[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HAS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IMPROVED ITS ABILITY TO
MAINTAIN SITUATIONAL
AWARENESS SINCE HURRICANE KATRINA?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MANAGEMENT,
INVESTIGATIONS, AND OVERSIGHT
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 20, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-51
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi, Chairman
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California, PETER T. KING, New York
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts LAMAR SMITH, Texas
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
JANE HARMAN, California MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon TOM DAVIS, Virginia
NITA M. LOWEY, New York DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
Columbia BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana
ZOE LOFGREN, California DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
Islands GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas DAVID DAVIS, Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
AL GREEN, Texas
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
Jessica Herra-Flanigan, Staff Director & General Counsel
Rosaline Cohen, Chief Counsel
Michael Twinchek, Chief Clerk
Robert O'Connor, Minority Staff Director
______
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MANAGEMENT, INVESTIGATIONS, AND OVERSIGHT
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania, Chairman
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York TOM DAVIS, Virginia
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (Ex PETER T. KING, New York (Ex
Officio) Officio)
Jeff Greene, Director & Counsel
Brian Turbyfill, Clerk
Michael Russell, Senior Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Christopher P. Carney, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Management, Investigations, and Oversight...................... 1
The Honorable Mike Rogers, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Alabama, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Management, Investigations, and Oversight...................... 2
The Honorable Yvette D. Clarke, a Representative in Congress From
the State of New York.......................................... 14
The Honorable Bobby Jindal, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Louisiana............................................. 47
The Honorable Ed Perlmutter, a Representative in Congress From
the State Colorado............................................. 11
Witnesses
Panel I
Mr. Frank DiFalco, Director, National Operations Center, Office
of Operations Coordination, Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 3
Prepared Sttement.............................................. 5
Panel II
Mr. Darrell L. Darnell, Director, District of Columbia, Homeland
Security and Emergency Management Agency:
Oral Statement................................................. 34
Prepared Statement............................................. 36
Colonel Terry J. Ebbert, USMC (Ret), Director, Office of Homeland
Security & Public safety, city of New Orleans:
Oral Statement................................................. 31
Prepared Statement............................................. 33
Ms. Eileen Larence, Director, Homeland security and Justice
Issues, Government Accountability Office:
Oral Statement................................................. 19
Prepared Statement............................................. 21
Mr. James M. Walker, Jr., Director, Alabama Department of
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 40
Prepared Statement............................................. 42
HAS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY IMPROVED ITS ABILITY TO
MAINTAIN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
SINCE HURRICANE KATRINA?
----------
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Management, Investigations
and Oversight,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1 p.m., in room
1539, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Carney
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Carney, Clarke, Perlmutter,
Rogers, and Jindal.
Mr. Carney. [Presiding.] The Subcommittee on Management,
Investigations and Oversight will come to order.
The subcommittee is meeting today to receive testimony on
``You Don't Know What You Don't Know: Has the Department of
Homeland Security Improved Its Ability to Maintain Situational
Awareness Since Hurricane Katrina?''
In the early morning hours of August 29, 2005, Katrina's
waters overwhelmed the levees around New Orleans and began to
fill the city. The National Weather Service knew it and
reported it. The Transportation Security Administration knew it
and reported it. Local officials knew it and reported it.
Indeed, throughout the day of landfall, Federal, state, local
and even nongovernmental organizations all were issuing reports
that detailed the unfolding catastrophe.
Yet somehow the Homeland Security Operations Center, what
DHS called the ``nation's nerve center for information sharing
and domestic incidents management,'' did not get or did not
process the message.
That evening, even as the National Weather Service was
urging New Orleans residents fleeing to their attics to take an
axe or a hatchet with them so they can cut their way onto the
roof to avoid drowning, the HSOC issued a situation report to
the secretary of homeland security and to the president that
said, ``Preliminary reports indicate the levees in New Orleans
have not been breached.''
Katrina was the HSOC's first major test, and it failed.
But we are not here today to revisit those mistakes.
Instead, we are here to assess what improvements DHS has made
to ensure that they do better next time.
I am pleased to say that there has been significant
improvement. Too often, the tendency in Washington is to circle
the wagons and refuse to acknowledge error, even when it is
staring you in the face.
Today, however, we will hear about how it should have been
done. We will hear about what can happen when career public
servants do the opposite, when they set pride and ego aside
into a cold, hard appraisal of what went wrong and how to fix
it.
Our first witness is uniquely positioned to give us this
perspective. He was deputy director of HSOC during Katrina and
led the difficult effort of trying to right what went wrong.
The new National Operations Center has not yet faced a test
even close to Katrina, and we won't really know if all the
fixes have worked unless or until it does. But I am confident
that even if some of the changes do not pan out, we are much
better off today than we were on August 29, 2005.
Now, I look forward to the witnesses' testimony.
The chair now recognizes the ranking member from the
subcommittee, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, for an
opening statement.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling
this hearing for us to make assessments on what progress we
have made in this area.
I first want to thank our witness for being here and the
witnesses we are going to have on the second panel.
I especially want to welcome Mr. Jim Walker, the homeland
security director from my home state of Alabama. Mr. Walker
will outline a number of new programs in Alabama that include
streamlining video, as well as a partnership with Google to
help maintain situational awareness.
Nearly 22 months ago, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf
Coast. To say the least, there was a breakdown in communication
and leadership in response to Katrina, all of which seriously
damaged recovery efforts. Several weeks after the storm hit,
reviews were launched by DHS, the White House, the House
Bipartisan Select Committee and the Senate Committee. These
reviews began the process of assessing the failure at all
levels of government, especially regarding the response to the
flooding in New Orleans.
One of those issues was the operations of the department's
Homeland Security Operations Center. The Katrina investigations
found a number of failures in how the center performed. In
response, Secretary Chertoff restructured this function and
created a National Operations Center. We look forward to
hearing from our witnesses as to how the new center is
performing and how it plans to respond to the next disaster.
We also will hear about model programs at the state and
local levels to help maintain situational awareness. Hurricane
Katrina proved, tragically, that collecting and sharing
information is critical for government agencies when responding
to disaster. We need to ensure DHS gets it right.
I would ask unanimous consent that Mr. Jindal from
Louisiana be allowed to participate.
With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carney. Without objection, so granted.
Members of the subcommittee are reminded that, under the
committee rules, opening statements may be submitted for the
record.
I would like to first welcome our guest, our witness, Mr.
Frank DiFalco. Mr. DiFalco is currently the director of the
Department of Homeland Security's National Operations Center.
He joined the department in May 2004 as the deputy director for
the Homeland Security Operations Center. Prior to that, Mr.
DiFalco served for 26 years in the United States Marine Corps,
where he served as an infantry officer and held a variety of
command and staff positions. Among other awards, he received
the Legion of Merit medal and the Bronze Star medal with a
combat V.
Without objection, the witnesses' full statements will be
inserted in the record.
I now ask Mr. DiFalco to summarize his statement for 5
minutes. Mr. DiFalco?
STATEMENT OF FRANK DIFALCO, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL OPERATIONS
CENTER, OFFICE OF OPERATIONS COORDINATION, DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. DiFalco. Good afternoon, Chairman Carney, Ranking
Member Rogers and distinguished committee members. Thank you
for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the DHS National
Operations Center.
For background, I would like to state that the National
Operations Center, known as the NOC, is part of the DHS Office
of Operations Coordination, which is known as OPS, and OPS
reports directly to the DHS secretary.
During my time with you today, I will describe the DHS
OPS's and NOC's missions, explain the composition of the NOC,
and detail the operational improvements that we have made since
Hurricane Katrina.
Homeland security presidential directive 5 identifies the
secretary of homeland security as the principal Federal
official for domestic incident management. The DHS mission
includes the responsibility to lead the unified national effort
to secure America. Likewise, OPS is an operations staff
directorate.
The mission of OPS is directed by Vice Admiral Roger Rufe,
United States Coast Guard, retired. The mission is to integrate
DHS interagency planning in operations coordination in order to
prevent, protect, respond and recover from terrorist threats or
attacks, or other manmade or natural disasters.
The NOC is a 24/7 multi-agency operations center. The
mission of the NOC is to be the nation's primary national-level
hub for domestic situational awareness, common operating
picture, information fusion, information sharing,
communications and operations coordination pertaining to the
prevention of terrorist attacks and domestic incident
management.
Also, the NOC serves as a national fusion center,
collecting and immediately fusing all source information to
quickly determine if there is a terrorism nexus and shares all
threats and all hazards information across the spectrum of
Federal, state, local, tribal, private sector and other
homeland security partners.
The NOC was officially established on May 25, 2006, with
the approval of the national response plan notice of change,
and it is codified in section 515 of the Homeland Security Act
of 2002 that states that the NOC is the principal operations
center for DHS and shall provide situational awareness and
common operating picture for the entire Federal Government and
for state, local and tribal governments as appropriate in the
event of a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other manmade
disaster, and to ensure that critical terrorism and disaster-
related information reaches government decision makers.
The NOC enables the DHS secretary and other leaders to make
informed decisions and identify courses of action during an
event or threat. The NOC is comprised of five elements: the
NOC-Watch, the NOC intelligence and analysis, FEMA's National
Response Coordination Center, the Office of Infrastructure
Protection's Coordinating Center, and the NOC planning element,
which is known as the Incident Management Planning Team.
Since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Government
has done a tremendous amount to ensure that there are improved
and better coordinated efforts undertaken to manage all threats
and all hazards incidents. For example, at DHS, we have
instituted improved policies, processes, procedures, training
programs, and systems to better enable the department to
function in support of the secretary as the domestic incident
manager. The capabilities developed are based on an incremental
approach and is fueled by interagency cooperation.
Major examples include: establish the DHS Office of
Operations Coordination; establish the NOC; establish a common
operating picture known as the COP, which is accessed via the
Homeland Security Information Network by Federal and state
partners; assign information responsibilities to interagency
partners; identify and collect the critical information
requirements to better provide key incident information to
decision makers; institutionalize the structure and processes
for information flow from the field to the national level;
establish the permanent planning operations staff within the
NOC called the Incident Management Planning Team, who develops
national concept plans and provides planning training to the
interagency; automate the data entry for incident reports in
geospatial displays; and establish and maintain the
communications system; deploy and resource a national planning
execution system; establish the DHS crisis action process and a
phased notification system; establish a NOC training program
that includes daily shift drills and is expandable to include
DHS and interagency operations centers; provide training to the
interagency PFOs and state emergency management personnel on
HSIN and COP reporting; participate in major exercises like
Ardent Sentry that tested operations processes, procedures and
tools like the COP; organize and develop groups to facilitate
interagency coordination that include the operations
coordination group, the operations centers work group, the
senior leadership group, COP users working group, HSIN
Management Coordinating Council, HSIN Advisory Council, and
daily NOC coordination calls; led the DHS participation at the
White House Homeland Security Council's domestic readiness
group policy coordination committee; and conducted mission
blueprint analysis by outside experts to look at policies,
procedures, processes and organizations and technologies to
define the OPS and NOC way forward.
While a lot of improvements have been made, there is much
work to be done to continuously improve the unity of effort and
operational capabilities in order to ensure mission
accomplishment. We have taken the post-Katrina recommendations
provided by Congress, the White House, and the GAO very
seriously and are making enhancements to DHS operations.
We appreciate the recommendations GAO has recently offered
regarding DHS Op Centers, including, one, our collaborative
practices; two, that there are no major barriers to executing
our mission; and three, the report conclusions including the
importance of defining common outcomes and joint strategies.
Mr. Perlmutter. [Presiding.] Mr. DiFalco, if you could wrap
up please, sir.
Mr. DiFalco. Yes, sir.
In addition, we look forward to providing additional tours
and briefs to the GAO and Congress to enhance visibility on OPS
and the NOC.
This concludes my oral statement. I am glad to answer any
questions.
[The statement of Mr. DiFalco follows:]
Prepared Statement of Frank DiFalco
Good morning, Chairman Carney, Ranking Member Rogers, and Members
of the Subcommittee. I am Frank DiFalco, Director of the National
Operations Center (NOC) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
(DHS). Thank you for inviting me to discuss what DHS, the Office of
Operations Coordination (OPS), and the NOC have done to increase
situational awareness within DHS and among the interagency
stakeholders, streamline the information flow process during incidents,
and improve our contingency and crisis action planning efforts.
As way of background, I would like to briefly describe the roles of
OPS and the NOC. The mission of OPS, which is directed by retired VADM
Roger Rufe, USCG, is to integrate DHS and interagency planning and
operations coordination in order to prevent, deter, protect, and
respond to terrorists threats/attacks or threats from other man-made or
natural disasters. The NOC is a 24x7, multi-agency operations center
that collects all-threats and all-hazards information across the
spectrum of federal, state, local, tribal, private-sector, and other
key sources. Its mission is to be the primary national-level hub for
domestic situational awareness, common operating picture, information
fusion, information sharing, communications, and operations
coordination pertaining to the prevention of terrorist attacks and
domestic incident management.
DHS takes these missions and the overall responsibilities laid out
in the Homeland Security Act and various Homeland Security Presidential
Directives seriously. We work every day of the year to ensure the
situational awareness needs of DHS, other federal agencies, state and
local partners, and other homeland security stakeholders are met. As
you know, this is an evolving process. Lessons learned from real-life
incidents and exercises are continually applied to improve the way the
NOC and other DHS offices work. I hope my time with you today can help
you better understand how the operations efforts of the NOC work within
an overarching DHS framework.
``Yesterday''
Since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Government has done a
tremendous amount to ensure there are improved and better coordinated
efforts undertaken to manage all-hazards incidents. For example, at
DHS, we have instituted improved policies, processes, procedures,
training programs and systems to better enable the Department to
function in support of the Secretary as the Domestic Incident Manager.
I will spend most of my time with you today relating how DHS, and
the NOC specifically, has taken positive action prompted by the
recommendations from Congress, GAO, and the White House. In addition,
DHS, like other federal departments, looked closely at how we did
business, and recognized that we have to continuously improve how we
provide a national unified effort and manage domestic incidents. Since
Katrina, much progress has been made in providing the Secretary and the
President with better situational awareness than what was available
during the time immediately following landfall of Hurricane Katrina.
For example, at the time of Katrina, the Homeland Security
Operations Center (HSOC) had responsibility for providing situational
awareness to the now defunct Interagency Incident Management Group
(IIMG), while the Incident Management Division, a component of the
IIMG, had responsibility for coordinating the federal response to the
incident. The major ``gap and seam'' identified in this instance was
that the HSOC and IIMG reported through two separate chains of command.
This resulted in a disjointed information flow and other problems
relating to situational awareness and incident management. These
challenges have since been remedied with organizational improvements,
standardized processes and procedures, interagency coordination at
several levels, and aggressive training and exercising.
There are many other examples where DHS and other Federal efforts
had friction during Katrina. The House, Senate, White House, GAO, DHS
and other entities have thoroughly reviewed the events surrounding
Hurricane Katrina and chronicled every step of the process from pre-
landfall to response and recovery efforts. I think the reports and
their recommendations speak for themselves and provide a needed
analysis of the Federal, State and local response to this massive
natural disaster. DHS took these efforts seriously and implemented many
of the recommendations. For example, OPS is in the process of fully
implementing the seven applicable White House Katrina lessons learned
report recommendations summarized below.
Establish the National Operations Center (NOC)
Establish National Information and Knowledge
Management System
Establish a National Reporting System
Establish a National Information Requirements and a
National Information Reporting Chain
Establish and Maintain a Deployable Communications
Capability
Develop and Resource a Federal Planning and Execution
System
Establish a Permanent Planning/Operations Staff within
the NOC
These recommendations have greatly enhanced operations and other
areas of the Department, as well as improved the overall capability of
the Federal Government to respond to and recover from significant
incidents.
``Today''
Over the past year, we have further improved upon the above
recommendations with lessons learned from real world events and
exercises. Below, I will provide additional information on each of the
following key OPS efforts.
The NOC
The Common Operating Picture (COP)
Department Situational Awareness Team (DSAT)
The Incident Management Planning Team (IMPT) and the
National Planning and Execution System (NPES)
DHS Crisis Action Process (CAP)
OPS Mission Blueprint
Coordination with Other Federal Partners
Notifications
Training and Exercises
National Operations Center and the Common Operating Picture
OPS has made significant advancements in many operational matters
that directly facilitate the Secretary's execution of the Homeland
Security Act, Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)-5, and
HSPD-8 responsibilities. To enable us to more efficiently coordinate
the offices within the Department and connect them with our interagency
partners, we established the NOC and are implementing the COP.
The NOC was officially established on May 25, 2006 with the
approval of the National Response Plan (NRP) Notice of Change. The NOC
is comprised of five elements: (1) the NOC Watch, which integrates the
functions and personnel of the former multi-agency HSOC; (2) NOC
Intelligence and Analysis, which incorporated the Office of
Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) intelligence watch and warning element;
(3) FEMA's National Response Coordination Center (NRCC); (4) the Office
of Infrastructure Protection's National Infrastructure Coordination
Center (NICC); and (5) the NOC Planning Element (IMPT), that
institutionalizes interagency deliberate and crisis action planning
processes.
The NOC, in collaboration with the Office of Intelligence &
Analysis, fuses all-source information to quickly determine if a threat
or event contains a nexus to terrorism. The NOC functions as a national
fusion center that synthesizes reporting from State and Local Fusion
Centers, law enforcement, critical infrastructure, national level
intelligence, emergency response, and private sector organizations. The
NOC disseminates homeland security information to senior federal
officials, appropriate intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and
to other homeland security partners. The NOC serves as the primary
focal point for the Secretary and senior administration officials to
receive domestic situational awareness relating to natural and man-made
disasters, acts of terrorism, and incident management within the United
States.
The COP is the principal situational awareness tool within the NOC
and is the cornerstone of the National Reporting System. This real-
time, web-based tool ties together key homeland security partners
primarily at the Federal, State, and Joint Field Office (JFO) levels.
The COP was the direct result of the Department's internal reviews
following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the White House Katrina
lessons learned report. It was initially available for the 2006
Hurricane season and has the following features:
Is accessible through the Homeland Security
Information Network (HSIN)
Provides Federal departments and agencies with the
capability to share critical information
Establishes an inter-agency common operating database
Develops a shared interagency understanding of the
situation
Provides information integrity for reporting
requirements
Facilitates timely decision making
The COP includes functional screens that address the National and
International Situation Summaries, executive actions, requests for
information, responder status, chronology of events, critical
infrastructure, mapping products, media reports, streaming video from
the incident site, the latest incident updates, metrics, and other HSIN
information.
As part of our incremental approach, we are advancing the COP
capabilities from natural disasters to all hazards and all threats. Our
``next steps'' are intended to further enhance the COP capabilities
from exclusively an unclassified, hurricanes/natural disaster centric
tool to include a classified, all-hazards capability. We are currently
focusing on the ``worst case'' scenarios for nuclear/radiological
incidents and will use national exercises and real world events to
validate and continue its overall development.
Department Situational Awareness Team
DSATs are made up of DHS personnel who provide key situational
awareness reporting to incident managers by providing data directly
from the scene of the incident. This data can include information from
streaming video which can be posted on HSIN, satellite communications,
and other tools that provide incident managers vital information in
near real-time. This capability supports Federal, State, and Local
domestic incident managers and allows our collective emergency response
to be coordinated with key homeland security partners such as the
Principal Federal Official (PFO).
Incident Management Planning Team & National Planning and Execution
System
The White House Katrina lessons learned report identified two
specific recommendations to address planning limitations at the
national level. The first recommendation called for the creation of a
permanent planning body within DHS. DHS addressed this recommendation
through the creation of the Incident Management Planning Team (IMPT).
The IMPT is an interagency element that develops strategic level
contingency plans predicated on the National Planning Scenarios. These
contingency plans unify the interagency prevention, protection,
response and recovery actions with respect to an event or threat.
The mission of the IMPT is to provide contingency and crisis-action
incident management planning through a collaborative, interagency
process in support of the Secretary's unique responsibilities as the
principal Federal official for domestic incident management as
articulated in HSPD-5, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and other key
homeland security authorities such as the preparedness functions of
HSPD-8. It is comprised of two components: (1) a core group of 15 full-
time planning representatives from key DHS elements (e.g., TSA, CBP,
I&A, FEMA, Coast Guard) as well as other key interagency members (i.e.,
DOD, DOJ, the FBI, HHS, DOT, DOE, EPA and the American Red Cross); and
(2) an ``on-call'' staff of 38 planners that includes other members
from DHS as well as the interagency. The IMPT was established in
September 2006 and its members underwent a robust training program to
prepare each of them for the planning responsibilities they have been
asked to execute.
The IMPT's initial actions have been focused on the development of
federal interagency concept plans (CONPLANS) that address each of the
15 National Planning Scenarios. The all-threats and all-hazards
scenarios include nuclear, chemical, biological, natural disaster and
cyber incidents. Each plan developed by the IMPT identifies the
specific actions that individual departments and agencies intend to
take in the event a given scenario were to occur. The primary value of
the IMPT is to identify the efforts of the entire interagency in one
comprehensive document. This planning process serves two distinct
purposes: it facilitates the ability of Secretary to fulfill his/her
coordination responsibilities under HSPD-5 by providing awareness of
the individual capabilities that a specific agency plans to deliver;
and it also identifies existing seams and gaps that exist within the
interagency planning efforts for a particular scenario.
The second recommendation identified the need for a federal
planning process to unify the planning efforts that occur across the
interagency. DHS addressed this recommendation through its development
of the National Planning and Execution System (NPES) which is a formal
curriculum based planning process used by the IMPT to build interagency
contingency plans. OPS leadership recognized that the success or
failure of the IMPT would hinge largely on its ability to develop a
planning process that could coordinate the efforts of this interagency
group and facilitate the development of a shared planning culture
across the federal government. Prior to NPES, few federal departments
and agencies adhered to a formal planning process that organized the
operational planning efforts within their respective departments. To
achieve this goal, OPS created NPES, which integrates current and
emerging interagency planning ``best practices,'' is consistent with
the NRP, and adheres to the core concepts and terminology addressed in
NIMS.
NPES was converted to a curriculum that was taught to each member
of the IMPT. The feedback from this training has been overwhelmingly
positive and has resulted in numerous requests by interagency members
that this training be offered to others within their respective
departments and agencies. In addition, many State and Local governments
have requested copies of the NPES and related training.
DHS has actively engaged in promoting and sharing NPES throughout
the interagency to assist in the development of supporting plans. Over
the past ten months, the IMPT has trained over 500 interagency planners
on the NPES and more training sessions are scheduled. The DHS Office of
the Chief Learning Officer (CLO) and the Center for Domestic
Preparedness (CDP) are currently working with the IMPT to develop an
accredited NPES Program of Instruction. By formalizing the instruction
and subsequently offering it at an accredited institution, the NPES
training will become available to a greater number of planners in the
near future, advancing its adoption throughout the interagency.
The DHS Crisis Action Process
The Crisis Action Process (CAP) is a standard process by which DHS
leadership manages a domestic incident response by following a general
sequence of events while simultaneously engaging in a continuous cycle
of actions. Over the past 6 months, in an effort to bolster
preparations for real-world events, a number of refinements have been
made to our processes. Two refinements of note are the formalization of
the Senior Leadership Group (SLG), which the Director of OPS chairs,
and the establishment of the Crisis Action Team (CAT) to manage
incidents.
The SLG is comprised of the various DHS Assistant Secretaries that
report to the Secretary and other select leaders within DHS. The SLG
can be convened by the Secretary at any time and its primary purpose is
to facilitate the Secretary's ability to receive input and
recommendations from his most experienced leaders during times of
crisis. When convened during times of crisis, the Secretary can also
issue initial guidance to the SLG members regarding actions he deems
appropriate.
The CAT is the main focus of the Crisis Action Process. The CAT is
a multi-agency coordination entity comprised of over 60 personnel, many
from the interagency IMPT, and is designed to facilitate the
Secretary's ability to coordinate interagency operations for threats
and incidents in accordance with the responsibilities identified in
HSPD-5. The CAT provides the Secretary and the Federal government with
an immediate incident management capability and ensures seamless
integration of threat monitoring and strategic cross-directorate
operational response activities. By incorporating guidance from the
Secretary and SLG into its incident management activities, the CAT is
able to translate executive level guidance into operational action.
The CAT's incident management activities include, but are not
limited to, developing course of action recommendations, conducting
national level planning, facilitating access to critical resources,
prioritizing incidents and resources, serving as a central point for
information collection and evaluation, and coordinating the flow of
information and resources for complex and/or multiple incidents.
OPS Mission Blueprint Analysis
OPS conducted a Mission Blueprint Analysis in September 2006. In
this Blueprint Analysis, we took a hard look at our policies,
processes, procedures, organization and technologies in order to help
define the way forward for OPS in order to meet and exceed the
Department's capabilities required to fulfill HSPD-5, the Homeland
Security Act, and highlighted in the White House Katrina lessons
learned review.
The Blueprint analysis was conducted by an outside team that
performed a top-down strategic review of the organization, its mission
capabilities and perceived future requirements. In addition, the team
also employed a bottom-up assessment of existing capabilities and
supporting activities. Over 100 individuals within OPS, DHS, and
throughout the government were interviewed during the course of the
study. This effort provided analysis and recommendations for ensuring
OPS more effectively meets its current and emerging integrated mission
requirements within DHS and across the larger homeland security
community.
OPS and NOC Coordination within DHS and with Other Federal Partners
The NOC from its inception adopted an interagency approach to its
business process. The NOC, through the Homeland Security Information
Network (HSIN) and COP training programs, the PFO and JFO support
concepts, the deliberate and crisis action planning processes, and the
interagency operation directorate and operation center coordination
working group venues, has recognized that operations coordination is
very much an interagency enterprise. DHS has engaged in interagency
coordination at multiple levels and across the core domestic incident
management functions as the composition of the NOC and IMPT
demonstrate. Further, the OPS, NOC and COP outreach and training
initiatives have been interagency focused every step of the way. These
have proven invaluable in building relationships, developing skill
sets, identifying and integrating interagency requirements, and gaining
interagency understanding of the NOC's capabilities and the role the
NOC plays in order to help prevent, deter, protect, respond and recover
from terrorists threats/attacks or threats from other man-made or
natural disasters.
Also, in order to enhance integration and coordination, we
established the Daily NOC Elements Conference Call. This conference
call provides the NOC Element Directors, Operation Centers (Senior Duty
Officers), and staff members a daily forum to highlight operational
matters, address process issues, and conduct coordination as
appropriate.
Another OPS led effort to enhance DHS and federal operations is
DHS's Operations Coordination Group (OCG). This forum provides inter
and intra departmental information sharing at the ``strategic
operations officer'' level and includes representatives from DOD's
Joint Director of Military Support, NORTHCOM Joint Staff J-3, National
Guard Bureau J-3, FEMA, ICE, CBP, USCG, TSA, USSS, and CIS (additional
members can be added at the discretion of the Group). This homeland
security body enhances information flow and ensures that issues
regarding planning, training, exercises, and incident management are
properly coordinated in a timely manner. This semi-formal process with
established agency and department representation helps foster needed
interactions and feedback from peers on operational matters.
Likewise and under the umbrella of the OCG, the NOC led the effort
to establish the DHS Operations Centers Working Group. The purpose of
this group is to establish an Operations Centers venue to share
information, address major issues, integrate efforts, enhance
coordination, build relationships, and increase overall operational
effectiveness. While this group is initially comprised of DHS OPS
Centers, the intent is to expand the group into an interagency forum.
The partnership between the NOC and FBI is growing at a steady
pace. For example, the NOC provides Patriot Reports to the FBI which
have been useful in developing case leads. These reports often contain
unique information provided to the NOC by private citizens. In
addition, the FBI has addressed technology issues that inhibited access
to their Secret level pre-case data system, Guardian, allowing full use
to the NOC. The Program Manager for the developing unclassified version
of the system, known as eGuardian, has worked closely to facilitate NOC
access and use of that system when it comes on line, including the
designation of the NOC as one of the pilot sites.
DOD's NORTHCOM, or Northern Command, has developed as a clear
mission partner with DHS and the NOC is the common point of entry
between the two organizations. NORTHCOM leadership has visited the NOC,
and vice versa, and information sharing is routine--each entity
displays the other's common operating picture. DOD is becoming
increasingly integrated into the NOC COP during an incident providing
the best form of information sharing as early as possible. In addition,
OPS has detailed a member of the Senior Executive Service to be the
Department's representative at NORTHCOM and NORTHCOM has provided a
senior representative to DHS.
Notifications
Notifications are a critical NOC function and as part of an ongoing
review of its processes and procedures, OPS implemented the DHS
Operational Phase System on March 1, 2007. The four operational phases
under which the NOC now operates are: Steady-State; Phase 1--Awareness;
Phase 2--Concern; and Phase 3--Urgent. The new system enables
recipients to quickly understand the conditions of the situation for
which they receive a notification message, understand the corresponding
severity of the event/threat, and provide key information in
standardized formats.
Training and Exercises
We have recently established a comprehensive NOC Training Program.
The NOC Training Program consists of daily (one per shift) operations
drills that enhance the NOC's capability to detect and evaluate events,
conduct the proper notifications, develop deliverables, and execute
national level reporting responsibilities. The NOC plans to expand its
training program to involve DHS and interagency operations centers.
The NOC has come a long way since Katrina. However, just having new
tools, programs and processes are not enough. It is vital to
participate in exercises and table-top discussions to validate current
efforts and to integrate lessons learned. The NOC participates in major
exercises and uses these venues to accomplish training and exercise
objectives and spearhead operational improvements. In particular,
during the month of May 2007, OPS and other DHS components participated
in the DOD exercise Ardent Sentry which was designed to test and
validate DOD Homeland Defense operations and Defense Support to Civil
Authorities (DSCA) operations. Ardent Sentry consisted of numerous
scenarios for which OPS had established roles and responsibilities. Two
scenarios provided significant OPS participation including a hurricane
making landfall in Rhode Island and a 10 kiloton nuclear detonation in
Indianapolis, Indiana.
In regards to the hurricane scenario, OPS was able to exercise
national information flow and test the ability of the NOC and all its
elements to prepare, coordinate and publish situation reports (SITREPS)
and executive summaries (EXSUMS) before the 2007 hurricane season. The
10 kiloton explosion allowed for testing the DHS CAP, testing the CAT
concept of operations, testing the IMPT's Improvised Nuclear Device
Contingency Plan, and developing the classified COP requirements that
include secret, law enforcement, and proprietary information. Finally,
this was an excellent opportunity to exercise together with NORTHCOM
and keep DHS and DOD on track to improve our national incident
management capability.
Information Flow_Hurricane Example
To help provide some additional information on how our tools,
policies and procedures are brought to bear in an incident, I will
illustrate what happens when possible hurricane approaches. If a
Tropical Wave, Depression, or Storm is projected or forecasted to
impact the United States or a U. S. Territory, the first step the NOC
will take is to transition to Phase 1--Awareness. Upon this transition,
the NOC will transmit a DHS notification message, prepare and
disseminate a NOC Incident Report, and establish a National Situation
Summary on the COP. The NOC will maintain and continually update the
COP and also disseminate NOC Update Reports at 0600 and 1800 daily.
When a Hurricane or severe Tropical Storm is projected or
forecasted to impact the United States or a U.S. Territory, the NOC
will transition to Phase 2--Concern. Upon this transition, the NOC will
conduct the same actions for a Tropical Wave, Depression, or Storm. In
addition, EXSUMs will be initiated and disseminated at 0600 and 1800
daily. SITREPs will commence when the Hurricane or severe Tropical
Storm is 24 hours from landfall and will be disseminated at 0600 and
1800.
Although the NOC may transition to Phase 3--Urgent due to the
projected severity at landfall of a Hurricane or severe Tropical Storm,
no differences exist between Phase 2 or 3 reporting or information
requirements. The primary differences that do exist between Phase 2 and
3 involve operational posturing. For example, the Crisis Action Team
will most likely be activated during an event that would meet the Phase
3 threshold.
When a tropical event ends or no longer poses a significant threat
to the United States or a U.S. Territory, the NOC will transition back
to the Steady State Phase and will transmit a close-out DHS
notification message and terminate reporting.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, please know that DHS is committed to ensuring that
all possible steps are being taken to address the various threats and
incidents that can endanger our citizens. DHS will continue to work
together with all partners across the homeland security spectrum,
including Congress, to ensure the best policies, practices, processes,
and technologies are integrated into the daily DHS operations
framework.
The efforts described earlier, like the COP and the NPES, are now
part of the day-to-day operations of DHS, OPS, and the NOC. They allow
for better national reporting, situational awareness, information
sharing, operations coordination, unity of effort, and mission
accomplishment for all-threat and all-hazard events. We will
continually enhance our efforts and operational effectiveness by
implementing lessons learned during real-world events and exercises.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify today and I look forward
to answering your questions.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. I want to thank you for your
testimony.
I will remind each member that you will have 5 minutes to
question Mr. DiFalco.
Now, I will recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. DiFalco, we know that during Hurricane Katrina, HSOC
received reports of massive flooding and levee breaches from
numerous sources. We also know that the director of the HSOC
and other senior DHS officials were not aware of either the
reports or the flooding itself. What we don't know is what
happened in the layers between where the reports come into the
HSOC and where they are sent to the senior leadership.
Why didn't the reports reach the officials, if you know?
Mr. DiFalco. When the reports came in during Katrina, it
was basically 35 to 40 agencies forwarding their situation
reports, sending them in. We were sorting through them there.
Since then, we have developed a common operating picture
and information management program to make sure that key
information that comes in gets put on the common operating
picture so it is available for everybody to see at real-time,
because it is on the Homeland Security Information Network. So
everybody can see it real-time. We know it is in. We are able
to check it and confirm it with other agencies that are
providing reports.
In addition to that, we have outfitted the National
Operations Center with information knowledge management
officers--excuse me--incident management officers that monitor
the common operating picture in these reports that come in.
Additionally, part of the common operating picture is a
spot report forward, and the sport report is a report of
something that is urgent that comes in that cannot wait until
the next reporting cycle. It goes up on nat boards for everyone
to see also.
So we have taken steps to make sure that information that
comes in gets highlighted, while we are de-conflicting it. So
it is being passed and everybody is seeing it at the same time
while we are trying to either de-conflict the information or
confirm it.
Mr. Perlmutter. ``De-conflict'' meaning there are different
kinds of reports coming in to you and you are trying to figure
out which one is correct? What do you mean by ``de-conflict''?
Mr. DiFalco. Yes. An example during Katrina was that the
levees were breached. OK, well, some of the reports that came
in said they were toppled. Some said that they weren't
breached, but they had breaks in them that were letting water
through, but there wasn't a complete breach. In that case, we
were trying to confirm it with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
to see exactly what the situation was.
Sometimes the information comes in and it is opposite. It
says there is no breach and there is a breach, as an example.
So, OK, we don't know what is ground truth. The systems and the
information integrity pieces we put in place for the common
operating picture and for basically national reporting for a
hurricane identifies subject matter experts who provide the
information. So if we get information from a different source,
we are able to go to them more quickly and de-conflict or get a
confirmation on that particular part of the information.
Mr. Perlmutter. OK. Thanks.
I am glad to hear of improvements that have been made using
this COP program in the National Operations Center, and I look
forward to further improvements. But I am concerned about NOC's
use of this common operating picture through HSIN, through the
Homeland Security Information Network.
Recently, we had a hearing and we received a GAO report
which described HSIN's ongoing problems, including not having a
clear mission and not having all first responders and similar
stakeholders on the network.
How are you able to reconcile the problems with HSIN with
the importance of the sharing that you have through your common
operations picture and your NOC center?
Mr. DiFalco. HSIN is critical to that information sharing.
It is a Web-based network. It is real-time. Everybody that is
on it sees the information at the same time. So it is
simultaneous distributed information.
HSIN was ruled out on threat conditions when it was first
put out, and at the time it was needed to get a network out
there that everybody could be on. The business practices and
the processes or procedures were gapped. That was life at the
time, and that is the way it is during some operations during
threat conditions.
We are working outreach efforts. There is a program office
set up to help stabilize and to work through those particular
gaps on HSIN. There is also a HSIN Advisory Council set up and
a requirements council was set up to make sure that we get
everybody's input and make the corrections that you are
referring to.
The one thing I would like to say on HSIN, though, it is
the only network out there that has all the Federal, state,
local, tribal, private sector players on it. We get a lot of
questions as to, well, we are using different types of systems.
We are using WebTA or there are different networks. Why aren't
we including DOD networks? The reality of the situation is each
agency has their own network or state and local have their own
network that they are using. But HSIN is the only network that
allows everyone on it.
If it is a law enforcement network, you have to be a law
enforcement officer to be on it. DOD does not want the private
sector on the network, and those types of things. So when you
start peeling back the onion, HSIN is the only network that
allows the full complement across the spectrum of homeland
security partners to be on it. It is the common operating
network that we are using for homeland security.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you.
My 5 minutes have expired, so now I would like to recognize
the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Rogers, from
Alabama for his 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
I understand that the NOC has an intelligence analysis
function now. Could you tell me how you coordinate this
intelligence gathering information with others? Or do you?
Mr. DiFalco. Yes, we do. The NOC has it. The IA,
intelligence analysis component, is integrated into it. It was
also integrated into the HSOC, the Homeland Security Operations
Center. It stayed integrated into the NOC-Watch, which is
located at the NAC there. They are integrated into the IC
community. They receive all information that all the
intelligence community agencies receive. We get it there. We
are tied in there also with NCTC and all the other agencies.
So that comes in. The overall fusion mission for the NOC is
to take intelligence information and fuse it with state and
local incident management, all-source information, fuse it, do
a quick look on it, determine if there is a terrorist nexus to
it, and then keep that information available for IA to conduct
longer-range analysis on it, like trend analysis, pattern
analysis.
Mr. Rogers. Do the locals have a chance to interface with
you to gather information?
Mr. DiFalco. To receive that information? Yes, that is one
of our primary missions is information sharing. We do that. If
it is information coming in from an intelligence agency or any
agency, we always request appropriate tear-lines to make sure
that we can share it with state and local.
For us to have the information at the NOC and not being
able to pass it to the right people is worthless, so we want to
make sure that we are able to do that, and we do that. That is
our intent.
Mr. Rogers. OK. I understand also that the NOC now includes
FEMA's National Response Coordination Center. How does this
organizational structure work?
Mr. DiFalco. OK. The NOC operates as a matrix organization.
There are five elements. We coordinate and work together
because the NRCC, as an example, is still the component
operations center for FEMA as a component, and conducts their
coordination and their efforts within FEMA.
The fact that they are integrated into the NOC means that
we have very close coordination with them. We do daily
conference calls with them. They are on the NOC portal, which
is our collaboration portal for internal processing. They are
on the common operating picture. They feed it. They are part of
the daily operations that we do.
That is one of the key things is the training that I
mentioned earlier. We conduct training within the NOC. We are
expanding to the NOC elements. The exercises include the NRCC,
all the elements of the NOC. We work on a daily basis together.
We want to basically train like we fight, so we make sure that
we are using the same network, same procedures on a daily basis
that we are going to use during an emergency.
Mr. Rogers. Where is the NOC physically located?
Mr. DiFalco. The elements of the NOC are in different
locations. The NOC-Watch is at the NAC, the Nebraska Area
Complex in DC. The NRCC is located at the FEMA headquarters.
The NICC, the National Infrastructure Coordinating Center, is
located at TSOC.
Mr. Rogers. And TSOC is?
Mr. DiFalco. I am sorry. TSOC is the TSA building out at
Herndon, Virginia. The planning element, the IMPT, is also
located at the Nebraska Area Complex.
Mr. Rogers. OK. And you made reference a little while ago
to the Homeland Security Operations Center. Tell me a little
bit about how you interact with that entity in the event of--
let's get away from terrorist acts--hurricanes coming.
Mr. DiFalco. Do you mean the Homeland Security OC or the
NCTC?
Mr. Rogers. Homeland security.
Mr. DiFalco. Basically, sir, the NOC absorbed the Homeland
Security Operations Center. At one time, and during Katrina,
what I mentioned earlier was that an operations directorate was
stood up. Before Katrina, operations functions were spread out
throughout DHS. So that was brought together under one
directorate.
Mr. Rogers. That is what I was getting at. You absorbed it
is the bottom line.
Mr. DiFalco. Yes, we did.
Mr. Rogers. OK. I have no further questions.
Mr. Perlmutter. Now, the chair will recognize the
congresswoman from New York, Ms. Yvette Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for attending today's hearing.
I think that we have all acknowledged that the inability of
the Homeland Security Operations Center to give accurate, real-
time situational awareness to top decision makers is central to
the ``why'' of the department and its failures in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina.
While it is tragic that DHS responded so poorly to that
disaster, I am glad to see at least in this particular instance
the department has been willing to admit its mistakes and take
the initiative in improving its procedures.
I agree with my colleagues that the work being done by the
National Operations Center is very promising. However, we will
never know whether NOC can be successful until our nation is
put in the very unfortunate circumstance of dealing with
another event of the magnitude of Katrina. By then, it may be
too late to make the improvements before lives will be put on
the line and put at stake.
Mr. DiFalco, what sort of testing have you done to ensure
the success of NOC operations? And how is this different from
the testing and exercise performed by the HSOC?
Mr. DiFalco. It is basically in three areas: the planning,
training, and exercises. That is simulation, trying to work
through and simulate real-world conditions for the efforts that
you just mentioned. The planning element--
Ms. Clarke. Let me just ask about the simulation. How is
that done? Is it sort of table-top exercises?
Mr. DiFalco. It includes table-top exercises and live
exercises where we are actually processing information from
field units, just like we would during an actual incident.
The planning element did not exist. One of the major gaps
was that there was no planning done at the national level, no
integration of the plans. Each of the agencies were doing their
own plans, and basically it was in a cylinder fashion. They
would do it for their agencies, but it wasn't coming together
at the national level. That has been filled now with the IIMPT,
the Interagency Incident Management Planning Team. They are
conducting the planning at the national level, integrating
plans and bringing that together.
They also established the crisis action process for DHS.
They provide crisis action planning, which was not available
during Katrina. Those have been exercised during actual
exercises like Ardent Sentry and Vigilant Shield and the other
major exercises that have been going on. We conduct training in
addition to that. That is internal training within the NOC.
Every day, every shift there is a drill that goes on to make
sure that we can process the information and get the word out.
And then we conduct outreach training not only in planning, but
also in reporting, common operating picture, HSIN, with
everyone from the Federal through state and local partners.
We participate in all major exercises, and some regional
and other exercises depending on the situation. We always play
like we fight in the exercises. We use the actual networks,
actual people, and the actual processing and structures that we
will be doing during an incident. We take the lessons learned
and feed them back in and make adjustments to improve the
process.
The other thing that we started is basically an operational
posturing procedure. It is a notifications procedure. It helps
with situational awareness and building up to an incident. When
an incident happens, there is steady-state. There is phase one
awareness, phase two concerned, phase three urgent. We do
notifications based on those phases in 12 different thresholds
for the incidents or emerging incidents.
So we are able to take the information, process it in NOC,
post it on HSIN and COP, get the word out to those groups at
the Federal down through state and local levels as to what is
going on, and they are able to see the information in near
real-time within like 25 minutes.
Ms. Clarke. Mr. DiFalco, my time is running down. I just
had a question around municipalities. I know that there is such
a wide range across this nation. How are we getting feedback
from the local level about their planning and their integration
into the overall national plan to mobilize?
I think that was one of the things that sort of frustrated
people when they saw the unfolding of the event known as
Katrina, that the municipalities seemed to be so powerless or
felt they were so powerless in being able to move their own
citizenry under those conditions. Has there been anything done
that provides the municipalities with a standard response,
emergency preparedness training? Can you give us just a little
indication of that?
Mr. DiFalco. Yes. The IMPT-level planning is strategic
level. Underneath that is operational level, even though it is
nationwide, but it is operational level, and includes FEMA. The
particular things you are talking about, FEMA has done outreach
to the major municipalities and states to take a look at their
plans and offer help with the planning, and incorporate them
into the operational level plans. That will feed up into the
strategic level as appropriate or if needed.
Training teams for planning are available and have gone
out. I think we have trained over 400 agency people in
different regions. But that is really done at the component
level and FEMA is the heavy lifter for that.
Ms. Clarke. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Perlmutter. Mr. DiFalco, I think we will take another
pass. All of us will ask you a few more questions if we have
any more questions. I would like to start by just getting a
chain of command here, going back to that basic. We have all
sorts of organizations and task forces and initiatives and
acronyms and everything else. Who do you report to?
Mr. DiFalco. I report to the operations director. I report
to the deputy director, Wayne Parent, who works for Admiral
Rufe.
Mr. Perlmutter. So who is the top of the command for you,
in responding to an incident or an event?
Mr. DiFalco. Within operations, it is Admiral Rufe.
Mr. Perlmutter. OK. And then who reports to you? Is there a
clear line of command to you?
Mr. DiFalco. In the operations center?
Mr. Perlmutter. In the operations center or in responding
to an event, because I think one of the things that just in
looking at your statement and reviewing what happened with
Katrina, there were different lines of command going on and
they weren't really talking to each other.
It is not that I think this has got to be strictly military
right up the command. There ultimately has to be a buck
stopping someplace, and I want to make sure that all that
information gets to somebody if that is really needed.
Mr. DiFalco. That is needed. What we call it is information
flow and coordination, and that is done through the center. The
information comes from the other operations centers from not
only DHS, but the interagency. As you know, command and control
doesn't work interagency because it is really command
coordination, just because it is the interagency environment.
We work every day with the interagencies and the other op
centers to make sure we are getting the information flow into
the NOC. That has come a long way since Katrina. Before Katrina
and even during it, to include exercises, a lot of the
committees and panels or things that we would go to when we
were developing an exercise, as an example, DHS was a lot of
times an afterthought. It wasn't built into it. It was like,
oh, you know, we do our own stuff, and that unifying effort was
not there, and we are really trying to push that.
Now, when we go to meetings and stuff like that, everybody
understands better the DHS role, the role of HSIN and COP and
those type of things, and are actually integrated in. So there
is not a reporting chain of command like that for the op
centers, but we all work together on a daily basis to make sure
that information comes in.
Yes, interagency friction is still there. OK, that is kind
of inherent in just the nature of the operations in the
interagency world, just like it is with state and local or
anything else. That friction is there. I think we taken some
good steps toward jointness, comparing it to the military
jointness, having jointness in the interagency. That is where
this needs to go so that everybody is on the same sheet of
music and cooperating. I think some big steps have been made in
that direction.
Mr. Perlmutter. My last question is, you were talking about
you have had some major exercises. You have had some table-tops
and different kinds of drills. Have you had any events that
have triggered the whole NOC operation coming into effect?
Maybe it was a hurricane that blew by last year or some other
kind of an event like that.
Mr. DiFalco. Yes. In 2006, the hurricane season, that
happened on several occasions for what we thought were emerging
hurricanes, where the information people were deployed;
information was flowing in; EOCs were providing information;
JFOs were beginning to get set up. But then they never
materialized into a full-flown hurricane, so then we would pull
back.
So we are leaning forward doing that, and that happened
consistently and worked very well during last year's hurricane
season. The exercises are an example. The Ardent Sentry, the
one we just finished, had a full-blown hurricane in it, with
the JFO, principal Federal officials, the whole shooting match.
And that information flow came in and we processed it.
The nuclear incident piece of that involved the JFO and a
PFO, and basically the terrorist spectrum part of it, the
threat piece, with all the information coming into the NOC, to
include us using the crisis action process to process that
information, provide courses of action, and do incident
management planning.
Mr. Perlmutter. Last one--I already said last one--but the
tuberculosis patient who crossed the border a couple of weeks
ago, is that something where your center would be involved? Did
you guys get called into that?
Mr. DiFalco. Yes, we did. We were involved in that from the
time we were notified on it. The coordination that we did there
was bringing together HHS, which includes, of course, the
Centers for Disease Control and the FDA, the Federal Drug
Administration, and all their agencies, coordinating them with
TSA, Transportation Security Administration, CBP for the
borders piece, and trying to bring that all together into one
picture.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers, if you have any further questions?
Mr. Rogers. I didn't until you asked yours. I want to
follow up on what he initially pursued, and that is where the
buck stops.
I understand that your office is coordinating information,
but there has to be, in the words of the president, the
``decider.'' Who is making decisions about what course of
action to take that overrides this friction that you made
reference to?
Mr. DiFalco. OK. The system is set up so that decisions are
made at the lowest level, including in the field. The best
operational piece is to have the decisions made and de-
conflicted and worked out at the lowest levels. As they bubble
up, they either can't resolve them or don't have the resources
to resolve them, or maybe aren't thinking of them because it is
outside the scope, but at the higher levels you can see it
coming--as those bubble up or become apparent, then they go
through layers.
Basically, if it can be handled by the operations
directorate, coordinating with the senior leadership group
which is the secretary's components and the staff, then the
decision is made there if it is at that level. If it needs to
go up to the secretary, then he will have to make the decision.
From there, it can go up to the domestic readiness group at the
Homeland Security Council.
So it is an echelon chain that we can move the information
up and down to make sure the right decision-makers are
involved.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Perlmutter. I would like to thank you, sir, for your
testimony, and the members for all their questions.
The members of the subcommittee may have additional
questions for you, which we will present to you in writing. We
would ask that you respond to them as quickly as you can.
Thank you very much for your time and your testimony.
Mr. DiFalco. Thank you.
Mr. Perlmutter. I would now like to ask that the second
panel join us.
I would like to welcome our second panel.
Our first witness is Eileen Larence. Ms. Larence is
director for homeland security and justice at the GAO. Her
specific issue areas are largely focused on the sharing of
homeland security information and the protection of the
nation's critical infrastructure. Ms. Larence has 29 years of
experience managing a broad range of issues at the GAO.
I will go through the whole panel.
Our second witness is Colonel Terry Ebbert--good to see you
again--the director of homeland security for the city of New
Orleans. As such, he is assigned the operational and planning
responsibility for the police department, the fire department,
Office of Emergency Preparedness, and emergency medical
services. Colonel Ebbert has over 40 years of experience in
professional leadership positions. He is a twice-wounded combat
veteran and the recipient of the Navy Cross, one of our
nation's highest awards for valor.
Our third witness is Mr. Darrell Darnell, who became the
director of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management
Agency for the District of Columbia on March 19 of this year.
He has 30 years of military, Federal and private sector
experience, including positions at the United States Department
of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Darnell
is also a 2006 senior fellow at George Washington University's
Homeland Security Policy Institute.
Our final witness is Mr. Jim Walker, the director of the
Alabama Department of Homeland Security, where he has served
since January 20, 2003. Prior to that position, Mr. Walker was
a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, where he served
for over 20 years. His assignments include details as the aide-
de-camp for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
operations brief to General Colin Powell, and as an aide to
former President Ronald Reagan.
Without objection, the witnesses' full statements will be
inserted in the record.
I now ask each witness to summarize his or her statement
for 5 minutes, beginning with Ms. Larence.
STATEMENT OF EILEEN LARENCE, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND
JUSTICE ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Larence. Mr. Perlmutter and Ranking Member Rogers, I am
pleased to be here today to discuss the results of our review
of several homeland security operations centers, and the
opportunities they have to better collaborate across their
participating agencies.
Doing so is vital because the mission of the centers is
critical, to ensure that DHS is aware of developing situations,
manmade or natural, that threaten the nation, and has the
information it needs to help manage incidents that may result.
Hurricane Katrina demonstrated we were not ready, and your
oversight of progress in fixing the problems Katrina exposed is
important and timely. As part of this oversight, Congress asked
GAO to review the functions of operations centers within DHS.
We reported the results of that review in October 2006 and
recommended ways the department could promote more
collaboration in the centers. We recently followed up on DHS's
response to those recommendations.
We also obtained an overview of initiatives the department
has undertaken in response to congressional and administration
after-action reports and recommendations. While we have not
fully evaluated these initiatives because they are so new, they
do present several oversight questions.
Based on our work, I would like to make two key points this
afternoon. First, the three multi-agency 24/7 operational watch
centers we reviewed that are housed within DHS components such
as Customs and Border Protection or the Transportation Security
Administration, and to some extent the National Operations
Center that Mr. DiFalco just discussed, could better
collaborate across the components of the staff of these centers
to achieve their common mission of providing situational
awareness and incident management during a crisis.
To date, the department has implemented some, but not all,
of our recommendations. For example, we recommended that the
operations centers in our review could better implement six
actions GAO identified from the private sector as best
practices for agency collaboration.
We recommended that the operations directorate issue
guidance to these different various centers about how to
implement these best practices, and include, for example,
making certain that all agencies understand the center's common
goal and outcome, that they have clearly documented the joint
strategies that they are going to use to get there, and that
they clearly define and document each person's role in
achieving that outcome.
For example, it is important that the role of each center's
watch standard--and these are the persons that actually do the
24/7 surveillance--that their roles be documented and
understood by all so that they understand their jurisdictions
and their responsibilities and they avoid confusion, especially
during emergencies and crises.
We also pointed out that centers could getter assess the
number and capabilities of staff they need compared to what
they have onboard, leverage the expertise and plan ways to fill
any gaps. DHS agreed with the recommendations at the time, and
have taken some action on them. To its credit, the National
Operations Center is addressing some of these best practices,
such as defining their watch standard roles and implementing
protocols for reporting information during an incident.
However, the operations directorate does not plan to issue
the guidance that we recommended. It maintains it doesn't have
any authority or control over the other operations centers
within DHS. These individual centers themselves are not
implementing the recommendations on their own. We maintain that
full implementation of our recommendations would not exceed the
NOC's authority, would be consistent with their priorities, and
quite frankly, relatively easy to implement, and would produce
benefits.
For my second point, while the operations directorate and
center deserve credit for the changes they are implementing in
response to Katrina problems and recommendations, we must
acknowledge that the changes are still new and evolving, and
DHS must address several challenges and next steps, so
continued oversight will be critical.
For example, as Mr. DiFalco enumerated, the directorate and
center report that they are instituting a lot of new teams and
processes and protocols to manage incidents under any
significant scenario, including terrorist threats, but they
still need 2 years to develop the plans for all 15 of these
scenarios.
They are implementing the common operating picture, and
they are also establishing information requirements for each of
these planning scenarios that I just discussed. They are
establishing clear reporting channels for this information.
They have identified who is in charge of validating the
information that is first reported up. And they have
established templates and deadlines for providing this
information to senior leaders.
While we have not evaluated the implementation and
effectiveness of these initiatives in detail, our review
demonstrates that DHS has accomplished a lot. It still has a
lot of work to do, and raises several oversight questions.
For example, the department focused its initial efforts on
making changes in time for the 2006 hurricane season, but now
must focus on other scenarios. Will it get the commitment it
needs, especially from its own components and other Federal
agencies? And will it be able to sustain this commitment over
time, especially for resources? And was it ready for the recent
TB scare? And would it be ready for a pandemic?
Is the new planning process redundant to FEMA's planning
process? Has DHS resolved its organizational instability that
stakeholders said delayed progress? Will it be able to resolve
the problems that continue to plague its Homeland Security
Information Network, and maintain enough users to make the
system viable? Some DHS components, for example, are concerned
about the lack of security features and other issues with the
system, and have asked DHS for waivers to use alternative
networks instead.
Finally, we and DHS itself acknowledge that the agency must
implement ways to measure the effectiveness of its initiatives
as insurance against future disasters. We commend DHS for
testing its initiatives through a series of live exercises, but
we also maintain that implementing more systematic measures,
including soliciting feedback from state and local
stakeholders--my peers on the panel--is important, as Katrina
demonstrated, since they are our first line of defense and
critical to incident management.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I would be happy
to answer any questions. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Larence follows:]
Prepared Statement of Eileen R. Larence
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's hearing to
discuss our work on assessing the relationship among various operations
centers of components of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and
the agency's overall National Operations Center in carrying out the
important mission of maintaining situational awareness.
When DHS was established as an organization, we recognized the
challenges it would face in trying to integrate 22 legacy agencies into
one new corporate entity. Therefore, in January 2003 we placed the
integration and transformation of the department on GAO's high-risk
list--composed of those federal agencies, programs, or activities that
pose the highest risk to the nation--because we recognized the country
could not afford to have DHS fail. The Department's transformation
remained on our high-risk list for 2007 because DHS had still not fully
addressed its integration, management, and programmatic challenges.\1\
Placing it on this list obligates us to continue to monitor how well
the integration and transformation is succeeding.
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\1\ GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-03-119 (Washington, D.C.:
Jan. 2003); High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-07-310 (Washington, D.C.:
Jan. 2007).
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With similar concerns, as well as concerns with the response to
events that have occurred since, such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita
and continuing terrorist threats, the Congress has been overseeing
DHS's transformation. As part of this oversight, the Senate Committee
on Homeland Security and Government Affairs requested that we identify
the DHS operations centers (established to conduct monitoring and
surveillance activities that can help detect, deter and prevent
terrorist acts), to determine if any centers are redundant, and assess
the functions and customers of these centers. Also, as part of this
oversight, the Committee recognized that Hurricane Katrina demonstrated
that the department's main operations center--the Homeland Security
Operations Center--was not ready to effectively coordinate the sharing
of information in a time of crisis and needed repair; therefore, it
made a series of recommendations to address the problems identified and
has been monitoring the agency's efforts to ensure DHS makes these
changes.\2\
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\2\ Report of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government
Affairs, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, United State
Senate. (Washington, D.C.: May 2006).
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In response to the Senate Committee's request for GAO to review
operations centers, we decided to assess those centers within DHS's
component agencies that, first, conduct operations 24 hours a day, 7
days a week, 365 days a year (24/7/365), and that, second, have a
broader security mission that DHS has determined requires higher levels
of collaboration from many stakeholders, including DHS component
agencies, and other federal, state, and local agencies. These centers
are the Air and Marine Operations Center and the National Targeting
Center, sponsored by U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the
Transportation Security Operations Center sponsored by the
Transportation Security Administration; and the National Operations
Center Interagency Watch, the successor to the Homeland Security
Operations Center, run within the Office of Operations Coordination at
DHS. We assessed the extent to which they implemented key practices
that our work has shown helps to enhance and sustain collaboration,\3\
since such collaboration is important to one of the main functions of
each center, namely, sharing information needed to develop and maintain
situational awareness of potential crises and terrorist activity
nationwide. These key collaborative practices include defining and
articulating a common outcome and joint strategies to guide multi-
agency activities such as information sharing, and assessing staffing
needs to leverage the resources other agencies contribute to the
centers. We found that these practices can help agencies overcome
barriers to collaboration, such as overprotection of jurisdiction and
resources, as well as, incompatible procedures and processes that can
result in agencies operating in a fragmented and uncoordinated way,
wasting resources, and limiting effectiveness.
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\3\ GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help
Enhance and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, GAO-06-15
(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 2005).
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Based on our work on operations centers, we issued a report in
October 2006 with recommendations for the Operations Directorate
develop and provide guidance to the centers to encourage that they
implement these key collaborative practices as a means to enhance their
ability to meet their missions.\4\ Today, we would like to, first,
briefly review the collaboration issues and recommendations we
presented in our report, then, give an update of DHS's efforts to
respond to these recommendations.
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\4\ GAO, Homeland Security: Opportunities Exist to Enhance
Collaboration at 24/7 Operations Centers Staffed by Multiple DHS
Agencies, GAO-07-89 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 2006).
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In addition, we are aware of the Congress's concerns about the
performance of the Homeland Security Operations Center during Hurricane
Katrina, and the recent efforts made in response to these and other
concerns identified in hurricane after-action studies and reports.
Because these efforts to some extent affect DHS's response to our
recommendations, we briefly describe some of the steps DHS recently
reported to us that it has taken to address problems Katrina exposed,
although it is too early to assess these actions to determine how well
they are being implemented since a number of them are relatively new.
Scope and Methodology
To determine the extent to which operations centers managed by
different offices and components within DHS had implemented key
practices that our work has shown can enhance collaboration among
federal agencies, during our original work, we reviewed transition,
management integration, and planning and policy documents from the
department. We also reviewed strategic plans, as well as annual
performance reports and planning documents from DHS and its component
agencies. In addition, we reviewed and analyzed the results of studies
undertaken by DHS to assess and improve coordination and collaboration
at the multi-agency centers as well as reports from GAO, the
Congressional Research Service, the DHS Office of Inspector General,
and others that addressed the integration, coordination, and
collaboration of departmentwide program functions. To determine the
extent to which they reflect how DHS has encouraged the use of the key
collaborative practices, we also met with the acting director and other
responsible officials from the Office of Operations Coordination to
discuss its role and responsibilities.
To obtain updated information on DHS's efforts to implement our
recommendations, we visited the National Operations Center, the
National Infrastructure Coordination Center, the National Response
Coordination Center, and Transportation Security Operations Center and
met with center managers. In addition, we spoke to officials at the
National Targeting Center. We also received a series of briefings on
organizational and operational changes implemented since Hurricane
Katrina and reviewed documentation provided to explain these changes.
We relied on these visits and briefings for updated information on
DHS's response to our and post-Katrina after action report
recommendations; we did not verify the accuracy of DHS's officials'
statements or the effectiveness of the implemented actions. We
conducted our original and additional audit work in accordance with
generally accepted government accounting standards between October 2005
through September 2006, and March 2007 through June 2007, respectively.
Summary
In our October 2006 report, we reported that the centers had the
opportunity to better implement most of the key practices we identified
that enhance collaboration. While we did not identify any major
problems or barriers to executing their missions, enhanced
collaboration could further ensure robust situational awareness and
support to incident response. For example, we found that while DHS had
implemented one key collaborative practice--leveraging its resources--
by having staff from multiple agencies work together at the four
operations centers, it could better implement the following
collaborative practices:
Defining and articulating a common outcome or joint
strategies. This helps to provide, for example, a compelling
rationale for agencies to collaborate.
Assessing each center's needs in order to leverage
resources, especially human resources or staffing needs. This
helps to ensure efficiencies and that the functions of a center
are not compromised by the workforce limitations of a single
agency.
Defining roles and responsibilities, especially of the
watchstanders \5\ in each center, those staff who come from
other agencies and have the important job of conducting
surveillance activities. This helps to ensure that people at
the same center in the same role perform their responsibilities
consistently. Because of the potentially critical, time-
sensitive need for decisive action at 24/7/365 operations
centers, it is important that the roles and responsibilities of
watchstanders are described and understood by both the watch
staff as well as the officials responsible for managing the
operations centers.
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\5\ For the purpose of our report, we used the term
``watchstander'' to refer to an individual required to work full-time
on a rotating 24-hour schedule, 7 days per week, to maintain
situational awareness, conduct information assessment and threat
monitoring to deter, detect, and prevent terrorist incidents. A
watchstander may also act as a liaison between his agency and other
agency representatives at the center, and may manage response to
critical threats and incidents.
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Establishing compatible standards, policies, and
procedures, such as those for DHS's Homeland Security
Information Network (HSIN) \6\--the primary network DHS uses to
share incident management and homeland security information
across DHS, and with other federal, state, and local partners.
This would provide a means to operate across agency boundaries
and help ensure effective communications among the centers.
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\6\ The HSIN is an unclassified, Web-based system that provides a
secure, collaborative environment for real-time information sharing
that includes reporting, graphics, and chat capabilities, as well as a
document library that contains reports from multiple federal, state,
local, and private-sector sources. HSIN supplies suspicious incident
and pre-incident information, mapping and imagery tools, 24x7
situational awareness, and analysis of terrorist threats, tactics, and
weapons.
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Developing mechanisms to monitor and evaluate results
of joint operations, such as conducting joint exercises and
assessing the after-action reports. This helps management, key
decision makers, and both stakeholders and customers obtain
feedback to improve governing policy and operational
effectiveness.
Reinforcing agency accountability for collaborative
efforts by recognizing joint efforts and outcomes achieved in
published strategic and annual performance plans and reports.
Joint accountability and recognition can provide an incentive
to collaborate.
We found that the Operations Directorate, established in November
2005 to improve operational efficiency and coordination, provides DHS
with an opportunity to more fully implement these key practices.
Therefore, we recommended that the Secretary of DHS charge the Director
of the Operations Directorate with developing and providing the
guidance necessary to help ensure the four centers take the following
six actions to implement best practices for collaboration and help
better position the centers to achieve their common missions:
Define common outcomes and joint strategies for
achieving their overall mission;
Conduct staffing needs assessments to better leverage
resources within centers;
Clarify the roles and responsibilities for
watchstanders so that they understand each person's expected
duties and contributions, especially during an emergency;
Apply standards, policies, and procedures to promote
the more extensive use of DHS's information network to improve
communications;
Prepare mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the results
of joint and collaborative efforts to ensure effectiveness; and
Address the results achieved by collaborative efforts
in strategic and annual performance plans and reports to
increase accountability.
At the time of our report, DHS agreed with these recommendations,
but according to DHS officials, has yet to implement them. In recent
meetings, DHS said that they believe some changes at the National
Operations Center are responsive to several of these recommendations.
For example, the center is taking steps to better define the role of
watchstanders, and DHS has designed a strategy and set of initiatives
to improve the usefulness of the information network. However,
according to Operations Directorate officials, they have not been
directed by DHS to issue the overall guidance we recommended. They also
do not plan to issue such guidance at this time because they stated
they do not have any administrative, budgetary, or operational
authority or control over the other three component centers. While we
understand that these centers have missions unique to their sponsoring
agencies and are not subject to the Operations Directorate, providing
these centers guidance that is not mandatory but strongly endorsed on
ways to better collaborate internally would enhance their effectiveness
within their own centers as well as in providing the national center
the information it needs, especially during a time of crisis.
DHS officials said another reason they had yet to implement our
recommendations is in part because, instead of focusing on these intra-
department collaboration issues, DHS has been giving priority to fixing
critical inter-agency and inter-governmental issues that hindered its
ability to respond to major, national incidents and disasters,
particularly Hurricane Katrina. DHS officials said there were a number
of post-Katrina initiatives underway which could build relationships
among the centers so that they are more disposed to implement the
recommended key collaborative practices in the future. For example, DHS
points to its efforts to:
Establish standard roles and procedures among all
stakeholders, both within and outside DHS, for reporting
information during a major incident. Now, according to DHS,
information must be verified and clarified at the field and
headquarters level before it is placed on its information
network.
Create the Common Operating Picture--a real-time, web-
based tool designed to provide a common view of critical
information during a crisis--within DHS's Homeland Security
Information Network.
Create working groups of partners within and outside
of DHS to enhance information flow on planning, training, and
incident management, to resolve interdepartmental conflicts,
and to facilitate decision-making at higher levels.
While it is too early to assess to what extent DHS has successfully
implemented and institutionalized these initiatives since some are only
recently established, they appear to be designed to address several key
recommendations from congressional and administration Post-Katrina
assessments.\7\ DHS acknowledges it still has a substantial way to go
to fully implement these initiatives and measure their results, but it
has recently tested some of these initiatives during interagency
training exercises and has plans to do more of these tests in the
future. Continuing to focus on efforts to measure how well these
initiatives are working, and, as importantly, to what extent key
stakeholders, such as state and local governments and the private
sector, anticipate that these initiatives will meet their needs is
critical, given that Hurricane Katrina demonstrated these stakeholders
are the first responders and key to effective disaster response and
recovery. Finally, it is clear that Congressional oversight has been
and will continue to be a key driver in accelerating DHS's efforts to
be better prepared to respond to and manage national incidents.
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\7\ Executive Office of the President, The Federal Response to
Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. February 2006.
DHS's Four Multi-Agency Operations Centers Have Unique Missions and
Responsibilities, but Also Have Opportunities to Enhance Collaboration
In our October 2006 report on DHS multi-agency operations centers,
we found that they were not unnecessarily redundant in that they have
distinct missions but also contribute to the larger effort, carried out
by the National Operations Center, to provide national situational
awareness and incident management across DHS. In terms of key
collaborative practices, DHS had implemented one practice--leveraging
its resources--by having staff from multiple agencies work together at
the four operations centers, but could take advantage of other relevant
practices we have found to be important to enhancing and sustaining
collaboration among federal agencies. We also reported that the
establishment of the Operations Directorate provided DHS with an
opportunity to more consistently implement these practices. As of June
2007, DHS had taken some actions but had not yet implemented our
recommendations for several reasons, including the stated concern that
the Operations Directorate does not have authority over component
centers. Nevertheless, we continue to see merit in the wider use of the
key collaborative practices we identified and a role for the
Directorate to encourage their use across centers.
The Centers Do Not Define and Articulate Common Outcomes and Joint
Strategies, a Key Practice Intended to Enhance and Sustain
Collaboration
At the time of our review, the three DHS components responsible for
the four multi-agency centers had not developed or documented common
goals or joint strategies that incorporated all the agencies within the
centers and that our work has shown could, in turn, enhance
collaboration among these agencies. Officials at the multi-agency
operations centers we visited said they did consider formally
documenting working agreements but concluded it was not essential since
all of the agencies involved were part of DHS. While this may be true,
documenting common outcomes can provide a compelling rationale for
agencies to collaborate and documenting joint strategies ensures
everyone is working in concert toward the end results that collectively
need to be achieved. Our work shows that agencies strengthen their
commitment to collaborate when they articulate agreements in formal
documents such as memorandums of understanding, interagency guidance,
or interagency planning documents.
Last year, officials from the National Operations Center said that
the lack of formal agreements is a reflection of the speed with which
the center was established and the inherent flexibility offered to DHS
agencies in order to get them to staff the operation center positions.
While recognizing the benefits of such flexibility, it is important to
balance the trade-off of ensuring that all participants understand the
common goals and objectives to be achieved. In addition, within DHS,
external and internal memorandums of agreement and other interagency
joint operating plans are often used to document common organizational
goals and how agencies will work together. For example, the Office of
Investigations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and
Border Protection's border patrol have a memorandum of understanding
that governs the interaction between the two components as they carry
out their missions to investigate and reduce vulnerabilities in the
customs and immigration systems and to protect our borders,
respectively, and formalizes roles and responsibilities in order to
enhance information sharing. In addition, the DHS Office of Inspector
General has reported that memorandums of understanding are valuable
tools for establishing protocols for managing a national-level program
between two organizations.\8\ For these reasons, we recommended that
the Operations Directorate develop and provide guidance to the three
agencies that sponsor the operations centers to help ensure they define
common goals and joint strategies that incorporate all the agencies
working at the centers.
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\8\ Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General,
Office of Inspections and Special Reviews, An Assessment of the
Proposal to Merge Customs and Border Protection with Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, OIG-06-04 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 2005).
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In our recent follow-up to our recommendations, DHS officials said
that they had not issued such guidance, but pointed to several other
post-Katrina actions DHS was taking that it believes are examples of
common strategies and plans that are put into action daily and that
enhance collaboration, and thus, situational awareness. For example,
DHS said it has developed national reporting requirements and a
coordinated national reporting chain for submitting homeland security
information during a crisis, in part in response to Hurricane Katrina
lessons learned. The national reporting requirements and reporting
chain is to define procedures that component centers, among others, are
to follow for inputting and confirming information used during a
crisis.
In addition, our past work has demonstrated that agencies should
involve nonfederal partners, key clients, and stakeholders in defining
and articulating outcomes and decision-making. Along those lines, DHS
has created or plans to create several working groups with state,
local, and private sector members to enhance information flow for
incident management, and facilitate decision-making at higher levels.
For example, the Director of the Office of Operations said DHS plans to
establish a HSIN Advisory Council to provide a forum for providing
feedback on ways to improve information sharing among communities of
interest.
The Centers Are at Varying Stages of Assessing Staffing Needs; Doing So
Could Help to Ensure Centers Have Enough Staff to Leverage Resources to
Increase Efficiency
The extent to which officials responsible for managing the four
multi-agency operations centers had conducted needs assessments to
determine the staffing requirements of each center as a means to
leverage resources varied at the time of our review. For example, CBP
officials conducted an evaluation in June 2005 that addressed the Air
and Marine Operations Center's capabilities and continuing staffing
needs related to its personnel, but it did not clearly address the need
for, or responsibilities of, U.S. Coast Guard staff assigned to the
center. Transportation Security Operations Center and National
Operations Center officials said they had not documented a needs
analysis for staff from other agencies. They said they viewed cross-
agency staffing as a historical edict based on a general assumption
that such expertise was needed to fulfill the mission of their
operations center, and believed that the supporting agency providing
the staff best knew the staffing requirements to fulfill its role at
the centers. Our work has shown that identifying and leveraging
resources, including human resources, ensures efficiencies and that the
functions of a multi-agency operations center are not compromised by
the workforce limitations of a single agency.
Since our report, DHS said it is updating mission requirements for
the Operations Directorate and will subsequently assess the National
Operations Center's staffing needs, although DHS did not say when that
assessment would be completed. On the other hand, Officials at the
National Targeting Center and the Transportation Security Operations
Center told us they have not assessed cross-component staffing needs
because they considered such assessments to be the responsibility of
the agency providing staff. Nevertheless, we maintain that such
assessments continue to be useful to ensure efficiency and that
operations centers have the correct mix of staff to perform their
missions. Therefore, while we understand that the Operations
Directorate has taken the position it does not have control over the
component center resources, we maintain that providing guidance to
component agencies to assist them in conducting such staffing needs
assessments would allow the component sponsoring the center to leverage
resources more efficiently to meet the operational needs of the center.
Not All Centers Have Established a Definition of Watchstander Roles and
Responsibilities for All Agencies at Each Center; Doing So Would Help
Ensure Staff Understand Each Others' Duties during Emergencies
Our work has shown that collaborating agencies should work together
to define and agree on who will do what and how they will organize
their joint and individual efforts, and that this facilitates decision-
making. Agencies use handbooks, charters, standard operating
procedures, and other methods to document these agreements. We found,
however, that while three of the four multi-agency operations centers
had developed descriptions for the watchstander position staffed by
their own agency at the time of our review, only one center--the Air
and Marine Operations Center--had developed a position description for
staff assigned to the center from another DHS agency. For example, at
this center, officials require that Coast Guard staff meet a
standardized set of requirements for radar watchstanders. The other
centers relied on the components that provide staff to define their
watchstanders' roles and responsibilities. While we recognize
components may be in the best position to define how their staff should
contribute, we maintain that it is important that each watchstander's
position within a center be clearly defined and communicated so that
staff understand not only their individual role, but each other's
responsibilities and span of control, as well as their expected joint
contributions, most critically during major events. In addition,
because of the potentially time-sensitive need for decisive action at
24/7/365 operations centers, it is important that the roles and
responsibilities of watchstanders are described and understood by both
the staff and the officials responsible for managing the operations
centers to enhance and sustain collaboration. Further, a definition of
the watchstander role and responsibilities is important for supporting
agency officials who must make staffing decisions about assigning
qualified and knowledgeable personnel to the centers.
According to DHS, since our report, it has taken steps to further
define the role and responsibilities of the watchstanders in its
National Operations Center and documented them in its Standard
Operating Procedures, as well as to develop Memoranda of Agreements
with the components that will codify the role of the watchstanders they
provide to the National Operations Center. Such an action, like that of
the Air and Marine Operations Center with regard to Coast Guard
watchstanders, helps ensure that the staff received from partnering
organizations possess the necessary skills to support the operations
center to which they are assigned. Given that DHS has recognized the
importance of this key practice within these two instances, we continue
to maintain it is important for DHS to ensure the other centers
likewise have clearly defined and communicated the roles and
responsibilities of watchstanders.
DHS Has Taken Some Steps to Provide Centers with Standards, Policies,
and Procedures, Especially for Information Sharing, to Operate across
Agency Boundaries, but Challenges Remain
Since January 2005, we have designated information sharing for
homeland security a high-risk area because the federal government still
faces formidable challenges in analyzing and disseminating key
information among federal and other partners in a timely, accurate, and
useful manner.\9\ Likewise, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that the
inability to share information during a disaster can impair the speed
of response and recovery efforts. Each operations center shares
information so as to understand threats, maintain situational
awareness, and facilitate the management of responses to incidents. One
of the key technical tools DHS has decided to use to provide for this
information-sharing is the HSIN, and organizations participating in
multi-agency operations centers need to be connected to the network and
have the training and guidance that enables its use, among other
things. DHS implemented HSIN in 2004 and reports that 18,000
individuals across DHS, other federal agencies, as well as state and
local government and private entities are authorized to use it.
However, we, the DHS IG, and the department itself have identified
continuing concerns with this system, which is used for sharing a
variety of information, including law enforcement and emergency
response information used to support situational awareness and incident
response
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ GAO. High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-07-310 (Washington, D.C.:
Jan. 2007).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In April 2007, we reported \10\ that DHS did not fully adhere to
collaborative practices or Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
guidance in coordinating its efforts to implement HSIN through state
and local information-sharing initiatives. OMB guidance requires DHS to
foster such coordination and collaboration as a means to improve
government performance, including enhancing information sharing and
avoiding duplication of effort. Key practices to help implement the
guidance include establishing joint strategies and developing
compatible policies and procedures to operate across agency boundaries.
However, DHS did not fully adhere to these practices or guidance in
coordinating its efforts on HSIN with key state and local stakeholders.
As a result, the department faces the risk that, among other things,
effective information sharing is not occurring and that its HSIN system
may duplicate state and local capabilities. The department has efforts
planned and underway to improve coordination and collaboration, but
these efforts have just begun or are being planned with implementation
milestones yet to be established. As a result, we made recommendations
to the Secretary of Homeland Security to ensure that HSIN is
effectively coordinated with state and local government information-
sharing initiatives. The Inspector General's June 2006 report had
similar findings that DHS did not provide adequate guidance, including
clear information sharing processes, training, and reference materials,
needed to effectively implement HSIN \11\ so that stakeholders were
sure of how to use the system.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ GAO, Information Technology: Numerous Federal Networks Used to
Support Homeland Security Need to Be Better Coordinated with Key State
and Local Information-Sharing Initiatives, GAO-07-455 (Washington,
D.C.: April 2007).
\11\ Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General,
Office of Information Technology, HSIN Could Support Information
Sharing More Effectively, DHS/OIG-06-38 (Washington, D.C.: June 2006).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The HSIN program manager pointed to a number of initiatives being
implemented to address these challenges. These actions include the
issuance of a strategic framework and implementation plan, creation of
a Mission Coordinating Committee to define component information
requirements for the network, and, as mentioned previously, the planned
establishment of a HSIN advisory committee comprised of experts, users,
and other stakeholders involved in homeland security operations around
the country. This committee is intended to provide DHS with comments
and feedback on how the HSIN program can better meet user needs,
examine DHS's processes for deploying HSIN to the states, assess state
resources, and determine how HSIN can coordinate with these resources.
Nevertheless, the program manager also identified challenges in getting
components to participate in the process of identifying user needs, and
said that the department still faced challenges in gaining widespread
acceptance and use of this tool. Furthermore, one component that
sponsors a key portion of HSIN, the Preparedness Directorate, is
considering whether to continue to support and maintain portals to
provide connectivity to private sector owners and operators of critical
infrastructure sites, or whether to pursue other alternatives, raising
questions about the overall utility of HSIN. Finally, the DHS Office of
Inspector General plans to conduct an evaluation of the HSIN beginning
later this year as a follow-up to its 2006 report to determine the
progress the Department has made in fixing the shortcomings
identified.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General,
Office of Information Technology, Homeland Security Information Network
Could Support Information Sharing More Effectively, OIG-06-38, June
2006.
Three of Four Centers Had Not Developed Methods to Monitor and Evaluate
the Results of Joint Efforts
With the exception of the Air and Marine Operations Center, the
multi-agency centers had not developed methods to monitor and evaluate
the results of joint efforts at the time of our review, a key practice
for ensuring collaboration. For example, the Office of Management and
Budget's assessment of the National Operations Center for 2005
determined that center officials had not established effective annual
or long-term performance goals, a first step in an effective
performance management and measurement process. Nor were performance
measures or other mechanisms in place to monitor and evaluate the joint
efforts of multiple DHS agencies at the Transportation Security
Operations Center and the National Targeting Center. Without annual
goals and a means to measure performance, it is difficult for an
organization to determine how well it is functioning and identify how
it could be more effective. Likewise, our work has shown that
developing performance measures and mechanisms can help management, key
decision makers, and both stakeholders and customers obtain feedback to
improve operational effectiveness and policy.
To date, DHS has not provided guidance to the multiagency centers
to help implement mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the results of
collaborative efforts. However, as we further discuss later in this
statement, the Operations Directorate said the National Operations
Center, and, as relevant, other centers, have participated in, and will
be participating in, exercises to test some of the changes the centers
have implemented. These exercises provide a means to monitor and
evaluate collaboration during real or hypothetical events, and the
after-action reviews or lessons learned reviews conducted such as
Katrina after-action reports and recommendations, as well as its own
exercises and lessons learned, such as the exercises to test and revise
HSIN and the Common Operating Picture (COP). The center director also
described several new inter-agency groups designed to improve
operations that also offer a means to monitor and evaluate results as
well.
The Centers Are at Various Stages of Using Joint Agency Planning and
Reporting to Reinforce Accountability for Collaborative Efforts
In our prior work, we determined that neither DHS nor the component
agencies responsible for managing multi-agency operations centers
consistently discussed, or included a description of, the contribution
of the centers' collaborative efforts in the components' strategic or
annual performance plans and reports. Our work has shown that federal
agencies can use these plans and reports as tools to drive
collaboration with other agencies and partners, as well as to establish
complementary, consistent, and reinforcing goals and strategies for
achieving results. Published strategic and annual performance plans and
reports make agencies answerable for collaboration, and help to ensure
that Congress has the information necessary to monitor, oversee, and
effectively make investment decisions.
In terms of using strategic and performance plans to reinforce
collaboration, the most recent DHS strategic plan, issued in 2004,
neither included a discussion of performance goals for, nor addressed
the joint operations of, the multi-agency centers. On the other hand,
the Air and Marine Operations Center's strategic plan for 2005
generally discussed the importance of strengthening collaboration with
other component agencies and included a goal to strengthen component
agency partnerships to maximize homeland security strategies.
In terms of using published reports to increase accountability for
collaboration, CBP's 2005 annual report on the operations of the
National Targeting Center did include a section dedicated to the
contributions of personnel from other DHS components. But, reports from
the other components that manage the centers did not address the roles
and contributions of supporting agencies in accomplishing the centers'
missions. Thus agencies are missing an opportunity to reinforce the
value of partner agency contributions and investments. Likewise,
reports from the DHS agencies that provide staff to these centers also
did not address their participation in their own performance reports.
DHS's Operations Directorate Has Given Priority to Fixing the Problems
that Hurricane Katrina Exposed
According to DHS officials, the Operations Directorate and the
National Operations Center have been focused on responding to the
congressional and administration reports and corresponding
recommendations generated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. These
reports pointed to a number of failures and problems attributed to the
predecessor to the National Operations Center--the Homeland Security
Operations Center--including unclear roles and responsibilities;
problems with the flow of information in and out of the center,
especially to senior leadership; a lack of planning; problems
confirming and validating information, and clarifying conflicting
information; and untimely reporting. The reports concluded that as a
result, senior leaders in the Department and the Administration were
not aware of problems with the levees and flooding as early as they
should have been. To address these problems, the after action reports
made a series of recommendations, including the:
Creation of a national operations center to provide
national situational awareness, facilitate incident management,
and a common operating picture;
Establishment of a permanent planning element for
incident management and a national planning and execution
system; and
Creation of a national reporting system as well as
national information requirements and a reporting chain.
In response to these concerns, among others, DHS reported that it
made a series of changes to its operations, organization, and
procedures for sharing information in order to maintain situational
awareness and provide for incident management. The changes included
giving priority to improving coordination with external stakeholders,
such as other federal agencies, state and local entities who are the
first responders and ultimately manage recovery efforts, and its own
components and their respective operations centers. The DHS National
Operations Center staff with whom we spoke maintained that implementing
these changes could in turn create an environment where the components
and centers may be more disposed to implementing the key practices for
improving collaboration that our work has identified.
To address problems with collecting, analyzing, and timely
disseminating of critical information during an incident that Katrina
exposed, DHS officials said the Operations Directorate and the National
Operations Center established several initiatives within the last year
or so. Among other things, these initiatives included a new
notification system aimed at providing protocols for sharing
information on a graduated scale (from steady state to awareness,
concern, and finally urgency). The Operations Directorate and the
National Operations Center also defined a reporting structure, ranging
from more real-time, unvetted information available from and to a wide
range of stakeholders to reports intended to be more complete, vetted
and validated through designated lead agencies and higher-level
summaries geared for more senior leadership. DHS has initially
developed these protocols and processes for sharing information for
hurricane response and recovery and is expanding them to other
scenarios and concerns.
One other major DHS initiative to better share information for
situational awareness and decision support that responds to key post-
Katrina recommendations also depends on HSIN. DHS has created the
Common Operating Picture within HSIN as a web-based tool designed to be
available to all HSIN users, including key federal, state, and joint
field office homeland security partners, to provide the information
needed to make critical decisions during crises. Initially, DHS created
COP templates to address hurricane disasters in time for the 2006
hurricane season. The tool includes, among other things, current
summaries of specific situations, the location and operational status
of critical infrastructure, media reports, and streaming video from the
field that provides a real-time picture of developments, especially at
an incident site, to enhance situational awareness. DHS also has
created COP Training Teams that provide training and technical support
to DHS components, and other partners. DHS said training was provided
to 17 states on the Gulf and East coasts in 2006, the most hurricane-
prone areas of the country. However, DHS is still resolving operational
issues with COP. For example, DHS reported in January 2007 that a
comprehensive backup capability for the COP was under development but
that the Department was prepared for contingencies related to power,
telecommunications and server outages. DHS also reported that it
continues to develop information requirements for use in other
scenarios, such as pandemics and incidents involving nuclear devices,
among others, as well as to further refine the system.
DHS officials said they have created several new working groups and
organizational entities within the Operations Directorate or National
Operations Center aimed at improving capabilities. The new units
include:
Senior Leadership Group. It is comprised of key DHS
officials across the major components and intended to provide a
forum for the Secretary to obtain critical advice from those
with the most direct incident management responsibilities, to
communicate decisions, to facilitate the integration and
coordination of intradepartmental operational missions,
activities, and programs at the headquarters level; and to
assist in resolving intradepartmental issues. The group
convenes as necessary, such as during an actual incident or
major exercise, although the Secretary or the Director of
Operations Coordination may convene the group at any time.
Incident Management Planning Team--consisting of 53
members drawn from 22 DHS components, 25 partner departments or
agencies, and the American Red Cross--that has begun the
coordination of existing plans and the use of resources for
domestic disasters. According to DHS officials, the team is
developing plans for the most likely, and then the most
dangerous, of the National Planning Scenarios--the 15 all-
hazards planning scenarios for use in national, federal, state,
and local homeland security preparedness activities that are
representative of the range of potential terrorist attacks and
natural disasters and the related impacts that face our nation.
Disaster Situational Awareness Teams. These teams are
to be comprised of field staff from Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement since they can be more easily deployed and are to
be at a site within 24 hours to provide situational awareness
reporting and other assistance.
Crisis Action Teams. These multi-agency teams, whose
membership overlaps in part with the new planning teams, are to
provide interagency incident management capabilities and to,
among other things, recommend courses of action, help
prioritize incidents and resources, and serve as a central
point for information collection, evaluation, and coordination,
especially for complex or multiple incidents.
Finally, DHS has completed a study of its operational capabilities
and gaps to guide its future mission and initiatives. Called the
Operations Mission Blueprint, DHS operations staff said the results are
still under review; therefore, that they could not provide us with a
copy. Part of this study includes a plan to consolidate DHS operations
centers in headquarters and its components in a facility located at the
St. Elizabeth's West Campus in Washington, D.C.\13\ The plan cites a
number of organizational benefits to collocating facilities, including
enhancing collaboration by bringing together a large number of DHS
executives and line employees currently dispersed across the region.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Department of Homeland Security, National Capital Region
Housing Master Plan: Building a Unified Department, Washington D.C.,
October 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While DHS provided us with background briefings, some supporting
documentation, and some after action reports on the initiatives we have
outlined, we did not evaluate the extent to which they have been
implemented and are effective at addressing the problems Katrina
identified, in part because they are so new and in some cases still
concepts. DHS officials themselves, however, identified some challenges
and next steps in implementation. These include, for example,
continuing to outreach to and better integrate DHS components as well
as other stakeholders in planning and implementation, such as state,
local, and private sector partners.
As to this latter challenge, DHS has tested several of its new
initiatives, such as the COP, through daily use, as well as interagency
exercises. For example, through an exercise conducted last year, the
National Operations Center identified opportunities to improve
implementation of the COP. DHS recently completed two other exercises
and plans additional exercises this fall and over the next two years
that can also provide helpful performance information. We agree that
the use of exercises, and more importantly the after-action and lessons
learned analyses and recommendations to fix identified problems, are
good methods to help determine how well initiatives are working,
especially when testing under live, real-time circumstances is not
possible.
Complementing this with more systematic performance measures and
ways to obtain feedback from key users and stakeholders on how well the
initiatives meet their needs would also be helpful. For example,
officials noted that there are systematic methods for evaluating what
has been achieved. The objectives of the HSIN implementation include
providing measurable performance metrics as well as obtaining
stakeholder feedback through its new Advisory Committee, when
constituted. Implementation of the system is to be based on both agency
and industry best practices. Following through on implementation of
these types of measures and feedback loops is particularly important
for state and local stakeholders, as Katrina demonstrated, since they
are the first responders and key to effective incident response
planning and implementation.
Concluding Observations
Our prior work demonstrated that the three component multi-agency
operations centers we reviewed have a critical mission to meet for
their own agencies, as well as a common mission to support the National
Operations Center, the key hub for sharing information on nationwide
situational awareness and for coordinating federal support during major
disasters. Centers rely on staff from multiple agencies to achieve
their missions, so it is important that the centers can collaborate
effectively among the agencies within a center. Our work provides a
blueprint of key practices the centers could use to achieve this
collaboration, and also demonstrates that they have opportunities to
implement these practices more extensively. The payoff can include
assurance that all staff clearly understands roles and
responsibilities, especially during a crisis, and that centers have a
common goal for achieving their joint missions, the right staff from
across agencies to do so, and ways to evaluate results achieved and
implement needed corrective actions. In turn, this can better position
DHS, and the nation, to prevent, mitigate and respond to a critical
event, help the Congress to fulfill its oversight and homeland security
responsibilities, and help the department better integrate into a
cohesive unit. While we understand that the Directorate does not
control component centers and is reluctant to issue guidance to them on
ways to implement these best practices as we recommended, we continue
to think that the Directorate can reinforce these practices through
such guidance and example, not only as it works with external
stakeholders, but also with its internal component centers. We believe
the Directorate could be more proactive to accelerate implementation so
that centers achieve anticipated benefits sooner given current
priorities and available resources.
We also understand that the department set its priorities to first
focus on fixing the problems Katrina exposed, as the Congress and
Administration tasked, and recognize that such focus has, and will
continue to be, a key driver in effecting change to improve situational
awareness and incident management capabilities at DHS. We also believe
that the initiatives DHS is implementing in response appear to be the
proper steps moving forward, given that they focus on better planning
for disaster response and better information sharing, as well as
include the necessary key players. However, while these initiatives are
aimed at putting the right players, processes, protocols, and practices
in place, both we and the department recognize that implementation is
early, measures of effectiveness must still be put in place, and
challenges must be overcome.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this completes my
prepared statement. I would be happy to respond to any questions that
you or any members of the subcommittee may have at this time.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. I have been a little lax with
the time, but that is because there are only two of us here, so
I figure let you finish. So thank you. But try to keep your
remarks within the 5 minutes, but as you can see, there is
latitude as well.
Thank you very much, Ms. Larence.
Now, Colonel Ebbert for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF COLONEL TERRY J. EBBERT, USMC, RET., DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY, CITY OF NEW
ORLEANS
Colonel Ebbert. Mr. Chairman and committee members, it is a
pleasure to appear today before this committee. I am currently
serving as the director of Homeland Security for the city of
New Orleans. My tenure predates Katrina and includes nearly 2
years of recovery since the storm.
Your discussion today on maintaining a common operating
picture at every level of government during emergency response
is clearly vital, as situational awareness is the foundation of
success in responding to major disasters.
The failures of having accurate situational awareness had a
negative impact on initial response to Katrina. Its shortfalls
have been well documented, so there is little value in
returning to the days of late August 2005. My thoughts are to
the improvements made and the challenges still facing all of us
who have the responsibility to respond to major emergencies.
The topic areas important to situational awareness are:
one, communications; two, mission and plans; three, logistics;
and four, command, control and coordination.
The foundation of multiple layered situational awareness is
good communication. This encompasses personal face-to-face,
voice and data communications. One of the difficult issues of
poor communications during Katrina has been addressed in
Southeast Louisiana with the operational testing of our new
Region I interoperable radio system. We are one of the only
major urban areas with a shared radio system. We are able to
talk across six parishes with over 40 local, state and Federal
agencies on one shared system. No agency owns the system and it
is managed by a governing board made up of one member from each
of the parishes and one state representative.
I want to single out Secretary Chertoff for his grant and
contract technical support. Without his support and FEMA loaned
radios, this system would never have been deployed. We truly
have one of the finest systems in the Nation and it has already
improved our situational awareness on daily issues, major
events, and emergency exercises. This new tool, along with
additional Federal, state and FCC backup, has ensured that we
will be able to communicate in a future crisis.
Formal local, state and Federal emergency plans form an
important leg in our ability to maintain a common operating
picture throughout emergencies. If everyone understands the
mission and how they intend to carry it out, constant
conversation is not required. All of our plans at every level
have been improved over the last 3 years. Technical assistance
through the Department of Homeland Security contractors has
been a tremendous assistance to me and my staff because they
brought with them the understanding of the requirements of all
levels of government.
Areas which need continued improvement are: understanding
at every level of government what capabilities-based planning
is all about; and two, the need for increased emphasis on
mission--which I qualify as risk management--versus compliance
or risk avoidance, and the importance of those in planning for
initial response.
The third leg of obtaining a common operating picture is
the understanding that this is a logistics war. We will win or
lose on our ability to save lives, stabilize infrastructure,
and provide security based on our ability to manage people and
material. We have no national logistics system which ties
together local, state and Federal agencies.
It is a matter of concern that this nation has not
developed such a system. If we created this capability,
everyone at every level would have at their fingertips a
complete status of all logistics. This information is the vital
situational awareness upon which emergency managers must have
to make decisions if we are to prevent failure during the next
major emergency response. We have a logistics system in the
military and we must develop a counterpart for universal use in
civilian response.
Command and control up the chain of command is a somewhat
hazy subject for those of us at the local level. We have
expended major resources to ensure that we stay current with
the national incident management system. This has assisted
greatly in improving our command coordination at every level.
It is a sound foundation that has already produced a much
improved staff functioning.
We utilize incident command, unified command, and area
command, but when we get to the senior level at the joint field
office, it shifts to a coordination agency. In major disasters,
the mission requirement is greater than the capacity to
respond. I don't believe that situation can be coordinated.
Somebody has to be in charge and somebody has to be able to
direct.
In closing, I would like to state that the Department of
Homeland Security has continued to support Southeast Louisiana
and we are improving in every capacity. I do think we must work
together to solve the critical issues I addressed earlier. We
are a great nation with the intellectual and material capacity
to provide for the safety and security of our citizens.
Thank you very much for the honor of testifying today.
[The statement of Colonel Ebbert follows:]
Prepared Statement of Col Terry J. Ebbert, USMC (ret)
Mr. Chairman and Committee members, it is a pleasure to appear
today before the Committee on Homeland Security. I am COL Terry J.
Ebbert, USMC (Ret) and currently serve as the director of Homeland
Security for the City of New Orleans. I have the responsibility for the
Police Department, Fire Department, Office of Emergency Preparedness
and during emergencies Emergency Medical Services (EMS). My tenure
predates Katrina and includes nearly two years of recovery since the
storm. Your discussion today on maintaining common operating picture at
every level of government during emergency response is clearly vital,
as situational awareness is the foundation of success in responding to
any major disaster.
The failures of having accurate situational awareness had a
negative impact on initial response to Katrina. Its shortfalls have
been well documented so there is little value in returning to the days
of late August 2005. My thoughts are to the improvements made and the
challenges still facing all of us who have the responsibility to
respond to major emergencies.
The topic areas important to Situational Awareness are:
1. Communications
2. Mission/Plans
3. Logistics
4. Command, Control and Coordination
The foundation of multiple layered situational awareness is good
communication. This encompasses personal face-to-face, voice and data.
One of the difficult issues of poor communications during Katrina has
been addressed in Southeast Louisiana with the operational testing of
our new Region 1 Interoperability Radio System. We are one of the only
major urban areas with a shared radio system. We are able to talk
across six parishes with over 40 local, state and federal agencies on
one shared system. No agency owns the system and it is managed by a
governing board made up of one member from each of the parishes and one
state representation.
I want to single out Secretary Chertoff for his grant and contract
technical support. Without his support and FEMA loaned radios, this
system would never have been developed. We truly have one of the finest
systems in the nation and it has already improved our Situational
Awareness on daily issues, major events and emergency exercises. This
new tool along with additional federal, state and FCC backup has
ensured we will be able to communicate in a future crisis.
Formal local, state and federal emergency plans form an important
leg in our ability to maintain a common operating picture during
emergencies. If everyone understands each other's mission, and how they
intend to carry it out, constant conversation is not required. All of
our plans at every level have improved over the last three years.
Technical assistance through Department of Homeland Security
contractors has been a tremendous assistance because these contractors
understand the requirements of all levels of government. Areas, which
need continued improvement, are:
Understanding of ``Capabilities Based Planning''
Need for increased emphasis on Mission (Risk
Management) vs. Compliance (Risk Avoidance) in planning for
initial response
The third leg of obtaining a common operating picture is the
understanding that emergency response is a ``Logistics War''. We will
win or lose our ability to save lives, stabilize infrastructure, and
provide security based upon our ability to manage people and material.
We have no national Logistics system, which ties the local, state and
federal agencies together. It is a matter of concern that this nation
has not developed such a system. If we created such a capability, every
one at every level would have at their fingertips, a complete status of
all logistics. This information is the vital situational awareness upon
which emergency managers must have to make decisions if we are to
prevent failure, during the next major emergency response. We have a
military logistics system and we must develop a counterpart for
universal use in civilian response.
Command and Control up the chain of command remains a hazy subject
for those of us at the local level. We have expended major resources to
ensure that we stay current with the National Incident Management
System (NIMS). This has assisted greatly in improving our command
coordination at every level. It is a sound foundation that has already
produced a much improved staff functioning relationship. I believe we
still have a shortfall in cases of catastrophic incidents. We utilize
incident command, unified command, area command, but when we get to the
senior level (Joint Field Office) staff, it shifts to a coordination
agency. In major disasters, the mission requirement is greater than the
capability. I don't believe that such a situation can be
``coordinated'', someone has to have the power to ``direct''. Someone
has to be in charge.
In closing, I would like to state the Department of Homeland
Security has continued to support Southeast Louisiana and we are
improving in every capacity. I do think we must continue to work
together to solve the critical issues addressed earlier. We are a great
country with the intellectual and material capacity to provide for the
safety and security of our citizens. Thank you very much for the honor
and opportunity to address this committee.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Colonel.
And now we will turn to Mr. Darnell for his testimony.
STATEMENT OF DARRELL DARNELL, DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Mr. Darnell. Good afternoon, Mr. Perlmutter, Ranking Member
Rogers. I am pleased to have the opportunity to testify before
you today about the District of Columbia's perspective on the
extent to which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has
improved its ability to maintain situational awareness since
Hurricane Katrina, as well as the district's efforts to
establish and maintain situational awareness and create a
common operating picture.
In the almost 6 years since the terrorist attacks on the
Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the district and the
national capital region have worked together, along with our
Federal partners, to ensure that our city and our region are
among the more prepared in the nation. We have responded by
implementing planning, training and exercise activities that
bring together district, Federal, state and local government
entities to create a coordinated prevention, protection,
response and recovery structure.
The uniqueness of the national capital region demands
coordination among a large city, two states, multiple local
jurisdictions, and the three branches of the Federal
Government. For the district, which functions as a city, a
state and a county, this means developing coordination between
the district and its neighboring states of Maryland and
Virginia, between the district and the multiple jurisdictions
of the NCR, as well as between the district and the multiple
Federal agencies located within the city.
This routine systematic collaboration is essential to the
NCR on a day-to-day basis and absolutely critical to successful
response to a major event on the scale of Hurricane Katrina. As
part of our commitment to collaboration and coordination, NCR
leaders established a senior policy group to lead decision
making and coordination between local and state governments, as
well as the Federal Government.
This group works with our chief administrative officers who
represent local government leadership to provide a coordinated
and institutionalized process for defining and meeting needs
across the region.
The District of Columbia employs a number of interconnected
systems to achieve and maintain situational awareness and
establish a common operating picture with its regional
partners, including the Federal Government. As a starting
point, information flows into our EOCs, our emergency
operations centers, through 911 systems and a variety of other
methods, including a system that has been adapted from a civil
defense application to natural hazards and terrorism warnings
and alerts.
The National Warning System, or NAWAS, is a 24-hour
continuous private line telephone system that links Federal,
state and local EOCs and was developed in the 1950's to warn of
an imminent enemy attack or accidental missile launch in the
U.S. NAWAS is now used routinely to convey information about
natural and manmade hazards, as well as to coordinate responses
to day-to-day events.
NAWAS is comprised of segments and the local portion is
known as WAWAS or the Washington Area Warning System. DC's
homeland security and emergency management agency serves as a
network control for all users in the national capital region,
and coordinates all requests for the addition of warnings to
the system. As such, the district serves as both a hub and a
conduit of information between and among states and
jurisdictions across the nation, as well as the Federal
Government.
My agency, HSEMA, and the surrounding states, jurisdictions
and Federal partners, use WAWAS on a daily basis, demonstrating
its worth while simultaneously preparing every day for an event
as devastating as Hurricane Katrina.
Another piece of the puzzle, and one implemented after
August 2005, is WebEOC. WebEOC is a tool designed to achieve a
common operation picture among diverse agencies and
jurisdictions. All of the NCR jurisdictions, as well as several
dozen Federal agencies, including the DHS, DHS's FEMA, the
United States Secret Service, and the Coast Guard, have joined
the network and are able to quickly and easily share
information in real-time.
WebEOC users have the option to post information relevant
to the region to a common page that participant EOCs can all
see. This system is the primary vehicle for sharing information
and achieving situational awareness in the national capital
region on a daily basis.
Finally, the district is in the process of establishing a
fusion center for information sharing and analysis. The
ultimate goal of the fusion center will be to provide a
mechanism where law enforcement, public safety and private
partners can come together with a common purpose and improve
the ability to safeguard our homeland and prevent criminal
activity. By routinely analyzing disparate pieces of
information, the fusion center will be a major contributor to
enhanced situational awareness and achieving a common operating
picture.
The response to Hurricane Katrina exposed a number of areas
for improvement at all levels of government, even for those of
us who were tangentially involved. Since that time, we have
worked closely with DHS to close gaps and improve existing
prevention, protection, response and recovery protocols. In an
effort to work closely with DHs to embrace the lessons learned
from Hurricane Katrina, three successes stand out: full
staffing of personnel in FEMA region III and in the Federal
coordinating officers corps, as well as ongoing revisions to
the national response plan.
To that end, we in the national capital region are pleased
to see FEMA's region III headquarters fully staffed and have a
full complement of FCOs. We have been working closely with our
DHS partners to refine plans and procedures and ensure that our
staffs are trained appropriately and participate in regular
exercises.
I have more to say, but my time is up. Thank you.
Mr. Perlmutter. If you would like an additional minute,
please go ahead.
Mr. Darnell. Just 1 minute. Thank you.
While we have noticed improvements since the National
Operations Center was established to coordinate and integrate
the national response and provide a common operating picture,
we believe there is still room for progress.
One of the early challenges in homeland security in
general, and with situational awareness in particular, was the
lack of information flow between the Federal Government and
state and local governments. The dearth of information most
acutely affected the district as the seat of the Federal
Government and the national capital region, home of the
numerous Federal agencies.
While the reluctance to share information is gradually
being overcome, we are now facing a different challenge: that
of information redundancy. We often receive information from
multiple sources within DHS, which can lead to information
overload.
Since the initial and arguably most difficult aspect of the
information sharing challenge has been addressed, we are
looking forward to working with our Federal partners to
establish guidelines and protocols to streamline the flow of
information. We believe minimizing redundancy and ensuring the
accuracy of the information are the essential goals that we
should be trying to achieve.
While achieving situational awareness relies heavily upon
established personal relationships, practice, policies and
procedures, we are all dependent upon technology to enable
efficient and effective information sharing.
To that end, it would be helpful for DHS to continue to
work toward establishing guidelines and criteria for
interoperable communications technology. While the authorized
equipment list and the standardized equipment list are useful
tools, an evaluation of continually evolving technology--sort
of a Consumer Reports-like approach--would be invaluable.
Further, this availability of guidelines and resulting
research and analysis would encourage consumers at the state
and local levels to invest in technology that enables
interoperability between and among jurisdictions, states and
the Federal Government.
I would like to thank you for this opportunity to appear
before you today on this important issue. I am available for
any questions that you may have. Thank you for the additional
time.
[The statement of Mr. Darnell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Darrell L. Darnell
Good morning, Chairman Carney and members of the subcommittee. I am
Darrell L. Darnell, Director of the District of Columbia Homeland
Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA). I'm pleased to have
the opportunity to testify before you today about the District of
Columbia's perspective on the extent to which the U. S. Department of
Homeland Security has improved its ability to maintain situational
awareness since Hurricane Katrina as well as the District's efforts to
establish and maintain situational awareness and create a common
operating picture.
HSEMA's mission is to administer a comprehensive, community-based
emergency management program in partnership with residents, businesses
and visitors to the District of Columbia. The goal is to save lives,
protect property and safeguard the environment.
I have 30 years of military, federal and private sector experience,
including positions at the U.S. Department of Justice's Office for
Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS), and at the Department's
Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support (OSLDPS). I
also have served as Director of the U. S. Department of Homeland
Security's (DHS) Headquarters Operational Integration Staff's
Preparedness Division. Additionally, I was a 2006 Senior Fellow at the
George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute.
Since assuming leadership of HSEMA on March 19 of this year, I have
been involved in a broad range of activities, including strengthening
relationships with community leaders and members of the private sector
as well as continuing to work with our regional and federal partners to
ensure that the District and all of the stakeholders in the National
Capital Region (NCR) maintain the level of cooperation and
collaboration that has enabled us to successfully address the myriad
public safety and preparedness issues we face in the NCR.
Collaboration and Coordination in the National Capital Region
The National Capital Region is composed of the District of
Columbia; Montgomery and Prince Georges counties in Maryland;
Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties in Virginia;
and all cities in Maryland or Virginia within those counties.
In the almost six years since the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon
and the World Trade Center, the District and the NCR have worked
together along with our federal partners to ensure that our city and
our region are among the most prepared in the nation. We have
recognized the unique challenges resulting from living in our target-
rich region and we have responded by implementing planning, training
and exercise activities that bring together District, federal, state
and local government entities to create a coordinated prevention,
protection, response and recovery structure.
In August 2002, the U.S. Office of Homeland Security, the Mayor of
the District of Columbia and the governors of Maryland and Virginia
convened a homeland security summit to bring together local, state,
regional and national leaders in the NCR to announce eight commitments
to action that had been developed and agreed upon by senior-level
federal officials, the mayor and the two governors.
The eight commitments are:
Citizen involvement in preparedness;
Decision-making and coordination;
Emergency protective measures;
Infrastructure protection;
Media relations and communication;
Mutual aid;
Terrorism prevention; and
Training and exercises.
In the five years since the summit, the NCR and its federal
partners have been successful in realizing many of the goals outlined
in these commitments. Of particular relevance to today's discussion is
commitment two: decision-making and coordination.
The uniqueness of the NCR demands coordination among a large city,
two states, multiple local jurisdictions and the three branches of the
federal government. For the District, which functions as a city, a
state and a county, this means developing coordination between the
District and its neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, between
the District and the multiple jurisdictions of the NCR as well as
between the District and the multiple federal agencies located within
the city. This routine, systematic collaboration is essential to the
NCR on a day-to-day basis and absolutely critical to successful
response to a major event on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.
As part of the NCR commitment to collaboration and coordination,
the NCR leaders established a Senior Policy Group to lead decision-
making and coordination between local and state governments, as well as
the federal government. This group works with the region's Chief
Administrative Officers, who represent local government leadership, to
provide a coordinated and institutionalized process for defining and
meeting needs across the region.
Specific to situational awareness, the Council of Governments'
Emergency Managers Committee established a subcommittee known as the
NCR Operations Center Coordination Group in August 2006. In addition to
the NCR jurisdictions, current membership includes DHS and the
Department of Defense's U.S. Army Military District of Washington/
Commander, Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region. Through
this standing body, the practitioners at the state, local and federal
levels regularly seek ways to enhance information sharing and
collaboration. Since the technological impediments to information
sharing have largely been conquered, this body has turned its attention
to establishing common agreements between Emergency Operations Centers
(EOCs) about what is expected in an incident and ensuring verification
and dissemination processes.
This subcommittee and other bodies have worked continuously to
achieve the ultimate goal of this systematic, day-to-day coordination:
situational awareness that leads to a common operating picture among
all key stakeholders. As such, achieving and maintaining situational
awareness has been an area of focused, dedicated effort since 2002. In
2005, Hurricane Katrina provided an unnecessary reminder of the
criticality of the efforts to routinely share information to establish
a common operating picture. Similarly, we have worked with our federal
partners to avoid situations where errant aircraft may be shot down
within the District borders but District officials not notified and
where federal facilities such as the Capitol are evacuated without
notification of District officials. While isolated incidents have
proved a challenge, on the whole, the District, the National Capital
Region and DHS have made great progress toward the goal of achieving
and maintaining situational awareness.
Achieving Situational Awareness
The District of Columbia employs a number of interconnected systems
to achieve and maintain situational awareness and establish a common
operating picture with its regional partners, including the federal
government. As a starting point, information flows into EOCs through
911 systems and a variety of other methods, including a system that has
been adapted from a civil defense application to natural hazard and
terrorism warning and alerts. The National Warning System (NAWAS), a
24-hour continuous private line telephone system that links federal,
state and local EOCs, was developed in the 1950s to warn of an imminent
enemy attack or accidental missile launch on the U.S. NAWAS is now used
routinely to convey information about natural and man-made hazards as
well as to coordinate responses to day-to-day events.
NAWAS is comprised of segments, and the local portion is known as
WAWAS, the Washington Area Warning System. DC's Homeland Security and
Emergency Management Agency serves as the network control for all users
in the NCR and coordinates all requests for the addition of warnings to
the system. As such, the District serves as both a hub and conduit of
information between and among states and jurisdictions across the
nation as well as the federal government. HSEMA--and the surrounding
states, jurisdictions and federal partners--use WAWAS on a daily basis,
demonstrating its worth while simultaneously preparing every day for an
event as devastating as Hurricane Katrina.
Another piece of the puzzle--and one implemented after August
2005--is a tool designed to achieve a common operating picture among
diverse agencies and jurisdictions called WebEOC. All of the NCR
jurisdictions, as well as several dozen federal partners--including
DHS's FEMA, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Coast Guard--have joined
the network and are able to quickly and easily share real-time
information. WebEOC users have the option to post information relevant
to the region to a common page that participant EOCs can see. This
system is the primary vehicle for sharing information and achieving
situational awareness in the National Capital Region on a daily basis.
While WebEOC is used throughout the region for day-to-day
operations, it can provide a specific forum for collaboration during a
major event. Specific agencies and jurisdictions are granted access to
a customized site where event-specific information is exchanged among
those with a need to know, enhancing capability while protecting
sensitive information.
Expanding beyond the EOCs, information is shared widely through the
Regional Incident Communication and Coordination System (RICCS), which
is used to provide immediate text notification and update information
during a major crisis or emergency to those not physically located in
an EOC. RICCS provides alerts, notifications, and updates via email,
cell phone, pager, and wireless device. RICCS ensures that situational
awareness is not limited to those in command centers and, by including
key players in the field, broadens the exchange of information.
An additional, crucial element of situational awareness is public
messaging. Because of the unique relationship between the National
Capital Region and the federal government, managing public information
in a way that ensures adherence to the joint information system is
essential. Regional Emergency Support Function 15 (RESF-15) includes
public information officers from NCR jurisdictions as well as
representatives from DHS and other regional stakeholders such as
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the American
Red Cross and the Board of Trade.
The DHS Office of Public Affairs has provided RESF-15 members with
key contact information and initial emergency coordination procedures
for use during incidents and emergencies of all types. Additionally,
Public Information Officers (PIOs) have access to the State Incident
Communications Conference Line (SICCL), an emergency line maintained by
DHS to share public information with all states.
As part of the effort to promote a unified public message
throughout the region, members of RESF-15 have created a virtual joint
information system that allows them to share information and formulate
messages collectively so that the goal of ``one message, many voices''
is achieved.
Finally, the District is in the process of establishing a fusion
center for information sharing and analysis. The ultimate goal of the
fusion center will be to provide a mechanism where law enforcement,
public safety and private partners can come together with a common
purpose and improve the ability to safeguard our homeland and prevent
criminal activity. By routinely analyzing disparate pieces of
information, the fusion center will be a major contributor to enhanced
situational awareness and achieving a common operating picture.
Integral to the success of the District's fusion center is close,
regular collaboration with existing fusion centers in our partner
jurisdictions in the National Capital Region as well as with DHS's
National Operations Center.
Working with DHS
The response to Hurricane Katrina exposed a number of areas for
improvement at all levels--federal, state and local--even for those of
us who were only tangentially involved. Since that time, we have worked
closely with DHS to close gaps and improve upon existing prevention,
protection, response and recovery protocols. In the effort to work
closely with DHS to embrace the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina,
three successes stand out: full staffing of personnel in FEMA Region
III and in the Federal Coordinating Officers (FCO) corps as well as the
ongoing revisions to the National Response Plan.
In The Federal Response To Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, the
White House recommends: ``Below the headquarters level within DHS, we
must build up the Department's regional structures. . .Homeland
security regional offices should be the means to foster State, local
and private sector integration.'' To that end, we in the National
Capital Region have been pleased to see FEMA's Region III headquarters
fully staffed and have a full complement of FCOs. We have been working
closely with our DHS partners to refine plans and procedures and ensure
that our staffs are trained appropriately and are participating in
regular exercises.
Since August 2006, DC HSEMA has participated in four exercises with
DHS that have included enhancing situational awareness and achieving a
common operating picture as primary objectives. These exercises
include:
FEMA Region III Hurricane Exercise--May 2006
TOPOFF 4 Command Post Exercise--June 2006
Tactical Communication Interoperability Plan (TCIP)
Exercise--September 2006
NCR Regional Response 07--April 2007
These exercises all proved worthwhile and we look forward to
continued national-level training and exercise opportunities.
Areas for Improvement
While we have noticed improvements since the National Operations
Center (NOC) was established to coordinate and integrate the national
response and provide a common operating picture, we believe there is
still room for progress. One of the early challenges in homeland
security in general, and with situational awareness in particular, was
the lack of information flow between the federal government and the
state and local governments. The dearth of information most acutely
affected the District, as the seat of the federal government, and the
National Capital Region, as the home of numerous federal agencies.
While the reluctance to share information is gradually being overcome,
we are now facing a different challenge: that of information
redundancy. We often receive information from multiple sources within
DHS, which can lead to information overload.
Since the initial--and arguably most difficult--aspect of the
information-sharing challenge has been addressed, we are looking
forward to working with our federal partners to establish guidelines
and protocols to streamline the flow of information. Minimizing
redundancy and ensuring the accuracy of the information are essential,
while vetting it and reducing duplication before dissemination are
ongoing goals.
While achieving situational awareness relies heavily upon
established personal relationships, practiced policies and procedures,
we are all dependent upon technology to enable efficient and effective
information sharing. To that end, it would be helpful for DHS to
continue to work toward establishing guidelines and criteria for
interoperable communications technology. While the Authorized Equipment
List (AEL) and the Standardized Equipment List (SEL) are useful tools,
an evaluation of continually evolving technology--a Consumer Reports-
like approach--would be invaluable. Further, this availability of
guidelines and resultant research and analysis would encourage
consumers at the state and local levels to invest in technology that
enables interoperability between and among jurisdictions, states and
the federal government.
I thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today on this
important issue and am available for any questions you may have.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Mr. Darnell.
I would now like to turn to Mr. Walker for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JAMES WALKER, JR., DIRECTOR, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And a special thank you to Mr. Rogers, not just for the
important work that you do on this committee, but for the
leadership that you provide to the citizens of Alabama here in
the Congress. It is a pleasure to be before you today, sir.
Situational awareness is really relevant to where you
stand. I spent 20 years in the United States Army and was
convinced that a soldier standing in a post somewhere, that the
rest of the Nation is there to support him, and that he is the
frontlines for this country. Well, after our country was
attacked on September 11, 2001, that dynamic changed just a
bit. The defender of this country is not just a soldier,
sailor, airman or Marine. It is a police officer, a sheriff's
deputy, or a firefighter or emergency medical technician, a 911
operator, and on and on and on.
So as the director of homeland security for the state of
Alabama, we are charged with the mission of what is it that we
are doing to get the right equipment and the right information
into the hands of the people that are at the tip of the spear.
I also have the privilege of administering the state
homeland security program family of grants. The Congress has
been kind enough to send millions of dollars to the state of
Alabama. We think we have used it wisely.
One of the areas where we have seen a sea-change of growth
in our state is in the area of improving situational awareness,
and our ability to communicate with one another.
If you read the 9/11 Commission report, two of the
hijackers were stopped in a little town in Alabama, but the
deputy pulled them over had no idea of knowing who they were or
where they were headed. Situational awareness improvements
occur when you have a system in Alabama now, where even in
rural communities, a police officer can make a stop and use his
personal digital assistant, his BlackBerry, his cell phone or
any other mode available to him, and know who is facing and who
that person is, their picture, where they live, their cars that
are registered, who lives with them, et cetera. That is a sea-
change of information as it relates to situational awareness
for the cop on the street.
For his supervisor, it is the ability for that police
officer to be able to reach him via a reliable radio system so
that his supervisor then in turn knows what he is faced with.
So this is the way we back it up from the tip of the spear to
the state level.
With our emergency management community, we have a Lotus-
based software called the emergency management information
tracking system that allows us to keep track of requests from
our locals so that we know where personnel and resources are in
the pipeline that can come to support the state.
So for us, it is the ability of trying to take care of
ourselves, and then in being able to turn around to a Federal
partner and say, we can't handle this in Alabama and we need
your assistance and support.
One of our newest flagship programs that I would like to
tell my friend from Louisiana, his state just purchased last
week, was a program developed in Alabama that is called Virtual
Alabama. It uses a Google Earth platform.
What we are able to do, sir, is take visualization
pictures, GIS data that all counties fly around the country for
tax parcel records, et cetera, but we are able to take these
pictures and load them on a license that we have been given by
Google, where we can firewall it and secure this information.
We have a picture of what the state of Alabama looks like on
the ground.
Once you see that picture, you can start layering and
tailoring information that is relevant to you in the county. If
you are a sheriff, it is the location of every registered sex
offender and whether or not where he is living violates his
parole by being close to a school or a bus stop or a daycare
center. If it is a firefighter, it is being able to draw in
floor plans of schools and buildings, so that when you show up
on the scene, you know what you are faced with.
A most recent example was the tornadoes that affected us in
Enterprise, Alabama. After Hurricane Katrina hit, my governor
was incredibly frustrated because he wanted to see the pre-
imagery, the imagery of Mobile County before the storm hit and
mirror it up against the pictures that were taken after the
storm passed through. We couldn't do that. Had we had that
information available, using a platform like Virtual Alabama,
we could have provided assistance to the folks on the ground by
knowing where their house was, what the tax assessed value, and
we could start helping these folks get back on with their lives
earlier.
Since we have instituted Virtual Alabama, after the tornado
in Enterprise, we had the before pictures of Enterprise High
School, and then within 10 hours, we had the Civil Air Patrol
up with a camera taking pictures and we could overlay the
before picture with the after picture, and all of the tax data
and tax records we could put on top, and the FEMA teams that
come through writing checks can start making an immediate
difference in the lives of displaced people.
So it is an incredibly effective tool that really is only
limited by the imagination of the users. So I can look at you
and say, look, we are making positive impact in the lives of
the first responders in our state today, using Virtual Alabama,
improving our interoperable communications, giving better
situational awareness to our criminal justice system, but there
is still lots of work to do.
So for all of the resources that you provide Alabama to
tackle these problems, I thank you very much. I would ask you,
don't stop now. We have more work to do. There is much to be
done, and I appreciate the opportunity to share with you a
handful of the things that we are doing in Alabama.
I look forward to any questions that you might have, Mr.
Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Walker follows:]
Prepared Statement of James M. Walker, Jr.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today.
As Director of the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, one of
my responsibilities is to administer the State Homeland Security Grant
Program appropriated by Congress and managed through the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security. Since its creation on June 18, 2003,
the Alabama Department of Homeland Security has administered four
fiscal years of federal homeland security grant dollars totaling $115
million ($34.5 million in FY03, $36.8 million in FY04, $28.1 million in
FY05, and $15.6 million in FY06).
I would like to express my gratitude to the Congress, President
Bush, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for the homeland
security grants we've received in Alabama. It is my belief the receipt
and responsible distribution of these grant funds in Alabama has saved
lives and effectively served our citizens. Thank you for making these
grants available.
With homeland security grant dollars and the visionary leadership
of Governor Bob Riley, Alabama has built 54 regional mutual aid teams
to provide standardized prevention, response, and recovery
capabilities. We've improved interoperable communications capabilities
among public safety disciplines. We've exponentially improved
information sharing and situational awareness within our criminal
justice, law enforcement, emergency management, and public safety
communities. We are able to provide specialized prevention and response
equipment to any law enforcement agency in the state. We've conducted
exercises and training events to test our capabilities, and we've built
teams of stakeholders in each of our 67 counties so that everyone can
contribute to making our citizens safer.
The heart of our state homeland security program is having the
tactics, techniques, and procedures in place that will ensure first
responders and decision makers have the right information and the right
equipment available when they need it. Advances in situational
awareness and asset management have experienced a sea change of
improvements in Alabama during the past four years.
Within our response and recovery community, the Alabama Emergency
Management Agency uses EMITS (Emergency Management Information Tracking
System), a Lotus Notes-based software.
EMITS provides a platform local and state agencies use to monitor
operational information, make requests for personnel and resources, and
track the status of existing requests for support. Situational
awareness reports are forwarded to our Regional Operations Center in
Thomasville, Georgia, daily or as requested. If we anticipate an
incident cannot be met with existing state resources, a FEMA liaison is
dispatched to our State Emergency Operations Center to coordinate the
federal response. We believe it is imperative that the federal
government not deploy assets or resources without first coordinating
with the state.
The ability for public safety officials to reliably communicate
using radio networks is essential to gaining and maintaining a clear
situational picture. Alabama has enhanced interoperable radio
communications by upgrading existing systems and utilizing a common
bridging platform to connect disparate radio systems across the state.
Investing in one comprehensive statewide radio system with a common
platform was not an affordable option for us. Instead, we leveraged
technology by installing frequency bridges in each of Alabama's 67
counties. This allows local agencies using different frequency bands to
communicate. During a large-scale event where local interoperability
can become overwhelmed, we have positioned eight regional
communications vehicles throughout Alabama. In addition to having
bridging technology, these vehicles have satellite communication
connectivity, Internet access, and streaming video cameras.
In Alabama we have developed an effective situational awareness
framework in which to manage public/private sector programs and
operational data. The program is called Virtual Alabama. It is an
affordable visualization tool using Google Earth technology that
employs the power of a secure Internet-based application to make a
positive, immediate difference to first responders. The advantage to
our first responder population is that Virtual Alabama is free for
their use, and inexpensive to the state. Local and state officials can
layer and tailor secure information about their jurisdictions and feed
it into a broader database that will give state and federal decision
makers valuable and timely information.
With existing state GIS (Geographic Information System) and
orthophotographic data, we are able to transform massive amounts of
useful information into a common operational picture. Examples of real-
time applications include emergency evacuation routing, vehicle and
asset tracking, critical infrastructure mapping, plume modeling, real-
time sensor feeds, real-time streaming video, risk visualization, and
post-event imagery placed alongside pre-event imagery.
Virtual Alabama is less than a year old, yet we've already
incorporated data from more than half of Alabama's 67 counties. To
date, we have more than 1,085 subscribers using Virtual Alabama, and
hope to have all 67 counties participating by the end of 2007.
Finally, Alabama has made remarkable strides toward improving
information sharing and situational awareness within our criminal
justice and public safety community. We've wisely invested our LETPP
(Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program) homeland security grant
funding to upgrade outdated 1980s-era flat file computer architecture.
Alabama's hard-wired terminal architecture has now been replaced with a
real-time, 21st century Internet-based system available to all 850
statewide law enforcement agencies, law enforcement officials, and
other emergency responders throughout the state. This improved
capability also includes a homeland security reporting system for
providing information from the ``cop on the beat'' to our information
fusion capability. We can take NCIC (National Crime Information Center)
information and other criminal justice information and transmit it
electronically to law enforcement officers with data terminals or any
type of cell phone, Blackberry, or other personal digital assistant
device. Additionally, this service is free of charge to local law
enforcement and encourages their participation in sharing, gathering,
and disseminating information.
In the weeks and months ahead, Alabama will continue to develop and
identify new requirements and systems to better serve our citizens.
However, we must be able to rely upon federal assistance via the State
Homeland Security Grant Program to further our efforts. We've made
great strides, but important work remains.
Thank you again for the privilege of appearing before you. I look
forward to addressing any questions you may have.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Mr. Walker.
I thank all the witnesses for their testimony.
I now remind each member, Mr. Rogers, that he will have 5
minutes to question the panel. I will begin with my 5 minutes
of questions.
I would like to start with the three gentlemen who are in
charge of the emergency management for their state and their
city. I will start with you, Colonel. If Katrina were bearing
down on New Orleans or the Gulf Coast today, what difference
will we see within our ability to respond?
Colonel Ebbert. Obviously, we have several areas, one, the
individual areas and the individual plans which we have worked
on, which are local, meaning 14 parishes and two states. The
state of Mississippi is very much involved.
So the detailed evacuation plans that have been put in
place that did not exist down to the detail of moving 25,000
people without the capacity to leave the city is a huge effort
on the part of the region, as well as the state and the Federal
Government, with the funding of bus, aviation and rail assets
to be able to move those people in a 24-to 30-hour block of
time, is a monumental, a very, very complex plan that we have
worked on and we scheduled. Last Friday, we just exercised it
across the parishes, and so we feel comfortable in that
concept.
The second thing is the improvement in communications and
our capacity to talk and communicate, not only with our
regional areas, but with the state and the state to the Federal
Government has improved dramatically. We have the advantage of
being hit once, is you still have a relatively strong
organization of Federal resources located both in Baton Rouge
and in the city of New Orleans in the way of FEMA.
Mr. Perlmutter. Let me ask these two gentlemen if they
would agree with that.
You know, if we had another plane flying into the side of
the Pentagon, how quickly can everybody communicate?
Mr. Darnell. I think it is dramatically improved since 9/
11, sir. In fact, in our emergency operations center, we have a
direct line with the FAA towers at Reagan National Airport,
Dulles, BWI, and also contact with some of the smaller airports
in the region. So that information, say, for example, if a
plane gets inside the 25-mile no-fly zone, we immediately have
that information in real-time as that is coming through those
towers.
So we no longer have to wait for the towers to give us a
call. We are hearing that information so we can begin the
process of whatever actions we feel we need to take.
Mr. Perlmutter. Mr. Walker, with your tornadoes, you
probably have the most recent experience as to how the
communications works.
Mr. Walker. Mr. Chairman, 3 years ago a lot of well-meaning
police officers and fire chiefs around our state had invested
in radio systems, but they were often disparate systems that
couldn't communicate. A firefighter couldn't communicate with a
police officer who couldn't communicate with a sheriff who
couldn't communicate with the state.
We have leveraged technology and we put bridging equipment,
which basically fuses together all of the different radio
systems in a county that now allows them to speak to one
another, without buying new radios. It was a cost-effective
approach. We did it in all 67 of Alabama's counties.
In addition to that, when you have something happen like a
tornado, you need some sort of a regional capability because as
state and Federal assets start arriving on the scene, the
locals, their system will become overwhelmed. So we have some
regional communications vehicles. They are Alabama products,
where we were able to quadruple our capability, have
streamlining video to the scene, so that my governor can sit in
his office, if that is where he is, and watch the scene unfold
on one of his assets, and he doesn't have to rely on cable
news.
But the biggest thing for the most recent one was that we
have become such creatures of habit. Our first responders, they
have their radios, the ways to communicate. They will tend to
rely on that dad-gum cell phone. And in the town where this
tornado hit, there were about 300 hits and hour on the cell
phone tower, and when the tornado came through, it went to
about 3,000 an hour. It overwhelmed the system, and there was
kind of a brain-lock for about 10 to 15 minutes. Nobody knew
what to do until they said, oh my goodness, I have this radio
over here and it is working just fine.
So that is a product of education and training, but the
systems that we had in place worked, and communication has
improved. In Alabama, locally we have done well. We still have
some challenges with agencies that have statewide
responsibility and our ability to reach outside the region.
When you look at a multi-state incident like Katrina, what
we learned was when there is total architecture failure, having
more satellite communications on the ground made all the
difference. Because during Katrina, it was those folks that had
satellite communications who could speak back to areas of
assistance. If you didn't, you couldn't use a cell phone and
you couldn't use a radio. So we have made some investments in
improving our satellite communications.
Mr. Perlmutter. Last question, for you, Ms. Larence. To
what extent is information sharing within the NOC compromised
by this HSIN system and its ongoing problems?
Ms. Larence. I guess our concern is that recently both the
intelligence and analysis office and the critical
infrastructure protection office asked for waivers from HSIN,
at least for a couple of years. The critical infrastructure
protection piece is important because that was the link for the
private sector to report information about the status of
critical assets around the country into the NOC.
So we are concerned about to what extent the users are
hanging in there with the system. We are concerned that one of
the major challenges the program manager said she continues to
face is, quite frankly, getting support within the components
of DHS itself to use the system and support it.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you.
Now, I recognize the ranking member, Mr. Rogers, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Rogers. I thank the chairman.
I wanted to follow up with Mr. Walker about the
interoperability. You said you now in all 67 counties have the
ability for the various first responders to communicate. How
about across county lines?
Mr. Walker. The regional commu-van that we have, once they
arrive on the scene, will provide for that. We still have
challenges going county to county and building the regions of
the state. When we started the process, we thought we have got
to build from the ground up. So we obviously put our emphasis
on the counties.
So the counties I believe are in pretty good shape. We have
two of our 67 counties that require a little bit more love than
others, so we are struggling through it. But it is bringing
counties together. We have the capability to do it, but not 24/
7 day to day. We have to get to that point and we are not there
yet, sir.
Mr. Rogers. You talked about the Google, the before
pictures and the after pictures. The before pictures, are those
pictures that are in the database from tax records? Why would
there be a picture of Enterprise High School that you could
pull, unless somebody thought to go and do it before they
thought a tornado was coming?
Mr. Walker. One of the things that frustrated our governor
in Alabama was the millions of dollars that we would spend
flying the state. Different agencies with planes and
contractors taking pictures of the state of Alabama, but then
in a crisis when we needed the pictures, we couldn't get our
hands on them.
So the governor says, ``I am not spending another penny
until I know what we have.'' So he turns to his homeland
security director as the honest broker and says, ``Look, figure
out a way to show me what we have, and then we will know how to
plan forward.''
So we set out, and I have actually got an honest-to-
goodness rocket scientist on my staff that the Army has loaned
us from Huntsville. He sat in a room and canvassed the country
for the best product that is forward-learning.
That is why we partnered with Google. So what we are able
to do is the pictures that our counties have, and they all have
the data. They do it for building roads, keeping track of where
folks and the growth are, and you capture this on the Google
Earth platform, and then you have a picture. It may be a year
old or it may be 2 years old, and then you give it back to the
county.
And then you have the most recent data, either at the six-
inch, one-foot, one-meter level, and then when something
happens, if you are able to go up immediately and capture the
new pictures, you marry them together and you will know where
the damage occurred. We even gave a license to the small town
in Kansas that was 95 percent destroyed, loaded in their before
pictures and their after pictures, and I think that if you will
talk to our friends at FEMA, they were much quicker at being
able to help these folks get checks and get their lives back
together.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Darnell, I was a little concerned when we
heard our last speaker talk about operational awareness across
the country, to hear you say that you didn't see that we had
adequate operational awareness, situational awareness between
DC and its contiguous states. Did I misunderstand what you were
trying to communicate?
Mr. Darnell. I believe so, sir. I believe have situational
awareness across the jurisdictions that make up the NCR through
or WebEOC, through my EOC being a central hub for the region,
and some other systems. I think where we need to improve, quite
frankly, is with the Federal Government.
For example, in their COPS, their common operating picture
system, we are not hooked into that. And being the seat of the
Federal Government and the Federal agencies in the country, it
is my hope that DHS would allow us to be a part of that system,
and currently we are not.
The second point I would like to make with respect to the
HSIN system that Mr. DiFalco spoke about, while I think it is a
good system and has the potential to do a lot of things, I
think the problem, at least from a state and local perspective,
or my perspective quite frankly, is that there are a lot of
different portals on there with a lot of different information.
So it is not the most user-friendly system that you have, where
you can go in and really find relevant information very
quickly.
I would echo Ms. Larence's comments, being a former DHS
employee, the challenge really is trying to get those agencies
within DHS to really take a look at how we can efficiently use
that system and put relevant information that we can use at the
state and local level.
Mr. Rogers. OK. My last question, and my time is about up,
is you made reference to several successes, but I wanted to say
you didn't make reference to any glaring deficiencies that
still remain. You did talk about that there had been a lack of
info flow, but now there was a redundancy problem. Is that what
you are making reference to now?
Mr. Darnell. Yes, pretty much. It sort of manifests itself
in a lot of different ways. For example, I received six e-mails
on the same piece of information just prior to coming here from
DHS. It would be my hope that if we have a National Operations
Center, as I thought it was designed, that that would really be
the conduit for information--
Mr. Rogers. Exactly.
Mr. Darnell. --that would come out of DHS into our fusion
centers and our EOCs. But instead, we have a myriad of offices
out at DHS sending us the same information, and you are almost
forced to open all of it for fear that you will miss something.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Mr. Rogers.
And now the chair will recognize the gentleman from
Louisiana, Mr. Jindal, for 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Jindal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you also for
allowing me to participate. I apologize. I have been in and out
due to other committee responsibilities.
I have several questions. I am only going to ask one
because the hour is late. It is, I would thank Terry, the
colonel, for coming up here to testify. After Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita struck, it was obvious the response wasn't as
coordinated and as organized as it could have been. The White
House issued its own assessment in the Federal response to
Hurricane Katrina, lessons learned, identifying critical flaws,
including an absence of regional planning and coordination.
As the colonel noted, perhaps the problem is not just a
lack of coordination, but a lack of direction. According to the
administration's own report, the Department of Homeland
Security did not maintain the needed personnel or resources in
its regional offices. This led to reduced communications and
understanding of on-site needs, further delaying an effective
response.
Better planning at a regional level should not just consist
of forward-leaning coordination between different levels of
government, but an integrated partnership fostering clear
communication that would define the point of contact with the
Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and
others states.
One of the things that was evident to us on the ground was
that the Coast Guard, which has a robust regional and local
presence, was very proactive in responding to those storms. One
of the things I have asked consistently, even before the
storms, is about the department's plans for implementing its
regional structure to improve the flow of communications
between Washington and local emergency management offices.
I would like the colonel to start with his perspectives on
how a more robust implementation of the department's regional
office strategy could be helpful going forward, with future
storms, future disasters. And if some of the other witnesses
would like to comment as well, but I would like to give the
colonel a chance to talk about how a more robust regional
implementation can be helpful moving forward.
Colonel Ebbert. I think it is very difficult for the
Federal Government to have a span of control that is capable of
dealing with an incident anywhere in the Nation today, because
basically you have incident command at the lowest level and you
may have a unified command, an area command, working with the
state, but when you move to that next level, you get into a
coordination agency, and coordination to catastrophic response,
I don't believe, is adequate.
I think one of the things that is needed is the capability
to have a presence in the planning, exercising of emergency
plans across this country, and it cannot be done direct from
Washington reaching all the way down to a local level, passing
through the state.
I believe an analogy I would draw is that when an emergency
happens, the flow of the Federal Government's response in a
command and control capacity is to a pickup game with
contractors and multiple people designated to arrive on the
scene, introduce themselves to each other, and then try to
introduce themselves to the local and state agencies. At the
same time, you are dealing with saving lives, stabilizing
infrastructure, and trying to provide security.
So I think we have to create a capacity and capability to
regionalize at least so you are playing the game with people
who you know who is their number, and you can't play the Super
Bowl and draw people out of a hat. Even though they are
professionals, they have never played together and they don't
know the game plan.
So I think the regional approach to regional transportation
planning, regional sheltering, regional command and control are
absolutely necessary if we are going to be able to exercise in
an emergency, a catastrophic one, which by my definition is
when it is greater than the capacity to respond, you have a
catastrophic situation and you have to have somebody in charge
and know how to execute it.
Mr. Perlmutter. We will take one more pass. I have a
question for Ms. Larence.
Your testimony says that the operations directorate has not
issued guidance to other operations centers to improve
collaboration. DHS maintains that the operations directorate
does not have the authority to do so. Who within the department
has the authority to issue such guidance, if you know?
Ms. Larence. The centers within the components themselves
are owned by their parent companies. We understand that. They
have the unique mission to serve their parent company, a
tactical mission. But all these centers share a common mission
with the National Operations Center. The National Operations
Center depends on the information they are providing for their
situational awareness.
So we think that they have an incentive, in fact, to try to
ensure that these other centers have a standardized way to
approach communication and information sharing. So all our
recommendations asked them to do was voluntarily issue guidance
that the other centers could use to try to ensure this
consistency. So we disagree that there is really an issue about
jurisdiction here or controller authority.
Mr. Perlmutter. OK. The ability that the Office of
Operations and Coordination should have the authority to kind
of--
Ms. Larence. Yes, we were kind of perplexed by their
response because if they are the Office of Operations and
Coordination and they are not coordinating the operations
centers within DHS themselves, then what are they coordinating.
So, yes.
Mr. Perlmutter. OK. Colonel, you said something when you
were talking about you have two roles. You have the mission
role to act and to move, and then there is always the follow
up, which is the compliance side, to get everybody to dot the
i's and cross the t's. Both parts play an important role in the
government.
Then you said this is a logistics war and we have no system
in place. Did I hear you wrong?
Colonel Ebbert. We don't have, that I am aware of, any
national logistics system where I, at the lowest level, would
enter data that would be available at the time I entered it for
the Federal Government to know that it exists, and a status,
and we are talking a common operating picture. I believe in
responding to emergencies.
This is a war of logistics. It is men and materiel and the
movement thereof. You don't have a common operating picture, if
you don't understand all this equipment and resources that you
are moving around. We need to have a system that I have to
enter data into, the state has to enter data into, and it is
consolidated so anybody up the chain or down the chain of
command knows what is happening in every locale based upon
their logistic request.
Mr. Perlmutter. And we don't have that.
Colonel Ebbert. We don't have that.
Mr. Perlmutter. It doesn't work with this National
Operations Center or COP?
Colonel Ebbert. It doesn't exist today.
Mr. Perlmutter. OK. Last question. We talked about the
Virtual Alabama. I used to think it was Sweet Home Alabama.
Sorry. That is bad.
[Laughter.]
I was, as part of a DHS field trip or something, I saw this
virtual map and you could use it for parade routes and try to
figure out line of sight, if the president were having his
inaugural parade, things like that. Is it something that is
also computer-driven and can give almost a 3-D exposure? I was
just curious what that was.
Mr. Walker. Yes, sir. That is actually a new component that
has come along. We are partnering with Google with it. There
are some really smart folks out there now and they are able to
have us look at this topographic data from an oblique angle,
and also routes, we can do pluming data.
One of the other fascinating parts of the Virtual Alabama
is we have cameras. I know Mr. Rogers is a big fan of cameras.
We have cameras around the state through the Alabama Department
of Transportation and some of our private sector partners that
have manufacturing entities and others. If they will allow us
access to these cameras, we can use Virtual Alabama to access
cameras with real-time information.
So the tunnel going into the harbor at Mobile, if you were
a decision maker, you can be in Montgomery and watch what is
unfolding. So you can do route planning. You can do plume data
if there were an explosion. You could take a look at the
temperature and the wind direction, and know where it is going
to go. That would give firefighters and police officers the
ability to know where the evacuation areas are ahead of time.
These are things that we practice and rehearse. With
respect to my friend's comment about logistics, in Alabama, it
is 72-hours. We preposition supplies and we plan for 72 hours.
We know that the Federal Government is a big battleship, and by
the time you get it turned in our direction, it is going to
take a little while. So we plan on being self-sustaining for 72
hours. We have learned through four hurricanes over the last 3
years, we have I don't know how many thousands of cots, meals
ready to eat, ice contracts let, water on standby, warehouses
full right now.
So I don't know how ready we are for hurricane season this
year, but we are pretty doggone ready, but you can't anticipate
the unforeseen.
Mr. Perlmutter. My time has expired.
Mr. Rogers for any further questions?
I would like to thank the panel for their testimony and for
responding to our questions. The testimony has been valuable
for us today and gives us some food for thought.
Members of the subcommittee, if they have any additional
questions for the witnesses, will present those to you in
writing. We ask that you respond to those as expeditiously as
possible.
Hearing no further business, the subcommittee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]