    [Senate Hearing 109-591]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 109-591

       HURRICANE KATRINA: PERSPECTIVES OF FEMA'S OPERATIONS PROFESSIONALS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                   HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                           ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                DECEMBER 8, 2005

                                   __________

                           Printed for the use of the
            Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

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    _____________________________________________________________________________
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            COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                       SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
    TED STEVENS, Alaska                  JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
    GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio            CARL LEVIN, Michigan
    NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota              DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
    TOM COBURN, Oklahoma                 THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
    LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island      MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
    ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah              FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
    PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico         MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
    JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia

               Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                       David T. Flanagan, General Counsel
                           Jonathan T. Nass, Counsel
          Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
                    Robert F. Muse, Minority General Counsel
                           Mary Beth Schultz, Counsel
                      Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                     ------
    Opening statements:
                                                                       Page
        Senator Collins..............................................     1
        Senator Lieberman............................................     2
        Senator Stevens..............................................     4

                                   WITNESSES
                           Thursday, December 8, 2005

    Scott Wells, Federal Coordinating Officer, FEMA Joint Field
      Office, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.................................     7
    Philip E. Parr, Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer, FEMA Joint
      Field Office, Austin, Texas....................................     9
    William L. Carwile III, Former Federal Coordinating Officer, FEMA
      Joint Field Office, Biloxi, Mississippi........................    13

                         Alphabetical List of Witnesses

    Carwile, William L. III:
        Testimony....................................................    13
        Prepared statement...........................................    61
    Parr, Philip E.:
        Testimony....................................................     9
        Prepared statement...........................................    52
    Wells Scott:
        Testimony....................................................     7
        Prepared statement...........................................    43

                                    Appendix

    Exhibit 1........................................................    71
    Exhibit 8........................................................    83
    Exhibit 9........................................................    90
    Exhibit F........................................................    94
    Exhibit G........................................................    99
    Exhibit H........................................................   102
    Exhibit I........................................................   104

       HURRICANE KATRINA: PERSPECTIVES OF FEMA'S OPERATIONS PROFESSIONALS

                                  ----------

                           THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2005

                                           U.S. Senate,
                               Committee on Homeland Security
                                      and Governmental Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
    room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Hon. Susan M.
    Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Collins, Stevens, and Lieberman.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS

        Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order. Today,
    the Committee continues its investigation into the preparation
    for and response to Hurricane Katrina.
        This morning, at our eighth hearing, we will hear from
    three witnesses who are among the Federal Emergency Management
    Agency's most experienced emergency managers and operations
    professionals. Each of our witnesses--Scott Wells, Philip Parr,
    and William Carwile--was directly involved in Katrina
    preparation and response. They will give us a more complete
    understanding of FEMA's role, share their observations about
    the State and local response, and provide their insights and
    recommendations for reforms.
        One of our witnesses today has described the national
    emergency response as a ``bottom-up system,'' with local and
    State authorities leading the way and Federal authorities
    coordinating operations and the deployment of resources. In
    Katrina, this system broke down, and the result was the very
    deprivation and suffering the structure was designed to avoid.
    This system must be fixed from the bottom to the very top.
        One of the most glaring breakdowns was in communications.
    This powerful storm devastated the land-based communications
    infrastructure throughout the Gulf region. This, however, was
    an utterly foreseeable result of howling winds and surging
    water that apparently was not adequately anticipated, nor
    compensated for.
        At our last hearing on November 16, we heard testimony from
    private sector witnesses who stressed the critical importance
    of maintaining communications in disaster management. They
    emphasized that good communications are the life blood of
    emergency operations, allowing for the effective movement of
    personnel and other assets as well as real-time assessments.
        In each of these companies, developing and maintaining
    robust systems, importing extra communications gear, and re-
    establishing contact with the outside world were of the utmost
    priority and a key component of their preparedness plans. Their
    outstanding performance, unfortunately, stands in stark
    contrast to the inability of government at all levels to plan
    and execute backup communications systems.
        FEMA has mobile communications vehicles. But by the time
    anyone thought to bring one to the Superdome, the building was
    already surrounded by water, and FEMA was apparently unable to
    figure out a way to get its equipment into the building.
        FEMA also has communications equipment that could be
    airlifted in. But despite Mr. Parr's urgent request for such
    equipment, none arrived. In his interview with the staff, Mr.
    Parr estimated that the lack of communications equipment
    reduced his team's effectiveness by an astounding 90 percent.
        Much of the post-Katrina criticism has been justifiably
    focused on FEMA. But today's witnesses will explain that
    Katrina also exposed serious flaws at the local and State level
    that contributed to the suffering experienced by so many in the
    Gulf region.
        For example, according to the staff interview of Mr. Wells,
    Louisiana's emergency operations officials failed to follow--
    perhaps even to comprehend--the National Response Plan, which
    is an integrated system designed to coordinate the Federal,
    State, and local responses to a disaster. Indeed, Mr. Wells
    noted that Louisiana's emergency managers were getting training
    on the critical Incident Command System 2 days after the storm
    hit.
        Today's witnesses will also help us determine how FEMA,
    State, and local officials can do better. They are all current
    or former Federal Coordinating Officers (FCOs) and possess a
    wealth of emergency management experience. The FCOs play a
    critical role in FEMA.
        In June of 2004, the FCO cadre urged Under Secretary
    Michael Brown to undertake reforms to remove obstacles to
    command, control, and core mission accomplishment and to
    reconfigure and enhance the national emergency response teams.
    The memorandum strongly advised that these reforms be
    implemented to help prepare for ``the next big one.''
        But we will hear today that disturbingly little was done in
    response to these recommendations, far too little to prepare
    for the big one when, indeed, it hit 14 months later.
        I very much appreciate the testimony of our witnesses today
    so that we can be better prepared for the catastrophic events
    yet to come.
        Senator Lieberman.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN

        Senator Lieberman. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman, for
    calling this hearing and for your continued leadership of our
    investigation.
        We have already held several important and informative
    hearings about Hurricane Katrina on subjects that range from
    the fate of the levees to the actions of the private sector in
    the wake of the storm, to the testimony of FEMA employee Marty
    Bahamonde during those dangerous days when he tried to get help
    to the thousands stranded in the Superdome.
        This morning's witnesses, FEMA's operations professionals
    who were on the scene in the Gulf Coast, will, I am confident,
    move the Committee's investigation forward toward finding out
    what went wrong before and after Hurricane Katrina so that we
    can achieve the purpose that Congress and all of us have in
    mind, which is to make sure that it never happens again.
        I want to thank our witnesses for the testimony they are
    about to give. I want to thank them for their distinguished
    careers of public service that each of them has. And those
    careers should not, in any sense, be diminished by the
    criticism that FEMA is receiving and may well receive today.
        I will say that, having reviewed your testimony prepared
    for this morning and the interviews that you had with our
    Committee staff and having now gone over other testimony and
    documents gathered by the Committee so far, it certainly seems
    to me that FEMA is a troubled agency that failed at its prime
    mission, the mission it draws its name from, which is emergency
    management.
        The fact is that the whole world watched on television as
    Hurricane Katrina, a disaster waiting to happen, developed in
    the Gulf of Mexico. The whole world listened to the experts who
    said that this was the long-dreaded ``big one'' that could take
    out the levees and flood the Big Easy. Yet FEMA seemed to
    underestimate the gravity of the storm coming and/or failed to
    realize that doing business as usual was unacceptable and would
    compound the disaster.
        Katrina obviously was not a typical hurricane in response
    to which FEMA or anyone else--Federal, State, or local--could
    work off of a typical playbook. Katrina required a more urgent,
    comprehensive, and aggressive governmental response.
        Katrina was a catastrophe. It knocked out many of the State
    and local communications, as Senator Collins has said, and
    response capabilities and overwhelmed those that remained. But
    FEMA seemed to expect a severely damaged State and local
    response network, itself the victim of the catastrophe, to
    operate as if it was at full and normal capacity.
        Like Senator Collins, I have been very surprised and upset
    to learn in the course of our Committee's investigation that
    America's battle plan for catastrophes, the National Response
    Plan's Catastrophic Incident Annex, was never activated in
    response to Katrina. And FEMA apparently still believes that it
    should not have been activated.
        As we will hear today, FEMA deployed too few people to
    respond to Katrina and deployed them too slowly. Many of those
    that did deploy apparently failed to appreciate what the
    breaking of the levees around New Orleans meant, and that
    failure had disastrous consequences, as we all know, for the
    people of New Orleans.
        As we learned at our previous hearings, New Orleans
    industrial canal levees were leveled by the storm surge early
    Monday morning, August 29. That led to almost immediate
    flooding in the eastern part of the city, including the lower
    9th Ward. By mid day, the Lake Pontchartrain levees were also
    breaking, and that led to a much slower flooding of downtown
    New Orleans, what we so often heard referred to as New Orleans
    ``filling up like a bowl.''
        Mr. Bahamonde, previously referred to as FEMA's first man
    on the ground in New Orleans, told us that he communicated
    these facts by mid day Monday to FEMA and had a conference call
    with FEMA officials at the emergency operations center, among
    others, that night. We now know that other sources were
    providing the same information throughout the day to the Baton
    Rouge emergency operations center, where FEMA's top regional
    operators were stationed. Yet, as we will hear today, the FEMA
    emergency response team did not depart Baton Rouge for New
    Orleans until noon on Tuesday, significant hours later, almost
    a full day after the hurricane had hit and already passed.
        By that time, Lake Pontchartrain had been dumping its
    waters into downtown New Orleans for hours, making it
    impossible for the FEMA team to bring its vital communications
    tractor-trailer, so-called ``Red October,'' into the city. This
    left the team without any reliable means of communications and
    reduced its effectiveness in New Orleans, as Senator Collins
    said, by some 90 percent. That is according to Mr. Parr's
    testimony that we will hear this morning.
        But that wasn't the only costly delay. Unfortunately, we
    have learned from other witnesses that the Coast Guard was
    performing rescue missions as soon as hurricane-force winds
    abated on Monday afternoon. The State itself sent out rescue
    boats later Monday afternoon. But FEMA's search and rescue
    teams didn't arrive in New Orleans until Tuesday morning, and
    we want to ask why.
        Given the catastrophic nature of Katrina's damage, we must
    understand why FEMA wasn't prepared to move sooner. And of
    course, the most vexing part of it all is not just that this
    was all foreseeable, but that, in fact, it had been foreseen.
    This precise disaster scenario was used in the Hurricane Pam
    planning exercise conducted in June 2004. It also had been the
    topic of numerous stories in the media and hurricane
    conferences over the years.
        This was not a failure of imagination, as some might want
    to label it. It was a failure of realization. Realization that
    the catastrophe, about which we had all long been warned, was
    about to occur and that FEMA and everybody else, State and
    local, had to move quickly to address it.
        Yes, a disaster like Hurricane Katrina is an act of God.
    Yes, there will be confusion in such extraordinary natural
    disasters. Yes, mistakes will be made by people who are well
    intentioned. But adequately preparing for and responding to a
    disaster of this magnitude required a well-led, well-trained,
    well-drilled, and well-manned FEMA that had a plan in place and
    a sense of mission to guide its actions.
        Regrettably, it appears to me, at this point in our
    investigation, that all of these things were lacking as
    disaster swept across the Gulf Coast region last August. This
    morning, we want to ask why. And I am confident that these
    three witnesses can help us answer that question.
        Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Stevens.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS

        Senator Stevens. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator
    Lieberman.
        I regret to disagree with the Senator from Connecticut. Our
    Committee took a trip to New Orleans. As a result of that trip,
    we became convinced that what happened in New Orleans was that
    Katrina went through New Orleans. We saw the buses in line that
    were ready to deal with the evacuation. The people of New
    Orleans were prepared for Hurricane Katrina. They were not
    prepared for the failure of the man-made systems of levees and
    gates and the enormous impact of that canal from New Orleans to
    the sea, which should never have been there.
        It is like saying that in terms of our earthquake, which we
    had in the Anchorage area, that someone was at fault because
    they didn't notify Kodiak and Seward that a tsunami might hit
    them--which did happen. What happened here is in the aftermath
    of Katrina going through, because of the subsequent series of
    events that caused the failure of the levees, the failure of
    the system, it was impossible to execute the plan.
        Now the plan for New Orleans was caused by a provision in
    the 1998 appropriations bill, which the last administration
    failed to make. But finally, in 1999, we mandated that plan. It
    was prepared. It was actually exercised after the start of
    2001. It was there, and I think the people of New Orleans
    started to follow that plan, and they started to move their
    people to the dome and to the various places which should have
    been safe.
        But with the failure of the man-made systems and the
    failure of having the ability to shut off the surge that came
    across Lake Pontchartrain, this became a man-made disaster. And
    I do not agree that we can fault FEMA or the City of New
    Orleans or the State of Louisiana for failing to anticipate the
    complete failure of the systems that were prepared in the past.
        As a matter of fact, I think you can go back to President
    Johnson's time and find that he tried to build even better
    systems at the time, and the funding was turned down.
        But as a practical matter, this damage, as sad as it is--it
    is a sad thing--it is not a failure of the warning system. The
    warning was there. It was a failure of systems that were put in
    over the last 30 years to prevent the surges that happened in a
    way and the combination of them was by the time that surge came
    in from the ocean, it came up that canal, it was like a tsunami
    coming up that canal. Had the canal not been there, those
    levees might not have failed.
        So this is not some time to critique the failure of the
    people involved to predict that the basic systems for
    protection that had been designed over a period of years would
    simultaneously all collapse. And that is what happened. Every
    single one of them collapsed.
        Now those were man-made. This isn't an act of God. This is
    a failure of our basic engineering systems, our basic concepts
    of protection, and we have to do better in the future. I am not
    going to join in criticizing those who tried to do the best in
    the most extraordinary circumstance I have ever seen.
        Now this Senator has seen war. I have seen cities in China
    totally destroyed. I never saw destruction like I saw in New
    Orleans. No person on Earth could have predicted that. It had
    to be a combination of circumstances caused by Katrina going
    through, and then the surge and all the collapse that came
    afterward.
        So I hope we look at FEMA and the rest of these people and
    ask them what can we do to prevent this in the future? Let us
    quit looking backwards and trying to assess blame. Let us find
    out what can we do to assure that this won't happen not only in
    New Orleans, but anywhere else where we are relying on levees
    and man-made protections to prevent disasters.
        Thank you very much.
        Chairman Collins. I would now like to welcome our panel of
    witnesses before us today.
        Our first witness, Scott Wells, joined FEMA as a Federal
    Coordinating Officer in 1999. Since that time, he has been
    deployed by FEMA to more than 20 disasters. For Hurricane
    Katrina, he was the second in command, serving as the deputy
    FCO.
        Mr. Wells arrived at the emergency operations center in
    Baton Rouge on Saturday, August 27. Mr. Wells previously served
    as an Army officer for more than 20 years, and he was the DOD
    liaison to FEMA before retiring from the Army in 1999.
        Next we will hear from Philip Parr. For more than 20 years,
    Mr. Parr served as a firefighter for New York City, ultimately
    rising to the rank of battalion chief. In January 2004, Mr.
    Parr left the New York City Fire Department and joined FEMA as
    a Federal Coordinating Officer.
        During Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Parr led the emergency
    response advance team and was deployed to New Orleans. Mr. Parr
    and members of his team arrived in the Superdome on the morning
    of Tuesday, August 30. He later led FEMA teams into the
    hardest-hit parishes of southern Louisiana.
        William Carwile joined FEMA in 1996 as director of Region
    10, headquartered in the Pacific, and was a Federal
    Coordinating Officer for five tropical storms in the Pacific.
    His emergency management experiences on the mainland include
    New York City following September 11, the 2003 California
    wildfires, and four hurricanes that struck Florida last year.
        During Hurricane Katrina, he served as the Federal
    Coordinating Officer for Mississippi. He is a retired U.S. Army
    colonel with a 30-year military career.
        I want to thank each of you for your testimony today and
    for your public service. Because this is part of an ongoing
    investigation, I would ask that you each stand so that I can
    swear you in. Please raise your right hand.
        Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give to
    the Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
    but the truth, so help you, God?
        The Witnesses. I do.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        Mr. Wells, if you would go first and proceed with your
    statement?

    TESTIMONY OF SCOTT WELLS,\1\ FEDERAL COORDINATING OFFICER, FEMA
               JOINT FIELD OFFICE, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

        Mr. Wells. Good morning, Chairman Collins and Members of
    the Committee.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wells appears in the Appendix on
    page 43.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        My name is Scott Wells, and I am honored to appear before
    you today. My current position with FEMA is Federal
    Coordinating Officer in Louisiana for Hurricanes Katrina and
    Rita.
        I would like to start this morning by thanking you for the
    invitation to testify before this Committee. I appreciate the
    opportunity to share my perspectives on FEMA operations before,
    during, and after our Nation's costliest disaster, Hurricane
    Katrina.
        It is my intention today to speak candidly with you about
    my experiences in Louisiana, both leading up to and following
    Katrina, as well as my perspectives on emergency management. I
    will begin my testimony today with a brief overview of my
    professional career in emergency management.
        For almost 2 decades, I served in various positions of
    emergency management. Beginning in 1985, for 2 years as a first
    responder MEDEVAC pilot. During my 24-year military career, I
    also spent 10 years in the Pentagon providing military support
    to civilian authorities. My last military assignment in the
    Pentagon was as a military liaison officer to FEMA.
        In these assignments, I was involved in numerous disasters
    and emergencies such as Hurricane Andrew, the Northridge
    earthquake, the Midwest floods of 1993, the Oklahoma City
    bombing, the Haitian/Cuban immigration emergency, the Waco
    siege, and the Ruby Ridge incident.
        I retired in 1999 from the Army and have been working for
    the Federal Emergency Management Agency as an FCO for the past
    6 years and served on several disasters and emergencies to
    include Tropical Storm Allison in Texas and the Columbia
    Shuttle recovery operation.
        On August 27, I was assigned to Louisiana as the Deputy
    Federal Coordinating Officer to Bill Lokey for Hurricane
    Katrina. I served in that capacity until September 19. At that
    time, I was reassigned to Texas as the Federal Coordinating
    Officer for Hurricane Rita, as she made her way through the
    Gulf of Mexico. As the FCO for Rita, I remained in Texas until
    the first week of October, at which time I returned to
    Louisiana to replace Bill Lokey for Hurricane Katrina.
        Detailed preparation for a Katrina landfall in Louisiana
    started in earnest on Friday, August 26, when the National
    Weather Service quickly changed the projected zone for landfall
    to include Louisiana. Much work had been done earlier in the
    week, but the focus of those efforts--given the projected path
    of the storm--was on Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi.
        Field deployments to Louisiana began on Saturday, August
    27, with the emergency response team's advance elements
    deploying to the Louisiana emergency operations center here in
    Baton Rouge. The Federal regional and national staffs
    consolidated that night and started conducting field operations
    in preparation for landfall.
        In addition to the command and control element being set up
    in Baton Rouge, we concurrently were setting up an operational
    staging area in Alexandria, Louisiana, that served as a Federal
    logistics base for Katrina operations.
        The first actual employment of Federal resources--that is,
    where we provided--FEMA provided response assets to the State--
    occurred on Sunday, the day before landfall, when we shipped
    six truckloads of water and three truckloads of MREs to the
    Superdome. Two of the truckloads, one each of water and MRE,
    did not complete delivery. They were denied entry by the
    Louisiana State Police before reaching the Superdome.
        That was the beginning of response operations and was soon
    followed by many other response resources, such as medical
    teams, search and rescue teams, and other critical commodities,
    such as water, food, and ice.
        There has been much said about the slow Federal response to
    Katrina. From my perspective, with all due respect to Senator
    Lieberman, I want to say nothing could be further from the
    truth. We had a fully operational logistics base, a fully
    operational command cell, and response teams in place, all
    before landfall. We even moved some supplies in before landfall
    and attempted to move in a medical team.
        On the day of landfall, we moved search and rescue teams,
    medical teams, and critical supplies into the affected area. It
    may not have been enough for an event of this magnitude, but it
    was fast.
        I think the real issue is that the response was not robust.
    It was not enough for the catastrophe at hand. And as you
    look--as we all look--to make it better next time, I think it
    is an important distinction to make. ``Slow'' means one thing.
    ``Not enough'' means something else. More importantly, the
    corrective actions between fixing ``slow'' and ``not enough''
    could be significant.
        Emergency management is unlike any other system in the
    government. It is a bottoms-up approach. The people on the
    ground are in charge. The first responders are supported, as
    required, by local government, then State government, and as a
    last resort, the Federal Government. Ultimately, authority for
    disaster response operations rests at the local level. The
    State and Federal Governments are not in charge, but are
    responsible for assisting local governments.
        And that is how it should be, as all disasters are local.
    Disasters start at the local level, and disasters end at the
    local level. This system works for small to medium disasters.
    It does not work so well for large disasters, and it falls
    apart for a catastrophic disaster. I think that is a
    fundamental problem with the response to Katrina.
        Following are some of the other major problems and proposed
    changes I believe could improve our national readiness posture
    to respond to future disasters. And I will list them, but in
    the interest of time, I won't go through all of my statement,
    but you will have it.
        (1) We need to strengthen the emergency management
    capability at the State and local level.
        (2) We need to review the emergency management architecture
    for response and recovery operations. There are problems
    associated with the implementation of the Stafford Act as it is
    executed through the National Response Plan and the Incident
    Command System.
        (3) We need a trained, staffed, and equipped Federal
    response team.
        (4) We need to change the financial management of
    disasters.
        (5) We need to simplify the public assistance process.
        (6) We need to simplify individual assistance process.
        (7) We need a greater investment in the leadership and
    management within FEMA.
        Emergency management is not a simple system. Accordingly,
    there are no simple solutions. To have an effective national
    disaster response structure, we must have a viable local,
    State, and Federal capability. If any of these links in the
    emergency management chain breaks, the system itself begins to
    break down. If we cannot have viability at all three levels,
    then we should change the system.
        Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share a field
    perspective of Hurricane Katrina.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Mr. Wells. Mr. Parr.

      TESTIMONY OF PHILIP E. PARR,\1\ DEPUTY FEDERAL COORDINATING
            OFFICER, FEMA JOINT FIELD OFFICE, AUSTIN, TEXAS

        Mr. Parr. First, I want to say good morning to this august
    Committee. Good morning, Chairman Collins.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Parr appears in the Appendix on
    page 52.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        My name is Phil Parr, and I want to thank you for the
    opportunity of testifying before you about my experiences and
    the response to Hurricane Katrina. The views expressed in my
    testimony are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views
    of the Department of Homeland Security.
        Presently, my position with FEMA is that of Federal
    Coordinating Officer. I have been involved with response and
    emergency management for the past 26 years. I was sworn in as a
    member of the New York City Fire Department in 1979 and rose
    through the ranks to attain the level of chief officer in 1999.
        During my tenure with the FDNY, and particularly during my
    tenure as a chief officer, I served in many capacities,
    including, but not limited to, fire and emergency ground
    commander, operations, planning for Y2K scenarios, and as a
    deputy director in the New York City Office of Emergency
    Management. I have played an active role in countless disasters
    and crisis situations to include the September 11 attack at the
    World Trade Center, where I was on scene prior to the towers
    collapse.
        Since January 2004, I have been a member of the Federal
    Coordinating Officer program, assigned to FEMA Region 1, New
    England. In this role, I have served in various capacities,
    including FCO for three presidentially declared disasters.
        Before I continue with my testimony, I think it is
    important to mention that I have always taken great pride in my
    years of service as a member of the New York City Fire
    Department. At one time, I would not imagine serving in any
    other position in which I would serve with the same feeling and
    pride.
        However, during my tenure with FEMA, the dedication to
    service as displayed by its members and their care for disaster
    victims has allowed me to serve with the same pride and
    satisfaction that I experienced during my previous 25 years of
    public service. So it is with that passion that I speak before
    this Committee, and I thank you again for the opportunity to do
    so.
        On Saturday, August 27, I was informed that I would be the
    emergency response team advance element team leader for the
    State of Texas. My team was composed of personnel from FEMA
    Region 1, New England, and we were instructed to rendezvous in
    the Region 6 Regional Response Coordination Center in Denton,
    Texas, on Sunday, August 28. Soon it became clear that Texas
    was not in the path of Hurricane Katrina and that members of my
    team and I would be assigned as the lead element in New
    Orleans, Louisiana.
        I flew to Louisiana immediately following the hurricane
    passing, Monday, August 29, with a contingent of my team. And
    Tuesday morning, August 30, we helicoptered into the Superdome.
    Our mission was threefold. One, form a unified command with the
    State, as represented by the Louisiana National Guard, and the
    City of New Orleans. Two, maintain visibility of commodities
    ordered. And three, build out a base from which FEMA teams
    could be formed to locate and assist in the hardest-hit
    parishes.
        To accomplish these goals, we were to meet a mobile
    emergency operations and communications vehicle and use that as
    a base of operations and communication. Due to extensive
    flooding in the city, our communications vehicle was unable to
    enter the Superdome, and this severely hampered our operations.
        Despite this, and while working under the most difficult of
    circumstances, we were able to assist the National Guard in
    maintaining a supply of food and water to Superdome evacuees--
    all were fed and provided water--and, even with limited
    communications, facilitate the arrival of what was to become
    over the next 4 days a thousand-bus convoy to evacuate the City
    of New Orleans to start the day after our arrival.
        The FEMA disaster medical assistance team treated hundreds
    and identified seriously injured and special needs patients who
    were evacuated via air and ground assets throughout the
    operation. In addition, several meetings were held with the
    mayor and his staff, ranking National Guard officers on the
    scene, and other Federal officials to include DOD and the Coast
    Guard. This facilitated the initiation of a unified command
    structure.
        Due to the enormity of the event, not all of our initial
    goals were met. A delay ensued in placing teams into other
    hard-hit parishes, which I believe took place that Friday and
    Saturday.
        I have been asked whether FEMA was overwhelmed, or could
    our response be considered slow? To consider the latter first,
    I must say, in my opinion, no. FEMA teams--response,
    management, medical, and urban search and rescue--were in
    position in four States pre-landfall. Commodities were staged
    close to the impacted areas, and in some cases, the hand-off to
    the State had already taken place.
        In addition, and as previously mentioned, FEMA mission
    assigned Emergency Support Function 1, the Department of
    Transportation, and they verified that, by September 3, 990
    buses were in service performing evacuations. It is estimated
    that over 66,000 persons were transported by that date. The
    number of buses grew to over 1,100 in the next 2 days.
        Were we overwhelmed? The simple answer is yes. But what
    needs to be understood is that, at any disaster, the initial
    response always feels overwhelmed. I must draw on my experience
    as a local responder to give you an example on a small scale of
    what I mean, and then a larger one.
        The police officer who pulls up to a 2-car accident with
    severe injuries while he operates alone, waiting for help, is
    overwhelmed. The fire officer who pulls up to a burning
    structure with people trapped inside is overwhelmed. But the
    true professional, while responding and operating, knows that
    he is constantly sizing up the situation, gaining intelligence,
    shifting strategies, modifying plans, and calling for
    assistance where needed to meet unfulfilled needs, whether
    expected or unexpected.
        I would like to refer back to the disaster of September 11
    and its effect on the emergency personnel operating at the
    World Trade Center. First, it must be remembered that within
    the 369 square miles of New York City are the resources of a
    State with a strong central government. There are over 35,000
    New York City police officers, about 13,000 firefighters and
    emergency medical personnel. These numbers only begin to
    enumerate the assets available to the city. No other city in
    the country can begin to come close to the responders that are
    contained within New York City.
        The response to the attacks on the towers was immediate.
    The enormity of the task at hand was overwhelming. Then with
    the collapse of the towers, it was chaos. Emergency services
    within New York regrouped almost immediately and restarted
    operations, but a full, coordinated plan took days.
        The World Trade Center complex was 13 acres. The landfall
    of Hurricane Katrina affected four States and covered an area
    of 90,000 square miles, an area the size of Great Britain. It
    affected millions.
        Effectively, Louisiana was hit by two disasters. First, a
    devastating hurricane along with its associated blast damage
    and, second, a catastrophic flooding event caused by levee
    failures. Hurricane Katrina was the most devastating disaster
    to hit our country. We were all overwhelmed--the city, the
    State, the affected parishes, and the Federal Government.
        What can FEMA, individuals, local governments, and States
    do to be more prepared? First, it must be realized that the
    response to any crisis or disaster is the responsibility of
    every individual and form of government in this country.
    Emergency management is more than just coordination. It is
    about partnership with all entities previously mentioned.
        Each of us plays a vital part, and any one of us who fails
    in our part fails in that partnership. That failed
    responsibility must be picked up by one of their partners, and
    that causes delay, confusion, and lack of coordination.
        For FEMA's part, it is my belief we have not done what is
    needed to get that message across to individuals, locals, and
    States. We have worked to create an image that Uncle Sam will
    be on your doorstep with MREs, food, water, and ice before the
    hurricane-force winds subside. We have created an expectation
    that in a large or no-notice event, such as a terrorist attack
    or an earthquake, we can never hope to meet.
        As an agency, we must help our partners understand their
    role in the emergency management cycle, as many States and
    locals do now. To this end, I believe we can do much with
    conditional and competitive grants to State and local
    governments to achieve this.
        Generally because response is immediate and local, FEMA's
    primary role in disaster is recovery. With some notable
    exceptions, what is described at the Federal level as response
    in actuality is ``response support''--that is, supplying life-
    saving commodities--with local and State responders performing
    what we traditionally call response.
        But as an agency, we can do better in the response role.
    Primarily, I believe this can be accomplished by a shift in
    attitude and training by some in management and decisionmaking
    roles in our agency.
        In another area of improvement, FEMA has initiated a total
    asset visibility system whereby truckloads of commodities can
    be located via satellite transponder and tracked more closely.
    This system must be fully put online before our next hurricane
    season.
        We should recognize that FEMA is a small agency, especially
    when compared with other Federal agencies. But its strength
    lies in the fact that the National Response Plan identifies it
    as the coordinating agency for the entire Federal response.
        I believe more drills, familiarization and otherwise, are
    necessary between FEMA and other Federal agencies to help
    clarify roles and responsibilities under the NRP and in their
    critical emergency support functions. Understanding their
    contribution and role in the emergency response team structure
    is essential for effective response. These crucial elements
    must be established and become routine to help ensure that a
    better-coordinated Federal package can be delivered to States
    to assist them in their response.
        Additional standardized and practical training must be
    provided to personnel who may be asked to serve on response
    teams at the county or local level. Training programs and
    expectations that build on practical experience from this and
    previous operations, with input from States, must be provided
    to FEMA staff, who may be needed to assist at the local level
    in response operations.
        As with any operation, I hope that, as an agency, we can
    make these changes based on lessons learned. I would also hope
    that State and local officials will review their emergency
    management procedures and also adopt necessary changes.
    Finally, each citizen has a responsibility to plan, heed
    warnings, and do whatever is within their means to prepare and
    respond to disaster.
        Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this subject.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Carwile.

        TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM L. CARWILE III,\1\ FORMER FEDERAL
        COORDINATING OFFICER, FEMA JOINT FIELD OFFICE, BILOXI,
                              MISSISSIPPI

        Mr. Carwile. Good morning, Chairman Collins and
    distinguished Members of the Committee.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Carwile appears in the Appendix
    on page 61.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I am Bill Carwile. Thank you for inviting me today to
    testify about operations in Mississippi during Hurricane
    Katrina.
        Between August 29 and October 15, I was initially the
    Federal Coordinating Officer and later the Deputy Federal
    Coordinating Officer. I recently retired from FEMA and am
    currently affiliated with the Center for Homeland Defense and
    Security at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey,
    California. I am testifying today as a private citizen.
        There are many lessons to be learned from the responses to
    Hurricane Katrina. I applaud your efforts to gather information
    critical to charting a future for disaster operations in our
    country. I hope my testimony will, in some way, make a
    contribution to that undertaking.
        My perspective is from one who has been in the field, on
    the ground in large-scale disasters during much of the last 9
    years. My recent experiences include serving as operations
    section chief for the World Trade Center operations in New
    York, serving as Federal Coordinating Officer for the 2003
    wildfires in California, and FCO for each of the four
    hurricanes last year in Florida.
        I joined FEMA in 1996 as the director of the Pacific area
    office in Honolulu, Hawaii, where I reside today. In 1999, I
    became one of the first members of the Federal Coordinating
    Officer program created to provide a pool of trained
    professionals to manage the Federal side of disasters.
        In 2003, I was appointed as one of the first predesignated
    principal Federal officials by former Homeland Security
    Secretary Tom Ridge. Prior to my service with FEMA, I retired
    as an Army colonel, having served almost 3 decades as a special
    forces and infantry officer in the regular Army. My assignments
    included two tours in Vietnam.
        I would like to address three major points in my oral
    testimony. First, there were three separate presidential
    disaster declarations as Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf
    Coast--Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. These were three
    different disasters in the type and extent of destruction, the
    number of people affected, and each State's constitutional
    relationships with its local jurisdictions.
        While each disaster was different, they were similar in
    that in each disaster the governor of the State was in charge.
    As FCO, I was appointed by the President as his representative
    to support the governor using the authorities provided for in
    the Stafford Act. While there were three distinct disasters,
    today my comments will cover only operations in Mississippi,
    where I was.
        Second, in my view, this was the first time we fully
    implemented appropriate portions of the National Incident
    Management System, the National Response Plan, and the Incident
    Command System in a major disaster response. During the summer
    of 2005, following the distribution of the National Response
    Plan, many Federal and State emergency managers underwent
    training on the plan and ICS.
        Fortunately, I and key members of our emergency response
    team in Mississippi, which is mostly comprised of personnel
    with whom I have worked for years, had participated in
    extensive ICS training. Similarly, Mississippi Emergency
    Management Agency Director Robert Latham and his staff and most
    county emergency managers had recently undergone NIMS and ICS
    training.
        One of the key members of my team, operations section chief
    Bob Fenton, has long been involved in the doctrine on training
    development, is an expert on how to adapt ICS for large-scale
    operations.
        Using this training and our experience in prior disasters,
    Robert Latham and I and our teams established a unified command
    to a degree beyond which I believe is envisioned by the
    National Response Plan and began the joint incident action
    planning process, which set our priorities for each of the
    operational periods, which is a 24-hour period at first,
    following the ICS concepts. Governor Barbour attended and
    participated in many of our meetings and provided leadership
    and important strategic guidance.
        During the response, we found that some aspects of the
    National Response Plan did not fit our organizational needs for
    a joint State/Federal response to a catastrophic disaster. We
    found it necessary to modify some important aspects of the
    plan. These changes are detailed in my written testimony.
        While it is my belief that ICS works well for fires and
    smaller disasters, some substantial modifications are required
    for large-scale events. Mostly, these modifications revolve
    around the need for unified command up and down the
    organization and in order to address political and operational
    realities.
        I would recommend that an effort be made to capture the
    experiences of the individual geographic and branch directors
    and division supervisors. They were down in the communities and
    provided us a manageable span of control. This might be
    accomplished through interviews, similar to the Army's oral
    history program, to find out what really worked down there,
    where the rubber meets the road.
        This effort will provide a more detailed view of what
    changes to the NRP should be made to accommodate the realities
    of joint State/Federal response to a catastrophic disaster.
        Third, there have been questions raised about the
    competence of FEMA personnel in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
    In my career in FEMA, I worked with many dedicated and highly
    competent individuals who were committed to serving both our
    country and the victims of disasters. Many routinely give up
    holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and normal family lives to
    help others. I am proud to have been part of FEMA and
    especially proud of the many individuals whose heroic efforts
    helped the people of Mississippi and other States in which I
    have served. They deserve our thanks.
        A disaster can bring out the best in people. There are
    thousands of stories of individual acts of heroism and
    kindnesses during Katrina. Mississippians helped their
    neighbors. Hundreds of local officials, who had just lost
    everything, reported for duty. And all around the country,
    volunteers left their lives behind and headed for the Gulf
    Coast to help.
        We should not forget, however, that in a catastrophic
    disaster, the government and those wonderful voluntary agencies
    can never provide adequate aid in the immediate aftermath of
    the disaster. We all need to better prepare ourselves and our
    families and be ready to help our neighbors.
        In my written testimony, I provide comments about what I
    think went well and what didn't go well in the response and
    initial recovery for Katrina in Mississippi. Two main points.
    The State/Federal unified command worked well in Mississippi.
    But this success was obscured by the fact that requested
    resources did not arrive quickly enough. Better, more effective
    methods must be adopted to quickly deliver resources in a
    catastrophic event.
        In Mississippi, while temporary housing has been provided
    in numbers far exceeding any previous effort, this success is
    obscured by the overwhelming need and an exceptionally long
    period of time that people remain in shelters. New
    methodologies must be examined and implemented to take care of
    Americans in need of humane housing while in a catastrophic
    event.
        These are but two of the many challenges the Nation faces
    if it is to really prepare for the next catastrophic disaster.
    We must do all we can to capture the lessons learned, both good
    and bad, from Katrina in Mississippi in order to make real
    changes so that the next time, elected and appointed officials
    will be able to better support the needs of victims.
        I thank the Committee for undertaking this important work
    for the Nation. I will be glad to try to answer any questions
    you may have.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you for your testimony.
        I want to start my questioning today to get your judgment,
    your assessment of preparedness and response at the State and
    local level. As Mr. Wells pointed out in his testimony, our
    Nation's emergency management structure is often referred to as
    a bottom-up structure. It has key roles for local, State, and
    Federal Governments to play.
        I thought that Mr. Wells made an important point when he
    said that there is some misconception on the part of the public
    about who plays what role in our emergency response system. So
    starting with you, Mr. Wells, if FEMA and the Federal
    Government are at the top of the structure, how did the bottom
    part work, in your judgment, for Hurricane Katrina? How would
    you assess the State and local response in Louisiana?
        Mr. Wells. Well, a lot of it is situational. Each parish in
    Louisiana has different capability. The important thing in
    emergency management is you have to have a foundation
    established for the Federal departments to build on.
        When we go into a disaster, the locals are in charge. The
    locals ask for assistance from the State, who, in turn, asks
    for assistance from FEMA. If there is no structure, if there is
    no organization, if there is no capability at the local or the
    State level, there is no foundation from which we can build.
        I will give you one example to compare between Katrina in
    Louisiana and Rita in Texas to try to demonstrate what I mean
    by that. In Texas, for Rita, I was there for the preparation
    phase, and we are just going to talk about prior to landfall
    because it is equivalent to Katrina in that no disaster struck.
    It wasn't catastrophic in Texas for Rita. So, post landfall, it
    was different. So let us just talk about pre-landfall.
        In the State of Texas, they had plans. They had plans at
    the local level. They had plans at the State level that
    leveraged the Federal capability. One example, evacuation. In
    Texas, we were asked--the Federal Government--to provide
    evacuation support prior to landfall. The State of Texas had a
    plan to build on, and so we worked with the State of Texas and
    the areas of Beaumont to Houston to evacuate special needs
    patients, elderly, and the disabled. One person had an iron
    lung.
        This is a very difficult mission. Just getting one patient
    onboard an airplane is very difficult, and they did somewhere
    between 11,000 and 13,000. And we were able to have an
    effective national response structure--national is local,
    State, and Federal--because the Federal Government had
    something to build on. We did not have that in Louisiana.
        Chairman Collins. Senator Stevens informs me that he has to
    leave, and he has one question that he would like to ask before
    he does so.
        Senator Stevens. Thank you very much. I am going to the
    reconciliation meeting.
        One of the problems we are having is that there seems to be
    a congressional feeling about the extent of our responsibility
    to the people in New Orleans, who really suffered damage from
    what I call really man-made disasters. I wonder if the two of
    you would join me in sending a letter from this Committee
    asking the Department of Justice if there is a different
    standard of liability for the Federal Government to those areas
    that were not harmed by Katrina, but were harmed by the failure
    of the levee and other systems that were man-made?
        Chairman Collins. Well, as the distinguished Senator may be
    aware, we have had one hearing looking at why the levees have
    failed. We have a second hearing scheduled for next week, which
    is going to look at all the roles of the various players--the
    local levee district, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the
    State of Louisiana, and the Commonwealth of Louisiana's
    Transportation Department.
        There is a lot of confusion, our investigation has found,
    over who was responsible for the maintenance and the inspection
    of the levees. I would like to wait until we complete that
    hearing before proceeding. But I hope you will be able to
    attend that hearing. I think it is going to be a very
    interesting one, based on what our extensive investigation has
    found.
        Senator Lieberman.
        Senator Lieberman. Yes, thanks, Madam Chairman.
        Senator Stevens, obviously, I would be glad to look at any
    letter you put together. But I agree with the Chairman, it is
    probably best for us to wait until after the hearing next week.
        I will just say very briefly, because I know you have to
    go, where I think we agree is that the immediate cause of most
    of the damage in New Orleans was the failure of the levees. And
    there is some reason to believe--I can't conclude at this
    point--from what we have heard that there was a failure of
    construction, design, and other issues.
        Where I think we disagree is that, unfortunately, I believe
    that was foreseeable. In other words, the levees may have
    failed more quickly and in some different ways than people
    expected. But we have a lot of history that we put together
    here that shows that the experts were all saying if a category
    3 or higher hurricane hit New Orleans, those levees would not
    hold.
        Maybe more of them broke than we thought. Maybe they broke
    sooner. But there is a lot of communication indicating they
    might fail. In fact, the Hurricane Pam exercise that was
    carried out in June 2004 was based on the levees failing and
    what would we do as a result. And that is where, I think, we
    have a reason to ask FEMA why it wasn't ready to deal with it.
        Senator Stevens. Well, I think my question goes to who is
    going to be responsible? There is a lot of damage out there now
    that was not covered by insurance, either flood or otherwise.
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Senator Stevens. And attempts to try and use Federal funds
    to meet some of that damage is being met with resistance. I
    think the duty of this Committee is to demonstrate that there
    is an extra added level of responsibility in the areas where
    those levees failed.
        And it is true that there were predictions. When we did our
    thing in appropriations in 1998 and 1999, we had the feeling
    that there were severe problems. We had people that told us
    there were problems there.
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Senator Stevens. But notwithstanding that, we got a plan.
    But no one really fixed the levees, and no one fixed the gates,
    and people have suffered enormous loss. Now we have to have a
    greater feeling in Congress about our responsibility to those
    people who are in that one area where it was not just Katrina,
    a natural disaster, but damage from man-made disaster.
        I think there has been a failure in Congress to recognize
    that difference. But I appreciate and I hope I can attend the
    hearing. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        I am going to resume my questioning with Mr. Wells to try
    to get us back on track a little bit.
        It was helpful to hear your different experience dealing
    with Louisiana versus Texas. In general, were the Louisiana
    officials that you dealt with familiar with their
    responsibilities under the National Response Plan? And did they
    understand how the Incident Command System worked, in your
    view?
        Mr. Wells. No. Short answer.
        The Incident Command System is very important. You cannot
    do anything without command and control. If I may take a minute
    to read something from an emergency services person who is on a
    workgroup for the search and rescue mission, which was a
    combined effort of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and
    Fisheries, the Coast Guard, the state police for Louisiana,
    DOTD, and FEMA, to show you what it is like when you don't have
    an effective Incident Command System? And I am just going to
    read this verbatim. It is unvarnished.
        ``Establishing a State/Federal search and rescue workgroup
    on August 28 was a great concept. However, there were some
    shortfalls. The workgroup was a joint effort in name only. We
    had a great initial meeting and established solid operational
    concepts, but had no decision-makers present with the authority
    to obligate their agency's resources.
        ``The State appointed a workgroup leader who was to oversee
    the State assets. However, this workgroup leader flew to
    Jackson barracks the afternoon after the initial meeting and
    was not heard from for 9 days. For 3 weeks, I sponsored''--this
    was the FEMA person--``the workgroup's twice-a-day meetings
    that were attended by FEMA, who had resources and authority to
    direct search efforts.
        ``The U.S. Coast Guard, who had junior officer
    representation but no authority to direct search and rescue air
    operation, all operations were directed by senior Coast Guard
    officers from another location. These officers refused to meet
    and conduct joint search and rescue operations with FEMA and
    State agencies.
        ``State wildlife and fisheries had representation but no
    authority to make management decisions on search and rescue
    operations. That authority remained with senior officers who
    conducted solo operations.
        ``State police, who had an interest in following up on 911
    calls, but had no State search and rescue authorities or
    resources to assist.
        ``Civil air patrol attended and had air resources to
    support search and rescue, but had no State taskings to engage
    their resources.
        ``The DOTD, the State Department of Transportation, had
    resources to support joint search and rescue missions, but
    refused to attend any of the meetings or plan joint efforts.''
        This is a failure of the Incident Command System. It is all
    about having people that can make decisions on the spot and get
    on down the road. This is just but one example of why things
    were slow and why things didn't work out as fast, as efficient,
    or as effective as they should. If people don't understand ICS,
    we can't do ICS. And if we can't do ICS, we cannot manage
    disasters.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Parr, what is your assessment of how
    the Incident Command System worked in Louisiana?
        Mr. Parr. I want to echo Mr. Wells's sentiments. It is
    extremely important, in my experience, at a local level, as
    something that is near and dear to my heart. I think, and as I
    said before--and this is not necessarily to point fingers, but
    hopefully, for us to critique ourselves and learn how we can do
    better next time--I cannot begin to explain the dedication that
    the police officers and firefighters in the City of New
    Orleans, how they acted, how they responded.
        The same thing with the National Guard. I was working with
    people every second of every day who literally lost everything.
    But they were there doing their jobs, working as hard as they
    could.
        I think one place where we need vast improvement is in
    their preparation. It is the responsibility of local
    authorities to evacuate their people. It is the responsibility
    of local authorities to set up shelters that are properly
    protected from flood waters, that are properly protected from
    hurricanes because not all are going to be able to be
    evacuated. It would be unreasonable for us to expect 100
    percent evacuation of a city the size of New Orleans.
        I found that there was very little preparation. No
    information on shelters other than the Superdome. There was no
    assets or commodities at the Superdome, other than what FEMA
    gave to the State, which they did distribute at the Superdome.
        There were no sanitation facilities before the levees
    broke. You can imagine the difficulty of moving sanitation
    facilities into a city with 4, 5, 6, and, in some areas of the
    city, 14 feet of water once that happened. That is the job of
    local and State governments. And simply, that just did not
    happen.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Carwile, how did the Incident Command
    System work in Mississippi?
        Mr. Carwile. Madam Chairman, I think it worked very well at
    the top. There had been training previous to Hurricane Katrina
    by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency on down to the
    county emergency managers. So it worked well.
        We quickly were able to form a unified command with both
    myself and Robert Latham, my counterpart from the State. And we
    included at the top of the unified command the Adjutant General
    for the State of Mississippi, Major General Cross, as well as
    the commissioner of public safety, George Phillips, because
    each one of those brought so much to the table in terms of
    resources to manage.
        I think where the difficulty becomes--and I believe Senator
    Lieberman talked about this in his opening remarks--in a
    situation, a catastrophic disaster, it is very difficult to
    build from the bottom up if there is no bottom. Mayor Tommy
    Longo of Waveland and over in Hancock County, Mississippi, I
    mean, he lost every fire truck, and the fire station. Every
    police officer lost their home. There was no city hall. There
    was nothing left for Mayor Longo to build on.
        Similarly, in Hancock County, the emergency operations
    center in the county had to be evacuated, and we moved our
    folks over to Stennis in order to have a communications and a
    coherent system. So I think it is true that it builds from the
    bottom up. But in a catastrophic, we have got to be able to
    reach down and to supplement the absence of a coherent system
    down below.
        And to get around that, we predeployed division supervisors
    with communications from both the Federal and the State teams
    to the three what we believed would be, most impacted counties
    with available resources to prop up, if you will, those great
    first responders and emergency managers and mayors down in the
    local areas.
        We did not do that to the degree we would have liked to
    have done it because, frankly, there was a paucity of trained
    personnel to do that. But I think overall, and I believe in
    ICS. I think that we need to make some modifications as we look
    at a catastrophic, however, because, to me, the unified command
    as it is outlined in the National Response Plan calls for
    unified command only at the top, a few people.
        I believe that unified command has to go all the way down
    the structure, and we have to be able to use State and Federal
    personnel to prop up local communities that have been totally
    destroyed by something like Katrina.
        Chairman Collins. I think that is an excellent point that
    perhaps we should take a look at whether the system is
    scalable, whether it makes sense to expect the State and local
    governments to play the role that is envisioned when the
    magnitude of the catastrophe may wipe out all of the capability
    at the State and local level.
        Mr. Carwile.
        Mr. Carwile. Yes, ma'am. And I think we can do that without
    in any way encumbering or impeding the constitutional
    authorities within the State constitutions of the local elected
    and appointed officials.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Wells, under the current system, FEMA
    is besieged with requests from State and local governments for
    various commodities or forms of assistance. I would like to
    refer your attention to certain exhibits that are in the book
    that is by you, specifically Exhibits 8, 9, G, H, and I. They
    all reflect requests made by State and local government
    entities in Louisiana to FEMA for assistance.
        And I am just going to go through what those are. Exhibit
    8\1\ is from the New Orleans police department asking FEMA for,
    among other things, 400 M-4 weapons, 25,000 rounds of
    ammunition, 1,500 pairs of black military boots in various
    sizes, and 200 Crown Victoria police cruisers.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Exhibit 8 appears in the Appendix on page 83.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Exhibit 9\2\ is from New Orleans parish, and it asks for 10
    gas-powered golf carts to transport firefighters around Zephyr
    Field.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\ Exhibit 9 appears in the Appendix on page 90.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Exhibit G\3\ is from Mayor Nagin's office. It seeks a bus
    to Shreveport. Exhibit H\4\ is also from the mayor's office. It
    seeks portable air conditioning units to cool offices. And
    Exhibit I\5\ is from the Louisiana Department of Social
    Services, asking for a taxi to take one person from a hospital
    to a shelter.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \3\ Exhibit G appears in the Appendix on page 99.
        \4\ Exhibit H appears in the Appendix on page 102.
        \5\ Exhibit I appears in the Appendix on page 104.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        As I was reading through these requests, they struck me as
    not the typical requests that State and local governments would
    make to FEMA during a natural disaster. But obviously, I don't
    have your experience.
        First, let me ask you, are these typical of the requests
    that you would expect to get from State and local governments
    to FEMA in the aftermath of a disaster?
        Mr. Wells. The problem with these is we got literally
    hundreds and hundreds of requests like this intermingled with
    valid requests. And when you get that volume that are not
    screened, it clogs down the system for legitimate requests that
    we need to process.
        I think this is an indication of just a lack of
    understanding--this came from the local level--the lack of
    understanding of what FEMA is there for, what we can do, and
    probably more importantly, what they can do themselves.
        Also, we normally with most disaster operations, when the
    request comes to the State emergency ops center, they will
    screen out all of those requests prior to us even getting them.
    So this is not typical. No, ma'am.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
        Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks to you
    three gentlemen.
        Having heard your opening statements and the questioning
    thus far, I go back to what I said at the beginning. You are
    three extraordinary professionals. I admire the work that you
    have done. We are lucky to have had you working and to have you
    still working, at least in two cases, for FEMA.
        And what strikes me as particularly significant is that you
    have something to add from the ground about what we could do to
    perform better in the next catastrophic natural disaster. That
    you are proud of your service in FEMA, but you are not
    defensive about everything that happened. And I think that is
    the spirit of this Committee. We are not out to get or protect
    anybody in this. We are out to figure out what happened.
        In response to what Senator Stevens said, just beyond what
    I have said when he was here, there is no question that New
    Orleans suffered a lot because the levees failed. It was a
    hurricane that would have had one level of damage. But the
    levees failing compounded it enormously. The failure of the
    levees was not only foreseeable, but was foreseen for years if
    the hurricane was above category 3.
        In fact, there is some reason now to believe that maybe the
    levees failed even earlier with a lower category impact of the
    hurricane because of some kind of negligence in design or
    construction. That is a very important question we have to
    answer.
        But having said all of that doesn't mean that FEMA was
    ready or did everything it should have done. And that is why,
    in a nondefensive way, we want to get at it. I will say and ask
    my first questions to you, Mr. Wells, that just a few of the
    things you have said so far suggest to me changes that ought to
    be implemented.
        For instance, as you said, and in some sense was expanded
    upon by Mr. Parr and Mr. Carwile in response to Senator
    Collins' questions, the bottoms-up approach makes a lot of
    sense in many disasters or emergencies. I wrote it down
    quickly, so I may have missed it. But when you get to a large
    disaster, it doesn't work so well. And when you get to a
    catastrophe, the bottoms-up falls apart.
        And part of what I think, therefore, we probably want to do
    as a government going forward is, as you all said, to put in
    place for FEMA and the rest of the Federal apparatus some plans
    in those more significant disaster situations when the bottoms-
    up won't work, and the Federal Government really has to assume
    a significant amount of responsibility.
        Second very instructive thing I thought you said, you
    compared the preparation of Texas for Hurricane Rita to the
    prepareatin of New Orleans and Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina.
    Texas had an evacuation plan that was adequate to the
    circumstances. We all understand that Rita didn't hit at the
    level of catastrophe that Katrina did. But you saw a plan
    there, which you didn't see in the case of Louisiana.
        So this suggests to me that part of what we may want to do
    as a matter of law or regulation, probably law, is to have some
    more aggressive Federal oversight of the emergency planning of
    State and local authorities to the point of having to certify
    and make sure not just that we look at it, but that they
    actually have as comprehensive a plan ready for emergencies as
    possible.
        Mr. Wells, let me, in that spirit, go on. Because as I read
    the statements that you made to our staff in the interviews, I
    am struck by one quote after another in which you are willing,
    from the ground, in a very professional and confident way to
    say this just didn't go as it should have gone. And I am going
    to quote a little bit.
        You talk about FEMA's ability to respond, ``But FEMA is not
    trained. FEMA is not equipped. FEMA is not organized to do very
    large response operations.''
        You talk about inadequate communications, ``What we had was
    a communications kind of vacuum here in Baton Rouge.''
        You speak of FEMA's difficulties in staffing positions.
    ``Just about every position we have, this is a secondary job
    for people. I think everybody fails to recognize this. Very
    important.''
        ``Our system is based on--this is whole interagency--who is
    available at this time, put them in there, get them out the
    door.''
        You acknowledge difficulties in planning. ``Now we did do
    some different things here that would need a lot of study like
    the continuity of government. We didn't work continuity of
    government at all. In New Orleans, they melted down. Their
    whole government was just melted down. We didn't have a plan
    for continuity of government.''
        And I was struck also by your views of the Stafford Act,
    ``You need different laws. The Stafford Act is not--the
    Stafford Act is like bringing a donkey to the Kentucky Derby.''
    Have you heard him say that before? ``It is not designed for a
    disaster this big.''
        So what I am saying is that your candor is very important
    and very appreciated and very necessary as we work together to
    try to fix this. And bottom line, it would appear from your
    statements that FEMA was lacking a plan, communications,
    appropriate personnel, and various other assets to deal with a
    catastrophic disaster of this kind.
        I want to give you a chance now to comment broadly on those
    points that you made in the staff interviews.
        Mr. Wells. I don't know if I can remember all that you
    said, sir. Let us talk about the FEMA part----
        Senator Lieberman. Yes.
        Mr. Wells [continuing]. And the Stafford Act and all that.
    We are not, we do not have the capability versus equipment,
    people, expertise, training to do large catastrophic disasters.
    We do not have teams. We do not work as teams. The people you
    get, and it is not just FEMA--this was a National Response
    Plan.
        And people talk ``FEMA this and FEMA that.'' But you know
    what? FEMA, once you get out in the field, we are a very small
    percentage of what is out there. And at the height of Katrina,
    I think we had, if you include the military, maybe 70,000
    people?
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Wells. And FEMA was maybe 1,500 or 2,000 of that. And
    even when the military went down, it was still a small part.
        Senator Lieberman. Am I right that full-time FEMA personnel
    are numbered at about 2,000? This is all around the country,
    not in that crisis.
        Mr. Wells. Right. There are only 2,500.
        Senator Lieberman. And so, what you are drawing on when you
    say 1,500 to 2,000 personnel for Katrina was redeployment of
    FEMA full-time personnel from elsewhere, but also a lot of
    part-time people or people just brought in for the crisis?
        Mr. Wells. Right.
        Senator Lieberman. I want to get to that later.
        Mr. Wells. Anyway, we do not have enough people. We rob
    Peter to pay Paul in disasters. Even in medium disasters, we
    are doing that. We have 10 regions we have to man. A regional
    office has to do three things. They have to do two things. They
    need to do three things, but they have to do two things.
        They have to set up a regional response coordination
    center. It is an emergency ops center. And they have to staff a
    team that goes forward to Louisiana like we did. Now you only
    have about 90 people in a region. That is woefully inadequate
    to do both. You cannot do both. Pick one.
        When you get to a field, when we got to Louisiana, we had
    enough staff for our advance team to do maybe half of what we
    needed to do for a day shift. We had to do a day and night
    shift. So we had to prioritize.
        We did not have the people. We did not have the expertise.
    We did not have the operational training folks that we needed
    to do our mission. And it has been this way for years, sir.
    Years after years, you are working on the margins. You are
    getting people from other agencies with no experience or no
    experience in response operations. They are just filling a
    billet. We have never trained together.
        We need to really train together as a team. We need to work
    as a team. What you have with this National Response Plan in
    the field is we have no unity of command.
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Wells. FEMA has more of a coordination role. We need to
    have a command role, where we can direct the sub-elements
    assigned to us to do things. And it doesn't play out that way,
    despite what the National Response Plan indicates.
        Senator Lieberman. That is a very important point. In some
    sense, as I read your testimony, as I hear you today, it is as
    if you are the generals, and you are first rate. But we haven't
    really given you an adequate trained force to go into battle
    with you.
        I want to ask a few questions similar to Mr. Carwile. I
    know you also expressed some concern about FEMA's staffing
    levels and problems. In your opening statement, you talked of
    how FEMA needs many more trained people.
        I know that you had a chance to look at these problems. I
    wonder if you would describe the impact of funding decisions on
    FEMA's effectiveness, particularly the ERT-N team. And let me
    refer you in particular to a memorandum that I believe you
    contributed to, dated June 30, 2004, which is Exhibit 1.\1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Exhibit 1 appears in the Appendix on page 72.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        In it, you refer ``to the unpreparedness of national
    emergency response teams.'' You say the teams are unprepared
    because of ``zero funding for training exercises or
    equipment.'' So I ask you to comment on that in light of what
    you found in the response to Katrina.
        Mr. Carwile. Yes, Senator Lieberman. This has long been a
    concern of mine, as well as Mr. Wells.
        After September 11, I was asked by Director Allbaugh at the
    time to reconstitute a national team, an emergency response
    team national, and to write an operations plan and be prepared
    to respond to the next terrorist event. It was an all-hazards
    plan, but the focus, obviously, at the time was on terrorism.
        I took a small group from New York City, our joint field
    office there, went down to Atlanta and put together a team of
    very seasoned emergency managers and with members of other
    Federal agencies, including the military, and wrote what was
    known then as an ERT-N op plan. We were then able to build a
    team to about 125 individuals, hand picked, from around the
    country, and we were able to routinely exercise that team
    because we had the funding in place to do so on the plan
    against several scenarios.
        Senator Lieberman. Were these full-time FEMA employees?
        Mr. Carwile. Yes, sir. For the most part. We did have some
    reservists, which we called disaster assistance employees, on
    the team. But the intent was to use them only in certain areas
    where we have almost no full-time employees to do certain
    functions within FEMA. We rely solely on our reservists for
    things like administration and that sort of thing.
        We were asked to take the team to the Winter Olympics in
    Salt Lake City, and we exercised and exercised. And as well as
    buying satellite communications and being able to, we felt we
    had a robust plan, a well-trained team, and communications.
        It wasn't long after that, and the longer we got away from
    September 11, the less funding we had. Funding, it appeared to
    us--and I am just a field guy, not a headquarters person. The
    small amount of money we did have was being diverted, and we
    got no money in the out-years. So there was no money.
        Then we morphed that team into another team. The red team
    morphed, and we split it up and formed a blue team. And
    subsequently, a white team, which was a hollow team. But there
    was never any money. In former years, prior to September 11,
    when I was on a national team, we at least had money to do one
    training event a year and one meeting for the leadership of the
    teams. That money also went away.
        Senator Lieberman. So in that period of years that you have
    described post-September 11, there was no money for training
    exercises?
        Mr. Carwile. Except for that first year, sir.
        Senator Lieberman. That first year.
        Mr. Carwile. Yes, sir. And after that, the money went away,
    and the emphasis on the readiness of those teams, as I said in
    my opening comments, I came from 30 years in the military. We
    had a very rigorous reporting system and the red/amber/green to
    report unit status. We had nothing like that in FEMA, although
    those things were being--anyway, I think there was a great
    problem in resourcing those teams.
        Senator Lieberman. Yes. So this was not only a natural
    disaster waiting to happen, this was a personnel, kind of a
    FEMA disaster waiting to happen because we weren't giving you
    the resources to get ready for this.
        If I may, Madam Chairman, I just want to ask one follow-up
    question because I think it is important. It is something I
    have come to learn myself, in the course of this investigation,
    which speaks to the fact that FEMA has relatively few full-time
    personnel.
        And this is the response teams and the so-called
    reservists, which in the interview you did with our staff, it
    seemed to me you were saying that these teams are mostly names
    on rosters. They are not really teams because they don't train
    together, they don't work together, and they don't really have
    a budget.
        And I wonder if you could just give, for the record, a
    little background on what does it mean to be a reservist for
    FEMA in this regard? Who are these people, typically? And
    obviously, I assume you believe, based on what you said before,
    that if they are there as reservists that we ought to be
    spending more money training them?
        Mr. Carwile. Yes, sir. I will specifically speak to the
    fine Americans that form the reserve cadre, which we call the
    disaster assistance employees, which we rely on almost to a
    great extent to our ability to surge personnel capacity to
    respond to any large disasters. In other words, in Florida last
    year, probably 90 percent of the workforce were disaster
    assistance employees.
        Those employees have traditionally, if you look at the
    demographics, many of them are retired from all sorts of walks
    of life. They are people you would be very proud to be
    associated with. They bring skill sets from decades of
    experience in various parts of the civil sector and some from
    the military.
        They are inadequately recompensed for the time they spend
    on active duty. They have absolutely no benefits. None, no
    benefits whatsoever, even when they are on active duty, we call
    them up. So, for example, if there is a holiday, and you happen
    to be on a big disaster, and there is no benefit. If you want
    to let a few people off, you can't even pay them for being off
    on the holiday.
        Senator Lieberman. Am I right? They don't really train as
    units?
        Mr. Carwile. Sir, was that the individual part of your
    question?
        Senator Lieberman. Yes.
        Mr. Carwile. The collective part of your question and the
    teams, there is no training money and very little. Now the
    regions, as Mr. Wells indicated, they have a responsibility to
    field an emergency response team for a small to a mid-level
    disaster. They may, because they are all pretty much co-
    located, have an opportunity to do some, what we used to call
    in the Army, collective training as opposed to individual. But
    there is no money to do team training.
        So if you go out on a disaster, to me--and I was very
    fortunate in Mississippi because I had a team from my home
    region that I have worked with for years--you need to know how
    that other person is going to respond in a crisis. You need to
    have gone through.
        In the military, of course, we have a very rigorous
    exercise program that is evaluated. And I have long advocated,
    and it was included in a white paper that I wrote last year,
    that we should have a similar system and have emergency
    deployment readiness exercises for these teams, and go out and
    do a rigorous evaluation and give feedback to the team members,
    much like we do in the military. But that is not done, sir.
        Senator Lieberman. Yes. That is a real big gap that we have
    to figure out how to fill. I assume that there were a lot of
    people on the reserve rosters who were called up to respond to
    Hurricane Katrina?
        Mr. Carwile. Sir, one of the national teams was deployed to
    Louisiana, that is the blue team--the blue team went down. In
    Mississippi, we had a lot of members that were on the national
    teams, but we did not deploy a national team, per se. There are
    only two remaining. Those two teams were reconfigured probably
    in the last month or so before Katrina.
        They were brand-new teams. New members were put in there,
    some of whom have been on other teams in the past. And they
    were pared down to, I think, around 25 persons per team, and
    they, to my knowledge, never had an opportunity to train
    together beforehand.
        Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Carwile. Thanks, Madam
    Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Carwile, I want to follow
    up with some additional questions on this June 2004 memo that
    Senator Lieberman just questioned you about.
        First of all, this memo was an extensive memo. It includes
    many significant recommendations, and it also sounds the alarm.
    There is the heading on page 3 that says ``unpreparedness of
    national emergency response teams.'' It says ``unprepared
    teams, zero funding for training exercises and team
    equipment.''
        It talks about the need for a single division for response
    and recovery. It mentions that there had been four different
    budget proposals submitted over an 18-month period.
        And just so we understand, this is from highly trained and
    important professionals within FEMA. It is the Federal
    Coordinating Officers. Did you get any response to this memo
    from Michael Brown or anyone else in his office?
        Mr. Carwile. Madam Chairman, first of all, I wasn't the
    author of the entire document. But these two----
        Chairman Collins. You were the author of part of it?
        Mr. Carwile. Yes, ma'am. These two issues were--and I am
    guilty as charged on that. Ma'am, we put this together, and
    probably Scott may have had input as well. I am pretty sure he
    did.
        Former Director Brown had asked the Federal Coordinating
    Officers for their input on things we thought were critical.
    And my former colleague Mike Hall was elected by the rest of us
    to put this together, each of us having some input. These were
    mine.
        Mike related to me that this had been submitted to the
    eighth floor, being kind of the command group in FEMA. And as
    far as I know, there was never any feedback on any of these
    issues.
        Chairman Collins. So, as far as you know, there were no
    actions taken in response to this detailed set of
    recommendations that the FCOs sent to Secretary Brown?
        Mr. Carwile. That is correct, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. If the recommendations in this June 2004
    memo had been implemented, do you believe that the response to
    Katrina would have been improved? I realize that is
    speculative. But what is your best judgment?
        Mr. Carwile. Yes, ma'am. I can't help but believe that
    having trained and effective teams that are well equipped and
    have had opportunities to work together through training and
    rigorous exercises would not have made a difference.
        Again, I felt very fortunate because many of my colleagues
    with me in Mississippi had been with me on a national team in
    years past. It was kind of coincidental.
        But I can't help but believe that trained and ready teams,
    people who have worked together, would not have made some
    difference in a positive way.
        Chairman Collins. Could you explain to us why you think
    that a single division for response and recovery would help
    improve the response to future disasters?
        Mr. Carwile. Yes, ma'am. And first of all, that is not a
    novel idea. That was formerly that way. My former colleague is
    sitting right back here, who was formerly the associate
    director for FEMA for response and recovery. It was only with
    the formation of the Department of Homeland Security that the
    two efforts, that is response and recovery, were bifurcated.
        Formerly, there was a greater among equals division within
    FEMA was response recovery. Because when you go to the field,
    you don't do response, and then all of a sudden, one day you
    say, ``Well, we are going to quit doing response. Now, guys, we
    are going to start doing recovery.'' It is a continuous effort.
        I was looking at our timeline in Mississippi. On September
    2, we were putting disaster recovery centers out to meet the
    needs of the people to be able to communicate with us and the
    Federal and the State officials.
        So, to me, and it is also from a person in the field, it is
    a little bit difficult to know who the heck you work for at
    headquarters. You know, on some issues, you go to one person.
    Other issues, you go to another.
        When they first bifurcated them, I was in the field, and we
    would talk to what is now called the National Resource
    Coordination Center, then known as the Emergency Support Team,
    and you really didn't know who you were reporting to. Because
    was it the response guys or was it recovery guys?
        So, to me, it is a natural fit. It was an unnatural thing
    to break it up in the first place.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        I would now like to turn to the issue of evacuation. One of
    the problems that New Orleans had was evacuating citizens
    before the storm. Mr. Wells, are you aware of any requests from
    the City of New Orleans for assistance with evacuation? Any
    request to FEMA?
        Mr. Wells. No. We would get the request from the State. The
    city would come to the State, and the State would come to us.
    And for any pre-landfall evacuation requests, we got none,
    zero. And as I mentioned earlier, that was totally unlike what
    we did in Texas, where we were actively involved.
        Chairman Collins. Now I understand that you were involved
    in the Hurricane Pam exercise. Did that include a segment on
    the evacuation of New Orleans and the vicinity? Was that part
    of the exercise?
        Mr. Wells. No, ma'am. Evacuation was not part of it. When
    we set up the Pam exercises, we were developing it, we worked
    with the officials in Louisiana. And they determined I think it
    was five to eight functions that they wanted us to work as
    Federal/State partners in it.
        And I think we had talked about evacuation, and they said
    let us leave that off the table because the city and the State,
    we have been working evacuation issues. And we will park that
    over there, and we will just work on these other issues. So
    that was not one of the issues we addressed in the Pam
    exercise.
        Chairman Collins. And whose decision, just for clarity, was
    it to not include evacuation as part of the Hurricane Pam
    exercise?
        Mr. Wells. Well, it would have been the deputy director of
    emergency management at the time in Louisiana.
        Chairman Collins. So it was a State official?
        Mr. Wells. The State. Yes, they determined the issues that
    we were going to be looking at for Pam.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        Mr. Parr, another issue of evacuation arose after the
    storm, and that was the evacuation of the Superdome. You have
    previously told the Committee that you worked with the National
    Guard at the Superdome throughout Tuesday night and that you
    had a plan that was actually approved by your supervisors at
    FEMA and was in coordination with the National Guard to
    evacuate the victims at the Superdome, beginning Wednesday
    morning. Is that correct?
        Mr. Parr. That is correct.
        Chairman Collins. Could you explain what that plan was?
        Mr. Parr. Sure. As the population of the Superdome started
    growing almost exponentially on Tuesday and with the waters
    rising, the breach wasn't able to be closed, we realized we had
    to get the people out of the Superdome. We felt, the Guard felt
    that there would be mass confusion, violence once the lights
    went out in the Superdome. That was the only thing that was
    keeping people together.
        We came up with a plan in conjunction with the Guard. It
    was the chief of staff or the adjutant general, the ops
    officer, the commanding general that was there for the Guard.
    What we were going to do was use Chinook helicopters because
    they are the largest in the U.S. inventory. The Guard had
    availability of three.
        We came up with a plan to move anywhere from 300 to 500
    people an hour out of the Superdome by landing helicopters
    every 15 to 20 minutes. At the time, we estimated about 15,000
    people in the Superdome. We figured we could clear them out
    within about a day, about 30 hours or less, once we started the
    evacuation with an additional 9 helicopters.
        In addition to that plan, I should say it would be short
    haul trips. The airport was dry. I believe Belle Chase, which
    is a base, was also dry. We would have buses meet them there
    and then take them to shelters after that.
        Chairman Collins. That sounds to me like a very good plan
    that would have helped to evacuate people from a situation that
    was becoming increasingly unsanitary and dangerous. Why wasn't
    it implemented? In fact, the evacuation did not occur the next
    day, despite your having what sounds like a very good plan.
        Mr. Parr. That is correct. At least the evacuation for the
    general population didn't begin the next morning, as we had
    hoped. At some point during the early morning hours--this was a
    plan we worked on in the overnight hours. None of us slept at
    all as we developed this and had constant conference calls with
    Washington, DC.
        We couldn't reach our command group at the EOC in Baton
    Rouge because of communications, but we were able to reach our
    response and coordination center in Denton, Texas. So we would
    have conference calls with those two groups.
        We were notified at some time around 5 a.m. that General
    Honore had taken charge or was in charge of the evacuation of
    New Orleans and that all plans were to be put on hold, that he
    would be directing the evacuation. And that was the direction I
    got from the command group of the National Guard that they
    would be awaiting his orders.
        Chairman Collins. So, as far as you know, General Honore
    canceled the plan?
        Mr. Parr. Well, I can't speak to specifically what
    happened, but I will tell you that the Guard told me I got a
    call from General Landreneau at some point probably between 5
    and 6 a.m. in the morning, thanking me and thanking us for our
    hard work. But they were awaiting orders of General Honore.
        Chairman Collins. So instead of the evacuation from the
    Superdome starting on Wednesday morning as it would have under
    your plan, the plan worked out with the National Guard, when
    were people actually evacuated from the Superdome?
        Mr. Parr. The start for the general population was about
    Thursday morning, about 24 hours later.
        Chairman Collins. So the result of the delay of that
    evacuation plan, which you had worked all night to put
    together, was that thousands of people in the general
    population in the Superdome had to spend another very
    unpleasant, hot, dangerous night in the Superdome. Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Parr. That is correct.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Wells, I noted in your bio that you
    had been the liaison from DOD to FEMA back when you were
    working for the Department of Defense. DOD has an unusual
    relationship with FEMA. As I understand it, FEMA can assign
    other agencies certain missions. But with DOD, it is my
    understanding the Department has to agree to accept the
    missions from FEMA, and it is a much longer process. Is that
    correct? Is my understanding correct?
        Mr. Wells. Yes. When all of the agencies come into the
    joint field office and we give what we call mission assignments
    or taskings out to these agencies to do specific things, the
    approval authority generally rests with the person in the joint
    field office, and it gets done immediately.
        But the Department of Defense, their approval authority
    rests with the Secretary of Defense. And so, it has to go
    through a long process of validation and through their chain of
    command to get it approved. And that is more than awkward. It
    is more than cumbersome. It just takes a long time to execute.
        I need to say, parenthetically, that in Katrina we did not
    see that lag that we normally see in most disasters, and they
    were fairly responsive.
        Chairman Collins. But from your perspective, since you have
    seen it both as a DOD employee as well as a FEMA employee,
    should the Department be treated differently?
        Mr. Wells. No. Having DOD is sort of like somebody giving
    you an 800-pound gorilla. You are supposed to take care of that
    gorilla and be responsible for that gorilla. But that 800-pound
    gorilla is going to do what he wants to do, when he wants to do
    it, and how he wants to do it. So you lose some of that control
    in your organization with the Department of Defense structure.
        What they have is, when General Honore came in, for
    example, he had really two organizations. He had a defense
    coordinating officer, who was in that joint field office. And
    he had a brigadier general, Mark Graham, with the staff, who
    worked directly with us out of the joint field office. And that
    fell within the architecture of the National Response Plan, and
    it was more organized.
        General Honore had a joint task force that went and did
    things separate and beyond that. He did great things. Him and
    his joint task force did great things, but it wasn't
    coordinated, and it led to some problems.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Carwile, did you have something you
    would like to add to that?
        Mr. Carwile. Madam Chairman, in a previous life, I served
    as a defense coordinating officer, as Mr. Wells talked about,
    and I have had discussions with Secretary McHale on this very
    subject. And we spoke earlier about a unity of command and a
    unified command, and what Mr. Wells just described is outside
    of unity of command, unity of effort, and a unified command.
        In other words, you can't have two Federal agencies, even
    if one is an 800-pound gorilla, operating independently of
    other Federal agencies. And there is a difference of opinion of
    my personal opinion as a private citizen between what I read in
    the Stafford Act and the way that the current secretary and
    assistant secretary for homeland defense read their
    authorities.
        And as Mr. Wells indicated, we mission assign other Federal
    agencies. DOD, I personally know--Secretary McHale and I have
    discussed this--takes exception with even the term ``mission
    assignment'' from FEMA to the Department of Defense.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Parr, do you have anything to add to
    that debate?
        Mr. Parr. I can tell you on a local level. After leaving
    New Orleans, I worked in St. Bernard Parish for about 30 days.
    I think Mr. Wells' description of the 800-pound gorilla,
    because we had a major significant military DOD presence there,
    was true.
        They did some great things. The men and women that were
    there were truly phenomenal. But keeping them--and I will use
    this term, but it is not pejorative--reined in to keep them
    in--remember, when they were there on the ground, it wasn't me
    that was directing operations in the parish. It was the parish
    leadership. It was the parish president. It was the sheriff. It
    was the parish emergency manager.
        And keeping them from running over that was my job because
    I was supposed to be the lead Federal person there. And it is
    difficult. But they do bring a lot to the table, and they are a
    necessary part of the National Response Plan.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
        Senator Lieberman. Thanks again, Madam Chairman.
        The more we go on, the more I keep coming back to military
    terms because, in some sense, you are in a real crisis, almost
    a battlefield situation. And one I want to talk about is
    situational awareness.
        Obviously, in military matters, we are, through technology,
    dramatically improving the situational awareness of our forces.
    And that is not a bad ideal to set up for emergency response
    here as well. But it was, really in this case, lacking, again
    beginning with the fact that this was an extraordinary
    disaster. But part of what I want to get at is the details of
    that.
        Mr. Parr, I am going to ask you the first questions. We
    have seen photographs and video showing the absolutely
    devastating situation at the convention center. I know that
    most of the accounts have focused on what went on at the
    Superdome. But I want to ask you to talk a little bit about
    what was unfolding a mile down the road at the convention
    center, where thousands of recently homeless people sought
    refuge from the storm.
        I have taken a look at your notes from August 30, which is
    Exhibit F, and they mention that you had a briefing with Bill
    Lokey and Scott Wells. And your notes mention the convention
    center. But we don't see anything in your e-mails or any other
    documents from yourself or the FEMA team regarding the
    circumstances in the convention center on Tuesday, Wednesday,
    or Thursday.
        So I wanted to ask you during the briefing with Mr. Wells
    and Mr. Lokey, first, what did you discuss, to the best of your
    recollection, regarding the Superdome?
        Mr. Parr. OK. You have an advantage over me, Senator,
    because since this was kind of a last-minute request for me to
    appear before you, I left my notes in Texas, where I am
    assigned right now. So I am not able to look and see exactly
    what you are referring to.
        Senator Lieberman. I am glad to try to get our staff to
    give it to you.
        Mr. Parr. I think it is Exhibit F?
        Senator Lieberman. Yes, it is Exhibit F\1\ in that exhibit
    book.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Exhibit F appears in the Appendix on page 94.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Mr. Parr. Just one second. I am sorry.
        Senator Lieberman. You went to the same handwriting course
    that I did.
        Mr. Parr. You noticed that, sir.
        Senator Lieberman. It is on page 8, noted at the bottom,
    0008.
        Mr. Parr. Let me address, I believe, the phone call you are
    speaking about because this was probably the only time we were
    able to get a hold of the EOC, where Scott Wells, the deputy,
    and Bill Lokey were.
        Senator Lieberman. So they were in Baton Rouge?
        Mr. Parr. Baton Rouge. Correct. And this was probably the
    only time we had any conversation, certainly any extended
    conversation with them.
        Senator Lieberman. And at that point, you were----
        Mr. Parr. I was? This was Tuesday. I would guess early
    afternoon?
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Parr. Or mid afternoon?
        Senator Lieberman. And you had arrived a little earlier
    that day.
        Mr. Parr. We had arrived at some point Tuesday morning or
    late morning.
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Parr. This is when we went from the Superdome to the
    city EOC, which was across the street. At that point, we had
    called back to the State EOC. The primary purpose of that call
    was to give the city's list of priorities to the EOC there up
    at the State, for FEMA and the State to start working on those
    priorities.
        If the call was an hour, the biggest part of that call,
    probably 45 or 50 minutes, was getting visibility on what was
    being done to close I believe it was the 17th Street Canal
    breach.
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Parr. That is what was filling up the city, and there
    was a whole domino effect of things that happen if that breach
    was not closed as quickly as possible. Just to mention two of
    those things. The power plant, once that went under water, and
    it is my understanding that it was within inches--2 or 3 inches
    of going under water--the city would take about 6 months, it
    would probably still be under water right now----
        Senator Lieberman. Yes.
        Mr. Parr [continuing]. If that was submerged. The emergency
    power at the Superdome was literally within 1 inch of
    overflowing the sandbags that were protecting the emergency
    generator there. We would have lost power there. It would have
    caused chaos there.
        So gaining visibility on that. Talking about it was the
    city--I am not sure of his exact title. I believe he was either
    the emergency manager or the homeland security person.
        Senator Lieberman. Let me interrupt you. By ``gaining
    visibility,'' you mean trying to get attention from the EOC
    onto those two significant problems you have just talked about?
        Mr. Parr. I was informed by Colonel Terry Ebert, who is the
    city's, I think, homeland security director, that the breach--
    --
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Parr [continuing]. That the Army Corps had stopped
    attempting to close the breach, and we weren't sure why. And
    there were some significant issues with them trying to close
    the breach, and they were unable to do it, and they were
    working the problem. We did not know that at the time, which is
    one thing that prompted the call.
        So getting that back up on the table and letting them know
    back up at the State why it was so important to get that
    closed. Which that did not happen, at least not at that point,
    was the primary purpose of that call, and in addition, the
    other priorities that the city had, the Colonel, Terry Ebert,
    gave it to them on that call.
        Senator Lieberman. Yes. Did you become aware in that
    conversation of the problem of the growing crowds at the
    convention center?
        Mr. Parr. Let me say that we were helicoptered into the
    Superdome and had no movement, no visibility of the city. The
    only thing we had was what the National Guard had given us. I
    don't quite see my note on the convention center. I am sure I
    was told by the Guard that there were issues at the convention
    center.
        Like I said, I don't have my notes. But because we were, in
    effect, literally on an island or stranded at the Superdome, if
    I have a note here about the convention center--OK, yes. I
    don't think, that was not a note about conditions at the
    convention center. I see it now. I am not even sure I was aware
    of conditions at the convention center at this time.
        What that was, if you notice it says ``convention center,
    EOV or com suite,'' that was mentioned as another place that we
    can carry out operations because of the difficulty of carrying
    out operations at the Superdome because of the situation there.
    I was trying to identify another place in the city where we can
    operate from, and that was a place that was mentioned.
        Senator Lieberman. Yes. So, obviously, you were at the
    Superdome. So you had an awareness of what the conditions were
    there?
        Mr. Parr. Yes, sir.
        Senator Lieberman. But you did not know at that point what
    the situation was at the convention center?
        Mr. Parr. Correct. There would be snippets from certain
    Guardsmen who were patrolling the city saying that the
    convention center was filling up. I am not sure when or how
    that was brought out to me. We had no personal knowledge of
    what was going on at the convention center.
        As a matter of fact, I learned more about what was going on
    at the convention center when I left and went back up to Baton
    Rouge. Then I had visibility on it.
        Senator Lieberman. Yes. So during that period of days
    before you went back to Baton Rouge, which, if I recall
    correctly, was Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that week?
        Mr. Parr. Correct.
        Senator Lieberman. The FEMA teams that you were involved
    with did not do anything with regard to the convention center?
        Mr. Parr. No, sir, and I think this is an important point
    that we need to remember, and I alluded to this earlier in one
    of the answers to one of the questions that were given. There
    were no, to my knowledge, identified shelters in the City of
    New Orleans.
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Parr. That is a very important thing. What was used as
    a shelter was any place that was dry. Any overpass, any high
    piece of ground. It is important that the city had identified
    shelters and areas of refuge, and they did not.
        So I think that was an ad hoc--since it was largely dry, it
    is my understanding--an ad hoc shelter that people flowed to
    simply because it was out of the pool of water in the city.
        Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Parr.
        Mr. Wells, you were a senior Federal official at the
    emergency operating center in Baton Rouge. When did you become
    aware of the crowds and the problems at the convention center
    in New Orleans?
        Mr. Wells. To be candid, I am not exactly sure. It was
    probably around I would say Wednesday or Thursday, we got calls
    from here in Washington, DC. ``What is going on at the
    convention center?'' And I think they were getting reports from
    the media.
        Senator Lieberman. Yes.
        Mr. Wells. And as I recall, we tried to get communications
    up with Phil and his folks. We couldn't get communications with
    him to have them go check it out. And so, we went to the State
    and asked them what they knew, and they used their National
    Guard and State police assets to give us some visibility. And
    the big issue was how many people were there? And what is going
    on, and how many people were there?
        And we did not get a clear picture. It probably took 24 to
    48 hours from the time we started asking the question to get a
    picture of just what was going on in the convention center.
        Senator Lieberman. So your answers, I think, illustrate the
    real problems there were in communications under the
    circumstances there and the inability to have anything
    approaching the kind of situational awareness that you would
    want to have or we would want you to have.
        I want to go back to something you said in your interview
    with our staff, Mr. Wells, that there was ``a big
    communications void,'' which created a black hole in
    communication abilities from the emergency operating center in
    Baton Rouge and New Orleans. And if I asked you why, I know it
    may be an obvious question. But for the record, since obviously
    FEMA is supposed to be prepared for emergencies of this kind,
    why did that black hole of communications occur?
        Mr. Wells. I don't know. I was told all of the lines were
    saturated. The big vacuum was in Baton Rouge. No one could get
    in to us, and we couldn't get out to anybody. The people in New
    Orleans could talk to our regional office in Texas in a
    degraded way, and they could talk to the national office here
    in Washington, DC. But nobody could call us in Baton Rouge, and
    we couldn't call out. So that was the biggest vacuum in Baton
    Rouge.
        Senator Lieberman. Mr. Parr, I know that at some point in
    your testimony or work with the staff, you described FEMA's Red
    October, the mobile command post 12 feet longer than a tractor-
    trailer with the most elaborate state-of-the-art capabilities
    for communications, which would have served as the base for
    communications in New Orleans.
        As the vehicle was in transport to the Superdome, I would
    just say for the record, it was determined that you could not
    get it into the area, and you were left with no communications
    at the Superdome. Am I right about that?
        Mr. Parr. That is largely correct, sir. That was the
    original intention to either move that vehicle or a similar
    vehicle into the Superdome, but because of the water around the
    stadium, we could not get it in.
        Senator Lieberman. And there was no backup plan for
    anything else in that kind of circumstance?
        Mr. Parr. Well, sir, initially the backup plan was to have
    a smaller vehicle, a vehicle that was a little bit more
    maneuverable get into the stadium. I don't believe that the
    situational awareness allowed us to know. I don't believe that
    it was common knowledge. It certainly was not my knowledge that
    water would prevent us from getting those vehicles into the
    Superdome.
        Senator Lieberman. Right. And this is the final question
    because my time is up. You did previously state, as I mentioned
    and Senator Collins did, that your access to communications was
    ``extremely, extremely limited'' and affected your operations
    effectiveness, what you were able to do in the circumstance by,
    in your opinion, about 90 percent. Is that right?
        Mr. Parr. Yes, sir. And just to expand on that a little
    bit, as I look back on the events that happened, we were able
    to achieve a lot. At the time, it was extremely frustrating. It
    might take 2 or 3 hours to get through to the people we were
    calling, but we did get through and we did get things done as
    far as the evacuation of the Superdome. We made sure that we
    kept some eye on visibility of commodities so people ate.
        But I believe we could have accomplished a lot more if we
    had the proper communications.
        Senator Lieberman. Sure. And when you did get through on
    the calls, what were you using?
        Mr. Parr. The National Guard had two communications
    vehicles, one with one phone and one with I think three or four
    phones. So it was kind of like waiting in line. When they
    finished their business, then we got to go.
        Senator Lieberman. Thanks. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        Just a couple of concluding questions. First, I realize all
    of you were deployed to the Gulf region in your roles as FCOs.
    But are any of you living in the Gulf region? Mr. Wells.
        Mr. Wells. I am staying there.
        Chairman Collins. Pardon me?
        Mr. Wells. Yes, I will be in Baton Rouge.
        Chairman Collins. You are now. But prior to being deployed
    there, where were you living?
        Mr. Wells. I was living in Texas.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Parr.
        Mr. Parr. I have only been living in the Gulf since August
    28. But my home now or at least where I rent an apartment is in
    Boston, Massachusetts.
        Chairman Collins. I noticed you were Region 1, Senator
    Lieberman's and my region.
        Mr. Carwile.
        Mr. Carwile. Ma'am, my family is from Gulf Shores, Alabama.
    It is in Baldwin County, Alabama, on the coast. They have
    evacuated probably six times in the last 2 years, with my
    mother, who turned 89 last month. I personally reside in the
    State of Hawaii, though.
        Chairman Collins. I was surprised, when I looked at where
    FEMA officials were deployed from, that they weren't
    individuals already assigned to the Gulf region. Would it
    increase the effectiveness of FEMA officials if they were from
    the region to which they are deployed, or does it not make any
    difference?
        The reason I ask is there have been some indications that
    FEMA officials were just not very familiar with New Orleans or
    the areas to which they were assigned. And I am wondering if it
    would be better to have the FCOs come from the area or whether
    it doesn't matter. Mr. Carwile.
        Mr. Carwile. Madam Chairman, the Congress authorized FEMA
    25 Federal Coordinating Officer positions back in 1999.
        Chairman Collins. Right.
        Mr. Carwile. And those positions were sprinkled throughout
    the country. And ideally, the Federal Coordinating Officer
    would come from the home region impacted. For example, if the
    State of Maine were impacted, hopefully, Mr. Parr would be the
    person, as he would be.
        What happens in a very large disaster like Katrina, the
    resources are quickly stripped down in terms of personnel who
    are familiar to the area. So over in Alabama, Mike Bolch, who
    was the Federal Coordinating Officer, did come from Atlanta in
    the home region. But FEMA can get very quickly overwhelmed in
    terms of having people with regional experience.
        And Mississippi, fortunately, the team from Region 9, which
    was California and the West, that we brought in had been with
    Mississippi during Hurricane Dennis and also with a short
    exercise we had prior to the hurricane season in Washington.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Parr, do you have anything to add to
    that?
        Mr. Parr. I will say all of us are national assets, and
    traveling is very demanding on all of us. I know in the 2 years
    I have been in the Federal Coordinating Officer program, I have
    traveled about 300 days.
        Chairman Collins. Wow.
        Mr. Parr. I don't know. I think it is important that we
    have significant representation from the region that is
    experiencing the disaster. So, for instance, Scott Wells is a
    resident and member of Region 6, which is a large part of the
    Gulf Coast.
        The fact that I come from Region 1 and have a lot of
    experience in Region 2, which would be the New York area, I
    don't know is significant. I think all of us are kind of, to a
    large extent, plug and play. You bring us to where we need to
    go, and the actions that we have to do are pretty much the
    same.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Wells, are you from the region?
        Mr. Wells. Yes. And I think there is value added. You get
    your value in the peacetime planning. For example, with
    Katrina, prior to Katrina, in July, just a month before,
    Hurricane Dennis was threatening Louisiana, and we deployed our
    response team to Louisiana and did some training with them. So
    we had built up some experience with the State and did some
    hasty planning and things like that. And that was a benefit
    when we went back for Katrina.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        Mr. Carwile, my final question is for you. Both Senator
    Lieberman and I have been to the Gulf region since the
    hurricane struck. The damage in New Orleans and Louisiana is
    incomprehensible. But what really astonished me was the
    devastation in Mississippi. It is just extraordinary.
        Do you think Mississippi has gotten the attention that it
    needs compared to Louisiana? I am not trying to play off one
    State against another. That is not my purpose. But the
    devastation from wind damage in Mississippi matches in many
    ways the horrendous devastation from water that we saw in New
    Orleans.
        Mr. Carwile. Madam Chairman, I have been on, I think, every
    major disaster in the last 9 years with FEMA to include four
    hurricanes last year in Florida and a number of super typhoons
    in the Pacific, and I have never seen--and I had two combat
    tours in Vietnam, special forces. I have never seen the damage
    that I saw and you saw in Hancock County and Harrison County.
    Total devastation of entire communities.
        We talk about communications. I have never been in a
    situation where we had such a shortfall in communications. Last
    year in Florida, fundamentally, we could use cell phones.
    Practically, just most of the time, we had to rely on sat
    phones. But I am talking about no communications.
        Senator Lieberman talked about situational awareness. Very
    difficult to have down there other than overflights. I know
    that Governor Barbour and his staff in the State of Mississippi
    have done an extraordinary job of leadership. I do think that
    there has been an awful lot of focus on the visual on New
    Orleans, and obviously, there was a great deal of suffering
    there that needed to be tended to.
        I do think that there could be more attention paid to the
    restoration of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, especially. I say
    ``Gulf Coast,'' but I was in Jackson when a storm--we had a
    category 1 hurricane go over Jackson. We were without power in
    Jackson for days and days, all the way up to the northern part
    of Mississippi.
        So the visuals are on the Gulf Coast, and obviously, that
    is terrible. In addition to wind damage, the 30-foot surge just
    cleared off whole counties practically. It was total
    devastation. But I would concur if someone were to suggest that
    Mississippi probably deserves more attention than it has been
    getting, ma'am.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman, do you have
    any questions?
        Senator Lieberman. I do, a couple. I will try to do them
    quickly. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
        I want to come back to the discussion about the
    communications and situational awareness, and I am struck that
    the National Guard had those two communications vehicles in the
    Superdome. And I understand this is always a question of
    hindsight is clearer than foresight.
        The understanding was growing in the preceding week that
    this was going to be a hurricane category 4 or a category 5. I
    was going to read this to Senator Stevens, but I didn't.
        There was a communication from William Lundy of FEMA to
    you, Mr. Carwile, and to Robert Fenton and others, e-mailed on
    Saturday, August 27, at 11:41 p.m.
        ``Recent recon flight reports category 4 now, maybe a weak
    category 5 by Monday morning. Landfall around noon. Storm is
    carrying a lot of moisture. Experts predict that the levees
    protecting New Orleans will be breached late Sunday night,
    thereby flooding the city to a depth of 6 to 12 feet. Storm
    surge 13 feet, with 20-foot waves on top of that.''
        Unfortunately, that e-mail was pretty much correct, except
    it estimated a little bit earlier than the levees actually
    broke. So here is my question. Again, hindsight clearer. And
    this is why some people say FEMA moved slowly. You have got
    this Red October, a fantastically equipped communications
    vehicle--why not move it into New Orleans in advance of
    landfall so you are there with a communications apparatus
    before, what was being talked about and predicted, the levees
    broke and the city was flooded?
        Yes, Mr. Parr?
        Mr. Parr. This was something that I discussed with the
    staffers that were down beforehand. One thing that you never
    want to do, especially when you are a response--we are not a
    rescue organization--but a response organization or an
    emergency organization, is put equipment or people into harm's
    way.
        If we had brought those vehicles into the Superdome, they
    would have been exposed. They probably, almost certainly with
    the high winds of a hurricane hitting, would have been damaged
    and rendered useless. There are other things that we could have
    done. And in hindsight, if we had been fully aware of the
    situation, we could have helicoptered communications suites in.
        Senator Lieberman. Beforehand, you mean?
        Mr. Parr. No. Afterwards.
        Senator Lieberman. Afterwards.
        Mr. Parr. But in my opinion, and there is no response
    organization that I am aware of that puts people or equipment
    in harm's way prior to landfall of a hurricane, unless it is a
    rated hurricane shelter beforehand, sir.
        Senator Lieberman. Yes, I have learned this as we have gone
    on, and I am not prepared to argue against it. But I am
    prepared, not now, to question it as we go along.
        Because, obviously, the people on the ground there, the
    local fire, police, emergency personnel are there. And if you
    see something this big coming, it is tough. I don't have an
    easy answer to this one. But it seems to me that there is an
    argument to be made that you would want to try to the best of
    your ability to get some people in, maybe equipment in there
    beforehand. But I want to come back to that.
        Mr. Parr, I do want to give you, while you are here, an
    opportunity to answer questions that were raised in Mr.
    Bahamonde's testimony and then in other testimony before the
    Committee about the fact that you and your teams left the
    Superdome on Thursday. You were there Tuesday, Wednesday,
    Thursday, and then left on Thursday, which left, obviously, the
    Superdome without any FEMA presence, including the medical team
    that you had.
        So, obviously, we ask why. And I want to give you the
    chance while you are here to answer that.
        Mr. Parr. Certainly. I could give you the long answer or
    the short answer. So I will try to give you something in the
    middle ground that would give you the situation.
        Senator Lieberman. OK. You have got two centrists up here.
    So---- [Laughter.]
        Chairman Collins. The middle position is always a good one.
        Mr. Parr. I think that we have described the situation in
    the city as a whole. The situation in the Superdome was always
    a powder keg. The Guard first made the suggestion, one of the
    generals of the Guard first made the suggestion that I consider
    leaving Tuesday night.
        Senator Lieberman. Do you remember which one that was?
        Mr. Parr. Yes, sir. It was General Veillon.
        Senator Lieberman. General Veillon.
        Mr. Parr. And that was when the city was filling, and they
    felt that once the lights went out that there would be
    pandemonium there.
        Senator Lieberman. So was he suggesting that your safety
    might be in danger?
        Mr. Parr. Well, I believe the school of thought was
    everyone, including the Guard--because, remember, not everyone
    in the Guard was armed. Most of the Guard was involved with
    getting food, commodities in, running and helping with medical
    missions. As I said before, they did a phenomenal job in search
    and rescue, in everything, and assisting the New Orleans PD as
    much as they possibly could. So I think it was everyone's
    safety.
        To skip many things, Thursday morning at first light,
    General Jones, who was the commanding general in place, said to
    me--I don't remember his exact words, but there are certain
    phrases that he said that stick out in my mind very clearly.
    ``I don't believe I can protect you or your people any longer.
    We are going to be making our last stand,'' and he pointed to a
    portion of the parking lot over there. He says, ``Get behind
    us, and we will do what we can.''
        That is when we started making plans to leave. I spoke,
    since it was my responsibility to take care of the Federal
    forces on hand, I spoke to the NDMS teams, told them to
    continue to operate. I wanted to have helicopters standing by
    if the situation degenerated. We were unable to get helicopters
    in immediately.
        To make a long story short, I was informed by the DMAT
    team, the medical assistance team that was in the basketball
    stadium, that the Guard, in shortening their lines, had pulled
    all security from them. They told me that they did not feel
    safe and that they were evacuating. And they had high-water
    vehicles that they used to resupply and that they were pulling
    out in their vehicles.
        It was only at that time that I made the decision to leave
    since if conditions did degenerate, we would have no other way
    out.
        Senator Lieberman. I want you to know that some of the
    other folks who were there say that, in fact, there was not any
    behavior that would lead them to think that there was a riot or
    that there was a safety problem. I guess my final question to
    you is the following--to what extent did you see any behavior
    that would lead you to think that your personnel would be in
    danger, or was it derived from what the National Guard folks
    told you?
        Mr. Parr. There are many things that I left out in not
    giving the answer in total. The intelligence that we had all
    came from the Guard. That is the first thing.
        The second thing is is that--I just lost my train of
    thought. But one of the things to remember, when I did make the
    decision to leave, is not only did the Guard say that. You
    could see from some of the memos that the city asked for with
    400 rifles, etc., the Guard--and this was what I wanted to say.
    The Guard had intelligence that there would be riot. That
    people would move in force against the Guard at some point that
    late morning.
        Senator Lieberman. And they told you that?
        Mr. Parr. Yes, sir. And one of the things to remember is
    that I have worked in riot situations in my time as a
    firefighter and fire officer in New York City. I have worked in
    near-riot situations. The time for unarmed people, that is
    specifically a security and law enforcement issue, and the time
    for unarmed people to leave is before a situation starts, not
    after. And that is when I made the decision to leave when I
    did.
        Senator Lieberman. OK. I appreciate your answer.
        We are running out of time. I am going to mention something
    else. Maybe I will send a letter to each of you and ask for
    your response.
        This goes also to pre-storm, and the question is the
    following--in a circumstance like the one we saw coming here, a
    category 4 or 5 hurricane, with potential talked about widely
    that the levees were going to break. And what seemed to you,
    Mr. Wells, to be an inadequate evacuation plan in Louisiana as
    compared to what you saw in Texas, should we in the future have
    the Federal Government, perhaps through the military, be
    prepared to do pre-storm evacuation?
        Let me state it in a dramatic metaphor. If we had
    intelligence that led us to believe that a bomb was going to
    explode in one of our major cities within 3 days, and if we
    thought it was accurate intelligence, but we hadn't found a
    bomb, I presume we would use whatever Federal resources we had
    to get in and evacuate as many people as we could.
        And in some ways, though not quite the same, if you put all
    the facts together, we were in a somewhat similar situation
    with Katrina. And my question is should the Federal Government
    try to develop a kind of standby capacity, particularly using
    the military, and have the ability to assist in that kind of
    massive evacuation?
        Anybody really want to give a quick answer? Sorry.
        Mr. Wells. The answer is yes. And Katrina clearly showed
    that. But it needs to be expanded. I mean, the continuity of
    government. We need to have that capability. But this bottoms-
    up approach only works to a certain point, and we need to have
    a Federal capability that once you get beyond that point that
    can make up the difference. And it may mean a totally different
    architecture.
        Senator Lieberman. Right.
        Mr. Wells. If that is the way it is, so be it. But this
    evacuation is a very important thing. And if we would have
    gotten those people out in time, we wouldn't have lost close to
    1,100 lives in Louisiana.
        Senator Lieberman. Absolutely right.
        Mr. Wells. So those are things that I think we need to look
    at to make it better next time so we don't have this happen
    again.
        Senator Lieberman. Mr. Carwile.
        Mr. Carwile. Senator Lieberman, if I might? I agree with my
    colleague, Mr. Wells, on this point in terms of capacity. I get
    in a little trouble, I think that the governors of the States
    have constitutional authorities that we can bring Federal
    capacity, whether it is military or other, to bear in support
    of them to whatever degree they are comfortable with. But I
    just throw that small caveat out.
        Senator Lieberman. Thank you. Mr. Parr, do you want to
    answer?
        Mr. Parr. Yes, sir. I also agree. I would defer a little
    bit. I think the military, the DOD is a support group in every
    emergency support function we have because they have so many
    talents and bring so many expertise to bear. In my opinion, I
    do not think they should be the lead in an evacuation, but
    certainly their assets could be used to help an evacuation.
        It might actually mean changes in statute. Until there is a
    disaster, the Federal Government has limited involvement, at
    least until there is some sort of declaration. I would like to
    see, personally, and I believe Mr. Wells in his writings has
    talked about expanding FEMA's role pre-disaster declaration. So
    that we can, even if it is just technical assistance, provide
    some assistance to States and locals from the Federal
    perspective in helping for evacuations.
        Senator Lieberman. Very helpful responses. Thank you. You
    have been very helpful witnesses overall in assisting the
    Committee in fulfilling its responsibility.
        Thanks, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        I, too, want to thank each of you for appearing today, for
    your candid and insightful testimony. It has been very helpful
    for us to hear from those who were involved directly in the
    operations.
        We are going to be continuing our investigation and
    ultimately drafting some legislation for reforming the system,
    as well as recommending administrative reforms. And I would
    invite you to keep in touch with the Committee, and I hope you
    will be willing to react to proposals as we go along because
    you do have so much experience that I think is very helpful to
    this Committee as we attempt to determine what went wrong and
    what reforms are needed. So I thank you very much for your
    testimony and your cooperation.
        The hearing record will remain open for 15 days. We will
    include your complete written statements in the record, as well
    as any other materials that you wish to submit.
        This hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
                                A P P E N D I X

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