[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LEGISLATIVE FIXES FOR LINGERING PROBLEMS THAT HINDER KATRINA RECOVERY
=======================================================================
(110-43)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 10, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
35-925 WASHINGTON : 2007
_____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
Fax: (202) 512�092104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402�090001
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon DON YOUNG, Alaska
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
Columbia JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JERROLD NADLER, New York WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
CORRINE BROWN, Florida VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
BOB FILNER, California STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JERRY MORAN, Kansas
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington Carolina
RICK LARSEN, Washington TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
JULIA CARSON, Indiana SAM GRAVES, Missouri
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri Virginia
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DORIS O. MATSUI, California TED POE, Texas
NICK LAMPSON, Texas DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa York
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina Louisiana
MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
JOHN J. HALL, New York MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
JERRY McNERNEY, California
VACANCY
(ii)
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency
Management
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine SAM GRAVES, Missouri
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania Virginia
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota York
(Ex Officio) JOHN L. MICA, Florida
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Baker, Hon. Richard, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Louisiana................................................... 15
Boustany, Jr., Hon. Charles, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Louisiana......................................... 17
Brown, Hon. Corrine, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Florida..................................................... 27
Jefferson, Hon. William, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Louisiana............................................. 19
Jindal, Hon. Bobby, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Louisiana................................................... 22
Melancon, Hon. Charlie, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Louisiana............................................. 24
Pickering, Hon. Charles, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Mississippi........................................... 6
Taylor, Hon. Gene, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Mississippi.................................................... 3
PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY A MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania............................. 39
Baker, Hon. Richard H., of Louisiana............................. 40
Boustany, Jr., Hon. Charles, of Louisiana........................ 48
Jefferson, Hon. William, of Louisiana............................ 54
Melancon, Hon. Charlie, of Louisiana............................. 58
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.003
LEGISLATIVE FIXES FOR LINGERING PROBLEMS THAT HINDER KATRINA RECOVERY
----------
Thursday, May 10, 2007
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and
Emergency Management,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eleanor Holmes
Norton [chairman of the subcommittee] Presiding.
Ms. Norton. I want to welcome members who will be
testifying at today's hearing, which will address issues still
outstanding 20 months after Hurricane Katrina made its
devastating landfall. We will hear from members of the gulf
coast region, who describe issues that still prevent full
recovery from this disaster in their communities. This hearing
continues an aggressive oversight and legislative agenda on the
subcommittee of FEMA matters.
This is our subcommittee's fifth hearing on FEMA issues
this year. Perhaps most significantly, we moved the most
important legislation requested by gulf State officials.
Working with the Democratic leadership, we quickly passed out
of committee H.R. 1144, the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Federal
Match Relief Act of 2007 to provide urgently needed relief from
several matching requirements for communities devastated by
hurricanes Katrina Rita and Wilma.
An amended form of legislation is included in the emergency
supplemental appropriation that passed the House and Senate and
was sent to the President. We also collaborated with the
Committee on Financial Services on H.R. 1227, the Gulf Coast
Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007 to ensure Louisiana's
ability to use its hazard mitigation program funds for its road
home program.
These protections were included in the legislation that
passed the House in March. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on
August 29, 2005 and had a massive physical impact affecting
90,000 square miles--an area the size of Great Britain. More
than 80 percent of the City of New Orleans flooded an area
seven times the size of Manhattan. Under the authority granted
the President in the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency
Assistance Act, the President declared a major disaster in the
States of Mississippi and Louisiana on that date.
The Stafford Act authorizes the disaster assistance that
FEMA provides after a major disaster. While the authority of
the Stafford Act is very broad and flexible, it does not
anticipate every circumstance that can arise in a disaster,
particularly a catastrophic disaster of the unprecedented size
and cost of Hurricane Katrina.
Historically when catastrophic or unusual disasters struck,
FEMA and Congress worked cooperatively to identify areas where
FEMA needed special authority or direction. However, when
Katrina struck, FEMA was not a flexible or independent
government agency, but an organization within the Department of
Homeland Security, a larger bureaucracy, without direct access
to the President or Congress.
I believe that this structure was a factor in preventing
FEMA from engaging with Congress as they have in the past. The
problem was further magnified by the unprecedented scope and
magnitude of Katrina. As a result, Congress must act to fill
holes that are withholding recovery on the gulf coast.
Today, I expect we will hear some matters that are normally
not covered by the Stafford Act and probably for good reason,
as the Stafford Act is only supposed to supplemental or replace
what State and local governments do after a disaster. But the
devastation of Katrina requires that we look at these issues
differently and consider what may be needed to provide some
further assistance for recovery from Katrina and Rita where
appropriate, even if not warranted in other disasters.
We very much look forward to hearing from the members this
afternoon and I am pleased to ask Ranking Member Mr. Graves if
he has any remarks at this time.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Two months after
Katrina made landfall in the gulf coast, this subcommittee
recognized that the recovery in the region was already in a
critical stage, and we held similar hearings at that time to
discuss legislative proposals to spur on a successful recovery.
Today we are meeting to hear legislative proposals to
address lessons learned from the gulf coast recovery and other
disasters that have happened since the fall of 2005. I look
forward to the numerous proposals on issues ranging from
everything from accountability to changes in the Stafford Act
amendments and ensuring that the success and future recoveries
at least goes a lot smoother.
After a massive disaster like Hurricane Katrina, the sooner
the community recovers, the less it is going to cost the
taxpayers. In the long run, it is important to get businesses
up and running and people back in their communities so the
community can be once again self sufficient and productive. We
need to ensure that communities have the tools for a quick and
efficient recovery. And we should also be mindful that
accountability is paramount to successful recovery of a region.
In this effort, every dollar we lose to waste fraud and
abuse is a dollar that is not spent helping the people of an
impacted region.
Additionally, there may be some projects where people have
moved on and sought relief outside the regular process because
the system wasn't working for them and they couldn't wait any
longer for help. Although no longer pending, these cases also
serve as examples where changes might prevent future problems
that slow down the recovery process.
Madam Chairwoman, I look forward to hearing the proposals
from our colleagues today, and I thank you for this hearing.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Graves. We now will
hear from the Mississippi panel. I would like to ask first, Mr.
Taylor, who is a member of the committee, to testify and then
Mr. Pickering, both of Mississippi.
Mr. Taylor.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking Member
Graves, and I want to thank you and your staff for working with
me, Brian Martin and other members of my staff to try to
resolve some of the problems that have surfaced since the
storm.
Ms. Norton. Is your microphone on?
Mr. Taylor. I believe it is. I will get a little closer.
Again, I want to thank you and your staff for working with
Brian Martin and my staff and other Members as we recognize
problems trying to find legislative solutions to them.
I want to thank you for conducting this hearing and
agreeing to draft legislation to resolve the remaining problems
with FEMA and the Stafford Act that hinder recovery after
Hurricane Katrina. More than 20 months after the storm, there
are obvious signs of recovery on the Mississippi gulf coast.
But we still have a long way to go. Many of the homes that were
damaged but not destroyed have been repaired.
Those that have been completely rebuilt are coming along
more slowly. And every week when I go home I see a few more
houses going up. Next week, the Mississippi Department of
Transportation will open two lanes of a new 2-mile bridge
across San Luis Bay reconnecting the cities of Bay St. Louis
and Pass Christian.
Unfortunately, there is one gaping hole in the recovery of
the south Mississippi. During the time that the Mississippi
Department of Transportation and its contract to Granite Archer
built a 2-mile long high rise bridge across this bay, not one
significant city, county or school building has been rebuilt. A
few public facilities have been reopened, but none of the major
public buildings that were destroyed along the Mississippi gulf
coast have been replaced. If you ask the mayors, the county
supervisors, the school superintendents about the status of
their projects, they will all give you the same answer, we are
still in the negotiations with FEMA.
At this rate, the schools and local governmental buildings
will be the last things built in Mississippi. When I see a new
construction project anywhere on the Mississippi gulf coast, it
is a safe bet it is not a public assistance project involving
FEMA. We are finishing our second school year with many of
these young people going to school in temporary classrooms. The
Hancock County emergency 9/11 system is still operating out of
a trailer. There are hundreds of project worksheets in
Mississippi that are indefinitely delayed by never ending
process of objections, revisions and disputes.
FEMA is supposed to pay 90 percent of the cost to rebuild
these facilities. But FEMA narrows the scope to exclude many
costs that are necessary to comply with building codes and
standards.
My first and most urgent request is for Congress to mandate
a fast track procedure and direct FEMA to get these public
infrastructure projects approved, paid for and built. We need
to require FEMA to apply common sense reasonableness tests to
these projects that has been missing so far.
I will give you a couple of examples from my home town of
Bay St. Louis in the Waveland school district. At north Bay
element school, FEMA says it will not pay any of the cost of
relocating the temporary trailer classrooms to clear the site
for a new school building.
Also FEMA says the new building cannot be larger than the
old building. But the classrooms from the old school were
opened to outdoor walkways. That design does not meet today's
safety requirements. The new building must have an interior
hallway but that would add to the square footage of the
building and FEMA won't approve it. At Waveland Elementary,
FEMA has ruled that the center section is more than 50 percent
damaged, but that the wings to the building are less than 50
percent damaged. This means that the school district is
required to rebuild the middle section 3 or 4 feet off the
ground, but the wings that it touches will be left on the
ground.
There are two kinds of projects that are desperately need
intervention to apply a common sense standards so that
buildings can be rebuilt to current codes and standards. The
current system has a strong bias towards rebuilding the same
facility that was destroyed. In some cases, alternative
projects would be reasonable or even desirable, but are
discouraged because they will receive less money. Under current
law, a local government loses 25 percent of its FEMA funds if
it decides to bill a new structure rather than replacing a
damaged one.
Second Street Elementary in Bay St. Louis, built during the
depression with WPA funds, is an old historic building that
suffers storm damage. FEMA says it will cover new flooring, but
not new electrical wiring. If the school district repairs the
school to modern codes and standards, they will have to have 5
to $7 million in cost that FEMA says it will not cover. The
school district would rather consolidate the elementary school
buildings by building additional classrooms at North Bay, but
they would lose 25 percent of the FEMA funds for Second Street
if they did so. FEMA should be encouraging cities and counties
that lost buildings to consolidate projects. This is especially
true in areas where FEMA is regarding the new construction to
be built at higher elevations and stronger building codes.
I recommend a change in the Stafford Act, so that there is
no reduction in funding for alternative projects. FEMA should
consider alternative projects on their merits rather than
looking for loopholes to reject them. We have a chance to
rebuild public facilities according to stronger building codes
and disaster mitigation standards if FEMA would allow us to
take advantage of this opportunity.
My third request is for language to direct FEMA to apply a
reasonableness standard to the dozens of disputed projects for
reimbursement on debris removal. The main problem in many of
these cases is that the local governments school districts and
public utilities took decisive action in the immediate
aftermath of the storm when FEMA was still nowhere to be found.
After this fact, FEMA challenged their contracts for not
complying with notice and bid rules.
Madam Chairwoman, I realize I am over my time, so my
question to you is would you prefer I submit the remainder of
my statement for the record or--I probably got another 2
minutes, so it is your call.
Ms. Norton. Go right ahead.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you.
The Stafford Act allows emergency contracting procedures
for 72 hours but then requires local governments to follow its
bid requirements. The 72 hour requirement should have been
waived a long time ago. In Hancock County, we had no
communication, no electricity, no gasoline and certainly no
leadership from FEMA for several weeks after the storm.
All the public utilities did a phenomenal job and saved
FEMA millions of dollars by making it possible for people to
return to their homes. Elected cooperatives hired contractors
to remove trees and other debris from their right of ways so
the power crews could come behind and restore service.
FEMA has denied reimbursement for some of these contracts.
FEMA wants all the debris to be removal to be paid for by the
cubic yard but the utilities paid their contractors by time and
equipment. FEMA rules would have made the job more expensive
and would have taken longer to restore utilities. I suggest
language stating that FEMA can not disallow a contract by
public utility during the emergency period simply for failing
to comply with FEMA bid requirements.
For public utilities the emergency period should be fine to
extend until utility service has been restored to the service
area. FEMA should then be reimbursed at a reasonable charges on
time and equipment basis.
School districts had a similar debris removal dispute. FEMA
still has not fully reimbursed districts for debris removal
because it did not follow FEMA rules.
For example, FEMA said it would cut down the dead trees and
limbs on school campuses but would not pay for grinding the
stumps or cutting down the trees smaller than 2 inches in
diameter. FEMA second guessing the local contracts is
specifically outrageous because on their own contract, FEMA
handed out billions of dollars in no-bid cost-plus contracts to
Bechtel, Shaw, Fluor, CH2M Hill with almost no oversight. FEMA
ignored the huge waste and fraud on its own contracts but then
sent people out measuring stumps and limbs to deny
reimbursements to local school districts.
I have heard dozens of complaints from local officials
about the cost of turnover among FEMA representatives. And
Madam Chairman, I am a witness to this. In the immediate
aftermath of the storm, FEMA filled its ranks by taking people
from other government agencies, putting a FEMA jacket on them
and sending them out to make decisions that involved millions
of dollars. The FEMA representative on scene would go forth and
tell a local county supervisor or a mayor or a school
superintendent, go ahead and do that, we will reimburse it.
When the bill came to be paid, that FEMA representative was
long gone. The one that took their place then questions whether
or not he was allowed in the first place.
And so what we would ask for is more professionalism in the
FEMA ranks. Don't send people down to a disaster area for a day
or 2 or week or 2, or even a month or 2. If the recovery is
going to take 10 to 20 months then we have to have a commitment
from the FEMA employees to stay there for the duration so that
a commitment made on the part of our Nation one day is upheld
by our Nation when the bill comes due months later.
Madam Chairman, you have been very, very generous. As you
can see I still have a couple more pages. I want to submit that
for the record. And I think we have made the points we need to
make, and above all, I want to thank you for hearing us out.
There is a lot to be done on the gulf coast we need our
Nation's help to get this done. I just want to see to it that
it is done in a cost-effective manner for every American and
that the folks in Louisiana and Mississippi and the entire gulf
coast are treated fairly.
Thank you for having this hearing.
Ms. Norton. I want to thank you Mr. Taylor. Your testimony
contained just the sort of concrete examples we are looking
for. We don't want to sit here and kind of dream up examples
from what we read in the newspaper. That is why we are hearing
directly from Members of Congress who are the first person
people turn to. They don't turn to the committee. They turn to
you. So this is just the kind of testimony we are after.
And I am pleased to welcome my good friend, Mr. Pickering,
who I worked with in the past and I am pleased to hear his
testimony as well.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHARLES PICKERING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
Mr. Pickering. Madam Chair and Mr. Graves, as the ranking
member, I appreciate the committee's hearing those from
Mississippi and Louisiana as we try to find the ways to finish
our recovery and to speed the recovery and get the help to our
communities back home.
I want to commend Congressman Taylor for his
recommendations and his proposals and I want to join with him
in complete agreement on his proposals, his identification of
the problems that are remaining and to join with him as he has
led the way on the Mississippi gulf coast and has been a great
example of someone who serves, leads and stands with his people
during a time of disaster.
I want to join him in talking about many of the same
issues, and I will get to that. But first, let me just say as
we look at FEMA not only as we finish the recovery, but as we
look at the future reforms, you look toward the Coast Guard and
you see a mission-oriented culture, one that emphasizes speed
to rescue because they know that a life is at stake and you may
have that golden hour in which you can make a difference.
And we need to look at how we have FEMA structured and all
of the bureaucracies that go with it and the inability to act
in a quick, rapid way.
Just as individuals can die or lose quality of life over a
long period of time, if we do not quickly assist communities,
communities too can die or have irreparable damage. And we do a
disservice here in Congress not to reform and not to find the
common sense solutions that will help not only Coast Guard
quickly rescue, but have FEMA quickly recover and rebuild
working with our State and local officials and the non profits
and the voluntary organizations.
In joining with Congressman Taylor, one of the things we
repeatedly hear from our local officials is that we have too
high a staff turnover in FEMA, no empowerment at the field
level, no decision maker, no joint decision maker. You have
multiple organizations. For example the IG can overrule the
FEMA or the MEMA officials who have reached an agreement on a
lot of the reimbursements on the schools and on the debris and
on the other public facilities.
And so, if we could unify command, unify leadership so you
have one place to get the one answer that will give certainty
and speed and stop the paralysis or the burden that is
happening in many of our communities. If we could bring an FCO-
like individual who is empowered to make the decisions to
support the local communities' good faith reliance on the
directions given to the local officials in the beginning or the
mid-point of the recovery.
Only one-third of the transitional recovery office in
Mississippi is permanently staffed. We need more staff to
finish the job. Our theory is, as we go to the next hurricane
season, if there is another hurricane with much of the
outstanding work still pending in Mississippi, that we will
lose the resources and what is a burden today could halt the
recovery and do even more damage. We need quick assistance to
finish the storm recovery. And that means more staff and a
clear commander to finish the job, an FCO.
The next issue is one that Congressman Taylor mentioned as
well. We have 231 project worksheets that have been completed.
Out of those, 132 have been pending for over 90 days. They have
been completed. They have met all the standards. But they have
not been reimbursed. And we need to find either the staff or
the will to resolve those pending work projects that accounts
to $41 million that is primarily on small communities, small
counties, and in small companies that did the work after the
storm.
If we can give FEMA a date certain to close out this
process, give them the staff and the leadership to be able to
implement that date certain requirement, then I believe that
will go a long way and give greater confidence and certainty.
The reasonableness issue that Congressman Taylor mentioned,
many of you are communities about half the debris was done by
local communities and half done by the Corps of Engineers
through FEMA and with a National contract.
Many of our communities are being rejected reimbursement
even though the cost of the debris removal was the same or
lower than the cost of the Federal contract.
And it seems to me if it is reasonable for the Federal side
to get the reimbursement, it should not be--a local community
should not be penalized or denied the reimbursement.
Another example down on the coast when it comes to the 50
percent rule, there was a school in Diberville, where the
cafeteria was ruled that it was not damaged over 50 percent
therefore it could not be replaced. But all the other
classrooms were.
They wanted to move 7 miles inland to be able to have
higher ground to be able to have an alternative project and to
have a safer place for the school to be rebuilt. They could do
the classrooms, but they couldn't do the cafeteria. And now you
tell me how does a school not have a cafeteria or transport
students back and forth from a cafeteria to the classroom? That
type of common sense ability to say this is a way that we can
do it that is safer, stronger and better for the school and it
should be reimbursed.
And just finishing, Madam Chair, if we could empower a
decision maker in Mississippi to finish the recovery, if we can
get the staff necessary to do it, if we can have a time table,
a time certain and a quick adjudication or arbitration process
so that the reimbursements that are owed are done as quickly as
possible. And then as we look forward to the next storms, we
need to look for ways to emphasize the local response, similar
to the Florida model of having contracts in place at the local
level prestorm. We need to look at imposing prompt payment
standards on FEMA and its reimbursements like we do in many
areas of the Federal Government so that 2 and 3 years after a
storm, we still don't have outstanding issues of payments and
reimbursement.
I believe the CBDG and the grants approach that has been
used in the New Orleans and in Mississippi is an example of
what can be done used at the front end of the storm not only at
the back end, so you can have an insurance type model, so that
if the assessment of the public facilities of an area equal a
certain amount that a grant can be given to them without all
the micromanagement, all of the bureaucracy and all the
paralysis that comes from having to get every bathroom, every
light bulb, every doorway, every square footage signed off by a
Federal agency so that we can streamline the process and so
that the rapid recovery can also be part of our strategy
instead of the long delays that we are seeing in recovery. We
need the rescue and recovery to have the same mission and that
is a fast, speedy, efficient and accountable recovery.
There are some other issues and I will be glad to submit
those to the record. I know that I have gone over my time, but
I do want to thank the committee and join with Congressman
Taylor and the other gulf coast members as we find ways to help
finish this recovery and then reform for the next storm. Thank
you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Pickering. Your district also
was impacted we know by Representative Taylor's, he has gone to
great pains to remind us.
Mr. Pickering. His district was hit much harder, but the
storm went all the way up, 150 miles into Mississippi. We were
we were able to recover fairly quickly and we still have some
issues in the counties I represent of still not being
reimbursed. So it is across the board that we have some of the
same problems.
Ms. Norton. Let me ask you both, basically, what runs
through your testimony is the, what would appear to be
rigidities in the way FEMA deals with some of the issues which,
anyone can see, from hearing you, and a common sense practical
basis are issues that need to be dealt with forthwith. You may
recall that after the disaster, we hauled in officials from the
gulf coast trying to make sure that the money that was about to
go out here in record numbers was not wasted.
And if the truth be told, not so much I must say on the
gulf coast but generally one of the major issues that has
affected Congress in the last several years has been contract
issues where the difficulty the Federal Government has in
monitoring contracts, billions of dollars wasted from Iraq to
contracts in this country for various purposes and lots of
oversight now going on.
Be assured that we are sitting in order to provide what we
regard as one time, one place relief so we understand we are
dealing with a special circumstance. But against the backdrop,
I have just mentioned any ideas you have on the necessary
flexibility in contracts in particular and reconciling that
with the Federal system to obligate funds in a manner that can
be audited and accounted for so that the agency doesn't have
this coming back at them? Have you thought--and I recognize you
are not auditing experts. But at the same time, we go about
these flexibilities that is going to be a major issue.
How can you streamline it while making sure that if
somebody goes in and audits it they don't just find here there
and everywhere waste that then comes back and haunts the
agency? Yes, sir.
Mr. Taylor. Madam Chairman, if I may, what I was really
struck by was in the immediate aftermath of the storm, people
just made decisions. My two mayors closest to my personal home
sent policemen to the Wal-Mart, to the grocery store, to two
grocery stores, posted them at the door and said, look, FEMA is
not here. People have to eat. They can go in and they can take
food they can take a change of clothes. If they take anything
other than that they are going to be arrested. I was there when
the head of the Mississippi emergency management told a guy who
had just delivered a load of ice that he was commandeering his
truck because we had to have a temporary morgue. Good decisions
were made on the spot by people who knew this is what we have
to do.
And then you contrast that with some of the examples I have
given you 20 months after the fact, because I think you really
are dealing with, to a very large extent, a lack of
professionalism within FEMA, people who don't know the rules,
people who are afraid of the rules and then people who rely on
the rules for a reason to say no which as we all know is the
easiest thing to do.
What I would recommend is some sort of a cafeteria of
options. You know some of these communities are--I made mention
of the Old Bay St. Louis schools built there since 1920s. I
would hope that that city would be given the option of saying
there is a historic structure, it is getting close to 100 years
old. Sure, if you want to bring it up to OSHA, of you want to
bring it up to ADA standards, if you feel that that is an
integral part of your community and you have lost so much in
your community and you want this as one of those things that
you want to be a cornerstone yes we will give you the option of
restoring it.
If, on the other hand, if the local community says you know
what, we just as soon have as Chip mentioned a new school
further inland that won't flood next time, they ought to have
that option as well.
But I think what we are going to have to do legislatively
is spell that out for those many options exist. And above all,
I can't emphasize enough, we had people come down to help us
who may have been great foresters, who may have known a world
about aqua culture, who may have known a lot about boll
weevils. All good in their own profession. But what we saw was
for lack of a professional staff at FEMA, these people were
literally grabbed, sent down to south Mississippi. Somebody
slapped a FEMA jacket on them and said now you are an expert.
They didn't know the job. It wasn't fair to them. It wasn't
fair to the local communities.
The other thing I would ask to come out of this is if we
have to spell it out in the code, some sort of professional
qualifications for people who are going to respond to these
types of disasters and make multi-million dollar decisions. And
I think both of those them are important. A cafeteria plan, you
and I have a cafeteria plan on our options on our health care.
The cities ought to have a cafeteria plan of options of how to
respond to these storms and what they want to do with their
buildings.
Ms. Norton. Some of what you describe would mean that if
FEMA did it the way they "usually do," they would spending more
money and perhaps even wasting money. You don't want to build--
look, this is even, on the best of circumstances, this is a
flood prone area. So obviously, we don't want to build in a
way--but let me suggest just hearing your testimony, there is a
dichotomy between two kinds of expenditures. One which is truly
unconscionable, if you consider the people who went out and did
what they had to do to help people survive, that is
reimbursements that are still outstanding.
It seems to me that on those, the committee could look at a
fast way to get those reimbursements done. They were done, one
could carve out a period of time, a kind of reimbursement after
the Act and that is one category.
There are ongoing matters which fit the gulf coast and
probably wouldn't fit other places where one could show--it
seems to me--I am relying on your testimony now--that to do it
the way they are going to do it is either wasteful to the
jurisdiction or causes loss to FEMA funds, or is wasteful to
the Federal Government.
I am looking at your testimony about when to consolidate
additional classrooms. Now, it does even say that they want
more classrooms but they want to consolidate them. And I am
looking on Page--they are not numbered. The school district
would rather consolidate the elementary schools by building
additional classrooms at north Bay elementary school. But they
would lose 25 percent of FEMA funds for the second street if
they do so.
Mr. Taylor. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. You are not saying it would cost more are you?
Mr. Taylor. It would cost more then, and again, I am asking
you to keep in mind I used to be a city councilman in that
town. The cities of Mississippi live on sales tax. That is
their primary source of revenue. The cities that were the most
dramatically impacted by the storm lost all their stores. They
have no source of revenue. The city of Pass Christian to this
day really does not have a major store in the town. So Pass
Christian is a perfect example.
Bay St. Louis is a very good example of a city that has
lost a great deal of tax revenue coming in, has lost most of
their buildings and now is in a position of having to replace
them. So when a Federal Government tells a city like Bay San
Louis or Pass Christian, you are going to have to pay 25
percent more to do it right, where is the more going to come
from.
Ms. Norton. Some of this is case-by-case, but again, in
case-by-case, it does seem to me you could figure out whether
or not you are wasting money by doing it the old way.
Mr. Taylor. Mrs. Norton, can I just throw one more thing at
you because this is related to your jurisdiction. We are 20
months after the storm. And FEMA has not updated the flood
maps. You mentioned flooding. You mentioned do we really want
to build a school in a place where it is going to flood? Twenty
months after the storm, those maps have not been submitted to
the cities. The cities are operating under interim rules that
said, go back and tell everybody you have to build 4 feet
higher than you used to be. I know it is a shared jurisdiction,
but it has to start with FEMA. If FEMA is going to come up with
rules saying you have to be at a certain elevation, they have
to come up with flood maps.
Lastly, and I tried to shorten my testimony, they have to
use some common sense. Obviously you want a school in a place
that is not going to flood. You want it high enough that it is
not going to flood. But telling a bus stop that you won't
repair that facility for a bus stop unless it is 25 feet above
sea level when the ground level is 3 feet above sea level is
insane. A beach rest room telling them it has to be 25 feet
above sea level when the beach is at sea level is insane. There
are a lot of ways to work around this----
Ms. Norton. The bias toward building the same facility
cannot obtain in such a catastrophic way. They of course have
the issue. We see what the issue is. People can game the system
to say now that we have got FEMA here why don't we build a
state of the art system. On the other hand where there is a
catastrophic event, you really don't have the option of
building the same facility where it will, in fact, in a flood
prone area encounter the same problems. This notion about
building on sticks and you have to do so for the bus stop that
is really late night comedy stuff.
Mr. Taylor. But Madam Chairman, that is a real life
example----
Ms. Norton. Let me just say this. FEMA does have the
flexibility to do some of this. But you can see they are afraid
to do it and that is what the committee's job is. I don't have
a lot of--your examples really say the--really tell the
stories. One thing that really bothers me a great deal, it
would bother me beyond the gulf coast, I think the committee
needs to look more seriously at this period that you say on
page 2 of your testimony, Mr. Taylor, that FEMA is supposed to
pay 90 percent of the cost of rebuilding these facilities
narrows the scope to exclude many costs that are necessary to
comply with building codes and standards.
I asked staff what does she know about this, and I said
that sounds nonsensical, we are going to build not to code, and
they may have the notion that you have to build it to the old
code that was in existence when it was built rather than the
code that the agency has been at pains to upgrade the matter
to, but how could the Federal Government possibly justify not
building to code, whatever is the code in existence now?
Those are examples of things we are going to have to look
at.
Certainly in your area--and I would say I would really want
to look at the notion of recognizing that costs may be involved
and we will have to look more closely if we talk about
noncatastrophic areas. But I would hate the Federal Government
to be caught not building to code when States have required,
seems to me quite justifiably, that facilities come up to code
needs a lot of scrutiny.
Mr. Taylor. Madam Chair, just the last point, the Americans
with Disability Act was passed after most of these schools were
built. So that is one code change that is obviously expensive,
obviously done for the right reasons, but something that should
be addressed and hopefully, since our Nation has mandated it
now and I voted for it----
Mr. Ortiz. There is no way in which the Federal Government,
which administers the ADA, is going to say build but not in
compliance with the ADA. We have to make that plain. We have to
make that plain. Mr. Graves.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Madam Chairman. In our FEMA reform
bill that we passed last year, I know you guys were pretty
active in creating a long-term recovery office and you are
supposed to hire 2- and 3-year employees so that they would be
around because, Gene, you have obviously spoken to the problems
we are having, and Chip, you did, too, to the guys coming in
and making decisions and then being gone. We were supposed to
have these 2- and 3-year employees. And we are also supposed to
push the decision making authority down to the Gulf Coast
Recovery Authority that was there.
Now, my question is are these things not happening? And is
DHS--because I know there was pushback from the Department of
Homeland Security on what we were trying to do. Are they still
making all those decisions at the top? Are they not pushing it
down? Either one of you.
Mr. Pickering. For example, the transitional recovery
office, we are now in our third acting director and that is not
a permanent director. It is the third acting director. And
again, a lot of that office we only have one-third staffing.
And so a lot of what we try to implement in the FEMA reform is
not being carried out. And I think that is why 20 months out of
the storm they don't have the staff to be able to make the
final decisions to make, to close out a lot of the work orders
that have been done and completed and a lot of the issues. You
have a split between the IG and the office, and they make
conflicting decisions, and then it paralyzes any resolution so
you have no quick resolution mechanism.
And so I think that if we can give deadlines, one of the
things that Gene mentioned not to have the FEMA flood maps. We
need a deadline for that. We need deadlines for these
reimbursements or a dispute mechanism that will allow us to
quickly get there.
And we need to direct FEMA to fully staff and to get
someone in charge so that there is a clear command and control.
Mr. Graves. Three acting directors.
Mr. Pickering. And that is in 20 months.
Mr. Taylor. And again, not a single public building has
been replaced in coastal Mississippi. Look they are good
sports. They are working out temporary trailers. They are doing
their jobs, but at some point, these trailers themselves become
a hazard. In fact, they become a hazard the next hurricane
season because they become shrapnel when the wind grabs them.
They are just not made to be down there when the wind blows
over 100 miles per hour.
Mr. Pickering. Let me just add that everything that slows
the recovery increases the cost of recovery, labor material and
land goes up. Time is money. And what they--for example, all
these small companies and counties and communities if you have
$41 million outstanding, and you are having to bear all the
interest and all the delays and all the losses and you don't
have sales tax, all the burden is on the local community. We
really need to shift that, have a prompt payment requirement,
so that if the Federal Government doesn't reimburse in a timely
way then the Federal Government has to pay penalties and
interest just like an individual taxpayer does if they don't
pay their tax bill on time.
So we need fairness. We need quick response. And we need
some resources just to make sure that FEMA has the people to do
the job.
Mr. Graves. The Federal Government obviously ought to start
acting a little bit more like everybody else has to and just as
you say, do their job, but the longer this stuff waits, the
more it costs. You are exactly right, and it continues to add
to it.
Mr. Pickering. Mr. Graves, let me just add, Madam Chair had
asked about contracts. Let me just give you an example as we
look forward. We had about 40 million cubic yards of debris
just in Mississippi. Now half of that was done through a
Federal contract, and the rest was done by local communities,
and counties roughly equal each about 20 million. And what we
have seen from the data that we have is that the local
communities cleaned up the debris at about half the cost that
the Federal Government did. The Federal cubic yard average was
$31 a cubic yard and the average for local community was around
$15 a cubic yard. Now that is a huge difference in resources to
the taxpayer but also the local communities usually did it
faster. The local communities are the ones who are getting
stuck without their bills being paid and the local companies
are having to carry all that cost.
So they did a--now, I do think and agree with Congressman
Taylor that there is going to be some places that have to have
the Federal contract and the Federal assistance, but we need to
shift in the future to emphasize having local contracts in
place because it is best for the taxpayer and best for the
local communities.
And I think it speeds recovery. And then if we can fix the
reimbursement to local communities, and in a timely way, then I
think you have an ability to take an organization, FEMA, that
is slowing recovery and make it actually accelerate the
recovery.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. Those of you who can vote
have a vote coming up in a moment. And we want to finish with
this panel. And I have only one question. I was a little
perplexed by the first page of your testimony.
Mr. Taylor, in which you appear to complain about the
building of a bridge across the Bay without building any
public--any significant public buildings. I understand about
the public buildings. Are you saying the bridge was not vital
or necessary.
Mr. Taylor. Oh, no, ma'am, we are very grateful for that
bridge, believe me, these are two communities that used to be
joined at the hip. The points I am making is if they build a
bridge from scratch in 20 months, they ought to be able to
build a city hall or a school.
Ms. Norton. I see, yes, indeed it would. Finally, just let
me say to you before you go to vote what we are discussing here
are really the day-to-day matters that determine for people
whether they want to continue to live in this major part of the
country, and to say to their relatives who haven't decided
whether to come home, whether or not to come home or not, we--
these may seem small matters to people outside of your
jurisdictions. But these are the things closest to the people.
And these are the things that make the decision for them.
I want to put you on notice that we are later going to have
a hearing or a set of hearings that I call repopulation and
continuing population growth in the gulf coast. And these
hearings are going to focus on three issues which we also think
everything is said and done, is going to decide the issues of
population growth.
These are insurance, you can talk about housing until you
are blue in the face but if we don't find a way for people to
get insurance, people understand they are not supposed to come
back. Talking about levees, how much assurance do people need
that they are not going to be subject to another flood
tomorrow. And the third thing is public safety. These things
are overarching issues, just as we think these are the issues
that decide people right now.
The difference is that these issues are the issues that
people are using to make their decision right now whether to
come home, whether to stay or whether to do what Americans have
done since the beginning of our country, move on. This the
great frontier. Mississippi was one of the places that you went
to. You left the east coast. You left the midwest. Hey, guess
what, we are at the end of the frontier. And we want to make
sure that the gulf coast, both of these places, were prime
sources of revenue for their States. They lost their tax base.
That means your States are out of luck. We want to make sure
that repopulation where oil is, this is where many of our
resources are. We want to make sure that these States are
repopulated. We want to do it now, to make sure that FEMA hops
over all of this rigidity and makes a decision it must make
now.
And we want to do it in the long run to make sure people
understand that the overarching issues can be dealt with and
are being dealt with, and I hope I haven't made you miss a
vote, but cast one for me, too, if you would.
Mr. Taylor. Madam Chairwoman, you may live 1,100 miles from
south Mississippi, but you could not have summed up better what
needs to be done than you just did, so thank you very much.
Mr. Pickering. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. We will reconvene, it is my understanding there
will be 5 votes, 45 minutes, and I guess it is the New Orleans
Louisiana delegation we will hear from you which is our last
set of members.
Ms. Norton. In light of the hour, we are going to resume
testimony with the members of the Louisiana delegation who are
here. Others, as they come, of course, can join them. So I am
pleased to welcome Mr. Baker, who I think is a member of the
committee. And Mr. Boustany, to begin their testimony.
Mr. Baker. I am sorry, Mr. Boustany, is also a member of
the committee.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Baker.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. RICHARD BAKER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA
Mr. Baker. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate your
courtesy in conducting the hearing and in moving ahead in such
a timely manner. I wish to preface my remarks which are a very
succinct summary of the written statement by expressing the
view that the rules and mechanisms in place from FEMA to
homeland security to everyone never contemplated resolution of
an event so catastrophic in scope, and I believe in most
instances, the rules are constructed for matters of
inconvenience lasting a few days when power outages are
minimal, when there has been relatively modest dislocation of
individuals and where most of the social order of the community
affected remains intact, meaning law and order, schools,
grocery stores, and facilities generally needed to accommodate
the needs of those living there.
In this instance, in response to the Katrina-Rita matter,
these storms were so overwhelming they overwhelmed the law rule
and common sense. For example, it may not be uncustomary for
the expenses of FEMA in a mobilization effort of short
duration, to have a very high administrative costs. In the
first quarter of the storm's resolution, 26 percent of all the
moneys that the public assumed were going to help individuals
went first to pay FEMA operations, and that is administrative
costs, that is not FEMA grants or assistance given to
individuals. I thought that rather high, but I examined it
after the last 12 months of operation, and the number still
remains about 22 percent.
In the case of Louisiana, that was a recipient of slightly
more than $32 billion, far less than some would have imagined,
about $7.5 billion of that leaving us with a net of 25 actually
went to FEMA first. That is a matter which I believe, at least
for the sake of accuracy and reporting, should have a separate
funding category away from that which is categorized as
assistance to communities.
So taxpayers have some better understanding about where
their dollars are actually being allocated. Secondly, is that
some significant disparity with the treatment with local
officials and local responders in the way their expenses were
characterized and reimbursed. One area that has been most
sensitive is the area of lost revenues or foregone revenues. In
the case of the most natural disasters, there are public
facilities which are inconvenienced for a matter of a few days
at worst, often the inconveniences over a weekend where there
was no planned activity. In the case of Baton Rouge and our
river center, which is an enormous facility that housed, at one
time, housed over 7,000 people, it was out of utilization for
approximately 2 months. This was not by voluntary act of the
city, it was by FEMA's decision to take that for its purposes.
Not that that wasn't a legitimate and reasonable thing to do.
But the expenses, the revenue lost to that entity because of
the forced utilization over a two-month period has a direct
bottom line impact on the viability of that governmental entity
over the course of a year.
But yet that is not now something in these extreme
circumstances which can be considered as a reimbursable item.
Also in analyzing the method of expenditure, there was no
common standard that taxpayer consequence be a priority in
determining what action should be taken. As a, for example, we
have in Financial Services changed modestly the requirement
that a housing resolution not be exclusively temporary in
nature. The reason for that is modular housing put on a slab--
this comes from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have been
constructed in 90 days or less on available properties for a
cost per unit on average of $60,000. The cost on average per
unit to install--to acquire move install and make the trailer
habitable was $72,000.
Secondly, I don't know how the counting was done on how
many trailers initially should be acquired. I don't believe
there was a survey of any sort from those persons who were in
the various centers. If trailers were made available, would you
utilize it? It is my understanding that although there are
9,000 trailers still in Hope, Arkansas on a $5 million gravel
pad, although 4,000 units have never been deployed or unwrapped
as they call it. It seems that excessive expenditure was not
warranted, and in instances since Katrina, those trailers have
remained undeployed despite the fact there have been others who
have lost their housing inventory.
Two other recommendations--and I shall be brief. One is
more the predeployment storm season of various assets. There is
one big box store in the country. There are many, but one in
particular who has their own meteorological department. They
track these storms the way homeowners track. And when the storm
is a few hours out, they redivert Pop Tarts and batteries and
lanterns to those locations. When the storm path changes or the
storm is leaving, they will bring in generators, blankets,
tarps those things people need after the storm.
My observation is in speaking to some of the management,
they do a much better job of deploying needed resources into
the marketplace and their penetration into residential areas is
quite significant that if we were to engage in some sort of
Federal negotiation prior to each storm season, we are a month
away, what would be our response tomorrow if a storm came
across North Carolina? Where are the Federal resources? And it
is the emergency nature of the spending pattern that spikes the
cost rather than a prenegotiated contract for deployment of,
say, an overnight basket for an individual with a blanket, a
flashlight, a bottle of water and a few Pop Tarts. Those could
be readily displayed by the box store itself or handled by the
National Guard or those volunteers.
Another point, when individuals came with manufactured
material in the manufactured seal to the river center to give
the material to the Red Cross volunteers and others managing
the center. That was not accepted. We have a very large
bottling facility in my city capable of manufacturing
considerable amounts of bottled water. Unless you had a
previously agreed-upon purchase agreement relationship with the
Red Cross, those contributions were not made available at great
loss to those individuals who were of necessity in the river
center. One last idea, in this day and age of Internet access
and sophisticated technological deployment, we should have in
place some catastrophic risk analysis system that is in real-
time. By that, I mean you could turn on your TV and go to a
channel, maybe run by the weather station, go to your computer
on the Internet, and there should be an ability of FEMA, the
National Weather Association, other critical entities,
including State police to give you highway conditions, the
hotel-motel association where you could look on the map before
the storm's landfall, and by color coding, see whether or not
you are at risk, see whether the traffic is flowing on
particular evacuation routes, even display the availability of
hotel rooms so people get a sense that this thing is coming and
if I don't get out now, the roads are going to be impassible or
I am not going to be able to find temporary housing for my
family. It is not that easy to construct, but it would be
vitally important. This would be real-time data so that any
input from any Agency would go into an algorithm and present
the map based on the real-time risk assessments.
I think something of that sort would greatly facilitate
earlier departure by residents at risk and enable those of us
who are wanting to be of assistance to be better informed about
the hazards that we face. With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Baker. I am reminded of the
Weather Channel which almost is there. If you look at the
Weather Channel, very scientific movement of the storm.
Mr. Baker. It wouldn't take much to upgrade that to where
it would be a real systemic matter on housing transportation
and others.
Ms. Norton. Absolutely. Mr. Boustany.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHARLES BOUSTANY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA
Mr. Boustany. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for
providing me the opportunity, and I would ask unanimous consent
to stick my entire written record--written statement in the
record. Let me start by saying from the beginning, this
subcommittee has been a very strong advocate as we have worked
together to recover in the gulf coast. And I am pleased that
the tradition continues today with this hearing. I do want to
remind my colleagues that there were two storms of similar
magnitude that hit the gulf coast in 2005; Hurricane Rita, the
second storm, brought high winds in excess of 120 miles per
hour and a storm surge equivalent to that of a category 5
storm. The total damage is estimated at approximately $10
billion, making Rita--which we call the forgotten storm in my
district--the third costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
Eighteen months after the storm, many impacted local
governments organizations and individuals have simply chosen to
move on rather than wait for aid. In addition, much of the
disaster assistance, literally billions of dollars worth is now
being held up by bureaucratic red tape at the State level,
which Congress has little control over. The subcommittee can
make a big difference by examining some of the lessons we have
learned and consider possible changes to the Stafford Act that
might help prevent these problems from recurring. Inconsistent
FEMA policies and procedures and constant staff turnover have
plagued recovery efforts. For Vermilion Parish for instance, in
Vermilion Parish officials spent months working under the
assumption that two school buildings damaged by the storm were
eligible to be rebuilt. After parish officials bought land to
accommodate one of the schools, it was then subsequently
determined that a low-level FEMA field representative had made
a mistake and, in fact, a very costly mistake and the schools,
in fact, would not be rebuilt.
The information being provided by FEMA should be accurate
and consistent. More needs to be done to implement the reforms
Congress passed last year to prevent staff turnover, and to
ensure stability in the regional offices. I can tell you as a
heart surgeon, I would never start a heart operation with an
inexperienced team and then have turnover in the midst of the
operation. That is just not good practice. And I think the same
applies to FEMA during emergency circumstances. We also need to
do a better job of getting Federal disaster aid into the hands
of victims quickly and efficiently while still providing
safeguards against fraud and abuse. Much of the aid Congress
approved last year is still sitting in Baton Rouge, our State
capital, waiting to be spent.
According to FEMA, only $27 million of the $99 million
currently available in public assistance funds for Cameron
Parish have been released. The current payment system should be
streamlined so that applicants are not required to go through
multiple layers of government bureaucracy to receive payments.
FEMA should also be able to reimburse other Federal agencies
for work they perform after the disaster. Over 250,000 dump
truckloads of posthurricane debris including tanks as large as
18 wheelers were scattered throughout the Sabine National
Wildlife Refuge. The refuge did not have the funds for cleanup
and was ineligible for reimbursement under the Stafford Act.
Eight months later, Congress ultimately provided funding
for the cleanup, but we shouldn't have to wait for
congressional earmark to move forward while thousands of
gallons of hazardous material threaten our wetlands and
critical habitats. There ought to be an interim agency in
place. Louisiana's local State and law enforcement also had to
wait nearly 6 months to receive vital funding to aid in their
justice system recovery.
As a result, we learned that State and local agencies can
better serve the public and respond to law enforcement needs in
a disaster area quickly if funds are provided directly through
the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance, which is
the traditional conduit for Federal law enforcement funding. I
would like to work with the subcommittee to provide FEMA with
the authority to release emergency funds directly to the
Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance to aid law
enforcement recovery efforts. I think this is very important.
Debris removal on private lands is another issue that is
not so cut and dry. Taxpayers certainly should not have to foot
the bill for cleanup on private lands. But in one instance, a
public building was washed away and set on private land within
a subdivision. The homeowners were required to pay for the cost
of removing public debris. The Stafford Act does not currently
allow for reimbursement for removal of public debris on private
lands. And this is something that should be addressed. FEMA
should also be required to reimburse expenses incurred for
reinternment. This is an issue we saw in Cameron Parish, and I
believe it also happened in Orleans Parish as well.
In Cameron Parish nearly 350 bodies crypts and caskets had
to be reinterned after the storm. Local mortuaries undertook
the task at their own expense and still have not been
reimbursed. We should respect the deceased and ensure that the
remains are interned quickly and with the dignity that they
deserve. We shouldn't have to spend months and months trying to
figure out whose responsibility it is to bear this cost.
There is no doubt that Hurricane Rita has forever changed
the coast, but no force of nature is strong enough to destroy
the spirit that is helping the people of southwest Louisiana
recover and rebuild. Much more work remains to be done, but we
can learn from this tragedy and prepare ourselves for future
disasters of the magnitude of Katrina and Rita. The
subcommittee should use this unique opportunity to make the
changes that need to be made now so that future recovery
efforts aren't hindered. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I will be
happy to answer any questions, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Boustany. I will go on
to Mr. Jefferson. He was actually the first in the room here
when we opened the hearing.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. WILLIAM JEFFERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA
Mr. Jefferson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have had the
benefit of hearing everyone's testimony, except Mr. Jindal's
now, since I have been here since 2:00. It is a wonderful
opportunity to be here with you, and I thank you very much for
this chance to appear before your subcommittee. In New Orleans
now, there are some 220,000 people who are not back home. Half
our schools aren't open, half our hospitals aren't open, day
care centers aren't open. The place really isn't really open
for business fully. Our city has about 6 percent of its tax
base back in place.
As we consider how to best deal with the challenges that
face us in rebuilding the gulf coast, we have the opportunity
to prevent some things that went wrong from happening in the
future. The Stafford Act was designed to provide a
comprehensive framework for the government's response to a
major disaster. As we have learned many aspects of it, however,
however well meaning they are worked against this objective.
I would like to highlight some of the more pressing needs
that our community faced and in dealing with the limitations of
the Stafford Act, and some ways that I suggest we may remove
some of them. Providing transitional housing for our residents
who wish to return is the most pressing issue we face. Without
adequate transitional housing stock, our residents have no
choice but to stay away from the city they call home and cannot
begin to rebuild until they have resolved temporary housing
needs.
A good option for housing displaced residents would be to
expand the rental reimbursement program and to provide more
flexibility to meet the needs of specific disasters. In New
Orleans, we have had numerous owners of damaged apartment
buildings, for example, offer to use their own funds to
rehabilitate their property in exchange for guarantees from
FEMA that it would pay for the rates for its returnees.
In this scenario, the local property owner would benefit
from having a guaranteed revenue source and the tenants would
be back at home to work school jobs and permanent housing
solutions would also be in safe structures. Unfortunately, FEMA
did not have the authority to set up such mutually beneficial
arrangements and a great opportunity was lost. The Stafford Act
relies too heavily on providing mobile or prefabricated housing
units for displaced residents.
Housing citizens in trailers acceptable on a short-term
basis, maybe a month or so. However, a disaster of Katrina's
magnitude long-term housing in trailers is blatantly
unacceptable. We now are nearing the 2-year anniversary of the
storm and we still have thousands of residents in trailers. As
another hurricane season approaches, these individuals are in
great danger should another catastrophic storm hit the gulf
coast. Forgetting just after the storm and continue well into
subsequent weeks, nations across the globe volunteered to send
financial assistance, manpower support and goods in kind to
help alleviate the situation.
Unfortunately, our own incompetence left these generous
offers on the table and the needs of thousands of hurricane
victims went unfulfilled, an allegedly overtaxed FEMA simply
didn't accept many these offers or slowed them down with
bureaucratic inertia. From three of our staunchest allies even,
Canada Israel and Great Britain, we declined 54 of 77 aid
offers. Offers of communications equipment and aid supplies,
two of our most pressing needs, were never accepted. Even when
we did physically receive items from abroad there was no system
in place to adequately distribute them. A shipment of medicine
and supplies from Italy were left to perish in the elements and
were rendered unusable, almost 6 million meals spoiled due to
inadequate storage capabilities. Considering the tragic
suffering of our citizens who were stranded in various places
in our city with virtually no sustenance this massive oversight
is especially cruel. The Greek government offered to send two
large cruise ships to the gulf to serve as badly needed
hospital facilities and housing for residents and emergency
personnel. The offer was rejected by the Department of Homeland
Security, but shortly thereafter, contracted with the carnival
cruise lines for two of their ships at a cost of $249 million.
We must increase our storage network's capabilities and
establish a streamlined process by which donations in kind can
be accepted and distributed.
The United States Government should never again be in a
position to turn down the generosity of other nations due to
our own logistical problems. The safeguards and the Stafford
Act designed to ensure that local businesses receive contracts
have proven ineffective. Lucrative contracts were given to a
small group of national firms who then had no incentive to give
subcontracts to local companies and low performance standards.
Worse, local contractors who were given low-tier contracts
calling upon them to do the actual work, but for sometimes 1/7
of the profits received by the large firms. We have seen the
number of businesses in the New Orleans area left out in the
cold, watching as trucks with out-of-state license plates
perform work they rightfully should have been doing. Local
preference guidelines must be codified to ensure that a
specific number of contracts go to small business. Here is
where I think--here is the question that is presented. The
current language as written gives a preference to local
businesses. But provides no mechanism or guidelines for its
enforcement. Does a local preference mean all things being
equal, the local firm is awarded the contract? Or does it mean
competition must be set aside for qualified local firms unless
none can be found?
The latter construction is the only way to ensure that
local--that the local program is really meaningful. I might say
that at a different hearing in New Orleans we found out that 7
percent of the contracts that were given out were to local
firms. Their issue of prompt payment we heard about earlier. I
won't dwell on that. I see my time is rapidly running out here.
We have seen a logjam at the State level when dealing with CDBG
funding. At the Federal level, money is allocated based on the
needs of damaged areas. Once at the State level, however, this
funding is diluted by other interests. Funding that must be
approved by the State is slowed down by the legislating.
Locales not damaged by the storm but which housed large
numbers of evacuees for instance have sought reimbursement
expenses incurred. With that relative strength in the State
legislature, this topdown approach results in legislators
outside of severely affected areas having a disproportionate
influence over where funding ends up. The end result is that
badly needed funds are not flowing nearly as quickly as they
should, nor in full amounts to ravaged areas that Congress
intended. To alleviate this problem and create a more flexible
distribution of dollars, money should be granted parishes or
counties based on the devastation each sustained.
Due to the sheer magnitude of the destruction to our
infrastructure, the gulf coast has countless construction
projects funded through project worksheets. When calculating
the cost to replace equipment vehicles or facilities, the
Stafford Act provides that funding will be provided only for an
equivalent item. This inflexible policy frequently results in
absurd outcomes. If a building has a 20-year-old air
conditioning system that is completely destroyed, then the only
authorized replacement is another 20-year-old unit rather than
a new unit that is comparable in performance.
A century old school building can only be renovated to the
specifications that existed prior to being damaged and cannot
be improved in any way. This is simply a valuation issue that
requires correction. Reimbursement costs should be provided to
items or structures that are similar in function to what was
there previously and not a carbon copy to what is likely
outdated equipment. We learned a good number of lessons from
this recovery and what should be done with respect to making
this program work better, Stafford Act work better. There are
many other things I could like to say, but my time is long
past, and I would like to submit the rest of my testimony for
the record, and I thank you for the chance to speak with you
about this.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Jefferson.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Jindal.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. BOBBY JINDAL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA
Mr. Jindal. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, as well
as the ranking member. Thank you for the opportunity to be
here. I, too, would like to submit my written comments for the
record. I will not repeat what many of my colleagues have said.
First of all, I want to thank the committee for its interest in
reforming the Stafford Act to help address not only the Katrina
and Rita situations, but also future storms. I am also grateful
that so many of our colleagues have worked with us to pass
already some important FEMA reform provisions including last
year's homeland security appropriations act. For example, we
advocated for several measures, for example to improve FEMA's
response and preparedness, creating and deploying Federal
strike teams to provide the Federal Government first line
response to a disaster. Secondly, establishing prenegotiated
contracts to provide surge capacity for critical resources by
the disaster.
Third, establish national asset and inventory program to
track and identify community needs during a national emergency.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, transferring the
preparedness functions within the Department of Homeland
Security back to FEMA, so they can be unified with response as
preparedness and response go hand in hand, and we must do all
that we can to prepare for and respond to future disasters,
especially as a start of the next hurricane season rapidly
approaches. However, I believe even as it was essential to
reform a system that was ineffective at both the State and the
Federal levels there are still many outstanding needs and steps
that we can take to break the current red tape and bureaucracy
which are still plaguing recovery in the gulf coast.
Twenty months after those hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, the
inadequacy of the Stafford Act as well as the inconsistency and
inflexibility in FEMA's interpretation of it and these
extraordinary circumstances continue to hinder Louisiana in our
rebuilding efforts. I would like to focus our attention on
three main areas. The first is reforming the hazard mitigation
grants program, but to provide more flexibility. Recently, our
State has discovered a shortfall within the road home program
and that highlights a perspective revenue stream that is
current being disputed between FEMA and State of Louisiana. The
hazard mitigation grant program was designed to supplement road
home grants by the State by funding $1.2 billion in mitigation
efforts. However, FEMA claims the current structure of the road
home program is not compliant with the law governing the hazard
mitigation program, in other words, the Stafford Act. If indeed
it is true that the Stafford Act impedes the allocation of
these grants to the road home program and its applicants, then
certainly we could would call for adjustments to section
5170(c) of this code to make this program more flexible so they
can help homeowners rebuild.
Additionally I would advocate that the Act should be
amended to allow for global benefit cost approvals for
mitigation measures that commonly prove effective. For example,
when acquiring a block of 20 homes rather than doing a home-by-
home structure-by-structure analysis, it should be enough to
determine the total cost of all the homes and the total
benefits of all those homes.
So the first area we would recommend are making these
housing mitigation grants more flexible. The second area is
streamlining assistance, and we have heard from Mr. Boustany
and others, according to FEMA's numbers, $4.76 billion was
available to Louisiana for public infrastructure as of May 5.
Of this, $2.34 billion was paid out to local applicants but
FEMA claims $2.42 billion remains held up in the State and
there are many causes for this bottleneck.
For example, project worksheets defining what FEMA will pay
are clear to local government entities are routinely
underestimating those actual costs. While local officials work
with FEMA staff to create new versions of these worksheets, the
frequent rotation of FEMA staff has caused severe backlogs and
continued substantiation of the same claims. This slows down an
already tedious process. You have heard examples before already
for example in the school systems. There are also examples in
Madison bill with the library system where FEMA first estimated
it would take $500,000 to $750,000 to repair all the storm
damages and bring the facility to code. Now after months of
arbitration, FEMA's now verbally offering $187,000, but only to
restore the building to the condition it was before the storm,
which was barely functional.
If the library officials want to use the money for another
purpose that offer would be rescinded. When you have the level
of destruction over $6.3 billion, it is a stretch to assume
that local stakeholders would be able to make substantial
investments and be reimbursed later. A second change has to be
allowing our public assistance applicants to replace destroyed
equipment, such as vehicles, with new products instead of
reversing those decisions. There has to be a mechanism for FEMA
to up front these dollars so that local governments can proceed
with reconstruction. There are many examples in my written
testimony from St. Tammany Iberia and Vermilion and other
parishes.
Three specific examples when it comes to the public
assistance, one human capital retention, the Post-Katrina
Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 directed FEMA to
develop a plan to improve the workforce, especially to fill in
the gaps in the current workforce. A program is to be
established or a report submitted to Congress by April 2 of
this year, that is still not yet to be done. The rapid turnover
continues to cause problems.
Secondly, we need a streamlined evaluation process, for
example, allowing local entities to hire and use licensed
engineers or trained code enforcement officers in lieu of going
through a lengthy and duplicative FEMA review requirement.
Third, an alternative buildings construction requirement that
would allow alternative projects to be funded at the full 90
percent Federal share instead of the current 67 percent Federal
share to encourage comprehensive community redevelopment to
encourage alternative building instead of as many others, as
already pointed out, simply rebuilding what was already there
before.
On this point, I also want to emphasize we are strongly in
favor of legislation that would waive that 10 percent match for
the State so the State can get back on its feet for the State
and local entities.
The third and final point and I will wrap up my I know my
time has run out. The third and final point I think we need to
recognize, the magnitude of the Katrina and Rita events as
compared with previous disasters. I do want to applaud teams
from HUD recently to provide longer term housing solutions
reversing its decisions on students who were living in
university or college-owned housing. But despite these steps,
we have a much greater step that needs to be taken. I think
fundamentally, the Stafford Act must distinguish between
catastrophic and major disasters. As witnessed after Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita, it is evident when a disaster simultaneously
impacts thousands of square miles and virtually shuts down an
entire--several metropolitan areas, a separate designation is
required to adequately respond to an event of such magnitude. A
catastrophic disaster designation should be established based
on total populations displaced residential property damage, the
scope of the failure of the critical infrastructure on vital
services that allows us to adjust regulations for assistance,
the paperwork the bureaucracy. There is precedent for such a
designation.
The Homeland Security Presidential Director establishes a
national response plan that is invoked for declared incidents
of national significance. As we rebuild the gulf coast, I
think, that it is the most important out of my three points
that we learned this lesson, we have a precedence for it, that
there is a significant difference between a catastrophic
disaster and our response should be adjusted accordingly. Thank
you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Jindal.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Melancon, you are the last to testify.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. CHARLIE MELANCON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA
Mr. Melancon. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to come here. I have submitted my comments for
record. I was here earlier when Mr. Taylor and Mr. Pickering
were giving their comments, I listened to part of Mr.
Jefferson's and all of that of Mr. Jindal. I would suspect that
I would probably be repetitive and to save the committee some
time, let me just say that I concur with their remarks thus
far. There are some items--I would be happy to stay for
questions but in order to kind of expedite the hearing, defer
to my other two colleagues from Louisiana. Thank you, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Melancon. Let me ask
all of you a question. Any ideas you have, this notion about
fronting money up front when you have a truly catastrophic--we
would have to define what this is. But in a--Katrina defines it
for you. There may be something less than that, it would also
be catastrophic. I will say to you, as I said to the last
panel, we had all of your public officials in here ahead of
time warning about the spending funds and how they get audited
and all the rest of it. This notion of fronting funds is
something that it would appear to be commonsense, except it is
Federal funds and it is taxpayers' funds. What I think the
committee would need, because it makes obvious sense, and the
committee could say there could be a reserve or money that
would be available in a catastrophic disaster and define what
that was--well, it doesn't get you very far because if you say
okay, here are your funds, that doesn't mean that some auditor
isn't going to account for taxpayers' funds.
So what we need, given that commonsense idea, is how to do
it, and account for it, how to, you know, obviously, you
voucher for funds for a reason and it didn't work in a
catastrophic event. Well, I tell you why it won't work just to
go to the other end of the spectrum. This is where you need
truly analytical new thinking in keeping with the new kind of
catastrophe we have experienced. I don't necessarily ask you
off the top of your head, but that would be very useful to know
how you could do that quickly and have the taxpayers trust you
that you weren't just throwing money out there because you
wanted to kind of protect yourself from kind of criticism that
for example FEMA got last time.
I would like to ask you all because of the role that New
Orleans played and the revenue of the State budget, what
condition the State budget of Louisiana is in now that this
major part of the city--sorry, the State, oil, New Orleans and
all of that means in revenue, what does--what is the State
itself, what is the State itself able to do, given the fact
that perhaps a part of the State that was most responsible for
revenue is out of commission and has lost its tax base?
Mr. Melancon. If I could, the State fisc at this juncture
is in very good stead. However, it is a result of an economy
where which if you look back at all past hurricanes and
disaster is a booming economy, because of the rebuild and the
construction, plus you have what is called the FEMA effect,
everything that is being built down there now----
Ms. Norton. That is great to hear. Has it spilled over to
the rest of the State in your areas?
Mr. Melancon. Well, it is not the entire State. But the
State fisc is in good stead at this point in point in time. Is
that an event that will continue ad infinitum? No. It will
slowly start fading off, and unless we get some of the changes
that have been requested and some of the legislation that we
have passed through the House with the----
Ms. Norton. So taxes are being paid to the State, aren't
taxes being paid to local jurisdictions as well?
Mr. Jefferson. I might amend that. For New Orleans--New
Orleans didn't benefit from either the boom in buying
materials, sheetrock and appliances and all that stuff, because
there weren't any places to shop in New Orleans to speak of, so
the sales tax benefits went to Baton Rouge some went to
Jefferson Parish and other places, but none went to St. Bernard
because there weren't any places open for business.
So our cities have suffering dramatically and it is a loss
in taxes. I asked a man before I came up here, how much is back
and he said about 60 percent of the tax base is back online but
that is just recently. It has gone up gradually. There was one
time when it was less than 20 percent and then it just has
moved gradually up. But the city has incredibly indebtedness
now somewhere near $300 million trying to overcome this lack of
taxes, and it is still not where it needs to be and won't be
for a good long time so it is unable to pay for things and have
it reimbursed.
It is a mighty struggle to keep above water and to pay for
all the things that one has to pay for, including fire and
police and all the other things that are critical services.
Mr. Boustany. I would just simply add that my district in
southwest Louisiana which has a number of rural communities,
which were quite literally wiped out those communities are
really struggling. I think Mr. Melancon, in southeast
Louisiana, has the same sort of situation. Small agricultural-
based communities fishing communities which had significant
damage their tax base has been eroded significantly by this
event and these communities are really having a hard time.
Waiving the State match on some of these funds that we have
talked about earlier would be of major importance to us,
particularly in the rural communities.
Ms. Norton. Well, you know it is interesting the contrast
between the State getting revenue because of the rebuilding and
local communities New Orleans doesn't feel it, rural
communities don't feel it. I don't understand how this works.
At some point, there ought to be some--forgive me--trickle-down
effect here.
Mr. Baker. If I may add, Madam Chair, I am one of the
beneficiary communities, Baton Rouge just north of the storm
impact, and it is our merchants who are getting the settlements
out of the insurance proceeds, people came into clothing stores
and would buy entire wardrobes, housewares, building materials,
so there has been an exchange of commerce from Mr. Jefferson's
Orleans, Mr. Boustany's coastal Rita area, to those residual
municipalities that did not get adversely impacted by the
storm.
The net effect is a spike in State sales tax because of
these transactions which includes an awful lot of automobiles,
but as Mr. Melancon said we believe this to be a short term
spike, it will flatten off and Orleans to the rest of the
State, Orleans metropolitan area represents about 30 to 35
percent of the State's overall economic income. So this short-
term cash in the pocket is going to lead us--in my opinion,
into some very difficult financial times in a few years to
come.
Ms. Norton. Although typically the old pump the prime
notion should mean that as building takes place throughout the
State----
Mr. Baker. The problem is, in this case, this storm took
the pump, there is nothing in the ground, there is no slabs,
there is no economic activity because we have complete
dislocation of social order, schools, firehouses, everything is
gone. And so, if you move back in as an individual today, you
may be taking your own money and putting it at risk because you
don't know if your neighbors are going to come back and
rebuild. Therefore, your real estate value is in jeopardy. And
that is what is stymieing the wholesale recovery, which would
normally occur where communities are damaged but not destroyed.
These folks were wiped out.
Mr. Boustany. The other thing I would add, too, is that
when you have your law enforcement functions that have really
been devastated and damaged and understaffed and a health care
system, which is really stressed, that also is a significant
inhibition on recovery.
Mr. Jindal. And Madam Chairwoman, I would add one final
point. I agree with everything that my colleagues have said. In
addition to these being temporary revenues, let's us also not
forget there are some very significant obligations that haven't
been met. For example for the State to make whole all the
people who have been promised in the road home program could
take billions of dollars more than allocated. In addition,
there has not been a final decision made to how to respond to
the destruction caused within the charity hospital system. That
could obligate the State to be spending hundreds of millions,
if not more, dollars.
Third, there is a significant coastal erosion problem in
Mr. Melancon's, and it affects all of our districts. The State
has temporary surplus of revenues, but there are some very,
very serious obligations, and we shouldn't forget that those
obligations are much larger than even those temporary
surpluses.
Mr. Jefferson. May I make one other small point, unlike
almost every storm we can talk about, particularly down in my
area and Charlie's area, we are in so much trouble there and we
were devastated because the levies broke. It was Federally
designed, constructed and maintained levies that gave way that
drowned the City of New Orleans, and that drowned St. Bernard
Parish, that not having been taking place, we wouldn't be
talking about this level of devastation. That is not true along
the western coast of the State, but it certainly is true where
we are. And so, I think there is a larger responsibility here
on the part of the Federal Government to make our region whole.
Ms. Norton. Well, I certainly agree. I begin with who pumps
the prime--or pumps the pump, whatever, first and if you look
at Europe, didn't need us after a while, or if you look even at
for that matter the Great Depression, first the government
begins to do the building the public building that is
necessary, then everything else takes off. You can't expect the
private sector to start rebuilding a State. You start with the
Federal Government or with the public sector. Then, of course,
you begin to peel off into the private sector the private
sector then get some of that, and you begin to rebuild. And
after a while, you look at Europe, they didn't need us for very
long after we were in there on the ground initially. Before I
go to more questions, I am going to move to the ranking member.
Mr. Graves. I don't have anything.
Ms. Norton. We have been joined by a member of the full
committee, Ms. Brown. Ms. Brown do you have a statement before
I continue with questions?
STATEMENT OF THE HON. CORRINE BROWN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Ms. Corrine Brown of Florida. Yes, I do, Madam Chairman.
And I want to thank you for inviting me to come today and to
testify about my experiences with dealing with the unresolved
problems regarding Hurricane Katrina. And I say all the time
that I view myself as the people in the New Orleans,
Mississippi, Louisiana area member at large. I am very
interested in helping them to resolve their problems. I have
been to New Orleans seven times, and I am going again in June.
Sadly, every time I have been there it looks like a war zone.
It is unbelievable that 20 months have passed and the most
basic human needs have not yet been met. 20 months later and
residents are not able to move back.
There is still debris everywhere and people are without
electricity. Twenty months later, and there are impassible
roads and no clean water, not enough teachers. Twenty months
later, no street sign, toxic fumes in the air and not enough
police officers. Twenty months later is unacceptable. You know,
I am proud to be a part of the new Democratic majority and part
of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that
recognized that we need to fix these problems fast. It is my
hope that my testimony and other statements from colleagues and
some other problems that can easily be fixed and give the
residents of Louisiana and Mississippi finally a chance to
rebuild.
My testimony today will highlight a few of the problems
that I heard from residents and their families, and I think
that can easily be fixed. The major problem is getting the
funding to the residents. Frankly, there seems to be two
problems, one FEMA and one the State. And what seems to be the
problem is they don't understand that we are loading the people
down with complicated paperwork.
Let me give you an example. Louisiana applied for a FEMA
hazard mitigation grant program that would fund the road
program. FEMA denies their claim and calls a shortage of funds
for the road home program. Now residents have to wait even
longer to rebuild. Another FEMA problem regarding the damage
assessment. I heard FEMA falsely assured school districts--and
I heard this from superintendents when I was there. They
reported in New Orleans and Mississippi, they had okayed the
projects and the school system went out, purchased sites,
rebuilt. And now they have not gotten the reimbursement and
FEMA has denied them the additional funding. That is a problem
and the problem that superintendents have told me exist. In
addition, I went to the airport and the administration went
with big checks, they blew up the checks. Here's the money, $25
million or whatever, but they whispered in the ear of the
airport directors, now you can't put it in the bank. And to
this day, they have not gotten the funds. And so the horror
story of the government not functioning, a government that is
inept incompetent, that don't care.
And so I have a list of concerns that I want to submit in
writing. Another one is that stands out is the SBA loan
program. Now, if you apply for the loan program and you have
gotten assistance from another area, they take the entire lump
sum out, wherein if you had a loan, you could pay it back over
the period of time with small interests. That is not the case.
I would like to thank Chairman Norton for allowing me to
testify today and her leadership on this issue.
I am looking forward to working with members from
Louisiana, Mississippi, and other members from the
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to finally help the
residents from the Hurricane Katrina recovery, and let me just
close that I have adopted a family there. I brought them to
Orlando for a week. But the key there is that I took their
plight to the White House, letters, their casework and we were
able to get the funding after 18 months laid out, although they
told me they haven't received a penny; they have gotten in
writing they would receive the money.
One of the ladies died last Saturday and they had the
funeral, but at least she knew that her funds was on the way,
and the VA--I am pleased to say that we are on the right path
as far as making sure that the funding to replace that system
is in place. I would ask for hearings from the VA to make sure
that we can cut down the amount of time it takes to deliver a
hospital to the veterans in that area in particular. In the
area of transportation and infrastructure, I am asking my
governor to convene a conference with the governors in those
areas so that we can have a train, economic development train,
but also one that when we have another hurricane, and we will
have another one, we will be able to move people out of harm's
way. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Norton. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Brown, for your
sustained interest in this part--this part of the country. I
know that your experience in Florida has made you particularly
conscious of the needs when an even more catastrophic event
occurs in another State. I only have a couple questions and a
question that really plays off of one that ranking member
asked. But first, I would like to ask you a question, a couple
questions that appear to have come from the City of New
Orleans, that involve--would involve were such matters to be
adopted a rather unusual intervention into State affairs.
First, the city implies if a truly catastrophic event occurs,
and we again have to define what that means, the State should
be compelled to accept immediate needs funding. This must mean
the State did not immediately accept such funding. I am not
sure why, but I would like your thoughts on Federal Government
to that extent when the State has not instantly or immediately
accepted immediate needs funding.
Mr. Baker. Madam Chair, I don't know that I am the right
person to respond to the question, but I can go back to those
opening hours of the storm's approach at the operations and
control center in Baton Rouge where the State police and later
the governor's operations were finally located. There was much
disarray in those early hours, and the delay in my opinion--I
am certainly not speaking for any other member, in bringing in
the National Guard to help restoration of order was a
significant impairment to our recovery capability. When
individuals with goods and services arrived on the scene, there
was civil disobedience of significance. And the first
responders simply refused to go in until social order was
restored. That cost precious days and presented you with those
pictures of people standing on elevated interstates without
even water to drink. That is unacceptable. I have, and remain
an advocate of early intervention in a catastrophic environment
where social order has been completely lost and we had no law
enforcement on the ground to speak of, for the National Guard
to come in and assume operational control immediately on
stabilizing the community. All matters should be then delegated
to the local authorities to determine the next step. This would
be temporary but it would be immediate. The funding issue is
something frankly that would not--expedited funding would not
simply have mattered in the early hours of the response,
because there was no place to deploy the money anyway.
The first place that money was deployed was at the centers
where people were temporarily housed and we, for a short while,
had the $2,000 program that was given to people to help them
get on the road and to other shelters. That did not work very
well either. So there is great room for improvement in response
mechanisms in those first 48 hours of a storm of this
magnitude.
Mr. Boustany. Madam Chair, I would agree with Mr. Baker,
and relate my experience with this. In the immediate hours
after Katrina, I was at the communications center for the
largest privately owned ambulance emergency medical services
company in the country, but it does provide the bulk of
emergency services throughout our State of Louisiana. They had
the only functional communications system in the State and we
were getting real-time information from paramedics who were
trying to get in and who were fearing for their lives in these
early hours.
So clearly, when you have a disaster of this magnitude, the
logistical capability that could be brought to bear by our
military and certainly National Guard is essential. And I had
calls, for instance, from someone who had an armored car
service trying to get money to ATMs to desperately help people
in need who couldn't get in because of crime concerns. So law
enforcement and getting order is essential in those early
hours. It goes hand in hand with the emergency effort. And
there was considerable chaos early on and there was very poor
communication. In fact, the center where I was sitting and
working with others was the only place where we had viable
communication in the entire area.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Jefferson, this idea appears to have come
from the City of New Orleans. What do you have to say about it?
Mr. Jefferson. I think the City of New Orleans is right in
this regard. As I have said earlier, I think as a structural
matter, the notion that the State has to be the only entity to
be dealt with here and the State has to agree to a coordinated
response is, to me, unrealistic. I think that if you look at
what happened on 9/11, the Stafford Act still applied, and it
said the money goes to the State. But the governor made a
decision that was different than what was made at home. He
said, we got the moneys, sent it to the mayor of the city and
said get things fixed.
If it works that way, it is a beautiful thing, but if it
doesn't, if you get bottlenecking in one place or another, it
doesn't work. So I would think that as a structural matter, if
the devastation takes place and parish X we ought to have a
more direct way to get things to parish X authorities, through
the Stafford Act, rather than have it all having to go through
the State, which requires coordination.
Second of all, as has been pointed out, the communication
system must be compatible. A lot of this discussion about the
crime and lawlessness was as we found out later, it was rumored
but nonetheless, it kept people out. I suspect some of it was
real, but when they got through all the investigations, all the
things about murders and all the rest of it, it turned out not
to be so. It was a complete deterrent early on and kept people
from not taking the risk of going down. Second thing is
prepositioning of pretty much everything.
I think on the public side prepositioning of the fire and
police folks in a position where they can kind of--not be
victims but come back and be of service is very, very important
and have the local folks have a chance to do things.
Second of all, contract prepositioning, we had these four
big contracts, or five, whatever it was, came in there with no-
bid contracts, we had no small business folks, no local people
ready to do very much of anything. I think this whole thing has
to anticipate that we can have the prepositioning issues done
with local contractors and with our local first responders,
have communication so that everybody can kind of have good
information and be able to talk to each other through and a
more direct way to get aid directly to the affected areas
without having it to go through all the----
Ms. Norton. Very sensitive issue. But again catastrophic
funding. I will tell you one thing, by of course going through
the usual protocol administration we should say the Federal
Government took the rap. So if, in fact, lives are lost or
there is civil disorder because you are going through the
statutory protocol State, local, Federal, whenever that comes
in, in the long run, the world will see the Federal Government
as having not come to the aid of its own citizens. Another
controversial perhaps notion--that a suggestion that has come
forward to us is that FEMA should have the responsibility for
managing and setting up, establishing some kind of national
evacuation plan.
I think there might be some concern about that in terms of
homeland security, although one should see these as exactly the
same kind of disaster, if an evacuation was necessary. What do
you--what are your views on whether there should be such a
thing as a national evacuation plan?
Mr. Boustany. I don't think it should go from the top down.
I believe there should be significant input from the governors
and from the States and from the local communities working in
tandem with FEMA. I know that the particularities of the
situation on the ground and their respective locations, and I
think evacuation plans should be worked out at the State level,
but with some Federal input as to, you know, how to expedite
these things and where pitfalls may come. I think if everybody
is working together, if you prepare ahead, then there is less
confusion when you have a problem.
But I do believe that one of the problems we have had is we
probably perhaps thought FEMA could do too much, and I think
there was a lack of clarity as to what exactly FEMA's role is
in something like this. Because clearly FEMA didn't have all
the resources necessary. So I think there needs to be clear
communication beforehand about proper roles and who is going to
do what from you know the individual counties or parishes with
their emergency personnel to the State and communicating with
FEMA.
Mr. Baker. Madam Chair, if I may, I would suggest--I return
to my catastrophic risk assessment idea, coordinating all known
available data in real-time, what is difficult for local
officials is to say let's evacuate. You have to shut down
businesses, inconvenience people, take kids out of school, run
by the grocery, get the car filled up, and then don't know
where you are going. A model that would enable all the
available commercial and governmental data just to be visible
on a screen where you as a person get home, you see where the
storm is, the likely storm track. That is the weather station.
Then you see that the hotel bookings in central Louisiana
are beginning to fill up. That is a warning. You see that
there's gas shortages from lake Charles going west from the
storm track. You see that the storm is intensifying. You see
that there is--you know there is health care problems, perhaps
elderly being transferred from nursing homes into other
hospital care facilities. All of those are dynamic predictors
that convince local constituents in a way local officials
cannot, and if there is to be another Katrina-like event in the
New Orleans area and we don't start getting people out 3 days
in advance, we can't get them out.
If there is not enough contraflow to get all the vehicles
out of that region of the State without significant advance
warning, and the way we do it is to begin to tell people, local
resources around the corner are being depleted, and if you
don't leave now, you may not even be able to buy gas. People
were stuck on the interstate as much as eight and 10 hours to
get from New Orleans just to my city of Baton Rouge, and from
there I had people staying at my home. I had people staying in
my campaign headquarters.
Everywhere you could find a place to put people you would
put people because all the commercial assets filled up too
quickly, and they didn't have the resources to get away in
time. So I really think that--and that is not just for our
committee. I think any community subject to coastal risk ought
to have some sort of system that has all those inputs. And
there is a lot of people that can tell us how to construct
these things to give people the judgment and skills they need.
Mr. Baker. And that goes, as opposed to a national plan
that is static in form, that has a rule book. I think the
dynamics of these things are so unpredictable we need something
that is real-time.
Mr. Boustany. I would agree with that and, first, it is one
of the problems we had was finding hospital beds, and we ended
up using that communication center I mentioned on an ad hoc
basis, getting information about where people were coming from
and making phone calls to get real-time information about where
to transfer hospital patients from one damaged or flooded
hospital to where hospital beds were available, and this was
going not only statewide but actually outside of the State of
Louisiana. And it was sort of an ad hoc "from the ground up"
type of effort, and I think Federal Emergency Management Agency
can provide oversight for when you have, for instance, a
disaster beyond just a county, where you are involving multiple
counties, then FEMA can provide sort of the coordination. But
you have to have the communication, real-time communication, to
really make this work.
Mr. Jefferson. Let me say one thing. I think at the end of
the day in New Orleans, if you are going to test if the
evacuation worked based on who was left in town, I will give
you an idea of what I think happened. First responders were
left there because they had to be. They were asked to stay,
they were trying to be helpful, whether they were pumping
water--fire, police. Some of those folks were left and trapped
in town. The folks who were infirm, who were in nursing
facilities and who were in senior citizen facilities and all
the rest of it, people who were dependent on other people to
move them and who could not make a decision on their own were
also left. Hospitals--folks in hospitals were left and
abandoned. Our tourists were stuck there who were in hotels and
all the rest. And, finally, poor people. Really poor folks were
left there because they didn't have any way to get out of town.
They had no cars. They had no money. They had no whatever. So
in those five categories that is why we had folks left in the
city.
Now, part of the responsibility lays on the part of the
Federal Government for not, for example, helping the city plan.
Part of it was on the city. All of them didn't do it right.
None of them participated in all these issues and none of them
did it correctly.
We had an exercise here called Hurricane Pam which was a
FEMA-orchestrated worst-case scenario storm in New Orleans. And
they anticipated many of these things, but didn't do anything
about it. And so one of the big deals is to actually--if you
are going to do a Hurricane Pam kind of an event as a
simulation, then do all the things that you know can work in
that sort of storm.
I do not believe the Federal Government would be in charge
of the evacuation plan and all of that. I think they ought to
be big partners in this. They have many more resources--we have
many more resources here on this level than the States or local
governments ever had, so there must be coordination in the use
of them. But I do think they can provide a lot of technical
help in planning, because as Richard points out, there are
facilities all over the country that can be used in the case--
as it were in this case--that folks weren't prepared to
provide.
They also are first responders all over the country that
were made available to help, ere ours actually are
overwhelmingly becoming, themselves, victims. But there are
different remedies to be applied to folks who are tourists who
are there trapped in hotels, people who are too poor to find
their way out of town, folks in hospitals and therefore
dependent on others, older people who are infirm, and those who
are first responders who had to stay and try to rescue. So each
required a different approach to dealing with it.
Ms. Norton. I appreciate your input on that. The notion
about real-time evacuation and how to make sure that is
coordinated, I take that question. What I think is left out of
your analysis is that if you are evacuating, you are evacuating
to someplace else. You are evacuating to somebody else's State.
You don't have jurisdiction in somebody else's State. Only the
Federal Government has that kind of jurisdiction. There is one
thing to say, as I think you probably say, again we are
learning from Katrina. And Katrina was just about getting
people to go someplace, anywhere, quick. Okay, we got that.
A national evacuation plan would have to prepare Texas,
would have to prepare other States around, to understand they
may receive people. Might even--might even decide where people
from one part of the State might go, or cities in--Baton Rouge
took a huge number of people from New Orleans--might even make
arrangements ahead of time on a temporary basis.
We can talk about Katrina all we want to. If there is a
catastrophic terrorist event where, in addition to knowing
somehow that the floods would recede, you are left with not
knowing where the terrorist event came from or what to do, it
will certainly not be enough to say to the Governor of the
Stat, Why didn't you evacuate people?
If it is a nuclear device, evacuating people, for example,
in the direction of where the nuclear residue is coming from
would be further catastrophe.
I am struggling with this. This is for very good reason
these matters have been State matters. But, you know, this is
the 21st century now. And this is global terrorism. This is,
yes, Katrina writ large.
Mr. Baker. Madam Chair, if I may suggest----
Ms. Norton. But I need you to think about, particularly in
light of the confusion that developed around going through the
protocols, about the timing it takes to go through the
protocols, and about the terrible effect on other people who
are still feeling that effect in surrounding States, but have
simply acted like good Americans and have absorbed the effect.
Now, it is one thing to absorb the effect from people who
come in relatively healthy. It is another thing to absorb the
effect of people coming in contaminated with something that has
gone off in their area. It is the failure to think of the next
catastrophe that bothers me about Katrina, because I am not
sure that another Katrina will occur for some time to come. But
given what has happened in global warming, the unpredictability
of--we have tornadoes in Florida now, and the rest. I am very
worried about our overlearning----
Mr. Baker. Madam Chair----
Ms. Norton. --certain kinds of mistakes and not moving, not
moving forward as a result.
I am hearing him. I am going to finish saying what I am
saying and then I am going to call on him.
This is an issue of some concern, takes very deep thinking
and analysis incorporating what we have learned, trying to
imagine what is unimaginable, and bearing in mind that just as
the State took the rap for evacuation, there is still
controversy about whether or not there was some Federal role to
be played there. And the next event may present an entirely new
circumstance. And I hear very little to help me think as a
Federal official how to deal with that.
Now, Mr. Baker.
Mr. Baker. Thank you, very much, Madam Chair.
I would merely point out that in the early hours of any
type of catastrophe, principally the hurricane we experienced,
but almost any catastrophe, there is of necessary consequence a
local decisionmaking-driven process. And the system I am
encouraging to be promoted is advisory in nature, not
mandatory, in that you give people information. Some will use
it. We know some won't. Some will adamantly refuse to leave.
Ms. Norton. I understand that and I accept that. That is an
important contribution. I am talking about some kind of
framework that--for example, here in the District of Columbia,
where, by the way, 200,000 Federal employees that come in and
go out, they don't even live here.
The first thing we have learned is, hey, evacuate. Well,
that builds human catastrophe of unspeakable proportions on
what is likely to be a rather small event that happens in one
part. But that is what everybody thinks now. They think you
ought to evacuate.
I will tell you one thing. There is no way to get out of
this city and there is no place to go. And I don't think
Maryland or Virginia has the answer to that.
Mr. Baker. My point merely was that our citizens went to
concentrated points of relief and thousands were in temporary
shelters for about a 3-month period. Those are the people that
then later located out of our State to our great neighbors in
Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas.
So it is a staged event. If the----
Ms. Norton. And I am suggesting, again, it may not be a
staged event next time. The thing may be get out of Dodge, get
as far from your State as possible. I am not asking for off-
the-cuff answers. I am asking for us to imagine whether people
are going to be in the State, anywhere near the State, given
certain kinds of catastrophic events. I understand how it
happened there, how it peeled off. People just wanted to get
out of the flood area then.
But I am trying to force us to think about an event of the
kind Katrina was, an event we couldn't possibly imagine.
Mr. Jefferson.
Mr. Jefferson. I think that you have challenged, at least
me, beyond my capacity to respond fully to you. But I do want
to say this much. There are a lot of places in Louisiana that
could have accommodated our people if we had thought about this
thing earlier. In other words, we don't have to really
necessarily involve other States. We are dealing with the
southern Louisiana phenomenon. It could be Shreveport, Monroe,
Alexandria. We could have places up there that people could go.
Ms. Norton. Do you think they spread out rather evenly and
well----
Mr. Jefferson. What happened was people make their first
decisions themselves as to where they would go. If you know
somebody in Alexandria, you went there----
Ms. Norton. Right, if you have relatives there.
Mr. Jefferson. Right. Then go to Atlanta or Texas, whether
there was a hotel room, whether they thought they were coming
back home in 3 days. Nobody thought about this thing as a 2-
year event--is what it has turned out to be--and beyond that
now in the next few weeks. So it is certainly something we
hadn't thought through.
The challenge you are presenting to us is let's stop and
think this through, because if it happened once it can happen
again, maybe not in the form of a hurricane, maybe some other
form.
I am not prepared to provide an answer, but I can tell you
there are ways we can look at this that can involve some
Federal assistance helping us to make these plans and some
Federal resource allocations that can help us do things,
perhaps in our own State, that can end up with a different
result from what we faced here.
Mr. Boustany. Madam Chair, I would just add something. I
believe you have to look at the scale of these different events
from perhaps a small localized event all the way to a major
catastrophic event involving multiple States, multiple
communities. And I think a way to approach this is to have
mayors talking to the regional mayors to have cooperative
agreements, have the Governors of the respective States having
an overall umbrella plan for the State, and then perhaps a
Governor of a State talking to contiguous States with
cooperative agreements.
We did this in southwest Louisiana with our mayors, to
allocate resources in the immediate chaos after Hurricane Rita,
and it worked very well. In fact, we bypassed the chaos in
Baton Rouge where everything was bottle-necked. Every request
had to go through Baton Rouge. It took hours, and sometimes
days, to get things. We found alternative ways to get
supplies--gasoline, diesel and so forth, medical supplies--by
having this sort of cooperative arrangement.
I think FEMA with its regional offices should be actively
engaged with the States and the local communities before these
events so that they can kind of model out what happened after a
particular event. If we do that, we will have a proper system
in place and that is----
Ms. Norton. That is the kind of thinking I am talking
about. Yes go ahead.
Mr. Boustany. I think the final point I would make is that
there has to be a trigger for when a Federal response occurs.
We saw an interminable delay after Hurricane Katrina in the New
Orleans area before we saw the full mobilization of a Federal
response. And when that Federal response began, it was a thing
of beauty. It worked very well in the immediate recovery--or
immediate response stage, I should say.
What is that trigger point? Particularly if a Governor is
sort of--if a Governor is incapacitated or paralyzed by the
situation, indecisive, at what point does the Federal
Government move in? This is a real problem after Katrina and I
submit to you it is not a problem we have solved yet, and it is
something we need to address here at the Federal level.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Boustany, I think there is Federal
authority to require the States to gather together and work out
the kind of regional understanding that you--here you wouldn't
have the Federal Government for doing it. What does the Federal
Government know to do for, for example, in this region? They
would have to say look, Maryland, D.C, and Virginia, you figure
out what would happen if there was an evacuation. In fact, the
most important thing we would have to figure out is how to make
people stay in place, because we are less likely to have a
flood or a natural disaster than we are to have a terrorist
event.
What Mr. Jefferson said, I think, is driven home by a 2-
year event. Mr. Baker said, first, people came to points nearby
and then they fanned out into other places; because as Mr.
Jefferson said, no one thought it would be a 2-year event.
I give you this, gentlemen. Every time thus far that we
have passed a piece of legislation, the 10 percent--I think--
matching, each time those States have come in and said, "me
too." and you know what? Each time we have done so--when Texas
comes in, when Florida comes in, and says as a result of
Katrina--Arkansas in particular--each time we felt we had to do
this. But notice how we have had to do it. We have had to do it
on an ad hoc basis because the Stafford Act does not take into
account the effect on the States, surrounding States, and, for
that matter, other localities. That is dangerous. We do have
freedom of movement across this country. But, particularly if
we have certain kinds of catastrophic events, if in fact the
States believe that a whole hoard of people were going to come
in from another State, and give you a 50 percent increase in
people attending your schools and in people who want your State
legislature to come up with the State share of Medicaid, and
with people who wanted food stamps, with your legislature to do
it, I would tell you I would hate to see what would happen to
the normal generosity of the American people.
So I think we have to look at--and I appreciate the notion
of the States getting together. The Federal Government could
say, "whatever you decide," but could require that the States
in the regional configurations where they usually operate in
this area--I know exactly what those configurations are. They
are Montgomery County, Fairfax, the District of Columbia. I
mean, I know exactly where they are. So we wouldn't be
inventing anything new.
I suspect that, depending on where you are in Louisiana,
you work more closely with Arkansas, with Texas, or with
whoever it is.
Just let me finally say to Mr. Graves, do you have any
further questions?
We held this hearing because we did not believe that the
committee was in a position to know what should be done in the
nature of what we are anticipating doing. We intend to put
together a set of legislative fixes. These fixes would pertain
to your areas alone. They would say to FEMA, this is--perhaps
some of them will have time limitations. They will all relate
to Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.
Any further information you have would be what is most
useful to us. None of us have experienced what you have
experienced. Your constituents do not come to us, they come to
you. So I invite you, in addition to the very helpful testimony
you presented today, to keep it coming to us as we prepare the
legislative fixes that are now--that your testimony has is
already suggested.
Ms. Corrine Brown of Florida. Madam Chairman, I have a
question. But let me just say, like quickly, that the FEMA that
you all experienced is not the FEMA that we dealt with in
Florida and I really--you know, one of the things, we did a lot
of reorganization after 9/11, and I don't think all of it was
good. Because how we changed the role and scope of FEMA, first
of all, the Wall Street Journal printed an article--or New York
Times--with 20 top physicians. Not one of the 20 top had any
disaster experience.
Now, I don't know how far we should go as legislators to
say what it is as far as job description. I don't feel that we
have to do that. But the point is you can't appoint your
friends in life-and-death situations.
As we move forward, we need to figure out the role of Red
Cross. They go into the community--as you think of the bigger
picture--they go into the community and they have contracts;
but what process do they use to include the local businesses in
even delivery of food, or contracts, working with them?
First responders came into the area. They came from--I know
they came from Jacksonville. We sent 16 tractor-trailers, but
the first responders in many areas weren't permitted, Madam
Chairman, to go into the community, because FEMA didn't certify
them or something. We talking about physicians. We talking
about doctors that was practicing in emergency rooms. We
talking about firefighters that was there playing ball, because
they was not permitted to come into the area. Not that they
didn't want to come, they was not permitted to come.
So we have--just last Sunday I met a young lady in a
nursing home--and we need to have plans not just for the New
Orleans area, but period. It should be a national program so
that when people go into nursing homes and they didn't have the
supplies, the family did not know what people in various
nursing homes was taken to. So we have got a lot of work and it
is interesting. This was a national disaster, what you are
seeing. But what if someone was constantly attacking us? That
would be a major problem.
Now, one other thing. The ships in the area--a lot of
captains call me, there are ships that are available that could
be brought in, we could have carried a lot of the supplies, but
we didn't even call them up. And many of the Navy people called
me and many of the captains saying they have always been sent
to other countries. How come, when we had a natural disaster in
our country, we didn't utilize their services?
So it needs to be more working together with the various
agencies, and perhaps the role of FEMA is a lot bigger than
just FEMA.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Ms. Brown.
On the matter of the qualifications of the top officials
with FEMA today, the committee has asked for an audit of the
qualifications of all of those officials, because we want to
make sure we don't have another Brownie situation. And there
have been complaints that although some of these people are
military, they do not have disaster experience.
I want to thank the Members again for really very helpful
testimony and urge you to keep it coming to us as we prepare
our own bill.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5925.026