at the National Flood Insurance
Program. One of our challenges is that we have communities who
have chosen not to participate in the National Flood Insurance
Program and they get flooded, it severely limits our ability to
provide individual assistance. It is to effect we are holding
individuals responsible for the failure of local governments to
adopt and join the National Flood Insurance Program.
So it oftentimes puts us in a bind where people have been
flooded, they have had losses. Their neighboring communities
are getting assistance, but they can't because their community
didn't adopt the National Flood Insurance Program. I think it
would to me make more sense to put maybe the burden back on the
local governments and look at their public assistance versus
the individual assistance. I realize, you know, with the Flood
Insurance Program, our goal here is to get people at risk to
purchase flood insurance and to have that protection so the
taxpayer is not having to pay for flood damages. But it is an
area that it will be difficult--it is part of the reason why we
have to send out remittances when we do provide assistance to
people and it turns out they weren't in a Flood Insurance
Program, and we have to ask for the money back. As Ranking
Member Thompson can tell you, that is a very difficult
proposition when we get to that point.
Mr. Marino. Right. Look, I know you need the funding. I was
the one that stood up in the House and said look, let's not
argue of what is going to happen here, let's just get the
funding out. My district appreciated it. I think there are
enough inefficient agencies here in the District of Columbia
that deserve to be cut and those funds that we can hopefully
make certain that you have them, so you can serve so well as
you have in the past. Thank you so much. I yield back.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman
from Michigan, Mr. Clarke, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Administrator Fugate,
I appreciate you being here. I represent metropolitan Detroit,
which includes the city of Detroit and also includes the
Northern Border with Canada. A couple of questions.
My first deals with promoting interoperability among
communications with our first responders as well as with our
Federal officials along with our Canadian counterparts. Let me
just illustrate that. There was, according to one of our local
law enforcement first responders a few years ago, there was an
accident on the Detroit River. That first responder had a hard
time communicating to the Coast Guard about it, and in turn
none of them could notify their Canadian counterparts.
As a result of the new law in 2008, FEMA established a
Disaster Emergency Communications Division. Particularly how
does this division help coordinate response on the Northern
Border or could be used to coordinate response on the Northern
Border in a way that would foster interoperable communications
among first responders with their Canadian counterparts and the
Federal authorities?
Mr. Fugate. Well, we will start with the disaster emergency
communication function. I think it does two things. One, it
helps bring in and reestablish communications to local and
State jurisdictions that have lost it in a disaster. But a more
important element that we saw was really beneficial was helping
States develop their communications plans.
Again, I will be honest with you, those have been State-
centric. The question you raise is actually interesting because
it is something that I know Secretary Napolitano is working
across the enterprise in DHS--is looking at how do we work to
cross-border issues that are transnational, but in a response
world first responders can see each other across the river. How
do you get better integration there?
I know that our Region 5 administrator is working with your
shop on some of this, but I think it is one area that I would
like to take back to Secretary Napolitano as a concern you have
raised and look at how our plans, which are really focused on
the States, could be tied into more activities at DHS,
particularly with the Coast Guard, Immigration, and Customs and
some of the others that are working across the border. Because
we know the first responders are. I think that is kind of an
area that we will go back to the Secretary and say, this is
maybe an area that these committees could work closer and there
may be avenues to work through other parts of DHS to work with
our Canadian counterparts.
Mr. Clarke. Thank you very much. Administrator, one other
question and it deals with how can we best prepare citizens who
are struggling right now financially to be prepared in case
there is a disaster?
You know, in the city of Detroit, our city, our region, we
have lost more jobs, more people, more homes than any other
city or region in the country over the last 10 years. So in
downtown Detroit in particular, we have many people that have
special needs who may be physically challenged, you know, get
around with wheelchairs or other type of devices to help them
with their mobility. We also have folks who are struggling
every day just to provide for their own basic needs just
financially, just don't have the money to do so. So how can
FEMA better help prepare individuals who are struggling right
now to be able to be prepared for a disaster?
Mr. Fugate. Well, not to sound trite about this, but I
think we oftentimes make the entry level into being fully
prepared so expensive. Even people of means look at this and
go, if I went and bought everything on your list brand new,
that could cost me hundreds of dollars. I think we have made
that such a high bar, that we actually want to go back and
start out with more basic questions. Again, I think this is
again your office, and folks can help get this word out; you
don't have to make sure you have got everything, but just start
with the most basic thing. Do you have a family communication
plan? We know that for a lot of folks, they don't have--they
are very mobile, they use mobile communication devices, they
use their cell phones, they don't have anything else. Do they
have a plan of what to do--because as we saw here with the
earthquake, you are not going to be able to get dial tone. But
do you have a backup plan to text message or do you have rally
points to know if I cannot get to you, there is someplace we
can meet?
Preparedness oftentimes starts with just the basic steps of
developing your family communication plan of how you are going
to let family and friends know, and where you are going to go
if you can't get home. Those initial steps start the process.
But we are also sensitive to the fact--and this is one of
the things we have been working with our State partners on,
durable medical goods and other supplies that may be needed for
people that have additional resource needs. We are really
trying to be focused on making sure we are inclusive on the
front end, not treating this as an afterthought of dealing with
people who may need additional resources when a disaster
strikes.
Mr. Clarke. Thank you.
Mr. Bilirakis. The gentleman yields back, correct?
Mr. Clarke. I yield back.
Mr. Bilirakis. Okay. Now I recognize Mr. Farenthold for 5
minutes from the great State of Texas. You are recognized, sir.
Mr. Farenthold. Thank you, Chairman Bilirakis.
Administrator Fugate, we have been plagued in Texas by
wildfires for the past year. Of the disasters FEMA faces,
wildfires are one that actually can be mitigated while they are
going on. So I have a two-part question for you to begin with.
First, can you outline what FEMA's responses have been to the
wildfires in Texas and how has FEMA and the Federal Government
as a whole cooperated on bringing the resources necessary to
mitigate those fires as they are going on, and afterwards?
Mr. Fugate. Well, the two pieces of this--I will start with
the last one first, because the lead agency for coordinating
Federal assistance is the U.S. Forestry Services, Agriculture,
through the interagency. We support them there.
On the other side, the financial side of this, has been
through the issuance of a record number of fire management
grants that are fire-specific, as well as a major Presidential
disaster declaration focused on individual assistance. In some
of the more recent fires, we lost a large number of homes.
What is happening in Texas, though, the wildfires are
merely a symptom. What we have got is a sustained long-period
drought that doesn't seem to be ending. One of the challenges
that I am finding that I experienced in Florida is that our
fire management grant programs are really designed about very
large, centralized fires. What we have in Texas is a lot of
little fires that, if you don't get them knocked down quick,
will grow to the big fires.
So there is quite a bit of activity on-going across Texas.
A lot of it is being done by volunteer fire departments that
are tied to these fire management grants. I have had
discussions with the State director of emergency management
there named Kidd, and I have asked my staff to come back and
look at some of these issues. But my concern in Texas is this
is not a situation that is improving and it is not a fire by
fire. It is the underlying drought. Until that drought breaks,
my concern as to the wildfire situation in Texas will continue
to be active and that we have to continue to look at our tools,
providing assistance both through our interagency process with
the U.S. Forest Service as well as the financial assistance
through fire management grants and declarations.
Mr. Farenthold. Short of praying for rain, I would
appreciate if you or your staff could get with my office and
the rest of the Texas delegation to see what, if anything, can
be done to improve that situation.
I also want to move over to the EAS just for a second and
shift gears. You have got the test coming up. I would imagine,
having been in broadcasting since I was 16 years old, I see
first-hand the flaws of the EAS and what it has evolved into.
Is FEMA looking at, with the advents of new technologies like
cell phones, text messaging and the internet, coming up with a
new technology to either replace or supplement EAS?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir. In fact, that was some of the remarks
that our Ranking Member Richardson and the Chairman talked
about, what we call IPAWS, the integrated public warning and
alert system. It is taking advantage of newer technology and
using a common alerting protocol to go across all devices. Part
of this is working with the FCC where personal location, alert
notifications, can be geographically tagged to your cell phone
based upon your location, as well as the ability to now operate
across a lot of different technologies.
Mr. Farenthold. My concern with that--and as we saw in the
earthquake up here--the cell phone network, especially in a
time of disaster, is substantially more fragile than we would
like to believe.
Mr. Fugate. That is correct. Again if we were trying to use
the cell phones for the way you would be doing voice traffic,
it would not work. But cell phones are also radios. The cell
towers actually have broadcast functions that you can actually
send one-way transmissions to. That is the benefit of that.
The other benefit is rather than alerting everybody in an
area, we can specify those areas that are geocoded to the
threat, so when a tornado--remember how we used to have to
alert the whole county? Now we can give a more----
Mr. Farenthold. Is that based on tower location or GPS from
the phone, or both?
Mr. Fugate. It is based upon the phone knowing where it is
at, whether it is GPS or triangulation. We don't track that
information. It just tells everything in that tower area to
alert. It doesn't track the actual phones. So the phones are
self-aware, but the system doesn't monitor the phones. It just
broadcasts to that specific area.
Mr. Farenthold. All right. I appreciate your responses.
Thank you for being here and thank you for your hard work. I
will yield back.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. Now I would like to recognize the
gentlelady from New York, Ms. Hochul, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hochul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are talking about
personal notification systems, Mr. Administrator, how you can
give information to the public. What troubles me in this
century is that the public is not able to send a 9-1-1 text
messaging to public safety dispatchers, whether it is in a
natural disaster, whether it is a situation we had at Virginia
Tech, whether children--young students in a lockdown situation
and they are sending 9-1-1 messages out there on their cell
phones, believing fully that they are going to be heard, and we
don't have the capability. I find that to be a National
embarrassment personally, and I am not casting any dispersion,
any blame. I am just saying how do we solve that?
When I am talking to people at FCC sometimes they will say
it is going on over at Homeland Security, Homeland Security
might say it is FCC. What is preventing us from doing that?
Because I think that is something that--you know, there is a
generation, probably from my age on down, or lower than me
down, where the expectation is that when they send 9-1-1 on the
cell phone, it is going to be received by somebody who is in a
position to help them. Very sadly, that is not the case in
America today.
Mr. Fugate. I am going to ask my staff to get the FCC to
respond back in writing, because I share your concerns. I know
that the FCC has been working on what they call next generation
9-1-1, and they have been looking at some pilot programs of how
you could start taking in text messaging and other types of
social media. One of the challenges is the system was never
designed with that as this technology has come on board.
So I know the FCC has been looking at preliminary
rulemaking. They are looking at several pilots. I will ask my
staff to work with the FCC so we can respond jointly back to
you. What they are looking at in the next generation of 9-1-1,
they are anticipating how do you adapt to the known, but also
emerging technologies that we may not quite understand? Again,
it is a common idea, and I think you pointed it out very well.
We have to adapt the way the public communicates, not
necessarily force them to enter the legacy systems. That has
been one of the challenges as we move forward.
Ms. Hochul. I appreciate your attention and I would urge
that you make that a major priority, because in natural
disasters or in lockdown situations or anytime that our public
needs help, they are assuming that they are reaching us.
We had a situation where gunshots were fired in one of my
suburban high schools outside Rochester. Fifty kids sent 9-1-1
messages and they thought they were received. So I would like
this to be a major priority because I think it could be a
tremendous help. If you are talking about pilot programs, I
will sign up right now. I have sat down with many of my public
safety dispatch operations throughout my seven counties and
they are ready to do it. They just need the resources to get it
going.
But again, I commend you on your attention. You have so
many issues in this country to pay attention to, so many
disasters unexpected.
I want to make sure we don't lose sight of some disaster
assistance that was requested in New York State after some
flooding in the spring. I can give you a copy today, again,
because we mailed this out. This is from our New York
delegation asking for assistance. If you could please commit to
reevaluating Governor Cuomo's request to reverse your denial of
assistance to areas that were flooded in the spring, because I
still have farmers that are never going to be whole again, and
my economy relies on my farmers planting, harvesting, getting
it to market. So If you could take another look at that as
well.
Again, you have probably got the toughest job in America
with all of the different disasters that come your way, whether
it is the fires in Texas; who would have thought Upstate New
York would be victim to an earthquake, a hurricane, a tornado,
all within a couple of weeks?
So we are living in what seems like unprecedented times.
But I hope that you are up to the task. I am sure you are. If
there is anything we can do to assist you, we are partners in
protecting the American people. Thank you.
Mr. Fugate. Thank you, ma'am.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. The gentlelady yields back?
Ms. Hochul. I am sorry. I do.
Mr. Bilirakis. If it is all right with Administrator
Fugate, I think this is such an important topic, we have time
for a second round. So I would like to begin. I will recognize
myself for 5 minutes.
As part of your effort to engage in the whole community--
and I commend you for that, Administrator--you have included a
rotating seat for the private sector in the National Response
Coordination Center. How is the initiative working?
Mr. Fugate. It is working very well. Not only are we giving
the private sector a seat in there, we are really looking at
some of the things that will speed up our ability to see what
they see, such as really getting the point of the major big box
stores, recognizing they don't provide everything but they are
a good indicator of how areas are impacted, giving us live data
on store openings and closures so we can see what is going on.
We first really saw this when we were dealing with the ice
storm earlier this year. It is kind of hard to remember that
far back, we had this threat of an ice storm across the central
United States and moving towards the Northeast. But they were
literally giving us updates on the store statuses in real time
as we were making decisions about where we may need generator
stuff.
We saw this again in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Irene hit.
We were getting lots of reports of flooding, but they were able
to come back and give us statuses of drugstores, hardware
stores, grocery stores, that pretty well told us that the bulk
of the island primary services were intact and our focus was
really on flooding in some of the higher elevations where some
of the towns were destroyed. That real-time information made us
more comfortable with the decision that the Governor's request
was not for more resources but focus on the recovery so we
could shift those attentions now to the East Coast, to the
United States. Without that information, we would have been a
little bit concerned that we didn't have all of that
information; and what if we didn't send the supplies, would we
get behind? But because the retailers were assuring us they
were up, they were running, the ports are up, the airport is
up, that information coupled with the Governor's request made
sense and we were able to shift our resources now to the East
Coast.
Mr. Bilirakis. As a follow-up, the emergency management
officials I have spoken with see this engagement with the
private sector as a very positive step. However, they have
expressed concern about the PS-Prep Program. Their concern:
While FEMA has a structure in place for the program, it has yet
to create an incentive for participation with the private
sector.
Recognizing that PS-Prep is a voluntary program, what can
be--what can we do to better engage the private sector and
encourage them to take steps to enhance their preparedness?
Mr. Fugate. To be honest with you, Mr. Chairman, I think
when that program was starting out, we were looking at the
private sector as getting a certification to be able to sit at
the table. In some ways what we found was that there should be
an entry requirement to be a part of the team. They are doing
it already. We need to work closer.
I think PS-Prep is going through an evolution and I will
ask my staff to come back to you with more specifics. But I
think one of the things that I have learned in this process is
oftentimes when we start programs with good intentions, we find
that we maybe are not going the way we thought we were going
and we need to reassess. I think this is a continuing area: How
do we reassess that program to get better participation and, at
the same time, recognizing there may be some entities that will
not participate there but are still wanting to be part of the
team when we respond and recover from disasters?
Mr. Bilirakis. I think if you have some suggestions for us
as well, we can work with our constituents. I think that that
would be very beneficial as well.
I am interested in your assessment of National Level
Exercise 11. What are the main lessons learned from the
exercise? How are we sharing these lessons with participants at
the State, local, and Tribal and private-sector levels?
Mr. Fugate. That is a large exercise, and in the short time
I have, I would like to give you some written responses to
that. But I want to point out one thing I really haven't had a
chance to talk about in these committees but I think has been a
tremendous improvement in our capability, and that is the
resolution of the issue of applying Federal forces to a State,
particularly Title 10 Active-Duty forces, when the Governor has
their National Guard on State Active-Duty and running the
realities of: How do you manage that?
Under a program that was initiated by Congress forming the
Council of Governors to work with the National Guard and
Governors as well as with the Department of Defense, we now
have what we call dual-status commanders. This is a program
that has been enthusiastically supported, I must say, by
NORTHCOM and the Department of Defense, to take National Guard
flag officers--and almost now all the States train them as
dual-status command, where they can now command at the request
of the Governor and the designation by the Secretary of Defense
and the President, command both State Active-Duty and National
Guard and Title 10 forces under one commander, not having to
have two separate joint task forces.
In our National Level Exercise, this showed that the
ability to bring in Federal forces in support of the State,
with their National Guard activated into Active Duty, minimize
the confusion and the duplicity of having a multiple joint task
force operating in the same State. So I think this is one of
the things that we were able to look at in exercise, but I
think it is one of the huge unheralded milestones we have in
this country of resolving, I think once and for all, the issue
of: How do we bring Active-Duty forces to the Governor in a way
that does not duplicate or replicate what they are doing
through their National Guard and work as one team?
Mr. Bilirakis. Very good. Thank you. All right. I now
recognize Ranking Member Richardson for 5 minutes.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Fugate, I need
to come back to the EAS test. First of all, I want to clarify.
Does the EAS test include all the territories and all the
States? Everyone or just----
Mr. Fugate. My assumption is yes, because this will be an
activation of the emergency alert notification which will be a
Presidential message and a National message. So my
understanding, it should go out through all of the systems, but
I will verify that.
We have done two separate State tests in Alaska to test the
system. But this will be the first time we will be activating
it across the entire country, and I will verify that it will go
to the territories.
Ms. Richardson. If it does not, are you committed to
including them?
Mr. Fugate. Absolutely. If it isn't, it has more to do with
the legacy systems than it is by any intention. This is one of
the things we are hoping as we move to IPAWS, to get past some
of the legacy limitations in our existing infrastructure.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. Then when we were talking about
American Samoa and their alert system test, was this one and
the same, or were they having a separate test?
Mr. Fugate. This was a separate test of certifying the
outdoor warning system. This was a key component that, when the
tsunami warning center issues the warnings, there was no
outdoor warning systems in American Samoa. It was a testing of
that system.
Ms. Richardson. Has that already occurred?
Mr. Fugate. I will have to get back to you. I know they
were doing it, but I don't know if they completed the test and
signed off on that. I just really don't have that at my
fingertips.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. If you could also supply us the
results of that.
Back also to the EAS. As I said, I don't believe it
includes a pass or fail. In particular, could you tell us how
the data will be gathered, what will be the gaps in performance
identified and improvements to the system made, and is there a
specific time line that you have associated with?
Mr. Fugate. The actual test itself will be looking at all
of the primary entry points for the system, activate the local
primaries, and how many of those stations that are supposed--
one of the things about the Emergency Alert System, it is
always voluntary except when a Presidential notification
occurs. That is why we don't have a test capability. This is
the only one that will trip everything, because it is designed
to automatically engage all of the pre-transmit functions. So
the test will be: How far did it go and where were their gaps
and breaks in the chain of notification? This goes to
everything. It actually starts a chain of primary entry points
and the local primary points that then set off their tones,
which will then activate other receivers. Because this is the
one function that was built in that--broadcasters are optioned
on everything else and they can set their equipment to manual
or delay. This will be the first time we will see if all of the
systems go through.
So the first part is did that happen and were there breaks?
The other part will be, as it went out, did we see any
difficulties? We already know of some issues that are germane
to the legacy systems that will be a challenge for this.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. I apologize. I have got 2 minutes.
Will your assessment include improvements that need to be made?
Mr. Fugate. Yes.
Ms. Richardson. Just that. Then do you have a specific time
line when you anticipate being able to give us this report?
Mr. Fugate. I will defer back to Damon Penn to get an
update of what we expect to get back on that and when we would
have a report.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. I have got three really quick
questions, and he is going to give me a little more time. One
of the issues that I found in American Samoa was that they owed
prior money to the Government and therefore, because of that,
were hesitant of extending on additional services beyond the
initial, whatever it was, 72 hours. Have you established a new
process or have we had a discussion of how to deal with maybe
States or territories that might have a past-due situation?
Mr. Fugate. The issue of those that still owe money from
previous disasters or previous grant programs is one we are
looking at of the recoupment process there, and whether or not
and how we go forward. We know it is going to be a challenge
there in American Samoa. There are also some other territories
that are facing the same situation. I will respond back in
writing. But it is again similar to other recoupment processes
where, if the money under IG or General Accounting Offices,
finds that money is owed back, we have to look at a collection
process which either will offset future costs or have to be
tied to some other reduction in funding.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. So if you could supply this committee
of who currently owes, how much they owe, what is the process
of paying it back.
Last two questions. Twice now we have had colleagues who
have brought forward a concern about the UASI grants and
whether the funding should be in tiered levels and so on. Could
you please share your particular feedback of why you think it
should stay the same or change?
Mr. Fugate. Well, again as we presented the options to
Secretary Napolitano, she made the decision that we would
reduce funding, could no longer continue to fund all of the
cities on the list, and needed to focus on those that were in
the top tier based on a variety of information we used to make
those decisions. Given the amount of funding, I think that will
be the continued recommendation as we present to her this year;
as we look at this year's appropriation is, with reduced
funding, the decision made to fully fund those top-tiered
cities versus reducing funding across the board?
Ms. Richardson. Okay. So if I am hearing you correctly, if
we were not to reduce funding, which some folks on this
committee have advocated for, we might have a better ability to
assist all the cities?
Mr. Fugate. That would be an option to look at, yes, ma'am.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. My last question is, for full year
2012, the proposed level of funding for first responders is
less than half the amount that Congress appropriated 2 years
ago, in full year 2010. The Congress appropriated a total of
$4.17 billion in grant funding for first responders. Further,
if H.R. 2017 is enacted by Congress, the grant funding will
have been reduced by almost 60 percent within two fiscal
cycles. How do you plan on addressing these cuts and to ensure
that the regions have the adequate resources?
I want you to know I am asking you this on the record and
intend upon bringing it back up when the committee then discuss
things like cutting at these, what I would believe, very
unreasonable levels.
Mr. Fugate. Well, the short answer is that with these
reductions of fundings, we are looking at what we can do to
maintain current capabilities that have been built with the
dollars, and putting emphasis on those items and teams that are
more critical to the National interest and of National
capabilities. Which means not everything is going to be funded,
and there may have to be decisions about what cannot be
supported, but looking at things that are really designed to be
of a National interest and have capability to support the
National threats.
Again, as we saw with the mutual aid in the past disasters,
one of the things we know is making sure that regional mutual
aid through State-directed responses is the most effective use
of these resources. So, looking at how we can leverage more
regional response capabilities with fewer dollars.
Ms. Richardson. So if you could provide to this committee
what, in light of the proposed cuts, what you view would fall
within the National realm of being of National interest and
what potential things could be cut in the event we have to
operate at the levels you have been given?
Mr. Fugate. We will do that.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. I recognize the gentleman from
Mississippi, the Ranking Member of the full committee, Mr.
Thompson.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Fugate, will you comment on your efforts to get FEMA to start
buying locally in disasters and whether or not that effort has
rendered a positive result?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir. Early on when I got to FEMA, one of
the things we found was that we used a lot of National
contracts, kind of one-size-fits-all. It is easy for us to
administer. But it tended to result in us buying resources and
bringing things from outside a disaster area when they were
already there in the community.
After several disasters, particularly what I observed in
Haiti, I realized that one of the flaws in our system by doing
that is we are not putting any money back in the local economy
when it is at its greatest need. So we adopted a philosophy of
buying local and hiring local, whenever possible, to put money
back in the local community, in many cases at no real
additional cost to the taxpayers, and sometimes a savings
because it is faster and it is right there.
I would say right now it has been mixed, but where it has
worked, I think it is significant in that we can go to a local
computer store, we can go to a local vendor, we can go to a
local print shop, and we buy services for people that are in
the area that are trying to get their lives back together. What
I know from all of the things I have seen, small businesses are
most vulnerable. If they don't get work quickly, they don't
survive. I figure as best we can, if we can buy local services
wherever possible, we will benefit not only the community
itself, but I think ultimately speed the recovery.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. There have been some Title 6
issues in FEMA on an on-going basis. Provide us with your
efforts to resolve many of these issues, please.
Mr. Fugate. Well, first of all, it comes back with--one of
the things we are looking at, we have a remediation going on in
Florida. What we have worked with with the IG on this one, I
think what we are going to do with the State is go back and do
a remedial training and some pilot, and provide them additional
grant guidance oversight as they are issuing the grants for
Title 6 compliance. We also put into our office fraud
investigations, the Title 6 functions for investigating those
complaints because, again, we felt this needed to be more
focused on those complaints when they came up.
So I think it is two parts. One is the enforcement piece of
it where we do have the complaints and the investigations and
determine if it needs to be referred to the IG. The other part
of it is the education to make sure on the front end, in
providing grant guidance, people understand the requirements of
Title 6 and are complying with that, particularly these large
projects.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. Can you provide the committee with
some current statistics on EO complaints and what have you, say
over the last 2 years? Not now. Just come back to us with it
and just--to give us how many have been resolved, how many are
on-going, this kind of thing, and whether or not you have
looked at that situation and whether or not you will recommend
changes, or what have you, going forward. I think that would be
helpful.
With respect to recoupment, I couldn't let you get away
without recoupment, the issue of recoupment. We are still, I
guess weekly, getting dinged by constituents who are receiving
letters.
Two questions. To what extent can other constituents expect
these letters to come? But on the other hand, especially for
the Katrina victims, a disproportionate number of people have
been misplaced. Bad addresses, things like that. I would like
to see whether or not, when letters go out and those
individuals were moved to Houston from New Orleans and
subsequently somewhere else, that basically through no fault of
their own, but obviously from an address standpoint, you still
have them in Houston.
I would not want somebody who is really resettled, getting
themselves back together, and now all of the sudden because
they didn't get a letter, they would in fact be breaking the
law. If you come up with a solution for that; if not, when you
could, it would be very helpful to people like me who have
constituents getting those letters.
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir, there is going to be more letters.
That is an absolute fact. There is still a lot more to go out
from Katrina and Rita from recoupments. We send the letter to
the last known address. When that letter comes back, what do we
do? I have asked staff, and what they briefed me on--and I will
provide this in writing--is we have a process with a third
party to try to track down any additional financial records to
try to locate that person.
One of the concerns I know that was raised was: When would
penalties and interest kick in and when do you refer them to
Treasury for collection? That is an area where I don't have an
exact time line because I don't know what we do as far as how
long it takes for us to go through the due diligence in trying
to locate them. It is generally because they are not responsive
or we have exhausted our ways of locating them, that they would
actually get referred to Treasury to see if they can recoup
there.
As you point out when you send a letter to them, the first
step is to see if they are going to appeal that, if there is
more information that was lacking in the initial application
that may mitigate that, or they can apply for forgiveness as
they don't have a financial ability. But I have asked staff. We
do use a third party to try to track folks down. What I don't
know is what is that time frame that we would go before we
would say we are unable to serve this letter or we are not
getting a response, that it would go to Treasury and start
accruing interests and penalties.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. I appreciate it.
I have a couple of questions and then we will finish up.
Thanks for your patience. I really appreciate it.
With regard to mitigation, I know you believe in that
strongly, but I believe--and that is why I filed my bill, to
encourage businesses and residential owners to rebuild,
mitigate of course. But I feel that maybe the Federal
Government is just encouraging folks and this is all we have--
the authority we have is to basically rebuild the way it was
before instead of building stronger and better. That way the
buildings and structures are more resilient. Comment on that,
how we can improve things with regard to mitigation.
Mr. Fugate. I found both as a State and now as a FEMA
administrator that I oftentimes put a lot of emphasis under the
Stafford Act, under the section--it is just a section number.
It doesn't really mean anything to anybody else. But there is a
part of the Stafford Act that says if you have got damages, you
have got a public or eligible nonprofit and you have got
damages and we are going to give you money to repair it, we
also need to look at does it make sense to build it back better
to reduce future damages. Under that section we look at things
such as a cost-benefit analysis that says we realize the
building code may be for 110-mile-an-hour roof, but if you got
wiped out by a hurricane and we build this roof back at maybe,
say, 130, 140 because it is a public safety building, or
whatever that is appropriate, and then that building survives
the next time, is that not a good investment? So under the
Stafford Act of section 406, this is money that is tied to the
actual damages.
We have another part of that program called section 404,
which provides an overall percentage of funds to the State
afterwards for mitigation, but it doesn't have to necessarily
be tied to damaged properties, which may allow them to mitigate
other threats. Particularly with some of the flooding we have
seen, we know that many States and local communities will be
looking at those additional funds of how to reduce future flood
loss.
Tell you what, Mr. Chairman. We saw a lot of areas where
they have done things such as buyouts that in previous years
had flooded severely, that had much less impact, even though
they received record floods. We have seen elevation work. We
have seen safe rooms work. So again, it is one of those areas
that is important.
But the problem with these programs is they are always
after we have had a disaster. I think the greater mitigation
actually comes back to States that are willing to develop and
implement, as we did in Florida, building codes appropriate for
the hazards, and the tremendous difference that made in homes
built prior to that unified building code. The performance in
the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes was so dramatic, you could
literally fly over neighborhoods and almost tell when the roof
was built by what was standing and what was damaged.
So again, I put a lot of emphasis on if we are going to
spend Federal tax dollars to fix something, build it back
better. An example was down in Charlotte County. They lost all
seven of their fire stations. The building code only required
it to be built back for the wind hazards but the reality was
they got hit with a Category 4 hurricane, and I said it doesn't
make sense that we are going to have to take public safety
buildings and only build them back to the code. We really need
to go code-plus so they survive the next hurricane, so the fire
crews aren't losing the equipment, and the stations are there
to respond in the aftermath. So we are very much supportive of
continuing that practice where it makes financial sense.
Mr. Bilirakis. Very good. Exactly. It makes financial sense
as well.
One last question. Again, PKEMRA required FEMA to develop
and implement a training program for staff on the prevention of
waste, fraud, and abuse of Federal disaster relief assistance.
Comment on that. What is the status of that program?
Mr. Fugate. We have been breaking that into training--one
of the areas we focused on very early was our COTARS through
our chief procurement office, as well as looking at overall
training for folks to recognize in our National processing
centers when people call in. There are some steps we take to
try to rule out bogus addresses and things like that, to
minimize that, but also things to look for that would raise
suspicion. Where we do find instances of fraud in individual
assistance, we refer those for investigation. Where we find
cause, we refer it to the IG.
But I think what we have been trying to do is convince
people we can be fast and not have the kind of abuse to the
system we saw in previous disasters. But that means you have
got to change how you look at things and build this into their
front-end. You can't bolt it onto the end and try to capture
it.
Our most recent audit that we got from the outside auditors
on our error rate for IA went from about the high of Katrina,
which is an outlier, because it was just an extraordinarily
large storm, a double digit, down to a less than 1 percentage
point error. But we continue to look at this, of how do we
minimize the error rate without putting an undue burden of
people applying for assistance, but then also look at
everything from our contracts, how we do our business, how we
proceed to do our business. We will be more than happy, sir, to
provide you an update. We have already had another request very
similar, what all these activities are and how we are doing
that.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you very much. That will conclude the
hearing. I want to thank you for your testimony today. I want
to thank the Members for their questions. The Members of the
subcommittee may have--they will have some additional questions
for you. I am sure you will be able to respond in writing,
Administrator. We ask that you respond, of course. The hearing
record will be held open for 10 days.
Of course, without objection, the subcommittee stands
adjourned. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 11:19 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Questions From Ranking Member Laura Richardson for W. Craig Fugate
Question 1. Please inform the committee whether there is a specific
Federal full-time equivalent responsible for the implementation of the
disability coordination program in each of the ten regional offices and
what percentage of their duties is made up of these responsibilities?
If they are assigned additional responsibilities outside of the
disability coordination portfolio, please provide the percentage of
these additional duties.
Additionally, per the administrator's testimony, provide in writing
the full accounting of the total staffers assigned to the Office of the
Disability Coordinator and any additional resources shifted to the
mission of the Office.
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 2a. Please describe the current Emergency Alert System
being used in American Samoa.
Has the current system passed all testing and contain the necessary
requirements to ensure that it is certified?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 2b. If the warning system for American Samoa has not yet
been certified, why has not been certified and when does FEMA expect
the system to be complete?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 3. At the subcommittee's July Hearing on Emergency
Communications witnesses from the Emergency Management community
identified a need to increase the level of training related to the
emergency alert system. What steps has FEMA taken to increase IPAWS
training for emergency managers?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 4a. In light of the November 9, 2011 test of the Emergency
Alert System (EAS), please provide the committee those States and
territories that will be participating and their level of capacity?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 4b. Also, how will the data be collected and evaluated?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 4c. What is the time line for this assessment?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 5. What is the status of the outdoor warning emergency
alert system for American Samoa? Has this system been tested and if so
what was the outcome? Please include how the data will be gathered,
gaps in performance discovered from the test, the affect of any
improvements made to the system and the time line for all remediation
of problems?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 6. Please provide the committee a list of those States or
territories that currently have outstanding debts to FEMA and include
how much they owe; the process FEMA uses to collect these funds; and
the particular States and territories unable to receive Public
Assistance Grants due to these debts.
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 7. In light of proposed funding cuts to FEMA, please
provide the committee what programs and responsibilities must continue
to receive level funding and possible programs and responsibilities
that could be eliminated in the event you are forced to operate at the
current funding levels recommended for fiscal year 2012.
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 8. Describe FEMA's progress with the Disaster Closeout
Process allowing FEMA to close out and de-obligate funds from previous
disasters that are currently still on FEMA's financial reports. Please
provide the committee with a status report on these efforts including
the number and dollar amount affiliated with both open and closed
disasters.
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 9. Please provide the committee the current statistics on
the number of Title VI complaints reported against FEMA, the number of
complaints that have been resolved, the number of complaints
outstanding, actions taken on the complaints for the previous 3 years.
Also, include any recommended changes or possible improvements to the
current process.
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 10. What is the status of the FCC program to create ``next
generation 9-1-1'' that allows individual to text emergency requests to
law enforcement and emergency management calling centers?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 11a. There is concern that the Office of Disability
Integration and Coordination lacks the adequate resources to carry out
its responsibilities under the Act.
The Office of Disability Integration and Coordination has existed
for approximately 2 years, with a budget of about $150,000. What
outreach activities have the Office initiated in that time under its
current budget?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 11b. How many staff members are allocated to the Office of
Disability Integration and Coordination? Is this an adequate number of
staff to carry out the Office's mission?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 11c. Do you plan to request additional funding for the
Office in the fiscal year 2013 budget?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 12a. As you know, FEMA is currently responsible for
administering all DHS grants, including grants for programs falling
outside the agency's expertise.
How does the expenditure of FEMA's resources on the administration
of all DHS grants affect its ability to carry out its core mission
(i.e.: preparing, protecting, mitigating, responding, and recovering
from terrorist attacks)?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 12b. Is the administration of all DHS grants the most
effective use of FEMA's limited resources?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 13a. As you may know, I represent a large number of
constituents with family connections to Samoa so the 2009 tsunami in
American Samoa was a great concern for me. Too many people told me that
their families weren't warned in time to effectively prepare. A fully
implemented IPAWS, accessible to all populations, system would have
provided adequate warnings.
At our July hearing on Federal Alert and Warning Efforts, witnesses
identified a need to increase IPAWS training for emergency managers as
a critical area to address. What is the status of FEMA's efforts to
increase training for emergency managers on IPAWS?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 13b. What efforts have been made to ensure that emergency
alert systems will effectively warn vulnerable populations, including
individuals with hearing, vision, and other functional disabilities,
the elderly, and the poor?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 14. As you may know, my district is home to a very large
Samoan population and I am particularly interested in the support we
provide to American Samoa, as well as the other Pacific islands. Two
years ago, the a National Academy of Public Administration Report
identified ``distance, time, and training'' and as major obstacles to
achieving preparedness goals in a territory determined to be the least
prepared in its Region. What steps are you taking to ensure the Pacific
Islands are receiving the training, funding, and attention they need to
properly prepare for and respond to a disasters?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 15a. As you know, FEMA has relied predominately on
temporary housing units and rental housing to provide disaster housing
alternatives. In American Samoa, there was a lack of rental housing and
it was not possible to provide temporary housing units, FEMA instituted
a construction pilot program, which raised unique concerns regarding
the objective and of FEMA's emergency housing programs.
What efforts has FEMA made to identify disaster housing options to
accommodate a range of emergency situations, including earthquakes,
floods?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 15b. What efforts has FEMA made to identify disaster
housing options for islands or other remote areas?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 16. The purpose of the National Disaster Recovery
Framework (NDRF) is to assist State and local developing a plan for
recovery from a major disaster before a disaster strikes. Since the
final NDRF was released only a few weeks ago, how is FEMA working with
local communities to communicate the need for planning in both the
initial response to a disaster and through the long-term recovery
process?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 17. In the past FEMA has worked with the Corps of
Engineers to contract for the installation and maintenance of temporary
housing units. What steps does FEMA take to ensure that individuals who
install THU's are licensed and certified to install manufactured homes
in accordance with the HUD Manufactured Home Installation Regulations?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 18. In light of drastic cuts to FEMA's budget and the
needs that have arisen from the increasing number of disaster
declarations, what steps is FEMA taking to ensure that 10 Regional
Offices will have the necessary capacity and resources?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 19a. Serious concern has been expressed with FEMA's
recoupment of disaster funds provided to those affected by Hurricanes
Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. While the committee understands that these
steps are mandated by law I also want to ensure that the process
doesn't cause further suffering for those already working hard to put
their lives back together.
What steps is FEMA taking to ensure that those who meet hardship
criteria receive the counsel they need to have their payments forgiven?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 19b. What is FEMA's process when a recoupment letter
cannot be delivered?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 20. The committee remains concerned that the Grants
Directorate does not have the staff and resources to optimally manage
the full suite of DHS grant programs. In light of the dramatic cuts
that have been made to FEMA Grant Programs and that the Grant Program
Directorates Budget is based on the amount of grant dollars, what steps
is FEMA taking to ensure that the directorate is still able to properly
disburse grant funding with a much smaller staff?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 21a. On October 7, 2011 FEMA released the first draft of
the National Preparedness Goal, which describes the core capabilities
that States and locals must develop and sustain in order to prevent,
protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from numerous
threats. But States, locals, and first responders have stated that the
cuts to preparedness grant programs have severely hindered their
ability to maintain the necessary security and resilience posture.
How will FEMA assess how cuts to preparedness grants will affect
State and locals ability to build and sustain the core capabilities
needed to protect the Nation?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 21b. What comments have been received from States and
urban areas concerned about the erosion of capabilities?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 21c. If so, how will this affect the Nation's ability to
respond to man-made and natural disasters?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 22. Fighter fighters play an important role in responding
to numerous emergencies and leading of the joint response efforts
through the use of National Incident Management System. Unfortunately,
funding for fire fighters are being drastically cut across the country.
Based on fire-fighters current capabilities, how will continued cuts
erode our preparedness to responding to natural disasters such as
hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 23. FEMA has assumed great responsibility for managing
several grant programs. It could be argued that FEMA's grant management
duties could take focus away from more important preparedness,
mitigation, response, and recovery duties and would be better managed
at DHS headquarters. What is FEMA's opinion of the assessment that
grant management duties should be done at DHS headquarters instead of
FEMA?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 24. PKEMRA requires the administrator to perform periodic
National level exercises that ``evaluate the capability of Federal,
State, local, and Tribal governments to detect, disrupt, and prevent
threatened or actual catastrophic acts of terrorism, especially those
involving weapons of mass destruction.'' In recent years the National
Level Exercises (NLE) have covered devastating hurricanes along our
Southern Border and a catastrophic earthquake along the New Madrid
Seismic Zone. Please provide a copy of reports that show the committee
specific examples of lessons learned from these exercises and how FEMA
has altered its response and recovery plans to include these new
developments.
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 25. DHS's Nation-wide Plan Review of emergency operation
plans found that only 10 percent of State and 12 percent of urban area
evacuation planning documents sufficiently address assisting those who
would not be able to evacuate on their own. What technical assistance
is FEMA providing to States and local governments to improve their
plans for mass evacuations, especially assisting those most in need?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 26. Regional offices are continuing their efforts to
staff-up to carry out the authorities delegated to them last year. What
steps are being taken to ensure all of the ten Regions are using
standardized hiring criteria?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 27. This year's severe storms and flooding have tested
many improvements made by PKEMRA to FEMA's ability to manage response
and recovery efforts from multi-State, multi-region events. Please
provide the committee examples of these changes and explain what
efforts, if any FEMA has made to include the private sector in
administering resources to affected areas?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 28. The National Commission on Children and Disasters
conducted a comprehensive study to examine and assess the needs of
children as they relate to preparation for, response to, and recovery
from all hazards including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and
other man-made disasters. Their findings emphasize the need to
distinguish planning that addresses the needs of children from the
larger ``special need,'' ``at risk,'' or ``vulnerable'' population
categories frequently seen in Federal, State, and local disaster
planning documents. What efforts can be taken to enhance the Nation's
ability to meet the needs of children in disasters?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 29. The vast diversity of our Nation requires that
preparedness outreach is inclusive to the needs of culturally diverse
communities. Emergency plans should be developed with an understanding
of communities' distinctive needs, particularly as they relate to race/
culture, immigrant status, language, and literacy. What has FEMA done
to promote outreach in culturally diverse communities and to encourage
State and local emergency management agencies to do the same?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 30. Federal law now requires that State and local
governments with mass evacuation plans incorporate special needs
populations into their plan; however, this requirement does not
necessarily ensure the incorporation of all disadvantaged populations
due to the fact that State and local governments do not share a
consistent definition of special needs. FEMA has begun to utilize the
term ``access and functional needs'' to replace ``special needs''. How
will this new terminology help with ensuring State and locals fully
integrate vulnerable populations into their preparedness plans?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 31. What efforts have been made to coordinate with local
entities, such as local governments, universities, and private
business, in implementing IPAWS?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 32. What will happen in rural area where people do not
have broadband and cannot access internet protocol?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.
Question 33. The FCC requires that EAS messages be delivered in
both audio and visual and the accessible formats are so expensive they
can be inaccessible and seen as unnecessary to most of these citizens.
What are your plans on alerting these individuals at affordable costs?
Answer. Response was not recieved at the time of publication.