[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 109-128]
APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED FROM
HURRICANE KATRINA: HOW THE
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IS
PREPARING FOR THE UPCOMING
HURRICANE SEASON
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MAY 25, 2006
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TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey, Chairman
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri ADAM SMITH, Washington
JOE WILSON, South Carolina MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado RICK LARSEN, Washington
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada JIM MARSHALL, Georgia
JEFF MILLER, Florida CYNTHIA McKINNEY, Georgia
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
Roger Zakheim, Counsel
Bill Natter, Professional Staff Member
Brian Anderson, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2006
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, May 25, 2006, Applying Lessons Learned from Hurricane
Katrina: How the Department of Defense is Preparing for the
Upcoming Hurricane Season...................................... 1
Appendix:
Thursday, May 25, 2006........................................... 41
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2006
APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED FROM HURRICANE KATRINA: HOW THE DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE IS PREPARING FOR THE UPCOMING HURRICANE SEASON
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Saxton, Jim, a Representative from New Jersey, Chairman,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee 1
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Terrorism,
Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee........... 2
WITNESSES
Blum, Lt. Gen. H. Steven, Chief, National Guard Bureau, U.S. Army 5
Bowen, Maj. Gen. C. Mark, the Adjutant General of Alabama........ 12
Burnett, Maj. Gen. Douglas, the Adjutant General of Florida...... 9
McHale, Hon. Paul, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland
Defense........................................................ 3
Rowe, Maj. Gen. Richard J., Jr., Director of Operations, United
States Northern Command, U.S. Army............................. 7
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Blum, Lt. Gen. H. Steven..................................... 58
Bowen, Maj. Gen. C. Mark..................................... 92
Burnett, Maj. Gen. Douglas................................... 76
Landreneau, Maj. Gen. Bennett C., Adjutant General of
Louisiana.................................................. 97
McHale, Hon. Paul............................................ 45
Pickup, Sharon, Director Defense Capabilities and Management,
U.S. Government Accountability Office...................... 108
Rowe, Maj. Gen. Richard J., Jr............................... 69
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Questions and Answers Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Questions submitted.]
APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED FROM HURRICANE KATRINA: HOW THE DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE IS PREPARING FOR THE UPCOMING HURRICANE SEASON
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities
Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Thursday, May 25, 2006.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m. in room
2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Saxton (chairman
of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
JERSEY, CHAIRMAN, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Saxton. Good morning.
The Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and
Capabilities meets this morning to discuss how the Department
of Defense is preparing for the upcoming hurricane season. As
Hurricane Katrina demonstrated last year, when there is a
catastrophic disaster, the military will be called upon to aid
in the response.
During Katrina, the military, and the National Guard in
particular, shouldered this responsibility and completed its
mission with valor.
There is always room for improvement, however. This hearing
will investigate how the Department of Defense has incorporated
lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina as it plans and prepares
for the upcoming hurricane season. In the weeks and months
following Hurricane Katrina, the Federal response to the
disaster was scrutinized and critiqued.
The Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the
Preparation For the Response to Hurricane Katrina, the
Government Accountability Office and the White House have all
issued reports reviewing the Federal response to the hurricane,
and the military response in particular.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how they
are responding to the findings and recommendations of these
reports. It is important to note that the military mission in
responding to domestic catastrophes is primarily a support
mission. Other agencies are in the lead.
As a result the military ability to complete its mission
rests on the level of coordination between the Department of
Defense, the National Guard, Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the
Department of Homeland Security, and State and local entities
as well. In many ways, mission success will be determined by
the level and quality of interagency coordination.
I encourage the witnesses on both panels to address this
issue during the testimony.
Unfortunately, the planning, training and exercising for
hurricane response operations are not a theoretical matter.
Just this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration predicted for this year 13 to 16 named storms
with 8 to 10 becoming hurricanes of which 6 could become major
hurricanes, Category 3 strength or higher.
While I hope this hurricane season passes without any
Category 3 hurricanes or higher, our military in coordination
with Federal, State and local entities must be prepared for the
worst.
It is also important to keep in mind that military
preparedness to deal with catastrophic events is important for
reasons beyond hurricanes. While Hurricane Katrina demonstrated
the great challenges our leaders face when implementing an
emergency response plan, we have to remember that in the case
of Katrina we had three days warning. In the case of a
terrorist attack, we will have not have the luxury of any
warning.
The military's mission to provide support for civil
authorities applies to manmade disasters as well as natural
disasters. As chairman of this subcommittee, I am constantly
reminded that al Qaeda and its affiliates actively seek to
carry out a catastrophic event on our soil. This threat is
another reason where why the military capabilities to respond
to catastrophes is a matter of great importance. Hurricane
Katrina demonstrated the criticality of getting right our
response to disasters.
To me, the importance of this matter is simple. The more we
perfect our response capability, the more lives will be saved.
With us this morning are the Honorable Paul McHale, a great
friend, and we are glad to see him back again for the second
day in a row, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland
Security.
Lieutenant General Steve Blum, also with us for the second
day in a row, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and Major
General Richard Rowe, U.S. NORTHCOM. Thank you for being here
again today, General.
Major General C. Mark Bowen, the Adjutant General of the
State of Alabama and Major General Douglas Burnett, the
Adjutant General for the State of Florida.
We welcome you and look forward to your testimony.
After consultation with the minority, I now ask unanimous
consent for Mr. Taylor to sit as part of this panel. Welcome,
my friend.
Before we begin I want to recognize Adam Smith for any
remarks he may have as today's ranking member.
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that.
Mostly I just want to agree with everything you said. I think
you outlined it very well. And the thing that I am most
interested in is the coordination aspect of it. We obviously
haven't had an event like this in the Pacific Northwest, but I
have been in many, many meetings with the energy management
folks and all the different layers, city county, Federal, and I
think the big issue everybody is interested in is how do we
coordinate when an event like this happens, how did we very,
very quickly figure out who is in charge and what the hierarchy
is, because I think there are a great many experiences that
time is lost, so sort of looking around saying, well, we have
all got a role to play but who is organizing it? And certainly,
I think our experience with the hurricanes in the South was
that the Department of Defense (DOD), once they got on the
scene, did a better job than anybody else.
So I think you probably have a lot to offer in terms of
that coordination. I am curious to hear about that.
With that, I yield any additional time I have to Mr.
Taylor, who is joining us, who I know has very specific
concerns in this area, if you had anything to say.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. With that, we will begin
with Secretary McHale. We look forward to your testimony, Mr.
Secretary.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL MCHALE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE
Secretary McHale. Good morning, Chairman Saxton,
Congressman Smith, distinguished members of the subcommittee.
Thank you for inviting my colleagues and me to address the
progress we have made in preparing for the 2006 hurricane
season.
Mr. Chairman, I have submitted my formal statement for the
record and in the interests of time and to maximize the
opportunity for questions, I will give you, if I may, an
abbreviated summary of that formal statement.
Mr. Saxton. Without objection, thank you.
Secretary McHale. Hurricane Katrina, as noted, Mr.
Chairman, was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S.
history in terms of persons displaced, businesses disrupted,
commerce effected and a projected aggregate economic loss.
In response to the massive devastation caused by the storm,
the Department of Defense's deployment of military resources in
support of civil authorities after Hurricane Katrina exceeded
in speed and size any other domestic disaster relief mission in
the history of the United States.
As President Bush said on April 27, 2006, in New Orleans,
one of the things we are working on is to make sure we have
learned the lessons from Katrina. We have learned lessons at
the Federal level, the State level and the local level, and now
we are working closely together in preparation for the upcoming
hurricane season, end of quote, echoing in many ways
Representative Smith's comments, that coordination is the key
to an effective response during the 2006 hurricane season.
Mindful of the lessons learned during Hurricane Katrina,
the Department of Defense has taken deliberate actions to
prepare for the 2006 hurricane season.
By June first, 2006, just a few days from now, the
Department of Defense will have assigned a defense coordinating
officer, a DCO, to each of the 10 Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) regional offices. DOD is giving priority to
hurricane prone regions. Region IV, that is Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Tennessee, and Region VI, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, and Texas.
Both of these FEMA regions will have a fully staffed DCO
and a five-member defense coordinating element complement by
June first, 2006. The DCO and Defense Coordinating Element
(DCE) will have the capability to deploy in support of the
interagency joint field office.
Representative Smith, again, that is where the coordination
that you talked about takes place and in the questioning we
would welcome the opportunity to talk about the new paradigm in
place to ensure that at the joint field office, all of the
participating response elements, to include our Department,
have been fully integrated in that combined effort.
In coordination with the Department of Homeland Security,
FEMA and Department of Transportation, DOD has developed what
we call 18 prescripted requests for assistance to expedite the
provision of DOD support to civil authorities. These 18
prescripted, basically boilerplate, RFAs, requests for
assistance, address DOD support for transportation to include
helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, communications, public works
and engineering, damage assessment, mass care, resource
support, to include installations, mobilization centers and
ground field distribution, public health and medical services,
to include helicopter Medevac and temporary medical facilities.
In short, those prescripted RFAs drawn from the experience
of Hurricane Katrina provide a template which when completed
will automatically trigger the types of support that I have
just described. We don't want to be writing these RFAs in the
middle of a crisis when we can anticipate the mission
requirement and have that draft largely complete before the
crisis ever occurs.
March 31st, 2006, FEMA and the Defense Logistics Agency
(DLA) signed an interagency agreement stating that DLA will
provide logistic support to FEMA. DLA has been working with
FEMA to prepare and plan for logistical support during all
phases of a response.
FEMA has provided $70 million to DLA to procure, store,
rotate and provide supplies, including meals ready to eat
(MREs), commercial meal alternatives, health and comfort kits,
tents, generators, fuels, medical supplies, construction items,
and other equipment. DOD has been participating in weekly
interagency meetings with the Department of Homeland Security,
the Department of Transportation, the Department of Justice,
the Department of Health and Human Services, and other
departments and agencies to coordinate Federal planning and
preparations for the 2006 hurricane season.
Secretary of Defense is currently reviewing U.S. Northern
Command's revised contingency plan 2501 for defense support to
civil authorities.
DOD has published a defense support to civil authorities
standing execute order that authorizes the commanders of the
United States NORTHCOM, United States Pacific Command
(USPACOM), and the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM)
to prepare DOD assets in order to be ready to deploy in support
of civil authorities in response to natural disasters. Some of
the areas covered by the executive order would include senior
officers for command, control and coordination, identification
of DOD installations as staging areas, helicopters for search
and rescue, support for the movement of special needs patients,
communications teams, logistical specialists for the
establishment of food, water, and medical supply distribution
points.
In April, 2006, the Department of Defense in coordination
with the Department of Health and Human Services developed the
DOD sections of the medical services concept plan again for the
2006 hurricane season. In that regard potential DOD support
would include surgical support augmentation, including general
surgeons, anesthesiologists, operating room nurses, and
surgical support personnel.
DOD is supporting FEMA efforts to augment communications
capabilities in the gulf coast region.
Interoperability of communications proved to be one of the
major challenges in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina. Accordingly, before the hurricane season this year DOD
will participate in four FEMA communications exercises to
validate interoperability among Federal, State and local
emergency management officials.
In addition, DOD in conjunction with FEMA has developed
prescripted requests for assistance providing deployable
communications options that can be called upon in the case of
disaster.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the DOD response to Hurricane
Katrina was the largest, fastest, civil support mission in the
history of the United States. Nonetheless, as noted by the
chairman, any military mission includes a serious after action
review, and with an unflinching eye, we have been our own worst
critics in terms of where we could have performed better last
year. We have not only learned the lessons of Hurricane
Katrina, we have acted upon them.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to your questions upon the
conclusion of the opening statements by my colleagues.
[The prepared statement of Secretary McHale can be found in
the Appendix on page 45.]
Mr. Saxton. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for the very
thorough statement. We appreciate it. And General Blum.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. H. STEVEN BLUM, CHIEF, NATIONAL GUARD
BUREAU, U.S. ARMY
General Blum. Chairman Saxton and distinguished members of
the committee, it is our honor and privilege to be here today
to talk about the National Guard and the actions taken since
Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and get ready for the
current season, which is upon us in the next few weeks.
National Guard response has been described as the fastest
and largest in the U.S. history, but that does not mean that we
are ready for this hurricane season without improving what is
already an outstanding record of accomplishment. For the last
9-1/2 months we have been working feverishly with interagency,
intergovernmental partners and our active duty partners to
ensure that we have the capabilities and equipment that we did
not have last year so that our response this year will be even
more effective than what you saw last year.
There are two things that are very key to this, and the
Congress has been very, very instrumental in providing the
resources to make those capabilities possible.
I came before this committee about 8 months ago now and
said that we needed $1.3 billion for communications equipment
and for tactical vehicles, high water vehicles, so our mobility
and communications and command and control could be better
utilized, particularly in an area that would lose all its
infrastructure, electrical grid and normal means of
communication, and because of the generosity of the Congress we
have spent $900 million on improving that capability for
interoperable communications.
Last year I had three deployable satellite communications
systems that could stand up and operate independently, very few
satellite phones, as Congressman Taylor knows. This year we had
39 of those deployable forward positioned command and control
satellite Field Emission Display (FED) systems that work off
their own power, and beyond that we have now a system that will
integrate not only the Department of Defense communications so
that the National Guard can talk to the Army, Air Force, Navy
and the Marine Corps that may be operating in the area, but we
also have systems integrating equipment that allows us, more
importantly, to talk to the civilian first responders on the
800 megahertz system, the 900 megahertz system, Ultra High
Frequency (UHF), Very High Frequency (VHF), land line radios,
cell phones or any other known communication architecture that
exists in the United States of America. We have mapped that
architecture out. We know what exists normally in those States
and the territories, and we have now programmed our
communications to be able to interoperate with the civilian
first responders as well as the military responders that would
show up on the scene.
Beyond that, any good team gets good with practice or
better with practice. Nobody goes to the Super Bowl without a
huddle and nobody goes there without scrimmaging and lots and
lots of hard work. That is what we have been doing for the last
9-1/2 months.
Secretary McHale adequately described what we have done.
There are two that I want to highlight. We have participated in
all of those with U.S. Northern Command, the Department of
Defense, Department of Homeland Security, FEMA itself, to make
sure that we are seamless. When we are called to support the
lead Federal agency, we don't want to be exchanging business
cards on the day of the hurricane. We want to make sure that we
know who the DCO the DCE and important players are down there,
and that they know our capabilities and our limitations so that
Northern command can lean forward to fill the gaps that the
Guard may not be able to provide.
For instance, we don't have any gray hull ships and we
don't walk on water. So we are going to need the Navy and the
Coast Guard and rely on them very heavily.
Two important exercises were the ones that we conducted in
April in South Carolina where we had the hurricane States
represented from the Mid-Atlantic States. I am going today to
New England because this hurricane, the hurricane season is
upon us. Where it is going to hit, no one knows. Where it will
make landfall, nobody knows.
But we are being told this year we may see more activity on
the Atlantic Coast, even as far as north as New England, and so
I am going to New England to make sure that they are not
complacent in New England in their preparation for the
hurricanes and if they have the same vigor and interest and are
prepared for hurricane season as the Southeast does and the
gulf coast has put great attention to this.
The exercises conducted in the southeastern part and the
Middle Atlantic States and, in particular, we just conducted as
recently as last week an extensive look at Louisiana, Alabama,
Mississippi's hurricane preparation. We conducted this in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana and we did this with the interagency partners,
the intergovernmental partners and our DOD partners,
specifically U.S. Northern Command, again every one of these
all along the way.
Last year, the visibility or seam that some of you may have
perceived between the National Guard and the Department of
Defense, that seam has been closed and you will not see a seam
this year.
As General Rowe knows, he has perfect visibility on what we
are doing at all times and I have perfect visibility knowing
what NORTHCOM is anticipating to come in and support the
National Guard when it is required.
I think this ARDENT SENTRY exercise that we just conducted
was deliberately designed. It was a U.S. Northern Command
exercise, was two weeks long in length. Rich? I will leave that
to him to talk to. But I can tell you the big outcome of that
is that the relationship between the National Guard and
NORTHCOM is absolutely critical when you are talking about
homeland defense, support of the homeland security, and I think
that we have that relationship about as solid as it has ever
been and we will make it more solid each and every day. It is
that important.
So by applying the lessons learned learn that you
identified and the very tough scrutiny that everybody's
response to hurricane Katrina Wilma and Rita really underwent,
we have taken those lessons very seriously. We have taken those
criticisms not personally, we have taken them professionally,
and we are trying to shorten the list so that if we respond to
hurricanes this year, that list will even be shorter the next
time we are taken to task.
I anxiously await your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Blum can be found in the
Appendix on page 58.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, General Blum. General
Rowe.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. RICHARD J. ROWE, JR., DIRECTOR OF
OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES NORTHERN COMMAND, U.S. ARMY
General Rowe. Chairman Saxton, Congressman Smith, members
of the subcommittee, it is an honor to be here to represent
Admiral Keating today and the men and women of U.S. Northern
Command.
I am privileged to be part of a total force team, military,
active and reserve, and to get to the extent of the
partnership. During Secretary Chertoff's visits to the
Governors recently, I have had the honor of sitting next to
General Burnett and General Bowen in both Florida and Alabama
as part of that teaming effort that we are trying to describe.
Day to day, our headquarters is focused on deterring,
preventing and defeating attacks against our homeland. We also
stand ready to assist primary agencies in responding quickly to
man-made and natural disasters when directed by the President
or Secretary of Defense.
We maintain situational awareness through our NORAD/
NORTHCOM command center, into which in the past year we have
embedded a specific watch desk manned by highly qualified
officers and noncommissioned officers that provides us direct
insight into the National Guard deployments and the operations
within the various States. We are networked with our
subordinate commands and other government agencies and are
prepared to bring all necessary capabilities to bear.
In the past year, both the Department of the Army and the
Department of the Air Force have dedicated headquarters as
component commands for U.S. Northern Command and today, 5th
Army in San Antonio and 1st Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base
in Florida are assigned those missions directly responsive to
the U.S. Northern Command. That is different than last year.
We support civilian authorities by providing specialized
skills and assets to save lives, reduce suffering and restore
infrastructure in the wake of catastrophic events. In 2005, we
supported the Department of Homeland Security in responding to
four hurricanes, including the unprecedented response to
Hurricane Katrina.
We have taken significant steps to improve our response
capabilities based on the lessons learned and findings in the
House, Senate and White House reports on Hurricane Katrina, as
well as our own very detailed internal review.
Secretary McHale highlighted many of those actions. I will
just list the names: The joint staff standing execution order
for defense support of civilian authorities to support the
operational planning for the hurricane season; the integration
of full time defense coordinating officers and staffs to each
Federal Emergency Management Agency region; the development of
and actual authorship of the language for the prescripted
requests for assistance for the Federal Emergency Management
Agency.
Notable events include a hurricane preparation conference
in which Admiral Keating had the distinct privilege of hosting
10 adjutants general from the gulf coast region as well as the
U.S. Northern Command senior leadership in February for fairly
extensive discussions on what we learned from 2005 and how we
wanted to approach 2006.
Our information management mobile training teams have
deployed across the country to demonstrate and instruct the use
of collaborative tools, and information sharing processes to
our Department of Defense and interagency partners.
To improve our communication capabilities, U.S. Northern
Command has purchased, in conjunction with the Department of
Homeland Security, cellular network packages that include over
100 cell phones, 40 laptop computers, a satellite terminal and
radio bridging. We also procured 300 satellite phones to assist
in distribution for first responders in a disaster when
directed.
In addition, we established a link into the homeland
security information network picture in exchange liaison
offices with the Department of Homeland Security, a national
communication system, National Guard Bureau and the FEMA and
joint field offices.
We are indeed much more prepared today to respond to a
catastrophic hurricane than we were just a few short months
ago. In the absolute worst case scenario, we will respond. We
will respond with every bit of effort that we can to support
our fellow Americans. We will do this as fast as possible. We
will give it every bit of effort needed, and our success will
be a result of the consideration that we have had and the hard
work as a team.
We are working this as hard as we know how, at the same
time maintaining a balanced approached to look at the defense
requirements of our area of responsibility.
Gentlemen, I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Rowe can be found in the
Appendix on page 69.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, General Rowe. Before we
move to General Bowen and General Burnett, let me just say, I
probably should have introduced General Blum this way, never
before, at least in the 22 years that I have been here, have we
depended on the National Guard to the extent that we do today.
Tens of thousands of National Guardsmen are deployed overseas.
We have just initiated a new program for the National Guard on
the southwest border, and we are here today to discuss the
important role the National Guard plays in response to
hurricanes and other natural disasters here in the homeland.
So we are very fortunate today to have leaders like General
Bowen and General Burnett with us today to help us understand
the role the Guard plays in this homeland security role.
Thank you for being with us here today and we will begin
with Major General Burnett.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. DOUGLAS BURNETT, THE ADJUTANT GENERAL OF
FLORIDA
General Burnett. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Saxton,
Mr. Meehan, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the
invitation to appear before your committee today. I know you
are deeply committed to national security and our Nation's
response to domestic threats, including natural disasters. For
me personally it is an extreme honor to be present before
Members of Congress who represent the people of this Nation. I
know of no higher honor for a military leader than to appear
before the people.
As the Adjutant General of Florida, I speak on behalf of
nearly 12,000 soldiers and airmen of the Florida National
Guard. I have submitted my full statement to the committee,
which I ask be made part of the hearing record. I would like to
now give a brief opening statement.
My remarks this morning focus on three topics, Florida
emergency response systems, our preparation for this hurricane
season, and some thoughts for the future.
My intent is to highlight improvements we have made since
the 2004 and 2005 hurricane season and outline Florida's
comprehensive culture of preparedness. The Florida system of
the National Guard is part of the statewide emergency
management team led by Governor Jeb Bush and the State
coordinating officer, Director Craig Fugate. These are strong,
experienced leaders, each with a well-earned national
reputation in emergency response operations. The Governor
serves as the State incident commander. In short, Governor Jeb
Bush leads the cavalry in Florida. A Federal coordinating
officer positioned in the State emergency operation center
works closely with our State coordinating officer to ensure the
ongoing flow of supplies, resources and assistance. Our unified
response is based on a comprehensive emergency management plan
with extensive preparations which take place throughout the
year.
The State of Florida's funding and preparation for domestic
crises are significant and unparalleled. During this past
legislative session, Florida's legislature strongly supported
and fully funded Governor Bush's $565 million for disaster
response. In fact, the number really is closer to $700 million
of State funds. More than $97 million of these funds will be
allocated to hurricane preparedness supplies, public education,
and for strengthening home structures. 154 million was
committed to emergency planning for special needs shelters for
our most vulnerable, evacuation planning and county emergency
operation centers. And, yes, Florida has accommodations for
pets in our shelters.
Florida National Guard is the Governor's first military
responder, and by statute I serve as its principal military
adviser. We prepare for homeland security and domestic security
operations with the same intensity as we prepare to conduct
combat operations, which we have been involved in in the last
five years.
During the early stages of a significant domestic crisis we
position a command team with the Governor in Tallahassee. The
Adjutant General then appoints a joint task force commander to
provide command and control over military forces in support of
relief operations, while at the same time our joint force
headquarters in St. Augustine establishes a common operating
picture of the impacted areas and maintains constant
communications with the National Guard Bureau, the State
Emergency Operations Center, 5th Army and U.S. Northern
Command.
Good communications builds trust, and trust builds speed,
and speed is the essence of what we do.
National Guard liaison teams join each of Florida's 67
counties in their emergency operation center. They are well
trained and they serve as a liaison to elected leadership. Our
goal is to assist State and local agencies in reestablishing
their governing responsibilities, while being sensitive to not
getting out in front of elected leadership, but in support of,
which is the way it should work in a democracy.
As part of Florida's comprehensive response team, the
Florida National Guard remains in the affected area until local
elected leadership, agencies and contractors are functioning
and can meet the needs of our citizens. Our Florida National
Guard leadership team represents a highly experienced team,
each having served in more than ten State activations for
hurricane duty. In the last two years alone, they were all
major teams.
I was actually on the ground as an airman in 1964 in our
hurricane season in Mississippi as a lieutenant during Camille
and that hurricane season, 1969, and for the last two years.
Let me turn to current assessment. In 2005, responders to
devastation of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Dennis and Wilma on
Florida. We also deployed assistance or advisory teams to both
Louisiana and Mississippi. We learned much from these
experiences. I think we all did.
Based on Louisiana-Mississippi lessons learned, we adjusted
our plans and refined procedures to improve the ability to
respond with large-scale forces to storms of serious orders of
magnitude.
Along with our southeastern State partners we have
revalidated our emergency management assistance compacts. Mr.
Chairman, EMAC is a very workable system. It is effective. It
saves money, and it relieves the active military certainly in a
time of combat operations overseas.
EMAC ensures quick and effective movement of National Guard
forces and State employees across State lines, and I cannot say
enough about EMAC. Some military planners have accused me of
liking this legacy system. Well, I like legacy systems such as
the Constitution and having the military in support of civilian
leadership and having elected leaders charged with the response
efforts.
We have also conducted numerous training exercises. In fact
when I left for Washington yesterday Governor Bush, his agency
heads and more than 170 State emergency operations staff
reloaded their entire staff to Camp Blanding from Tallahassee
to show that we could reconstitute government and we could move
from Tallahassee and never miss a lick in responding to the
needs of our citizens.
And by the way, this exercise was a Category 4 hurricane
the size of Katrina hitting Tampa and at the same time
including two terrorist bombings in our cities.
We have more than 8,000 soldiers and airmen currently
available for disaster response, and we have the equipment as
well. We thank Secretary of Defense. We thank the Congress and
General Blum for resetting National Guard equipment. As you
know, we left a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we understand
that and respect those reasons. We also thank the Congress for
funding the Guard and our needs that General Blum addressed
earlier.
My staff and I met with teams from NORTHCOM, the Department
of Homeland Security, FEMA, 5th Army, and the National Guard
Bureau to ensure we have one common message, one common
response effort. The integration of these forces will lead to
unity of effort in support of the Governor. In short, we
believe we have made the appropriate preparations. And I can't
say enough about the collective capabilities of the National
Guard Bureau. No one could put thousands of soldiers on the
ground as quick as General Blum.
Our final thoughts, Mr. Chairman, we need to improve our
communications capability. As we move from one interoperability
with local first responders, our ability to up channel quickly,
we think we are getting there. Congressman Bill Young funded
significant amounts of money last year, and Florida has
probably five times the capability to communicate in a blinding
storm than we had in the 2004-2005 season.
In summary, let me say the State of Florida and the Florida
National Guard will be ready this season. I know this
subcommittee and Members of Congress will continue to provide
focus and resources on improving our response.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of General Burnett can be found in
the Appendix on page 76.]
Mr. Saxton. Thank you. Thank you very much. We are going to
move now to General Mark Bowen.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. C. MARK BOWEN, THE ADJUTANT GENERAL OF
ALABAMA
General Bowen. Chairman Saxton, Congressman Smith. First,
thank you for your kind words about our soldiers. This is what
it is all about as far as I am concerned, and thank you for
those kind words. They have carried a pretty big load, and they
are doing very well.
It is certainly an honor for me to be here today to testify
before this committee here in Congress, and I want to thank you
for allowing me to be here.
As you know, I appeared early this year before
Representative Tom Davis's Katrina review committee and I
understand the General Accountability Office and many other
groups have issued reports on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but
today I want to present what we have done in Alabama and what
we did right, what we did wrong, what we have done since then,
because as the Adjutant General for the State of Alabama, I
work for Governor Riley. He has taken a very personal interest
in this. So we have made some changes on what we did.
So what we are really talking about is how does the Alabama
National Guard provide the military support to the civil
authorities. Well, you know, the way we look at this thing is
the first thing, first duty we have is we want to get into an
area, we want to alleviate the pain, we want to provide
security, we want to provide comfort, we want to do search and
rescue, and we want to provide distribution of supplies if
needed. So that is what we have to do.
So the first thing we have to do is response time, and that
is what brings me here. Our response was very quick in Alabama.
We start watching that cone, where the hurricane is about 72
hours out, and as it starts approaching the gulf coast and gets
toward Mobile, we get a little bit antsy. At that time is when
we start moving soldiers. So the thing that would help us is an
early declaration, so I can place soldiers and airmen on duty
72 hours prior to landfall.
So that will give us approval of Federal funds, Title 32,
for the pay allowances, operation and maintenance, and this
would further enhance my ability because what I do is I move
soldiers down toward the coast. You know they just don't show
up. They have jobs. They may be on 18 wheelers driving. So I
have to get them a little alert time so I can get them back to
the army, I can load the trucks and equipment, the sand bagging
equipment, whatever I need, and start prepositioning it, the
dozers, the frond-end loaders, the dump trucks off to the side
of the hurricane. Because if I do that, then, wherever the
hurricane hits, then I am able to move in as it comes through.
I don't want my soldiers driving through the front of it. So we
try to come in from the side.
Now the reason I say 72 hours is because you know how the
hurricanes do. They may hit Alabama. They may hit Doug over in
Florida. The good thing about that is I will have a task force
on board that is prepared to go down, and I can turn left or
right. I can go help Doug over in Florida, I can go help Harold
in Mississippi or I can help Bennett over in Louisiana, which
we did all of this last time.
I sent nearly 2,000 to Mississippi, 1,500 to Louisiana. I
sent 100 to Texas and had 1,000 in Mobile, and I sent Doug
about 100 over there. So we know how to do this.
But things we have to do, we have to alert. We have to
mobilize, preposition troops and supplies. So I just need a
little time to do that in.
We have a joint force organization that works very well.
Doug alluded to it. What we have in our task force and I can
bring up one task force, two task forces or three. They have
the capability for security, communication, medical, logistics,
and that is internal and external logistics. When I send a task
force to Mississippi or Louisiana, I send it self-contained. I
want it to have everything it needs for seven to ten hours--
seven to ten days so nobody has to worry about resupplying them
where they are self-contained. And that has worked very well
for us in Mississippi and Louisiana.
Again the Title 32 status I want to emphasize that provides
a lot of the benefits for our soldiers, particularly in areas
of injury, disability, duty related deaths. State active duty
for Alabama, I will be honest with you I hate to pull them up
on State active duty because if I do they have no death
survivor benefits. They have workman's comp and that is all. I
hate to tell you that, but it is the truth. So State active
duty is not an option I like to go with. Title 32 again is the
answer.
We talked about joint communications already. In this task
force that I put together I flew over Mississippi the morning
after the hurricane and the first thing I realized there was
nothing down there. So I put together my task force. I used my
satellite communication out of my Air Guard, and I used my
multiple scriber equipment, MSE equipment out of the Army
because that allowed my Humvees to talk to each other. There is
nothing else down there. The long range satellite gave me the
capability to talk back to Alabama, to talk to General Blum at
National Guard Bureau or to NORTHCOM if it needs to go. That is
how we did it, and we did it well.
So now we are doing some things different. We did not
deploy our civil support team this time with the interoperable
van that we have that makes us talk to everything because I
sent it to Mississippi. But I now have, the State of Alabama
has picked up more of those vans, like Doug was talking about,
so now then we will have those also available.
One of the things I do, I believe in putting liaison
officers to each one of the headquarters. I send them to the
Alabama emergency management agency, their emergency operations
center (EOC). I also send them to the counties that are
affected and I receive them from the State Emergency Management
Agency (EMA) or National Guard Bureau or from NORTHCOM. We just
believe it works well if they got situational awareness and
knows exactly what is going on in Alabama because that provides
better response for our people here.
One of the other things I do that we had not thought about
the last time we did it is sundry packages. You think that is
not important, but when you put a soldier out there working 18-
20 hours in water up to his knees in the filthy conditions, we
were able to contract porta potties from Birmingham, Alabama
because there is not any down there, also shower units. We send
sundry packages that had everything from Gatorade to post
exchange items and personal because these soldiers are working
hard and they are in miserable conditions, I will tell you. One
of the soldiers told me, he apologized, he said, sir, I lost a
magazine of ammunition. I said, well, how did that happen, son?
He said, well, I was in New Orleans, we were doing search and
rescue, and it fell out while I was rescuing somebody off a
house and, sir, I wasn't getting in that water. And I
understood. We will write that one off. But it is very
miserable conditions they work in over there is what I am
trying to get across to you. It is very important we take care
of those soldiers.
Medical package, I think a medical package command of Army
and Air also, and I do that because I have got a few more docs
and Physicians Assistant (PAs) in the Air than I do the Army,
but the Army had the medication. And I do that to take care of
my soldiers. I will let the civilian authorities and the other
agencies come in and take care of the civilian population. But
I have to have medical help there for my soldiers. We did
deliver a baby while we were down there. We will do things if
we have to. I tell them if it has a bone sticking out and it is
bleeding, we will take care of it. But we are not there really
to take care of the civilian population.
Another thing we learned worked very well, I have topo
units, topographical units that makes maps. We got to
Mississippi and there were no street signs and no maps,
Shreveport same way, and New Orleans.
So we sent a topo unit that made maps for us right there.
They became the most hot commodity down there besides the water
and ice. Everybody needed a map because you know when you get
in there you can tell where you are. That worked very well.
So now we have loaded that into our task force. So when I
load that task force, topo unit will be with it. Very critical.
So that is one of those things we learned.
The EMAC General Burnett referred to in a minute, that
works great. It is not broke, let's don't fix it. If Doug calls
me or if General Cross from Mississippi calls me, it is a done
deal, and it works very quickly, very smoothly. But one of the
things we need to remember is that EMAC is not just for Alabama
National Guard. It is also for the Department of
Transportation, Department of Public Safety, Fish and Wildlife,
law enforcement agencies. We sent a lot of law enforcement
agencies into Mississippi, Louisiana. They all worked under the
EMAC system. That works very well. So that one is not broke.
One of the things I do want to do is we have been faxing
and stuff back and forth, and that fax gets a little smudged
after it goes so we are working on, they assured me in Baton
Rouge, to have it where they do that electronically and that
will work much better.
What did I do wrong? I sent college students, pulled them
out of college. Sent them. I needed them. Their unit was called
and they went. But then some of them on college scholarships,
some of them on military scholarships, and the parents got a
little antsy. So after 4, 5 days I sent a bus back over there,
we loaded about 44 of those college students up, brought them
back home. I learned from that. I won't send them next time
unless it gets real tight. They don't want to come home. They
were happy as they could be. But that is one of the things I
learned.
We have to get those public affairs people in there
quicker. We have to tell the Guard's story. We did not do a
good job of that. Now we sent some locally but it went to local
newspapers. And we have been talking that everywhere I have
been. We ought to have sent them in initial forces. We have to
manage it a little better. The public wants to know about the
logistics, about the safety, about the issues, what is going to
happen next? We have to do a better job of that and we will do
that.
Internal planning, just like the rest of them, Alabama
National Guard conducted internal exercise. We called it DRAGON
SLAYER, went to include all agencies. We exercised our joint
operations center headquarters, our standard operating
procedure (SOP). We wanted to validate it, make sure we have
been using it, it works great. The Governor had a table top
exercise that brought all the agencies in. We started 96 hours
out and we went in a big room and everybody had to say 96
hours, 72 hours, 40 hours, what are you doing, what is going
on? We have worked out, we had FEMA, we had NORTHCOM with us.
One of the things that came out of these is we will have a
(PFO), principal Federal officer, there that can make the
decisions on the Federal dollars right there without having to
go through several layers of bureaucracy. That went very, very
well. I think that is done up very good.
We did the same things. Hurricane States have a quarterly
hurricane conference. They meet regularly. And they have
identified the worst case scenario, which is for me a Category
4 or 5 off the middle of Mobile Bay, probably have a 20-foot
storm surge, would drain out pretty quickly, not like New
Orleans. We do have some equipment shortages based on
deployments, units to overseas and Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot
of equipment left. We do have some shortage. I feel confident
that Congress will take care of those issues so we will have
those equipment. I know in Alabama one of the things I am going
to have this next time probably is going to be some shortages
of engineer equipment, fuel haulers always critical, if you
will think what it was last year we really had a fuel shortage
that time. And then aircraft. My first 131st Aviation deployed
right now to Iraq. I won't have the Blackhawks that I had last
year. But I will be calling through EMAC, my sister States
here, and say, hey, I need a little coverage this time.
Federal coordination, as I say, we sponsored all that, we
have done all those kind of things. We had a commander summit
here in Alabama made up of Maxwell-Gunter, Redstone, all the
active, and we have--altogether we have a list and the
preference was for us to identify all the capabilities of all
them kind. And they are ready.
I just got back from a--General Rowe referred to it--I
asked the general conference, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the focus
of the hurricane, the conference was hurricane preparedness.
They were talking about EMAC agreements. We talked about
National Guard Bureau's role. We talked about public affairs. I
am very confident in the planning that has happened in the
local and State, national levels for 2006.
One of the areas that we haven't talked about is what we
call RSOI, reception, staging and onward integration. One of
this things I found in Katrina and Rita we had a lot of States,
we moved a lot of soldiers down there. A lot of them drove
through Alabama, and they wanted to spend the night in Alabama,
and they wanted me to refuel them. Fuel was short. We got fuel
everywhere we could get it. We had to take care of them. We had
to house them. It was very intensive. We used all our
maintenance shops, we used all our air bases and all our armies
taking care of these coming through. I have assigned that to
the 167th Theater Sustainment Command. They will have that
mission this time we are prepared.
We also built some container express (CONEX) containers.
Each CONEX container will handle about 500 soldiers and in that
CONEX we have MREs, we have water, chain saws, gloves, goggles,
reflective vests, communication packet radios, chem lights
access, everything you need. So if I am going to send a task
force of 500, 1,000, 1,500 we just load them on the trailer and
here they go.
I talked about Civil Support Teams (CST) vans. We know
that. I talked about the lack of aviation. I am going to have
the Memorandum of Understanding between States, the law
enforcement, the rules of engagement. They are working to get
that sort of standardized, so it is not a real problem.
Another area you wouldn't think about was the disengagement
criteria, and that is that it is hard to get out of there. When
you get in there, the public people want you. And so we have to
have disengagement criteria and we established that early on.
One of the things we look at, is the Wal-Mart open? If they
are open, it is time for us to go home. And we engage with them
early on because we are here, but we are going to leave early.
Again let me remind you, we do need some equipment. We need
to practice. We need Title 32. That is the critical things we
need right here. Alabama furnished about 6,000 soldiers this
last time, and I am confident in our ability to respond this
next time, and again I certainly appreciate you having me come
here, and thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Bowen can be found in
the Appendix on page 92.]
Mr. Saxton. General Bowen, thank you very much and, General
Burnett, thank you for being here with us today.
As I said at the outset, we are dependent on the Guard
today more than any time in recent history and so we thank you
for the leadership roles that you play.
Mr. LoBiondo and I both represent coastal districts in New
Jersey, and the last time that I recall a direct hit, a serious
hit from a hurricane was 1962. And in your case, every fall or
every summer and fall when the hurricane season starts, you
have to be sitting there thinking, which one of us is it going
to hit? So we appreciate your situation, and your experience
and the wisdom that you bring to today's discussion is very
much appreciated. We are going to go first for questions to Mr.
Smith. And go ahead, sir.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for
the testimony. It was very informative and appreciate the work
that you do.
A couple of areas I want to hit on. One, as I mentioned,
coordination, I guess the aspect of it I am most interested in
is coordinating with the locals, the local communities, and
most specifically, you have to sort of deal with the
executives, whether it is a governor or mayor, county
executive. And all the emergency preparation that is going on
on the Federal level and even on the State level, you know it
is primarily a lot of career people who are involved in that.
And by and large I think they do an outstanding job. It is what
they do. They are used to talking to each other. They get to
know who is who and are ready to go. But then when the disaster
hits, well, you have to deal with a bunch of politicians, and
local politicians, who you know have been running a whole bunch
of different issues.
And I think one of the things we tried to do in my State
and that General Lowenberg, who is our Adjutant General in that
State, has really worked very, very hard. Every time a mayor
gets elected, every time a county executive gets elected, they
bring them in and say, hey, if something happens in your
county, we are set up ready to go. You are the guy who has to
make the decision. Are you ready to that?
I am curious in your plans on how you are doing, how you
coordinate, specifically with those local officials, and on the
Governor level, may work very closely with National Guard and
all that. It is more on that local level I am interested in.
Mr. McHale and then General, if you will.
Secretary McHale. Congressman, what I will do is just give
a brief introduction and then turn to others who at the
operational level have been integrating their planning and
deployable capabilities with State and local officials. One of
the real differences this year compared to last year is last
year a Principal Federal Official under the National Response
Plan wasn't named until we were well into the crisis. If I
recall correctly, the hurricane came ashore on August 29th and
it wasn't until August 30th that we had a Principal Federal
Official named to take charge of the coordination of the
Federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
By contrast this year a Principal Federal Official has
already been selected. His name is Gil Jamieson. He has been
physically located--I am focusing now on Louisiana. He has been
physically located in Louisiana. Although I don't know his
schedule precisely, I would estimate for about two months. He
was named about three or four months ago. He has been on the
ground communicating daily with State and local officials to
ensure that when we in the Department of Defense support the
Department of Homeland Security and FEMA in the integration of
Federal response capabilities of the type that we have all been
describing during the last hour, that that capability in turn
is properly coordinated with State and local officials.
Our engagement with State and local officials exists in two
ways. At the policy level we do it through the Principal
Federal Official, Mr. Jamieson, and our contact with him has
been very close and very detailed. He knows exactly what
capabilities DOD can deliver.
And then at the operational and tactical level, General
Rowe, who is seated on my left, General Blum, seated to my
right, use Title 10 forces and Title 32 forces to integrate
with State and local authorities.
And I would like to turn to them to bring it down a couple
of rungs to talk about how they operationally have been
engaging with their Louisiana counterparts.
General Rowe. In Louisiana we have a full-time planning
team collocated with the Federal coordinating officer planning
team, headed by Lee Foresman, who works for Mr. Jamieson. It is
headed by a Colonel. It includes representatives from Northern
Command, but also from United States Transportation Command,
Joint Readiness Medical Planner, and they are working with the
State officials, extraordinarily good relationship with the
National Guard State Headquarters.
I took a debriefing this week from one of our planners, and
the officers in charge down there was the Colonel, who remained
in touch in New Orleans for almost 60 days and he has a very,
very good relationship with Terry Ebert, who is the City
Emergency Manager in New Orleans. They are working very hard to
understand the local and the State plans.
I think, as has been highlighted, there have been
challenges with sheltering, there are challenges with the
details of the transportation plan. Until you know where you
are going to take someone to be sheltered, it is hard to build
your transportation plan. We are very actively working the
special needs population. One solution is to throw the hands up
and say U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), come with big
airplanes and help us. The problem with that is if you wait
until you throw your hands up, big airplanes can't come in and
fly into the airstrips, and so we are really working the
details of that to understand, very good relationships.
Backing out from Louisiana, there are currently a review
led by the Department of Homeland Security, but with the strong
Department of Defense effort to look at 131 State and local,
large local regional plans associated with overall evacuation,
tries directly to----
Mr. Smith. If I may, General, one more thing I have to ask
on behalf of Mr. Taylor before I go, and General Bowen, you
looked like you have something specifically you want to say. If
you do that I quickly and I will ask Mr. Taylor's question
quickly and move on.
General Bowen. Very quickly, I want to take it to a little
bit lower level. The way I tell my people to respond to those
mayors who come out, who are elected and the police chief, they
are in charge. We are there to support them from below. They
may have two deputies in a whole county and 150 MPs. But we
work for them.
Mr. Smith. Absolutely and sometimes that is the problem,
because you are trained and you are experienced, and they are
like, this didn't come up in the campaign.
So are you working, are you working with them now as they
come?
General Bowen. Yes, sir. We had all the sheriffs in the
hurricane counties that came to Montgomery for the hurricane.
We know them very well. We work with them daily and on other
issues. It is not a problem.
Mr. Smith. That is what really needs to happen. You never
know--obviously I mentioned the campaign. In Louisiana if you
are running for mayor of anywhere it is a big issue. But it
wasn't two years ago.
So the question Mr. Taylor was interested in, specifically
someone had mentioned the problem with fuel and he was
wondering if there had been plans set in place on two fronts,
one, if we are talking, primarily talking about coastal areas,
if you are talking about hurricanes to barge in fuel, take
advantage of--Mr. Taylor had mentioned during the Katrina thing
some hospital ships were brought in and sort of used the access
points of the water, if there are any plans in place to barge
in fuel, first of all. And second of all, the issue of
contracting in advance for fuel. I realize that can be a little
tricky and that you are contracting for something that you hope
won't happen, but if you don't you show up in a situation where
fuel prices are going through the ceiling and anyone who has
got it to sell knows that every day they hang on to it it is
more expensive, and I know that was a bit of a problem in
Katrina.
So if someone could touch on those fuel issues quickly. I
see a couple of hands. I will go to General Burnett and General
Rowe and I am done.
General Burnett. Florida uses 25 million gallons of fuel a
day. That is a lot. We get most of our fuel through barges
because of our littoral coastline. There are issues there. One,
you have to keep the fuel in the tanks full before the
hurricane come along because there is structural integrity
based on fuel moving in the tanks.
What the Governor has done, he has partnered with our
filling station vendors. They have generators now in place to
pump gasoline. We try to manage that throughout the State with
our Department of Environmental Protection Agency head. So we
learned that in 2004, and I think we have a very good plan to
do that across Florida, balancing those fuel loads. It is a
tough one to handle, but I think we have our arms around it and
lessons learned from the past.
General Rowe. This is from traveling with Secretary
Chertoff and Mr. Paulson, Chief Paulson. They have built within
FEMA a construct to position fuel early along the evacuation
routes. I have not heard discussion about delivery of fuel over
the shore following a storm strike. Certainly that is a
possible solution.
Mr. Smith. I am sure Mr. Taylor would want to follow up and
find out, and so will I. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
you being generous with the time.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Kline.
Mr. Kline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen,
for being here. It is good to see you again. Most of you are
here again, and again it is nice to have the The Adjutant
Generals (TAGs) here.
Several directions I would go here, I am interested in the
resetting the Guard's equipment issue, but we could probably
talk about that all morning.
Let me go instead to the how do we get activated, and when
do we get activated, and the who is in charge question, not
between the National Guard and the sheriff, but I guess I am
swinging around to you, General Rowe. When I was out visiting
you guys a couple of months ago, a great tour, I was very, very
impressed with the discussions with Admiral Keating and with
your folks, well organized. NORTHCOM has representatives from
virtually every relevant agency, as I recall, including even
nongovernmental agencies like the Red Cross. So I was very much
reassured that NORTHCOM is in a position to coordinate, to
command if necessary, had the information necessary, the
intelligence, if I can use that word in this context. But the
question is, and I am looking at you, Mr. Secretary, or you,
General, how do we activate that and in what terms?
Let me just talk for another 30 seconds and I will look for
some input from you. I would assume, for example, that the use
of your satellite phones, General, could be made available at
the drop of a hat, there is not a whole lot involved in that.
And if the TAGs in Florida or Alabama or Louisiana or
something needed more communication, that kind of thing, you
could do--we have talked about some support from the Defense
Logistics Agency, probably not a lot involved in that. But if
you are looking about command and control, as we saw in
Katrina, when we went from FEMA to Admiral Allen, that was a
significant change in who is in charge and how it was run.
So my question, Mr. Secretary, General, anybody, is what
does it take to put NORTHCOM in charge and is that something in
your judgment that we want to do?
Secretary McHale. Sir, the literal answer to your question
is no. Nor is that provided by the law. But your question,
nonetheless, is a very good one. The person who represents the
senior Federal authority on the scene is the PFO, the Principal
Federal Official, and unlike last time, as I said earlier,
where Mr. Brown was not designated until the day after
landfall, Mr. Jamison as the PFO was already in place, already
down in the Louisiana area. I didn't mean to focus
disproportionately on Louisiana, but because of the remaining
damage from Katrina and the amount of temporary housing in
Louisiana, Louisiana remains our most vulnerable area in terms
of a hurricane this year, though obviously we face a danger
throughout the entire region. In any event, the PFO is Mr.
Jamison, and we in the military bring our forces in to the area
of responsibility in to the AOR to support him in his DHS/FEMA
mission.
Mr. Kline. Let me interrupt. I understand why you are
talking about Louisiana and Mr. Jamison in the past, but as we
have discussed, we could be talking about a catastrophe
anywhere.
Secretary McHale. It could be a terrorism attack.
Mr. Kline. So I would like to kind of put it in that
broader context. It is not enough when it comes to the point
where the tag--the government of the tag simply can't do it and
you have the--okay, we have the agreements with the other
States, and we have said that is not broken. We don't need to
fix that. But there comes a time when it is overwhelming.
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kline. And I guess----
Secretary McHale. And that is when we get engaged.
Mr. Kline. So I am working back to the point where I was
earlier. I know I am going to run out of time. NORTHCOM has got
in place all the pieces. It appears to me. All the pieces that
you need to coordinate.
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. And give me just a moment, and
I will try to be of assistance.
The PFO is either in place, or if it is some other part of
the country, if it is New England, the PFO will be named by
Secretary Chertoff as soon as the requirement for a PFO would
become apparent. Throughout the gulf coast, we have already--
Secretary Chertoff has already named the PFOs in anticipation
of hurricane season. So he names the PFO. Now to get to the
heart of your question. We should bear in mind that in response
to Hurricane Katrina and in a similar manner in anticipation of
future catastrophic events, only about 30 percent of the
military force came under NORTHCOM. About 70 percent of the
military force, the National Guard, came under the EMAC
agreements and the respective governors.
So we anticipate that in a future domestic response whether
it is a hurricane or terrorism attack, that rough ratio would
probably remain in place. So NORTHCOM has everything they need
for the Federal active duty piece, but that is probably only
about 30 percent of the military response. The 70 percent, the
more robust element of the response would be through the EMAC
agreements described by General Blum and our two adjutant
generals, and at this point, let me pull back and let NORTHCOM
talk about how they would be put in a position for rapid
deployment. Essentially, it would be in my judgment the verbal
authority of the Secretary of Defense to transfer Title 10
forces to NORTHCOM consistent with the needs identified by
Admiral Keating and that would be the 30 percent of the force.
For the 70 percent, we would go back to the EMACs and the
dialogue between the adjutant general coordinated by the chief
of the National Guard bureau to move in that larger portion of
the force. But let me turn to General Rowe and General Blum for
their comments.
General Rowe. Sir, you really lay out--we will generally be
in support. And ahead of a storm strike, unless incredible
circumstances where a governor and a President agree, the
change how we are going to handle a natural disaster we will be
in support for the lead Federal agency and the lead within the
State will be--the governor will lead that fight using all of
his tools as the tags have laid out. Post strike post natural
disaster, which hurricanes give us a little warning, they don't
tell us where. Other natural disasters might not give us any
warning at all. Now it is the read there has been a culmination
of the culpability of the local responders and the State
capabilities to support the people who need--to have their
lives saved to preserve life, to do the immediate recovery, to
protect infrastructure, they have. Those circumstances, I
think, could result in a call to say a Federal response, once
again, agreed on conversation between the governor and the
President and the Presidential decision, in which case an area
would be defined, the force arrangements for command and
control when they are defined we are set up superbly for that
poor--I don't think there is a high probability of that, but we
are set up well with that now with the standup of 5th Army, the
development during our qualification of their operational
command post, which is now joint configured to be prepared to
come in, either to be in support of a Federal agency and
support of the State, or if given the responsibility, to be a
lead effort in which case the student body arrangements would
be in the other direction. But most of the time we will be,
when directed, in support for civil support.
General Blum. Let me make a point. You hit on a very core
issue here. This is the United States of America, which
obviously nobody in this room needs reminding, but it is, to
put it in context. The United States military always, as long
as we are the United States of America operating under a
constitution, will have its uniformed members in support of the
elected civilian authorities that have been charged with the
responsibility and authority to govern our States and to govern
our Nation.
Having said that, the only time that the military is ever
in charge of anything is that they are in charge of commanding
and controlling the military assets that are being sent in
support of that mayor, that governor, the President or whatever
elected official in our Nation or in our States, or at the
local level, if necessary, needs the assistance that only, that
only the military can provide because it either ceases to
exist, or it did not previously exist somewhere in the civilian
community. As good as DOD is, you don't want it running the
government of a State, a county or this Nation at any given
time.
Having said that, I would like you to put up that chart,
please. We take our responsibilities of support very seriously,
and even though as Chairman Saxton said, we have 71,000 people
involved in that gray part of the chart overseas fighting the
war on terror. And we have 6,000 recently assigned to a mission
on a southwest border. That still leaves you 367,000 citizen
soldiers and airmen that are commanded by the kind of guys you
see at this table in 50 States and four territories of our
Nation, and all of that blue pieces are the States that I think
are vulnerable for the hurricane season that is coming up.
So we at the National Guard bureau are working very close
with Northern Command, they know what our capabilities are and
they know what our limitations are. We cannot do everything.
But we can do much of what is routinely required for a natural
disaster response.
And then Northern Command, to specifically get to your
question, what do they do, they fill in the gaps and fill in
the niche capabilities that the National Guard that is forward
deployed in literally every place that anybody votes in this
Nation, because that is where they live, and that is where
anybody cares where anything happens. We have a presence in
5,400 communities around our Nation. So we are the first
military responders, but we are responding in support to
whatever legal elected official is in charge of that property,
the political boundary and that problem that affects that
boundary.
Mr. Kline. Thank you. I yield back.
Secretary McHale. In responding to Congressman Kline's
question. I said in a general sense, that about a third of our
force would come out of Title 10 forces in response to a future
disaster and about two-thirds would come out of the National
Guard, and that is true for a natural disaster.
The point I wanted to make in closing, was if we have a
terrorist attack involving chemical, biological, radiological
or nuclear contaminants, the percentage of the Federal force
under NORTHCOM would likely go up as a relative percentage, the
Guard would go down because some of our most robust high-end
capabilities for a terrorist attack involving seaborn
contaminants can be found primarily within the active duty
force, so that rough construct one-thirds/two-thirds generally
fits, but it has got to be adjusted to the requirements at
hand.
Mr. Kline. Exactly. If you can indulge me since we
reentered the conversation here. I do understand civilian
control of the military and I appreciate the reminder and the
lesson, General but the question was looking at the
capabilities that NORTHCOM has got, inherent in the command in
the building with all the people there, when and how would they
be activated to be able to bring that to bear, never mind the
forces, the 70 percent, 30 percent or 50 percent or 50 percent
or 30 or 50, it is what is involved in that command. The
people, the structure, the communications, the ability that in
the event of a terrorist attack or some very major attack, you
may want to bring that to bear, and the question was how do you
get them to bear.
Secretary McHale. A very good question. I am sorry, sir. We
didn't give you an adequate answer. The answer is as soon as--
we are talking about a hurricane it would differ obviously for
other kinds of--but if it is a hurricane, we would probably get
notice a week out of a tropical storm approaching a given area
of the country. We began tracking the hurricane that became
Katrina about seven days before landfall. It was a tropical
storm, very low level tropical depression, I think, out at that
point out in the Atlantic, but we knew about it. We had no idea
at that point it would be so severe. We track very carefully in
advance. We have a standing executive order that has been
signed by the Secretary of Defense that has already delegated
to Admiral Keating at NORTHCOM, certainly preliminary authority
within his own authority delegated by the Secretary to begin to
respond to an approaching catastrophic event.
So about seven days out, six days out, five days out,
Admiral Keating has the authority to deploy those Damage
Control Officers (DCOs). He has the authority to select bases
for staging areas. He has certain other competencies that has
been delegated to him. But I would estimate as the storm
becomes more severe, three or four days out, the Secretary of
Defense based on the recommendation of the combatant commander
at NORTHCOM would then transfer from our operating forces, our
service components, the capabilities to NORTHCOM that would
seem to be appropriate for the mission that was at hand, the
approaching catastrophic storm or a catastrophic hurricane.
And it would be our expectation that is consistent with
what is known at that point, about three to four days out, DOD
would chop forces to NORTHCOM for employment in a possible
response and at the same time our civilian leader would be
looking at issues such as evacuation, potential search and
rescue, those kind of things.
So the time line is dependent in the case of a hurricane on
what you can anticipate in terms of weather for coast and about
the outer limit of that is maybe seven days out from landfall
with significant military action taking place in response three
to four days out.
General Blum. To include the repositioning Naval forces so
they can be in the right place to come in and help. That is
what NORTHCOM would do. The Guard can't do that.
Mr. Kline. Thank you.
Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much for the great questions,
Mr. Kline. Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. I want to thank you for being here this
morning. I especially want to thank Secretary McHale and
General Blum. We always appreciate you being here, and
appreciate the job you are all doing. I would like to actually
build on that question on an area that I wanted to touch on.
Because I recognize that much of today's potential
involvement to hurricane response will be dependent upon
assistance from States, and as well, as the Department of
Homeland Security. So to what extent and does DOD coordinate
with States and Homeland Security immediately prior to an
event. As you were just discussing, you know, the National
Hurricane Center projects that a level 4, level 5 hurricane is
approaching the U.S. Coast. Is there or what is the mechanism
for DOD to reposition any supplies or equipment to expedite
disaster response?
Secretary McHale. Again, let me give a brief introduction
and turn to the officers who have been coordinating this on a
tactical level. Our coordination with the Department of
Homeland Security, and specifically with FEMA, in anticipation
of the 2006 hurricane season has been daily, and that
coordination has been at that level of engagement for many,
many months now. I spent, just as an example, I spent three
hours in a tabletop exercise yesterday with Secretary Chertoff
and other cabinet officials, where the scenario being examined
was a catastrophic hurricane passing directly over New Orleans.
General Rowe is the operations officer for NORTHCOM, has just
concluded a two-week exercise, a major element of which was a
catastrophic hurricane coming ashore in Louisiana.
We have been working with FEMA, with HHS, and with all
other interagency's partners for many months now in a series of
almost unlimited exercises to determine what are the
requirements to assist civilian authorities to include law
enforcement authorities in the case of National Guard
capabilities, and what do we need to get those ready.
And we have a high level of confidence that based on that
degree of coordination that I would ask these two gentlemen to
describe in detail that we have spring loaded--a rapid DOD
response with robust capabilities to provide an even faster,
more competent response than the very good response that we
provided as a Department last year.
Last year was the largest fastest military civil support
mission by far in our Nation's history. This year we can do
better because of the coordination. I would ask these gentlemen
to describe.
Mr. Langevin. Can you also expound on the mechanism you are
using to coordinate directly with the State who you are talking
to, and one of the things that we heard from Katrina, there was
not good coordination between State and local and Federal
Government.
Secretary McHale. I will ask General Blum to talk about
that. The direct coordination between the Federal civilian
leadership, and the civilian leadership of an individual State
is a responsibility assigned to the Department of Homeland
Security. Secretary Chertoff has the responsibility to
communicate with the governors to ensure that communication
from civilian to civilian at the elected level of leadership,
or in the case of Secretary Chertoff, that our senior civilian
Federal and State are talking to each other. We are in a
supporting role to Secretary Chertoff, and what we do is
communicate closely daily continuously with a full-time staff
from DOD over at DHS to make sure we understand the overarching
Federal plan, and what we do is communicate operationally
primarily through the adjutant general in the individual States
through the military contact that we have.
We support through those military contacts the overall
civilian-led effort where Secretary Chertoff has the ultimate
responsibility. So I would ask General Blum to talk about how
he has been coordinating with the States through the respective
adjutant general.
General Blum. Great question.
Short answer: In the past, what you described the
coordination between DOD and the State and local level, it
didn't exist.
In the last, particularly in the last year and a half, it
has gone through what I would call the crawl phase to the walk
phase to the full run phase, and I think we are--right now, it
is probably as good as it has ever been and probably--and
probably not as good as it needs to be, but we are working on
it every day.
I can tell you that the National Guard and Northern Command
constantly, the communication between us is constant and is
continual and it is ongoing. It never quits. It is a dynamic
process. And we are constantly tweaking our capabilities.
NORTHCOM knows what we can do, and he knows what we cannot do,
and they plan what we cannot do or what they might have to do,
if we cannot do what we think we can do, and that is not double
talk. That is actually a military contingency plan, and it is
going on at the highest level of DOD, and having said that,
what Northern Command lacks and will never have, and I will
never have at the National Guard bureau level, is the local
knowledge, the existing relationships that are necessary for
the confidence trust and efficiency when a disaster strikes
that area, and the trust and confidence of the local people.
That is where these two gentlemen put the foundation for a
solid response. They can't do it all by themselves. But they
do, in fact, at the--for the military part of it, they set the
foundation for the military response at the State and local
level, and they field me the same situational awareness and
common operating picture of what their capabilities are, and
what their limitations are, frankly, in equipment or personnel,
or in skills or certain expertise sets.
If I can find them through EMAC, through emergency mutual
assistance compact that the governors have signed on to from
next door in Alabama and even in Rhode Island, we will arrange
for that. If I don't have it and I can't get it, I communicate
that to Northern Command, and they find it within the DOD Army
Navy inventory, which is quite capable, obviously.
Now having said that, that is not the whole solution, sir,
because you do have at the State level, and here is where--that
same kind of process that I just described that is happening on
the military level at State, national and DOD through Northern
Command needs to happen with the State emergency managers who
are the civilian counterparts of the Department of Homeland
Security in these States. That has to also occur at that level
so, that we have the State energy planner emergency what the
month emergency planner capable of doing, and what they are not
capable of doing and that has to be passed up to regional
people that work for DHS and ultimately to the national level
because when it happens, either at the State level, at a
national level or DOD level, the uniforms are still going to
come in support of the Department of Homeland Security,
probably, or one of their sub elements that are to leave
Federal agencies.
Secretary McHale. With two-thirds of our force likely to be
drawn from the National Guard, the military portal into the
State is through the adjutant general. Two-thirds of the
military response for a natural disaster will likely be drawn
from the National Guard, and so to find out how we can best
employ those guardsmen, many of whom will be coming from other
States, this gentleman seated on my right, General Blum
communicates constantly with the adjutant general of the State
so that we can be informed as to how those forces can be best
employed under the command and control of the governor.
Bear in mind two-thirds of the response though paid for by
DOD will be under command and control of the governor so the
adjutant general of the State becomes the critical player in
enabling most of the military response.
Mr. Langevin. Just one quick follow up to that, if I could.
I recently, over the weekend, I had a discussion with our
State's adjutant general. And he was talking about trying to
look at better options for getting preapproval for deploying
assets when it is likely to be a federation of a Federal
disaster. And is there a better mechanism that we could almost
give preapproval for deploying assets. I think the States would
likely to predeploy assets if, in fact, they knew they had at
least some support and there was going to be some Federal
reinforcement.
General Blum. That is an excellent, excellent point. And is
good preparation is largely dependent on the resources that the
State has to be able to apply for that appropriation. You heard
General Bowen say, and all of the governors and all of the
adjutant generals can call out their National Guard in a non
paid status if they need to. But then as we tragically found
out in Katrina, sometimes we lose national guardsmen in
responding to hurricanes and trying to save lives.
And they get injured. And they are not covered properly.
And they are not compensated properly. So in the past there was
no appetite and no interest at the Department of Defense level
for providing Federal funds to the States for hurricanes. Zero
interests. That has changed. And I think if we were--had
reasonable data that said we are going to have landfall in
Newport, Rhode Island when the next 72 hours, or it was even
possible I think that we would be able to obtain at this point
the resources beyond calling people up on State active duty or
probably Title 32 would probably be made available in
reasonable amounts where in the past that wouldn't even be
considered. And I will leave the rest of that to Secretary
McHale.
Mr. Langevin. Is there a change in the law that we need to
make sure that we can do that.
Secretary McHale. I don't think there is a change in the
law, but I think we need to and will likely implement some of
our procedures under the national response plan along a
different time line than what we used last year. From numerous
meetings that I have attended with Secretary Chertoff on this
topic, I think particularly with regard to some of the
vulnerable areas of the gulf coast, we would likely see an
early emergency declaration recommended by Secretary Chertoff
and a very cautious approach to an early declaration of an
incident of national significance.
We frankly, within the Department of Defense, have no
difficulty at all resolving the very significant question of
whether those 50,000 guardsmen should be placed in Title 32 in
response to Katrina. That was a huge decision quickly and
relatively easily made, because it was clear to the senior
decision makers, most especially the Deputy Secretary of
Defense, that placing those forces in Title 32 was the right
thing to do. What I am suggesting is that in light of what we
have learned from Katrina, if we were to have an early
declaration by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security that we faced an incident of national significance, it
is quite probable though the decision belongs to the Secretary
of Defense, it is quite probable we would do exactly what we
did last time, and that is place the Guard forces in Title 32
without serious debate.
Mr. Langevin. I appreciate your answer, and I think that
would be an important step toward making sure we are as
prepared as possible if this occurs.
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you.
Mr. Saxon. Thank you very much for the great questions.
Very pertinent. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky,
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Listening to all of the
comments of planning remind me of the first rule of Roger
Rangers don't forget nothing. Just brings to mind a couple of
questions that I would like to ask regarding the leadership
aspect of this. There is certainly no substitute on the ground
for initiative in the localities where disaster strikes on the
front lines, and we saw firsthand, at least from a distance,
the human factors impacting leaderships in the different
States.
There were some qualitative contacts, and based on that
local leadership, we saw great local officials move forward,
but one thing that I am particularly interested in is if you
have a first of two contingency questions worked into your
exercises dealing with a recalcitrant State or local elected
official and dealing with your chain of command, if they are
paralyzed, unable to make a decision, how you would work around
that and coincidental with that, is do you have a plan in place
for federalizing assets in the case of that type of resistance?
Secretary McHale. Congressman, let me answer that again,
first, as a matter of policy and then invite comment from my
colleagues.
We are the Department of Defense and if there were to be a
situation where, let's say, a State official exercised
profoundly poor judgment in terms of responding to a disaster,
the Federal official who would have the responsibility to deal
with that, let's say that governor would not be the Secretary
of Defense, that responsibility is entrusted by law to the
Secretary of Homeland Security.
Our military role is to support that Secretary of DHS and
so if a decision were made to bring in the military a greater
unified command and control role, the option that is available
by law to the President is to federalize the National Guard,
which is a Presidential decision authorized by statute and to
invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow Title 10
military forces to engage in law enforcement activity.
So for the portion of the duty that we face, the law is
clear and well established, and that is in order to overcome
State opposition manifested through the National Guard, when
the statutory requirements are met, the President can overcome
that opposition by federalizing the Guard and invoking the
Insurrection Act.
That pertains only to the military portion of the response.
I don't think anyone at this table is qualified to address the
larger civilian implications that go beyond the military piece,
but that is an accurate description of how local opposition
could lawfully be overcome within the military sphere.
Mr. Davis. I think both of us understand the constitutional
implications. But I am kind of a practical guy. I want to come
down to the basic level all politics is local, and it would be
very difficult for the President to willfully federalize a
situation if there is an intact structure in the State just
because of the perception of avocation of local leadership and
all of the civil political impacts of that. I guess what I am
asking is a practical question of have you worked contingencies
of a workaround for example, and certainly with the adjutant
general sitting at the table, I know that would not be a
problem within your States at all. Have you considered this
contingency of establishing be the kind of relationships to
execute integrated operations with that State's assets as well
as your outside assets so you didn't leave that uncovered or
unnecessarily having them redundant?
Secretary McHale. Let me preface it and quickly turn to
General Blum. If we have competent leadership at all levels of
government, the expectation is there would be a likely JTF
commander assigned by NORTHCOM and that JTF commander would
coordinate with the adjutant general of the State so the senior
active duty 10 officer would have a coordinating relationship
with the adjutant general of the State.
If that coordinating relationship went well, we would
proceed as we did during Hurricane Katrina, with General Honore
conferring constantly with General Landrino. That was a good
relationship that worked well. But if it were to deteriorate in
some future instance, that is when the President would have the
responsibility to consider the possibility of federalizing the
National Guard to achieve unity of command.
What I would like to do is ask General Blum, is talk about
that coordinating relationship to get a sense of how we are
working out the dual chain of command that is inherent in
federalism to make sure we have coordinated military activity.
Mr. Davis. I appreciate your answer, Mr. Secretary, but
that is still not answering the practical question of let's
assume that got the leadership implosion, and let's say you
don't have the right to replace the patrol leader, what other
contingencies do you have systemic contingencies to deal with
that to maintain out-of-uniform level and working with public
safety?
General Blum. The first part of your question is a
political decision. I am not authorized to make those kind of
decisions, fortunately. So I will have to sidestep that,
because that is a political decision made at the very highest
level of our government. It is inappropriate for me to even
comment on. If I get to what you are asking about, let's say, I
have a competent leader who is incapacitated or has diminished
capacity for whatever reason, do I have an ability to replace
that leadership?
Yes, we do. We do that through EMAC and we did that. Very
competent good leaders were soon overwhelmed and fatigued by
the enormity by the tasks they had to perform the magnitude of
the operation, the scope of the operation, and frankly, the
physical exhaustion that they were experiencing in the
operation.
And we did flow in command and control headquarters from
the National Guard from other States to the affected States to
replace the command and control that was not there because it
happened to be in Iraq or Afghanistan at the time. We had three
very competent brigade headquarters that were overseas fighting
the Global War on Terror, so to make up for that shortfall, we
brought in a division headquarter out of the midwest and we
brought in division headquarters also out of the midwest,
unaffected areas, so that we didn't take leadership out of an
area that had their own problems. We brought those down and
they were highly, highly effective in Mississippi, and they
were highly effective in Louisiana in affecting command and
control, or expanding the capabilities that were there to be
large enough to handle the enormity of the situation they had.
Does that get to what you are talking about?
Mr. Davis. Not completely, but this perhaps is more
appropriate in an off-line discussion, since the cameras are
rolling. I would like, if I could, have the chairman for a
follow-up to this.
Do you believe that DHS is sufficiently clarified, and this
is for the adjutant generals specifically, clarified the rolls
of the Principal Federal Official, and Principal Federal
Coordinating Officer. And is it clear to you who will be in
charge of coordinating the Federal response, and ultimately, I
guess the final piece of this is if it is not, who do you think
should be in charge from a Federal level.
General Burnett. Congressman, with the experience of eight
hurricanes in the last year, I would tell you there is no
better coordinating officer than this defense coordinating
officer. It works well. There is no question that that can be
stepped up. I know of no need that we had that was unmet to
strong leadership of officers like Colonel Mark Fields. That
was a huge storm for us. If it was C-17s or C-5s bringing in
the equipment we needed, or meals or water, whatever it was,
that works very, very well. Certainly there is a role for the
Principal Federal Official to play, and I think we respect
that. By the end of the day, under Governor Bush's leadership,
his team going right to the DC0 you can get everything this
Nation has to offer.
Leadership is in place. What we need is other things, and
we found it is certainly available and we spoke every night. If
I could follow on, sir, and go back, starting out early and it
is popular to recall these folks. Every night, I call the
leadership of First Army. I call the leadership of General Blum
at home, and I called Northern Command. Here is what we are
looking at. Here is what we are doing and, if you want to
adjust that calibration, I was open and I would present that to
Governor Bush, and we did that consistently throughout that
spectrum.
I said to General Clark and Admiral Keating, here is what
we are doing in Florida in this hurricane exercise, so we build
that trust. They know we are communicating; they know we are
communicating. But we think the DCO is the answer. There may be
things beyond it but at what price do we need things that are
working well now. And I think we have it.
General Bowen. I understand exactly how it works. I think
putting the Principal Federal Officer in there the other day,
and we met him the other day, we know him. He understands what
our capabilities are. We know that if we can not do it, all we
have to do is ask for it. No problem at all.
Mr. Saxon. Thank you. The Chair will recognize Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Larsen. Gentlemen, thanks for coming to help us out
today. First question is for General Blum. It is kind of deja
vu all over again for you and me, because I think I was sitting
in this exact chair, you were sitting probably right there the
last time we talked about equipment and people, because you
mentioned we have 350,000 available National Guard folks. I am
wondering how many people will be available. How many are
committed doing something else in Conus or something else but
so not available of that 350,000.
The second thing, looking at some of these numbers that you
have supplied to us where you have 101,000 pieces of equipment
in different missions around the world, and then the request
over the next 5 or 6 years for Air National Guard, and Army
Guard, about $23 billion worth of equipment; and then thinking
about Major General Bowen's comment needing fuel haulers,
aircraft and so on, if push comes to shove, what are we doing
to ensure that our tags, and you and perhaps Northern Command
aren't chasing the same piece of equipment in this hurricane
season.
If you could talk a little bit about that, so how many
people do we have and what do we do to ensure that we are not
all chasing the same piece of equipment because of where other
equipment is.
And then I have got a separate set of questions for
Secretary McHale.
General Blum. I will try to keep it short and to the point.
I would say about 300,000 citizen soldiers and airmen are
available in the United States to go anywhere in the United
States to do whatever is needed to be done, natural disaster
response, terrorist acts whatever would be required. That is
the first part of your question.
The equipment piece we are working feverishly with the Air
Force and the Army, and I say with them, that is a good thing.
Because now the Army has accepted the response of national
disasters, is a very significant mission of the National Guard
and a mission of the Army, and the Air Force as well. So the
Army and the Air Force are working with me to ensure that I
have, even faster than the PALM or the program of record will
deliver this equipment.
We are taking extraordinary measures right now to move
equipment into the hurricane effective State to give them brand
new trucks, divert them from where they were originally
intended to go, active units, Guard units, Reserve units and
move--redirect the distribution of that equipment so that it is
available in the next few weeks and months for the hurricane
season.
I think that is a tremendous step forward and a great
demonstration of sincere commitment on the part of the Air
Force and Army to step up and recognize this mission should not
be laid on the backs of the States. They share in this
responsibility.
Are we going to get well from this effort? No. Will we
improve significantly from it? Absolutely.
The money that is in the program of record needs to stay in
there, and if it gets diverted or it gets taxed or used for
another purpose, then we are not going to be as capable as the
National Guard as we need to be. So I watch that every day and
I try not to blink, frankly, because it is very important to
our Nation, it is very important to our adjutant general that
equipment and that money gets to where it is supposed to go.
Mr. Larsen. Is that plan for that $23 billion, as so as
right now you are coordinating with Air Force and Army to fill
a potential equipment gap, and looks like it is going to get
filled. But as that $23 billion gets spent and we purchase new
equipment, does that come to the National Guard and the
equipment that you have then reverts back to Army Air Force. Is
that how----
General Blum. That is not my intent, sir. I am not aware of
any intent to do that. That would not make much sense to me, to
be honest. I mean, that is direly needed, once it is there, it
needs to be left there and then we need to improve a lot of the
others out there to face forest fires in a different season,
and flooding in a different season, and then you can't have the
equipment chasing the event.
That is not the way you want to do it. You want the
equipment in the local area, because when it happens, everybody
talks about a week's notice. I would love to have a week's
notice for specificity of where a hurricane is going to land. I
don't think that is possible. I have talked to experts and they
spent their life doing this and they really don't have a good
idea of where it is going until about three days out. Some say
five days out, but even when that projection is there, you have
a very wide window of area.
Secretary McHale. General Blum is correct on that, which is
why we are going to have to make decisions far enough out from
landfall, based on imperfect information. Seven days out we are
going to know there is a storm, but we are not going to know
within hundreds of miles where it might come ashore.
Nonetheless, specifically in the case of New Orleans, we are
going to have to be looking, meaning as a government, State,
local, Federal, at evacuation plans at a stage where the
information is going to be imperfect.
So it is entirely possible that acting in due diligence
with imperfect information of the type described by General
Blum, we may have one or more evacuations that turn out to be
false alarms, but to protect the lives, we may have to do that.
Mr. Larsen. If I may, Mr. Chairman, for Senator McHale.
There is one about Com Plan 2501 and covers with the National
Guard Association (NGA). In your testimony, you said the 2501
is now in front of the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), and you
haven't got approval on that. When do you expect to get SECDEF
okay, and is there going to be time to apply principles and
concepts? I know you have been practicing some of things. Is
there going to be time to practice those, but also communicate
those concepts to folks so you can put 2501 in place.
The second on NGA, the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) points out the first gap in the GAO study was the lack of
timely damage assessment. I note in your testimony, you met
with NGA to talk with damage assessment the availability of
assets to make those kind of assessments. What kind of
cooperation are you getting from NGA, and what are they telling
you and what can they expect?
Secretary McHale. Let me take the second half of the
question, and then I am going to ask General Rowe to answer the
first half. The relationship, the approval of Com Plan 2501
involves the relationship between the combat commander, who
develops that plan and that relationship flows directly not
through me, through the Secretary of Defense, I have visibility
into it, but I think General Rowe can give a better
perspective. If you look at the GAO report that was written on
Hurricane Andrew in 1992, you will find in that report an
observation that the post damage--the post landfall damage
assessment was slow and inaccurate.
And if you look at any fair minded assessment of Hurricane
Katrina, you will see that the post landfall damage assessment
was slow and inaccurate. If you look at we, in the Department
of Defense did in anticipation of Hurricane Rita, you will see,
from having learned from the experience of Andrew and Katrina
for Hurricane Rita, the combatant commander developed a very
comprehensive system of DOD capabilities, mostly aerial imagery
and NGA capabilities to rapidly assess over a wide area the
amount of damage that had occurred because media reports
historically have been very inaccurate during those kinds of
chaotic circumstances.
So the short answer to the second part of your question is
for Rita and for all future events, shaped by the combatant
commander, we will have damage assessment capabilities, mostly
aerial imagery from NGA and from other lower level aerial
observational capabilities P3s, C-26s, C-130's, up to and
including NGA type assets to get that aerial imagery so that
we, more rapidly and accurately, understand how bad the damage
is. Let me turn to General Rowe.
Mr. Larsen. It seems from General Bowen's comments this is
the kind of commission you need to dump on these guys.
Secretary McHale. DHS--here is the linkage that has to take
place. DHS has to get that, because damage is not a DOD
responsibility, but we have the best collection assets to
download and forcefeed to DHS so that our civilian leadership
has a much clearer, much more accurate understanding of how bad
the damage is. We didn't have that after Andrew. We didn't have
that after Katrina. We were prepared as a department to provide
that to DHS after Rita, and we will be similarly prepared for
all hurricanes in the future. And NGA is a big piece of that.
General Burnett. If I can respond to that just from
experience. In Florida, we put mass on the objective. We
reconned with force. We know a Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 hurricane is
going to do about these kinds of things, kind of like when a
baby cries, everybody knows you grab a diaper, you go grab some
food, you go nurture. Well, we go down range with our people
and we send reports back. But we know what we are going to see.
It is, just did it go beyond that, or is this street blocked,
or this one blocked, so we do use a lot of search and rescue
National Guard special forces, fish and wildlife team.
But we send forth knowing what we are going to get, and
like the Secretary said, certainly there is an overhead piece
of that we can do it in 24 hours. Can't mobilize overhead
assets in 24 hours. So you got to be there and we can do it
with large numbers of National Guards in our State response and
it works.
Mr. Saxon. Thank you very much.
Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much for your presence up here
on the Hill. I know the rigorous schedule of constantly being
dragged to the Hill interferes with your ability to do your
job, but it helps us better do our job, and we thank you for
that.
You know, there is something, Mr. Chairman, that I wanted
to add to your remarks and apologize for having to be taken
away to go down to the floor for an amendment, but when you
talked about the importance of the Guard and its contribution
to natural disasters, forces overseas, the war on terrorism, I
don't think you could have made a clearer message as to why we
need to treat the National Guard as a joint force provider to
give them the recognition and the status.
General Blum, as Lieutenant Blum should be a 4-star
general, not just because we want to make the National Guard a
co-equal branch of the Air Force or the Navy. That is not it at
all. But because he needs the authority and the ability to sit
in those meetings and have a voice that competes as a joint
force provider. And to me, that is the one thing this committee
should be looking at, should be doing is giving the National
Guard a voice. To equal the mission in the world that they play
and not only the war or terrorism, natural disasters, but the
whole picture of how they supplant and actually, in many cases,
support all of our active duty forces as well.
That being said, General Burnett, I wanted to tell you that
in 1969, I was a young lieutenant at Egland Air Force base in
special operations, so I remember Hurricane Camille as well as
you do. We were there probably together in some fashion.
But what I wanted to ask about today is, of course, General
Blum, when we look at the logistics and the transfer and the
needs are we projecting where we will have the resources and
the dollars to move those people to move those equipment
without having to rob Peter to pay Paul at that time, because
we know it is coming, we see it out there, and oftentimes,
budgeting gets reprogrammed and shuffled around a little bit.
Can we in Congress help you do that job better?
General Blum. Congress has done a magnificent job in
recognizing the needs of the Guard and addressing them. A
perfect example is post Katrina you ask--this body asks what we
needed. We say we needed about $1.3 billion. You rightfully
said how did you come to that number. We listed every piece of
equipment that we thought we needed to be better prepared to
respond to the next hurricane season. You graciously provided
$9 billion. We have spent it exactly the way we said we would,
and our capabilities are much better.
I would like to not comment on your earlier comment, but I
would like to add a clarification to it.
We are, in fact, indeed, and have been a joint force
provider for at least the last 5 years in ways that we have
never been in the previous 350 years.
But that joint force is in a Title 32 joint force provider.
We are not a Title 10 joint force provider. We do that through
our services and that is our secondary role. I mean, the Guard
is unique. It is the only DOD force that is a joint force
provider in Title 32. All of us are joint force providers in
Title 10, sir.
Mr. Gibbons. What I was trying to do and trying to get at,
but more importantly on budget, do we have the budget means
without having to take away from training, without having to
take away from equipment purchases down the road in order to
meet the needs and the expenses, and moving our Guard group in
an emergency. I want to make sure that we are giving you the
right budgetary latitude within which to do that, without
having you have to come waltzing back up here and beg us to
back bills where you need to take that money from.
We know your obligations. We know your commitment. We know
what you have got to do in the future. We want to be able to
enable you to do that without worrying about stealing it from
training, taking it or reprogramming it to purchase equipment
and such. That is all I was trying to get at.
General Blum. You are right. We have developed an art and
science over the years as to how we rob our own Peter to pay
our own Paul. And if we were adequately resourced, we would
have to do less of that.
Mr. Gibbons. My time is running out very quickly.
Secretary McHale, welcome back again. Can you give me a
very quick rundown of what the chain of command would be, or
what is the command scenario when we go into one of these
situations? Where is the responsibility as we go through this
chain of command membership?
Secretary McHale. With the passage of the Homeland Security
Act in 2002, and the publication of national response plan at a
Federal level, this is basically the way it works out. The
cabinet level secretary, who has the overall coordinating
responsibility for Federal assets, is the Secretary of the
Department of Homeland Security. Secretary Chertoff is in
charge of coordinating the entire Federal response. The
official he would name, normally in the area that has been hit
is the Principal Federal Official, the PFO. And in the case of
the hurricane season coming up, Gil Jamison is the
predesignated PFO for Louisiana.
We have other PFOs predesignated throughout the rest of the
gulf coast area. The PFO works with the Federal coordinating
officer out of FEMA. His partner is the defense coordinating
officer. On the military side, we support Secretary Chertoff to
achieve his civilian-led mission. The military chain of command
goes from the President of the United States to the Secretary
of Defense to the affected combat commander, Admiral Keating.
So Secretary Chertoff is in charge of Federal coordination. We
in DOD get mission assignments or requests from assignments
from FEMA working for Secretary Chertoff. We retain command and
control over our own forces, but we roll in under DHS to assist
them in the execution of their mission.
Mr. Gibbons. I had one small question, and I apologize for
taking up extra time in this. But I guess maybe if I could talk
to the adjutant generals that we have here, to maybe respond as
to are we getting back the resources that we truly need? Is
Congress doing an adequate job of preparing you monetarily to
enable to handle all of these disasters. But most importantly,
in your mind, do you think we have a strategy like we do in DOD
for a 2 war major theater war strategy do we have a 2 major
disaster, for example, if we had Mount Rainier explode in south
of Seattle, and a hurricane hit New York City, magnitude force
3 or greater, can we respond National Guard-wise to that sort
of a magnitude of command and challenge for us?
General Bowen. Well, you have gone a little above my level,
but I will tell you that I feel very confident. When you say do
I got enough--when I sent them to Louisiana, and I send them to
Mississippi, and I am fighting a war in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and he is real concerned that I have enough, and I show him the
numbers that I have got, I am very confident in what we do.
By the same token we had the numbers up here a while ago
that the way we responded to Katrina and Rita it was 50,
60,000. We still had soldiers left over. Yet, the more you
deploy, the more you are going to run out of equipment because
in Alabama, we have to cross level because we are not 100
percent fully funded, but it has never been, and it is probably
not going to be, but I have a lot of confidence.
General Burnett. Congressman Gibbons, responding to the
equipment issue specifically, yes. Yes, we do have the right
equipment to do the job, and we can do the job you talk about,
and it takes a lot of moving around. The National Guard has
gotten pretty good about that, certainly when you look at some
of the cuts that came our way recently, I think to Congress,
that didn't occur. Before 9/11, we had about 74 percent of our
authorized equipment in the National Guard. Now we are
somewhere between 27 and 34 percent. It depends on the State.
In Florida, we have an adequate amount, thanks to General Blum.
He makes sure that hurricane-prone States are kind of preset,
ready to go. We thank Congress and Bill Young in the
Appropriations Committee for the huge support of National Guard
reset of equipment, and we think we are about where we can be
considering the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we think we are
okay.
Mr. Gibbons. I want to make sure as we focus on Hurricane
Katrina that we also look at natural disasters in other parts
of the country as well.
General Burnett. May I make one statement to Congressman
Taylor?
Mr. Saxon. We are going to go to him for questions.
Mr. Taylor. Let him get the first swing.
Mr. Saxon. Go ahead.
General Burnett. I am a lifelong resident of Florida.
However, I am a graduate of Southern Mississippi. I want to
tell you it is an honor to deploy with over 4,000 soldiers
Florida State employees to be based in St. Louis after Katrina,
and reestablish local operations with the mayor, the police
chief and certainly the superintendent of schools. The people
of Southern Mississippi are great, and I know they appreciate
your leadership.
The Chairman. The gentleman from Mississippi, who knows
more about this subject than anybody else on this panel. Mr.
Taylor.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you. Being a resident of St. Louis, when
the Floridians showed up, I think on Thursday night, they were
very welcome and greatly appreciated.
Mr. Chairman, I don't want to overdramatize this, but
really, in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, as I looked
around having been on this committee for a long time, it really
did hit me when there is an attack on the United States, not
if, this is what it is going to look like. There is not going
to be any food, any fuel, communications are going to be shot.
There is not going to be a place to put the dead. The hospitals
are going to be out. You know, thinking whether it is in the
EMP, electromagnetic pulse, whether it is a dirty bomb, whether
it is someone blowing up the levees in New Orleans, that is
what it is going to look like.
I think it is great that we have these gentlemen here
because it is great to talk about what they did right and the
National Guard did a heck of a lot of things right, but we also
need to address some of the things we could have done better. I
would ask Congressman Smith to mention it and Paul, I know you
would be a very smart guy, but I can't emphasize this enough,
one of the things that was lacking was a water-borne strategy.
We were bringing fuel from over 200 miles away from areas that
had no fuel. You are going down roads where you know the four-
lane highways are down to one lane where you are lucky because
the trees have fallen and hurricanes are going to hit a
waterfront community.
Floods are going to a hit waterfront communities. The
biggest cities in America are all waterfront. The idea that we
did not have a strategy to get fuel there by the barge load is
a glaring omission that has to be fixed. When you think of the
problems of getting people out of New Orleans, a water-borne
strategy to put them on off shore fly boats, of which there are
hundreds in Louisiana, or put them on deck barges in which
there are hundreds in Louisiana, and get them out of the area
and get some up to Baton Rouge, get them some place where it is
easier to feed them and house them, and take care of them
again, it is lacking, but not just with this scenario, but for
any scenario of a disaster, either man made or natural, when
you consider how many of our big cities are on the water.
It has got to be a piece of it. I distinctly remember at
Stennis Airport that I had to describe to General Blum in
Hancock County out of the middle of nowhere bringing in
planeloads of ice. Welcome. Wonderful stuff. That is the most
expensive way to get a fairly heavy, fairly inexpensive product
to some place. And so we do have better strategies,
particularly when you keep in mind a fuel barge has its own
generator, it has its own pumping capacity. You don't have to
deal with gravity. You can be loading trucks there. Can be
loading individual vehicles there.
So again, I belabor this point because I mentioned this to
Secretary Chertoff. I don't think he gets it. I mentioned this
to others within the Department of Homeland Security. They
don't seem to get it. You are the kind of guys who gets things.
And so if they won't fix it, I am asking you to fix this,
because remember, there is always going to be a good side and
bad side of every hurricane.
Generally, if you are on the west side of the hurricane you
are going to be okay, because you are catching the breezes that
are upcoming from onshore. So if a hurricane hits Pensacola,
New Orleans will probably do okay. If a hurricane hits New
Orleans, Houston will probably be okay, because it lies to the
west. So you ought to have a strategy.
And the second thing is, you have to have contacts in
place. A couple years back, Secretary Rumsfeld came before the
committee. At that time, our local engineering unit was just
getting back from Iraq. They had been instructed to leave every
piece of equipment in Iraq. By the time the storm hits, they
had 60 percent of their equipment and they did a magnificent
job. I can't say enough good things about the 890. They cleared
the streets so when the police showed up from Florida they
could actually get down those streets. But, remember, they had
only 60 percent of their equipment. We need to do better than
that.
And the second thing is, after a disaster, the piece that
hit me is I distinctly remember the Secretary saying we will
just go out and buy it on the market. When a disaster hits, the
demand on that market has tripled, quadrupled, exploded over
night. You have every contractor in America trying to buy the
same generator, trying to buy the same piece of heavy
equipment. So we need contracts in place to guarantee that
equipment will be there at a fixed price, fuel in particular.
I strongly suspect that some of the jobbers in south
Mississippi sat on their inventories. Why did they sit on their
inventories? Because when the gulf went down, the price of
gasoline went up overnight; and these guys knew they are making
tens of thousands of dollars a day every day they sat back and
didn't sell their fuel.
You have to have a contract in place that says this is what
you are going to be paid; you are going to show up and this is
going to be the market price on that day. You can't count on
the market because any disaster to the homeland you are going
to see the price of gasoline jump from 50 cents to a dollar
overnight, and you have to have someone who is going to be a
willing seller on that day.
Last, it is great to hear about the communications. But
again going back to the one satellite phone that was operating
out of Hancock County on that Tuesday night, the first call, if
I am not mistaken, was to General Blum; second call to the
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
And what was really interesting on one hand and really
scary on the other is I said, guys, this is really, really
serious. I really, really need your help. I am not
exaggerating. Our hospitals are out. We have no fuel. We are
looting the food stores to feed people, et cetera, et cetera.
Without going into the whole scenario, both of them, the first
reply back to me is, tell me about your bases; where can I put
people.
Now what is scary for me sitting down there is that the CNO
doesn't know what Homeport Pascagoula looked like, that you
don't have a good assessment of what Kessler Air Force Base and
its huge runways look like, that you don't have a good
assessment of what Seabee Base looks like.
I am sitting in a county that is more or less isolated
because all the bridges are destroyed and the ones that are
still there are under water, and I have to tell them what these
things look like?
So, again, not just what the Guard and Reserve do but
within the regular forces. And, again, an attack on homeland is
going to look just like this. We have to have a better job of
communicating between our bases and the Pentagon so that we
know our starting point for where you can launch out of to help
other people. And I cannot emphasize that enough.
To this day, I have never had a good answer from either the
Air Force or the Navy as to when they first got in touch with
the Pentagon to let them know their status and, you know,
whether they need to spend their time taking care of themselves
or whether they were prepared to go out in the community and
help others. And your job, that has got to be something that
gets fixed.
The other thing I can't emphasize enough, that hurricane
happened in August, early September. It is warm. No one is
going to die of cold. What if one of these attacks happens
during the dead of winter? No generators. No water. No food.
One of things that hit when I am calling around trying to get
tents for shelter for people, all the tents are in Iraq. They
are in Afghanistan.
So things that we on this committee can consider, ``tail,''
because we have been trying to put more money into ``tooth''
for fighting--when the attack occurs on the homeland you are
going to need a lot more tail, you are going to need a lot more
generators, you are going to need a lot more tents, you are
going to need a better way of getting water to people than
buying it one bottle at a time. That is great in the short
term, but it is also the most expensive way we get water to
people. We have to have a strategy of getting the wells up and
running again and maybe even digging wells if the need occurs.
MREs are wonderful. You can drop them from a helicopter to
feed people. It is also a very expensive way to feed masses of
people.
Again, if it is an attack on Los Angeles or New York, we
are going need a more efficient way to feed a lot of people
under bad circumstances.
So just my observations. I have offered at least one
solution when it came to the fuel that we need to be taking
advantage of. And, quite frankly, Paul, there are copycat
crimes and there are copycat attacks. I think any future foe of
the United States is going to blow the levee in New Orleans.
They saw how easy it was. If I was an enemy of the United
States, I would sure as heck do it.
We also know you can simulate an electromagnetic pulse.
There was a barge out on the Chesapeake 10, 15 years ago. It
was called the Empress. Its purpose was to simulate an EMP
attack on a ship. So we know we can do that short of a nuclear
device. So if we could do it 20 years ago, you have to figure
any potential foe can do it now. So you have to have backup
communications that are somehow sealed against that, that you
break out after the attack and get the word out and get the
things done that can be done.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Saxton. Listen, thank you, Mr. Taylor.
This was a very good hearing. We want to thank each of you
for participating with us here today----
Mr. Taylor. One last thing, if I may. I will keep it short.
Mr. Saxton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Taylor. General Blum was right in pointing out we lost
a National Guardsman that night. And this is something I hope
we can address administratively; and, if not, we need to
address it legislatively. He was a veteran of the battle of
Fallujah. A Marine came home, joined his local Guard unit and
tragically died the night of the storm trying to rescue what
turned out to be his own grandparents. Had he died in Fallujah,
his widow and children would have gotten twice the benefit.
Now, because of the horrible circumstances--General Blum
was great. General Cody was great. Working it from both ends we
were able to see to it that he got the same benefit as if he
had died in Iraq.
But I would hope that under that narrow window of being in
a Presidentially declared natural disaster that those families
would be treated the same as if they had been in Iraq or
Afghanistan.
It just makes no sense at all. If he had died in Fallujah,
his family would have gotten, I believe, $400,000. But because
he died in Poplarville, it would have been only $200,000.
Again, it was corrected. And I am greatly--and I know the
family is extremely grateful for doing that. But that ought to
be a matter of policy for us, rather than an exception.
Secretary McHale. Did he die in State active duty status
before title 32 was invoked?
General Blum. No, sir. He was covered in title 32.
Secretary McHale. Because of the retroactive nature of it?
General Blum. Because the Secretary of Defense authorized
title 32 back to the 29th of August. He died on the evening of
the 29th.
Secretary McHale. But your concern is what if in some
future event the approval from the Secretary was not
retroactive to an early date immediately after or even before
the occurrence of the event.
Mr. Taylor. And let's say--you know, let's say some of the
rumors that turned out not to be true about New Orleans really
were true? What if there really had been shooting at Cornville?
Whether you are 20 miles from home or 2,000 miles from home----
Secretary McHale. Congressman, we will take it back there
for review by the Office of General Counsel (OGC). My initial
impression is if we have a situation where a soldier is already
in title 32, that in terms of death benefits and so on he is
well cared for. The concern would be, if we didn't have a
retroactive declaration--which we did have for Katrina--where
there might be a gap between the time of the event and the
declaration of title 32, where in State active duty status, the
benefit wouldn't be nearly what it is. We heard some discussion
of that earlier in title 32.
Mr. Taylor. In all honesty, I attended the funeral. If the
officer assigned by the National Guard to take care of the
family had not brought it to my attention, it might not have
been fixed.
So, again, for the next time, it ought to be something that
automatically gets fixed.
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. We understand.
Mr. Saxton. Once again, thank you for being with us today.
We appreciate your being here, and we appreciate very much the
job that you are all doing. And, hopefully, when we have our
next event, we will be better prepared than we were last time.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of General Landreneau can be found
in the Appendix on page 97.]
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pickup can be found in the
Appendix on page 108.]
[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
May 25, 2006
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
May 25, 2006
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