[Senate Hearing 109-266]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-266
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: HURRICANE KATRINA
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HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
EXAMINING REBUILDING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA
__________
SEPTEMBER 8, 2005
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming, Chairman
JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
WILLIAM H. FRIST, Tennessee CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee TOM HARKIN, Iowa
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada PATTY MURRAY, Washington
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah JACK REED, Rhode Island
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
Katherine Brunett McGuire, Staff Director
J. Michael Myers, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005
Page
Enzi, Hon. Michael B., Chairman, Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions, opening statement......................... 1
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts, opening statement............................... 3
Casserly, Michael, executive director, Council of the Great City
Schools, Washington, DC........................................ 8
Merrell, Leonard, Ed.D., superintendent, Katy Independent School
District, Katy, Texas.......................................... 10
Roussel, Diane, Ed.D., superintendent, Jefferson Parish School
District, Louisiana............................................ 13
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Savoie, E. Joseph, Ed.D., commissioner, Higher Education, Baton
Rouge, Louisiana............................................... 18
Johnson, Eddie, Ph.D., deputy state superintendent, Education,
Alabama........................................................ 21
Smith, Kathleen, president, Education Finance Council,
Washington, DC................................................. 22
Shriver, Mark, vice-president and managing director, U.S.
Programs, Save the Children, Washington, DC.................... 23
Prepared statement........................................... 25
Leaning, Jennifer, professor, Practice of International Health,
Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts......... 27
Cox, Lisa, assistant director, Federal Affairs, National
Association of Community Health Centers, Washington, DC........ 31
Anthony, Paul, M.D., chief medical officer, Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers Association......................... 33
Weigand, Kenneth, vice-president, Human Resources, Walgreen's.... 34
Ware, Charlie, chairman, Wyoming Workforce Development Council,
Casper, Wyoming................................................ 36
Emsellem, Maurice, public policy director, National Employment
Law Project, New York, NY...................................... 38
White, Marilyn, Major, National Consultant on Adult Ministries,
Salvation Army................................................. 40
Lane, Jan, vice-president, Public Policy and Strategic
Partnerships, American Red Cross............................... 41
Kirsch, Tom, M.D., Johns Hopkins, member, American Red Cross
Disaster Services and Health Care Team......................... 43
Additional Material
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Dole, Hon. Elizabeth, a U.S. Senator from the State of North
Carolina, prepared statement............................... 46
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: HURRICANE KATRINA
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in
Room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mike Enzi,
chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Enzi, Alexander, Burr, Hatch, Sessions,
Kennedy, Dodd, Murray, and Clinton.
Opening Statement of Chairman Enzi
The Chairman. I call to order this Roundtable on Hurricane
Katrina. This will be a little different than some of the
roundtables we have had because this will truly be a listening
session. We are not going to be debating an issue. What we are
trying to do is gather as much information of what can be done,
how we can best achieve it in the most efficient way, and we
want to do it in the shortest possible time.
Everybody will have a chance to make some comments about,
from their vantage point, what could make this tragedy better,
and we do have an epic tragedy. It is unlike anything that
generations have seen, and that is witnessed by some of the
150-, 180-year-old homes that have stood up through storms of
the past and have now been demolished. The region is just
devastated. Of course, in this instance, the media has provided
us with a window through which we have all been able to witness
the impact of the terrible storm and what it has done with
countless lives in that region.
Yet as with every disaster inflicted in the United States,
we will relieve the hurting. We will repair the damage. And we
will restore hope in those communities. And when I say ``we,''
I am not talking about the Federal Government. I am talking
about the people of this country. This is the most giving
country in the world. It has been witnessed any time there has
been a problem anywhere in the world, and we are even more
giving to our neighbors.
Recently, there was a tornado in Wright, WY, and I got to
watch that come into action. A few hours after the storm
happened, people were lining up, ready to help clean up the
mess. They were fortunate they didn't have all the flood waters
to work with and it was a much smaller incident than this one.
But for every person involved in a disaster anywhere, it is a
100 percent problem and it is our problem to help them in any
way that we can, whether it is encouraging volunteers, changing
laws, relaxing laws, or finding money.
Now, while the rescue efforts are still in motion, many of
us believe the time is not right to examine the roots of the
tragedy and find out who is to blame for any of the shortfalls.
It is not time to play the blame game. What we are trying to do
here, and I hope across Government right now, is find ways to
work together to put our feet to work and our prayers to work
and start the process of addressing the short- and long-term
needs of the people who are devastated by the storm.
Every relief effort must begin by identifying those who are
most in need and directing the resources they need to them. The
displacement of those affected by the storm has made that very
difficult. We have never had this kind of a movement of people
in order to take care of the problem.
Again, we need to let everybody know, and there is a great
effort going on right now, that if you need assistance to help
recover from the storm's impact, you must register with the
Federal Emergency Management Administration. That is the one
clearinghouse for knowing who has been a victim and then those
people can get one-on-one help to take care of it, and that is
done by calling FEMA at 1-800-621-FEMA. I can't say that
enough. Communicate that person-to-person, because there are a
lot of people out there that are not able to get the messages
that we are delivering. People can also register online at
www.fema.gov.
Now, once a person is registered, they will find help
through the system, and it is being developed so that the needs
will be addressed. Again, how do we get that message out to
people who at the present time don't have electricity or water
or food or, in many cases, even radios? If people didn't get a
chance to write that down, don't worry. We are going to be
giving that information out continually. It is available on the
committee Web site, as well. The committee's Web site is
help.senate.gov.
Senator Kennedy and I called for today's roundtable because
we were faced with an unprecedented challenge, and that is how
to care for a million people who have been displaced throughout
the country. Much of what lies before us is common sense. Get
rid of the water. Remove the debris. Restore the power. Those
tasks will be challenging enough. Yet beyond the obvious needs
are even more challenging needs that must be met. The children
need to go to school. Families need reliable access to health
care. Moms and dads need training to help them find jobs to
support their families.
The whole process is a challenge. It is a challenge we will
have to answer without any of the traditional means of support
or infrastructure for these programs. Remember, much of the
area has been devastated. It is not collecting a penny of tax
revenue. Stores are closed, so businesses aren't collecting
sales taxes, and workers are without jobs, so they aren't
receiving paychecks that would normally help pay for the
services that have to be provided.
As a former mayor, I watched the devastation caused by
severe weather, and I mentioned Wright, WY, that was hit by the
tornado. Plans to rebuild Wright are, of necessity, going to
have to include the support and cooperation of the local,
State, and Federal level, much the same as this tragedy will,
and I have gotten to watch that as kind of a mini-lab on what
sorts of things are available, what the restrictions are, and
how people can get help.
It will also call on us to develop innovative and creative
strategies that will cut through the red tape for this kind of
a huge disaster and provide the assistance that is needed
quickly and efficiently. That is why we have called on some of
our Nation's most talented individuals. We have them assembled
here today. We are looking forward to receiving your
suggestions as to what we should be doing next as we work to
produce a plan of action that will see us through the after-
effects of the storm and provide us with a strategy that we can
use to respond to future events.
The Nation is currently focused on New Orleans, as it
should be, but we have to keep in mind that there are great
needs in Mississippi and Alabama and other places in the Gulf,
and we should not ignore the needs of communities to which
displaced families have been moved. That is a new problem for
us.
Our plan of action must be based on a team approach that
will include local, State, and national officials as well as
the private sector and community and faith-based organizations.
Since our local officials have the best sense of what is needed
and how it can best be used to ensure maximum effect, they will
have an important seat at the table. Working with State
officials, we will coordinate our efforts with theirs to ensure
that we have the ability to provide the support that is needed
for the programs that will be established on the Federal,
State, and local levels.
The size and scope of this problem is such that we must
bring every resource we have to bear on the problem. That
especially includes the American people. Already, there are
countless Americans providing support for relief efforts,
volunteering at centers that are working with those displaced
by the hurricane, opening up their homes to those who have
nowhere else to go who they don't know at all. It is the kind
of character test that America has always passed with flying
colors. The need is so great, and we cannot ignore our most
important assets, and that is the hearts and minds of the
American people. They are and will continue to be an important
part of the recovery effort.
This roundtable will help direct the steps we will take in
the days, weeks, and months to come to ensure that our
commitment to those in need is met. There is no more urgent
task facing us. We have seen the unprecedented suffering that
has resulted from Hurricane Katrina. Now, we are going to do
our part as a Government of the people to inspire and sustain
the very best of human nature to renew and rebuild hurting
families and communities.
I want to thank Senator Kennedy for his tremendous
bipartisan support and effort on this and the ideas that he has
been able to generate. He has a tremendous memory for things
that have happened before and knows the way around Government.
He has been just a tremendous help through this situation.
Senator Kennedy?
Opening Statement of Senator Kennedy
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much, Chairman Enzi. All of
us on our committee that deal with human resources, the most
basic of human resources, the education and the health of our
seniors, jobs, income, this is our committee and people are
hurting in our country. I thank you for the way you have given
such a priority to the needs of the people and the leadership
that you have provided and to thank all of our witnesses that
are here today and others that have been here on our previous
meetings with Senator Enzi and myself, other members of the
committee, in helping to make sure that we are going to have
the kind of response that is worthy to the challenge.
Some of the images are so searing, they are burned in our
memories forever, and none of us will ever forget the pictures
we have seen from the Gulf Coast in recent days. We have seen
the images of despair among those who are abandoned in a Nation
of great wealth, of hope reborn in the faces of families
reunited after surviving a calamity of Biblical proportions. We
have seen great heroism, too, not only in the spectacular
images of rescues by helicopters, but in the quiet courage of
neighbors who helped neighbors survive the howling winds and
rising waters.
We have seen darker images, too, images we thought we would
never see in America--the elderly, the disabled, and the sick
left to die, families split apart, American citizens trapped
without food, sanitation, or adequate water in makeshift
shelters. In short, we have witnessed a natural disaster turned
into a national catastrophe by a botched and inadequate
response, despite the bravery and sacrifice of relief workers,
rescue personnel, and hurricane survivors themselves.
Most of all, these indelible images remind us that we are
all part of the American family. When members of that family
are in need, in want, and in fear, we all have a duty to make
our family whole once more. All of us, I am sure, have been
heartened by the thousands of volunteers who have honored their
commitments to the American family by giving their time and
their skills to healing the injured, repairing schools,
counseling the grieving, and aiding survivors in finding new
hope.
In my own State of Massachusetts, health professionals,
educators, labor leaders, business, countless individual
citizens have answered the call. Eighteen major hospitals are
sending voluntary teams or supplies to the affected area. More
than 30 colleges and universities in Massachusetts will enroll
students impacted by Hurricane Katrina, offering housing and
tuition assistance.
Congress has a major responsibility to help the survivors
of this terrible ordeal rebuild their communities and their
lives. Today's hearing is an important part of meeting that
responsibility. The distinguished individuals seated around
this table today and the organizations they represent have
rolled up their sleeves to help those most in need along the
Gulf Coast. They have the vision to see what must be done and
the experience to know how to get it done.
As we speak, thousands of Americans displaced from their
homes are at risk of epidemics, but only three working
hospitals remain in Southeast Louisiana. Thousands more face
the silent battles of coping with bereavement and catastrophe.
We must restore shattered hospitals, assure access to health
care, including mental health care, and build communities so
that hurricane survivors can live with dignity and hope in
homes of their own.
A-hundred-and-thirty-five thousand students in Louisiana
alone have been displaced from their schools. Hundreds of
schools in Mississippi have been damaged or destroyed.
Students' lives have been disrupted, their semester
interrupted. Fortunately, superintendents and principals across
the country have reached out to students displaced by this
disaster to welcome them into their classrooms. It is our turn
in Congress to reach out and provide the resources needed for
schools to take these students in while also helping to rebuild
educational institutions devastated by Katrina.
We cannot afford to neglect the impact of this disaster on
our Nation's youngest children. Many of the thousands of
children and families in the Gulf region most seriously
impacted by this storm were already among the most neglected
and vulnerable in our Nation, devastated by the impact of
poverty. It is time for Congress to act to help those young
children and their families cope with the effects of trauma and
build a stronger foundation for their future.
Up to 1 million Americans will be left jobless in this
tragic storm. The unemployment rate in the Gulf region is
expected to reach 25 percent or higher. Experts estimate that
many of the affected workers will be unemployed for 9 months or
more. These are staggering figures and they have national
implications. Standard and Poors says that the likelihood of
another recession has doubled. It is now more than 25 percent.
These families have lost absolutely everything and they
need a source of income while they try to get back to their
feet and begin looking for new employment. This process will
undoubtedly take time, and many of these people have more basic
needs, such as finding shelter or finding lost members of their
families. They must be met before they can focus on finding
work.
In addition, while communities across the country have
generously opened their doors and their hearts to Katrina
victims, the local economy in these areas does not necessarily
have the capacity to accommodate the influx of workers that
have arrived. Families' needs are immediate and significant.
Employers and State Governments in hurricane-ravaged States
cannot bear the burden of compensating huge numbers of workers
that are now jobless through their unemployment compensation
system. We need a comprehensive Federal response that makes
disaster unemployment assistance available to every worker left
jobless by the tragedy, and this Federal assistance must
provide a meaningful benefit that will meet the basic needs of
unemployed workers and their families as they begin their long
road to recovery.
We must also take steps to see that we are better prepared
for future calamities, whether from floods, earthquakes, or
terrorist attacks. In the days and weeks to come, we will have
much to learn that will be helpful to this task. But an
essential part of building for the future is a clear-eyed
assessment of the mistakes made in response to Hurricane
Katrina. If we fail to recognize and admit mistakes, they are
sure to be repeated.
But our task for today is to learn from our distinguished
panelists how best to protect the health of those affected by
the hurricane and see that they can rebuild their lives. What
should be our measure of success? Some would think it would be
enough to return the survivors to the lives they knew before
the flooding, but we should aim higher. For many of the
survivors, the life they knew before the storm was one of ill
health, inadequate education, and opportunity denied. The
Nation had failed them long before Katrina hit.
Our promise to those who have survived the hurricane should
not simply be to turn back the clock a month or two. It should
be to fulfill the true promise of the American dream by
committing ourselves to better health, better education, better
job opportunities for them and all Americans.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Today's forum, as I mentioned, will proceed in a little
different manner than a typical Senate hearing. This is a
listening session. We want to know the ideas that are out
there. We not only want to hear the ideas from the panelists,
we want to hear from people across the country. We do have the
capability on our Web site to accept suggestions, solutions,
comments. We wouldn't even mind hearing some of the bad things
that are happening and some of the good things that are
happening. But what we will be concentrating on will be
solutions, ways that we can solve problems. So, first of all,
we have got to know what the problem is, and then any of your
ideas for solutions, because you are the people on the ground
who work with it on a daily basis and we expect that your ideas
will probably be much simpler than the solutions we would come
up with.
So the primary purpose of this forum is to hear from the
participants and get their short- and long-term solutions for
Katrina. Accordingly, today's format will be a roundtable.
There won't be any official oral statements made, but you can
submit any statements that you wish for the record. That can be
done either while you are here or electronically. Also, at the
end, we will hopefully have a chance to get through everybody
and hear their comments and suggestions. Then we may be able to
have a time for some discussion about some of the solutions
that have been given. Even if we don't, you will have the
opportunity to put your comments and suggestions for that,
again, on the Web site.
The Web site will be open through the weekend. We had said
that we were going to close it Friday night, but we are going
to leave it open for the weekend for a couple of reasons. One,
we need a little bit more time on it, but probably more
importantly, our staffs have been working tremendously both to
work on this as well as higher education, ACRI authorization,
and pensions, which is also affected by Katrina. They even
worked through last weekend, which was a holiday weekend, to
get that done, so we won't expect them to start getting through
the comments until Monday morning. But it is a crisis, and we
have got tremendous staff on both sides of the aisle that have
learned to work together and we will be expecting that again.
So before we begin the discussion, I would like to
introduce our distinguished panel of participants. We have
Michael Casserly with the Great City Schools.
We have Dr. Leonard Merrell, who is the Superintendent of
Katy Independent School District.
We have Dr. Diane Roussel, who is the Superintendent of the
Jefferson Parish School District.
Via teleconference, we have the Alabama Education
Department Task Force, which consists of Dr. Eddie Johnson, who
is the Department Superintendent; Feagin Johnson, who is the
Assistant Superintendent; Craig Pouncy, who is the Assistant
Superintendent; Maggie Rivers, the Director of Federal
Programs; Perry Taylor, who is the School Architect; and Perry
Fulton, who handles child nutrition.
Via videoconference, we have over here Dr. Jennifer
Leaning, who is Professor of the Practice of International
Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. We have been
having some difficulty with the microphone there, if it is
possible, be sure that it is shut down until you speak, but I
don't know if you can still hear. We want you to still be able
to hear. They are having some microphone difficulties here, as
you might be able to tell.
We also have with us Lisa Cox, who is the Assistant
Director for Federal Affairs at the National Association of
Community Health Centers.
We have Charlie Ware, who is the Chairman of the Wyoming
Workforce Development Council and has come a long way for this.
We have Mark Shriver, who is the Vice President and
Managing Director for Save the Children.
We have Kenneth Weigand, the Vice President for Human
Resources at Walgreen's.
We have Joseph E. Savoie, the Louisiana Commissioner of
Higher Education.
We have Kathleen Smith, the President of the Education
Finance Council.
We have Major Marilyn White, the National Consultant on
Adult Ministries for the Salvation Army.
We have Maurice Emsellem, is that right?
Mr. Emsellem. [via telephone.] That is right.
The Chairman. We haven't done it quite this way before. He
is the Public Policy Director for the National Employment Law
Project.
We have Dr. Paul Anthony, who is the Chief Medical Officer
of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association.
We have Jan Lane, who is the Vice President of Public
Policy and Strategic Partnerships of the American Red Cross.
And last but not least, Dr. Tom Kirsch, Johns Hopkins, a
member of the American Red Cross Disaster Services and Health
Care Team.
We thank all of you for your participation and the various
people that had to set up the technology to be able to bring it
to us in this way. I know most of you have had to travel way
across the country and in some instances have left some very
important things that needed to be done to help us to begin
this process, so thank you. We do want to listen. We need your
experience.
Obviously, the President and the Cabinet have broad
authority for providing initial disaster relief through the
Stafford Disaster and Relief Assistance Act, and then the
Public Health Emergency Declaration by the Secretary of the
Department of Health and Human Services, which came into effect
in 2002, has made a significant difference.
So now it is your turn to tell us what we need to do
prospectively to help in the catastrophe. What are the current
urgent needs facing people impacted by Hurricane Katrina and
what steps can and should Congress do to help meet those needs?
Let us begin, and we will begin with Michael Casserly of the
Great City Schools. If we can kind of pass the microphones
around so that people can all hear, I would appreciate it.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CASSERLY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COUNCIL OF
THE GREAT CITY SCHOOLS, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Casserly. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you very much for your leadership, and thank you to this
committee for its leadership in this critical--in these
critical days.
I don't have a prepared statement for the committee because
I know we are going to get into conversation, so I will be
brief, and I do have a number of detailed recommendations and
suggestions not only for the committee in its legislative work,
but for the Department of Education in its regulatory work.
When we get into the discussion, I would be happy to kind of
get into some of those details.
But I wanted to say first and foremost that I am really
very proud of schools all over the country for stepping up to
the plate and playing such a critical role in the relief and
rebuilding efforts. They are taking in students and teachers
from the affected areas. They are conducting feeding programs.
They are housing students and their families. They are
providing clothing and uniforms. They are providing
transportation. They are providing tutoring and instruction.
They are providing health and medical care.
The districts that are part of our coalition, at least to
date, we think have taken in some 25,000 students from the
affected areas in school districting including Shreveport and
Baton Rouge and Jackson, MS, Birmingham, but as far north as
Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, all the way out to Portland, Long
Beach, and other school districts. Our doors are wide open and
we are receiving families and children all over the country.
This is basically to say, Mr. Chairman, that we really
think that education here, while it is not the only sector that
can play a critical role in this relief effort, education and
schools, in fact, are an important component of the relief,
recovery, and rebuilding effort, not only in New Orleans and
Jefferson County, but in all of the receiving areas, as well,
and that this committee and that Congress in general ought to
consider schools as an important component in the relief and
rebuilding effort.
To that end, we would suggest, Mr. Chairman and members of
the committee, that Congress create a separate and dedicated
fund for at least the Department of Education, but maybe for
other agencies, as well, like the Department of Health and
Human Services and Housing and Urban Development, to address
some of the immediate areas or immediate issues, not only in
the heavily impacted areas like New Orleans and Jefferson
County, but in many of the receiving districts that are
receiving students at such a large rate.
We know that FEMA is playing a critical role in
coordinating much of this, but each of the independent
agencies, the Department of Education in particular, have a
critical role to play and could be doing some things that FEMA
either doesn't have the authority for or the expertise for or
the time to do. We would suggest that the committee charge the
various agencies with coordinating their work across the
Federal Government with oversight by Congress.
But we can't underscore enough how important it is for the
Department of Education and other agencies, as well, to have
the resources that they need and the authority that they need
to play a critical and coordinated role with FEMA in the
provision of relief for New Orleans, Jefferson County, Biloxi,
and other affected areas, and for the receiving areas.
We would also like to suggest that Congress find a way in
the legislation that is now pending in front of it to create
some dedicated funding for the cities and school districts that
are usually independent of their cities in New Orleans, in
Jefferson County, and the like. These school districts are in
immediate need of cash resources to pay the bills, to honor
contracts, to honor payrolls and the like, and to immediately
begin and coordinate the rebuilding efforts in their individual
communities. We think it is important that those heavily-
impacted communities have some dedicated resources that are
going straight to them. As the chairman mentioned, the revenue
base of these communities has been devastated and they need
some immediate cash relief and there are some legislative
barriers currently in place that Congress probably ought to
consider bringing down.
Let me just kind of update people on New Orleans in
general. As you know, this is a school district, and I know the
superintendent from Jefferson County will update people on the
Jefferson County situation, but New Orleans Public School
System is a school district with about 70,000 kids. About 80
percent of them are students receiving free and reduced-price
lunches. About 94 percent of them are African-American. They
have a school district of about 128 schools. All but eight of
those schools were flooded in the storm and after the levees
broke.
The school system itself has been able to identify through
its hotline about 2,500 of its staff members and is working
hard to get out the next payroll that they are doing through an
off-site service in New Jersey. They are struggling mightily to
keep their system afloat financially. They are well into their
reserve fund and are just about tapped out.
With the eight schools that were not flooded--this is in
the West Bank area of the city--they have two high schools that
they still have in place. Then they have six other schools that
were not flooded, and they are trying desperately to bring
those two high schools back online and then convert the other
six schools to K-8 schools, and they think they can serve
someplace around 2,800 kids in the two high schools and another
4,000 kids in the other six K-8 schools, and if they double-
schedule the kids, they may be able to serve as many as 13,000
kids within a matter of months. They are desperately trying to
reopen at least some of the schools and make sure that as
workers come back in, which the city is desperately going to
need to rebuild itself, that the parents and the workers have
schools in which they can place their kids.
We would strongly urge the committee, and again, I have
some detailed suggestions on legislation and regulatory things,
but that Congress authorize a separate set of funds through the
Department of Education that can be used for immediate relief,
not only for the impacted schools, but for some of the
receiving schools, and then to coordinate those efforts across
the various agencies and to put some revenue relief in place
immediately for New Orleans, Jefferson County, and some of the
other affected school districts. I would be happy to get into
some of the details as we go further in the discussion today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Dr. Leonard Merrell?
STATEMENT OF LEONARD MERRELL, Ed.D., SUPERINTENDENT, KATY
INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, KATY, TEXAS
Mr. Merrell. Mr. Chairman and Senators, thank you very much
for the opportunity to be here today and thank you for
listening and being concerned about what is going on around
this Nation.
Katy Independent School District is a school district of
47,000 students. We are in the West Houston part of Harris
County, comprised of three counties. We are a fast-growing
district, so we are kind of used to seeing 2,500 to 3,200
students each year coming into our district. So because of
that, we do have some experience with fast growth, but nothing
to compare to what we have seen lately.
As I sat here, and certainly Senator Kennedy's comments, I
appreciate those, and certainly if we could do many of the
things, in fact, possibly all of them, but certainly many of
them as quickly as possible, I think his comments could be read
again and we could move pretty quickly if we could do that with
the comments that he just said.
But my thought as I sat here and listened to the comments
that have been made up to this point in time, I am reminded of
what has happened in our school district. When obviously we
observed what was happening in Louisiana and Mississippi and
Alabama and other parts of the country, we knew we would be
affected, but we didn't know exactly how. But very quickly, we
started getting in evacuees, families that were coming in with
nothing but simply what they had in their hand. Since about
last Thursday, we have enrolled over 900 students. We will
probably enroll, my guess is, today, about 300 students. We
enrolled over 300 yesterday alone.
From the very first day that we knew that we were going to
get one student or hundreds of students, our plan has been to
get those students in school as quickly as possible and to meet
every possible need that those students had that we could meet.
They were coming to us with no transcripts and with health
records that were mostly gone, grade placements. Things like
that were just issues that many times we just got incomplete
information on. But we knew without question that our first
obligation was to those families and specifically to those
children that needed to go into school.
We didn't forget about the cost. We didn't forget about
where that money was coming from, and I will not spend but only
five seconds just simply saying that you have read about the
plight of Texas finance and things aren't resolved in that
State yet regarding school finance. However, it was never our
thought that we wouldn't take as many children in our district
as we needed to and that wanted to come to our district, and
indeed, they are coming in very quickly.
We had those children in school almost immediately. When
they walked into the building, it was like it was time to go to
school, and they were in the school. We had agencies that were
helping us.
And I am reminded where I was going initially with these
comments. I am reminded in a much, much smaller way of what it
has taken for us to be able to get--we have had upwards to
3,000 families that have come into our school district that are
being taken care of by a number of different agencies, from the
Katy Christian Ministries to the Chambers of Commerce to the
churches to the local EMSs to our city of Katy and our school
district. We could never have done what we are doing without
every one of those individuals and those entities doing their
work. We have had calls and e-mails and actually goods sent
from all over the Nation to our community to help those
individuals that are coming to our particular district.
I also represent 54 school districts in what we know as the
Region Four area, which encompasses all of Harris County. You
have seen many times already and many accounts of what is
happening in Houston ISD and the thousands that are in the
Astrodome and the busing that is necessary to get them out to
the schools, and so that is a challenge that is--it is almost
impossible for them to accomplish everything they need to do.
But I do know from a meeting I had with the Superintendent of
Houston just a day or so ago that they will, indeed, meet that
challenge, and they are, indeed, meeting that challenge as we
speak today.
There are so many needs that I am sure will be articulated
around this table that I won't try to repeat them all. But
these children are coming to a new land, and we are getting
children that have many needs, and not just the educational
needs that they have, but obviously they have lost in most
cases everything that they own. And what our responsibility is
is not only to educate them, but to give them the dignity back
that we want them to have to be able to live and to go on from
here.
We know from not only what we read, but we know from what
we have been told from people who have been a part of disaster
planning and trying to solve the issues that come up with
disasters that this is only the beginning. And because it is
only the beginning of a life for so many evacuees, we must look
long-term at how we are going to deal not only with the
students that are in our district that so many of them are
saying to us that they are there to stay. They are not going
back. That is what they say initially. What they do, who knows
what they will do, but that is what they are saying at this
point in time.
The psychological needs, their mental State is something
that we are very cognizant of, not only of those students that
have come into our district, but our district itself. We are
fast-growing, but that doesn't mean we have an endless amount
of space in our district, and that space is being taken very
quickly.
So I would just urge you to continue to look at how you
could fund these expenses, not only that we have, but expenses
that so many other districts, and the ones that obviously are
impacted directly by this in those States already mentioned.
I couldn't, as a school district superintendent, come to a
meeting like this without at least mentioning to you how No
Child Left Behind will be affected by this, whether it is in
our district or some of the other affected districts. The
notation of ``highly qualified teachers'' and the calculations
of that, the annual yearly progress that certainly we are
measured on each and every year, all the accountability issues
that are there, we have taken all of No Child Left Behind and
continue to try to raise our accountability efforts, and it is
a matter of record so you can look and see that we have done an
excellent job, our teachers have.
I worry about our teachers who are impacted by this. We
have been interviewing teachers from Louisiana, Mississippi. We
have started to employ some of them on a just ``as needed''
basis. We haven't needed to employ a large number yet, but I
think that we probably will if the numbers continue to rise.
We are there in Texas to help our neighbors. We believe
from the very beginning, from the day one that I met with my
staff, a relatively large number of people that have to do with
everything from the education of these children to the
transportation to the feeding, all of those things, the medical
end of this thing, that it was our belief from the beginning
that we had a legal, but more importantly, we had a moral
responsibility to help in every way that we can, and we see
individuals doing more than you would ever expect individuals
to do. You see that all across this country. It is witnessed
every day in Katy, TX.
And so I am here today to tell you that we are pleased to
do our part in helping the evacuees as they move to other
places and as they decide how they are going to deal with their
lives, the future. But we also would just ask you to, as these
agencies that I have mentioned earlier have stepped up and they
have done whatever is necessary to meet the needs of these
evacuees, we would just ask our Federal Government to be that
same partner with us as we look for the funding that is
necessary, not only in Texas, but all across this Nation that
is impacted by this.
I would be pleased to answer any questions about what we
are doing in our district to meet the needs. And I will assure
you, Senator, that those 900 children that have enrolled in the
Katy School District were having school today. Those kids are
in nice, calm classrooms, welcomed with open arms by the other
students who do understand, very vividly understand, what is
going on in our neighboring States. I will assure you they have
been welcomed, probably more than any other group has been
welcomed to our district. So we are pleased to be able to do
that and I again thank you for giving me the opportunity to
speak today.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, and thanks for all of
your effort at accommodating these people, you and your
district and community.
Dr. Diane Roussel?
STATEMENT OF DIANE ROUSSEL, Ed.D., SUPERINTENDENT OF JEFFERSON
PARISH SCHOOL DISTRICT, LOUISIANA
Ms. Roussel. Good morning. I come, I guess, from what I
guess you would call the hurricane front. I am surrounded in
part of the area that was hit hardest with the hurricane.
Jefferson Parish has 450,000 residents. We have 84 schools and
52,000 students. For anyone to assume the responsibility of all
of those children is significant, especially in other places.
I feel as though I am the spokesperson for St. Bernard,
Clackamas, Orleans, and the areas that really did flood. We
have parishes that are underwater and that will be totally
underwater for a long time. Our proximity to those school
systems makes us sort of probably the first to be able to come
back, because we sustained much wind damage, but our parish is
working diligently to restore electricity and other means,
water, everything that is basic to existence.
About one-third of our schools could come back as early as
we are allowed back into our parish. I think that is important
in the light of what you said, Mr. Casserly, that if we can
recreate the hub or the economic development in that area so
that we can receive funds and generate funds, it would be very
important to us.
I think Senator Kennedy captured it vividly, the
description. We have been through hurricanes, but nothing like
this. We have grown up with hurricanes, but nothing like this.
And we have grown up with flooding.
So if one-third of our schools can be repaired, I would
tell you there is probably another half that we could isolate
parts of the building off and start up again, not just for
Jefferson, but for St. Bernard, Orleans, and Clackamas. The
flooding waters will take a long time for those other parishes
and the economy generation is extremely important in that area,
in our area.
Some of our schools will never reopen. Some will reopen in
2006, 2007. We will be a fluid school system, meaning that we
will have to send children out for a while, but if you know
anything about my part of the world, they are very community-
oriented and very family-oriented and they want to come back.
There is a culture where the children go to school and come
back.
We must rebuild quickly. My concern is that if we are not
allowed in and we do not rebuild quickly, that people will stay
away, that our teachers will not come back, that our workers
will not come back, and a whole significant part of this
economy in the State and in the United States will be gone, not
to mention the culture and the human resource.
When I speak for my sister parishes, I would like to say
that if you combine all of our student populations--I have
84,000, Orleans has over 100,000, and we are only talking
public school children. If you know anything about our part of
the world, 40 percent of our children go to private and
parochial. So the student population is much larger than people
imagine. Our workforce exceeds well over 15,000, 20,000 people.
We have issues, and I would like to talk about those issues
and needs. Funding--in an effort to help other school systems
who are taking our children, our State has said they will take
one-third of our minimum foundation funds. In a school system
that is totally dependent, 50 percent or more, on sales tax and
property tax, I am already down 50 percent, and then goes
another third. We need that money just to maintain, rebuild,
and reopen.
Senator Kennedy. Could you explain that one more time?
Ms. Roussel. Yes. My part of the world, we have property
tax, but not to the extent that other places have property tax.
Our concern with the millage is that the people are out of
work, their homes are destroyed, and their ability to pay those
millages are gone. As you said, sales tax for Jefferson Parish,
that means $12 million a month for each and every--we are the
largest or second-largest parish in Louisiana and considered,
basically because of our industry in the parish, to be one of
the more affluent when we are up and running, not in terms of
children and poverty by any means because we have plenty of
those. We have 80 percent children in poverty. But without the
sales tax base, without the millage, and the minimum foundation
program is a per pupil amount given to our schools, and if a
third of that is gone, the fund balance that we had become so
proud of in 3 years is gone in less than 6 weeks.
Other things that concern us are the way we do paperwork,
the cash flow. Typically, we have to spend, document, and be
reimbursed. We can't do that. Our budgets are gone, and I guess
we are asking for Federal help, State help.
[Pause.]
Ms. Roussel. I apologize.
Senator Kennedy. Just take your time. These are very
difficult to talk about, so we all understand that. We are very
grateful for your presentation here.
Ms. Roussel. I don't think people have ever seen me cry, so
this will be a first on national TV.
Senator Kennedy. There you go.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Roussel. I am pretty tough, so this is interesting. I
grew up with three brothers and was a high school principal, so
I can do pretty much anything.
[Laughter.]
We would like to hold on to what we have and improve what
we have. We are not sure what is going to happen. The longer it
takes us to rebuild, the more we lose. Residents and students
won't come back, teachers. We need financial help.
In legislative authority, my school board yesterday gave me
unprecedented authority to do what needs to be done to quickly
secure contracts, supplies, repairs. Anything else at any other
level that can be done to expedite our powers in doing this is
needed. We really are ready to begin and we believe that our
hands are tied.
I have been known to speak directly, and I also have been
one to say that money is not always the cure for the ills of
public education. But in talking about facilities, textbooks,
computers, supplies, attracting and maintaining a quality
workforce, money is the answer.
I would also ask that you waive the requirements on the use
of Federal funds that were allocated to us. If we had more
leeway in using those funds, we could use them for the purposes
we needed. That will be hard, because we are funded for the
number of students we have. Right now, we have none, or we may
have a reduced number.
We are getting calls from across the country and it is a
very generous Nation. I think the concern that comes to us,
that we need some direction to give people on what we need
besides after we get over survival, what do we need from there,
and to elicit those funds to really target them for what we
need.
I think we need to remember that everyone was affected--
poor, middle class, rich. We all were supposed to leave. Some
couldn't. If we can get schools, a third, a half, up and
running, I can envision temporary housing coming in for the
people to come to those schools, to start working, to help us
rebuild. That temporary housing could be on school grounds. We
could create small cities or whatever is needed, parks,
playgrounds, churches.
When the schools open, the people will come back. When the
schools open, business will come back. People choose where they
live and work based on schools. Our people want to come home
and we want them home. Jefferson has the best shot at being the
new hub for an area devastated.
Our link to economic development, education has always had
that link and the schools are the heart of our community. The
State of Louisiana will suffer significantly from lessened
revenue and then the effect will be felt in the United States.
I have a quotation that says, the greater the gift, the greater
the responsibility, and America has always recognized that it
has great gifts and they have helped in 9/11 and in
Southeastern Louisiana, we are asking for help now.
We have some lessons we learned, in case you want to hear
those. I am keeping a book. I think we might have really
detailed procedures after this, Senators, because we had
hurricane preparedness, but nobody was ready for this.
Communication was crippling, not only for police.
Government leaders, emergency leaders, public leaders, we could
not communicate with each other. I guess there is a lesson
there. I have three phones right now and every now and then,
one works. But the lessons that we learned is that we were in
danger without that and we couldn't mobilize anyone.
We have spoken to FEMA, and I would ask in regards to FEMA
that you consider the following. We need a person there that
understands the knowledge of schools, their needs and large-
scale destruction. We need the actual documents in print, which
I am sure we can find once we are up and running, that give us
the rules and regulations for what happens in a disaster. While
there are accommodations for disaster and good laws, we need to
emphasize the extreme emergency and urgency. Whatever can be
suspended in those bid laws needs to be suspended, and we are
asking that the 25 percent reimbursement to FEMA be waived.
I have heard about the transfer of student records. I have
good news. In Louisiana, we are all on one computer base, so we
can look at everybody's data, and if you are on the same one,
we can send it to you. We did retrieve some of our file servers
and other important documentation and the State Department of
Education has access to that, also.
I finish with in every challenge, there is opportunity, and
there is opportunity to do things better. There is opportunity
to do love and support our neighbors, our fellow Americans. The
biggest opportunity comes in the infrastructure structures,
community issues and inequities that we knew existed but could
never bring to conclusion or resolution. We have the
opportunity to correct all those things.
You have our commitment to do whatever it takes. Enable us
to do what it takes. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Diane Roussel follows:]
Prepared Statement of Diane Roussel
Senator Frist and distinguished members of the Health, Education,
Labor, and Pension Committee, I am Diane Roussel, superintendent of the
Jefferson parish Public School System in Louisiana. The Jefferson
Parish Public School System educates more than 52,000 students in 84
schools and employs more than 6,000 teachers, administrators, and
skilled workers. We are the largest employer in a parish of 450,000
residents. We share boundaries with Orleans, St. Tammany, St. Bernard,
and Plaquemines parishes--all off which were affected by Hurricane
Katrina.
All of the above named school systems, including the Jefferson
Parish Public School System, have been through some trying times, but
nothing equals this. We have been through hurricanes, but nothing equal
to this. We've been through floods, but nothing equal to this.
Of our 84 schools in Jefferson Parish, we expect \1/3\ to be usable
as soon as the streets are cleared, utilities are restored, and our
citizens can move back to their homes. We believe the rest will need
repair, some significant repair, and one or two may be closed.
Jefferson was not plagued with rising water like New Orleans, St.
Bernard, and Plaquemines parishes. Some of those communities are
literally gone. Our neighbors are all flooded. St. Tammany, to the
north, sustained damage, but not to the extent as the rest of us. Their
schools are slated to open in October. However, none of us are in good
shape.
Jefferson will re-open schools as they are usable and capable of
being financed throughout the 2005-2006 school year. Some will not be
ready to re-open until 2006-2007.
With much of the New Orleans area, Plaquemines, and St. Bernard
under water, the need for Jefferson to come back quickly intensifies.
Jefferson has the best opportunity of becoming the temporary hub of
economic development and education in the area. It can, and must,
rebuild quickly--not only for itself, but for the surrounding parishes
due to our proximity to the worst hit areas. They must deal with water
before they can even begin to rebuild.
Let me now speak for all my sister parishes. All of us need to be
rebuilt and to re-open as quickly as possible. Our combined student
populations approach 200,000. Our combined workforces exceed 15,000 and
are a direct, significant influence affecting the economy.
In order that we may move efficiently toward the restoration of
education and the economic systems in our area, our needs can be
delineated as follows:
Funding issues: We are all being told by the State of
Louisiana Department of Education that our minimum foundation program
funds will be sent to other school systems at a time when we need those
monies to pay employees, replace lost instructional materials, and
rebuild ourselves.
Most, if not all of us, are sales tax dependent. There will be no
sales tax collected for months to come. Materials for repairs will
probably not be bought in our parishes. For Jefferson, that equals
approximately $12 million dollars per month. The other school systems
are also negatively impacted by the loss of sales tax revenue.
How do we collect property taxes from people who cannot return to
their homes or are out of work? More than 1 million people do not know
answers to critical questions: where will they live, where will they
work, where will their children go to school?
Our budgets are decimated.
We need additional Federal help to hold onto our people and be able
to rebuild. Many of our employees will be put on unemployment. We will
pay the unemployment. Our people are worried about the difference in
their salaries and unemployment benefits, as well as their retirement
and insurance benefits. We, too, are concerned.
We had finally gotten to the point in Jefferson of having 96
percent highly qualified and certified teachers.
What will happen now? How many will return if we take too long to
rebuild? How many residents and students will return if we take too
long to rebuild?
We need financial help from Federal and State sources.
In relation to legislative authority, my school board has given me
unprecedented powers in this emergency to enable us to act quickly to
secure contractors and supplies to repair and reconstruct schools.
We need anything and everything restricting superintendents' and
school boards' powers at the State, Federal, and local levels to be
suspended during this time of crisis. We are all ready to begin, but we
feel that our hands are tied.
I have been one of those people known to speak directly. I have
also been one that has stated that money is not always the cure for the
ills of public education. But, when you are talking about facilities,
textbooks, computers, and supplies, and about attracting and
maintaining a quality workforce--money is the answer.
Our priorities must change.
Besides additional emergency Federal and State funding, we need
waivers for the use of Federal funds we are currently entitled to to be
able to direct them to areas of critical need. Even though some of us
are not housing students or are housing a reduced number of students,
let us use the money we were allocated to do what we need to do.
I implore you to waive the use of these funds for projects deemed
necessary at the local school system level. Calls from across the
country offering help are coming in. Here is what we can do with your
help.
Housing is a Necessity
Remember that everyone was affected--poor, middle class, and rich.
We need temporary housing for our people in our areas so the reopening
and rebuilding of schools can occur. Help us secure this housing. Put
it on school grounds. Parish officials can open parks, playgrounds, and
even churches too can be used for this purpose.
This needs to happen as schools are opened so that our community
can return. Our people in southeast Louisiana have a strong sense of
community and family. They want to come home. We want them to come
home. They want to be part of the rebuilding, once conditions are safe.
And, they will be safe in Jefferson before they are safe elsewhere.
I ask the private sector to help with this housing and while
specific supplies are needed by all and while we are asking for those,
perhaps gift cards, gift certificates to meet specific needs and food
discounts and coupons could be issued to supply what actually is
needed. Sending these items across the country would be more efficient.
Economic development has always been linked to education. Our
economic recovery is also linked to education. Re-open the schools and
businesses and the workforce will return. Schools are the heart of
every community. People decide where to live or not live based on area
schools. If our schools do not re-open soon, our communities will be
gone.
The State of Louisiana will suffer significantly from lessened
revenue and from less oil and gas production. Our country will also
suffer.
One of my favorite quotations is ``the greater the gift, the
greater the responsibility.''
The United States of America knows what that means. It has always
recognized its gifts and has helped others. We helped our own in post-
911, and it is time to help southeastern Louisiana. We are not too
proud to ask and to say that we need help.
In regard to No Child Left Behind, quite honestly, we are not
capable of working to meet these goals in 2005-2006. And, for some of
us, we may not be able to do so in 2006-2007. I believe everyone knows
this, understands the circumstances, and will agree to a waiver of
deferment.
In the arena of communication, the lessons learned from and by all
of us, whether we are police, Government leaders, or emergency
personnel who could not communicate with each other, are lessons for
Homeland Security. When communication is down, we are all at risk, we
are all in danger, and we are unable to protect ourselves. Expensive
telephones and services did not work.
And, in regards to FEMA: As we sat in a meeting with our State
Superintendent Cecil Picard, superintendents of disaster school systems
and receiving school systems, along with representatives of FEMA, the
following became apparent:
(1) Knowledge of schools and their needs, especially in
terms of large scale destruction was lacking. Questions could not be
answered.
(2) We were recited passages from a lengthy document that
we did not have. When asked if they brought copies, the answer was no.
Are we to find this on our own?
(3) Bid law was an issue with FEMA. We do not have the
time or leisure to follow bid laws. And, this is what is required even
in a crisis situation to be eligible for reimbursement. We need to
emphasize to you the extreme sense of emergency and urgency that we are
all feeling. Trust us, and suspend the rules for a period of time. We
are in a time when trust is needed. We need to trust our neighbors. We
need to trust our fellow Americans. We need to trust our public
leaders.
(4) We are asking that you suspend/eliminate the 25
percent reimbursement to FEMA required from us in order that we may use
all of our funds to rebuild.
Finally, I was asked about the transfer of student records across
the country. This is no problem in the State of Louisiana as the State
can view all of our student records and can send them elsewhere,
assuming we are on the same operating system or are all web based.
I will relay this concern to our State superintendent as I am sure
that he is already working on it. My offices are currently housed in
his building.
I conclude with, in every challenge, there is opportunity. We have
the opportunity to love and support our neighbors, our fellow
Americans. We have the opportunity to correct some of the
infrastructures, structures, community issues, and inequities that we
know have existed but could never bring to conclusion or resolution. We
have the opportunity to bring the economy, culture, and natural and
human resources of southeastern Louisiana back to America.
You have our commitment to do whatever it takes. Enable us to do
what it takes. It will take all of us with trust in each other and
trust in God.
I sincerely thank you for your time. And, if I can be of further
service, I will gladly do so.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
We heard from a receiving school and from a school
underwater, but we need to hear a little bit from higher
education, I think, at this point, so I am going to skip to Dr.
Savoie for his comments next, then we will move on to Alabama
Education.
STATEMENT OF E. JOSEPH SAVOIE, Ed.D., LOUISIANA COMMISSIONER OF
HIGHER EDUCATION, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
Mr. Savoie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. We appreciate very much the opportunity to visit
with you and extend our hand of partnership with Superintendent
Roussel. She and I worked together on a variety of education
reform initiatives and she is one of our best. Her words are
sincere, heartfelt, and she walks the walk, not just talks the
talk. So hang in there, Diane. We will get through it.
The impact for Louisiana postsecondary education, higher
education, was significant. I have given the committee some
aerial photographs of several of our campuses. I won't go
through each one, but you can see the significance of the
flooding on these campuses. These pictures were taken just 2
days ago, so these campuses have been underwater for over a
week now. We had not had the ability to go on-site and do any
sort of assessment, but you can imagine the ultimate condition
of these facilities.
We had about--we had nine public campuses that were
flooded, six private campuses in the Orleans and St. Bernard
area that suffered these circumstances. That represents about
25 percent of our total enrollment in postsecondary education,
just from those campuses.
But we also had many nearby campuses who didn't have the
flooding problem, had wind and power problems. Some just opened
in the last couple of days. By the way, the ones that are
flooded, we have no idea when they might be able to reopen.
Some of our campuses were affected because of their proximity
to the area. Southeastern Louisiana University, for example, in
Hammond has about 7,000 of its students and faculty who live in
Jefferson and Orleans Parish who have lost their homes and that
has significantly affected them, as well. Nickles State, just
south of there, served as a medical triage center and housed
several thousand evacuees without power for a week, and they
just got that on yesterday. We are very proud of the way the
faculty and the staff responded there.
All of our campuses immediately came together to respond to
the needs of these that were most affected. I think for
purposes of context, and the superintendent referenced that, it
is important to understand some of the traits that go with New
Orleans and Louisiana, the family orientation. Ninety percent
of the students at our public institutions are native-born and
go to school and live near the campuses in which they attend.
These students not only lost their colleges and universities,
they lost their homes and their parents lost their jobs.
Our other campuses responded by immediately enrolling any
displaced student at no additional cost, extending room and
board to them at no additional cost. Interestingly, we had
families move in with their sons and daughters in dormitories
and we fed them in our cafeterias and continue to do so. All of
our other campuses that were able, every available facility is
being used for evacuation shelters. We are running two medical
triage centers. We have served as staging sites for the
helicopters that you saw doing the evacuations. Because of the
significant native-born population, we continue to serve
citizens from across the State.
We immediately moved to suspend all of our State-funded
financial aid issues so that students wouldn't have those
concerns. We have deferred any sort of payment. We immediately
moved to try to secure our faculty who were displaced, as well,
to commit to them job stability. We established a clearinghouse
to identify them and to place them in other campuses. Our
colleges have so far absorbed about 10,000 new students for
which they were not prepared for which there is no funding, for
which there is no requirement of tuition, but they are using
reserves and other methods in order to serve those students.
Our colleges of education are providing pre-service
teachers to serve as preschool instructors and run daycare
centers in shelters. Our deans at the colleges of education are
transforming our education courses from classroom to clinical
environments so that we can put new student teachers into the
shelters. Our community and technical colleges are offering
workforce training in the construction trades at the evacuation
shelters so that people can get meaningful jobs and help
rebuild their own communities.
The point is that every one of our campuses was affected.
Every single campus in some way was affected, some by the
devastation of the storm, others by the tremendous financial
pressures that have been placed upon them.
We have some immediate needs. Urgent immediate needs. We
need significant regulatory relief on all sorts of student
financial aid. The Department has been responding with a series
of decisions providing some greater flexibility, but we need
maximum flexibility in handling financial aid.
As it relates to financial aid, most of the programs have
been oriented around need-based aid, but I think in light of
what has happened to us, we need a much broader definition of
what need-based aid is. On the 2004 tax returns, families would
report their income levels and you determine an expected family
contribution rate in determination of what you might receive in
Federal funds. We now have multiples of people who have lost
their jobs, who have no source of income, who have lost their
homes and cannot be expected to contribute family resources
toward their children's education. So need-based aid is not
just a lower-income need now. It crosses the whole economic
spectrum of our students, so we need a much broader definition
of that.
We need to maintain the financial viability of our
institutions, those not only who are affected most
dramatically, but those who have absorbed the additional
responsibilities when we have been working with FEMA onsite and
trying to get a sense of what we might be able to recover from
their programs. FEMA's programs are mostly resources for
repair, replacement of things, of tangible things. We have
damaged schools. It is not just buildings and equipment. We
have lost all the revenues that come from student attendance,
things like tuition.
Just to give you an example, just the New Orleans
institutions from the fall enrollment will lose over $60
million this first semester. They also will lose payments
toward all their auxiliary services, like dormitory payments,
bookstores, cafeterias, recreation centers. There are no
resources to maintain obligations in that regard. People have
lost homes and they will also, many of them will lose their
jobs. Students will not have opportunities to earn money to
help pay for their education.
We have significant cost to our receiving institutions,
from providing the shelters, providing help in the schools and
workforce training. We have added significant expenses and
there are no revenues. When you get into these situations, if
Government does not help, then it will not get done.
We need a disaster assistance fund for our institutions. We
think that on the short-term, this may be an understatement in
the long-term. The short-term, we need at least $500 million.
We need a displaced student aid fund for students of all levels
of another $500 million.
Now, as I mentioned, FEMA deals with tangible things, but
there are many intangible losses that you can't evidence on an
expense sheet. We are at risk of losing the confidence and
commitment of our faculty, and college faculty are very mobile
by nature. We cannot afford to lose them. We have to persuade
them to stay with us and help us to rebuild Louisiana. We are
at risk of losing our competitive position in the marketplace.
We are at risk of losing the confidence of our students and our
communities.
And most importantly, I think we are at risk of losing hope
for administrators, faculty, staff, and communities themselves.
Remember the local nature of our institutions and the
communities that they serve and the local nature of our
students. Schools and colleges and universities are the
economic, social hubs of those communities. If these
institutions are not viable, the communities will not be
viable. Our institutions represent hope for a brighter future
and a rebuilt future because in education, we are in the hope
business. So we need your help to help us reestablish that
hope.
That concludes my comments, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
We have--what you talked about hits kind of close to home
with our committee because we had an intern over the summer who
was a new enrollee at Tulane and is now back here wondering
what is happening to his life, and he is in the audience here,
too, waiting to see what kind of decisions are going to be----
Mr. Savoie. Well, Tulane has announced that they will be
unable to open this semester and hopefully sometime in the
spring.
The Chairman. Thank you.
And now, by teleconference, we have the Alabama Education
Department Task Force, and we appreciate them coming through on
short notice like this and participating in this way. It is
unique, but if we could hear from the Task Force.
STATEMENT OF EDDIE JOHNSON, Ph.D., DEPUTY STATE SUPERINTENDENT
OF EDUCATION, ALABAMA
Mr. Johnson. [via telephone.] Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Eddie Johnson. I am part of the Alabama Education
Task Force. I am here today with all of our Task Force members.
We have been meeting on a daily basis to address the immediate
needs of students who have been displaced due to Hurricane
Katrina. Our State Superintendent, Dr. Joe Morton, is presently
conducting a State Board of Education meeting and he is
presently briefing the State Board members on the activities
that are being conducted in Alabama.
First of all, we want to ditto everything that has been
said relative to the needs of displaced students. Our major
goal here in Alabama has been to ensure that we effectively
communicate with the parents of displaced students and also the
LEAs that are receiving these students to ensure that they
understand what needs to be done to provide services. We have
communicated these issues on a daily basis.
We have also done a survey of the numbers of displaced
students. Presently, we have about 3,500 students throughout
Alabama as of today and we expect those numbers to increase on
a daily basis.
We have done a survey of needs to determine the needs that
we must receive in order to address the needs for the students,
and basically, we feel that in the educational arena here in
Alabama, we will need funds to address this need for additional
classrooms, funds to hire additional teachers, and there are
facility repairs that we presently need funds for those
purposes that were caused because of Hurricane Katrina. We will
continue to monitor this process and progress and keep you
posted, but our basic concern now is to address displaced
Hurricane Katrina students. Thank you.
Senator Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, could I ask, sir, what your
ballpark figure is in terms of the resources? This is going to
be an evolving situation. What is your own kind of assessment?
We have heard with regard to the public colleges in Louisiana.
Of course, that doesn't include the private colleges. It
doesn't include the Historic Black Colleges. Do you have any
ballpark figures, what you are talking about?
Mr. Johnson. We are presently assessing those needs. We
have 130 school systems. The immediate needs of school system A
may be different from that of B, so we will determine that
hopefully by the end of the week. Some of the schools may be
able to accommodate a few additional students without any
additional funds and others may require a lot of funds. We have
areas such as Mobile, Choctaw, and those on the Mississippi
line that are in greater need than some of the other school
systems, and so we hope to have that information tabulated by
the end of the week. But right now, we just don't know. There
are needs all over the State. We are working with the
Governor's office and Homeland Security and FEMA on a daily
basis to determine what those needs are, and as soon as we get
them compiled, we will surely communicate that to all of the
individuals that are involved.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you. As you get those estimates, if you
would share those with us, we would certainly appreciate that.
Hopefully, others who might be listening throughout the country
that have numbers, I am an accountant. I love the numbers. So
if you would share those with us, we would appreciate it.
We also have with us the President of the Education Finance
Council, so Kathleen Smith?
STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN SMITH, PRESIDENT, EDUCATION FINANCE
COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I commend you and the
rest of the committee members for bringing this distinguished
group of people together. I think it makes clear both your
commitment and ours to do whatever we need to do to help these
students and families get their life back on track.
This devastation has clearly moved everybody and you have
the sense both personally and as an organization of
helplessness about what the right thing to do is.
I represent the Education Finance Council, which are
nonprofit and state-based student loans secondary markets
across the country. In preparing to come here today, I reached
out to them and the consistent answer for all of them is, they
want as much flexibility as possible. The last thing anybody in
our business wants to do is worry about students getting
dunning notices to an address that doesn't exist anymore or
have them concerned about paying a student loan when they don't
know where they're going to live that afternoon.
So flexibility is the key. The Department of Education, as
has already been mentioned, has reached out to us and provided
some flexibility initially. One way that we could advance that
flexibility is by the amendment and then passage of the HEROES
extension. There is a bill in place right now, a law in place
right now that allows the Department of Education pretty broad
waiver authority for natural disasters, but I think there is a
technicality in that bill that needs to be fixed. I don't think
this is a declared Federal emergency, and that is what that
bill is around right now.
So I think flexibility is important. I think allowing our
members who are servicing students in their community to deal
with them on an individual basis to address their needs, to
make sure that we have information and guidance from the
Department, again, who is doing a good job and establish their
own Web site to act as a sort of central clearinghouse for
information on this disaster, to allow us to make sure that we
are, in fact, able to meet the individual needs of these
families and students without concern 6 months from now that
something is going to happen where an ``i'' wasn't dotted or a
``t'' wasn't crossed. So again, I am going to keep pushing the
word ``flexibility,'' because that is what I am hearing from my
members that is really important.
Again, passage of the HEROES Act. And it is also important
that people both here and listening to us know that when the
news media goes away and when the next national story hits the
press that those people are still going to be there and they
are still going to need our help, and I think it is important
that we all make clear to those folks that we are here for the
long haul, both everyone around this table and the Federal
Government, State Government, etc.
And again, my members, and I am sure I speak for the rest
of my colleagues in the student loan business, that we are all
here to try to serve those students.
Unfortunately, a lot of what we do deals with regulations
and rules and requirements and technicalities and we want to
make sure that we are not bogged down by those, that we don't
stand on ceremony on some of these issues, and again, we
provide that flexibility to extend deferment periods, extend
forbearance periods, make sure that we are not creating a
situation where a student does get their life back on track and
they are in a worse financial condition than they were when
they went in because of things like capitalizing interest and
things.
So my main goal here is to express the need for that
flexibility and offer our services and that of my colleagues to
do whatever we need to do to help you, whether it is crafting
legislation, working with the Department, working with this
committee and the committees in the House to make sure that we
are able to serve those students. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mark Shriver of Save the Children for a rural aspect?
STATEMENT OF MARK SHRIVER, VICE-PRESIDENT AND MANAGING
DIRECTOR, U.S. PROGRAMS, SAVE THE CHILDREN, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Shriver. Thank you very much, Senator Enzi, and thank
you to the members of the committee for hosting us this
afternoon and this morning.
You have heard from a number of different folks with a
number of different perspectives, from higher education to
school superintendents that are dramatically affected by the
results of this hurricane. I come to you as a representative of
Save the Children, an entity that has specialized in disaster
relief internationally, that was created here in the United
States as a result of the Depression, that actually started in
Kentucky and now is in 12 States across this country and 40
counties across the world. We have been in the business of
disaster relief for over 30 years, from the work that we did in
the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s to Darfur to our work in the
tsunami at the end of this year and well into this year, as
well as for the future.
What we really believe is necessary--we heard exactly what
happens day in and day out and some of the issues that the
schools are facing, but what we are proposing is that any
relief effort focus in on the needs of kids. Senator Kennedy
mentioned, and I know, Senator Enzi, your interest in early
childhood education, particularly young kids are often
forgotten. Preschool children are often forgotten in
emergencies.
So what we would emphasize or ask the committee to consider
strongly are three areas. One is the effect from a psycho-
social perspective. Mental health services, as Senator Kennedy
said in his opening statement, are very important, but what
Save the Children has found in the disaster relief that we have
done over the last 30-plus years is that roughly only 5 percent
of the children will have mental health issues, but all the
children will need to get back into a routine that is
consistent as quickly as possible with what they had
beforehand.
In the psycho-social effort that we have done in places
like Indonesia as a result of the tsunami are involving the
entire class. It is not pulling a kid out and stigmatizing that
child for mental health services. Clearly, those services are
needed, but what we are talking about is setting up psycho-
social supports in the school system to help the entire grade,
to help the entire school. It can be part of the curriculum and
it can focus on social skills.
The second piece of what we are espousing and really
advocating is the fact that kids need safe spaces as quickly as
possible. I saw on the TV last night kids in the convention
center here in Washington throwing a football around. Kids need
to be kids, and what we need to do is to set up spaces, safe
spaces, after-school programs, child care centers, and fully
fund them to provide a structured routine that kids can get
back into the normal lifestyle as quickly as possible.
As I mentioned, there are so many issues that need to be
addressed, but I just want to again emphasize the fact that
young kids, 0 to 5, are often left out. After kids start
school, the kids that are not in the school, the preschool kids
that are so important to making sure that they receive the
social and emotional supports necessary to enter kindergarten
ready to learn are often forgotten in disasters.
So those are the areas that we would hope that the
committee would look at. Clearly, you need and hear about the
necessary need for flexibility, but it is also very important,
Senator Enzi, that we look at the additional resources that are
necessary for children, for young children, in particular, the
0 to 5, and make sure that their social and emotional needs are
addressed during the work that is going to happen over the next
few months and over the next few years.
[The prepared statement of Mark Shriver follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark K. Shriver
Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate HELP Committee, thank you
very much for the opportunity to speak with you today, and for your
leadership in bringing us together to discuss the needs facing our
fellow citizens displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Save the Children began serving children in the United States in
1932 in response to the Great Depression. That was the last time
Americans saw so many people displaced because of a natural disaster
when drought forced several hundred thousand people out of the Great
Plains which had become ``the Dust Bowl.''
Today, Save the Children is recognized as a leading independent
child-assistance agency creating real and lasting change for children
in need in 12 States and in more than 40 developing countries. Save the
Children is a global leader in child-focused emergency response and has
been designing innovative community-based psychosocial support programs
in crisis-affected countries for over 20 years, including most recently
in response to the tsunami crisis in Asia.
Hurricane Katrina is one of the worst natural disasters in U.S.
history. We know that there are critical needs for those displaced by
Hurricane Katrina that still must be met: clean water, food, shelter,
medicine and clothing. Children are among the most vulnerable in this
situation, and their needs are often overlooked or misunderstood. As
families are settled in new communities and children enrolled in
schools, we know there will be an urgent challenge to provide support
to the tens of thousands of children who have experienced the horrors
of the disaster and are now without their homes, neighborhoods,
routines, schools and in some cases families.
Save the Children has been in touch with State officials in
Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas and yesterday a small team left to
assess the situation on the ground in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and one
will be heading to Jackson, Mississippi early next week. While we will
continue to refine our response based on these ongoing discussions and
assessments, Save the Children, based on years of experience dealing
with the needs of children caught in manmade conflicts and natural
disasters, has identified 3 needs for children impacted by Hurricane
Katrina: psychosocial support, safe spaces for children, especially
those of pre-school age, and structured out-of-school time activities
for children in grades K-8.
Psychosocial Support Through Schools
Once basic needs are met, it will be paramount to prevent the onset
of psychological disorder, anti-social behavior and school-related
learning problems that often affected children and adolescents in the
aftermath of traumatic events, especially when their psychological
needs are left unattended. Traditional mental health clinics and
counseling approaches are not sufficient. Community mental health
approaches are required if large numbers of children are to be reached
in a timely manner in order to:
Reduce the risk of depression, antisocial and other
dysfunctional behaviors.
Reestablish a sense of security and self-esteem.
Facilitate resiliency and a return to normalcy.
Use schools and other natural learning environments to
decentralize mental health services.
Screen for high-risk children and youth.
An immediate and short-term response to a sudden event can mitigate
the impact of exposure and the potential onset of mood and anxiety
disorders. Survivors--including children--of stressful events have the
strength to express what has happened to them, when given the proper
tools, a supportive environment and structured activities. For
children, these can be dance, music, drawing, cooperative games, and
other activities that enable them to explore basic emotions such as
fear, loss, sadness, joy and courage while at the same time having fun
with classmates and friends.
Entire classrooms, rather than individual ``victims,'' are selected
for participation. Teachers (or school counselors) are trained to lead
these highly structured activities.
By implementing a structured activities program as a part of a
school's curriculum, not only can large numbers of children in need be
reached quickly, but the potential stigma of receiving mental health
support also is reduced.
Evaluations of the impact of Save the Children's program on
children in crisis after a devastating earthquake in Turkey, conflicts
in Nepal and the West Bank and Gaza and the tsunami in Indonesia found
significant improvements in their attitudes and behavior, including:
Fewer traumatic stress symptoms, such as nightmares, bed-
wetting and emotional numbing.
Improved concentration.
Improved academic performance.
Improved school attendance.
Elimination of withdrawn and antisocial behavior.
Improved relations between teachers and students.
Improved relations between students in the group.
Increased self-esteem and sense of stability.
Save the Children recommends that Congress provides funding for
schools serving displaced children for:
(1) Implementation of child-focused mental health strategies and
psychosocial support programs for children and youth affected by
Hurricane Katrina.
(2) Training and technical assistance related to psychological
recovery and healing for children and adolescents and implementing
psychosocial programs in schools and classrooms.
Safe Spaces for Children/Pre-school Programming
During the acute phase of a crisis, such as Hurricane Katrina,
children are vulnerable due to separation from their families,
displacement from their homes, the shock of their experiences and
disruption of routines, especially schools, recreation centers, sports
teams and clubs.
Moreover, these children are often left unattended as parents or
caregivers, if they are not separated from them, seek life-saving
support and attempt to rebuild their lives. From Save the Children's
global experience with children in crisis, we have learned that
communities know how to protect their children best, and they
frequently prioritize the rapid establishment of safe places to play
and learn for children while educational and recreational facilities
are being rebuilt or restored.
One of Save the Children's innovations in crisis situations is the
rapid, cost-efficient establishing of safe places for children to play,
learn and recover their sense of routine and normalcy. Safe spaces have
been provided for young children from such previous crises in the
former Yugoslavia in the 1990s through the crisis in south Asia for the
surviving tsunami children and displaced children in Darfur, Sudan.
During the acute emergency of Hurricane Katrina, ``Safe Spaces''
should cover all ages of children. This could be done in shifts or
simultaneously depending upon the community and children. During the
acute phase, staff/volunteers would be briefed on child safety, trained
in the organization of basic activities, psychosocial support for
children, and systems of referral in regard to issues such as family
separation and health.
From our experience, ``Safe Spaces'' normalize children's lives by
providing regular structured activities, including recreational,
educational and psychosocial activities. However, ``Safe Spaces'' also
fill another void in child-focused emergency response: The needs of
pre-school aged children are rarely served in emergencies. As primary
and secondary school students return to school, Save the Children
recommends transitioning ``Safe Spaces'' to serve the needs of pre-
school children.
Early Childhood Development activities are important for both the
child as well as the caregiver. Traumatized parents are often unable to
provide sufficient care for younger children and the continuation of
``Safe Spaces'' would address this. Additionally, from experience,
caregivers will need some form of daycare as they re-establish their
lives. For Save the Children, daycare in such situations should be more
than just child play but address their psychosocial needs, to prepare
them for schooling and living in post-crisis environment.
Save the Children recommends that Congress:
(1) Makes a priority the rapid creation of ``Safe Spaces'' in
temporary shelters and the training of ``Safe Space'' staff/volunteers
to address the needs of the children and allows the use of funds under
grants given for the support of temporary and long-term shelters.
(2) Provides additional funding for training and technical
assistance for Early Head Start and Head Start Centers serving
displaced children and children affected by Hurricane Katrina to
address the children's psychosocial needs.
(3) Provides funding to communities as they rebuild and re-
establish needed services for children, such as daycare facilities,
youth centers and gyms, through the provision of materials and
training.
Structured Out-of-School-Time Programs for Children in Grades K-8
Save the Children provides after-school programs for children
living in some of the most remote rural regions of the United States--
including several in the Mississippi River Delta region, not far from
the worst of Hurricane Katrina's devastation. As a result of Hurricane
Katrina, large numbers of school-age children have been uprooted and
displaced. Many are homeless and will have less time in school and
fewer opportunities for quality structured academic and recreational
activities. Some will remain in temporary housing for many months, and
even those who are able to attend schools in Texas, Tennessee and other
States will require special support because of the disaster they have
survived and the unfamiliar locations in which they find themselves.
The families and schools to whom these children have turned also
will need training and support in order to provide the extra academic,
recreational and nurturing opportunities that these children will need
to help to bring normalcy back into their lives and restore their
emotional well-being and sense of security. We are already hearing that
many districts will be overcrowded and have to adopt a ``split
session'' for the school day. Children will be left with substantial
idle time on their hands before and after school. Filling that time
with academic and recreational activities that support their school
achievement as well as emotional recovery is a critical need.
Children who participate in after school programs demonstrate
better school attendance, more positive attitude towards school work,
better interpersonal skills, reduced dropout rates, less time spent in
unhealthy behaviors, and improved grades. All of these results in and
of themselves are positive, but put in the context of the hurricane
victims take on the added benefit of helping restore a sense of routine
and stability.
Save the Children recommends that Congress provides:
(1) Additional funding to create more 21st Century Community
Learning Centers in communities serving large numbers of children
displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
(2) Provide training and technical assistance in psychosocial
support to 21st Century Community Learning Centers and other entities
supporting the educational and recreational needs of displaced
children.
Conclusion
Save the Children stands ready to make its experts and experience
in child-focused community mental health strategies, available to
Federal, State and local authorities to advise on both an overall
approach to psychological recovery and healing for children and
adolescents, and on implementing psychosocial, ``Safe Space,'' pre-
school and out-of-school time programs for children displaced by
Hurricane Katrina.
The urgent needs of children victimized by Hurricane Katrina must
remain at the forefront of our Nation's response to this unprecedented
natural disaster. We know from experience that the minds and hearts of
children are very resilient, but they must be attended to quickly. A
return to normalcy and routine with activities designed to help them
deal with their trauma will help enormously. It will take years to
rebuild damaged homes, businesses and infrastructure. We won't have to
wait that long to see results in making our children whole again if we
act swiftly and give them the right support.
The Chairman. Thank you.
That is a good transition into health, and we have by way
of videoconference Dr. Jennifer Leaning.
STATEMENT OF JENNIFER LEANING, PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE OF
INTERNATIONAL HEALTH, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, BOSTON,
MASSACHUSETTS
Dr. Leaning. [by videoconference.] Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
and thank you both for organizing this roundtable and bringing
together so many thoughtful and dedicated people, many clearly
deeply affected by the local catastrophe.
I am speaking from Boston, from Harvard, clearly not in the
epicenter. I study and teach about disasters and have been
involved in disaster response for 25 years and also I am very
connected with the response of the American Red Cross and a
number of other NGOs and organizations that are now working in
the area. I also am on the staff of Brigham and Women's
Hospital, which is one of the bigger hospitals in the Boston
area and one of the Harvard teaching hospitals and I am very
well aware of the work that we are doing to support the local
medical and public health professionals who are working in the
affected region.
I have some comments that are related to the short-term and
the long-term. In the category of short-term, based on my
understanding of how disasters are planned for and responded
to, I think there is the need for Congress to make sure that
what we now have in place in Louisiana and Mississippi in
particular is an effective procurement joint operations center
that links local, State, and Federal Government authorities and
capacities, that has good lateral integration between the civil
and the military assets, and that that joint operations center,
which I know is beginning to evolve now in both States, be
given full authority to make things happen, to cut through all
the red tape, and to deploy resources and money to the various
groups, agencies, communities, and individuals who are doing so
much extraordinary work in the affected area.
As you have heard from some of the distinguished people who
have already spoken, there is enormous commitment and
initiative at the local level. What is happening now in these
early days of the response is probably through an enormous
amount of good will and an enormous amount of struggle to try
to make things happen quickly that should have been planned for
prior to this.
There is now still such confusion and such organizational
overlap that it is very difficult to get things done at the
sites where they must happen, and what is now essential to
understand is there is the need to separate out some of the
things that have to be addressed later and some of the things
that can't wait, and I think what we are hearing from the local
actors is that this very precious part of our country must be
attended to so that local people feel that they have a chance
to rebuild and return as quickly as possible.
The second major point that I would like to make in the
short term, that is in addition to making sure there is a
coherent command and control at the State level that links to
all the other players, is the Congress to work with the
administration to get out a message about what is our national
strategy about resettlement and reintegration for the evacuees
who have been sent to other places of temporary safety and
security. There is clearly fear that a large number of these
people will not return, or may not return. There is uncertainty
in the receiving communities about what their role should be in
terms of attaching temporarily, attaching permanently. What are
the pros and cons of this?
I think that it is essential that Congress explore this
quite deeply and carefully and in a nonpartisan way. It is
going to take time to figure out the national strategy. I am
talking about a national philosophy and a national message that
will allow all of us in this country to understand what the
plan is for the reconstruction and rebuilding of the Gulf Coast
region.
I am aware, for instance, that in our State of
Massachusetts, there are hundreds of well-organized and deeply-
committed volunteers, local and State agencies grouped around
Otis Air Force Base, and over the last 3 or 4 days, which is
not a long period of time, but we have taken all of these
people offline to go to Otis Air Force Base, there has been a
question of are we getting 2,500 people from the affected area
or are we not? It is fine that there be this uncertainty in
these short and early days. Everybody recognizes that. But I
think over the next couple of weeks, a sense of what our agenda
is going to be on these issues needs to be crafted, and I can't
think of a better forum for this or a more appropriate forum
for this than the series of hearings and Congressional
discussions that I know are underway.
The third short-term issue that I think needs to be paid
attention to is, speaking now from my medical and public health
background, and here I am including issues of mental health,
there need to be under this joint operations center a medical
task force that link medical and public health and mental
health providers so that there is a sense of coherence about
the deployment of people to the areas that need medical and
public health assessment as well as mental health assessment, a
place where all the volunteers from around the country can find
an assignment and a place to go and a short- and long-term plan
developed for the rebuilding and resupply of the medical
establishment in these areas.
Many of the sheltered population are elderly. There are a
lot of children. There is a fairly significant burden of
current medical conditions and stable--provided there are
medications delivered and supplied appropriately--stable mental
health issues. I know this in part because I have been working
with the American Red Cross, and I know there are some
officials in the room from the American Red Cross, in helping
to deploy medical and public health people to assess the
conditions in the Red Cross shelters.
The response for sheltering for the community and from the
communities like the response has been phenomenal, but there
are important medical and public health and mental health needs
that need to be identified and then a plan for addressing them,
and the needs are different in Louisiana and Mississippi and we
can go into that in more detail at another time.
The other big point I would like to make is around the
evacuation of New Orleans. There continue to be, from all
reports, something on the order of 10,000 or 15,000 people who
are still there. The issues of the spread of disease through
the water, I think are present and important, but the argument
from my perspective for helping people understand why they have
to leave is that they are not going to be able to live for very
much longer in an empty city where the focus of the authorities
is on cleanup and infrastructure rebuilding. There are not
going to be supplies of food and water and capacity to deliver
medical care to this remnant population.
So I think the argument needs to be made more that in the
long-term, you can't stay here, rather than it is an enormous
emergency for you to leave right now. That might allow for more
dialogue, a need not to haul people out of their homes in a way
that is likely to create some resentment and leave a lasting
sense of authority acting somewhat too vigorously, although I
recognize there is a need to bring people out. What I am
suggesting is that it be done in a slightly more long-term way.
I also think that it needs to pay attention to the reasons
why people are holding on there. One of the reasons is many of
them still have pets, seeing-eye dogs or just family pets.
There are approximately, at my estimate, at least 50,000 pets
still left in the New Orleans area. If there were a way of
linking the persuasion of people to leave with the support and
evacuation of their pets, it might be easier to get at least
some of that remnant population to leave voluntarily.
And then I had a larger longer-term, short-term point to
make, which is that everyone who is engaged in this immediate
response needs to be supported through the possibility of
relief rotations. This country is transfixed by this disaster.
There are hundreds of thousands of people around the country
who have good skills who will get the permission to leave their
jobs and go down to help. I know that the hospitals in the
Boston area are developing teams that will go down to the major
hospitals and clinics in the area to provide 5, 6, 10 days of
relief and offer rotation for the health professionals who have
worked so valiantly and who are now exhausted. I know that that
must be the case for all the other providers and people who are
in the area.
So if there could be a way of organizing or at least giving
permission from a Federal message base to say the need to
relieve and rotate off is one that is paramount right now and
that issues of licensure and liability and reciprocity will be
reduced to the absolute minimum so that people can go down and
provide the help that so many of us around the country would
like to provide.
I have two main points to make on the long-term, and I
appreciate the chance to speak at this point. One is that we
may need to pay attention to repairing our national capacity to
get things done. I do think that there is a need to explore
quite thoroughly why there has been a failure of advance
planning and a failure to anticipate and build in the process
to defend that region from a devastating hurricane and a
devastating flood and breach of the levies. It has been
anticipated in many disaster scenarios.
I fear that FEMA has not helped the State and local
authorities develop robust plans and the resources to carry out
those plans. This needs to be looked at. It needs to be looked
at carefully and, I believe, soon. But it will take time and it
will require Congressional authority and investigative power of
Congress.
I also think it is important--this is the second long-term
point--in everything we do now at the national level and all
the way down to the community level, it is necessary for our
Nation to restore its sense of itself, that we are not just a
rich Nation, but that we are a caring Nation and that these
issues of misery, class divide, racial disparity that have come
to the surface now in the wake of this terrible disaster, these
issues get on the national agenda and stay there.
This, as some of your distinguished panelists have already
said, this is an opportunity as well as a major crisis and I
would hope that we could look again at what it is that makes
this country great and pay attention to our respect for the
vulnerable, the dignity that we must restore to the weak, and
insist upon the fact that some of the things that we saw in
those first few days in New Orleans and perhaps in Mississippi
not be allowed to happen again in the future of our Nation.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Next, we will hear from Lisa Cox. Lisa?
STATEMENT OF LISA COX, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR FEDERAL AFFAIRS,
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS, WASHINGTON,
DC
Ms. Cox. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
We at the National Association of Community Health Centers are
very thankful for you extending this invitation to us to
participate here this morning.
I want to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit
about what health centers in the Gulf Coast area, and indeed
around the country, are doing to help medically underserved
individuals and families cope with Hurricane Katrina.
I think it is important to note that health centers in the
Gulf Coast States--Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana--but
health centers all across the country are first responders in
this case. Health centers are located in areas where the
hurricane has hit the hardest and we are serving the most
severely underserved in this tragedy.
At the very same time, these very health centers in the
Gulf States are those that have suffered the most damage, and I
can go through some of that for you. So while we are in the
path of the storm, definitely, what health centers are striving
to do and what they have always done is to be a shelter in the
storm.
Really briefly, in the Gulf Coast States, we have
approximately 54 health centers in Mississippi, Alabama, and
Louisiana that have satellite clinics. They have about 302
satellite clinics, some of them in schools, in fact, which
serve approximately three-quarters of a million patients
annually.
As we have done our damage assessments over this week, we
estimate that approximately 100 health center sites have been
affected in some way. Some of them are underwater in New
Orleans. Health centers serve approximately 18,000 people in
about nine sites all over the city. What we have heard is many
of those sites are underwater or have damage and are not
obviously open.
In Mississippi, there are about 10 sites that have received
damage. In the Gulfport area, in Biloxi, those health centers
are completely destroyed and those health centers did serve
about 30,000 people. So it is catastrophic damage that we are
dealing with.
Even in Alabama, in the Mobile area, our health centers
there have received unbelievable damage and will be closed for
several weeks. Many will be closed for longer, and so that is a
significant burden and a resource and a health care home that
is not there now for medically underserved individuals and
families.
At the same time, some of the sites in the Gulf Coast area,
and then in the region, in Tennessee, in Arkansas, in North
Carolina, are beginning to see obviously vast numbers of
evacuees. In Tennessee, they are, I think, expecting to see
about 20,000 evacuees to their area and, in fact, are
mobilizing to send their mobile vans out to go to the shelters
and go to the region and treat people.
In North Carolina, they actually have a physician at the
health center who went over and helped during the tsunami in
Sri Lanka who is preparing to go down to the region and provide
care and actually has contacted physicians from Sri Lanka who
are coming over to help.
Health centers all across the country, especially Texas,
Arkansas, Tennessee, are not only seeing evacuees, but are
mobiling to actually go down and provide that respite care in
those areas that are most severely affected. The health center
family is a very giving family with open arms, and so health
centers all across the country, even from as far away as
Alaska, are trying to figure out what they can do, whether it
is sending supplies, whether it is figuring out how to send
doctors and other medical professionals to help. Health centers
in Massachusetts, for example, have teams of providers that are
ready to go and ready to go down to the area and treat people
wherever they need to be treated.
So given that, and as we move forward to talk about
solutions, we have been thinking and health centers have been
thinking a lot about this issue, and so I will just mention
several quick points and several quick ideas where we feel
Congress in particular and the Federal Government can be
helpful to try to restore and rebuild and make sure that
current health center patients and those who are displaced can
get the health care that they need.
Congress should make funding available to rebuild, restore,
and replace health centers that have been severely damaged, and
we are still, again, providing, or trying to compile a needs
assessment. But, we estimate right now that cost at being $65
million. That is for the three Alabama, Mississippi, and
Louisiana, health centers most severely damaged.
Existing health centers, as I said earlier, are taking
displaced patients and displaced individuals and families and
providing care to them. That, we estimate that we could serve
as many as 400,000 additional patients in the region, and that
is going to be a significant cost, as well.
And then, also, to ensure that new health centers,
applications that are currently in the pipeline at HRSA that
were scheduled to be funded on December 1 of this year can come
online immediately. What that means is 19 new health centers
are now in line and have been approved to receive funding. If
we could get those online in that Gulf Coast region, that would
be wonderful and a way to do that would immediately help.
Two other quick points. We would love to have Congress help
health centers receive needed medical supplies. For the past
week, we have been receiving calls at NAC and, indeed, calls at
our primary care associations across the country and our health
centers that they need medical supplies. They need insulin.
They need hepatitis vaccines. So anything that the Government,
that Congress can do in that regard would be very much
appreciated.
The last thing I will mention is that we feel that there
needs to be an extension of the Federal tort claims liability
coverage for health centers. This is medical liability coverage
that health centers currently receive. We have been working
with HHS on this issue and they have indicated to us that FTCA
coverage is only available within a State, which severely
limits health center personnel who are already all across the
country, are gearing up to go, it severely limits their ability
to do that, to go down to the affected region. And so any help
that Congress and the committee specifically can provide in
working with HHS to get over that barrier would be very much
appreciated.
I am going to stop right there. Thank you very much.
Senator Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, could I just ask very
quickly----
The Chairman. Certainly.
Senator Kennedy. [continuing.] Do you anticipate a greater
demand now that health insurance is basically job related?
Since so many of these jobs are going to be gone, people will
have lost their health insurance and, therefore, a place which
has really been the lifeline have been these health centers and
there will probably be an additional challenge for you, as
well?
Ms. Cox. Absolutely. That is an important point to make.
Health centers serve about 15 million people who are medically
underserved all across the country yearly. Approximately 6
million of our patients are underserved, or uninsured, and we
do expect that to go up as people move, they are displaced,
they are without their jobs. We expect that number to go up
markedly.
The Chairman. Thank you.
A little bit of a different direction in health, we will
call on Dr. Paul Anthony of the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers Association.
STATEMENT OF PAUL ANTHONY, M.D., CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER,
PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH AND MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION
Dr. Anthony. Chairman Enzi, Senator Kennedy, on behalf of
PhRMA and our member pharmaceutical companies, thank you for
inviting me to participate in this important roundtable.
We are committed to ensuring that the medicines that people
need get to them quickly and safely.
The Chairman. Your mike isn't on. Thank you.
Dr. Anthony. Sorry. Our member pharmaceutical companies are
committed to ensuring that the people who need their medicines
get it quickly and safely delivered wherever it is needed in
the country, either in the disaster area or where the people
are being evacuated.
When we talk about medicines, we are talking about things
like childhood asthma medications, which may not require
special handling, to refrigerated insulin, which requires very
careful handling throughout the distribution chain, to
experimental medicines that may be used in clinical trials for
rare cancers, and patients who are at Tulane, for example, that
treatment has been interrupted and we need to make sure that
those medicines get to them.
Because of the magnitude and the breadth of this type of
demand, we have to have a flexible response in terms of how we
get medicines to people. So we are working with State and
Federal agencies to make sure that medicines like vaccines,
where there is a great need to make sure that is carefully
controlled so that in a response to, let us say, some show on
CNN, you don't get emergency orders for tens of thousands of
vaccines for a particular location, only to find that vaccine
just being stored in a warehouse. So we are working very
carefully with the State and Federal agencies to make sure that
that type of medicine is distributed appropriately.
We are working with the private sector distribution chain
to make sure that retail pharmacies, like Walgreen's, which is
here today, and a number of others who have stepped up to make
sure that medicines are distributed, that our companies are
backfilling that private distribution chain to make sure that
they have the inventory levels that we need.
We are working with the voluntary and relief organizations,
like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, who I know are here
today, to make sure that the shelters that they set up have
access to the medicines that they need.
We are doing all of this today. We are going to continue to
do it. As has been emphasized earlier this morning, we are
trying not to be part of the red tape, so we are using
corporate aircraft where that is appropriate to deliver
medicines to Mississippi. We are working with the Louisiana
Board of Pharmacy to convert an old Delchamps grocery store
into a warehouse so we can use their refrigeration facilities
to store the medicines that require refrigeration.
We are doing everything we can. We have already donated
over $45 million worth of medicines and cash to the affected
groups. But despite all that we are doing, I am still getting
individual reports literally every 15 minutes of individual
cases of people who are not getting their medicines and are
suffering.
I will give you one that just came across this morning of a
patient that was evacuated to a VA hospital. It turns out they
treated the patient. A social worker wants to discharge that
patient with medication and this particular patient is not a VA
beneficiary and there is some confusion about whether they are
eligible and whether they can fill it from that pharmacy.
We are getting those types of requests with a question of
can our companies help, and again, I want to assure you that
our companies are standing by. We are going to help in every
way we can. We look forward to working with this committee and
with the country to again ensure that anyone who needs
medicines gets the medicine they need. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Moving on down to a more local level yet, Kenneth Weigand
with Walgreen's. Your microphone isn't on.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH WEIGAND, VICE-PRESIDENT FOR HUMAN
RESOURCES, WALGREEN'S
Mr. Weigand. Thank you, Chairman Enzi, Senator Kennedy,
committee members, for the opportunity to be here today. I
guess I am speaking both on behalf of Walgreen's as a medical
services provider and as an employer.
Walgreen's is a nationwide retail drugstore chain. We have
approximately 4,800 stores in 47 States and Puerto Rico. We
have 74 stores employing approximately 2,200 employees in the
Gulf area. Several of these locations remain closed either
because they were severely storm damaged or looted or both,
resulting in displacement of hundreds of our employees.
My comments are focused both on restoring pharmacy and
health care services, providing relief to the region, and also
taking care of our employees.
First, with regard to our patients and relief efforts,
immediately after the hurricane hit, Walgreen's provided the
region with truckloads of water and essentials. We continue to
deliver OTC medications and prescription medications. The
example was given of insulin. We are trying to provide as many
of those services as we can.
The key really is getting our stores open so that we can
provide these services. Several are up and running on
generators and as the power gets back on, they are switching
over to local power. Several are being operated by voluntary
employees who don't work at that particular location but have
risen to the challenge and have come to work at an alternate
location.
We are, because of our size, we are able to provide
prescription services nationwide. All of our pharmacies are
linked, so thankfully, our patients can go to really any
Walgreen's location around the country and get prescription
services.
With regard to our employees, thankfully, we have been able
to welcome many of them back. Our stores serve as a beacon in
many areas, and when they see the Walgreen logo, they know
where to go.
Again, because of our scope, we are able to put people back
to work at alternate locations. We have established phone banks
and Web sites to help us both locate missing employees, get
them reunited either with their home store or with an alternate
location, and provide them information on assistance and
benefits.
To allow people to work at some of these locations, we have
trucked in RVs. We had to go to Canada to get, I believe, 50 RV
vehicles and are driving them down as we speak so that our
people have a place to stay as they are working. We also have a
network of voluntary housing. Many of our employees have
stepped up and opened their homes to their fellow employees.
We are providing monetary assistance to our folks. We have
a charitable organization--it is called the Walgreen Benefit
Fund--that was established to provide financial assistance in
situations of this kind. We are also able to provide emergency
loans through our credit union to our folks. Thankfully, we
have been able to continue benefits and provide Employee
Assistance Plan counseling.
With regard to what the committee and Congress could do for
us, things of immediate need, I believe are probably outside
the purview of Congress. The immediate need is access to our
stores. As I mentioned, we are trucking supplies in. In several
instances, our trucks have been stopped at checkpoints and
challenged because of curfew regulations, what have you, so we
have had to go through some efforts to get permission for our
trucks to get in, both to provide services for our employees
and deliveries.
Kind of on a related nature is fuel. We can get the trucks
there, but because of local gas shortages we are worried about
getting them back out so they can make return trips, and also
for our employees to get back and forth to work.
And once they are there, security for our store locations.
In many areas, it is quite dangerous for both our people to go
to work and for our customers to get in and out of the store.
So those are really the immediate needs. Longer term, the
professor mentioned licensure and reciprocity. As you know,
pharmacy is a highly-regulated business, so any assistance with
regard to allowing our stores to serve out-of-state patrons who
are on some kind of Government assistance would be welcome.
And really what it comes down to is getting people at a
comfortable enough level to be able to come back to work. We
think allowing them to work is the key to getting their lives
back together, so it is all the basics of supplemental income
replacement, relocation, resettlement benefits, housing,
transportation, and family services so our people don't have to
worry about their families, can get back to work, be
productive, and also serve the public. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Our committee has a huge jurisdiction and we are running
out of time here, definitely running out of time.
Senator Burr. A quick question?
The Chairman. A quick one.
Senator Burr. Just a very quick one. We have all heard the
horror stories of patients who have received care. A physician
treats without any history of what they were taking and the
patients not knowing what they were taking. Do medical
professionals have the ability to contact a Walgreen's store,
check a patient's records to see what medications they were on?
Mr. Weigand. Yes, they do. Yes.
Senator Burr. Thank you.
Mr. Weigand. Thank you. The committee has huge
jurisdiction. We have covered health and we have covered
education. We haven't covered the labor aspect yet. That is the
next step here, and from Wyoming, we have Charlie Ware who is
the Chairman of the Workforce Development Council. I would also
mention that we have Kathy Emmons, who is the Director of the
Wyoming Department of Workforce Development. So we appreciate
your being here, too, and any comments that you can share with
us later.
Charlie?
STATEMENT OF CHARLIE WARE, CHAIRMAN, WYOMING WORKFORCE
DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL, CASPER, WYOMING
Mr. Ware. Thank you and Senator Kennedy. I am the private
sector person who chairs the Workforce Development Council for
Wyoming. There are 50 of us in the country. I can take a little
broader look at this because we are not as directly involved as
everybody here in this situation.
I would offer two solutions. I will give a couple of
anecdotes related to that. I asked Kathy to join me so that we
can make decisions quickly based on this meeting, and also that
I don't commit to something that I don't have the authority to,
and Kathy can tell me that.
The other thing that I want to share that comes to offering
the solution is on August 24 in Portland, OR, I assumed the
Vice Chairmanship of all the workforce State boards in the
country and I was told it is going to be two meetings a year
and a couple phone calls. Here I am today speaking for Jim
Hardegree, who is the Workforce Chair in Georgia.
One thing I would like to offer is that the workforce local
boards and State boards across the country, especially in the
23 States that have offered to bring people, we need to be
coordinated, too, and let somebody know what we can do and what
we cannot do.
Before coming here, I talked to--I called Arkansas, I
called Florida, I called Georgia, and I called Colorado, just
because I know those people very quickly. They are busy, busy,
busy, and they answered my calls very quickly. Arkansas's
people, when I talked to them, they were in an armory taking
names and Social Security numbers of people. They were at,
again, that first-tier level, and what we have been talking
about today right now is the first tier, that immediate relief
and rescue. We are not at the next stage of placing people and
training people in the workforce area. Florida's comments was
they have taken over and assisted in Southern Mississippi on
workers' compensation claims and training people.
Florida has a good idea that I think all the workforce
boards can do, and that is to train and send people back to
wherever they might want to be. Again, training centers in the
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama areas are gone, also, so there
is no way to take care of that. People do want to go back and
rebuild, especially in the heavy trades, all the construction
trades, to build.
Colorado has made a decision, and these are just things
that need to happen as far as having a plan in place, they have
deferred the actual--the State board has actually deferred to
their local board in Denver to handle all the mechanics of the
workforce. They have about 180, 200 people right now in Denver.
One of the problems they are seeing is they have eight of those
people who have actually no documentation and they don't know
where they came from. So the system has to build itself out a
little bit.
I, through my Governor's recommendation, started a
driller's school in Casper because of the 1,000 people a year
we need to drill gas wells, and we have two people from
Mississippi in the class next week and how did we get them?
They called us. We are, quote, ``not in the system,'' but they
called us and we will definitely take them.
There is a major consideration that needs to be looked at
as we look at placing people in the future in other parts of
the country, in other States. Wyoming and the Northern tier of
this country is pretty cold in the wintertime and our
instructor for this class is from Lafayette, LA. He has been in
Wyoming for 14 months. He has been through that one winter and
he is very clear that it is not for everybody. And we looked at
Utah, we looked at Colorado, we looked at Wyoming, we looked at
Washington State, we looked at the Dakotas, etc. That is a
factor in dealing with these people that has to be considered.
What I would suggest as solutions, which I have talked to
my national staff now that I am in this national Vice Chair
position, is to get a phone conference call either next Monday
or Tuesday, inventory what the workforce boards could do in the
different States, tally that up, and I don't know, Senator
Enzi, if we give it to you, but that somebody can know what is
going on, because I feel in many cases it is kind of herky-
jerky.
Everybody wants to help, as you said, Senator. We have two
people who want to drive a bus from Casper loaded with food and
bring people back, and Governor Freudenthal called them and
said, that is a great idea, but it doesn't fit really in the
system. We need to be part of that system. So I think that is a
point. But I will get that done with my national staff and have
that available, maybe for the Department of Labor.
The second thing, and I really wasn't even thinking about
this as I came, but I think it is important--it always has been
important, but there is more of an urgency, I think, to look at
passing the Workforce Investment Act reauthorization, and I
know the two of you have worked very, very hard on that. But
that whole section of dislocated workers takes on a whole new
meaning, I think, as we have this national crisis. You know, we
can get it passed, get it into conference, work out the
details, and have a vehicle that all the States could operate
from. Thanks.
The Chairman. Thank you. While you do your inventory of
capabilities, we will see if we can get that done.
Mr. Ware. OK.
The Chairman. Maurice Emsellem? Mr. Emsellem?
STATEMENT OF MAURICE EMSELLEM, PUBLIC POLICY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
EMPLOYMENT LAW PROJECT, NEW YORK, NY
Mr. Emsellem. [via telephone.] Yes. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, Senator Kennedy, members of the committee for this
chance to testify, to speak with you today. I am going to try
to address the basic questions that were posed by the
committee, what are the most urgent needs facing the families
and what steps can Congress take to help meet some of these
needs.
I wanted to start off just by mentioning that our
organization, the National Employment Law Project, our main
offices are actually located in lower Manhattan and we were
actively involved in the relief effort after September 11. In
that case, despite the incredible devastation, families still
had their homes, and probably most importantly, they still had
their local communities to rely on for help and to find the
strength to get by, to continue through the crisis.
In this case, the evacuees have been totally uprooted from
their community and their jobs for, we really don't know for
how long a period of time, which means that they are almost
entirely dependent, or in many cases entirely dependent on what
help is provided by the Government, by relief agencies, and by
employers.
And obviously, as others have mentioned, finding a good job
means everything to these families, to give their hope back and
to give their dignity back after this experience.
So in terms of some of the most urgent needs, what we have
been focusing on is trying to help the families and groups that
are servicing these families to get the financial assistance
that they need at sufficient levels to care for their families,
and then also to get back on their feet and find a good job.
Not far down the road, as Mr. Ware mentioned, we also
believe that job training, access to higher education has to be
a major priority as families who lost all connection to their
jobs start settling down and making some very hard choices
about how and, in many cases, where to move on and what
occupations will support them and their families in the long
run after this experience.
So what are some of the steps that Congress can take to
help with the families? First, I want to mention, based on what
we have heard from groups in Texas and other States that are
working with some of the evacuees, it is important to emphasize
that the State unemployment agencies in all the States--in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Georgia--have been
working very hard to successfully get their telephone claims
taking processes up and running to process the unemployment
claims and the disaster unemployment claims, and that is very
critical.
In addition, the evacuees, especially in Houston, have been
given the in-person help that they need, which is very critical
in a situation like this, to be able to have that in-person
contact, to get folks in the system and start processing these
claims. It is just a major effort to start getting the
information necessary for all those folks to process their
claims despite major obstacles in the Astrodome and elsewhere--
limited phones, limited access to computers, and all that. So
the in-person assistance is very important and it is clear that
that is happening in a lot of places. So that is a very good
thing.
In terms of what Congress can do, just to take a quick step
back, it is important to mention that we are reminded, vividly
now, that we have lived through, in 4 short years, two major
disasters. But unfortunately, really, we don't have a Federal
disaster assistance program that provides cash assistance,
financial assistance to the unemployed. Instead, as a result of
major changes in the law in the late 1980s in the disaster
unemployment assistance law, the disaster program is the State
unemployment insurance programs. Disaster unemployment
assistance is only available to those people who don't qualify
for State unemployment in their State, like the self-employed
and other categories of workers.
So in New York, for example, after September 11, just 3,300
families collected disaster unemployment assistance after
September 11. That is about $13 million in benefits. Another
3,300 people were denied disaster unemployment assistance
because of restrictions in the law. So that $13 million
compares with about $1.5 billion that was spent by the State to
pay for UI benefits as a result of 9/11.
So given the scope of these latest disasters, and Lord
knows all this can happen again, what is needed, we believe, is
a quick fix to make Federal disaster unemployment assistance,
not State unemployment insurance, the main form of assistance
to those who lost their jobs due to the disaster. So that
involves a few things.
That involves, first, providing what we call DUA, disaster
unemployment assistance benefits, to all those out of work
because of the disaster, which means removing the requirement
that folks first go on their State unemployment insurance
program if they qualify.
Second, it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to establish
a minimum Federal disaster unemployment benefit of at least the
average State unemployment benefit, the average unemployment
benefit paid in the States, which right now is $270. That
compares with the average benefit in the hurricane States,
which ranges from $170 to $194. Those, unfortunately, are
literally the lowest average benefits in the country. The
minimum disaster unemployment benefit available to workers in
those States right now under the Federal regulations is $97 in
Louisiana, $85 in Mississippi, and $90 in Alabama. So you can
appreciate that that is not a lot of money for folks to live on
in this situation.
And now, you also have on top of that the situation where
these families are relocating all over the country. We just got
a call yesterday from service providers in Pennsylvania who are
receiving 9,000 families, and $90 in unemployment benefits is
not a whole lot to live off of in Pennsylvania, and so it is
very important to beef up the minimum benefit.
Third, it is necessary to increase the numbers of weeks of
benefits. Right now, the maximum you can collect is 26 weeks,
which is all that is available right now to regular
unemployment insurance recipients. Back in 1988, before they
changed the law, disaster unemployment assistance provided up
to 52 weeks of benefits. Obviously, most folks are not going to
have to use all that, but many will.
Finally, it is necessary to clarify the rules that allow
those who lost their jobs due to the disaster to collect
unemployment benefits even if they are not in the disaster
area, in the specific disaster counties, for example. Right
now, that is permitted under law, that if you lost your job
because of, or for reasons related to the disaster--they have
to be intimately related to the disaster--even if you are not
in the disaster area, you can collect disaster unemployment
benefits.
But there is an additional rule that was adopted after
September 11 that requires workers to show that their employer
lost at least 50 percent of the business from a disaster--from
revenue generated in the area of the disaster, another business
or contract, something of that sort.
So we have a situation now where you have a lot of
surrounding counties, a lot of surrounding States that are
really feeling the effects of the disaster, and rather than
being able to put workers on disaster unemployment assistance,
their State unemployment assistance programs are going to have
to absorb those costs.
So just to wrap up, we believe these reforms to the
disaster unemployment assistance program are good for workers
and their families because it gives them the relief that they
need to get by in amounts that exceed regular State benefits
right now in the individual States. I believe it is good for
employers because it removes the significant pressure on the
unemployment system in their States to raise taxes or reduce
benefits, and we hope it is also good for the Nation, because
it puts in place a more effective Federal disaster program when
the next event hits. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Now, we will move to the two organizations that are on the
ground first and provide a lot of the original care. We will
begin with Major Marilyn White of the Salvation Army.
STATEMENT OF MAJOR MARILYN WHITE, NATIONAL CONSULTANT ON ADULT
MINISTRIES, SALVATION ARMY
Major White. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for this
opportunity, members of the committee, as well as, I would say,
partners all in this overwhelming job of bringing healing and
help to people who are suffering.
Following landfall, the Salvation Army Disaster Services
responded to the immediate needs of 500,000 Hurricane Katrina
survivors by providing food, water, and shelter in Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, not only for the
hurricane survivors, but for the first responders.
Within days, the Salvation Army opened up its own
facilities and camps to address the high demand for sheltering,
and we will continue to provide emergency feeding and shelter
as long as it is needed and until recovery plans are initiated.
We will also provide financial assistance to supplement funding
from both the Red Cross and FEMA.
The Salvation Army has implemented a card system that
provides funds for medication for individuals and for
additional funds that enable the people themselves to
personally be involved in making purchases that they feel they
need.
Regarding our disaster recovery, while our disaster
services are focused on emergency response, our social services
are now evaluating the appropriate role for us to play in a
national recovery effort. The strength of the Salvation Army
for the past 100 years has been and remains social services.
In addition to our role as an emergency responder, we see
the Salvation Army assisting with the development of
intermediate housing over the next 2-year period, and we are
very concerned that there not be a time limit set for any of
this.
Our concern is that displaced Americans are provided in
safe and private environments, away from the public eye and
segregated by population. Families living with families, the
homeless, in an environment that addresses their needs. The
elderly with access to medical care. Comprehensive services
provided to all.
The question that you posed to us was, what are your needs
and how can we respond to them? The Salvation Army believes
that not only our organization, but other organizations who are
familiar with working with the special needs population must be
at the table for designing and crafting the system regarding
housing. Special consideration needs to be taken as to where
people are placed, and it is these organizations that are most
familiar in dealing with this population.
We would also ask that there always be clear communication
open between faith-based organizations, who have intensive
experience in working with this population, as well as with
FEMA.
And as we move into the disaster recovery phase, we would
want to again answer the question, who is my neighbor? Not only
those individuals who have survived this terrible devastation
are our neighbor, but the providers are our neighbors. And as
we think of what has been referred to as compassion fatigue, we
would like to pledge that we will uphold your hands and ask
that you uphold our hands as we minister to these people. Thank
you so much.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Jan Lane, the Red Cross?
STATEMENET OF JAN LANE, VICE-PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC POLICY AND
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS, AMERICAN RED CROSS
Ms. Lane. Thank you, Chairman Enzi. We truly appreciate the
opportunity to be here today and your forbearance as the
Blackberries have been going off because we have been
responding as we sit.
As of this morning, the American Red Cross has housed over
159,000 survivors in 650 shelters in 17 States. It is the
largest and most challenging disaster in our 125-year history.
We have 32,000 trained Red Cross disaster relief workers,
the vast majority of them volunteers, from all 50 States
responding to this. The full assets of our organization are
dedicated to this challenge.
I want to echo what Major White had to say. This work could
not be done without the partners in this room, partners that
would surprise people. You will hear in a minute that
Walgreen's has just been unbelievable in their support.
We have never had to deliver so much aid so quickly in such
challenging circumstances, because as with many of you, your
organizations, our chapters were inundated. We have worked with
city officials on evacuation plans for years and knew that our
chapter had to be relocated outside of the confines of New
Orleans in order to be able to provide assistance. When we were
there last Thursday, we were with our chapter executive, who is
doing heroic work, not knowing the status of her house and
knowing that at least 95 of her staff, employees, and
volunteers are homeless, but continue to deliver Red Cross
services daily, and it is a 24/7 operation for the full
organization.
In this instance, many of you are familiar that we do have
a chapter welfare inquiry system where, no matter when disaster
strikes, you can, as a loved one anywhere else in the country,
you can go into your local Red Cross chapter or call and say, I
need to know about the welfare of a loved one in a disaster
area and the communications are down, I can't get through, I
have tried everything. This time, we have had to set up, and I
want to share this number, a 1-877-LOVED-1S family links
registry.
The latest figure that I had last evening was 65,000 names
were on that registry, and I know you have seen a number of
other registries popping up. As of this morning, I think we can
very shortly have the capability technologically-wise to link
with the other registries that you are seeing online, and we
are facilitating some of those linkages as we go forward and
trying to get the technology, simply laptops into shelters.
Certainly, as you heard earlier, the Astrodome is one
situation, but the shelters that are open in Hancock and
Harrison Counties in Mississippi, that is a little bit
different story, as it is with some of the 90 shelters in
Louisiana, just trying to keep things going.
The Chairman. Could you give us that 877 number again?
Ms. Lane. Thank you, sir. It is 1-877-L-O-V-E-D, the
numeral ``one,'' S.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. Lane. For purposes of the committee and to try to keep
it brief, we do food, clothing, and shelter, but one of the key
concerns with such a mass movement of people and in such
circumstances has been the public health ramifications when
people are in congregate shelters, and that is why joining us
today is Dr. Tom Kirsch, who has been on the ground doing a
first-hand assessment of the public health needs in our
shelters. I would like to turn to Tom.
The Chairman. Dr. Kirsch?
STATEMENT OF TOM KIRSCH, M.D., JOHNS HOPKINS, MEMBER OF THE
AMERICAN RED CROSS DISASTER SERVICES AND HEALTH CARE TEAM
Dr. Kirsch. Thank you, Senator. As I am bringing up the end
here, I will try to be as brief as possible, but I am speaking
as someone who has spent a considerable amount of time on the
ground, both doing direct assessments of shelter and public
health issues as well as coordinating with national and local
and State officials, and I think my comments will focus on
those areas.
The need to coordinate in the health care aspect, I think,
was well pointed out by the kind of disconnect that occurred in
the health agencies. I think that the State emergency operating
committees did a tremendous job. I think that HHS has to take a
bit stronger role in working to develop kind of a medical
emergency coordinating center and a hierarchy where people can
get together. The Red Cross has now actively dispersed
physicians to each of the State EOCs to help begin that process
and has been, I think, instrumental in bringing those groups
together.
We are now working today, starting with the Louisiana State
Department of Public Health, as well as the U.S. Public Health
Service, to begin a shelter-by-shelter assessment in every one
of the shelters in Louisiana and we are hoping to move that
process rapidly over to Texas as well as to Mississippi and
have representatives on the ground for that.
So I recommend that HHS pay some focus on that coordinating
effort and creating a second body.
The other thing, I am very heartened to see the fact that
the pharmacy representatives are here because one of the most
tremendous issues that we saw time and again in the first few
days following the disaster is the inability of people to
access their medication. This undoubtedly led to deaths. It has
undoubtedly caused difficult problems with psychiatric patients
and other very vulnerable populations.
And having some type of effort where we can better
coordinate that--the response from the pharmacy down to
individual pharmacists who literally emptied their drug stores
to people has been tremendous, but there really needs to be a
higher-level coordination to help that occur on a smoother
basis. It was really ad hoc, and at Red Cross, nurses were
literally going to the local Walgreen's and saying, look, I
have got all these guys with high blood pressure and diabetes,
what can you give me, and the Walgreen's guys were bringing it
right over.
So having a more formal process there would make a big
difference. That is a big issue in the early days following a
disaster. I think it is being very well addressed now. The
State of Louisiana has actually created mobile pharmacy units
which are out visiting shelters and delivering medications.
The other thing that I think is very important in regard to
coordinating, whether that is done through the States or
whether that is done through the Medical Reserve Corps or other
functions under HHS would be the coordination of local
volunteers. There are admittedly thousands of doctors around
the country who are now ready to pour into the States, and yet
what I found, arriving just a few days after the disaster, was
that the local physicians, the local universities, the local
emergency departments had set up mobile teams, had placed
themselves in individual shelters, and, in fact, in the larger
shelters, full-blown clinics were working with medical records,
with pharmacy distribution centers, with some lab capabilities.
All of that was done on an ad hoc basis. All of that was
without any hierarchical support and simply relied on the good
will of the people.
I think there needs to be some better coordinating effort.
Red Cross is not in the business of providing actual medical
care in their shelters, but in this situation, we opened our
doors and allowed individual physicians, nurses, etc., to do
that. There needs to be better effort in coordinating that.
The other issue that comes up time and again and will be an
ongoing issue is the public health problems. The State public
health departments were overwhelmed by this disaster and had so
many functions that they had a difficult time responding to all
of them simultaneously. I think clear efforts have to be made,
both not only for natural disasters, but any given terrorist or
manmade disaster that you can see, to further strengthen the
State public health departments. There is an urgent need to
upgrade their services so that they can better provide the
immunizations, the surveillance of diseases, the outbreak
investigations, and all of the functions that are so important.
We in the Red Cross during the interim, when that service
was not available, made an active attempt to begin those
processes ourselves in our shelters. It is not our role.
Luckily, in the last year, the Red Cross has committed to work
on a public health function. Actually, we have come quite a
ways, and I think this disaster gave us an example to try some
of the things out we have been talking about.
And I think we need to turn back to the vulnerable
populations I think people have talked about here. You know,
these horror stories that have come out of Louisiana of
abandoned elderly found dead. Well, when I was in the field, I
found that not only were the elderly not abandoned, but the
nursing homes brought the people out. The staff of the nursing
homes stayed with them in the shelters. They brought their own
cooks. They brought their own food. They brought their own
oxygen. It was a remarkable sight.
But those vulnerable populations truly have to be better
integrated into the system. Whether that is providing
transportation for the poor or whether that is coordinating all
the nursing homes better into the system, I think that is
extremely important, that maybe from a local level, but could
come also from Federal funding.
I think those are my major comments. I hope they are very
concrete. All I have to say is that the response that took
place at all levels, not just at the Red Cross, is stunning,
and despite the horror stories you have heard on the news, it
is a wonderful thing.
The Chairman. Thank you. I appreciate the comments of
everybody that was here today. I have taken literally dozens of
suggestions down here of things that we need to do, and that is
just talking about this one committee, but we do have a lot of
jurisdiction. You have outlined a lot of work for us to do and
I really appreciate it.
Part of our problem is getting a little bit of education
before we make our decisions, and I have found that a little
bit of education goes a long way. You have certainly all been a
help to us today.
As we can tell from the discussion today, the devastation
is beyond anything anybody has seen in their lifetime. I hope
that remains to be the biggest event in our lifetime, as well.
But there are things that we need to do to get the relief in
place and to rebuild the families and get the communities back.
I just can't express enough on behalf of the committee how
much we appreciate all of the individual effort that has been
put into this, all of the community effort. There is a spirit
of helping in the United States, and something like this brings
out the best of that. I hope we can emphasize that a little bit
as we get busy on solving the problems that you have.
We appreciate not only the people that have been impacted,
but the people that are accepting folks, hopefully on a short-
term basis so that they can get back to where they were before
and we can get all the people working in this country again.
That is a real hub of the United States for the economy, but
the economy is the people.
Again, I thank you all for your comments. I will remind
everybody that you may have had some reactions to some of the
things that were said here. As a result of some of the things
that were said, you may come up with some additional ideas. I
hope you will put those on our Web site for us so we can begin
reviewing those on Monday and get the legislation through as
fast as possible for suggestions that were made.
Thank you very much. The roundtable is adjourned.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Prepared Statement Senator Dole
Mr. Chairman, my heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to
our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast who have forever had
their lives changed by Hurricane Katrina. The devastation
wrought by this terrible storm has left hundreds of thousands
of Americans in need of relief and compassion. I thank the
committee for convening this roundtable discussion so that we
can assess how best to help those in need in the days, weeks,
and months ahead.
As a former president of the American Red Cross, I am
keenly aware of the importance of having a reliable system of
communication in place following a disaster so that vital
information can reach those in need, as well as those seeking
to help. As families begin to rebuild their lives they will
face important questions from how to receive medications and
collect Social Security checks, to where to send children to
school and find housing. At the same time, as we have seen
already, families, businesses, churches, and other
organizations from across the country are asking how best to
help those in need. In order for disaster victims to receive
the care they require, Americans across the country should have
easy access to organized, up-to-date information regarding the
best place to find relief and answers.
In 2000, the Federal Communications Commission assigned 2-
1-1 for exactly this purpose. 2-1-1 was created to serve as a
referral service for community, volunteer, and health and human
services information. Today, 138 million Americans,
approximately 47 percent of the U.S. population, can access 2-
1-1 with call centers operational in 32 States, including my
own State of North Carolina
Currently, the United Way is leading the effort to secure
2-1-1 as a resource for families and individuals in the areas
affected by Hurricane Katrina, as well as the many other
States--including North Carolina--that are now providing
shelter to evacuees from the Gulf region. In Louisiana, 2-1-1
has emerged as a critical tool in the recovery effort--in fact,
the State Government has actively promoted 2-1-1 as the number
to call to receive help, offer assistance, or ask questions
related to the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
In my home State of North Carolina the 2-1-1 call centers
have seen a dramatic increase in call volume over the past
week. In Charlotte, more than 600 individuals have volunteered
to house evacuees through 2-1-1 calls, while 1,249 calls in one
day alone provided assistance with everything from housing and
money to volunteers.
As evacuees come to North Carolina, 2-1-1 is providing them
with information about medical care, employment, education for
their children, and other local resources. Additionally, 2-1-1
is tracking local resources that can be mobilized to assist in
the ongoing relief effort on the Gulf Coast.
2-1-1 is once again demonstrating itself as a valuable
service with tremendous benefits for victims in the days
following a disaster. Unfortunately, many communities have been
unable to implement a 2-1-1 system in their area due to a lack
of sustainable funding. In other States, like North Carolina,
2-1-1 is not available statewide because of the same funding
issues.
That is why I believe it is so important that this
committee act quickly to approve the Calling for 2-1-1 Act, S.
211. This legislation authorizes Federal funding that would
help sustain 2-1-1 efforts by augmenting, not replacing, the
funding currently received from diverse sources including non-
profits, State Governments, foundations, and businesses. This
legislation is a common-sense measure that has drawn
significant bipartisan support. In fact, a cost-benefit study
by the University of Texas found that if 2-1-1 were available
to every American across the country, the service would save
citizens $1.1 billion over 10 years.
Mr. Chairman, as we help those affected by Hurricane
Katrina recover from this awful tragedy, we must make certain
that both victims and volunteers receive accurate and timely
information regarding the relief effort. Through the use of the
2-1-1 system we are efficiently and effectively communicating
how to receive essential services and provide care for others.
In order for 2-1-1 to reach its full potential it is important
to provide additional funding through the Calling for 2-1-1
Act.
[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]