[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EMERGENCY PLANNING AND PREPAREDNESS:
FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL COORDINATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 12, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-73
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
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__________
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Peter T. King, New York, Chairman
Don Young, Alaska Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Lamar S. Smith, Texas Loretta Sanchez, California
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Christopher Shays, Connecticut Norman D. Dicks, Washington
John Linder, Georgia Jane Harman, California
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Tom Davis, Virginia Nita M. Lowey, New York
Daniel E. Lungren, California Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Columbia
Rob Simmons, Connecticut Zoe Lofgren, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
Katherine Harris, Florida Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Islands
Dave G. Reichert, Washington Bob Etheridge, North Carolina
Michael T. McCaul, Texas James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania Kendrick B. Meek, Florida
Ginny Brown-Waite, Florida
______
SUBCOMMITTE ON EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Dave G. Reichert, Washington, Chairman
Lamar S. Smith, Texas Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Loretta Sanchez, California
Rob Simmons, Connecticut Norman D. Dicks, Washington
Mike Rogers, Alabama Jane Harman, California
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico Nita M. Lowey, New York
Katherine Harris, Florida Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Michael McCaul, Texas Columbia
Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
Ginny Brown-Waite, Florida Islands
Peter T. King, New York (Ex Bob Etheridge, North Carolina
Officio) Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
(Ex Officio)
(II)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Dave Reichert, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Washington, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology................ 1
The Honorable Bill Pascrell, Jr., a Representative in Congress
From the State of New Jersey, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology............. 3
Witnesses
Panel I
Mr. Steven Bailey, Director, Pierce County Department of
Emergency Management:
Oral Statement................................................. 17
Prepared Statement............................................. 20
The Honorable George Foresman, Under Secretary of Preparedness,
Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 6
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
Mr. William ``Bill'' Mitzel, MS, ARM, ALCM, Risk Control
Specialist, Home Office Commercial Lines, Unigard Insurance
Group
Oral Statement................................................. 25
Prepared Statement............................................. 26
Mr James Mullen, Director, Washington Military Department,
Emergency Management Division:
Oral Statement................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 15
Mr. Mario H. Trevino, Fire Chief, Bellevue Fire Department:
Oral Statement................................................. 21
Prepared Statement............................................. 23
Panel II
Mr. Michael Loehr, Director, Preparedness, Public Health--Seattle
and King County:
Oral Statement................................................. 48
Prepared Statement............................................. 50
Sheriff Paul A. Pastor, Jr., Pierce County Sheriff's Office...... 42
Mr. William ``Bill'' Pugh, Director, Public Works/Assistant City
Manager, City of Tacoma........................................ 51
Mr. Roger C. Serra, Director, Security and Emergency Management,
Seattle City Light:
Oral Statement................................................. 53
Prepared Statement............................................. 55
Mr. A.D. Vickery, Assistant Chief, City of Seattle Fire
Department:
Oral Statement................................................. 44
Prepared Statement............................................. 46
EMERGENCY PLANNING AND PREPAREDNESS: FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL
COORDINATION
----------
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness,
Science, and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:00 a.m. at the
Orting Multi-Purpose Center, 202 Washington Avenue South,
Orting, Washington, Hon. Dave Reichert [chairman of the
subcommittee] presiding.
Members Present: Representatives Reichert and Pascrell.
Mr. Reichert. The Committee on Homeland Security
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology
will come to order. The Subcommittee will hear testimony today
on Federal, State and local coordination for emergency planning
and preparedness.
I would like to thank every one of the witnesses here today
and the public for attending this morning's important hearing.
Before we proceed any further this morning, as chairman, I
need to take care of some housekeeping duties. Because this is
an official Congressional hearing as opposed to a town hall
meeting, we must abide by certain rules of the Committee on
Homeland Security as well as the House of Representatives.
Therefore, I kindly ask that there be no applause at any time
or any kind of demonstration with regard to the testimony. It
is important that we respect the decorum and rules of the
Committee and the House. Thank you in advance for your
understanding.
Before we begin the testimony today, I must first welcome
my distinguished colleague, the ranking member of our
Subcommittee, Mr. Pascrell. The Subcommittee's ranking member
and New Jersey's finest is welcome to the State of Washington
and Washington's 8th Congressional District.
Although Bill and I hail from opposite coasts and belong to
different political parties, we nonetheless share a common
vision for a safer America.
I'm just going to pause here and go off the script just a
little bit. Bill and I have had the opportunity to work
together as partners, I think, for about the six months or so
that I've had this position. And I must say that I think that
we have become an example, not only for other subcommittees
under the Homeland Security umbrella, but also for other
committees and subcommittees within the House of
Representatives as to how we work together to address the
Nation's needs, especially when it comes to keeping our
communities safe from all hazards; not just national hazards,
but all hazards that we might face in the changing world that
we all now live in.
So I'll go back to the script to say that there are few
members of Congress as passionate as Bill on issues related to
first responders to Homeland Security. And to be honest, there
are few in Congress as knowledgeable and with as much expertise
on the needs and concerns of first responders as Bill.
So thank you, Bill, for taking part in this hearing. It's
time away from the family. He's come a long way, all the way
from New Jersey. I don't pronounce it the same way as he does,
I'm sure. But this is a long trip. It's a five and a half to
six-hour trip from New Jersey to the Seattle area, the
Northwest here, and Bill is on a flight home this evening
already with his staff, and also the staff of the Homeland
Security Committee.
So I just want to take this moment to thank all the staff
from both sides of the aisle and the staff from the Homeland
Security Department. Amy especially has been very helpful in
helping bring this hearing here today. We have a very busy
schedule after this meeting this afternoon shortly after this
hearing. So thank you so much, Bill, for taking time to be
here.
Thank you, George Foresman and the Department of Homeland
Security, the Under Secretary for the Department of Homeland
Security--he's the Under Secretary of Preparedness--for his
graciousness in appearing before us today. Mr. Under Secretary,
I'm sure that Bill shares my high regard for you and my
sincerest wishes for your success in a very challenging job.
Bill, please correct me if I'm wrong or just simply
exaggerating, but I believe our Subcommittee to be one of the
most bipartisan in all of Congress. Although we have some
policy differences on occasion, Bill and I and our colleagues
on both sides of the aisle, our goal is enhancing our nation's
ability to prevent and therefore mitigate against, respond to
and recover from acts of terrorism, especially those involving
weapons of mass destruction, natural disasters and emergencies.
There is a public perception that bipartisanship, if it
isn't dead yet, is on life support. But as long as I have
anything to say or do about it, bipartisanship on this
Subcommittee will remain strong. After all, homeland security
is a bipartisan issue. Neither party has a monopoly on national
security or the caring for the wellbeing of our
Nation and its citizens. That is precisely why Bill and I
will within the next month or so jointly introduce legislation
to fix two of the most serious deficiencies within our National
Disaster Response System as made evident by the government's
response after Hurricane Katrina.
The first bill on public safety emergency communications
will, among other things, establish an office of emergency
communications in the preparedness directives, consolidate the
national communications system, SAVCOM, program, the integrated
network project, the interoperable communications technical
assistance program within this new office, and transfer the
Department of Commerce's new $1 billion interoperability grant
program to DHS.
The second bill, which is on preparedness and response,
will instead of restoring FEMA to its previous status as an
independent agency, better integrate FEMA into the department,
restore the nexus between preparedness and response, and
implement many important Katrina-related reforms such as
creating an Office of Public and Community Preparedness.
The purpose of this hearing is to help us gain a more
thorough understanding of what Congress can do to better assist
the Seattle region's efforts to enhance all hazard
preparedness. Specifically we will examine the state of the
region's coordination, cooperation and planning for the state
of the region's catastrophic events, whether manmade or
natural, and how well the Department of Homeland Security is
working with our State and local governments.
There are few metropolitan regions in the country as
vulnerable as ours. Those of us who live in the Pacific
Northwest unfortunately are all too familiar with nature's
fury. In fact, I'm pressed to think of any other region that
faces the same number of natural hazards such as volcanic
eruptions, lahars, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires and floods,
just to name a few. Given our region's wealth of critical
infrastructures such as the Port of Seattle, our military
bases, and our proximity to Canada, the Seattle region is
increasingly a potential target for those seeking to undermine
our way of life. Because we reside in an area so prone to
catastrophic natural disasters and at such high risk for acts
of terrorism, it is absolutely imperative that all those forms
of governments, Federal, State and local, work in an integrated
seamless manner.
Unfortunately, as the response to Hurricane Katrina so
dramatically exposed, we as a nation have a long way to go in
that regard. We really should expect better from our
government. It's for these reasons that the Subcommittee is
holding today's field hearing. We are indeed fortunate in the
Seattle region to have the opportunity to hear from so many
hardworking, dedicated expert public servants on our state of
preparedness. Your appearance is vitally important to the work
of the Subcommittee and no doubt to the Department.
A little more than six months ago, Peter King, Chairman of
the full Committee on Homeland Security, personally asked me to
chair this Subcommittee. As one of the only six freshman in the
history of Congress to be afforded the privilege and honor of
chairing the Subcommittee, I am pleased and happy to host my
first field hearing in the 8th Congressional District.
Again, I would like to thank the witnesses and the audience
for being with us. I now yield to the ranking member of the
Subcommittee, Mr. Pascrell.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you, Chairman Reichert, for holding the
first of two hearings dedicated to examining emergency planning
and preparedness among Federal, State and local officials. And
when I look at the basic topics that we're going to get into
today, what are our strengths and what are our weaknesses, and
what is the relationship between the different levels of
government, we're trying to spend a lot of time on that,
because we think it's critical.
We know of the lack of communication at 9/11, and we want
to see how far we've come since then. Are we working together
in the first place? A lot of things pass for working together
when you look at it and scratch the surface to find out the
folks on the local level don't have any idea because we haven't
really shared with them.
Dave and I believe in the same philosophy on this. We
believe in a bottom-up approach to protecting our kids and our
families and our neighborhoods. It's been an honor for me. And
David knows that I can be as partisan as the next person, but
David knows I care for this guy. He's been a great chairman.
You have a great congressman here. He works very, very hard for
all the people. And he knows, if I didn't mean it, I wouldn't
say it. I don't care where I would be.
Mr. Reichert. That's true.
Mr. Pascrell. So this is a serious concern for both of us.
If and when terrorists or natural disaster strike our homeland,
it would be those on the local level that are most affected. We
forget that many times when we get caught up in the aura of the
dome.
Homeland Security consequently must begin at home, in our
communities and our cities. It is imperative that the men and
women on the frontlines are fully coordinated with State and
Federal officials, that robust communication, cooperation and
integration throughout the various spheres of our security
apparatus exists. Lives, as you know, will depend on it.
We live in a vast nation, so whether I'm talking about Mr.
Dave in Washington State or Mr. Dave for New Jersey, which I
represent, there may be many miles, 2,300, that separate us,
but we both really want the same thing for America. We want to
contribute to that and get out of the business of simply
pointing fingers. Because of the sheer size of the Nation, we
have an abundance of risks and vulnerabilities right here in
Washington State. It's home to the potential of a variety of
natural disasters, earthquakes volcanic eruptions, tsunamis.
In additional, two large container ports and a close
proximity to the northern border, the area is considered to be
a potential terrorist target. Dave and I both agree that,
whatever dollars are spent by the Federal Government, the more
we can base it on risk to the communities, the better off we
will all be. It will work more efficiently and more
effectively.
In New Jersey, which we'll be visiting for a second hearing
down the road, we have a number of challenges. It's close to
New York City, and that presents its own share of risks. It has
a complex array of infrastructures throughout the region.
Both of our congressional districts have many things in
common. First and foremost is the dedication of our first
responders, the police, fire, EMTs, State and local officials
who want to help protect our citizens. That's why we're here
today, to help ensure that the Department of Homeland Security
is effectively working with State and local agencies in
addressing the challenges of developing and implementing their
emergency preparedness and their response plans and their
interoperable communication networks. We have spent vast
hearing hours in debate and discussion on how we can improve
communications in this country. And if one was to look
objectively and stand back, we haven't come very far in four
years. We have our own inability to get the agencies to reach
out to one another. We have our own turf wars that exist on a
Federal level. We're trying to overcome them, trying to bring
people together.
At the same time, we want the Federal Communications
Commission to understand their responsibility in providing a
spectrum so that we can elaborate upon communications.
We're very fortunate today to have these folks that have
come a long way. We have the Under Secretary, George Foresman,
very well respected in emergency management. I really believe
that. And we have some disagreements when we come to meetings,
of course, because he represents the administration's
standpoint. But he goes beyond that, and I want to commend him
for the work that he's done and the patience that he's had with
me, because I can ask too many questions at times. He doesn't
know whether to laugh or smile. We all have faith in you,
George, Mr. Secretary, not only your competence but in your
passion for the responsibilities. You are well prepared for
this job, and one of the few areas of Homeland Security which I
feel comfortable with, even though we're a long ways from doing
what I think should be done, and I mean that sincerely.
I'm looking forward to an appearance or an array of
emergency management and first responder officials, and I'm
interested to learn what they believe are the greatest
impediments to this.
My local firefighters in New Jersey, my local police
officers and EMTs back in New Jersey are concerned about more
than the $600 million that is being cut from preparedness
directives within the Department of Homeland Security. They
worry about the elimination of the Law Enforcement Terrorism
Prevention Program, the Metropolitan Medical Response System,
and the safer firefighter grant program, which will affect
local readiness. They have real concerns about the dramatic
cuts in the fire grant programs which help all Americans, small
towns and large towns, the Emergency Management Performance
Grant Program and the various training programs within the
department.
Today while we discuss the need for interoperability, let's
not forget that the administration's fiscal year 2007 budget
also proposes to eliminate funding for the COPS
Interoperability Grant Program on the grounds that the program
is redundant with the efforts of the Department of Homeland
Security.
We're not here to discuss the COPS program, because you
wouldn't be able to shut me up. But we are here to talk about,
legitimately I think, interoperability programs within that.
The Department of Homeland Security does not have a dedicated
Interoperability Grant Program, so I look forward to hearing
how the witnesses are using their limited resources to address
a major priority discussing how we can help improve the
directives. Dave and I want to be helpful to you. And I think,
please believe us in our actions.
I welcome hearing from today's witness, a group of
dedicated public servants who are addressing critical
challenges. I salute them and look forward to a lively
discussion about issues of enormous national importance.
And in conclusion, we know that every time we act in the
Congress of the United States, there is a ripple effect. There
are consequences to what we do. I take that extremely
seriously, and I know David does, and I'm honored to work with
him. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening here.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Pascrell. I want to just
mention first, before we get into witness testimony, that this
kind of gives everyone a little bit of a flavor of how hearings
are held if you haven't had the opportunity to be in
Washington, D.C. and be present at a hearing.
Usually there's a number of other members around the table
and some witnesses all anxious and eager and ready to answer
questions. They can't wait for the friendly exchange that
usually occurs. I am eliciting a smile here from Mr. Foresman
as he focuses on his notes.
I think there's going to be--it's interesting. You know, I
want to make this a very comfortable and relaxed atmosphere.
We're in Orting, Washington, the 8th District. And both Bill
and I, and I know George, the Under Secretary and all the
witnesses here, are pleased to be here. But I want to just
emphasize how important this hearing is. We aren't going
through the motions here to gather some news coverage. We are
here today because we're going to gather some facts, listen to
some people who know their business.
And we are crafting legislation, as Bill said, that will
change the way you all in this room do business, how you do
your jobs, how we as American citizens depend upon you who are
our first responders and who are working with first responders
in emergencies to protect our community. This is important
stuff, and I just want to reemphasize that. Sometimes we lose
focus here. This is really important. So thank you again, Mr.
Pascrell, for taking the time to be here.
And first, we'll introduce a panel. The first witness that
will speak today is the Honorable George Foresman, Under
Secretary of Preparedness for the Department of Homeland
Security. We also have with us Mr. Jim Mullen, Director of the
Emergency Management Division of Washington Military
Department; Mr. Steven Bailey, Director of the Pierce County
Department of Emergency Management; Chief Mario Trevino, Chief
of the Bellevue Fire Department; and Mr. William Mitzel, Risk
Control Specialist, Home Office Commercial Lines, the Unigard
Insurance Group.
The Chair now recognizes the Honorable George Foresman to
testify.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE FORESMAN, UNDER SECRETARY OF PREPAREDNESS,
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Foresman. Good morning, Chairman Reichert and
Congressman Pascrell.
I very much want to acknowledge my appreciation for your
kind remarks. And the one thing I will offer is, the Committee
and both of you as leaders on the committee continue to provide
good guidance, counsel, and appropriate oversight to us in the
Department of Homeland Security, and I appreciate that. Thank
you both for the opportunity to appear today before the
Subcommittee to discuss the important national preparedness
initiatives in the Department of Homeland Security. I'm
indebted to you to be here today, and I'm humbled by the fact
I've been able to join the local and State officials who are on
the frontline of making America safer and more secure.
I'm particularly appreciative of this field hearing. It
allows us time with our local, State and private partners in
their communities and on their turf. This type of exposure is
critical toward constantly strengthening and improving our
national approach to preparedness. A national approach, not
Federal but national, requires the integration of levels and
functions of government, the public and the private sector and
the American people. I would just offer that this provides a
parallel opportunity; the more questions that you ask them, the
more that I will learn to be able to take back to Washington.
As I have mentioned in the previous testimony before the
Committee, over the past 20 years, our Nation has not had a
comprehensive national approach to preparedness that was
dynamic and flexible enough to react to changes in risk.
The Department of Homeland Security was created as an all-
hazards department with a mission to guide the development of a
model to steer a national preparedness effort to link all the
things that we do to deter, prevent, protect, respond, recover
and mitigate against a wide range of hazards. It is important
to recognize that this model is a shift from previous practices
in which preparedness efforts were narrowly focused on either
terrorism and natural disaster preparedness, but not both and
not in an integrated fashion.
Our difference in comprehensive approach requires a change
in the way that we think about preparedness. It is not simply a
step in the continuum what we do to manage the risks to the
homeland or the function of readiness. Rather it is the
umbrella over the continuum.
Simply put, preparedness is how we will bring together the
independent efforts to build one national preparedness system.
It is how we make the independent interdependent.
It is essential to understand that, under our current
evolving risk management principles, preparedness is not just
an administrative function within the Department of Homeland
Security. Our direction and mission applies to each office and
component within DHS across the Federal areas and communities,
and most importantly with our State, local and private sector
partners and the most critical element, the American people.
Our job is to increase synchronization and integration within
and among all of these elements. It is a shared national
mission, not simply a Federal activity. To strengthen our
national preparedness, we must focus more acutely on connecting
the unconnected to achieve unity of effort. In order to achieve
a broader and truly national preparedness effort, the
Department must coalesce to lessen the many disparate issues at
all levels of government and in the private sector while
preserving critical missions, cultures and identities of
individual organizations.
Central to our efforts is the establishment of National
Preparedness Integration Program, or NPIP, which includes a $50
million initiative in our DHS fiscal year 2007 budget request.
The NPIP will support our national and departmental efforts by
providing a centralized mechanism for promoting the alignments
of preparedness efforts across all levels of government, the
public and private sectors. Failure to do so will lessen our
ability to support the men and women working every day in our
communities to keep American safe and secure.
By developing a common doctrine and approach to planning
and training exercises, risk management and assessments, we
will unite and integrate currently independent activities
across all levels of government. Three examples: When an
earthquake or lahar, as you mentioned earlier, or a terrorist
attack could impact the people and infrastructure in this
region, we must be sure that how we respond, how the Federal
Government supports safety in communities is clear, coordinated
and consistent irrespective of the hazard that threatens to
cause the damage and destruction. At the end of the day, the
local public safety officials charged with preventing a
mitigation and response of the recovery wants one format
process for getting Federal help. Imagine if we as citizens had
to call different numbers and follow different procedures if we
were dealing with all auto accidents or fire versus a crime
versus a medical emergency. This kind of standardization will
allow us to better measure performance so that we can
individually and collectively assess our progress as a
community and state and as a nation. It will allow us to
evaluate preparedness from state to state and city to city as
well as nationally.
The creation of the NPIP will enable us to build the
national preparedness system that was envisioned when Congress
created DHS. Critically it will draw on all responsible
parties' plans and budgets for preparedness. Without such a
system, it will be impossible to answer the question of how
much better prepared are we today and how much do we continue
to be. How better prepared should we be, and how far do we have
to go? Most critically we need to have an integrated approach
nationally. The NPIP will provide for this integrated approach.
I would also note that our national catastrophic planning
project is currently not as integrated as it should be.
Hurricane Katrina was a vivid reminder of this. We trust that
existing plans across all levels of government are adequate and
feasible, but we do not have a systematic way to ensure that
they are fully synchronized on a day-to-day or region-to-region
or a jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction basis. This results in a
fragmented response to disasters, particularly catastrophic
events.
Additionally, the core principle of the national response
plan may not be fully operationalized which is needed quickly
at the Federal, State or local level. We need a national
planning system that will provide the means to achieve
synchronization both vertically and horizontally to ensure that
the Nation's planning at the local, State and Federal levels
are organized and well resourced to be able to effectively
respond to a wide variety of threats that we face on a day-to-
day basis.
In closing, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Pascrell, the
President and Congress have consistently identified the need
for specific and measurable goals for preparedness, national
cooperation, the application of the systems where the need and
risk is the greatest, determination of the central capability
of community need, and advanced planning processes that ensure
plans are adequate and achieve the required synchronization to
ensure goals interoperability.
The National Preparedness Integration Program and the work
of the preparedness directives will allow the Department to
meet each of these challenges and will ensure a safer and more
secure America; and most importantly, will ensure more prepared
communities.
Thank you once again for providing me the opportunity to
speak with you all today and for your continued support and
valued input. I look forward to answering any questions that
you may have. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Forseman follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. George W. Foresman
Introduction
Good morning Chairman Reichert and Congressman Pascrell. Thank you
for the opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee to discuss
important preparedness initiatives within the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS).
As you may have observed, over the past 20 years America's approach
to preparedness has not been sufficiently comprehensive or dynamic and
flexible enough to react to changes in a continuum of risk. National
preparedness efforts have too often focused on either terrorism
planning and prevention or natural disaster preparedness and response.
In the initial years of the newly created Department, significant
emphasis was placed on terrorism-related threats, in recognition of the
post-9/11 environment. However, as very evident today, it also had
acquired the all-hazards legacy elements associated with many of the
components assigned to the Department and the preparedness linkages and
responsibilities associated with our State, local, and private sector
partners. Thus, we must take a comprehensive approach in our national
preparedness planning efforts.
Therefore, I would like to share with you my vision and goals for
strengthening America's preparedness and how these initiatives will
allow us to meet these goals in support of the overall mission of the
Department.
Last July, the Preparedness Directorate was created as a result of
Secretary Chertoff's Second Stage Review. This newly formed Directorate
was given the distinct mission to coordinate the full range of our
national capabilities to prevent, protect against, and respond to acts
of terror or other disasters.
For the reasons above, my vision and goals for national
preparedness require a change in the way we think about preparedness. I
see it more as a transformation of ``how'' we prepare as being
essential to ensuring the safety and security of our citizens in the
21st Century.
This change in thought dictates that preparedness should be
understood not simply as a step in the continuum of what we do to
manage risks to the homeland or the function of a single entity.
Rather, it is the umbrella over the continuum. Simply put, preparedness
is how we will bring together independent efforts to build one national
preparedness system.
In addition, it is essential to understand that under our current
evolving risk management principles, Preparedness is not just an
administrative function within the Department of Homeland Security. Our
mission applies to each office and component within DHS, across the
federal interagency community as well as our State, local, territorial,
tribal and private sector partners, and the most critical element--the
American people. Our job is to achieve integration and synchronization
within all of these elements. It is a shared national mission, not
simply a Federal activity.
Preparedness Directorate Mission
The mission of the Preparedness Directorate is to define,
strengthen and measure preparedness capabilities of the Nation to
prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from terrorist
attacks, major disasters and other emergencies.
I believe that to achieve a broader and truly national
preparedness, the Department and our State, tribal, local, and private
sector partners must coalesce, integrate, and synchronize many
disparate initiatives while preserving critical missions, cultures, and
identities of individual organizations. Therefore, integration,
synchronization, and communication become the foundations to our
national preparedness efforts.
Additionally, the Directorate will develop, foster, and instill a
national preparedness culture--an imperative established by the White
House and the Congress, and an expectation of the American citizens.
This will require extensive leveraging of existing DHS Headquarters and
field component resources and program activities. It will also require
the dedicated encouragement and leveraging of other Federal
interagency, State, local, tribal, and private sector resources to
facilitate seamless national preparedness and effective cooperative
partnerships.
National Preparedness Integration Program
Central to preparedness integration and synchronization is the
establishment of the National Preparedness Integration Program (NPIP),
which is included as a $50 million initiative in the President's Fiscal
Year 2007 Department of Homeland Security Budget Request.
The purpose of the NPIP is to improve the Nation's preparedness
posture--a national safety and security imperative. The basic premise
of the NPIP is that effective national preparedness requires an
integrated and synchronized approach among Federal, State, local,
tribal and private-sector partners to share information and to plan,
train, and exercise consistently. The current federal level approach to
information sharing, planning, training and exercising is inconsistent
across departments and agencies, leading to non-integrated
preparedness.
As the preparedness enabling element of the Office of the Under
Secretary for Preparedness, the NPIP will oversee the national
integrated preparedness efforts to ensure coordinated strategic
partnering and development of standard preparedness doctrine. This
reflects the vision outlined in Homeland Security Presidential
Directive Eight, released on December 17, 2003.
The Department requires a lead preparedness integrator such as the
NPIP to support national preparedness transformation. This function
will be accomplished at the Preparedness Directorate level and
adequately resourced to ensure synchronization and integration of
national preparedness initiatives and requirements.
NPIP will link requirements with emerging technology, doctrine, and
operational requirements, techniques, and procedures to ensure the
integration, interoperability, and operational effectiveness of
homeland security capabilities. NPIP staff will work closely with the
Homeland Security Institute and DHS Centers for Excellence to ensure
preparedness integration projects and requirements are studied through
experiments, and tested through combined training and exercise events
conducted by the Directorate.
Preparedness standardization also allows us to better measure
performance so we can individually and collectively assess our
progress, allowing us to evaluate preparedness nationally, from region
to region, state to state, and city to city.
Therefore, through the NPIP, we can better develop regional and
local resilience to terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other
emergencies.
Building a National Preparedness System
By establishment of the NPIP, we will enhance our national
preparedness system, which allow us to better answer the question,
``What risks should we prepare for and how well must we prepare?''
Given the range of roles and responsibilities of DHS, it has proved
difficult to ensure homeland security capabilities are internally
coherent and collectively competent. These currently bifurcated
relationships must be organized within a fully integrated and adaptable
national preparedness system.
A fully integrated national preparedness system will result in:
Strategic and operational flexibility that accommodates
risk and uncertainty;
A capabilities-based framework that organizes the nation
to act in concert, and with the speed and operational effectiveness
required for effective prevention and response; and
The means to measure readiness by an individual entity or
in aggregate.
This national preparedness system will improve the nation's
homeland security and fully leverage the domestic all-hazards emergency
response system for natural hazards and other emergencies.
State, local, tribal and private sector partners are not an adjunct
to national preparedness system development. Instead, they are integral
to development of a functional and successful system--bringing
partnership commitment and participation to sustain and achieve
sufficient preparedness capacity to ensure the Nation can effectively
deal with catastrophic events.
Some of the critical initiatives supporting this system are:
Finalizing a single national and regional risk assessment
methodology to identify the types and magnitudes of risks we face.
Encouraging capability-based planning that supports
synchronization both vertically (across levels of government) and
horizontally (across agencies at each level of government).
Provide risk-based allocation of Federal assistance to
state and local governments and other funding recipients and targeted
towards building adaptable and interchangeable target capabilities,
including capabilities that strengthen citizen resilience.
Finalize a system of preparedness measures to assess
national, regional, and local preparedness.
Several of these initiatives are already underway in DHS and other
Federal agencies. The NPIP will help ensure unity of effort and
consistency.
Nationwide Plan Review
The NPIP will also support follow-on efforts for the Nationwide
Plan Review mandated by President Bush following Hurricane Katrina.
DHS was directed by the President to conduct an immediate review of
emergency plans for the nation's major cities. Congress subsequently
tasked DHS and the Department of Transportation (DOT) to review plans
for all States and territories and 75 of the nation's largest urban
areas, with particular emphasis on evacuation planning. DHS launched a
two-phase review process in cooperation with DOT.
The overall objective of this two-phase review is to assess the
adequacy and feasibility of the nation's emergency plans to deal with
catastrophic disasters, whether natural or manmade.
The first phase involved a self-assessment of plans by States,
territories and urban areas/major cities using guidance and criteria
provided by DHS. The Department, through Preparedness Information
Bulletin Number 197 issued November 23, 2005, provided comprehensive
guidance to the participating jurisdictions on the types of information
required for the self-assessment. The Information Bulletin posed a
number of questions designed to determine the status of emergency
planning efforts within the participating jurisdictions. It should be
noted that participation in the Nationwide Plan Review is a
prerequisite for receipt of Fiscal Year 2006 DHS Homeland Security
grant funds.
The Department received responses from 98% of the participants. DHS
provided a report summarizing Phase I results to Congress on February
10, 2006. The report included the following summary of findings:
States' and urban areas' plan components are generally
consistent with existing Federal planning guidance such as SLG
101 (State & Local Guidance 101) and voluntary standards such
as NFPA 1600;
For States and urban areas, having plans that are
consistent with existing Federal planning guidance and
voluntary standards does not translate into confidence in those
plans to manage catastrophic events;
The majority of States and urban areas have exercised
their plan components within the past two years, though updates
to plan components have not been as consistent;
Plan components that have been updated recently are
more likely to be consistent with existing Federal planning
guidance and voluntary standards;
Plan components that have been updated recently are
more likely to be considered adequate for managing catastrophic
events; and
More populous States tend to have plan components that
are consistent with existing Federal planning guidance and
voluntary standards.
The Phase I results suggest the need for more common planning
assumptions and methods; stronger integration of grant funding with
operational needs; and a common framework for assessing and reporting
on plans' effectiveness.
The second phase of the Nationwide Plan Review is currently
underway and based on the Phase I findings, four areas were identified
as requiring special emphasis in Phase II. These are customarily the
most resource-intensive components of emergency plans and include the
planning elements of:
1. Mass Evacuation
2. Mass Care
3. Resource Management
4. Health and Medical.
During phase II, Peer Review Teams comprised of former state and
local emergency management and homeland security officials will visit
131 States, Territories, and urban areas to jointly validate self-
assessments, determine requirements for planning assistance, collect
best practices, and recommend corrective actions. The Peer Review Teams
will work to jointly validate the self-assessments and determine
requirements for planning assistance, and recommend corrective actions
for those plans that are determined to require some level of change.
Perhaps just as important, these teams will collect best practices
to disseminate to our State and local partners. Through the sharing of
best practices we hope to achieve additional progress in the effort to
improve catastrophic emergency planning processes. The results of the
site visits and specific recommendations to strengthen catastrophic
planning will be provided in a final report to the President and
Congress by May 31, 2006.
There's no doubt that our national catastrophic planning process is
disjointed and unsystematic. We have had to trust that existing plans
across all levels of government are adequate and feasible, but we do
not have a systematic way to ensure they are, or that they are
synchronized. When I use the word ``synchronized,'' I mean both a
process and an effect--that plans are related in purpose, place and
time, and that together, our combined plans and pooled capabilities
achieve the effect we want: ``the city is evacuated'' or ``the
terrorists are eliminated.''
The existing Federal, State, and local preparedness and operational
plans are not sufficiently coordinated, resulting in a fragmented
response to disasters, particularly catastrophic events. Additionally,
the core principles of the National Response Plan (NRP) have not been
fully operationalized and de-conflicted at the Federal, State, or local
levels.
The Department hopes to address the needs identified by States and
localities during the course of the Nationwide Plan Review, in part,
through the establishment of the NPIP.
Close
In closing, Mr. Chairman, the President and Congress have
consistently identified the need for specific and measurable goals for
preparedness, national cooperation, application of assistance where the
need is greatest, determination of essential capabilities that
communities need, and advanced planning processes that ensure plans are
adequate and feasible and achieve required synchronization.
HSPD-8 ``National Preparedness,'' Hurricane Katrina lessons
learned, and the strategic requirements of the war on terrorism require
transformation of national preparedness--a process that shapes the
changing nature of homeland security preparedness through new
combinations of concepts, capabilities, people, and organization that
exploit the Nation's advantages and protect against our vulnerabilities
by building and sustaining national resilience.
The benefits of transforming national preparedness include:
synchronization with national policy; a strategic approach to national
preparedness transformation; and, achievement of the Directorate's
vision of creating, through NPIP, a fully integrated national
preparedness system.
And lastly, this approach ensures that national preparedness
transformation will not be jeopardized and the credibility of the
Directorate and Department will not be undermined; that the ambitious
shaping of homeland security preparedness will not be impeded; and that
we do not miss the historic opportunity to act and correct the
shortcomings in the Katrina emergency response as well as in the
protection and defense of the United States from terrorism.
Thank you once again for providing me the opportunity to speak with
you today and for your continued support to the Department.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Under Secretary. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Mullen.
STATEMENT OF JAMES MULLEN, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON MILITARY
DEPARTMENT, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIVISION
Mr. Mullen. Thank you, Chairman Reichert and Congress
Pascrell, for allowing me to speak to the Committee as part of
the national discussion about the state of our preparedness.
Washington State's all-hazards management system predates
9/11 by several decades, including the statewide homeland
security stratagem that predates 9/11 by two full years. Our
system incorporates broad public and private representation. It
is this system that develops and tracks the all-hazards State
Homeland Security Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan is the
foundation of Team Washington's enterprise approach to disaster
preparedness.
We have excellent working relationships with our local
colleagues within the State. This is not to say that we agree
with each other on everything, but we have mutual respect. We
interact honestly in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect
to the challenges each of us faces. In emergency situations, as
well as during difficult day-to-day issues, that bond is held.
With our regional and Federal colleagues, I can say that we
have an excellent relationship as well, but miss the days when
they were our link to the Federal decision-making process. We
trust them, they know us, but they are often cut out of the
dialogue by their own command chain.
I've seen some positive signs of that due to the excellent
leadership that Region 10 gets at FEMA, but while my remarks
may--as we proceed may seem a little pointed, I must stipulate
that the regional leadership must be given as much respect in
DC as we give it here. We have a great respect for them.
Interoperability is one of the most recurrent themes
nationally, and properly so. The State of Washington has a
State Interoperability Executive Committee established by the
legislature to address this issue. Long-term solutions are
complex and potentially very costly. Although technological and
administrative challenges and long-term financing issues for
statewide interoperability are very real, our emphasis remains
on interoperability between first responders. Interoperability,
like I say, is as much a management as a technological term.
There must be willingness at all levels to coordinate,
collaborate and cooperate.
Emergency Management Performance Grants, EMPG, are the
Federal match for State and local investments in emergency
mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Although EMPG
is based on a 50/50 match--50 percent Federal, and 50 percent
State and local--the reality is that State and local
governments are carrying these burdens at an 80/20 ratio. It is
a cruel myth that States and locals are simply waiting for
Federal dollars before initiating their own efforts.
Ironically, EMPG is the only DHS grant program that
requires any match at all of States and locals, and yet instead
of leveraging the local-State investment, the DHS strategy has
been to inflict death by a thousand cuts on the one program
that provides the best chance to prepare communities to respond
in any type of disaster. This flies in the face of any
reasonable assessment of what must be done to assure that local
and State planning and coordination is enhanced.
DHS still lacks emergency management expertise. Decisions
are made daily by DHS about deadlines and program application
requirements that impose an unnecessary burden on an already
overwhelmed local and State emergency management
infrastructure. And DHS still has difficulty in meeting its own
deadlines for providing information so grant applications can
be completed.
I cannot be certain that Federal disaster assistance will
be provided in a timely manner, nor that the Federal assistance
will provide what I need when I need it. I can't be certain
that my Region 10 Federal counterpart, in whom I have great
confidence, will be kept in the loop of information, even when
he serves as the Federal Coordinating Officer. In our next
disaster, I may be devoting time to damage control from the
effects of the Federal effort rather than focus on victims,
which would be my preference.
Post Katrina, States must be prepared to work to preserve
Federal commitments to assist victims. There exists the
distinct possibility that DHS may renege on commitments and
parse the words of written assurances.
The Katrina experience, I might say, was merely another
milestone in the continuing degradation of the Nation's
capacity to mitigate, prepare, respond and recover with respect
to disasters. We've seen this happening over the years. FEMA
isn't FEMA anymore.
Our Katrina is most likely a major earthquake. That's why
mitigation and preparedness efforts have taken hold in our
State. Since we won't have four days to observe our disaster
approaching, those things that we do to offset consequences and
ready our citizens are of critical importance.
In one version of the Katrina-style event, a subduction
zone quake could create a tsunami threat within 25 minutes of
our coastal communities. We are implementing a coordinated
warning system for coastal communities for tsunamis. This will
include public education workshops, training and exercises. We
do have evacuation plans to support moving people quickly away
from an approaching lahar or a tsunami. We in this State must
improve our ability to care for a sizable number of citizens
when they must move away from a dangerous environment.
A major quake along the Seattle Fault could trigger
significant injuries or loss of life. We would see significant
damage to the transportation and commerce networks in our
State. No part of our economy will be unscathed.
A great deal of cooperative work has positioned Washington
State to respond effectively, but clearly the momentum and
collaboration needs to continue. We need to continue to build
on our partnerships with local government and the private
sector, because for a considerable time after our earthquake,
we will be on our own. A major commitment of EMPGs beyond the
annual levels we have seen would be an extremely helpful
development if it were to be administered by emergency
management professionals minus the constraining influences that
characterizes the Homeland Security Grant Program requirements.
We will be stronger if and when DHS and FEMA rights itself,
but even if that happens some day, we know that we have our own
work to do out here. With increased planning exercise and
training support, we can make great strides to improve the
overall capacity of local and State government. We will carry
our share of that burden.
We also need to continue to reach out to DHS and FEMA. And
when they extend a hand, as they have been doing recently, we
need to grab it. We should not just complain. We must keep
offering our participation and our advice to help fix the
problems we've identified. Mere consultation isn't sufficient.
True partnership allows debate, discussion and the merging of
expertise before deadlines are established and before policies
and requirements become etched in stone. We look forward to any
such exchange with DHS.
None of these issues are unique to my State. However,
because I think of some earlier failures in leadership and the
demolition of existing national emergency management structure
with little analysis or consultation, we will need time to
restore a national program managed by professionals and
possessing the necessary authority and expertise to not only
improve the situation but recognize those positive
contributions the DHS model has brought, including the State
and local cooperation. But at the same time, we need to restore
and enhance what was the FEMA mission until recently. It can be
done, but it will have to be done by the professional emergency
management community and the public safety sector. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Mullen follows:]
Prepared Statement For the Record of James M. Mullen
Introduction
Thank you, Chairman Reichert, and Ranking Member Pascrell for
allowing me to provide you with a statement for the record on Emergency
Planning and Preparedness: Federal, State and Local Coordination. I'll
try to highlight key issues that I believe need to be raised as part of
the national discussion about the state of our preparedness.
Washington State's all-hazards management system predates 9/11 by
several decades, including a statewide Homeland Security stratagem that
predates 9/11 by 2 full years. Our system incorporates a broad public/
private representation on a statutorily created Emergency Management
Council and a statewide Homeland Security Committee (each of which
meets every 60 days. These groups liaise with the Governor's Domestic
Security Executive Group (comprised mostly of senior cabinet level
public safety officials) which meets on a weekly basis, advising the
Governor on the state's disaster readiness and on state wide disaster
issues ranging from tsunami preparedness to homeland security grant
programs involving local, state and private sector participants. It is
this system that develops and tracks the State's Homeland Security
Strategic Plan, which is truly an all hazards document. The Strategic
Plan is the foundation of Team Washington's enterprise approach to
disaster preparedness.
Status of intergovernmental collaboration
We have excellent working relationships with our local colleagues
within the state. That is not to claim we concur in all things, nor is
it to suggest interactions are smooth all of the time. Interactions are
unfailingly honest, and this has been helpful during emergency
situations, as well as in resolving difficult day to day issues. We
have taken the time to develop mutual respect for the professional
capabilities and challenges each government level encounters. With our
regional federal colleagues, I can say that we have an excellent
relationship as well, but miss the days when they were our link to the
federal decision making process. We trust them, they know us, but they
are often cut out of the dialogue by their own command chain.
Interoperability
Interoperability is one of the most recurrent themes in any
credible analysis of an effective and robust emergency management
system. The State of Washington has a State Interoperability Executive
Committee established by the Legislature, to address this issue.
Although technological and administrative challenges, and long term
financing issues for state wide interoperability, are very real, it
remains our primary focus to support first responders, assuring that a
deputy sheriff from one county can communicate at an incident
effectively with a fire commander from the neighboring county without
missing a beat. Interoperability is as much a management as a
technological term--there must be willingness at all levels to
coordinate, collaborate and cooperate.
We are also enhancing our logistical capability, first coordinating
more effectively within the Military Department between the resources
of the Emergency Management Division and the National Guard, and
branching out this past year to work with local logistics planners to
devise a seamless exchange of information about available resources.7
State and Local Planning and Coordination Capability
Emergency Management Performance Grants (EMPG) are the federal
``match'' for state and local investments in emergency mitigation,
preparedness, response and recovery. Although EMPG is based on a 50/50
match (50% federal to 50% state/local), the reality is that state and
local governments are carrying these burdens at an 80/20 ratio. It is a
cruel myth that states and locals are simply waiting for federal
dollars before initiating their own efforts.
Ironically, EMPG is the only DHS grant program that requires any
match at all of states and locals, and yet instead of leveraging the
local--state investment, the DHS strategy has been to inflict death by
``1000 cuts'' on the one program that provides the best chance to
prepare communities to respond in any type of disaster. This flies in
the face of any reasonable assessment of what must be done to assure
that local and state planning and coordination is enhanced.
Impediments to Disaster Response in a Presidential Declaration of
Emergency
DHS still lacks emergency management expertise. The federal
performance we have seen in exercises and real time events and the
policies we must endure suggests that the next major emergency response
may be aggravated rather than alleviated by DHS.
On a daily basis, decisions are made by DHS about deadlines and
program application requirements that impose an unnecessary burden on
an already overwhelmed local and state emergency management
infrastructure. And, DHS has difficulty in meeting its own deadlines
for providing information so grant applications can be completed.
During a disaster, I cannot be certain that federal disaster
assistance will be provided in a timely manner, nor that the federal
assistance DHS/FEMA provides will be what I need, when I need it. I
can't be certain that my Region 10 federal counterpart, in whom I have
great confidence, will be kept in the loop of information, even when he
serves as the Federal Coordinating Officer. This means that in our next
disaster I may be devoting time to damage control from the effects of
the federal ``effort'' rather than focus on victims, which would be my
preference.
Post Katrina, states must be prepared to work to preserve federal
commitments to assist victims. There exists the distinct possibility
that DHS may renege on commitments, and parse the words of written
assurances.
The Katrina experience was merely another milestone in the
continuing degradation of the nation's capacity to mitigate, prepare,
respond and recover with respect to disasters. We in emergency
management have seen this condition unfold over the past several years.
FEMA isn't FEMA any more.
Our Katrina
Our ``Katrina'' is most likely a major earthquake. That's why
mitigation and preparedness efforts have taken hold in our state: since
we won't have four days to observe our disaster approaching, those
things that we do to offset consequences and ready our citizens are of
critical importance.
Coastal Communities
In one version of a Katrina style event, a subduction zone quake
could create a tsunami threat within 25 minutes for our coastal
communities.
We are implementing a coordinated warning system for coastal
communities for tsunami. This will include public education workshops,
training and exercises.
Evacuation
We do have evacuation plans to support moving people quickly away
from an approaching lahar or a tsunami. We in this state must improve
our ability to care for a sizable number of citizens when they must
move away from a dangerous environment.
Seattle Fault
A major quake along the Seattle Fault could trigger significant
injuries or loss of life. We would see significant damage to the
transportation and commerce networks in our state. No part of our
economy will be unscathed.
Immediate Future
None of these vulnerabilities is a surprise. A great deal of
cooperative work has positioned Washington State to respond
effectively, but clearly the momentum and the collaboration needs to
continue. We need to continue to build on our partnerships with local
government and the private sector, because for a considerable time
after our earthquake we can expect to be on our own. A major commitment
of EMPG beyond the annual levels we have seen would be an extremely
hopeful development, if it were to be administered by emergency
management professionals, minus the constraining influence that
characterizes the Homeland Security Grant Program.
We will be stronger if/when DHS/FEMA rights itself, but even if
that happens some day, we know that we have our own work to do here.
With increased planning exercise and training support, we can make
great strides to improve the overall capacity of local and state
government. We will carry our share of the burden.
We also need to continue to reach out to DHS and FEMA. We should
not just complain--we must keep offering our participation and our
advice to help fix the problems we have identified. Mere consultation
will not be sufficient: a true partnership allows debate, discussion
and the merging of expertise before deadlines are established, and
before policies become etched in stone. We look forward to any such
exchange.
None of these issues are unique to my state. However, because of
the demolition of the existing national emergency management structure
with little analysis or consultation, we will need in time to restore a
national program, managed by professionals, and possessing the
necessary authority and expertise to recognize those positive
contributions the DHS model has made, while restoring and enhancing
what has been the FEMA mission until recently. It can be done, but it
must be done by the professional emergency management community and its
public safety partners.
Thank you.
Note: while the issues below were not covered specifically in my
oral presentation, I am prepared to discuss these with the Committee at
any time.
Some Additional Thoughts
EMAC: Nationally, we need to continue to foster the
Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) which in a state to
state exchange sent more than 65000 civilian and National Guard
personnel to the Gulf States. This system proved adaptable and
flexible, and after action efforts will make the program even stronger
in its next deployment mission.
Federalization: Any attempt by any Administration to
``federalize'' a disaster response should be met with opposition from
all quarters. This is a constitutional issue and it is uniquely
American to insist that the state's governors control efforts within
their own states.
Public Education: People in our state in earthquake hazard
areas must be trained to drop, cover and hold, and to move to higher
ground as soon as they can in tsunami prone areas. Similarly, given the
frequency and history of disasters in various parts of Washington
State, the particular emphasis on a hazard, and thus the protective
measures the public must be schooled in, may differ. Fires, floods,
lahars each have characteristics and protective or defensive measures
to be conveyed. The emergency management community is uniquely
qualified to present public education for all hazards disaster
preparedness, and this is delivered best by local officials at the
local government level, anywhere in the country, for any type of hazard
that a community may face.
State and federal assistance and support is important, but
it cannot be a controlling form of support. Washington State is
developing a state wide public education strategy that can be tailored
to any jurisdiction in the state, and will provide materials and
technical assistance to communities. The State will work within the
state government family to convey appropriate messaging that will
enhance the prospects of key state personnel to be able to respond
quickly with a high level of assurance that their own families are
protected.
Exercises: A collaborative effort is underway, coordinated
by State EMD, but with the indispensable participation of our local
colleagues, to try to establish a rational exercise regime for the
state of Washington. Exercises, to be effective, must be designed
carefully, implemented appropriately, critiqued thoroughly and
unflinchingly, and followed up resolutely to correct any gaps or
deficiencies. If the TOPOFF 2 exercise in 2003 achieved anything at all
in our state, it solidified relationships and built trust among a
variety of disciplines that is invaluable in these times. The exercise
protocols will enable us to develop capability within the State, and
will ultimately facilitate expansion to inter state exercises, and even
across our international border with Canada as the 2010 Olympics
approaches.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Mullen. The Chairman
recognizes Mr. Bailey.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN BAILEY, DIRECTOR, PIERCE COUNTY DEPARTMENT
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Mr. Bailey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Pascrell. Thank
you for inviting me here. As a resident of the 8th
Congressional District, I want to welcome the Chairman home.
It's good to see him. You'll have to pardon me if in this very
formal process I fail to address him properly, because for
those of us in the 8th Congressional District, he's just Dave.
And so I'll try to say ``Mr. Chairman'' today, but it's good to
see you.
Shortly after 9/11, within three months, Pierce County
executive, John Ladenberg, formed the Terrorism Early Warning
Task Force with public safety leaders throughout our county.
That work has been working since that day to address the
preparedness and response issues in Pierce County, and we have
made great strides.
And I think it's important, when we get in this debate of
the Department of Homeland Security and the FEMA issues and a
lot of the negative press that we see, we have made great
strides in this county in terms of public safety. And I
certainly want to thank the Congress for the support they have
given us. It has made specific and drastic improvements in
public safety in our community.
We have great leadership. Jeff Jensen, the Director of the
Emergency Management for the City of Tacoma is here; Sheriff
Paul Pastor, the Sheriff of Pierce County, is here, and they
are all actively involved.
We've had a couple of events recently that have
demonstrated that. We had an active shooter incident in the
Tacoma Mall several months ago. I believe we had fifteen
different jurisdictions respond to that in support of the
Tacoma Fire and Police Department who did an excellent job
resolving that situation. But I think it did demonstrate some
of the improvements we've made in public safety in this
community.
Then just last week we had a two-day drill--health drill,
biological attack involving the CDC and the State Department of
Health and Emergency Management and our local community. And
once again, we demonstrated clearly that we have made important
strides in preparedness and operations at the community level.
It's the only way we will survive as a community is to continue
to work together. We simply don't have the resources to deal
with these incidents on our own.
And of course, another important issue is interoperability
communication. There again, we have made some strides with new
technology. Under a grant, one of the Federal grants, we were
able to purchase a new communications vehicle for this county.
It's got technology in it that allows us to commonize the radio
frequencies. We used that at the Tacoma Mall incident so that
all of the fifteen responding jurisdictions could talk to one
another. It works. It isn't seamless. It would cost this county
a great deal of money to become seamless, money that we do not
have. And of course, as you've said, the frequencies aren't
available even if we had the money. So those are issues that we
are really concerned about.
The real issue that I really want to stress here--and it's
really following up on some things that Mr. Pascrell said--is
about community involvement. One of the things, because I've
been in this business a long time and people assume I may know
something, is I get a lot questions about, what are the ten
lessons of Hurricane Katrina? Probably, at my age, I can't
remember ten things anymore, so I have to boil it down to one.
And that one lesson for me out of Katrina is the expectation of
the public for us to meet their needs. It's almost like they
think we will be there 20 minutes after the event with a hot
plate of food, a warm blanket and a check for $500. If you went
to the major 911 center here in Tacoma today, you would see
flashing on the dispatch screen 911 calls that are waiting for
law enforcement officers to clear from another event so that
they can respond to the new call. We simply are not meeting the
daily law enforcement, fire and EMS demand in our community;
and that is the reality. And it creates this huge gap of
expectation of the public and our ability to respond. Here in
Orting we do not have a warehouse with a hundred firefighters
and a hundred police officers sitting waiting for the next
disaster.
So one of the steps we've taken here in Pierce County is a
community program called Pierce County Neighbor Emergency
Teams, PC-NET. It is training and equipping neighborhoods and
individuals to take care of themselves and their community. It
started with a small Federal grant that got us off the ground.
We're now up to 250 neighborhoods throughout the county with
over 3,000 citizen trained volunteers. This is the future for
us in terms of our people being able to take care of
themselves.
The problem is, of course, the Federal grant has gone away,
and we are now left with a great program with no funding
underpinning it allowing us to continue to increase. We have 50
neighborhoods waiting for staff to become available to equip
them under this program.
I believe community preparedness needs to be a priority if
we are going to effectively respond to major disasters anywhere
in this country, and certainly here in Pierce County.
I appreciate Congressman Reichert's assistance last year in
trying to assist us in getting some Federal funding to continue
the program. We're looking and hoping once again that this will
rise to a level that will enable us to continue to fund and
support this effort.
The unique thing about our program, although it's based on
the Federal CERT program for the disaster preparedness piece,
we have also under the leadership of Sheriff Pastor included a
crime prevention piece. And the reason we've done that is,
preparing people for disasters, sometimes the disaster doesn't
come along for quite a while, and they can become disinterested
as volunteers. But when you bring the crime piece in, that's a
day-to-day interest issue for them. And we have seen on average
in our PC-NET neighborhoods a 27 percent decrease in personal
property crime. So we're very excited by this two-pronged work
and attack that we're doing in our communities.
So I want to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the ability
to speak. We certainly appreciate the hard work that you're
providing for us in Washington. Again, I would like to
supplement Mr. Mullen's comments on the grant process. At the
local level, the people who need to do the planning and the
responding are the same people that have to do the grant
process; and every year since 9/11, the grant process at the
Federal level has changed significantly. The most significant
change is this year. And the due dates are down to yesterday,
not months from now or even weeks from now. It's you need to
have it in by yesterday. It is hamstringing us to implement the
programs that we need to implement.
So my plea would be, if we could stay with a process for a
couple years and not change it and let us catch our breath,
that would be most helpful.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Bailey follows:]
Prepared Statement of Steve C. Bailey
September 11, the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricanes Katrina/Rita
have, to some, caused a paradigm shift in the world of emergency
management--from single level collaboration to new innovative
partnerships and cooperation on a multi-faceted level. For many of us,
this approach was always the current practice but it is now mandated
nation wide. The key to effective mitigation, preparation, response and
recovery is coordination and collaboration at the regional level.
Pierce County has made great strides in this arena by creating the
Terrorism Early Warning and Response task force, as well as
participating in the Seattle/King County Urban Area Security Initiative
(UASI). Citizens, municipalities, county agencies, local jurisdictions
and regional, state and military partners work together on a daily
basis to address all hazards facing our communities. In Pierce County,
this most recently became evident during a shooting at the Tacoma Mall.
Hundreds of public safety personnel from multiple agencies and
jurisdictions responded to that incident because of the strong
relationships that have been developed. Had we not all trained, planned
and exercised together, the outcome may have been very different.
Interoperable communications is the current hot topic in emergency
response. The Tacoma Mall incident is yet another example of why
interoperability is so important. Many of the responding agencies
utilized different frequencies, but because of recent improvements, all
agencies were able to talk with on another. More specifically, Pierce
County Emergency Management purchased a state-of-the-art Mobile
Operational Command Center (MOCC) with homeland security funds that is
utilized on a weekly basis. On that unit is a piece of equipment called
the ACU 1000 which commonizes radio frequencies at the flip of a
switch. Our public safety dispatch centers are equipped with the same
technology so this version of interoperability is available countywide,
not just when our MOCC is deployed.
Many operate under the misconception that the answer to
interoperability is 800 megahertz radios, but there simply aren't
enough channels available for public safety and it is cost prohibitive.
We estimate it will cost $50+ million for Pierce County to move to the
800 megahertz system and that does not include the cost for
infrastructure (towers, etc.). As mentioned above, Pierce County has
made great, cost effective improvements, but it still isn't seamless.
Probably the biggest lesson, even above interoperability, is
citizen and community preparedness. After years and years of telling
the public they need to have a plan and enough supplies to be self
sufficient for at least three days, Hurricane Katrina showed us that
people just aren't following through on the message. We discovered an
enormous gap between what people expect and what government is able to
provide. It appears that citizens expect government to appear on their
doorstep within 30 minutes of a disaster with a hot plate of food, a
bottle of water, blanket and a check for $500. When emergency response
disciplines can't meet 9-1-1 call demands on a daily basis, what makes
people the response should be any different in a disaster? We do not
have the resources.
So what is the answer? The key is individual and community
preparedness, for all hazards. During the hurricanes, individuals and
neighbors were not prepared and didn't follow the direction of local
officials. They fell into what we call normalization, a thought process
that makes one think the situation just can't be that bad, or it can't
happen to them. Here in Pierce County, we have found something that
works.
Pierce County Emergency Management has a national award-winning
program called Pierce County Neighborhood Emergency Teams (PC-NET) that
is incrementally closing the aforementioned gap in our area. PC-NET is
a neighborhood-oriented approach to emergency preparedness and homeland
security. It is based on the belief that a cooperative effort between a
county and its citizens is the only sure way to protect a neighborhood
and to prepare for a major disaster.
If individuals and their neighborhoods are prepared to mutually
assist each other, lives can be saved, property can be spared, and
emergency services can be freed to respond to the most devastated
areas. This is accomplished by organizing block groups into a variety
of disaster response teams, each of which has a simple one-page list
that clearly outlines necessary tasks. In addition, we have partnered
with the Pierce County Sheriff's Department to provide a crime
prevention program that, to date, has resulted in a 27 percent average
drop in property crimes for PC-NET neighborhoods (up to 50% in some
areas).
PC-NET goes beyond conventional community preparedness and crime
prevention efforts of simply raising awareness--PC-NET means taking
action. People and neighborhoods that are prepared will know what to
expect during times of disaster, what to do, and how to come together
in an organized, timely response.
The problem is that funding for this program and others like it is
virtually non-existent. Pierce County Emergency Management enjoyed a
three-year federal grant that got the program started, but the funding
was exhausted at the end of 2005. Federal CERT funding only provides
$25-65 thousand, depending on the fiscal year, for a two year grant.
This does not cover the salary for even one staff member to run a
program for our 750,000 residents. Recent attempts to work the funding
through congressional representatives have also been unsuccessful.
Educating our citizens on how to prepare and training them to respond
and be self sufficient for at least one week will have a great impact
on all phases of emergency management. As mentioned in the beginning of
this testimony, collaboration is critical, not just with those in
professional emergency response roles but also with the citizens we
serve.
Testimony Outline:
I. Introduction
II. Regional coordination/collaboration
a. TEW
b. UASI
III. Interoperable communications
a. MOCC
b. ACU 1000
c. Made great improvements, but not seamless
IV. Emergency Preparedness
a. Biggest lesson out of hurricanes
b. PC-NET
c. Lack of funding
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Steve. The Chair recognizes Chief
Trevino.
STATEMENT OF MARIO H. TREVINO, FIRE CHIEF, BELLEVUE FIRE
DEPARTMENT
Chief Trevino. Good morning, Chairman Reichert and
Congressman Pascrell.
As a point of reference, the City of Bellevue is located
approximately ten miles east of Seattle. The Bellevue Fire
Department also provides fire and rescue medical services to
five other townships, serving a total population of 135,000
people. We're also part of the well-known King County Medic One
Program and have the further responsibility of providing
Advanced Life Support services to a 300 square mile area and a
total population of 250,000 people.
To our visitors, let me also convey my welcome to
Washington, and thank you all for the opportunity to speak with
you today about regional planning and preparedness,
particularly as related to our area of focus, which is how we
work together to identify and prioritize Homeland Security
allocations.
We're all concerned about homeland security from a national
perspective. I hope my background will be helpful in these
discussions. In the regional arena, I'm the Chairman of the
King County Zone 1 Fire Chiefs, and my national involvement
includes serving as Vice-Chairman of the Emergency Response
Technology Group of the National Technology Transfer Center,
and member and former chairman of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs.
The Puget Sound urban area has a strong history of regional
collaboration and mutual support in the emergency planning,
management and response arenas. This experience level, combined
with effective and working relationships, provide a basis which
has served as a cornerstone for our process and upon which we
have added sharp focus in recent years on homeland security
issues.
Some examples of this collaboration process include the
development of emergency management systems within King County
and the subsequent networking to address regional and national
issues; also the development of effective hazardous materials
training and response capabilities, the City of Bellevue is a
member of the Eastside Hazardous Materials Consortium which
provides protection for much of Eastern King County; the
enhancement of emergency responder safety through training and
procurement of PPE's, which stands for personal protective
equipment, detection and disposal equipment for explosive
devices and hazardous materials; planning for chemical,
biological, radiological and explosive response, detection and
recovery; joint training initiatives such as Incident
Management Team, or IMT, training, which is multidisciplinary
and multijurisdictional; also joint training partnerships such
as our Seattle-Bellevue exercises recently in rescue systems
which respond to structural collapse, high-rise firefighting,
weapons of mass destruction scenarios, mass transportation
scenarios, and improvised explosive devices, or IED, scenarios;
and lastly our pandemic influenza planning.
In February of 2004, the Seattle-King County urban area
developed an urban-area strategy. That strategy was developed
by the principal jurisdictions involved in the Seattle-King
County Core Group, which makes core decisions. Those include
Seattle, King County, Pierce County, Snohomish County and the
Washington State Military Department. It also featured input
from other governmental organizations that fall within the
boundaries of that urban area. The City of Bellevue was added
to the Seattle-King County Urban Area Core Group as a result of
their Urban Areas Security Initiative or USAI 2006 grant.
The urban strategy is closely integrated with the Region 6
Homeland Strategic Plan, which was also developed in 2004 for
the allocation of the State Homeland Security Grant Program, or
SHSP, funding applied to geographic King County. There's
substantial multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional
representation among the various groups that develop and
implement these plans, which helps reinforce the need and
benefit of broad involvement with the emergency responders.
With these plans in place, our urban area is poised to deal
with the challenges ahead for all hazards and homeland security
planning and response.
Some of our recent challenges, however, have come in the
area of trying to integrate our established process with
shifting Federal processes and priorities. For example, the
timelines were condensed during the 2006 grant cycle, making it
very difficult to develop a comprehensive, inclusive and
thoughtful grant strategy. It is important for Congress to be
specific in providing direction to the Department of Homeland
Security so that grant processes allow time for sufficient
regional collaboration.
Also, grant processes change anyway. They're not reported
out in a timely manner which forces changes in our regional
processes. Regional partnerships involve difficult and time-
consuming work, and dramatic changes to regional processes
require significant rebalancing at the State and local level.
This results in frustration and lost time. Ultimately, this
means that we spend more time developing the process and less
time focused on prioritizing and implementing of projects.
Increased flexibility in grant funding remains a need so
that urban areas can target funds to their areas of greatest
need. These include coordinated planning efforts to assure
critical infrastructure protection needs are prioritized
including but not limited to information technology, water
systems and facility hardening; equipment procurement and
evaluation to ensure interoperability and responder
preparedness; training and exercise development, implementation
and evaluation to prepare responders, city leaders and elected
officials for a major response; and finally, the development
and implementation of planning documents which may include
State and local governance and continuity of government.
Jurisdictions within our urban area are participating in
the current review of the National Response Plan that is
occurring in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Catastrophic events
require community-to-community, urban area to urban area, and
state-to-state planning. It's important that Federal policy
encourage continued and further collaboration that spans beyond
the borders of our community.
Some of the next steps that I see for our urban area
include continuing to build and streamline our partnerships at
the regional level; to build our response capabilities further
leveraging our existing resources and our existing mutual aid
commitments; to streamline and improve the efficiency of our
intelligence capabilities; to refine and develop our regional
plans; and finally to train across--continue to train across
jurisdictional borders.
That concludes my prepared remarks, and I will take any
questions you may have.
[The statement of Chief Trevino follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mario H. Trevino
Chairman Reichert, members of the Committee, my name is Mario
Trevino, and I am Chief of the Bellevue, Washington, Fire Department.
For your reference, the City of Bellevue is located approximately 10
miles East of Seattle. We also provide fire and Emergency Medical
Services to five other townships, serving a total population of
approximately 135,000 people. We are part of the renowned King County
Medic One Program, and have the further responsibility of providing
Advanced Life Support to a 300 square mile area with a total population
of 250,000 people.
To the visiting members of the Committee, welcome to Washington,
and thank you all for the opportunity to speak to you about regional
planning and preparedness, particularly as related to our area of
focus--how we work together to identify and prioritize Homeland
Security allocations. We are all concerned about Homeland Security from
a national perspective, and I should point my background should be
helpful in these discussions. In the regional arena, I am the Chairman
of the King County Zone 1 Fire Chiefs. My national involvement includes
serving as Vice-Chairman of the Emergency Response Technology Group of
the National Technology Transfer Center, and being a member and past
Chair of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs.
The Puget Sound urban area has a strong history of regional
collaboration and mutual support in the emergency planning, management,
and response arenas. This experience level, combined with effective
working-relationships provide a basis which has served as a cornerstone
for our process, upon which we have added sharp focus in recent years
on homeland security issues.
Some examples of this collaborative process include:
1. The development of emergency management systems in King
County, and the subsequent networking to address regional and
national issues.
2. The development of effective Hazardous Materials training
and response capabilities. The City of Bellevue is a member of
the Eastside Hazardous Materials Consortium which provides
protection for much of Eastern King County.
3. The enhancement of emergency responder safety through
training and the procurement of equipment such as personal
protective equipment (PPE), detection and disposal equipment
for explosive devices, and Hazardous Materials equipment.
4. Planning for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and
Explosive response, detection and recovery.
5. Joint training initiatives, such as Incident Management Team
(IMT) training, which is multi-disciplinary and multi-
jurisdictional.
6. Joint training partnerships, such as the Seattle/Bellevue
exercises in: Rescue Systems (structural collapse); High-rise
Firefighting; Weapons of Mass Destruction scenarios; Mass-
transportation scenarios; and Improvised Explosive Devices
(IAD) scenarios.
7. Pandemic Influenza planning.
In February, 2004, the Seattle-King County Urban area developed an
urban area strategy. The strategy was developed by the principal
jurisdictions involved in the Seattle-King County Core Group, which
makes core decisions: Seattle; King County; Pierce County; Snohomish
County; and the Washington State Military Department. It also featured
input from other governmental organizations that fall within the
boundaries of the urban area. The City of Bellevue was added to the
Seattle-King County Urban Area Core Group as a result of the Urban Area
Security Initiative (UASI) in 2006.
The urban strategy is closely integrated with the Region 6 Homeland
Strategic Plan, which was also developed in 2004 for the allocation of
State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSP) funding applied to
geographic King County. There is substantial multi-disciplinary and
multi-jurisdictional representation among the various groups that
develop and implement these plans, which helps reinforce the need and
benefit of broad involvement from emergency responders. With these
plans in place, our urban area is poised to deal with the challenges
ahead for all hazards and homeland security planning and response.
Some of our recent challenges have come in the area of trying to
integrate our established process with shifting federal processes and
priorities. For example:
1. Timelines were condensed during the 2006 grant cycle, making
it very difficult to develop a comprehensive, inclusive, and
thoughtful grant strategy. It is important for Congress to be
specific in providing direction to the Department of Homeland
Security so that grant processes allow time for sufficient
regional collaboration
2. Grant processes change annually, and are not reported out in
a timely manner, forcing changes in regional processes.
Regional partnerships involve difficult and time-consuming
work, and dramatic changes to regional processes requires
significant re-balancing at the State and local level, which
results in frustration and lost time. Ultimately, this means we
spend more time developing the process and less time focused on
prioritizing and implementing projects.
3. Increased flexibility in grant funding remains a need so
that urban areas can target grant funds to their areas of
greatest need such as:
a. Coordinated planning efforts to assure critical
infrastructure protection needs are prioritized,
including but not limited to: information technology;
water systems; and facility hardening.
b. Equipment procurement and evaluation to ensure
interoperability and responder preparedness
c. Training and Exercise development, implementation
and evaluation to prepare responders, city leaders, and
elected officials for a major response.
d. Development and implementation of planning documents
which may include state and local governance and
continuity of government.
Jurisdictions within our urban area are participating in the
current review of the National Response Plan that is occurring in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina. Catastrophic events require community-to-
community, urban area to urban area, and state-to-state planning. It is
important that federal policy encourage continued and further
collaboration that spans beyond the borders of our communities.
Some of the next steps I see for our urban area include continuing
to:
1. Build and streamline our partnerships on a regional level,
2. Further build our response capabilities leveraging existing
resources and existing mutual aid commitments,
3. Streamline and improve the efficiency of our intelligence
capabilities,
4. Refine and develop our regional plans,
5. And train across jurisdictional borders.
That concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you Chairman Reichert and
members of the Committee for allowing me to participate in this hearing
today.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Chief. The Chair recognizes Mr.
Mitzel.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM ``BILL'' MITZEL, MS, ARM, ALCM, RISK
CONTROL SPECIALIST, HOME OFFICE COMMERCIAL LINES, UNIGARD
INSURANCE GROUP
Mr. Mitzel. Good morning, Chairman Reichert and Ranking
Member Pascrell. It is a pleasure to represent private industry
preparedness programs and to provide you with information
regarding Unigard's program.
Originating with the request from three employees that were
also volunteer firefighters to participate in a disaster
preparedness training program sponsored by Pierce County in
1987, Unigard's Emergency Preparedness and Response Program was
formed. Over a period of several years that included numerous
team drills and direction from JoAnn Jordan of the Bellevue
Fire Department's Preparedness Division, with thanks to Chief
Trevino's staff, the Unigard Emergency Response Team has
evolved into seven specialized teams. You have been provided
with an organizational chart of our emergency management
structure as Appendix A on the written submittal.
Currently 54 employee volunteers make up Unigard's
Emergency Response Team. They and supportive senior management,
including our president and CEO, Peter Christen, are key to the
success of our program.
The December 8, 1990 snowstorm, or 1993 Inaugural Day
windstorm, the Nisqually quake in February of 2001 and 9/11 all
resulted in further enhancement of our program.
Moving from the history of the program to how it operates,
Unigard's Emergency Response Team and Business Continuity
program are components of our Risk Management process, which
you are copied on in Appendix B.
Training of each of our specialized teams is based on the
widely used Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, model
with some additional training for Unigard's specific
operations. The training procedures in our program are,
however, somewhat different from the traditional CERT Program.
For instance, only a segment of the full 20 to 25-hour CERT
training is needed to be completed in order for employees to be
on any specific Unigard Emergency Response Team. This
specialized approach takes employees away from their jobs for
only four to five hours, it supports their specialized
competency, and it's much more accommodating for employees and
their supervisors than taking the full CERT training. The
required baseline emergency training for all employees and
Emergency Response Team members is noted in an article that is
provided in Exhibit C.*
I cannot overemphasize how critical the support from
Bellevue Fire Department, Medic First Aid, WPS and Applied
Technology Council instructors are to our program's success.
Officer Michael Chu, Public Information Officer of the Bellevue
Police Department, has also been instrumental in developing the
Workplace Violence Prevention Program--portion of our program.
Still another noteworthy element in our program is Crisis
Communications Training. The Reverend Mike Ryan, Chaplain for
the Bellevue Police Department, has provided this training,
which is designed to assist our Humanitarian Assistance Team,
primarily made up of human resources staff, in understanding
and preparing for various behavioral scenarios in an emergency.
Our program's primary focus is life safety, in addition to
expediting the initial building damage assessment. The main
concern from a life safety and preparedness standpoint for
Unigard, and most in emergency management would agree for the
entire Northeast coast of the United States, is a mega-thrust
earthquake, as I look at how high the boxes are stacked behind
your chair.
We are well into the average cycle for such a catastrophic
event. Therefore, appropriate readiness should not be an
option.
Going forward, we are planning on providing advanced
emergency preparedness and business continuity consultation to
our commercial lines insureds and the independent agents that
we sell our products through. We will use proven elements of
our program as a template in association with proven and easy-
to-use features of other programs such as the American Red
Cross, the National Safety Council and FEMA, for example, to
deliver a best practices product to our insureds. For
businesses with advanced preparedness and continuity programs,
offering them a reduction in their business interruption
insurance premiums is also under consideration.
Regarding Federal incentives to private industry for
investing in business continuity and emergency preparedness,
and in applying the philosophy of ``an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure,'' in looking at IRS Form 3800 provided
as Exhibit D,* although there is credit for employers affected
by Hurricane Katrina, Rita or Wilma, and credit for several
other investments, there is no credit for investing in business
continuity or emergency preparedness which, particularly when
teamed with potential property insurance rate credits, could
serve to move most businesses from being reactive on the
preparedness pendulum to being proactive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*See, committee file.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for this opportunity.
[The statement of Mr. Mitzel follows:]
Prepared Statement of Bill Mitzel
Good morning Chairman Reichert and Ranking Member Pascrell. It is a
pleasure to represent private industry preparedness programs and to
provide you with information on Unigard's program.
In 1987, the idea of improving Unigard's in-house emergency
preparedness program was presented to our CEO by 3 volunteer
firefighters that were employees at Unigard. They were from Mason
County, Bainbridge Island and the City of Kirkland. Two of these three
were also EMT's.
These employee/volunteer firefighters attended a one-week disaster
preparedness course sponsored by Pierce County and came back with
recommendations to establish Basic Search and Rescue, Fire and
Emergency Medical Teams at Unigard and to purchase a 20 foot surplus
truck cargo container for the teams equipment. Over a period of several
years that included numerous team drills and advise from JoAnn Jordan
of the Bellevue Fire Department's Preparedness Division, Unigard's
Emergency Response Team (ERT) evolved into 7 specialized teams that
each had specific training and protocols that are now in line with NFPA
1600 and the Bellevue Fire Department's recommendations. You have been
provided with an organizational chart of our emergency management
structure as Exhibit A.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6959.001
Currently 54-employee volunteers make-up Unigard's ERT. They and
supportive senior management, including our President and CEO Peter
Christen are key to the success of Unigard's Emergency Preparedness and
Response program.
In the early days of our program, as well as improving our program
based on lessons learned from drills and from local experts, there were
several advances closely related to regional or local events. For
instance, on December 18, 1990 when over a foot of snow dropped in the
Bellevue/Seattle area, interest in the ERT was boosted, resulting in
the purchase of additional equipment and more training regarding
improving building damage assessment skills.
In the summer of 1992, an open house of our ERT was held with
representatives from Bellevue and neighboring Redmond and Kirkland Fire
Departments in attendance. As a result of follow-up conversations, the
cities of Bellevue and Kirkland incorporated remotely located truck
cargo containers into their Cities Emergency Plans.
In 1993, the Inaugural Day windstorm brought hurricane force winds
to western Oregon and Washington. Unigard's Bellevue/Home Office campus
was without power for three days. After this storm, we purchased our
Emergency Operations Center (EOC) container and installed two Cummins
generators, which until recently provided about 30 hours of back-up
power. To-date, the generators can provide back-up power for three days
without refueling.
In 1996, Unigard purchased satellite phones from Mobile Satellite
Ventures and added twenty-five Motorola MTX handheld radios to improve
ERT on-site communications during our drills and actual events.
On February 28th, 2001 we experienced the Nisqually earthquake.
Although damage in the Bellevue area was minimal, our
telecommunications and employee transportation was disrupted for
several hours. The quake led to increased support from senior
executives, fine-tuning our team structure/training, and ERT oversight.
This included moving ERT under Risk Management rather than Information
Technology.
After 9/11/01, as was the case for most of corporate America, the
rules changed. As a result, Winterthur, our Swiss parent company, now
requires all of its companies to meet higher minimum business
continuity, security and emergency preparedness standards. Due to
previous activities in these areas, Unigard already met or exceeded
most of these directives when they were put in place. We continue to
improve our ERT and business continuity programs and processes.
Moving from the History of the program to how the program operates,
our ERT and Business Continuity program are components of Unigard's
Corporate Risk Management structure and our enterprise risk management
process, which you are copied on as Exhibit B.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6959.002
Two full-evacuation drills are completed annually by the ERT.
Training for each of our specialized teams is based on the Community
Emergency Response Team (CERT) program with some additional training
for Unigard?s specific operations.
Unigard's ERT program has several unique differences from
traditional CERT programs. Only a segment of the full 20-25-hour CERT
training is required to be completed in order for an employee to serve
on a specific Unigard ERT such as Fire/Utility Shut-off or Search and
Rescue team. Additionally, over 15 percent of our ERT members are
cross-trained on 2 or more teams with a few trained to serve on all
teams.
This specialized approach, takes most employees away from their
jobs for only 4-5 hours, supports their specialized competency and is
much more accommodating for employees and their supervisors than taking
the full 20-25 hour CERT training. After initial team training is
completed, they spend about 4 to7 hours per year participating in
drills, refresher training as needed and related pre or post-drill
meetings.
We are able to keep ERT turnover well under 10 percent annually by
following drills with meetings that encourage new approaches and ideas,
providing lunch for team members after the drills; and communicating
the valued comments and suggestions from drill observers, which include
local authorities. Active members also receive copies of letters of
appreciation sent annually by senior management to their supervisors.
These are timed to arrive just prior to the employee's annual
performance reviews.
Baseline Emergency Training For all Employees and ERT Members is
noted in the article you have been copied on as Exhibit C. I cannot
over-emphasize how critical it is to get support from Bellevue Fire,
Medic First Aid, WPS and the Applied Technology Council for important
elements of our training. Officer Michael Chiu, PIO of Bellevue PD has
also been instrumental in reviewing the Workplace Violence Prevention
component of our program.
Another noteworthy element of our program is Crisis Communications
training. The Reverend Mike Ryan, Chaplain for the Bellevue Police
Department, has provided this training. His training addresses human
behavior during and immediately after a disaster and assists our
Humanitarian Assistance Team members in understanding and preparing for
various emergency/disaster behavioral scenarios.
On-campus training provided by the Bellevue Fire Department and the
Applied Technology Council on assessing building damage after an
earthquake is open to neighboring businesses if the classes are not
full.
Unigard has a contingency plan with our neighboring Longs Drug
Store. This arrangement gives the Humanitarian Assistance Team and the
Incident Commander an option in obtaining food and other supplies
during a possible prolonged ERT operation. This also provides a method
for re-supplying the Medical Team.
Our Program's primary focus is life safety and expediting the
initial assessment of building damage. Two Initial Assessment Teams
(Red and Blue) made up of damage assessment trained Fire and Search &
Rescue Team personnel are dispatched. These teams are typically
equipped, organized and dispatched within 12 minutes of the start of a
drill.
The main concern from a preparedness and life safety standpoint for
Unigard and essentially the Northwest coast of the United States is a
mega-thrust earthquake. The Northwest is well into the average cycle
for such a catastrophic event, therefore, appropriate readiness should
not be optional. A possible worst-case H5N1 pandemic may be the next
closest event from a level of a severity standpoint. A lesser, however,
still catastrophic event such as a rupture of the nearby Seattle fault,
located four miles south of Unigard's Home Office in Bellevue requires
the same degree of preparedness.
Lesser events than major earthquakes, to encompass all reasonably
foreseeable hazards (a slight adjustment to an ``all-hazards''
approach) are also addressed in Unigard's program based on periodic
vulnerability assessments.
Outside of the Bellevue branch office (located in the same facility
as Unigard's home office), there are six other branch offices ranging
in size from seven to 25 employees. Emergency Procedure training is
also provided at these offices. Procedures are customized for each
office based on size, environment and cooperative efforts with
landlords.
Going forward, we are planning on providing advanced emergency
preparedness/business continuity consultation to our commercial lines
insureds and the independent agents that we sell our product through.
We will use proven elements of the Unigard program as a template
(adjustable based on business size) in association with proven and
easy-to-use features of other packaged programs (American Red Cross,
National Safety Council, FEMA, etc.) to deliver our insureds a Best
Practices product. For businesses with advanced and active
preparedness/continuity programs, offering them a reduction in business
interruption insurance premium (a component of fire/property coverage)
is under consideration. We look forward to continuing to improve our
program. We subsequently will share our experience with our community,
our insureds, and our independent agents.
Regarding direct federal support to enhance investment in business
continuity and emergency preparedness in the private sector and
applying the philosophy of ``an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure'', in looking at IRS Form 3800, provided as Exhibit D, although
there is credit for employers ``affected by'' Hurricane Katrina, Rita
or Wilma, credit for increasing research activities and credit for
providing child-care facilities at a place of employment, there is no
credit related to investing in business continuity or emergency
preparedness which, particularly if teamed with potential property
insurance rate credits, could serve to move many businesses from being
reactive to being proactive on the preparedness pendulum.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Mitzel. I should mention that
Unigard Insurance Group was the recipient of an award in this
area. That's why Unigard is represented here today. They are, I
think, far ahead of the curve nationwide in their leadership in
how private companies can be involved in protecting our
communities. Unigard was the recipient of an award for Business
Emergency Planning and Preparedness. It was presented by the
International Emergency Management Association. So
congratulations to Unigard.
Mr. Mitzel. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Reichert. I happened to be at the presentation of that
award, so I participated in that.
Thank you all for your testimony. And Mr. Pascrell and I
will have questions here for the next several minutes.
I'd like to start, first of all, with the Under Secretary.
Let's get this question out of the way immediately. What is
your view of some of the efforts to move FEMA out of the
Department of Homeland Security? Where do you think FEMA should
be and why?
Mr. Foresman. Congressman, thank you for the question, and
I'll just be very direct.
I think it's a horrible idea. I've been in this business my
entire professional life. And I say that as an individual who
has spent time as a frontline responder, as a State emergency
management official, and now at the Federal level in the
Department of Homeland Security. We--and frankly, over the
course of the past three months since I was sworn in, I've been
somewhat surprised with some of the challenges that FEMA is
confronting in terms of its internal operations, and they are
less about organization and structure in terms of the
department and very much about management and leadership. And I
think there's a clear lesson that we've learned out of the
Katrina events, and that is that we've got to make sure that--
and Mr. Mullen highlighted this--that we have good quality
professionals in these key positions, whether it be in FEMA,
the Coast Guard, Secret Service, whomever it might be, that
you've got to have good quality, well-educated, well-trained
professionals who have been doing this and understand the roles
and responsibilities.
The other point that I would offer is, as we look across
our readiness for the upcoming hurricane season which we use as
a benchmark, which we all know we can have an earthquake today
or a terrorist attack in any area of the country, so while June
1st is the target date, we'd like to have it all done sooner
rather than later.
When we talk about preparedness, FEMA is not the only
element in preparedness. It's a critical element in terms of
our national preparedness efforts. But one of the debates that
I participated in as a State official with the Congress is how
do we do a better job of prevention in terms of protection,
response, recovery and mitigation. And part of that debate
was--the result of that was the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security. So I think that we are making significant
progress in terms of strengthening FEMA. We've got a new team
that's been nominated by the President. We've got new people
onboard in the Department and in FEMA. And we meet with them on
a weekly basis. And I've seen literally dramatic progress over
just the past 30 days with the logistical system in place,
strengthening the communication systems.
I think, frankly, the big issue was, there was an apparent
resistance to integration with the broader Department of
Homeland Security as a common entity. Those issues have been
resolved, and Chief Paulison and the rest of his team are
working hand-in-hand in cooperation with the information
analysis folks. And we're seeing greater integration each and
every day. Frankly we're going into this hurricane season in a
much stronger Federal posture because the work that we're doing
at FEMA is part of positioning as a critical element in the
Department of Homeland Security. We're providing a lot of
assistance at the Department level that FEMA didn't have
available to them in the event of a major disaster. And I for
one having dealt with the issue over the years, that's
absolutely critical.
I'll just close with one other issue. I've dealt with a the
lot of presidential disaster declarations from State officials.
The headlines of FEMA at Katrina are the same headlines that
came out of Andrew, and they're the same headlines that came
out of the Northwest floods. These are not new issues. But the
one thing with this new approach to preparedness in the
Department is this gives us a first opportunity, a clear
opportunity, to make sure that we don't simply document the
lessons learned, but that we challenge them, turn them into an
implementation plan and make fundamental changes to what we're
doing to ready America at the local, State and Federal levels.
Mr. Reichert. So I can clarify, in my mind, you're against
that FEMA move from the Department of Homeland Security?
Mr. Foresman. Absolutely. I think it would cause--any
further movement of the boxes would further interrupt the
momentum that we're beginning to build. Beyond the grant
program, just in basic coordination, no one said putting this
Department together was going to be easy. We're going through
the natural evolution and the maturity process. And it's
beginning to take hold. Just literally in the past three
months, I've seen significant progress. And I think we need to
get a time and assess where we are and where we're going. This
is not an organizational issue; this is a management issue.
Mr. Reichert. You say you have Dave Paulison there and his
assistant, Admiral Johnson. And certainly your experience and
expertise in this area is well known. So the fact that we have
people in place that do have experience and are looked to for
their experience and leadership in this arena, do you see--you
talked about not seeing any organizational structure issues. So
you don't see anything organizationally that needs to be done
at all?
Mr. Foresman. Well, I think that Chief Paulison--and
frankly I'm spending more time with Chief Paulison than I am
with my own family these days. But I would offer to you that I
think Chief Paulison needs to have the flexibility to make some
tweaks within the FEMA organizational structure that he has
that oversight over. But in terms of the macro-organizational
structure of the Department in terms of FEMA's relationship,
no, I think we're in pretty good shape. There may be some other
tweaks.
But at the end of the day--Dave and I have had a lot of
conversations. We were down on the Gulf Coast two weeks ago,
and we talked about, what are those things that the department
needs to do at the macro level to make FEMA a success and to
make our National Emergency Management System a success, and we
understand that. And his desires are shared by the other
component leaders. We need the other component leadership folks
on a day-to-day basis; Ted Allen of the Coast Guard and others.
Everybody is stepping up to the plate and doing things to
support the Department's mission and have made improvements in
the strategy.
And I would just offer that we're going through growth
pain. Nobody will deny that. But we don't stop growing. We
simply need to make sure that we continue to strengthen
ourselves.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you. I would follow up very quickly
with Mr. Mullen.
Your testimony described a little difficulty in your
relationship with FEMA since it's changed and now under the
umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security compared with
past experience before they were under the umbrella of the
Department of Homeland Security. And you mentioned that there
was no emergency management expertise, you thought that was a
factor that created some difficulty for your communication. The
grant applications were not completed in a timely fashion.
Commitments were not met. Let's see what else we have. Well,
those are just some of the things that you mentioned as kind of
main things.
How do you see the relationship now with FEMA and the
preparedness you're doing in your daily work?
Mr. Mullen. Thank you for asking that. I've been on the
edge of my chair since Secretary Foresman was speaking.
I thought that the initial creation of the Department of
Homeland Security was a precipitous decision taken with almost
no analysis or discussion with professionals in the situation.
I think that if we reverse it now, it would be the same kind of
mistake. I think we've got it; it's there. We need to work with
it. Before we make any major overhaul of that system--and I
think some of my colleagues in emergency management would agree
with me--before we go back and try to reconstruct this thing
totally, I think we ought to take a couple years, wait for a
new administration, whichever party prevails, and that proposal
from the professional communities to whichever transition team
is going to have to hunker down after November and figure out
how we will run this country and protect it. That's the group
that should be looking at the long-term reorganization.
Now we are six years in. We need to spend the next two
years seeing if this can actually work. It's like picking up a
good novel. Let's work with each other to try to fix that
problem and that problem and that problem. There is a better
team in place. There's a more sensitive team in place. They
seem to be listening. And I don't want to interrupt that. We
get a little frustrated every six months when we have a sit-
down with DHS and find out half the people there are moving. I
would like to see some continuity there for a while. I would
like you to be there the next time we talk.
Mr. Foresman. So would my wife.
Mr. Mullen. I can understand that. I think that one of the
things that I hope that FEMA will do and the DHS will do is
work with the Federal family to try to coordinate them. They
have spent a lot of time affecting State and local lives and
work programs, but I haven't seen a lot of evidence that
there's been coordination at that level. That was really what
the DHS system was supposed to do was to pull all those Federal
entities together. In fact, with one hand they have, I think,
done a good job of telling us to get together and work
together. We have done a lot of that. But at the same time
obstacles have been thrown into place that affect our ability
to work together, that makes Steve Bailey or one of his other
colleagues go back to a bunch of people and say this isn't what
we've been told before, there's been a change, the
application--the deadlines are tighter, we need all this
information, we need it today. That kind of thing drives people
at the local level crazy, and it isn't easy on the folks at the
State level to pass that burden on.
And so I think that if we can get some stability within
FEMA for a year or so in the systems and processes so we have
some predictability, I could actually tell my emergency
management council and Committee on Homeland Security
colleagues what to expect in November when the grant guidelines
come out so we can get ready for them. That's the problem right
now. We're moving so fast that no one can either catch their
breath or remember what the last commitment was. If we can get
this under control for the next couple of years and give a fair
chance for this program to work, I think that we might make
real progress, even if we end up ultimately changing it,
reconstituting it. The first thing to do is try to make this
work, because we don't have time for another reorganization.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you. What usually happens is we all get
five minutes on the panel. Since there's only two of us and
we're a little bit more relaxed, I took a little bit longer.
I'm sure Mr. Pascrell was ready for his questions, so I'll
yield my time to the ranking member.
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Secretary, yesterday Secretary Chertoff
announced that, because of the debacle of Katrina, that there
would be some changes.
And I go back to what Director Mullen spoke about in his
testimony in response to the question from the Chairman.
Yesterday Chertoff announced that there would be some changes.
And I hope that these are not simply rearranging the deck
chairs on the Titanic. That's what we're concerned about.
I wouldn't be too quick to change--see, whether FEMA is in
Homeland Security or not is secondary. Whether it's functional,
that's the most important thing. And whether there is a seat at
the table in the Oval Office, that's critical. We're not only
talking about human tragedy, national tragedy; we're talking
about terrorism.
In the recommendations that the Secretary presented
yesterday, he mentioned that he assumed a greater role for the
military. What does that mean, and where did this come from?
Mr. Foresman. Congressman, I was not with the Secretary
when he made those remarks at the press conference, but let me
address first the issue of the Oval Office.
Secretary Rumsfeld would not go to the White House without
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And I think
reasonable expectation is that Secretary Chertoff is not going
to go without the FEMA Director to discuss what's going on with
the disaster. And the Secretary is committed to making sure
that Chief Paulison has the appropriate access to the key
decisionmakers. That is an opportunity that is fully embraced
when they've got the chance.
To the second piece of the question, as you know, a number
of reports have recommended a more robust role for the
military. And I think that part of what we're working through
with our colleagues at the Department of Defense is to make
sure that we're not simply substituting the military for good
preparedness at the local and State level. And these are
recommendations in the reports. We're evaluating those
recommendations. But first and foremost, we see that, with
respect particularly to the comments made here today, that our
grant programs, that our activities are targeting enhancement
in the local and State level. We've got nearly 15 million State
and local government employees that are potential responders.
That is a far greater number than we have in uniform.
Mr. Pascrell. I asked the question because I think there
were five or six recommendations. But I asked the question
because it illustrates what we need to do in terms of the boots
on ground here. We need to develop systems from the bottom up.
The very people who--those 15 thousand people you're talking
about, those local people, we need to ask them what works best
rather than we think either in the committee or the Department
what we--we think we know what's best for you. That doesn't
work, and I would question that.
In the area of funding, you mentioned the question of
funding. You worked in the State of Virginia.
Mr. Foresman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Pascrell. You did a great job down there. You were a
member of Secretary Ridge's special task force established to
find out where Federal funding was, and why local governments
were concerned they were not receiving funding. I don't care
where we go throughout the United States, we hear the same
thing. You hear it in Washington. We hear it in Washington
also.
The task force released a report in June of 2004, and it
recommended that the Department of Homeland Security in
coordination with State, county, municipal and tribal
governments develop an automated grant-tracking system that
would allow for the real-time tracking of the distribution and
the use of Homeland Security-related funds. In the Congress, we
felt this was a big deal, and I believe it is.
Tell us if this new grant-tracking system has been
deployed; and second, what were the findings of the department
with regard to Homeland Security funds?
Mr. Foresman. Congressman, with respect to the first part
of the question, no, we have not deployed the new system. And
one thing, your familiarity with the Firefighters Assistance
Grant Program, some of the tracking tools that we're using
today that's proven to be a very successful and timely program,
we're looking at adapting and adopting those rather than trying
to create something new and give our local and State partners a
little bit of consistency, which you've seen and you've heard
here today. We have not made sufficient progress on that. It is
among the top priorities that I have in the preparedness
directive, and I ask our folks in the training office we need
to be able to give you real-time timely data, and the State and
local people need to have that.
Second, with regard to the grant programs, one of the
issues that I have identified, and again I've seen today, we
sometimes get focused on the product at the expense of the
processes. And I think that clearly what we need to do is to
find cleaner processes that are unified across the multiplicity
of extremes that we have out there, so that if you're a local
official or a State official, if you're dealing with targeting
infrastructure, protecting lives, if you're dealing with fire-
ready rates, if you're dealing with Homeland Security Grant
Programs, HSGPs, that you've got a consolidated consistent
process rather than differing grant processes.
Part of this that is different is the fact that Congress is
providing different levels of guidance for grant programs
including the deadlines. But I think the take-away is, we need
to bring our State and local partners in, take a deep breath,
as Mr. Mullen said, in terms of where we're at right now, look
at these grant processes and make sure we've got them as
streamlined as possible, because at the end of the day, we want
to get the dollars out. We want to spend them in a wise
fashion.
But at the same time, you're going to ask us this time next
year, how much better prepared are we, and I need to be able to
assure you that we've spent the dollars wisely.
Mr. Pascrell. I have concluded that, while there is
criticism that must be directed at local efforts to secure
funds for needed materials and procedures, most of the blame is
not the local police officers or firemen or EMTs or
coordinating agencies within the State. When we hear about
money in the--what's the saying--money gets stuck in the
pipeline, that's why I asked the question in the first place.
Notice, I'm not going to get into the cuts that have been
recommended by the administration today. They're bizarre. And
if you listen to the first responders here, the guys and the
gals that are on the frontline, I think that there's a lot of
explanation that has to be done. But I realize that we won't
talk about that today. Isn't that good?
Mr. Foresman. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Mullen, does the Washington Homeland
Security Committee include tribal government representation in
its emergency planning and preparedness?
Mr. Mullen. Tribal governments are able to participate on
the Committee of Homeland Security, but they are not on the
routine council.
Mr. Pascrell. Why not?
Mr. Mullen. Because there's a statutory membership created.
That would be something that would have to be adjusted. That's
something that we should approach again and take another look
at.
Mr. Pascrell. If it's from the bottom up, we shouldn't
exclude anybody, and we should find ways to deal with that.
And it would seem to me--and former--I'd like your reaction
to this. Former FEMA Director, Michael Brown, remember him?
Mr. Mullen. Yes.
Mr. Pascrell. He complained that--it's nothing earth-
shattering, but he complained that the Department of Homeland
Security's emphasis on risk has hampered the all-hazards
preparedness function of FEMA. What specific metrics or
methodology does the statewide committee employ to ensure that
all hazardous preparedness, all hazardous preparedness, is also
applicable to a terrorist or a risk-based scenario?
Mr. Mullen. Many of the measures, many of the programs that
have been funded, programs that have applicability, whatever
the disaster might be, we have employed a risk factor in our
designation of where the money should go on our prioritization.
And that's been somewhat controversial because risk models are
an imprecise science. Some of the information is classified,
and I don't have access to some of it.
But as we have worked on this, we have tried to strike a
balance between population, population density and a factor of
risk to try to be respectful of the Federal till for risk as
well as the Washington area and the State, and that has been
more heightened in terms of focusing on what is perceived to be
the greatest risk that we have.
So it's in there. I believe as we try to assess our
critical infrastructure and wade through both issues of
disclosure and other things that are going on, we're making
progress without having true risk factors to put in. In the
meantime, what I have tried to have my focus look at is, what
is the kind of impact that an event would have on us, and what
would make Washington State less Washington State.
Mr. Pascrell. And when you've established priorities,
somebody is of lesser priority. I mean we have that problem on
the Federal level when we try to deal with funding based on
risk. Some States felt that what we were trying to do is
exclude them, and that wasn't the purpose. However, it would
seem to me that, with limited resources, they need the
directive to where the greatest vulnerability is.
Mr. Chairman, can I just ask a quick question?
Mr. Reichert. Sure.
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Bailey, what are the standards relied
upon to ensure that the equipment purchased in advancing the
goals of interoperability, what are the standards derived from?
Where do you think they should be derived from?
Mr. Bailey. Well, that's a debate that has raged.
Mr. Pascrell. That's why I asked your opinion.
Mr. Bailey. Thank you. One of the things we've tried to do
in this State--and I think we've done it pretty well--and
here's why it is has worked, is because the State was smart
enough to establish work groups that involved the local people.
And Jeff Jensen, the Tacoma Emergency Manager, has been
critically involved in the planning process on the equipment
from the very beginning along with Chief Vickery who is here
from Seattle. So we've had that kind of inclusive planning
process that has helped us a great deal.
However, the State of Washington, as Congressman Reichert
will tell you, is a very diverse State. We have a mountain
range that literally almost creates two different worlds. So to
totally standardize equipment is probably not fully attainable,
but certainly what we have done is through that work of
regional people working at the State level, all equipment
purchases are vetted to ensure as much interoperability as
possible. And I think thanks to that committee, and the people
here today that represent that, we've done a pretty good job of
trying to get to those kinds of attainments.
Federal standards, I think, in theory are somewhat probably
a good idea. The practicality due to local changing conditions,
I'm not sure they're totally attainable either. We have a lot
of requirements from the Federal Government already, and I
would hate to see further flexibility taken away from the local
level personally. So that's how I would address your question.
I would also just like to add that, on our Homeland
Regional Coordination Council here in Pierce County that makes
the decisions for all of our homeland security grant spending,
we do have a representative from the Seattle Tribe of Indians
who is very active in that process. And I think you would find
at the local level throughout the State, that the tribes are
very well represented.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you very much. Chief Trevino, very
briefly, your testimony focused on the frustration you have
with DHS's constant revision of the grant guidelines, how that
hampers planning, et cetera, et cetera.
Have the new guidelines had the effect of improving the
statewide planning process?
Chief Trevino. The new guidelines, once again, are changed,
and so we're having to react to those changes just as everyone
else is.
Mr. Bailey commented earlier about encouraging DHS to
maintain continuity in the guidelines, so that all of us as
players and participants in the process could catch up with it,
and I'd like to echo that thought.
Mr. Pascrell. And Mr. Mitzel, how does your company balance
your private sector concerns and emergency preparedness?
Mr. Mitzel. Our private sector concerns? Okay. We are a
commercial insurance company.
Mr. Pascrell. Right.
Mr. Mitzel. So what we do, we help our commercial lines
insureds with their own emergency preparedness and continuity
programs, which vary highly based on the environment that
they're located in, the type of business, et cetera.
Mr. Pascrell. So those folks wouldn't be hesitant to detail
their emergency plans because of profit?
Mr. Mitzel. Generally speaking, but they are very open with
us as their insured to come in and assist them, so we generally
help them with their continuity.
Mr. Pascrell. We talked about the idea, which you brought
up, about credit to those companies who would come forth and
put something into effect, therefore reducing risk and
vulnerability, methods and processes within the companies to
overcome--and to prepare as well as to overcome if something
disastrous occurred.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Pascrell.
Mr. Mitzel, are you familiar with the Department of
Homeland Security's Community Emergency Response Team?
Mr. Mitzel. The CERT program, yes.
Mr. Reichert. How does that differ from the Unigard
emergency response?
Mr. Mitzel. I would refer to another company that's done an
excellent program in our jurisdiction, in Chief Trevino's
jurisdiction, and they, in fact, won the same award we did the
year before, and that is T-Mobile. And they do train their
employees to the full CERT program. They are able to get
employees away for that 20 to 24-hour block of time. They have
a very successful program, too.
We wanted to specialize our employees a little bit more on
just becoming a search and rescue team member or a medic--
medical team member versus training them to do a little search
and research, a little damage assessment, a little bit of
everything, because we felt that the number of drills we were
doing, two or three, we wanted to keep the competency at a
higher level than being trained to do everything.
So we took the model, revised it somewhat with the local
fire department's approval, and customized the program to what
we thought was a better fit with our organization. So there's a
wide range of flexibility depending on how much time the senior
management is able to give us the employees to participate in
training and drills.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you. We had a little discussion about
interoperability. That's one of the things we've been working
hard on. We've held a number of hearings. I think Washington
State is way ahead of the curve across the Nation in our
ability to communicate first intraoperatively and
interoperatively with other departments.
How does interoperability play with the partnership between
the Bellevue Police Department and the Bellevue Fire Department
and Unigard?
Chief Trevino. Well, we're fortunate in the City of
Bellevue in that the police department and the fire department
share a communications center. Our communications are
completely seamless, I'm happy to say, and we're able to speak
on each others' radio channels on a regular basis.
The same thing applies with Unigard Insurance. We have very
good communication with them. In fact, part of their process is
working with our volunteer ham radio operators and preparing
for the eventuality that our communication systems could go
down in the event of a disaster. Every disaster that I've seen
going back to our response when I was in the search and rescue
team to the earthquake in Los Angeles, the communication
systems went down, the cellphones went down, just about
everything goes down. So we rely on ham radios as kind of a
last tier of backup in our process with them. And we're very
involved with them, and I think we're very effective.
Mr. Reichert. So it's more private sector organizations are
involved in the separate emergency preparedness. There is a
plan in Bellevue to include them in some sort of communication
systems to use the expertise that they have passed on?
Chief Trevino. Yes. And I should also comment that the
combined communications center not only provides services to
the Bellevue Police Department and the Bellevue Fire
Department, but a total of fourteen team fire departments and
two police departments. So it really takes on kind of a
regional aspect, and the participants and the private agencies
within the regional area all benefit from that process.
Mr. Reichert. Chief, you also mentioned that jurisdictions
within our UASI and you participate in that review. Who's
leading that UASI review?
Chief Trevino. The way I understand it, you have to
remember that Bellevue is a recent participant in the UASI
process, and a lot of the planning into the proposals made was
already done before Bellevue was named as a participant, so we
came onto the process very late. And at our very first entry
level, most of the planning had been done.
The next level of review is done at the State and from the
State proposal, which comes back to the Federal Government.
We're waiting for the response back at which point further
review will be done.
Mr. Reichert. Anyone else have anything to add to that?
Mr. Mullen. I chaired a UASI program. And as a voting
member, I've had the opportunity to work with it. It was a very
exhaustive process. And given the very limited time and the
change of guidelines, it was very challenging for everybody
involved.
Mr. Bailey was in that group, the Snohomish County
emergency manager, Seattle, Bellevue, and the King County
Deputy Director. So we had a group of five or six, but working
with us are a number of working groups that have fed into the
information that is pretty broadly representative. While
Bellevue has now joined our core group as a voting member,
Bellevue was represented by King County Fire & Rescue prior to
that. It's been a pretty collaborative process.
Now, again, I can't say there was great joy about the
decisions, but in the end, I think, given the parameters we
had, the limited knowledge and the time frame, I thought we
made some outstanding decisions, and people really stepped up
and put the regional requirements ahead of the major
jurisdictional desires. That happens when choices have to be
made, and I think the spirit that this group had was very
strong.
And it wasn't without its bumps, but we worked through
that, and I think we're stronger for it. And we're waiting for
the next run we'll have when we find out what we'll divide up
and what the methodology of deciding is. Steve was also here.
Mr. Reichert. Go ahead.
Mr. Bailey. Mr. Chairman, I think there's one very good
example of what we've been able to do in the UASI work group.
The Seattle-King County metropolitan area is the largest
populated metropolitan area in America without a public safety
aviation program. And that is one high priority we have put in
our UASI proposals. We've worked with your staff to seek
additional resource funding to help us deal with really what is
a huge public safety tool. Given our geography, our limited
transportation system, interoperability issues in a disaster,
the aviation piece is huge, and we have lagged behind in this
region for years. And part of UASI has worked with aviation.
Ted Summers has been involved in that, and we've made progress.
The solution is funding, and that's the thing we're trying to
pursue in that UASI program.
Mr. Reichert. I know there's been a tri-county effort in
the air support area, and we are still working with Pierce
County, King County and Snohomish County trying to acquire some
funding.
I was sheriff not too long ago. And part of that
frustrating process is UASI. But I think it's grown into a
great partnership.
I want to mention just quickly before I move back to Mr.
Pascrell for some follow-up questions that I had the
opportunity to interact with Mr. Michael Jackson also in
hearings, but Mr. Pascrell mentioned in the paper today the
Secretary saying that the military may play a greater role when
it comes to these emergencies. There are other things out
there. I know that the Secretary is very much presenting as new
ideas, new directions, and one of those--I want to mention some
of those besides the involvement what role does the Department
have to play in these emergencies. One, I know that you really
want to take a look at the contractual element, the logistics-
related tools, who is moving where and why, what the contracts
are, better customer service to handle mass dispersion,
preidentifying shelters for people who are homeless, enhancing
situational awareness, people deploying quickly to areas. These
are just some of the things that Secretary Jackson mentioned.
Debris removal was a big issue at Katrina. And it seemed like
they used the most expensive engineers and contractors and the
Corps of Engineers, not local contractors.
Again, the stronger DOD role was mentioned. Reaching out to
the locals, which I was glad to see on the list of things that
DHS is looking at, how can we work together closely. This is a
great start, having a hearing here. Last but not least is
financial accountability, cost control, and better management,
so all of those things.
Do you have a comment on any of those?
Mr. Foresman. Congressman, if I may go back to the question
about DOD, I think that part of what the Secretary may have
been also talking about--again, I was not in the room when he
made the comments--but in retrospect, as a result of the
briefings he and I both did on Monday, update briefings, one of
the things that we've been able to do is to make sure that the
mission assignments that the Department of Defense may need to
do in the context of supporting hurricane response or even an
earthquake scenario, there are lots of things we're going to
need; heavy-lift helicopters, medium-lift helicopters. We're
going to need air transportation. We're going to need aerial
reconnaissance using some of the technology of our intelligence
community to do some of that, all of these types of things.
We know that we're writing the mission assignment today.
And I think a large part of what I would offer to you is, this
is basic Core 101; do as much as you can before the disaster
strikes. And we're working very aggressively with Secretary
Rumsfeld, Assistant Secretary McHale, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, and others to make sure that we get as much of the
likely DOD missions that are historic missions. They have dealt
with them for 20, 30 years, make sure it's prescripted so it's
the State of Washington or any local community depending on the
State of Washington. If we have to turn to the Federal family
of DOD, we're ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen.
So I'll go back and talk to the Secretary, Congressman.
I'll provide you all with a written follow-up in terms of what
his comments were in relation to the article. Sometimes the
information in the statement may not be exactly correct.
Mr. Pascrell. I just have one final question, Mr.
Secretary.
When Secretary Chertoff said yesterday that he desired to
upgrade the National Alert System, what exactly can we look
forward to with that regard?
Mr. Foresman. Congressman, thank you for that question.
That actually goes to a large part of what my colleagues have
been talking about today. One of FEMA's critical elements is
the ability to notify the general populace at large that we
have a variety of situations that have occurred, earthquakes,
hurricane, whatever it might be.
The Emergency Alert System, formerly known as the Emergency
Broadcast System, has not undergone the transformation to the
degree that it was intended when they made some changes in the
1990's. We need to make some policy changes. There are a lot of
things upon the broadcast media, text messaging, reverse 911, a
lot of technologies that are available today. Don't forget our
core principles of the broadcast media. But we need to make
sure that, from a policy standpoint, it reflects the 21st
Century technology and how we communicate with the population
at large.
The other issue is to identify the number of occasions
where the Emergency Alert System simply has not worked. The
broadcasters are voluntary participants in that program. Some
broadcasters in some States have very robust radio and
television support for those activities; other States do not.
We need to ensure the strength of that system, so we're taking
a very systematic look to make sure that the conversion from
analog to digital has moved as it should have, that the primary
and secondary relay points are up and operating, that the
States have in place a good quality plan, and that we're using
all the available technology.
Again, at the end of the day, government can be as prepared
as we want to be. The private sector can be as prepared as they
want to be. But if fellow citizens have problems, then all that
preparedness is not going to pay off.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you.
Mr. Reichert. Mr. Mullen, do you have a comment on that
question?
Mr. Mullen. No. I think the point that the EAS is voluntary
needs to be taken very seriously. It isn't necessarily
something that is guaranteed. The warning will go off precisely
in the time frame and the manner that we wish.
I actually was reacting a little bit to the discussion
about the greater DOD role just for a moment. I think where we
get very concerned is, when it sounds like the suggestion is
made in the Federal line, we feel very strongly in that, if the
troops came in, they should be under the command of the adjunct
general working for the government. Building work to support
States has helped in the requirement to support the local
people.
When we're talking about a National Alert System or any
pronouncement coming out of DHS headquarters, we welcome that,
but we also welcome the opportunity to and the connection to
the local and State officials who actually are responsible for
delivering that message to be sure it's done properly. I go
back to the Nisqually earthquake when the Nisqually operation
was under the Federal level. I campaigned in the boiler room
for each jurisdiction getting press release without any
consultation from the State and local. Those are the kinds of
things that we need to get away from so we're sure that we're
all working together. If we're going to be a team, we've got to
get our signals straight.
Mr. Foresman. Chairman and Congressman, if I might, that's
why dialogue is absolutely important. Let me be very clear.
What we're doing with the Emergency Alert System is
designed to empower local officials and State officials to be
able to use a system that works. The Federal Government is
responsible for making sure there's an Emergency Alert System.
We depend on our local and State partners to implement that
system and make it work.
In regard to the DOD, I think that the acknowledgement here
is that emergency disasters are local events or State events.
The role of the Federal Government is to provide support.
Nothing in my remarks should be construed to say that we're
talking about federalizing emergencies and disasters in the
community. What we're talking about is making sure the Federal
support is robust and in force.
Mr. Pascrell. Let's go back to what you just said. It's all
right for us to conclude that we want the locals--I mean the
extended definition of that--the locals ought to respond to
national catastrophes, be it whatever, and that the Federal
Government should be called on as a later resource.
That only works if the locals are involved in the process
in the first place. That has not happened. You can't expect the
locals to be able to respond accordingly when these disasters
get out of hand as Katrina did or as a manmade disaster, a
terrorist attack, unless those folks are in at the planning in
the very beginning and not look just to respond. I think I
can't emphasize that enough, Mr. Chairman. If there's anything
we keep on hearing over and over again, we expect the locals to
take on this huge responsibility and undertaking. Many times
locals don't--can't appreciate--they're not in a position to
appreciate what's the extent of the resources that will be
needed to fight this particular--to respond to the situation.
And that is why the Federal Government has a responsibility
early on before anything even happens to help us prepare for
what--our citizens demand that. Our citizens demand that. And
this is the angst, this is the anxiety that's being grated out
there, I think, more than in any other area.
The questions about FEMA, how can you separate preparedness
from response? I don't know how you do that. I don't think you
should do that. That's my point. Thanks.
Mr. Foresman. Congressman, you know, I agree. We just need
to meet our short-term planning proposals.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you to the panel for their testimony,
and I appreciate you asking questions and answering questions.
This Committee has been very focused on three things that
we recognize as key components in this process; that's
planning, training and communication. I think everyone on the
panel will agree, those three are key to our success in keeping
our communities safe. The most important part in having any of
those three critical areas succeed is the piece that Mr.
Pascrell just touched upon, and that is the relationship
between the Federal, the State and the local entities. And all
have to come together to address this issue, and today I think
we have a good start. I think that, as we move forward with
friendships and the names that we shared today help build those
relationships and make the planning and training and
communication piece work.
So thank you all for being here. And at this time, before
calling the second panel, we'll take a brief recess. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Reichert. I'd like to call the Subcommittee hearing to
order. I'll now call the second panel.
The witnesses on the second panel are Sheriff Pastor,
Sheriff of Pierce County; Assistant Chief Vickery, City of
Seattle Fire Department; Michael Loehr, Director of
Preparedness for Public Health--Seattle and King County; and
Mr. William Pugh, Director of Public Works and Assistant City
Manager for the City of Tacoma; and Mr. Roger Serra, Director
of Security and Emergency Management for Seattle City Light.
The Chair recognizes Sheriff Pastor.
STATEMENT OF PAUL A. PASTOR, SHERIFF, PIERCE COUNTY, WASHINGTON
Mr. Pastor. First of all, gentlemen, thank you very kindly
for coming here and listening to us. Welcome to Pierce County.
It is especially good to see Chairman Reichert who give
assurance to me that there is life after being sheriff, and
possibly even more exalted life. I always thought that being
sheriff is the ultimate but--
Mr. Reichert. It is.
Mr. Pastor. There are a number of things that we commented
on that you've heard about already in Washington State and in
Pierce County, things which allow us to apply technology to
work and support of one another to prepare for and respond to
natural disasters and terrorist attacks. We don't just want to
brag though because, if you wear your--if you rest on your
laurels, you're probably wearing them in the wrong place, so
there is much more that needs to be done.
One thing that we do not have in Pierce County that I will
address briefly is interoperable communications. We have kind
of a patched commonality to our emergency management, but we
need to do more, and we can get there. Getting there is
consistent with the goals we have taken with our approach to
disaster preparedness and emergency preparedness countywide.
And I speak countywide from the standpoint of having the
privilege of serving as the sheriff of Pierce County, a county
for over 750,000 people with all sorts of territory in 1800
square miles and the mountain that you could see if you could
see it in the distance over there. That is our mountain in
Pierce County.
Our approach, as you've heard already, to disaster
preparedness and terrorist preparedness is an all-hazard
approach. That's our doctrine. That's the way we approach this.
As you're well aware, most of the preparedness for natural
disaster planning, equipment partnership is applicable in the
area of responding to terrorist incidents as well, in fact,
probably over 75 percent. So we've taken steps, we've made
plans, we've equipped, we've drilled, we've trained with the
all-hazards/all partners doctrine in mind. We've tried to
include people from the public sector and throughout the public
sector, local, State and Federal, as well as people from the
private sector, private businesses as well. In collaboration
with our municipal partners in the county and in even closer
collaboration with our colleagues in the Pierce County
Department of Emergency Management, we have placed the people
in this county, I think, in a strong position with regard with
readiness.
And you can pick off the things. You've heard some of them
already. Our State is involved with the PC-NET program;
computer mapping of schools and critical infrastructures has
begun here in Pierce County; establishing temporary radio
frequencies to patch our radio frequencies together; our
Terrorist Early Warning Group, which Chairman Bailey has talked
about. But we have more to do to improve our position. And we
have a complication of, like many parts of the United States,
we value local control. We have 19 law enforcement agencies, 23
fire districts, eight Public Safety Answering Points--and God
bless us for our dedication to local control of it. But
sometimes and in some challenges, that can be an impediment to
what we need. Some challenges, terrorism, whether it's
international or home-grown--it's important that we recognize
that we have both, and we have had experience with both in this
county. Large scale disasters and mass civil disturbance events
are three examples of challenges which don't always lend
themselves to purely local approaches.
For that reason, in Washington State, our State Sheriffs
and Chiefs Association has developed a statewide Law
Enforcement Emergency Mobilization Plan, so that we can as
seamlessly as possible work to support one another if any kind
of disaster or mass civil disturbance or whatever breaks down.
One of the things that we need to do--I need--is establish
a stronger, more permanent interoperable communication system.
And in Pierce County, this week an RFP will go out for a study
on that. And the study will cost about $60,000. We are working
to use Federal moneys to find out what we should do and how to
wisely use resources. The study is intended to provide
direction to the most cost effective approach to achieving
interoperability. We want to be sure we get the best possible
performance. And we really appreciate the Federal government's
interest in this area as we carry it further.
So I described the doctrine. I talked about some of our
needs, our accomplishments. The question is, what is the proper
role of the Federal Government from here on out. And the proper
role starts with the idea that, as has already been said, no
disaster or terrorist attack takes place at the Federal level.
If you remember back to 9/11, even the Pentagon, when the plane
crashed into the Pentagon, if you review the videotapes, you'll
see Fairfax County Police, you'll see Alexandria Police. Even
at the epicenter of what is Federal power, you see locals
responding.
In light of this, in light of the co-responsibilities we
share, we don't intend to passively ask the Federal Government
to solve our problems. But we do intend to ask the Federal
Government to partner with us. And I've asked our Federal
partners to consider a number of issues. One of them, is this
really a good time to cut back on law enforcement technology
funding? Mr. Pascrell talked about that. Planning, procuring
and deploying interoperative communications is essential for
what we need to do. Cutbacks on that may not be the right
signal to send at this time.
I would ask that we have the ability to hire personnel to
deal with disasters and terrorism issues.
Mr. Chairman, you've heard me say that we have a circuit of
gas masks to respond to real events. To prevent events, you
need human beings, not just equipment. If it is true that, in
the international scene, we are in the midst of something that
might be called World War IV. World War IV requires sacrifice
on everybody's part, sacrifice on the part of local officials,
on the part of the Federal Government, and especially on the
part of citizens to step forward and confront challenges. So we
at the local level believe we have a responsibility to step
forward. We believe it when the President and the Congress tell
us that we're on the frontline of terrorism.
In February we had a major county sheriffs, inner city
chiefs meeting in Washington. We heard praise for our effort,
and I'm sure that praise was very sincere and heartfelt. But we
also heard an inconsistent message, that is cutbacks in the
COPS Programs and personnel, cutbacks in technology.
I would ask the gentlemen that you take back to Washington
that we're willing to do our part, and we're willing to step
forward. We're not interested in just passively holding up our
hands. We're interested in rolling up our sleeves and doing the
work. We would ask that you join us in that, especially when it
comes to resources.
We believe that public safety is not a spectator sport. We
say that to our citizens, and we ask that our Federal partners
not just cheer us along, but also stay in the game and help us
out in the field. We ask that you help simplify the
preparedness grants, that you help us prioritize, and that you
help us and help the citizens of the United States. Those of us
at the point of the spear are the reason actually that the
spear exists. And the point of the spear are the local first
responders.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Paul. Assistant Chief Vickery.
STATEMENT OF A.D. VICKERY, ASSISTANT CHIEF, CITY OF SEATTLE
FIRE DEPARTMENT
Mr. Vickery. Chairman Reichert, Congressman Pascrell, thank
you.
Just a little background, I have been in fire service 40
years, and I was able to respond to the Oklahoma City bombing,
the 9/11 terrorist attack, the FEMA-sponsored Urban Search and
Rescue. I'm really unique in that I was also trained as a
police officer when I headed the fire investigation unit.
This is a great opportunity. Never before, 25 years ago
when I was sitting on a panel with a sheriff on one side and
public health official on another. I think it shows we've come
a long way in a very short amount of time.
I'd like to emphasize some areas where I think significant
progress is made from those of us down here in the trenches.
I've also lived in the trench, in the bottom of the trench. And
never in my 40 years of service have I ever seen the level of
cooperation and mutual respect law enforcement and the fire
service have for each other as we do now. It's truly a
realization that we've been covering each other's back.
Secondly, I think there have been some big strides.
Previous to the National Incident Management System, when the
sheriff stood up and pointed and said ``fire,'' I ducked; and
when I stood up and said ``fire,'' he grabbed the hoses. Now
what we have is a system of language called the National
Incident Management System, so that when we do communicate,
even though we don't have the relationships face-to-face, that
we're talking the same language. This is a huge step forward.
That language ties in with the National Response Plan. If
we would all read it and practice it at the Federal and State
and local level, it gives us a strategy as well as a language
that we can use from all facets of the first response
community.
Risk-based funding, and it sounds good, but in practice
this is going to be a challenge, because all of America is
faced with risk. I do think that focusing our limited resources
on areas where we have identified and shared that risk, it's
very difficult for us to get information from the Federal
Government on where the risk really exists. I think the sheriff
and I and the public health feel the risk, but we're not
getting a lot of help in qualifying that.
I don't know what the terrorists are going to do next, but
I do know what they have done; they've killed people. And where
you have large concentrations of people, we have a greater risk
simply because of the density of the population.
So from that standpoint, we need to look at focusing where
there are large concentrations of people whether they are
transient or that's where they live.
A new Director for FEMA, I think we all need to fully
support the confirmation of Chief David Paulison as the new
Director of FEMA. He's got 30 years of response experience.
Let's let him use it for the next disaster.
The focus on terrorism response is not at counter purposes
to responding to a naturally-occurring event. If I can respond
to a terror event, I should be able to respond to a naturally-
occurring event.
The communication systems, the interoperability of the
equipment are applicable. But the difference with a terror
event is my partnership with law enforcement becomes
significantly more important. To bring those to justice who
have committed the crime, to protect the evidence, but we also
focus on one thing--saving lives. And the tools we learn to
respond to terrorism are effective at saving lives in a non-
terrorist event.
I believe truly here that the risks that we have--and each
time I get closer to Mount Rainier, I get a little more
sensitive. I look behind my back to see if the mud flow is
coming towards me right now.
So when it comes to responding, in my experience, I do
believe that there is such a thing as a perfect storm. I've
never seen a perfect response in 40 years. We can always
improve our capability to respond.
What areas do I feel that we need enhancement?
Communications continue to hamper our ability to appropriately
respond to and provide for the safety of the first response
community. I applaud the fact that we have patches in
technological, but right now I can't talk to a firefighter in a
building that's 30 feet away from me. The radio doesn't go
through the building. I don't know where it is in the building,
nor do I know where those police officers or assistants, where
they are in the building. So if something happens, can I
protect them?
I've got 1,000 members on the Seattle Fire Department and
600 radios. That means that when there is an emergency of a
significant magnitude, I don't have enough radios for all the
firefighters who could be called to the scene.
The United States military utilizes satellites in their
communication systems, and it really doesn't matter if a
hurricane wipes everything off the map, they bounce the signals
off the satellites. I can go to Mexico for vacation and get
satellite TV. They beam signals all over the world. Why can't
we have a federally-funded public safety communications system
similar to the military but not compromising the military's
need for secrecy.
People are our most valuable asset. I agree with the
sheriff. I've got 100 gas masks and 25 fire engines, but if we
don't put people on them, we just don't have the capacity to
respond.
Right now in the City of Seattle today, there are about a
million people. There are 300--a little over 300 police and
fire on duty. When that bell hits or that patrol car gets the
call to respond, 300 people is a challenge when you've got a
million potential people that you're going to deal with.
Staffing will continue to be a significant issue, and I think
that we need to continue to look at Federal support for
staffing both law enforcement, fire and EMS.
I can't help but look at the port. And I see these enormous
cranes that just came in on a ship here a couple weeks ago. I
see a port in both Tacoma and Seattle that is surrounded by a
city unique in many areas; a port that 22 illegal immigrants
came in, and from the grace of God they were not hostile. They
were actually friendly and looking to get a job in this
country. And the security guard, first they were identified by
a crane operator, and then the security guard was nice enough
to talk to them, smile, and put them in a van. I'm glad their
intentions were not hostile. They could have put us at great
risk.
So I think we need to continue to emphasize that port
security is a critical issue, not only in the prevention of
interdiction but in the capability to respond if an incident
does occur, and to get our ports back operating if an attack
did occur, either an accident or an intention.
Mr. Reichert. Chief, if I can interrupt just for a second,
Mr. Pascrell has to catch an airplane. If we can keep our
comments to five minutes for the rest of the panel. Thank you.
Mr. Vickery. I urge that we fully fund FEMA and populate
the agency with professional responders. Without adequate
funding for FEMA, it doesn't matter who's at FEMA. Thank you
very much.
[The statement of Mr. Vickery follows:]
Prepared Statement of A.D. Vickery
Welcome, I'm A.D. Vickery, Assistant Chief of the Seattle Fire
Department. I entered the Fire Service in 1966 and, over the past 40
years, have responded to thousands of emergencies. I responded to the
Oklahoma City Bombing, the 9/11 Terrorist Attack on New York City, and
Hurricanes as a member of our FEMA sponsored Urban Search and Rescue
(US&R) Team. As head of the Seattle Fire Investigation Unit I completed
basic Law Enforcement training and held a Police commission. I've
worked as a firefighter/paramedic for 12 years in Seattle.
Preparedness and response to emergencies must build on local
capability. The emphasis in government needs to focus on funding and
supporting local capability.
I would like to address areas where significant progress is being
made, and then areas where enhancements are needed related to local
fire, hazmat, and field emergency medical services.
Areas of Significant Progress
Never in my 40 years of service have I seen this high
a level of cooperation and mutual respect exist between the
Fire Service and Law Enforcement. Terrorism has taught us that
we are mutually dependent. This realization has allowed us to
integrate resources and command structures, reduce duplication
of effort and standardize equipment.
Emergency responders now have a common ``language''
and game plan which integrates local, state, federal and
military resources. The common language is the National
Incident Management System (NIMS). Previously, when the Sheriff
points and yells ``fire'' it didn't mean the same thing as the
Fire Chief yelling ``fire''. NIMS provides the baseline for
emergency response operations and communication.
The National Response Plan (NRP) provides the structure for how
local, state, federal and military assets interact and support
each other. We all have to read it and remember it.
Risk based funding. All of America is at risk, from
nature and terrorists. Certain areas are at a higher risk. I
don't purport to know what a terrorist is going to do next, but
I do know what they have done. They kill people, and they kill
people in large numbers.
A new Director for FEMA. We need to fully support the
confirmation of Chief David Paulison as the new Director of
FEMA! Chief Paulison has over 30 years of response experience.
Let's let him use it.
The focus on terrorism response is not at counter
purposes to responding to natural disasters. If you can respond
to a terrorist incident, you can respond to a natural disaster.
I do believe that there is such a thing as the ``perfect
storm,'' I've never seen a ``perfect response''. We do,
however, need to balance our exercises and training to include
natural disasters as a component of our overall preparedness.
Areas which Need Enhancement
Communications continue to hamper our ability to
respond effectively and efficiently. We need hardware and
redundant systems. In Seattle, the Fire Department has 1,000
members but we only have 600 radios. In a disaster, 400 of our
firefighters will not have radios.
There continues to be significant gaps in police, fire, EMS and
Emergency Management communication interoperability. The United
States military utilizes satellites for ground communications,
why can't the government put up communication satellites for
Public Safety? We get satellite TV all over the United States,
why not provide redundancy for first responders using similar
technology?
People are our most valuable asset. We need to provide
federal staffing support for local fire and law enforcement
agencies. In Seattle we have approximately 350 police and
firefighters on-duty for a daytime population of 1 million
people compressed into 90 square miles. We simply do not have
adequate staffing to deal with emergencies out of the ordinary.
We need to significantly increase funding to improve
Port security and response. Our major ports are critical assets
and there aren't a lot of them, and they are soft targets.
Unlike many major ports, the Cities of Seattle and Tacoma
surround their ports. This puts residents at risk. We need to
fund prevention, response and recovery planning and resources.
As a responder, when a disaster occurs, I need
equipment to continue the response when my local supplies are
consumed. We need to fully fund the Prepositioned Equipment
Packages which were recently utilized in Hurricane Katrina to
reconstitute local public safety agencies. This program has
been transferred to FEMA without adequate funding. It
absolutely needs to be supported.
Fully fund FEMA and populate the agency with
professional responders. Without adequate funding it doesn't
matter who FEMA reports to.
Increase funding to high risk cities and urban areas.
Both natural disasters and terrorists will likely kill and
injure more people in densely populated areas.
Improve our ability to respond to multiple casualty
incidents. We have a local capacity to deal with dozens of
injured victims, we need the capacity to deal with hundreds. It
doesn't currently exist. We need mass casualty field surge
capability.
We need to provide the public with a continuing stream
of factual information which will allow them to be self-
sufficient for days instead of hours. Never underestimate the
ability of the American public to weed out fact from fiction.
In summary, we are making progress in our efforts to improve
Homeland Security for prevention, response and recovery from natural
and manmade disasters. Success will depend on commitment and a
combination of local resources and sustained federal supplemental
funding.
Thank you.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Chief.
Mr. Loehr.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL LOEHR, DIRECTOR OF PREPAREDNESS, PUBLIC
HEALTH, SEATTLE AND KING COUNTY
Mr. Loehr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman
Pascrell, for the opportunity to speak with you this morning on
a subject that is critical to the continued health and safety
of our region's residents.
Local health departments have always had a role in disaster
preparedness and response. Since 9/11, we've seen significant
changes in the threats we face and the level of preparedness we
need to achieve. In just a short time frame, we've seen a wave
of disasters around the world with significant public health
consequences including the anthrax attacks of February of 2001,
the SARS outbreak in 2003, tsunamis, Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, the Madrid and London bombings, and now avian flu and the
threat of pandemic influenza.
All of these events have focused a spotlight on the
Nation's public health infrastructure and its ability to manage
the health consequences of emergencies.
In order to meet these new challenges, we have forged
relationships with our health care system partners, our first
responders, community-based organizations and emergency
managers, and are much better integrated into each other's
plans. I echo the Chief's comment that, four years ago, we were
not in any means together, and now I cannot get away from him.
It's a very good thing.
The results of these partnerships can be seen in newly
developed response capabilities such as the isolation and
quarantine of infectious patients and the ability to dispense
large amounts of antibiotics to a large number of people in a
very short time.
We have also developed a countywide disease surveillance
system in concert with such varied partners as hospitals, 911
dispatch centers and schools, but we cannot afford to stop
here. I'd like to offer some specific examples of how we can
improve coordination across all levels of government and
response systems through better integration of planning,
response and resources.
First, we need to improve the way the Federal funding is
provided for preparedness so that integration, not
fragmentation, is supported.
Over the past four years, public health and hospitals in
King County have become fully integrated into homeland security
planning, strategic development and exercise. The TOPOFF 2
exercise in 2003, and our bioterrorism planning efforts
demonstrate close coordination across disciplines. We have
established a Health Care Coalition with over 25 partner
organizations that is developing new protocols for making
critical, system-wide decisions, managing information and
allocating resources. This will foster a unified command
approach to health and medical response countywide, something
that's totally new in our county, and I think it's actually
revolutionary nationwide.
However, Federal funding priorities for public health and
hospitals are focused on specific response tasks, specific
hazards and equipment. This fails to recognize that a systemic
approach to health care preparedness is needed. Hospitals,
public health, clinics, medical practices, and pharmacies all
rely on each other during disasters. Planning, training,
exercising and responding as an integrated system should be
fully supported, if not required, by funding programs.
Just now, we're beginning to see this change. The latest
guidance for hospital grants from Health Services and Resources
Administration, HRSA, begins to take a systems approach to
preparedness for hospitals. This should be incorporated
throughout all Federal grant programs. There is no strategy for
total health care preparedness at the national level, and there
hasn't been for four years. That is probably the greatest
tragedy in public health preparedness that we've seen; there's
simply no organized set of priorities, no incorporation of
local priorities. As Congressman Pascrell mentioned, it is not
a top-down system. It shouldn't be. Locals should be
communicating what the priorities are and have a say in how the
resources should be allocated.
Secondly, the ability to share real-time data with response
partners needs to be expanded beyond voice capabilities and
beyond traditional first responders. We have over 7,000 medical
professionals in King County that we rely upon as the eyes and
ears of our health care system. As public health threats
emerge, paramedics and hospital staff will be on the frontlines
responding to the threat. They are the ones who will likely
detect the first signs for bioterrorism or potentially
threatening diseases in our community.
Yet, there is no reliable system in place to share critical
data between public health and medical professionals. Today
it's the fax machine. The hardware and software necessary to
track and communicate critical health data between public
health and medical professionals is lacking across the county.
Public health response measures including isolation and
quarantine of infected patients, and mass dispensing of
medications require robust data-tracking systems to monitor in
real-time the patients, their status, and the care they have
received, wherever they may be located. These are critical
infrastructure needs nationwide.
Third, training resources must become a Federal priority
and must be appropriate for public health responders. Federal
grant requirements for public health have focused primarily on
developing response plans; and for hospitals the focus has been
primarily on acquiring equipment. Yet training personnel to
implement an effective response is essential.
Training resources provided by the Department of Homeland
Security simply aren't relevant to the needs and
responsibilities of health system responders. Specialized
training necessary to carry out specific health-related plans
for mass dispensing of antibiotics or isolating large numbers
of infectious patients is not eligible under Homeland Security
grants and not resourced under CDC or HRSA grants, so we're
left basically either not training or eating the cost.
In addition, training resources should be more flexible and
accommodate the needs of health care organizations.
In summary, partnerships are the cornerstone of emergency
response. We've seen the benefits when they've worked well and
witnessed the disastrous consequences when they have not.
Federal policies and practices can make a tremendous difference
in determining whether the preparations of responding agencies
and institutions will be in concert or at odds when the next
disaster comes.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you.
[The statement of Mr. Loehr follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Loehr
Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning on a subject
critical to the continued health and safety of our region's residents.
Local health departments have always had a role in disaster
preparedness and response, but since 9/11 we have seen significant
changes in the threats we face and the level of preparedness we need to
achieve.
In just a short time span, we've seen a wave of disasters around
the world with significant Public Health consequences, including
anthrax attacks, SARS, tsunamis, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Madrid
and London bombings, and now avian flu and the potential for a pandemic
flu.
All these events have focused a spotlight on the nation's Public
Health infrastructure and its ability to manage the health consequences
of emergencies.
In order to meet these new challenges, we have forged relationships
with our health care system partners, first responders, community based
organizations and emergency managers, and are much better integrated
into each others plans. The results of these partnerships can be seen
in newly developed response capabilities addressing isolation and
quarantine of infectious patients and mass dispensing of medications.
We have also developed a county-wide disease surveillance system in
concert with such varied partners as hospitals, 911 dispatch centers,
and schools.
But we can't afford to stop here.
I'd like to offer some specific examples of how we can improve
coordination across all response disciplines, through better
integration of planning, response and resources.
First, we need to improve the way that federal funding is provided
for preparedness so that integration, not fragmentation, is supported.
Over the past four years, public health and hospitals in King
County have become fully integrated into homeland security planning,
strategy development, and exercises. The TOPOFF 2 exercise in 2003, and
our bioterrorism planning efforts demonstrate close coordination across
disciplines. We have established a Health Care Coalition with over 25
partner organizations that is developing new protocols for making
critical, system-wide decisions, managing information and allocating
resources. This will foster a unified command approach to health and
medical response will occur countywide.
However, federal funding priorities for public health and hospitals
have focused on specific response tasks, hazards and equipment. This
fails to recognize that a systemic approach to health care preparedness
is needed. Hospitals, public health, clinics, medical practices, and
pharmacies all rely on each other during disasters. Planning, training,
exercising and responding as an integrated system should be fully
supported, if not required, by funding programs.
Just now, we are seeing this beginning to change. The latest
guidance for hospital grants from Health Services and Resource
Administration (HRSA) begins to take a systems approach to preparedness
for hospitals. This should be incorporated throughout all federal grant
programs.
Second, the ability to share real-time data with response partners
needs to be expanded beyond voice capabilities, and beyond traditional
first responders. We have over 7,000 medical professionals in King
County that we rely upon as the eyes and ears of our health care
system. As public health threats emerge, paramedics and hospital staff
will be on the front lines responding to the threat. They are the ones
who will likely detect the first signs for bioterrorism or potentially
threatening diseases in our community.
Yet, there is no reliable system in place to share critical data
between public health and medical professionals. The hardware and
software necessary to track and communicate critical health data
between public health and medical professionals is lacking across the
country.
Public health response measures including isolation and quarantine
of infected patients, and mass dispensing of medications require robust
data tracking systems to monitor in real time the patients, their
status, and the care they have received, wherever they may be located.
These are critical infrastructure needs nationwide.
The capability to rapidly communicate and track data with health
care providers is as important to us as it is for fire and police to
communicate with their colleagues in the field. We believe the federal
government can play a critical role in supporting this need.
Third, training resources must become a federal priority and must
be appropriate for public health responders.
Federal grant requirements for public health have focused primarily
on developing response plans; for hospitals the focus has been on
acquiring equipment. Yet training personnel to implement an effective
response is essential.
Training resources provided by the Department of Homeland Security
aren't relevant to the needs or responsibilities of health system
responders. Specialized training necessary to carry out plans for mass
dispensing of antibiotics or isolating large numbers of infectious
patients is not eligible under Homeland Security grants and not
resourced under CDC or HRSA grants.
In addition, training resources should be more flexible and
accommodate the needs of health care organizations. For many health
care organizations, including our department, a large number of staff
that will be relied upon for emergency response support generate
patient revenues as part of their daily responsibilities.
Removing them from their regular work creates a double impact in
cost--not only for the hours spent for training itself, but for the
revenue lost in not seeing patients. Especially in the current state of
health care economics, it makes it very difficult for health care
organizations to train at the level that's needed.
Partnerships are the cornerstone of emergency response. We've seen
the benefits when they have worked well, and witnessed the disastrous
consequences when they haven't. Federal policies and practices can make
a tremendous difference in determining whether the preparations of
responding agencies and institutions will be in concert or at odds when
the next disaster comes.
We appreciate your time and interest today, and we stand ready to
work with you to further improve our collective preparedness efforts.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Loehr.
Mr. Pugh.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM ``BILL'' PUGH, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS/
ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER, CITY OF TACOMA
Mr. Pugh. Good morning, Chairman Reichert, Ranking Member
Pascrell. My name is Bill Pugh. I'm the Assistant City Manager
and Public Works Director for the City of Tacoma. I have to
confess, I'm a little different from the prior people who have
spoken. I'm an engineer, a little bit of an anomaly in this
crowd.
I'm here today on behalf of American Public Works
Association's 27,000 members and nearly 2,000 public agency
members. Public Works officials are first responders. We clear
transportation routes, we assess government and primary public
buildings, we work alongside police, fire and emergency service
professionals to ensure that water is flowing through fire
hoses, traffic lights are operating and traffic is moving,
barricades are up, debris is removed, and the public is safe.
We are often the last to leave the scene as we manage the
lengthy cleanup and restoration of any disaster site.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about
emergency and planning preparedness and the indispensable role
it plays in securing the safety of our communities. APWA has
been and will continue to be an advocate for the development of
emergency plans which coordinate emergency response across all
levels of government in a way that saves lives, property and
restores critical lifelines.
One of the most important components when planning for
catastrophe is effective coordination between all of the
response players. While the primary focus of such preparation
has usually been centered on first-responders, it is crucial
not to overlook the significant preparedness roles that are
played by all levels of government, and not just the local
community in which the disaster is taking place.
For example, during Hurricane Katrina, there was a total
breakdown in communications between the Federal, State and
local governments. As a result, response plans were left
unimplemented, and valuable time was lost trying to restore
basic order to the disaster zone. This could easily have been
avoided. Had many Gulf communities practiced their preparedness
plans or coordinated with other levels of government before
this hurricane season, hopefully a lot of this could have been
avoided. However, even the best plans can fail when faced with
an unexpected catastrophe. This is why the APWA feels it is
even more important to communicate with the government at all
levels before an emergency and become familiar with the
preparedness plans of others. This way, we can identify where
there are bottlenecks, weak spots, and other inconsistencies
and then to work together to develop the most efficient
recovery and response plan possible.
I'd like to give you two local examples of where I think
communications have worked well and not so well. First, during
the Katrina aftermath, local agencies within the Puget Sound
area met to plan for the possible evacuees. All of those
agencies attended, and the State agencies were conferenced in
by phone. The groups soon discovered that they were working on
very similar planning and preparedness issues, and agreed to
meet together to strengthen and consolidate their efforts.
Although invited, no one from FEMA attended either of these
meetings.
Second, the military bases, McChord Air Force Base and Fort
Lewis, have a major presence in the south Sound region. As
such, they have the potential to offer significant resources in
a major disaster. Pierce County local government has an
excellent relationship with the command staff of both of these
bases and has entered into a mutual aid agreement with McChord
and Fort Lewis. If disaster strikes and the military forces are
available, help from them will be also.
And at this point, I'd like to give credit to one of your
panelists up here before, Steve Bailey. Through that
partnership, they're able to develop that interagency
agreement, which I think is the first one in the Nation.
Disasters are inherently local by their nature. They
involve men and women providing critical services to preserve
public health and protect life and public property. How well
they do their job depends on how well we support them. How well
we support them depends on how well we communicate. How well we
communicate depends on the strength of the relationship. If the
relationship falls apart at the top, the men and women
providing the critical services will be impacted, and our
citizens will suffer the consequences.
The role of the Federal Government is to assist local
agencies when disaster strikes by providing the necessary
support and resources to mitigate the disaster. We look forward
to and rely on that help. The Federal Government, in turn,
needs to rely on the local leadership to prioritize and deploy
those resources. This can only be done well only if we work
well together.
Now that we've developed our local, State and Federal
emergency response plans, let's develop the relationships so
they can be successfully implemented. Get to know your local
emergency management professional. Develop that relationship
and that partnership. Do it soon before the next disaster
strikes.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Pascrell, on behalf of the
APWA, I'd like to thank you again for the opportunity to
testify this morning. As has been mentioned a couple three
times so far, Deputy Chief Jeff Jensen of the Tacoma Fire
Department, who is with me is also one of our critical partners
in Pierce County.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Pugh.
Mr. Serra.
STATEMENT OF ROGER C. SERRA, DIRECTOR OF SECURITY AND EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT, SEATTLE CITY LIGHT
Mr. Serra. Chairman Reichert and Mr. Pascrell, thank you
for this opportunity to share my observations and comments
regarding the efforts now being taken for the protection our
critical infrastructures, specifically in the energy sector.
As introduced, I am the current Director of Security and
Emergency Management for the Seattle City Light. Prior to this
position, I was Director of Emergency Management for Snohomish
County, and also have served as the police chief.
I also have the distinction to have served in the United
States Army where my last assignment was as the Department of
Defense liaison for Military Support for Civil Authorities for
the entire FEMA Region 10. I have been involved in State, local
and Federal activities, and I actively have served on the State
committee of Homeland Security and chaired the government
subcommittee that produced the Washington general analytical
center and the regional intelligence centers that has become a
model across the United States for intelligence issues.
I make reference to these career experiences basically to
reflect that my diverse career has given me the rare
opportunity to approach emergency management from different
perspectives that clearly illustrate the interdependency of all
the disciplines to plan collaboratively.
Seattle City Light, a department of the City of Seattle, is
one of the Nation's largest municipally-owned utilities in
terms of the number of customers it serves. Seattle City Light
has a service area of 131 square miles and serves more than
340,000 customers and a population exceeding 680,000.
Seattle City Light provides the primary power for the city
and the government offices and operations. Its criticality for
the region relies on electricity to maintain continuity of
government functions and the syntax with the major corporations
located in the Greater Puget Sound cannot be overstated. Much
of our efforts to date have been to install security
enhancement features and reevaluation of accessibility to the
public that previously were accessible but now are restricted.
Regional collaboration with the other public utilities in
the area is imperative and one which has been cited as a best
practice initiative in managing emergencies by the American
Public Power Association study of how leading companies have
implemented effective and comprehensive emergency planning.
This was all self initiated without the funding from the
Federal Government.
Also cited in the best practices initiative was that the
excellent relations shift in former regionally liaison
established in the northwest utilities are the foundation for
successful emergency response and provide valuable insight for
other utilities to emulate. The utilities rely on cooperation
among multiple functions to handle emergencies and communicate
with all involved parties.
Critical infrastructure protection is listed as one of the
Department of Homeland Security's national priorities, and as
such it deserves priority for appropriate funding, to design,
improve and enhance the physical security information
technology and communication systems. Unfortunately, critical
infrastructure does not have the same attention as first
responders would get when it comes to the funding mechanism.
Programs such as the Buffer Zone Protection Planning have
been beneficial but one that still needs Federal emphasis that
provides assistance for conducting effective risk and
vulnerability assessments and funds to implement the
recommendations made in the assessments. Energy generation
facilities such as dams, power lines, substations are highly
visible facilities that have great exposure to threats of
attack. Partnering with law enforcement measures employed by--
employed in the Conservation of Environmental Design Program,
CEDP, are now being utilized and implemented in how to protect
our own facilities. Mutual cooperation among law enforcement
agencies at the local, county, State and Federal levels is
crucial for the protection of critical infrastructure such as
Seattle City Light boundary dam located in Pend Oreille County,
which is contiguous with the Canadian border. This underscores
the need for interoperable communications among law enforcement
as well as those people who have to protect our critical
infrastructures. There is now a greater focus for hiring
dedicated and professional security staff to handle the
responsibilities of security and emergency management in the
power industry that previously were defined as additional
duties to individuals in the organization with excellent
operational knowledge but limited security experience. This
professionalism is a reflection of the industry's commitment to
making sure that things are done properly and consistently with
industry standards. Emphasis for continuity of population
planning is necessary to ensuring that essential functions are
performed and priorities established for the restoration of
power to those sectors considered vital to the protection of
life and property.
The power industry also recognizes that it must do a better
job of communicating to other infrastructure providers when
service will be restored and utilize technology that provides
the capability to alert its employees and customers during a
disaster. Equally important is the need to develop an effective
early warning system that partners with law enforcement, with
public and private enterprises, and ensuring that appropriate
intelligence is shared on a timely basis.
National organizations such as the North American Electric
Reliability Council, the large public council, and the Western
Electric Coordinating Council serve to network the growing
number of utility security emergency management practitioners.
Issues for your consideration is provide directly funds for
agencies operating critical infrastructures for the purpose of
conducting risk and vulnerability assessment, development of
operations plans, conducting exercises and for the purchase and
installation of voice and data communication systems, state of
the art IT systems and equipment necessary to enhance physical
security; expand the list of facilities to qualify for Buffer
Zone Protection planning and increase the amount of
implementing effective protective systems.
The National Infrastructure Database is out of date;
establish regional Department of Homeland Security offices that
improve coordination and interaction with its regional
partners.
The opportunity to share our concerns, strengths and
initiatives with your committee is appreciated, and I'm
prepared to answer any questions you may have regarding that
subject.
[The statement of Mr. Serra follows:]
Prepared Statement of Roger Serra
Mr. Chairman and members of the House Committee on Homeland
Security?s Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science and
Technology, thank you for this opportunity to share my observations and
comments regarding the efforts now being taken in the protection of our
critical infrastructures--specifically in the energy sector.
My name is Roger Serra. I am the Director of Security and Emergency
Management for the Seattle City Light. Prior to this position I was the
Director of the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management and
before that I was the Chief of Police for the University of Washington.
It is also my distinct honor to have served in the United States Army
where I retired as a Colonel with my last assignment as the Principal
Regional Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer for FEMA Region X
serving as the DOD Liaison for Military Support to Civil Authorities. I
have been involved at the local, state and federal level in the areas
of emergency management and homeland security. I served on the State's
Committee on Homeland Security representing local emergency managers
and chaired the committee?s Intelligence Sub-committee where we
developed the concept of the Washington State Joint Analytical Joint
Center and the Regional Intelligence Centers. It was also my privilege
to serve as the President of the Washington State Emergency Management
Association.
Seattle City Light, a department of the City of Seattle, is one of
the nation's largest municipally owned utilities in terms of the number
of customers served. Seattle City Light has a service area of 131.3
square miles and serves more than 345,000 customers and a population
exceeding 680,000. Seattle City Light provides the primary power for
the cities and county's governmental offices and operations. It's
criticality to the region's reliance on electricity to maintain
continuity of governmental functions and its impact to the major
corporations located in the Greater Puget Sound Area cannot be
overstated. Regional collaboration with the other public utilities in
the area is imperative and one which has been cited as a Best Practice
Initiative in Managing Emergencies by the American Public Power
Association study of how leading companies have implemented effective
and comprehensive emergency planning.
Also cited in the Best Practices Initiative was that the excellent
relationships and formal regional liaisons established in the Northwest
utilities are the foundation for successful emergency response and
provide valuable insights for other utilities to emulate. Utilities
rely on cooperation among multiple functions to handle emergencies and
communicate with all involved parties.
Critical Infrastructure Protection is listed as one of the DHS
National Priorities and as such deserves priority for appropriate
funding designed to improve and enhance its physical, information
technology and communications systems. Programs such as the Buffer Zone
Protection Planning have been beneficial, but one that still needs
federal emphasis that provides assistance for conducting effective
risks and vulnerability assessments and funds to implement the
recommendations made in the assessments. Energy generation facilities
such as dams, power-lines and substations are highly visible facilities
that have greater exposure to threats and attacks. Mitigation efforts
such as utilizing the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
(CPTED) measures to reduce vulnerabilities is one initiative, when
applied, has proven effective. Mutual cooperation among law enforcement
agencies at the local, county, state and federal levels is crucial for
the protection of critical infrastructure such as the Seattle City
Light Boundary Dam located in Pend Oreille County and the Canadian
border.
There is now a greater focus for hiring dedicated staff to handle
the responsibilities of security and emergency management in the power
industry that previously were assigned as ``additional duties'' to non-
qualified individuals in the organization. This professionalism is a
reflection of the industry's commitment to making sure that things are
done properly and consistent with industry standards.
Emphasis for Continuity of Operations planning is necessary in
ensuring that essential functions are performed and priorities
established for the restoration of power to those sectors considered
vital to the protection of life and property. The power industry also
recognizes that it must do a better job of communicating to other
infrastructure providers when service will be restored and utilize
technology that provides the capability to alert its employees and
customers during a disaster. Equally important is the need to develop
an effective Threat Early Warning System (TEW) that partners law
enforcement with both public and private in ensuring that appropriate
intelligence is shared on a timely basis.
National organizations such as the Large Public Power Council
(LPPC) and the Western Electric Coordinating Council (WECC) serve to
network the growing number of utility security and emergency management
practitioners.
Issues for your consideration:
Provide direct grant funds for agencies operating critical
infrastructures for the purpose of conducting risk and vulnerability
assessments, development of Continuity of Operations Plans, conducting
exercise and for the purchase and installation of voice/data
communications systems, state of the arts Information Technology
systems and equipment necessary to enhance physical security.
Expand list of facilities to qualify for Buffer Zone Protection
planning and increase amounts for implementing effective protective
systems.Establish Regional DHS offices to improve coordination and
interaction with regional partners.
The opportunity to share our concerns, strengths and initiatives
with your committee is appreciated. I am prepared to answer any
questions you may have regarding my roles and responsibilities.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Serra. I have a few questions,
and then I'll move to Mr. Pascrell. He'll have several
questions also.
Mr. Serra, are there critical infrastructure services of
power, water, transportation, are they integrated into the UASI
preparation plan?
Mr. Serra. They are a component in the overall discussion
on how the funds will be distributed. There is a group that
meets to decide how those things are going to be.
There is a preference for critical infrastructure.
Unfortunately, we only have one representative that represents
all the utilities in the UASI program, and that process is
something that I'm just now beginning to better understand
having just come to Seattle recently. But there is a role, and
there is a position that we have in the overall discussion. And
certainly with the new grant guidelines for the fiscal year 06
grants for investment justification, critical infrastructure
was one of the areas that rose to the top as one that required
some immediate attention.
Mr. Reichert. So it may play a greater role?
Mr. Serra. We are hoping it will play a greater role in
this area.
Mr. Reichert. Mr. Pugh, is there an evacuation plan for the
City of Tacoma?
Mr. Pugh. Yes, there is. As to exactly what it is, I don't
know. I'd have to yield to Chief Jensen.
Mr. Reichert. The next question was, does the Department of
Public Works have a part in that plan?
Mr. Pugh. We have had a part in that plan. And I'll tell
you frankly, we haven't in the recent years had the involvement
that we need to. And I don't think that's through any fault of
really the fire department or anybody else. I think that
involvement becomes with leadership from the top. There hasn't
been leadership, at least from a management standpoint, within
the City of Tacoma. And I recognize strongly that we need to
get together and do our job better.
Mr. Reichert. Any discussions taking place hopefully
includes Public Works.
Mr. Pugh. Yes. I think the partnership we've had over the
last two or three years with Public Works and both police and
fire has been stronger than it's probably been in the last
fifteen.
Mr. Reichert. So are there training opportunities and
exercises for Public Works people to participate in in
conjunction with the fire department and police department?
Mr. Pugh. Yes, totally.
Mr. Reichert. So that's happened?
Mr. Pugh. Yes, it has.
Mr. Reichert. What about the City of Seattle?
Mr. Vickery. The Public Works is integrated into our
Disaster Response Plans. In fact, we provided the equipment and
training for all public employees and a select group of Public
Works employees who would be engaged in the response. Public
Works also includes the Department of Transportation. We can't
move people or materials. You can get a front-end loader and
push the street open, but how do you control the traffic.
There's a very close line between law enforcement and the
Department of Transportation. They are integrated into our
plans.
Mr. Reichert. Mr. Loehr, in the event of a pandemic, what
in King County leads the way in that? Who is your primary
Federal partner?
Mr. Loehr. That's an excellent question. The health and
medical response, as I mentioned, public health, particularly
the local health officer, would direct the health and medical
response. But we are changing significantly how we look at our
health system and incorporating, as I mentioned, more of a
unified command approach. The reason is hospitals simply don't
have the capacity to operate facility by facility. Public
health simply doesn't have the resources to operate independent
and in competition with other health care entities. Again, this
is revolutionary in the country. We are really operating as a
single organism, a single entity, with a single person in
charge, if necessary. And there are some tough decisions that
we need to make, changing standards of care. People aren't
going to recognize the health care system during a pandemic.
They really won't. Making the decision to cancel elective
surgery, it will be on the shoulders of the hospital CEO.
There's going to be a health officer saying in every hospital,
we're going to a red plan, or whatever you want to call it. Now
is the time to implement it. So we feel very good at how our
health care coalition is pulling hospital partners together.
When it comes to other consequences in a pandemic, we will
become a new government and pull society together. We do have a
regional disaster plan in King County which even given that is
a home rule state and a home rule county, somebody has to be in
charge. But we recognize that we're going to have to make
decisions in a cooperative manner, we're going to have to share
some resources. Through our regional staffing plan, these
organizations are going to have to work together.
But when it comes to coordinating the Federal partners, I
don't believe we have one for planning for a pandemic response.
It has not been demonstrated to me at all that there is any
strategy prepared at the Federal level for public health, and I
certainly haven't seen any indication of Federal support for
health and emergency management that I would consider
reasonable or reliable.
Mr. Reichert. Are you familiar with the position of the
chief medical officer that has been implemented?
Mr. Loehr. I have heard that that has occurred, and I'm
curious as to how that person relates to other Federal health
organizations, the CDC.
Mr. Reichert. Hopefully we'll get that together.
Mr. Loehr. Thank you.
Mr. Reichert. One of the things that this Subcommittee will
be focused on here in the future, once we've at least attempted
to solve the interoperatively issue, is the health care
preparedness issue. We understand, at least in our initial
investigative questioning, that there is a concern--big concern
about a service capacity. Can you explain that?
Mr. Loehr. Yes, I can. The ability for any health
organization to essentially create additional capacity, whether
it's space or personnel, doesn't exist in this country. The
health care system is a for-profit industry. Just like any
other business, the idea is cost. And costs have been cut so
drastically that there simply is no extra left in the system
where we have an emergency. For example, for half of the
hospitals in this country today, the situation is very similar
to what was described after 9/11. They are operated
overcapacity. You're seeing medicine performed in the hallways.
And that exists in King County, and it exists in half of the
hospitals in the country. There is no extra capacity.
So the health care system are another issue that we
certainly can't solve through any Federal preparedness grant.
But with the cards we've been dealt, how do we use the system
that we have most efficiently. It is not by funding specific
response capabilities or specific pieces of equipment for
hospitals; it's by looking at this system, as underresourced as
it is, and overcapacity as a single entity where we can move
resources around, at least within our own jurisdiction. And
that has not happened in four years. It is beginning to happen,
but a certain capacity is going to have to happen. We're
talking about adding hospital beds. It's not going to be in the
UASI hospitals; it's going to be a building like this where
we're going to need cots, we're going to need medical supplies.
We're going to have to use our own staffing. We're going to
have to find our own facilities.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Loehr. Chief Vickery, in
tailoring responses to this specific region, what
recommendations do you have to provide for early warning to the
public?
Mr. Vickery. I think it starts with an ability to share
information with the response community, particularly in a
terrorist event. I think what Pierce County has done with the
sheriff down there with terrorism early warning center gives
you an ability to scrub the material.
As a firefighter, I do not need to know the ethnicity or
the name of a perpetrator. I do need to know the threat. And
the ability of a terrorism center to share that information
with people who may not have a security clearance or who don't
have the need to know--I hate to use that word--is very
important. Then that information needs to be transmitted to the
public in a way that doesn't create panic. And I don't think
we're there yet.
The fact that we're a red in the Nation doesn't really mean
much to me. I love the color red on the planet right now. I
love the color red. I'm all for it, but it doesn't mean much;
what degree, what shade of red. Well, I think there's a
necessity to change the alert system where it can be localized.
And certainly even within our own region, the threat that you
would have in Tacoma may not be at the same level as it is in
Seattle based upon your population density and the nature of
the threat. A threat that is the release of a substance, what's
the weather, what are the weather conditions, what's the
staffing. So we do not allow the local community the ability to
just assimilate that information. It needs to be a graded
threat system rather than red, yellow, green.
Mr. Reichert. Mr. Pascrell.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you very much, and thank you for your
forthright answers so far. And Chief, thank you for pointing
out the lack of Federal funding, the COPS Interoperatively
Program. That would be eliminated under the present budget or
present proposed as redisposed, and we'll see what happens when
we get going here.
Chief Vickery, you know, we now have a FEMA Director. He's
no longer active. He came up through the fire ranks, as you
well know, the first fireman, first fire responder. That's the
first, second or third level management in the entire Homeland
Security. So we know the nature of the problem. We know the
nature of the problem.
And what we're trying to do is put some beef into the
words. We need this to be a bottom-up situation. I think that
is important, and you will feel better about each of your
tasks, I think, if we do implement that.
There have been suggestions that, in looking at FEMA--and
as I said before, simply not rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic, there will be some real change.
Of the following, I would like to know what you think of
each of these suggestions about FEMA in your experience. We
need to have a fully-staffed FEMA within the Department of
Homeland Security. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Vickery. Professionally staffed.
Mr. Pascrell. Do we have a fully-staffed FEMA right now?
Mr. Vickery. To the best of my knowledge, no. They're still
at somewhere 30 percent the positions have not been filled.
Mr. Pascrell. That's correct. Second, preparedness and
response be recombined at FEMA, we've talked about that in the
first panel. I would probably think they would agree with that.
Do you?
Mr. Vickery. When you say ``recombine,'' sir--
Mr. Pascrell. Right now they're two separate divisions.
Preparedness and response are no longer together in FEMA.
Mr. Vickery. They need to be integrated. We can't prepare
and respond separately.
Mr. Pascrell. We now have an experienced emergency person
at the top which we didn't have before. That's a good sign,
correct?
Mr. Vickery. It is, sir.
Mr. Pascrell. And the Director of FEMA has direct contact
with the President during incidents of national significance.
Wouldn't you agree?
Mr. Vickery. Absolutely.
Mr. Pascrell. Here's my question. Do you think that these
steps would take FEMA in the right direction that you want to
go?
Mr. Vickery. The answer is yes. And my empathy and support
is of Chief Paulison for this reason: He stepped into a
situation where the city is already half on fire. So I'm glad
you appointed me fire chief of a city while it's burning.
Mr. Pascrell. He's got to deal with the hand that he's
dealt. He's a big enough person to do it. I am confident that
he will do it. But just enough--the Director has to have direct
access to the President of the United States. We cannot have to
go through the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Mr.
Chertoff. In fact, in the testimony that came out, he said why
bother, you know, what the heck is going down from?
And Mr. Loehr, am I pronouncing that correctly?
Mr. Loehr. Loehr.
Mr. Pascrell. Loehr, I'm sorry. Do you sense urgency in any
of the things--on a Federal level on any of the things that you
brought up--
Mr. Loehr. Well--
Mr. Pascrell. --on the Federal--in the Federal Government.
Mr. Loehr. I think there is urgency in the sense of certain
programs that have been initiated for control for preparedness.
There's an urgency in getting funding out and imposing
requirements on local health departments to accomplish certain
risks. There has been no urgency in actually developing the
strategic approach, and I think one of the glaring deficiencies
that I would see from the absence of a strategy is pandemic
flu. Still no local jurisdiction in this country has received
any funding for that yet. We're waiting for that. It's now on
our doorstep, and we've been preparing for over two years.
Mr. Pascrell. As you watch the spread of avian flu, if we
chronicled this over the last two or three years, something is
happening out there. Is it not?
Mr. Loehr. Yeah. Half the world is now infected with avian
flu. And it's estimated that within the next six months, it
will come from Alaska, Canada into North America. And we're
still waiting as a country to have some resources to fight
that.
Mr. Pascrell. You're waiting for the signal.
Mr. Loehr. Right.
Mr. Pascrell. Are the public hospitals in this county able
to communicate with each other during emergencies?
Mr. Loehr. Yes. I'm actually very happy to say we've been
integrated with our response partners, police and fire, for a
long time. They're experts when it comes to this type of
communication. We've been integrated into their radio system.
We have backup radio systems. We have an interactive website
for sharing information about possible bed capacities; very
crude, but it is effective.
Mr. Pascrell. You talked about that there is such an
environment when that happens. You talked about where the beds
would be and how the hospitals might operate.
Have you reached out to the HMOs, for instance, as to what
their role would be in such an emergency situation?
Mr. Loehr. Great question; absolutely. As part of the
Health Care Coalition, we realized it's not just hospitals.
There's a couple jurisdictions in the county that have looked
at the hospitals as a single unit that we share our resources
with. We have to go way beyond that. The health plans, large
medical practices, they're got physicians, they've got nurses.
And with the staffing shortage of 100,000 nurses in this
country right now, we can't afford not to use everybody we can
get our hands on. So they are directly part of our health care
coalition just to make sure we prioritize our resources whether
it's where do we find beds to where do we find staff.
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Serra, we've had many discussions in
Washington about various infrastructures, let's say. How do you
protect the chemical industry? New Jersey's big problem is a
stretch along the New Jersey Turnpike that encompasses a
tremendous part of the chemical industry in this country.
The question is, who has that responsibility? Should we
impose on the chemical companies, or should the Federal
Government take charge? Is there a sense of urgency about that
issue? My question to you is, how do you protect the utilities
in your mind, and are we going in the right direction?
Mr. Serra. I think there is a direction that we're going. I
think it's a slow process. One of the things that I had
evaluated in the last few years is that we're unable to
determine what type of security enhancements need to be done or
response before--until such time as we can do a risk and
vulnerability assessment. To me the risk and vulnerability
assessment is the first step in doing what we need to do in the
future. There is no fund or a limited amount of funding,
especially for--well, in the public sector to be able to
conduct the assessments needed to do that and--
Mr. Pascrell. Are you telling us that--we're waiting here,
we're in the waiting room. You're not telling us that the
utilities themselves have put a plan together to protect the
infrastructure within that particular utility?
Mr. Serra. No. I'm just saying--
Mr. Pascrell. You're not saying that?
Mr. Serra. No. We are doing--
Mr. Pascrell. What are you saying?
Mr. Serra. We are continuing to do the steps that we need
to do in order to protect our present infrastructure.
Mr. Pascrell. What does that mean? What are you doing? I
want to ask you a specific question. Have you hired more people
to protect the infrastructure of the utilities which provides
energy, electricity, to folks in this area?
Mr. Serra. The answer to that is no, we have not done that.
Mr. Pascrell. How do you protect the industry then?
Mr. Serra. The way we're doing it right now is to contract
security to come in and do the security functions for those
critical infrastructures.
Mr. Pascrell. Would you repeat that, please?
Mr. Serra. Contracting with private security firms to--
Mr. Pascrell. Who are these private security firms?
Mr. Serra. These are private security firms that are hired
in the public and private sector that are private security
agencies, not full-time--
Mr. Pascrell. You're still not answering me, because as you
saw with the airline industry, when they did it before 9/11,
they hired rent-a-cops. It didn't work out, besides a lot of
other things, and that's one of the reasons why they're being
sued by some of the victims' families of 9/11. And we certainly
wouldn't want that to happen in the energy area, would we?
Mr. Serra. I share exactly your feelings. Coming into this
field is that, you know, I think we need to have some full-time
individuals that are specifically charged with the security of
the critical infrastructures. As I mentioned in my comments is
that, it's just recently that critical facilities like energy
have begun to hire full-time security and emergency managers
that understand what they're supposed to do. This is a function
that had always been an additional duty for other people within
the industry, and so it didn't have a priority that it probably
should have had.
I don't disagree with you that there should be full-time
employees dedicated to the protection of those critical
infrastructures, not hiring it out to other people to take care
of those infrastructures.
Mr. Pascrell. What I'm hearing from you, Mr. Serra, with
all due respect is what I get from the chemical industry, and
it is not acceptable. The public has a right to know that the
very resources that they depend on day in and day out are, to
the best of everybody's ability, realizing there's no such
thing as a seamless, perfect system--you're certainly not going
to get it from Washington--that is not acceptable to me. I can
only speak for myself. It's like we're waiting for something to
happen. What is the industry doing on its own to try to make it
happen so that you can then, if you take it at least through
some point, and you look at the Federal Government to assist
you to complete the activity, that's one thing. I don't hear
that. Nor do I hear a sense of urgency on your part.
Energy is critical. I don't have to tell you; you can tell
me. I don't feel that we have that sense of energy with regard
to the utilities of this country.
I might add, Mr. Chairman, I don't think it's any different
here than it is throughout the United States of American. These
are major, major activities that people depend upon, that the
police will depend upon, and fire will depend upon. And if
those activities are not able to sustain themselves, there is
something wrong. You can't expect the sheriff's department to
hire more people so that they can look after that utility,
unless we give them more resources to do that. These things
aren't going to happen, my friend, like they just fall out of
the sky. It doesn't work that way. It does not work that way.
So here we're talking about two major areas--I can talk to
you about them--two major areas. I brought the subject of
chemical industry up--and the utilities, energy; that we need
to take a very serious look at yesterday in order to protect
them, God forbid, if there is a terrorist attack or some kind
of natural calamity.
I have no further questions or comments. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Pascrell. Just a follow-up,
Mr. Serra. The infrastructure organizations, are they looking
at technology in assisting them in protecting our
infrastructures?
Mr. Serra. I think you have to have a balance of the
technology with which to protect the facilities and actual
individuals to actively be doing the job they're required to
do. Perhaps the urgency has not been there because it has not
been a priority for the industry to do that as far as funding
available to hire these individuals, but I do have the sense
that it is coming around. I think through the networking among
the professionals that are now in place is that there is a push
to have that kind of resource by the utilities.
Mr. Reichert. Do the contracts also with the local law
enforcement hire sheriff departments and/or police officers in
addition to the security personnel?
Mr. Serra. In certain areas like in the remote areas where
we have Skagit and the boundary, we have contracts with the
sheriff's department. But unfortunately that results in just
one deputy that is then hired to provide 24/7.
Mr. Reichert. I think the point that Mr. Pascrell was
trying to make, is there an effort by the community you
represent to hire dedicated staff; and if there is an effort to
hire dedicated staff, are you finding difficulty in finding
that staff to do the job?
Mr. Pascrell. There is an effort to do exactly that, is to
hire these people full-time. There's a matter of convincing
upper management that this is really important to put that much
money aside to say we need to have on-staff security.
Mr. Reichert. When you say there's an effort, is that from
the bottom up?
Mr. Pascrell. It is from the bottom up. And perhaps much of
that is just an educational process with regards to the
importance of having security in place.
Mr. Reichert. Is there a place that you represented on
UWAGA?
Mr. Pascrell. I am still involved with UWAGA, but not in
the role that I used to play.
Mr. Reichert. So that critical intelligence information as
far as risk of threat assessment gets to the community it
represents, there is an understanding by the people in the
upper echelon that there is a need for security, tighter,
security?
Mr. Pascrell. Right. And unfortunately, with regards to the
intelligence sector and the UWAGA and the regional intelligence
group is we have not taken the next step in how we transmit or
share the information that is gathered with the intelligence
groups or other agencies that are not law enforcement.
Mr. Pascrell. I want to add something here.
You say in your testimony--Mr. Serra, you said the critical
infrastructure protection is listed as one of DHS's national
priorities, and as such deserves priority for appropriate
funding designed to improve and enhance its physical
information technology and communication system. Programs such
as the Buffer Zone Protection Plan have been beneficial but one
that still needs Federal emphasis.
Let me tell you how I read it. I wouldn't read the rest.
You can read the rest of it. This is how I read it. Okay? What
you're waiting for in my estimation is a Federal bailout. You
haven't started the process really, because what can be said
about energy in most of the States of the union can be said
about water and the protection of our water supply. I don't
have to tell you how critical water is in any time of a tough
situation or a catastrophic situation, be it manmade,
terrorism, or be it nature. That's not acceptable to me. I'm
sorry.
So what I would do is go back and tell your superiors that
the committee or certain members of the committee don't find it
acceptable that you're waiting for the government to protect
your infrastructure. You haven't really started down the path.
And we could say this across the United States of America, Mr.
Chairman. I mean this is a partnership, or it isn't a
partnership. And if you're waiting for the Federal Government
to come forward, because there's parts of the Federal
Government that do not see the urgency either; and if they do,
don't want to come up with the money. And if they do want to
come up with the money and place other priorities in the path
of coming up with that money, we are not going to do this. We
are not going to accomplish it. Let's not fool the American
people either. Let's not fool them. They have been fooled
enough.
So private industries in priority areas--water is pretty
much of a priority. Energy is another priority. So you're
waiting.
The airlines took that same position. And if they had taken
some real precautions, those murderers would have never been
able to do what they did on 9/11. That's my contention. We
blame the CIA and the AIC and the FBI and the IBF. That's all
baloney. We have a mixed audience. And the point of the
matter--
Mr. Reichert. And we're not in New Jersey.
Mr. Pascrell. And we're not in New Jersey, that's true. But
you understand what I'm saying?
Mr. Pascrell. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Pascrell. Don't take anything I'm saying personally. I
have heard it before. I just wanted you to know that I heard
it. I was listening.
Mr. Serra. I appreciate that, sir.
Mr. Reichert. Gentlemen, I want to follow up on the theme
that Mr. Pascrell has been asking questions in follow-up, and
that's really on the priorities and the frustrated part of
funding and the Federal Government.
My background is in King County government as a police
officer and as sheriff. And if you experience some frustration
in the Federal government's inability to recognize
partnerships, there's a couple examples I could give where the
Federal Government has come to the sheriff's office and said,
we're from the Federal Government, and we're here to help. And
the first thing everybody says is run for cover.
And in this post-September 11th world that we live in, we
see the same sort of offer. And I think that there has been a
lot of improvement, but there are those areas where we see some
gaps or some inability to comprehend and understand really what
happens when we take the position of saying, we want you to
help us, we're not going to help you. That's frustrating
experience with your local law enforcement, your local
firefighters, local people trying to get the job done.
So I want to go to the sheriff and ask a question about the
COPS funding and the Department of Homeland Security grant
funding, because I know that, my first year in Congress, last
year, I got into a little battle with the cardinals of the
party that I represent over the COPS funding process. And when
you give a $600 million increase to a Federal agency, and then
you cut $80 million from a local effort, that's not a
partnership. And that was the point I tried to make.
So my question to you, Sheriff, is, as you've been
operating now under this umbrella of the Department of Homeland
Security and the grant process and seeing the COPS grants
slowly dwindle, have you seen the--has the Homeland Security
grant really been a help to you over what COPS used to be, or
is there a balance there, or are you on the negative side?
MR. PASTOR: Two things. There's been no question that there
has been a benefit, so one would appear to be inordinately
ungrateful if one were to suggest that there hasn't been a
benefit. There has been a benefit. So shading it all one way is
just not accurate. That's number one.
Number two, there has also been frustration that's coming
forth, as we have discussed before, with the issue that we are
a people of intensive enterprise. No matter how much technology
you adopt, ultimately there are people who need to carry out
things. You can put in surveillance technology, but there has
to be a person to respond to it. There has to be a person to
react to it. Only human beings, properly trained, properly
deployed, can prevent a terrorist attack. That was my gas mask
analogy; yes, you can put on a gas mask afterwards, but a man
or woman, whether they have this kind of badge or a fire badge,
whether they're involved in public health or other kinds of
responder roles, are the people who are going to be able to get
ahead of the curve to do this.
The issue of resources relates to what I said about
sacrifice. Citizenship involves sacrifice. It becomes a focus
like a laser in time of war; and we are at war. And for some
reason we don't dig inside ourselves and say at war we must
sacrifice. We treat citizenship as if it is consumerism, as if
we can gather as many goodies to ourselves as possible.
Citizenship isn't about that. It's about obligation, it's about
duty, it's about something bigger than that.
And so when we ask people with badges on and a military
uniform on to sacrifice, we also want to ask citizens to
sacrifice. We want Federal Government leaders and local
government leaders to lead citizens toward the path of
sacrifice in order to preserve the country, preserve our
freedoms, preserve our liberties.
Mr. Reichert. You should run for Congress. Mr. Pascrell, do
you have any additional comment?
Mr. Pascrell. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank the panel.
Great job.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, panel. And thank all of you for
being here today. It's been a valuable experience, I think, for
all of us. Members of the committee may have some additional
questions for the witnesses, and we will ask that you respond
to those in writing. The hearing record will be open for ten
days without objection.
Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]