    [House Hearing, 111 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

     LOOKING OUT FOR THE VERY YOUNG, THE ELDERLY, AND OTHERS WITH SPECIAL
               NEEDS: LESSONS FROM KATRINA AND RELATED DISASTERS

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

                                    (111-71)

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
        ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

                                     OF THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                       TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                October 20, 2009

                                   __________

                           Printed for the use of the
                 Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

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    52-957 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2009
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                 COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

                     JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman

    NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia,   JOHN L. MICA, Florida
    Vice Chair                           DON YOUNG, Alaska
    PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon             THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
    JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois          HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
    ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of   JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
    Columbia                             VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
    JERROLD NADLER, New York             FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
    CORRINE BROWN, Florida               JERRY MORAN, Kansas
    BOB FILNER, California               GARY G. MILLER, California
    EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas         HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
    GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi             Carolina
    ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland         TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
    LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa             TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
    TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania             SAM GRAVES, Missouri
    BRIAN BAIRD, Washington              BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
    RICK LARSEN, Washington              JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
    MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts    SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
    TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York          Virginia
    MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine            JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
    RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri              MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
    GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California      CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
    DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois            CONNIE MACK, Florida
    MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
    JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania          JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
    TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota           CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
    HEATH SHULER, North Carolina         MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
    MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York          VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
    HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona           ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
    CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania  BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
    JOHN J. HALL, New York               ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
    STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin               AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               PETE OLSON, Texas
    LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
    ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
    DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
    SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
    PHIL HARE, Illinois
    JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
    MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
    BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
    PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
    MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
    THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
    DINA TITUS, Nevada
    HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
    VACANCY

                                      (ii)

     Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
                                   Management

               ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chair

    BETSY MARKEY, Colorado               MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
    MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine            TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
    HEATH SHULER, North Carolina         SAM GRAVES, Missouri
    PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama             SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
    RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri              Virginia
    TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota           MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
    MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York          BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
    CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY,               ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
    Pennsylvania, Vice Chair             PETE OLSON, Texas
    DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
    THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
    JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
      (Ex Officio)

                                     (iii)

                                    CONTENTS

                                                                       Page

    Summary of Subject Matter........................................    vi

                                   TESTIMONY

    Manning, Tim, Deputy Administrator, National Preparedness
      Directorate, Federal Emergency Management Agency...............     6
    Riggen, Trevor, Senior Director, Direct Services, American Red
      Cross..........................................................     6
    Shriver, Mark, Chairman, National Commission on Children and
      Disasters......................................................     6
    Vaughn, John, Chairperson, National Council on Disability........     6

              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

    Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri.................................    40
    Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia.........    41
    Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................    43

                   PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES

    Manning, Tim.....................................................    45
    Riggen, Trevor...................................................    61
    Shriver, Mark....................................................    71
    Vaughn, John.....................................................    83

                           SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    Manning, Tim, Deputy Administrator, National Preparedness
      Directorate, Federal Emergency Management Agency, reponses to
      questions from the Subcommittee................................    50
    Riggen, Trevor, Senior Director, Direct Services, American Red
      Cross, responses to questions from the Subcommittee............    68
    Shriver, Mark, Chairman, National Commission on Children and
      Disasters, responses to questions from the Subcommittee........    78
    Vaughn, John, Chairperson, National Council on Disability,
      responses to questions from the Subcommittee...................   110

                            ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD

    Office of Emergency Preparedness - City of New Orleans, Lt.
      Colonel, Jerry Sneed:
          Written testimony..........................................   123
          Fact Sheets................................................   129

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    HEARING ON LOOKING OUT FOR THE VERY YOUNG, THE ELDERLY AND OTHERS WITH
           SPECIAL NEEDS: LESSONS FROM KATRINA AND RELATED DISASTERS

                                  ----------

                           Tuesday, October 20, 2009

                      House of Representatives,
          Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
                    Buildings and Emergency Management,
                Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:12 p.m., in
    Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eleanor Holmes
    Norton [chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        Ms. Norton. Welcome to today's important hearing.
        On September the 7th, 2007, Representative Corrine Brown,
    who is trying to join us this afternoon, introduced H.R. 3495,
    the Kids in Disasters Well-Being, Safety, and Health Act of
    2007, a bill I was pleased to cosponsor. Provisions of H.R.
    3495 were later incorporated into H.R. 2764, the Consolidated
    Appropriations Act of 2008, which became public law number as
    shall be indicated in December.
        H.R. 3495 created a National Commission on Children and
    Disasters to conduct a comprehensive study, examining and
    assessing the needs of children as they relate to recovery,
    preparation, and response for all hazards, including
    catastrophes, disasters, and emergencies.
        Hurricane Katrina exposed many problems concerning the
    Nation's ability to meet the needs of children during
    disasters. About a quarter of the people who lived in areas
    damaged or flooded by Hurricane Katrina were under age 18. More
    than 400,000 children under the age of 5 lived in or were
    evacuated from counties and parishes that were declared
    disaster areas by FEMA as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
        The vulnerability of kids presented many unique issues. For
    example, 5,192 children were reported missing or displaced by
    the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as a
    result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and it took 6-1/2 months
    to reunite the last child separated from her family. In
    addition, 1,100 schools were closed immediately following
    Hurricane Katrina.
        These statistics reveal the importance of examining the
    special needs of children in disasters. A specific focus on
    children, therefore, is justifiably the Commission's special
    concern.
        Although we took a proactive role in directing the creation
    of a commission concerning the well-being, safety, and health
    of children in disasters, we had previously recognized the
    importance of assuring that FEMA addresses the needs of all
    vulnerable populations caught in disasters. FEMA is responsible
    for encouraging local and State governments to plan for
    evacuations of all special needs populations.
        Our post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006
    requires FEMA to other appoint a disabilities coordinator to
    ensure that the needs of individuals with disabilities are
    properly addressed in a disaster. The special needs population
    must also include hospital and nursing home patients who may
    not be able to move quickly because of their health. The worst
    example during Hurricane Katrina involved 34 people who died in
    a nursing home waiting for help for days in the heat of August
    without power, air conditioning, sanitation, or running water
    at temperatures in the building approaching 110 degrees. Some
    of the elderly and disabled in New Orleans simply drowned when
    they were left behind.
        The New York Times reported on the work of Dr. Ann Powell,
    a physician who was working in the middle of Hurricane Katrina
    and was also forced to make several difficult decisions in the
    absence of clear standards of care for very sick patients
    trapped in her hospital. Since Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Powell
    has been a leading proponent for changing the law and
    establishing a standard of care in the event of disaster or
    pandemic.
        Persons with disabilities are the third largest minority
    group in the United States, numbering over 32 million. If
    people with impairments are included, the number increases to
    over 51 million. In addition, there are approximately 5 million
    disabled children and youth under the age of 18.
        After Hurricane Katrina, Congress recognized that the
    disabled must receive special focused attention. Now FEMA must
    use the National Commission on Children and Disasters' final
    interim report to think critically and objectively about
    guidance to State and local jurisdictions on the care of
    children, in particular in a disaster. Children and other
    vulnerable populations have unique needs that demand focused
    action plans that ensure the same survival for them in disaster
    as for other Americans.
        Several of our witnesses today have stories to share that
    will remind us of what is at stake for children and citizens
    with disabilities and why there must be no more delay in
    building a comprehensive plan for addressing the needs of our
    children and other vulnerable populations in a disaster.
        I welcome today's witnesses, look forward to their
    testimony and am pleased to hear any opening remarks from our
    Ranking Member, Mr. Diaz-Balart.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Let me thank you first, Madam Chairwoman,
    for holding this important hearing. As a Floridian this is the
    kind of hearing that hits home, literally hits home.
        Last month we held a hearing on the Integrated Public Alert
    and Warning System and whether those with disabilities or those
    with limited English proficiency are able to adequately receive
    alerts and warnings when an imminent hurricane, storm, or other
    disaster is coming. Now, unfortunately we found that much work
    still remains to be done.
        Today we are focusing more broadly on the issues of whether
    emergency preparation, response, and recovery--if those efforts
    have adequately or do adequately address the needs of the very
    young, of the elderly, and others who--varied others who may
    have also a number of different special needs.
        In 2004, President Bush issued an executive order
    establishing that it is the policy of the Federal Government to
    ensure that the needs of individuals with disabilities are
    incorporated in the planning for disasters.
        In 2008, Congress established a National Commission on
    Children and Disasters to study and report on the needs of
    children in preparing for and to respond after disasters.
    Congress also charged the National Council on Disability with
    examining the inclusion of people with disabilities in
    emergency preparation and established a disability coordinator
    within FEMA.
        So there have been some efforts and there has obviously
    been some emphasis from both the executive and also Congress.
    Notwithstanding these efforts, unfortunately, work still
    remains to be done.
        For example, according to the National Council on
    Disability, many emergency managers and people with
    disabilities remain unprepared for a disaster and disaster
    planning continues without full consultation or even
    participation of people with disabilities, which is obviously
    contrary to what we are trying to do. And as highlighted in the
    National Commission on Children and Disasters' interim report,
    there are still inadequacies for the care of children in
    various aspects of emergency management. Again, we still have a
    long way to go.
        This implementation of clear policies is absolutely
    unacceptable because the consequences, as the Chairwoman was
    saying a little while ago, can be very dire and tragic.
        Following Hurricane Katrina, thousands of children were
    separated from their families and there were so many accounts
    of individuals with disabilities and seniors who were unable to
    evacuate, and we have seen and we know what resulted from that
    scenario.
        With nearly half of our population either living with
    disability or under the age of 18, we must ensure that the
    interests and the needs of these individuals are fully, fully
    incorporated in our planning, in our response to and recovery
    from disasters. And as we will hear today, each of these
    categories of individuals, whether it is children or seniors,
    people with disabilities, have unique, unique issues that must
    be examined and addressed in our emergency management system,
    again, as the Chairwoman so eloquently said a little while ago.
    Otherwise the consequences can be tragic.
        I again thank you all for being here. It is a privilege to
    have you all here. I appreciate your time. I look forward to
    hearing from the witnesses, Madam Chairwoman, and I thank you
    for having this very important hearing.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Diaz-Balart.
        In light of the fact that the author of the bill has
    arrived and is a Subcommittee Chair on a parallel Committee, I
    am going to ask Ms. Brown if she has any opening remarks at
    this time?
        First, I want to ask unanimous consent that the gentlewoman
    from Florida be allowed to participate in today's Subcommittee
    hearing.
        Without objection, so ordered.
        Ms. Brown. Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Committee
    for letting me join this hearing today. In this Subcommittee
    this is a very important topic. In my home State of Florida we
    deal with the aftermaths of hurricanes every year and have
    struggled to deal with the unique needs of these vulnerable
    populations.
        I look forward to listening to the comments made by our
    outstanding panelists and to move forward on this very
    important issue as to how to protect our Nation's children,
    elderly citizens, and others with special needs during a major
    disaster. In particular, I want to thank Mark Shriver for his
    leadership on the Children's Commission. Thank you.
        Nearly 2 years ago, I worked to pass the KIDS WISH Act, a
    bill which established a National Commission on Children and
    Disaster, the commission whose representative Mark Shriver is
    here today to report back to us on these most important
    findings and recommendations and what have you done in the 2
    years of study to examine the root causes and challenges as
    they relate to the needs of children during and after all
    hazardous disasters and emergencies.
        During the events and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, our
    Nation saw the tremendous gap in our emergency management
    response and recovery. We saw this to be especially true with
    regards to children. Indeed, children's needs are unique and
    are not as easy to carry out in an emergency planning for
    adults. Congress as a body, working along with numerous groups
    on this extremely important issue here today, must identify and
    invest in and prepare response and recovery plans for children
    to ensure that what we saw during Hurricane Katrina does not
    ever happen again. I want to repeat. We in Congress have to
    make sure that what happened with Hurricane Katrina never
    happens again in this country.
        Perhaps what is most troubling to me about the current
    state of emergency preparedness system as it relates to our
    children is that the questions to this date remain unanswered.
    For example, will the shelter have diapers, baby food, and
    children's medication? Are there former sex offenders in the
    shelter? How do disaster survivors find their children if they
    are separated during an evacuation?
        Certainly if anyone sits down and seriously thinks about
    all the various needs of children, he or she will quickly
    realize that many of our communities, schools, and States and
    local emergency managers do not have the concrete answers. So
    over the past 2 years this new commission, the Nation's
    Commission on Children and Disasters, has worked to come up
    with solution to these questions. I understand that just last
    week the National Commission on Children and Disasters
    delivered its interim report to President Obama and Congress,
    in which you identify several shortcomings in disaster
    preparation, response, and recovery and provided
    recommendations designed to make children an immediate priority
    to disaster planning.
        So again, I look forward to hearing from the panelists
    today and in particular the recommendations being put forward
    by the Commission so that we can implement as soon as possible.
    I have instructed my staff to draft the Commission
    recommendation into legislation, and I hope that we as a
    Congress are able to turn them into law.
        Thank you again, Madam Chairwoman, for this opportunity to
    participate in this very important discussion, and I yield back
    the balance of my time.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Representative Brown. Mr.
    Carnahan, do you have any opening remarks?
        Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Just briefly I
    want to thank you and Ranking Member Diaz-Balart for holding
    this important hearing. I thank the witnesses for being here
    and really shining a light on special needs individuals in the
    event of natural disasters, whether that be children, the
    elderly, disabled, or others. This is a very important
    component of our overall preparedness, and I thank you for
    contributing to that.
        We definitely, from looking back, can tell we need to have
    a more holistic approach, a more comprehensive approach to
    incorporating these special needs, and I have particular
    interest, being a representative from the State of Missouri, in
    terms of how our State is hit and particularly our region along
    the Mississippi River. We are the among the most frequent
    States for natural disasters, floods, tornadoes. We are on the
    New Madrid fault line, and we had a bout of ice storms not long
    ago. So we have been hit by many, but some of the same issues
    come up and we look forward to hearing from you and thank you
    for your work.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Congressman Carnahan.
        Ms. Edwards, have you any opening remarks?
        Ms. Edwards. I do, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you very much
    and thank you in advance to each of the witnesses for your
    testimony today.
        There is probably not one among us, at least here in the
    Washington area, that doesn't remember being separated from a
    child on 9/11 and the confusion that that caused and the need
    for the kind of coordinated response that you will be
    testifying to today. My son was actually, in fact, on Capitol
    Hill on that day, and I remember as a parent being very
    concerned about how to get to him in the wake of that disaster.
    And of course these disasters that we have to prepare for are
    both natural disasters and they are manmade disasters. We need
    only point to the experiences of the Oklahoma City bombing and
    the vulnerability of children in that disaster and any number
    of natural disasters, whether hurricanes, tornadoes, fires and
    the like. So I appreciate your testimony today.
        Just yesterday I was out in Prince George's County in
    Maryland with first responders looking at the kind of advanced
    technology that they have to identify places, institutions,
    elder care facilities, assisted living facilities, child care
    facilities, schools of greatest vulnerability, and using their
    technology to make sure that they have their eye on the pulse
    when it comes to coordinating response in the event of an
    emergency. And obviously we need that in our own districts, but
    certainly in our States and in our region.
        The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and these other disasters
    really point to the need to coordinate a response for our most
    vulnerable populations, children, the elderly, disabled, those
    who are in need of immediate medical attention who might be
    separated from their providers.
        So I hope today that we are also able to look forward at a
    set of standards and a training and assistance for child care
    providers and for those who work in assisted living and other
    facilities with these vulnerable populations who often report
    that they are at a loss as to what they might do in an
    emergency situation. And so I look forward to learning from you
    today and to working with my colleagues. And thank you,
    especially to the leadership of Representative Brown, to make
    certain that we consider these vulnerable populations in all of
    our emergency planning.
        And I yield the balance of my time.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Ms. Edwards.
        We will hear testimony in the order in which you are
    sitting. First Tim Manning, Deputy Administrator, National
    Preparedness Directorate of FEMA.

       TESTIMONY OF TIM MANNING, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL
    PREPAREDNESS DIRECTORATE, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY;
      MARK SHRIVER, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON CHILDREN AND
       DISASTERS; JOHN VAUGHN, CHAIRPERSON, NATIONAL COUNCIL ON
        DISABILITY; AND TREVOR RIGGEN, SENIOR DIRECTOR, DIRECT
                      SERVICES, AMERICAN RED CROSS

        Mr. Manning. Chairwoman Norton, Ranking Member Diaz-Balart,
    and other distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, good
    afternoon. It is a privilege to be before you today on behalf
    of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, and I am glad
    to join my colleagues from the Red Cross, National Council on
    Disability, and the National Commission on Children and
    Disasters.
        I am also pleased to report to you that FEMA has
    established a Children's Working Group as of August, 2009, to
    serve as the Agency's primary advocate for children. The
    working group is responsible for ensuring that children's needs
    are incorporated into all of our disaster preparedness,
    response and recovery efforts, and coordinates the resources
    necessary to meet the needs of children in times of disaster.
    The group is chaired by a very senior member of the
    Department's leadership team and its members represent all
    sectors of FEMA.
        Specifically, the Children's Working Group is focused on
    the following key areas: child-specific guidance for
    evacuation, sheltering, and relocation; disaster-related needs
    of children with disabilities; tracking and reunification of
    families; coordinated case management support; enhanced
    preparedness for child care centers; enhanced national
    planning, including the incorporation of children into national
    planning scenarios and exercises; incorporation of children's
    needs into grant guidance; improved recovery coordination
    across the Federal Government with State, tribal, and local
    partners in support of children's education, health, and
    housing; consideration as to how the Federal family can help
    ensure child care centers are able to rebuild and restore
    services more quickly following a disaster; and increased
    public awareness efforts to educate families and protect
    children during disasters.
        Historically, the U.S. Has approached disaster planning by
    focusing heavily on the needs of what we may refer to as the
    general population and has not devoted sufficient advanced
    attention to those who may have special needs and thus require
    special specific and immediate attention in a crisis.
        Madam Chairwoman, FEMA is changing this paradigm. We
    believe that children, the elderly, persons with disability,
    and other special needs populations must be fully and
    consistently integrated into preparedness efforts and planning
    efforts at every level of government from the beginning. We
    must avoid putting planning considerations specific to those
    with special needs in a separate box and instead build better
    disaster response and recovery plans that account for the fact
    that those with special needs comprise a significant percentage
    of the population. One of our top goals is to institutionalize
    this approach across our agency and throughout emergency
    management.
        In December of 2007, Congress created the bipartisan
    National Commission on Children and Disasters. The Commission
    has evaluated existing laws, regulations, policies, and
    programs that affect children in disasters, and we have
    received the interim report and look forward to the time report
    in 2010. FEMA has been meeting with the Commission regularly
    and looks forward to working with the Committee and Congress
    and implementing the Commission's recommendations.
        Rather than waiting to move forward, however, FEMA has
    established a Children's Working Group, allowing us to address
    the Commission's recommendations in a proactive manner. For
    example, we have participated in the creation of a shelter
    supply list in concert with the Commission, the Red Cross, and
    other subject matter experts in emergency management and
    pediatric care. This list identifies the basic supplies
    necessary to sustain and support infants and children up to 3
    years of age for a 24-hour period. The Commission recommends
    State and local jurisdictions provide caches of these supplies
    that support the care of children in mass care shelters for a
    minimum of 72 hours.
        FEMA has built a strong network of both public and private
    partner organizations that will help unify and strengthen our
    combined capabilities. For instance, FEMA has worked with the
    National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to establish
    a National Emergency Child Locator Center. FEMA is working hard
    to ensure that its own basic planning addresses special needs
    populations, that we are supporting and assisting our States,
    tribes and localities in this regard. We are reinforcing the
    critical need and personal preparedness to encourage
    individuals and families to adequately prepare themselves for
    disaster events, recognizing that better individual
    preparedness translates into better community preparedness and
    resilience.
        Madam Chair, in conclusion, FEMA and the Department of
    Homeland Security are committed to advancing our Nation's
    preparedness by emphasizing the disaster needs of our Nation's
    most vulnerable citizens. Our efforts must begin with personal
    preparedness, a process of individual thinking and
    consideration of basic steps that each of us and our families
    must take to prevent and prepare for the next disaster.
        In times of crisis government plays a critical role in
    coordinating the response and recovery efforts, especially in
    protecting and providing for the most vulnerable members of our
    population. Members of our communities with special needs
    cannot simply fall to secondary planning considerations but
    must be one of the central focuses of our planning, response,
    and recovery.
        Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the
    Subcommittee, for allowing me to testify today. I am happy to
    answer any questions that you may have.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Deputy Administrator
    Manning.
        Before we go to Mr. Shriver I note that our very busy Full
    Committee Chairman has come by this hearing. We very much
    appreciate his being here for whatever time he can devote, and
    I think it is an indication of the importance of this subject
    matter to the Committee and the Subcommittee that the Chairman,
    who I believe has more Subcommittees than any other Committee,
    is here and to offer his own comments, which I will ask him to
    do at this time.
        Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't want to
    interrupt the flow of testimony but I do want to welcome the
    Commission and especially Mark Shriver, a friend of very, very
    longstanding. Not only Mark but his mother, Eunice, whose
    passing we all mourn but who is remembered in my hometown of
    Chisholm at the center, the Range Center, as it is known,
    center for intellectually and physically challenged people. And
    Madam Chair, Eunice Shriver dedicated that facility--she was
    the inspiration for it to start. She came for its dedication
    and there is a facility in her name, the Eunice Shriver
    Swimming Pool, which is something she suggested for physically
    and intellectually challenged persons, and it is regularly used
    not only by those who are resident at the center, but also
    people of the community. She is known and loved and her memory
    is treasured in Chisholm, Minnesota, and elsewhere around the
    country.
        At an event that we had just recently, I noted frequently I
    would see Sarge and Eunice and Mark at mass in Potomac at Our
    Lady of Mercy, and Eunice would never forget to ask about the
    Range Center, its founder Veda Ponikvar, the publisher of our
    newspaper, and always sent her best regards, and let me tell
    you people were in tears when I told that story. And Mark
    Shriver continues in the spirit of the Shriver-Kennedy family
    of giving of himself to great public causes.
        Thank you. You were the inspiration for this legislation to
    create the Commission, and we welcome your testimony here today
    and thank you for your continuing contribution.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Shriver, you have our condolences. As you know, you
    have the condolences of the Nation on the passing of your
    mother, who contributed so much to the Nation and the world for
    children and people with disabilities.
        We will hear next from the Chairman of the National
    Commission on Children and Disasters, Mr. Shriver.
        Mr. Shriver. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And
    Congressman Oberstar, thank you very much for your kind
    comments, and I am very glad that you mentioned me going to
    mass; so hopefully that will make my father happy as well. So
    thank you very much.
        Ranking Member Diaz-Balart, thank you for your kind
    comments, Congressman Carnahan, Congresswoman Edwards, and of
    course Congresswoman Brown, thank you for your leadership on
    this issue. You really picked up the ball and made it happen in
    the House under this Committee and we are awfully grateful for
    your support a couple of years ago and making this hearing
    happen today.
        I am Mark Shriver. I am Chair of the National Commission on
    Children and Disasters, and it really is an honor to be up here
    on this panel to discuss this very important issue, Madam
    Chair.
        I think for the last 10 years when you look at it, and for
    so many of us, especially for children, this will be remembered
    as a disaster decade. Our kids have looked at TV and from their
    windows they have seen skyscrapers collapsing, communities
    under water, entire neighborhoods leveled by tornadoes or
    engulfed by fire. And during so many of those events, children
    have been left vulnerable because of a disaster management
    system that treats them as little adults and doesn't account
    for their unique needs.
        You have heard, as you said, Madam Chair, some of the
    statistics that are truly appalling. After Katrina it took up
    to 6 months to reunify the last child with their family. After
    Ike and Gustav shelters didn't have enough supplies, including
    diapers, formula, and cribs. In many cases children are not
    counted separately from the general population in the number of
    shelters, making it difficult to provide supplies and services
    to meet their specific needs. Research conducted just a few
    months ago showed that only seven States meet the basic child
    protection standards for schools and child care facilities
    across this country. And the statistics in New Orleans after
    Katrina and Rita show that there were 15,731 daycare slots at
    266 licensed centers before the storm hit, and a year after 80
    percent of those centers and 75 percent of those slots were
    still gone. And we often wonder why New Orleans has not had the
    economic development that it needs. When you don't have child
    care centers, child care facilities up and running, families
    with young children will not come back to work.
        Children represent 25 percent of the American population.
    There are 74 million kids, 18 and under. We need to put their
    lives and well-being at the front and center. The Federal
    Government and its partners have not made children a higher
    priority than pets in disaster planning and management. I have
    to say, Madam Chair, that is outrageous. Instead, children are
    considered at-risk or special needs population and they are
    grouped in among the elderly, persons with disabilities, the
    medically dependent, persons with limited English proficiency;
    yet they make up 25 percent of the American population.
    Consequently, they are given less attention and resources when
    disaster plans are written and exercised when equipment and
    supplies are purchased. Congresswoman Edwards, you spoke about
    that. But those efforts are not addressed for children.
        So Congress created the National Commission on Children and
    Disasters to look at this cycle of benign neglect. We issued
    our interim report last week. We gave it to President Obama and
    Members of Congress. The interim report identified a couple of
    disaster-- shortcomings in disaster preparedness, response, and
    recovery and provides recommendations to make children an
    immediate priority in disaster planning.
        For the purpose of today's hearing I will focus quickly on
    just a few of the 21 recommendations provided in the interim
    report.
        The first one, Madam Chair, is to incorporate children as
    an immediate priority within the White House and the Federal
    Emergency Management Agency. The White House plays a central
    role in leadership and coordinating role in advising the
    President on matters affecting national security, including
    disaster.
        The Commission has recommended to the President that a
    coordinating council be formed composed of senior White House
    staff and collaborating with the National Security Council,
    Domestic Policy Council, and the National Security staff to
    serve as a focal point for presidential policy development
    specific to children and disasters.
        As legislators, I would ask you to ask those entities
    whether they ever hear about children's needs in planning for
    and responding to disasters, and I will tell you the answer is
    unequivocally no. They don't hear at the higher levels of
    government about children's needs.
        FEMA also plays a central role in coordinating support
    during disaster planning and management for partners,
    communities, and citizens, and Tim spoke a little bit about
    that. Administrator Fugate created a Children's Working Group
    that serves as a centralized platform across the agency, but as
    Tim mentioned, this just started in August of last year and I
    hope that as legislators you will keep pressure on FEMA to make
    sure that that Children's Working Group has access to the
    Administrator and really does focus on children's needs.
        Our second recommendation is to provide a safe and secure
    emergency shelter environment for children, including access to
    age-appropriate services and supplies. The Commission
    facilitated the development, as Tim mentioned, of standards and
    indicators for disaster care for children. This is being
    piloted by the American Red Cross during the 2009 hurricane
    season. Standards and indicators will be evaluated and revised
    as necessary and incorporated in a comprehensive document to
    provide general shelter guidelines and training for shelter
    managers and staff. The Commission also facilitated the
    development of a list of age-appropriate shelter supplies for
    infants and toddlers. Based on this list, Federal, State and
    local disaster supplies can be created or expanded to support
    shelter managers with essential and cost-reimbursable supplies
    like baby formula, diapers, and cribs.
        The third recommendation is that Congress should require
    tougher preparedness requirements for child care providers and
    increase support for child care services in the immediate
    aftermath of and recovery from a disaster. Congress can take
    immediate steps to prioritize child care disaster preparedness,
    response, and recovery: Include a requirement in the
    reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant
    that requires child care providers to have comprehensive all-
    hazard material plans that at a minimum incorporates specific
    capabilities, such as sheltering in place, evacuation,
    relocation, family reunification, and children with special
    needs; require child care provider disaster plans to be
    coordinated with State and local disaster operation plans;
    provide reimbursement from the Stafford Act to support child
    care services to displaced families, establish temporary
    disaster child care and repair and reconstruction of child care
    facilities. We know, Madam Chair, that Administrator Fugate is
    looking at that issue, but I would ask that the Committee work
    to make sure that that decision is expedited and we don't have
    to wait.
        Finally, and I will wrap up, the Federal Government must
    make up its mind to establish a single holistic disaster case
    management program with an emphasis on achieving positive
    outcomes for all children and families. After Katrina and Rita,
    the Federal Government provided at least $290 million for
    disaster case management services. These programs had poor
    outcomes and illuminated the need for greater coordination and
    program evaluation in the provision of disaster case management
    services.
        The Commission recognizes that FEMA has authorized four
    pilot disaster case management programs following Gustav and
    Ike, but it is unacceptable that after a year FEMA and its
    partners still haven't worked out a case management system that
    is comprehensive, effective and deployed in a rapid manner.
        In conclusion, the Commission strongly believes that the
    best way to instill public confidence in the way our Nation
    prepares for, responds to, and recovers from a disaster is to
    make sure the needs of children are an immediate priority. In
    the aftermath of a disaster, effectively providing for the
    safety and well-being of kids will provide greater stability
    and help families and communities recover.
        Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the Subcommittee, for
    this time to talk, and we look forward to working with you on
    legislation that will make a better situation for kids all
    across the country.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Shriver and especially for your
    work in chairing this Commission.
        The next witness is John Vaughn, the Chair of the National
    Council on Disability.
        Mr. Vaughn.
        Mr. Vaughn. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Diaz-Balart,
    and Members of the Subcommittee, on behalf of the National
    Council on Disability, thank you for the opportunity to talk
    about this critical issue here in our country.
        The testimony I will offer today is based on NCD's work in
    emergency preparedness that started back in 2004. Simply put,
    NCD's interest is in a coherent national disaster management
    framework that is inclusive of people with disabilities. When
    we say "coherent" we are envisioning leadership that involves
    effective government coordination and collaboration across
    Federal, State and local levels of government. When we say
    "inclusive," we are talking about a transparent ongoing
    consideration of people with disabilities within the same
    framework as nondisabled people.
        According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 54
    million Americans have disabilities. The incidence of
    disability cuts across all age groups; however, there is a
    greater prevalence of disability as people age. For example,
    middle-aged people have a disability rate of about 22 percent;
    65-to 70- year olds about 44 percent; and over 80 some 75
    percent. By 2030 the population of people 65 and older will
    nearly double, comprising nearly 20 percent of the U.S.
    population. As a consequence, it is likely that disability will
    touch every American's life either personally or through that
    of a loved one. So when we talk about considerations of
    ``special needs'' populations in times of disaster, we are
    really talking about a topic that affects or touches every
    American.
        I would like to note two of the major policy gaps we have
    identified through our research. One, there is a lack of
    involvement of people with disabilities in local planning
    throughout all phases of the life cycle of an emergency.
    Secondly, there is a lack of available resources to local
    communities to address the emergency concerns of the local
    community affecting all people and especially those with
    disabilities. Here are a few quick examples that illustrate
    these gaps:
        One, people with disabilities are routinely excluded from
    local drills, preparedness exercises, and other planning
    processes. Two, one study noted that of 30 disaster sites, only
    27 percent of the emergency managers had taken advantage of and
    completed available training on disabilities. Three people with
    disabilities remain largely forgotten during the response phase
    of a disaster. And, four, emergency warnings for people with
    disabilities is woefully inadequate. Most disaster warnings are
    only handled through a conventional communication system which
    is usually inaccessible to people with cognitive hearing and
    vision disabilities.
        From our research it is clear that much work needs to be
    done. In order to build a coherent and inclusive national
    disaster management framework, we would suggest the following:
    That Federal grant requirements and incentives be used to
    ensure the direct involvement of people with disabilities in
    State and local funding proposals to FEMA and to DHS. Under
    such an approach, judging of State and local funding proposals
    would necessitate establishing benchmarks and evaluation
    criteria that demonstrate inclusion and address the needs of
    people with disabilities.
        The challenges faced by people with disabilities during
    emergencies shouldn't be viewed merely as those of a special
    interest group because planning for and accommodating people
    with disabilities often means that we are better equipped to
    serve all people during an emergency. History has taught us
    that failure to plan for inclusion is a plan to fail.
        I thank you for the opportunity to be with you, and I will
    look forward to any questions.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn.
        The final witness is Trevor Riggen, Senior Director of
    Direct Services, American Red Cross. Mr. Riggen.
        Mr. Riggen. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Norton, Ranking
    Member Diaz-Balart, and distinguished Members of the
    Subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to be here today
    and speak to this important issue.
        As mentioned, my name is Trevor Riggen and I lead domestic
    service delivery for the American Red Cross.
        When disaster strikes the American Red Cross is there to
    provide shelter, food, critical resources and support to those
    in need. Our first priority is to ensure that those affected
    have a safe place to stay, food to eat, and the tools they need
    to start their recovery. How our organization and the sector as
    a whole meets these challenges can go a long way toward
    ensuring a more effective and inclusive relief effort to
    benefit those in need.
        Moving forward, as the Ranking Member mentioned, there is a
    lot of work ahead of us to meet the critical challenges and
    concerns laid out in both the interim report by the Commission
    and NCD. To build on that important work, we come today with
    four key recommendations: One, government and local agencies
    plan for a more permanent housing solution that is critical to
    families with children, the elderly and people with
    disabilities that are prioritized for assistance.
        Two, that children are best served if the regular routine
    of their day-to-day life can be restored as quickly as
    possible. Therefore, we recommend that we all work together to
    make sure that schools can open as quickly as possible after a
    disaster.
        Our third recommendation is we support accelerating the
    development of a national recovery framework. This important
    resource will help to coordinate the vast number of agencies
    that are willing to come forward for long-term recovery.
        And, finally, children, the elderly and people with
    disabilities must be considered as distinct populations and not
    part of a larger special needs category. This last
    recommendation I would like to focus on for the rest of my
    time.
        Over time the term "special needs" has become a catch-all
    for any person who may need additional services beyond the,
    quote/unquote, average survivor. As a result, disaster plans
    have become a lengthy list of appendices in an attempt to
    capture the multitude of possibilities and needs created by
    disasters. The assumption that the majority of persons fit in
    the average or one-size-fits-all category has proven to be
    false and plans to meet the needs of this entire community must
    change accordingly.
        In short, special needs is not an adequate description. As
    we all agree, children are not small adults and people with
    disabilities and the elderly have distinct needs that demand
    our attention.
        Over the past 4 years, the Red Cross has made significant
    improvements on our focus of these distinct needs. With the
    help of key partners like NCD, Save the Children, and FEMA, we
    are beginning to both define the needs and build those
    requirements into our general planning. One example of this is
    the proper resourcing of our shelters. Based on the analysis of
    critical barriers, we have strategically stockpiled key
    resources to increase accessibility and provide critical
    durable medical equipment to our clients. This includes items
    such as transferable cots, adaptive equipment for showers and
    toilets, and essential communications equipment.
        The Red Cross is also currently working with FEMA on the
    development of a national capability to resource shelter with
    caregivers. This will assist local government in the
    identification of a cadre of resources to help fill that gap
    and provide for the daily living assistance that many of our
    clients require and deserve.
        Additionally, we have implemented important training to
    enhance workers' awareness and their technical ability for
    assisting those with disabilities and the elderly. Over 5,000
    Red Cross volunteers have been trained so far, and we
    anticipate even further enhancements to this curriculum moving
    forward.
        Most recently we have worked closely with the Commission on
    Children and Disasters to develop some exciting tools to codify
    the standards and best practices for children in shelters. This
    includes the much needed supply list of critical items we need
    when disaster strikes, including diapers, formula, bedding, and
    other basic necessities. We are beginning now to aggressively
    move forward to resource our chapter structure with the
    identified supplies for children and find the appropriate
    balance of both caches of these supplies and locally accessible
    items through partners and vendors.
        A great example of this work is right here in the D.C.
    Area. Our local chapter, the National Capital Region, has
    worked closely with the National Organization on Disabilities
    to ensure that services and shelters are accessible to people
    with disabilities, and this includes a review of all shelters
    for accessibility and identification of specific items that
    would create a barrier to anyone needing access. The chapter
    has also received key government funding to secure additional
    equipment and supplies here locally.
        In conclusion, Madam Chairwoman and distinguished Members,
    thank you for allowing us to testify today. We must all plan to
    serve our entire community after a disaster, and I thank you
    for your interest and concern on this important issue. I look
    forward to any questions you may have.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Riggen, and I want to thank all
    the witnesses for their helpful testimony.
        Now I am going to ask one overriding question of all
    witnesses. Then I am going to go to the Ranking Member and to
    other Members before I ask another set of questions that I
    have.
        When we are concerned about treatment of people who are
    identifiably a part of a group, we tend to focus on them as a
    part of that group. As you all are aware and as your testimony
    makes clear, people don't come in ones and twosies. Some might
    have thought that this report would be called--if it had been
    any other disaster, it would probably have been called
    "families and children." There are very few children in foster
    care, and if they are they are also not supposed to be
    unsupervised. I want to make sure that in fighting the last war
    we are also fighting the next war.
        The same is true, Mr. Vaughn, when it comes to people with
    disabilities. Most of them do not live alone. I was
    particularly impressed with Mr. Vaughn's testimony about the
    elderly because a good number of them live alone and would be
    absolutely helpless if there were a disaster. They live alone.
    They get around their homes well enough. They may even go to
    the store and do some things for themselves. But you tell them
    to be at shelter X, we are in trouble and they are in trouble.
        So I am a little concerned that in focusing on people of a
    specified group, whether those people are children or people
    with disabilities, we may lose sight of the context in which--
    where they live.
        I will be very personal with you. I have a child who is now
    a woman with Down's Syndrome. She is 39 years old and I am
    pleased and proud that she lives with me, and so far as I can
    make possible, always will live with me. I believe that
    Katherine, if there were a terrible hurricane in Washington,
    Katherine would not be traumatized if she were separated from
    me. And guess what? I could be here. She could be at the lovely
    institute for drama and such that she goes to every day. So the
    chances are, at least given the hours that I have and the hours
    that many parents have, I wouldn't even be there. The fact is
    that the 6-1/2 months it took us to relocate some children with
    their parents went less to children than to how we treated
    families. Moreover, our focus on children comes because when we
    found so many children disconnected from the living unit, we
    were not prepared to deal with them as disconnected children.
    We didn't have the supplies. We didn't have the personnel. We
    didn't have the focus. So you would help me in looking at these
    groups which we see as disparate. We think children and
    families may live one way and we want to focus on children with
    families who have to be handled in one way. We see that there
    will be a special focus for people who are disabled and
    elderly. But when you consider the disability coordinator, the
    recommendations so far of the Commission and of others, I would
    like to know whether your recommendations conceive of them in
    the units where they are located or should be located were it
    not for the disaster and what your recommendations have--what
    recommendations you have to us about dealing with, first,
    family, whether it is natural family or other reunifications,
    as a function of whatever services we think we are supposed to
    provide.
        So beginning with you, Mr. Manning, I would like all four
    of you to address the notion of the units in which these people
    that we are discussing today will either already be a part of
    or should be a part of if we are to provide them with the
    services they need after a disaster. Then I will go down the
    line.
        Mr. Manning. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that is of
    course the most crucial part of our planning and our failure to
    plan in the past, that we have built a planning system for
    disaster preparedness, for emergency preparedness that focuses
    on the general population, and then when we recognize or we
    communicate with our partners that we have at the table today
    that bring to our attention that we have forgotten about a
    segment of our population, we tend to respond by the inclusion
    of an additional planning guidance or the recommendation that
    we write an additional plan to support and provide for those
    members of the community.
        What we have recognized is that what we need is a better
    way to plan. We need a better system from the ground up so that
    we incorporate the needs of all the members of a community, all
    the members of our society, not a particular disability group
    or children as an annex or an afterthought or an add-on to our
    plans and our preparedness activities but one that cross cuts
    from the beginning.
        Administrator Fugate uses the example of having been
    offered the opportunity to buy a certain number of cots for
    sheltering and then a certain number of ADA compliant cots. And
    he asks the question why am I buying two sets of cots? Why
    don't we just buy ADA cots and they are available for use by
    everyone? It is that kind of thinking that needs to permeate
    what we do. It is a way of doing business, and it is one that
    we are undertaking with great speed and due diligence to bring
    across the entire mission set of FEMA and emergency management.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Manning. The greatest service
    FEMA could have provided in Katrina was not diapers. A lot of
    us know how to make do on that if you are going to have some to
    us in a few days. The greatest service they could have provided
    was advanced word to families about how to keep their children
    with them no matter what, and then lots of things take care of
    themselves once you are with your mama or your provider.
        Mr. Shriver.
        Mr. Shriver. Madam Chair, I think we need to do a better
    job addressing the issue you have talked about. I mentioned the
    child care issue and the child facilities that weren't rebuilt
    in New Orleans and part of the reason that city is still
    struggling. So I don't think we have looked comprehensively at
    the needs of families, if that is what your question is getting
    at. So we rebuild or put dollars through the Stafford Act for
    facilities, for levees, and for schools. But if you have a
    little kid--we have a 4-year-old. If you have a little kid who
    is going to school in second grade and there is no place to put
    your 4-year-old, you are not going to move back to New Orleans
    or you are not going to move to D.C. So we don't, I don't
    think, look comprehensively at the needs of families and
    children within those families.
        Child care facilities here in Washington D.C., if a dirty
    bomb were to drop and you were evacuated and your daughter were
    to go to a different place, the facility that she is at or the
    place that she works at, I don't know if they are clear on
    where they are going to evacuate your child where your child
    is--and how your child is going to be reunified with you. If
    your phones are jammed, is there a backup plan for your
    daughter to reach out to another family member?
        So we don't set minimum requirements for child care
    facilities across this country or other facilities. Whether it
    is a juvenile detention facility or the place where your
    daughter is, I would be willing to bet you right now does not
    have a comprehensive evacuation plan in place because the city,
    this city, does not require it and most States in this country
    don't require it. So they are not looking at kids' needs within
    the family structure and when it is a child care facility.
        I have great respect----
        Ms. Norton. Is that true, Mr. Manning, that most cities
    don't have an evacuation plan for special needs facilities?
        Mr. Manning. Madam Chair, that is a local requirement and
    that is most likely true that the vast majority do not.
        Mr. Shriver. I am talking for your daughter, but also
    through child care shelters--child care facilities across this
    country. It is not uniform in Washington, D.C. We are actually
    working with Councilman Evans right now to try to get
    legislation to make those basic standards--or requirements part
    of the law. And it is a no-cost or low-cost alternative. So we
    are not looking at children within the family unit because we
    don't really focus in on child care facilities which deal with
    hundreds of thousands of kids in this city and millions of kids
    across this country.
        I think the present leadership of FEMA has done a great job
    looking at children's needs and they have only been in office
    for 4 months. But unfortunately when we respond--when there was
    a response to American Samoa, when FEMA sent a team out there,
    they did not take within the Department of Health and Human
    Services the Administration for Children and Families which
    focus in on children's needs. They took ASPR, which focuses in
    on the health needs but is not focused in on the needs of
    children.
        You know, we can go back and forth about why that didn't
    happen. I have great admiration for the Administrator, but I
    think that should have been part of the plan. We should be
    looking at not just the health needs of people impacted in
    American Samoa but have experts on the ground that understand
    the needs of children, the mental health needs of children.
        If your daughter gets separated from you for hours, if not
    days, that is going to cause some real issues for you and your
    daughter. Imagine if your kid is 2 years old and separated and
    the mental issues they are going to have to deal with, or a 5
    or 6-year-old if their home is washed away, if they don't have
    the resources there to deal with that.
        So I think the answer is we have a lot of work to do in
    making sure that children are, in particular in the case in
    which I am talking, seen as a unit within the family and within
    the larger society.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Shriver. Your answer leads me,
    before I go on to Mr. Vaughn, to ask Mr. Manning whether or not
    there is rulemaking going on to clarify that child care centers
    can receive assistance in the event of disaster or, for that
    matter, that the kinds of places where kids hang out, like boys
    and girls clubs or even our own Head Start centers, would
    qualify to receive assistance in the wake of a disaster?
        Mr. Manning. Madam Chairwoman, yes. Currently facilities
    that meet those descriptions that are private nonprofits or
    nongovernmental organizations are eligible for disaster
    assistance, and we are exploring how we may be able to extend
    assistance beyond those facilities. Where you have for-profit
    facilities, they are excluded, and we are looking at that
    currently, yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Manning. It is very important
    that we focus where the children are, in families or in these
    other facilities.
        Now, Mr. Vaughn, I was impressed by what you said in regard
    to the question I have asked because you mentioned the elderly
    and people with disabilities. I mean we have people with very
    diverse disabilities. Somebody who is completely blind who goes
    to work every day is very different from someone who has to
    stay at home because he is so hard of hearing that he does not
    and has nobody to go out with him or the elderly person I
    mentioned earlier.
        Ms. Norton. Test the context in which disabled people live,
    are we able to deal with them in context, in the groups where
    they live or as individuals where they may live alone, Mr.
    Vaughn?
        Mr. Vaughn. Yes. In my written testimony to the Committee,
    we talk about the holistic planning that needs to occur at the
    national, local and State level, whether it be making sure at
    the local level that there is temporary housing to deal with
    the needs of families who get displaced or whatever. I think it
    gets back on a lot of these to me--and I think in our
    recommendation--that we need to get the availability of grants
    to get that kind of planning done. I expect that--I serve in,
    down in Florida where I live, on the local disability
    committee. One issue just came up the other day. The issues
    keep coming up. This had to do with the rising problem of
    children with autism and the impact on shelters.
        So I think everything gets to be very holistic, and we
    really believe that there has just got to be more effort,
    because I think what we have heard from all four of us, that a
    lot of it is not getting done in the local communities. Living
    in Florida like I do, on the west coast, we had four hurricanes
    4 years ago in 1 year. So you had better be looking after your
    own needs. But it has got to be a holistic approach to the
    functional needs of everybody. As a blind person, I am
    fortunate that my wife is sighted, but in a hurricane, I could
    become where I am having to fend for myself.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. Mr. Riggen, the Red
    Cross, of course, has for decades had to deal with families,
    children. This is nothing new for you. Would you tell us about
    your experience and what you think--how people are handling
    their context?
        Mr. Riggen. I want to thank the Chairwoman for this
    question because I think this really gets to the crux of the
    issue we are talking about today. The family structure in a
    shelter is very important, and I will start with the shelters.
    Part of the recommendations that we worked with the Commission
    on and what we are starting to develop now is to ensure that
    families are held together in shelters very closely. We are
    making sure the children are both protected and the family
    structure remains resilient after a disaster which is extremely
    important.
        Ms. Norton. Did you find in Katrina that sometimes the
    parents, because there were so many people, you know, were made
    to sleep on cots here and the children on cots someplace else
    in the children's section or something of that kind?
        Mr. Riggen. It is an extreme case, especially in large
    disasters or large shelters. It is extremely challenging
    throughout a day when the resources are coming into the
    shelter. Where the parents have to leave the shelter to get
    resources and services, the children do get cordoned off
    sometimes and that is what we are trying to avoid. We want to
    get the family structure back. And worst-case scenarios, we
    don't want shelters to split up based on need. We don't want
    one part of the family to go to a special needs shelter and one
    part in a general population shelter. We want the family to
    stay intact. To have each type of shelter be able to absorb
    that population is extremely critical.
        The other piece on remaining in the family is the pictures
    we have over here to the right from American Samoa, and this is
    our partnership with Save the Children on the ground there.
    There is some great work on working with children. What you
    don't see is the casework that happens in the villages. This is
    because we have to go to the family, and every family is
    different. Disabilities can take all forms. They can be
    cognitive, mental, physical. The issues of the elderly in that
    family could be different. The family size can vary. The
    individual casework, sending a worker, a volunteer to sit down
    with a family and having them listen to the story, what are
    your needs, how can we best meet those needs? If we can keep a
    family in their home, that sends them forward on a recovery
    much quicker than having them have to move to a shelter weeks
    later.
        So the casework piece is extremely important, and the
    transition of that casework to long-term case management is
    also extremely critical and we look forward to moving forward
    on that.
        Ms. Norton. That is really interesting. The notion of stay
    in place if you can is a really interesting notion.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
    Before I start, I would also be remiss if I did not recognize
    also the great job that my colleague from Florida,
    Representative Brown, has worked on these issues. She is a
    tireless advocate for Florida, for her district but also for
    children. I think I would be remiss if I didn't mention that.
    Also, I thought Mr. Vaughn made a very interesting point and I
    apologize because I am probably going to butcher it. So I am
    going to paraphrase it. Mr. Vaughn, you basically stated that
    when you plan and you do a better job with people with
    disabilities, you help everybody because everybody benefits,
    everybody does well, everybody is planned for better.
        I have a couple questions for Mr. Manning. The integrated
    planning system has been pretty widely criticized by this
    Committee, as you know, and the emergency management community
    as well as being too complicated, labor-intensive, just
    difficult to implement at the State and local levels. Is that
    going to be replaced? Are you looking at that scenario, your
    scenario-based system with an all hazards type approach as
    opposed to what we have now? Any idea what the status is on
    that?
        Mr. Manning. The integrated planning system is under
    review. It is being reviewed. The review is being led by the
    national security staff and the disaster readiness group, of
    which FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security hold a
    number of chairs. The emergency management community has had a
    tradition of doing all hazards based planning where we do a
    base plus annex planning. We do a base plan for those things
    that cross-cut all types of disasters and specific annexes to
    deal with the incident-specific issues. That is one of the more
    prominent options that are back on the table for our future
    planning system. There isn't a firm timeline for the completion
    of that, but it is very actively being looked at.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you. I mentioned in my opening
    statement that the post-Katrina Act explicitly requires FEMA to
    coordinate with the National Council on Disabilities on all
    aspects of the national preparedness system. How will you
    ensure that FEMA implements this obviously very important
    requirement and actively coordinates with the NCD and the
    planning and preparation for disasters, which I think we have
    heard is not quite there yet.
        Mr. Manning. Yes, sir. We do have a very close working
    relationship with the National Council on Disabilities.
        Ms. Norton. Speak up, Mr. Manning, please.
        Mr. Manning. I am sorry. I will move closer. As we come
    into the review of the national response framework, which we
    will be beginning shortly, there will be a disability community
    as well as all of the--people representing all factions of our
    society and levels of government will be integrally involved in
    how we conduct that review. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Diaz-Balart. I would like to ask
    Chairman Oberstar if he has any questions at this time.
        Mr. Oberstar. No questions, Madam Chair. I thought you put
    your finger on the issue very well right at the outset of the
    questioning. I also want to join with Mr. Diaz-Balart for
    complimenting our colleague, Ms. Brown, for being such an
    advocate on behalf of children and for the initiative Mr.
    Shriver put forth. Mr. Cao as well has spoken to me many times
    about the need to address these issues from his own experience
    in New Orleans. But I think, Madam Chair, that, you know, we
    have the FEMA authorization bill draft in Committee. We have
    had--you have had numerous hearings on the subject, a great
    deal of discussion about it, and I think we ought to just put
    some language rather than all these things that the Commission
    has recommended can be done, if you look at the forward,
    disaster management recovery, mental health, child physical
    health and trauma and so on all, of those can be done by
    executive order.
        Do you now how long it takes for executive orders to make
    their way through? Do you know how long it takes to go through
    the Federal Register process and the mounds of documentation
    that they take and the months of publication of advanced notice
    of proposed, notice of proposed rulemaking, proposed
    rulemaking, final rulemaking. That could be years. I think we
    ought to just put some directive language in our bill in
    consultation with the minority members, the Republican Members
    of the Committee and take these well-thought-out
    recommendations in policy statement and direct FEMA to move on
    them.
        I don't think we can wait. I don't think the children can
    wait. I don't think you, as you rightly pointed out, older
    persons, persons older than children, persons with other
    disabilities. You touched my heart so deeply with the story
    about your daughter. The center that I talked about, the Range
    Center, has numerous Down syndrome children who are being
    wonderfully cared for. We don't get hurricanes in northern
    Minnesota, but we do get blizzards and whiteouts.
        And if one of those should strike and people should be
    locked in there, as happens, we have a similar situation only
    it will be a hell of a lot colder than during a hurricane. So
    we have an opportunity here, and I think we ought to just move
    ahead with this and do just do it by legislation.
        Ms. Norton. The Chairman's impatience is well placed, it
    seems to me, in light of the Committee's report and the
    testimony we have heard today. This Subcommittee will work
    quickly, Mr. Chairman, in light of what you have said. Mr. Cao,
    have you any questions for the panel?
        Mr. Cao. I do, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. First of
    all, on behalf of my constituents in Orleans and Jefferson
    parishes, I would like to extend my appreciation of your work
    and the Ranking Member's work in holding this very important
    hearing. And I would like to thank again your sustained
    attention as demonstrated by this series of hearings related to
    disaster response and recovery, especially what happened in my
    district during Hurricane Katrina.
        Madam Chair, you are absolutely right. One of the greatest
    tragedies of Hurricane Katrina was the needless suffering of
    children, the disabled and those with special needs. I have
    heard of terrible stories from my constituents about their
    experiences during Hurricane Katrina, and let me just tell you
    a couple here. An elderly woman who was in my home area of New
    Orleans was unable to evacuate. It wasn't until days later that
    she was discovered dead in her home.
        In another instance, emergency response officials rescued
    an elderly man and transported him to a make-shift evacuation
    center where he died while waiting for medical professionals to
    treat his diabetes. Those are just a couple of stories that
    basically explain some of the many problems that we had in
    regards to preparation, and eventually also in the recovery
    process. My question is to Mr. Manning. One of the biggest
    problems that I have seen so far deals with the questions of
    recovery, especially in the area of helping those who are
    mentally ill, those who are disabled, and as some of the
    information I have read today that right after Katrina, 1,100
    schools were closed, and they were not open sufficiently quick
    enough in order to address the needs of children.
        What plans does FEMA have in place in regards to recovery
    to quickly allow children to get back in schools, to allow
    medical facilities to help treat the disabled, the mentally
    ill, those who are in tremendous need?
        Mr. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Cao. One of the things we have
    learned through our past disasters is where we have shortfalls
    in our plans, and getting schools reopened to get a sense of
    normalcy in the community, get the students back where they can
    learn, where they have their peer support groups is absolutely
    critical. We were--while certainly nowhere near the magnitude
    fortunately of what your constituents went through in
    Louisiana--within a week in American Samoa, we were able to get
    all but one or two of the schools reopened, and we were able to
    get arrangements made for the students of those schools to
    attend others in the short term. We have made the restoration
    of essential services, including schools, one of the highest
    priorities in our stabilization of an incident as we transition
    from lifesaving to life-sustaining operations. We will continue
    to examine closely how we do, how well we do, how well our
    partnership with the local and State governments and the
    nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations as we come together
    as a team to respond to disasters where we can be better and
    modify our plans, institute additional training and ensure that
    the needs of our most vulnerable citizens are met as quickly as
    possible.
        Mr. Cao. Thank you. Mr. Shriver, in your testimony, you
    stated the need for adequate child care facilities after a
    disaster. Actually, I experienced that difficulty myself. I
    remember driving all over the district, trying to find a place
    where I could have people care for my two daughters. It was a
    very difficult and very frustrating experience. Can you provide
    or at least enlighten us with respect to how the lack of
    adequate child care facilities impede the recovery process of
    New Orleans?
        Mr. Shriver. Well, I think the statistics that were in the
    testimony speak to the dramatic impact and reduction of child
    care slots and child care facilities in New Orleans. I know
    that that is an ongoing issue, and I know it was an issue in
    Mississippi as well. I think the real question is a
    clarification of roles in what services are to be delivered for
    a recovery and who is supposed to deliver those. So if it is
    that child care facilities need to be rebuilt, is that FEMA's
    responsibility, mental health services and case management
    services I think are all very critical components to a recovery
    not only in Louisiana but across the country. How many dollars
    should be put into those different tranches and who is
    responsible for implementing those?
        So you see not only in the Gulf Coast, but you see last
    year as well after Ike and Gustav that the issue of case
    management. Who is responsible for case management, what does
    case management mean? Is that FEMA's responsibility and is
    finding a shelter, housing constitute successful closure of a
    case? Or do you need mental health services, do you need health
    care services, do you need child care services? I think that
    that is something that you in your oversight responsibilities
    as elected officials should really work hard with FEMA to
    clarify. I think to defend FEMA, they have not had great
    clarity on that in the past. I think Administrator Fugate has
    done a good job, trying to get children's needs as part of the
    overall plan as compared to an addendum to a plan but I think
    that those issues of case management, is FEMA, do you want them
    doing case management work?
        Mr. Cao. Mr. Manning, can you provide a response to Mr.
    Shriver?
        Mr. Manning. Certainly. Thank you. We are actively working
    with Health and Human Services to establish an interagency
    agreement that is going to resolve the issue of case
    management. By the end of the year, we expect that. Obviously
    that is not fast enough because disasters could happen at any
    moment. We need to be able to do that this afternoon. We have
    worked with HHS to establish some prescriptive mission
    assignments. We can do that today. We can deploy this quickly
    today. Mr. Shriver is correct in that we have not always been
    timely in that regard.
        In our dealing with HHS, we may focus in on the emergency
    medical piece to the exclusion of the other parts of the
    Department and the other needs of the community. We have
    recognized that. We have taken steps to account for that, and
    we have the ability to send case management and will if
    necessary send it in part of the immediate response package.
        Mr. Cao. Now in regards to child care facilities, as Mr.
    Shriver was pointing to, would it be the responsibility of FEMA
    to make sure that those facilities could be open? How do you
    come up with a plan, for example, to work out some of the
    issues in dealing with, for example, if the facility was
    insured under some private insurance plan? Have those details
    been worked out?
        Mr. Manning. The responsibility for the restoration for the
    reopening of child care facilities is one that is shared by the
    community. FEMA's role is one of supporting the Governors in
    support of local communities in response to a disaster. We can
    certainly and do provide planning guidance to communities to be
    able to expedite that. Through the delivery of services,
    disaster assistance can expedite that as well. Where a facility
    won't have the means to re-establish themselves, we can assist
    in that as well. We do consider child care centers when
    operated by private nonprofits to be performing an essential
    government service, and we will work with them, and then going
    forward, look at rulemaking to clarify that as well.
        Mr. Cao. Thank you, Madam Chair. Those are all the
    questions I have.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Cao. Mr. Cao is really pointing
    out the difference between--and I think Mr. Shriver's comments
    go to this too--if they are already in a child care facility,
    then we need to make sure the child care facility knows what to
    do. But the need for child care facilities, if a family is
    fortunate enough to go back to work and there is no standing
    child care facility, whether it is the one she used before or
    not, then of course case management has fallen very short. Ms.
    Brown.
        Ms. Brown. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me just say that I
    think Katrina will go down in one of the worst disasters in the
    history of the United States. Not that it was one of the worst
    disasters, it was one of the worst responses. And of course,
    you saw a government that was incompetent. Thousands of people
    got killed. This should not have happened, and what lessons
    have we learned? But one of the things that was encouraging was
    how the communities came together and worked together. My
    community came together. Communities came together all over the
    country, and we sent 10 tractor trailers full of--you know, we
    called and said, What do you need? We need diapers, we need
    water. Whatever they needed we put it on those tractor trailers
    and we sent it to New Orleans and we had the State reps there
    that unloaded them and made sure it got out to the people.
        So there is a--you know the American people looked at it,
    and this came from all over the country. They said, you know
    what can we do? This could be us. So we have got to make sure.
    I have made it my business to go there at least twice a year
    and I am getting ready to go there again the first of November.
    I tell them, I am their Member at large. I want to come and see
    how we are working and what we are doing.
        So Mr. Shriver, can you give me your report? I know it is
    lengthy. But what recommendations, what should I be looking for
    when I go the first of November?
        Mr. Shriver. Specific to New Orleans or in general?
        Ms. Brown. Well, you know in the broader picture. I come
    from Florida so we have it constantly. But I can tell you, it
    seems that maybe we are a little bit more prepared, maybe the
    government worked better with us as partners because it seemed
    that you know it wasn't a one team one fight there in that
    whole region.
        Mr. Shriver. I think that clearly the relationship that
    FEMA has with its partners is much, much better today than it
    ever has been. And I think we got a real sense not only the
    National Commission, but my other job working for Save the
    Children, which does respond to disasters have a much better
    partnership with FEMA than we have ever had. The door is open.
    The partnerships are much stronger than it ever has been and
    there is real change in the last 4 months since Administrator
    Fugate and Mr. Manning and their team came onboard, and it is
    also true with the Red Cross. There are much better partnership
    opportunities and much better responses than there ever were
    clearly under Katrina or has been in the past.
        I think you can continue to ask about the partnership
    opportunities and put pressure on all of us to work better
    together. I think you should ask in New Orleans about the case
    management issues that are happening in the Gulf Coast. I think
    you should ask about the case management response in Texas as a
    result of last year's hurricanes. Are services being provided
    to families and kids that need those services? Was that done in
    a timely fashion? Mr. Manning talked about coming to grips with
    a comprehensive case management system set up by the end of
    this year. I think you should ask about that. I mean, I think
    that--you know after Ike and Gustav went through last year--and
    this was before the present administration was in there--there
    were months and months of delay for case management services
    being delivered. If that happened to my family, if that
    happened to your family, I think there would be a lot of hell
    to be paid.
        The bottom line is that unfortunately for too many families
    that are impacted by disasters, they are poor, in many cases
    minority, and they don't have a mouthpiece to get their message
    out. So I think you could look and ask those questions about
    not only the case management after Katrina, which is ongoing,
    and the mental health needs of the kids that are still in the
    Gulf Coast is so profound, it is unbelievable. I will send you,
    Congresswoman, some of the statistics that are out there, and
    the lack of resources for mental health services for those
    kids. I think those are all questions you should be asking the
    Federal Government, if they are going to provide those
    services.
        Ms. Brown. I do know that as far as for the veterans, I
    pushed from my other Committee on Veterans Affairs and we are
    going to rebuild the VA hospital right there in the center. So
    it is going to be kind of a medical center that will provide
    the services because I know that they have had no hospital.
    Their complete hospital was wiped out and the veterans facility
    was wiped out. But it will be the center and working with a
    group coordinating for the community. So there is progress, but
    we need to make sure that we continue the progress.
        Mr. Shriver. Well, I agree with you, Congresswoman. I think
    as Mr. Diaz-Balart said in the beginning of his comments and
    throughout his comments, that there is still a lot of work that
    still needs to be done----
        Ms. Brown. No question.
        Mr. Shriver. --I think we should be asking the
    administration one of the lead recommendations that I spoke
    about and that is in the report is having folks that understand
    children's needs be part of the Domestic Policy Council and the
    National Security Council, and we have talked to those folks
    and they will tell you the needs of kids do not come to the
    forefront. I have talked to Members of Congress who have told
    me that after Katrina, there was a lot of focus on housing and
    on levees and rebuilding those and the infrastructure, which is
    all critical but we forget about human service needs and we
    forget about poor kids, and we forget about the mental health,
    the health services of those kids and we move on to the next
    disaster. It has almost been 5 years now and I think we need to
    ask this administration to really step in and address some of
    the glaring inadequacies in the planning for, responding to and
    recovery of disasters generally but in particular the one that
    is still going on in New Orleans, which is still a disaster.
        Ms. Brown. As we sit here today and speak--I just returned
    from Haiti--but there is a tent city right there in New Orleans
    where families, children, are living under the bridge or
    something. So there is a lot of work that we realize we still
    have to do to support the families that are in those
    communities.
        Madam Chairwoman, I want to thank you again for holding
    this hearing. I am looking forward to thoroughly reviewing the
    report from the Commission. Thank you.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Ms. Brown, for your leadership.
        Ms. Edwards.
        Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I just have a
    couple of questions. When you think about the population, 25
    percent children 18 and under, 20 percent of our population
    identified with disabilities at a minimum, about 20 percent
    elder population, when you start adding those numbers--although
    there is some overlap--it is our population. So I really do
    share the view, I think, expressed by each of you in different
    ways that when it comes to disaster management, we do need to
    look holistically because we are talking about the population,
    not a special population, not a segregated population but
    really all of the population that requires a certain set of
    needs.
        My question goes to a couple of things. One, I recall
    during Katrina--because I did much more work around issues of
    domestic violence--that many of our national domestic violence
    organizations were able to reach out to the Administration for
    Children and Families not through FEMA to provide relief and
    relocation services for mostly a population of women and
    children who had experienced domestic violence. One of the
    things that was happening in New Orleans is that those women
    and children who had to be evacuated from shelters were, in
    fact, moved to a place exactly where their abuser was. And when
    you get to issues around case management, there is a really
    clear need for case management because if you had a case
    manager who is looking holistically at the family and its
    needs, that kind of placement actually would not have happened.
    There was some additional work done through the Administration
    for Children and Families. It really was not FEMA-related when
    it came to relocation of some of that population.
        So I would just draw your attention to it. I also am really
    concerned on this issue of standards. I wonder if each of you
    might speak to that. The kind of standards for preparedness
    that might be necessary for child care providers but also long-
    term care providers, adult day care facilities. All of these
    sort of different kind--you know, day care arrangements for
    adults with special intellectual and physical challenges. Many
    of these kinds of institutions are already regulated by the
    State. So how difficult would it be to encourage our States or
    facilitate our States' ability to provide both tougher
    standards, but also the training and tools needed to
    participate effectively in disaster management efforts?
        So I wonder if you would speak to that. Then in some
    instances, I know in the State of Maryland, most child care is
    actually not provided in these more regulated child care
    facilities. It is home-based child care, even multiple children
    in home-based child care. So I would be concerned if we were
    only focused on ensuring the needs in that environment when we
    are missing the needs of a much bigger population for children.
    Mr. Manning and Mr. Shriver also.
        Mr. Manning. Thank you, Congresswoman Edwards. Those are
    very important points. If I may, I will start with the second
    first. The same difficulties that we have in reaching
    individuals and trying to increase individual and family
    preparedness, community preparedness we would face, we do face
    in reaching the child care center that is based in the home,
    that is maybe a nanny share or simply the willingness of
    neighbors to help neighbors and bring their children into the
    home. There is not regulation, there is not grant guidance that
    we, at FEMA, can issue that will address that. What we can do
    is to continue to try to push on our individual and family
    preparedness initiatives in our partnerships with the team at
    State and local governments and private nonprofits throughout
    the community, throughout the country to try to reach those. At
    the same time, as we work with the established and regulated
    child care facilities, again, as you mention, they are
    regulated largely by State governments and in some cases
    municipal codes. It is not something that barring Federal
    legislation we can reach from FEMA.
        We have often success in implementing those types of
    programs through grant guidance but again, as there aren't
    grant programs specifically designed for child care centers,
    that is a population that is missed. We plan to, and are
    currently incorporating the recommendations from the Commission
    and our partners that are going to our State and local
    partners, part of which will encourage the incorporation, as we
    have discussed, of the entire society into our planning. And
    this can be done as well. But we have seen through the
    tragedies of school violence over the last number of years,
    Columbine and Virginia Tech and others, that there has been a
    response by the secondary and higher education, high school
    facilities to do this planning, to do safety planning. They are
    required to. There are grants for it and they do it. The
    encouragement of child care facilities to do that same type of
    planning is a natural extension of that same school safety
    planning initiatives that we have had for our elementary,
    secondary and higher education facilities. I believe that we
    would have success encouraging that message as well.
        Mr. Shriver. In the State of Maryland, Congresswoman, in
    the last legislative session there was legislation introduced
    by Senator Frosh that was passed that set these basic
    requirements for the State of Maryland. They were supported by
    the Department of Human Resources and the Department of
    Education as low-cost or no-cost alternatives. These basic
    requirements--this is for child care facilities--also reach
    into home-based care as well because, as you know, they are
    regulated by the State.
        They have less, obviously, kids in the home, but you can
    have those standards apply across the board. They have done it,
    I believe, in Maryland for senior centers as well. So they are
    low-cost or no-cost alternatives. You can tie Federal dollars,
    as I mentioned in my opening statements, to the child care
    development block grant and the entity that is getting CCDBG
    money to maintaining, or reaching Federal standards.
        Also, I would say this is not necessarily FEMA's
    responsibility. The Administration for Children and Families
    and their child care bureau, you ought to have conversations
    with them. FEMA is part of the team, but again, it gets back to
    the clarification of roles. I don't think they need to be
    driving that issue. But should ACF be requiring that? Should
    they be setting the standards? Should they be finding what
    those standards are and sending those across the country? The
    answer, I think, is yes. There was push-back because I have
    testified on behalf of the bill in Maryland, and there was some
    concern about cost. The bottom line on the fiscal note said
    there was no cost. Other States are doing this now, including
    Mississippi and Alabama, and they deal with both home-based and
    larger centers. That is why I specifically said child care
    facilities because it includes both the home-based as well as
    the centers that serve more kids.
        So I think you ought to bring in the Administration for
    Children and Families and ask them what they are going to do on
    this issue as well and whether they have standards that should
    be implemented across the country and push them to do that.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Ms. Edwards. This is a question
    certainly for Mr. Shriver, who mentioned in his testimony but
    clearly as well for Mr. Manning, and Mr. Riggen and Mr. Vaughn,
    as well may have had some relevant experience here, to say the
    least. The nemesis, perhaps, of this Committee has been case
    management. Indeed, one of my questions to you, Mr. Manning, is
    how many people are still listed as in case management from
    Katrina on the gulf coast? This has been a very troublesome
    area for this Committee, which has had a number of hearings on
    the matter.
        Mr. Manning. Madam Chairwoman, I apologize. I don't have
    that information today, but I will provide it to you.
        Ms. Norton. 30 days, Mr. Manning, if you could get us that
    information.
        Mr. Manning. Sure.
        Ms. Norton. You mentioned, Mr. Shriver, the notion of case
    management, the need for what you call holistic case
    management. We know from the hearings we have had that these
    families, already dislocated and displaced, have been compelled
    to go here and there for services, housing here, health care
    there, no transportation to get there or very scattered
    transportation. Yet, that is logistically very difficult, as we
    have seen, by the failure of both the States and FEMA in this
    regard. I wonder if you would indicate what you mean by
    holistic case management? What would it consist of? Who would
    be involved? Would it only be the government? Would it be
    nonprofits? How would you put together a case management
    system? Then Mr. Manning, how do you evaluate these contractors
    who are parts of your case management system who often are for
    profit contractors, Mr. Shriver?
        Mr. Shriver. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. As you know,
    FEMA has entered into relationships with, I believe, four
    different approaches to case management. Within the interim
    report, which I am happy to send to you, we spell out what
    holistic comprehensive case management is. It includes health,
    mental health, nutrition, education, human service needs of
    kids and families. It does involve voluntary agencies that
    would provide case management services. You see different
    examples of it as a result of the hurricanes that have gone
    through the gulf coast over the last 4.5 years. I don't want to
    go through the----
        Ms. Norton. Do you mean that these would be working
    together in a group--I mean, these services all exist in some
    form or fashion if people would only get to them.
        Mr. Shriver. That is correct. I think, again, what I would
    say is I think you in your oversight capacity ought to be
    asking FEMA and the Federal family or the Federal Government
    agencies that are working on case management what approach they
    are going to take that is comprehensive in nature and when are
    they going to make that decision by because I think it is
    just----
        Ms. Norton. Let me go to Mr. Manning on that. You correctly
    point out the government agency with responsibility here. Now,
    Mr. Manning, for the life of me we could never understand why
    FEMA didn't say, okay, X, Y, Z and A, B and C, you are hereby
    constituting the case management group for the parish of X.
    Guess what, you are all in the same group, you are all under
    the same tent. You decide how and where to go. You go together.
    What keeps that from happening, Mr. Manning? What are you doing
    to allow that to happen so that we don't have scattered
    services? Are you working with nonprofits in the same group as
    for-profits and in the same group as the agencies of the State
    and FEMA itself? How does that work? We are trying to picture
    in our mind after having been frustrated over and over again by
    the same complaints about here and there and how nonprofits
    couldn't even get into the mix. I need to know what your vision
    is of case management as directed by FEMA.
        Mr. Manning. Thank you, Madam Chair. As I mentioned
    earlier, we are entering into an interagency agreement with HHS
    with the ACF for exactly that. We are dissatisfied as well. We
    in the past have had an inconsistent approach. Clearly we share
    your frustration. The long-term solution and the reason it has
    planned to take until the end of the year is that we can do
    exactly as you are describing, incorporating fine methodology
    to incorporate all of the various private nonprofits, or NGOs
    and PNPs that involve----
        Ms. Norton. It is not rocket science, Mr. Manning. Just
    tell them, You are the designated group for the county that had
    just been under--we just don't see why it is so difficult. And
    we are very concerned within 30 days to get at least some
    outline of how this would operate. We can't tell when the next
    hurricane is coming. We think it is too late for us to have to
    ask that question. We are very fearful that we will be held
    just as responsible as the new administration. Just because we
    have been asking it forever doesn't mean we will continue to
    tolerate what seems to us to be--maybe I am making this overly
    simplistic. Let me ask Mr. Riggen. The Red Cross has been in
    this business longer than government. Mr. Riggen, what is the
    problem? What do you do when, after all, you go in fresh and
    new to a Committee. Yeah, you have Red Cross chapters there.
    Are you able to get at least the services you provide in the
    context you have in the community together under one umbrella
    to work together? You, of course, work with FEMA which may
    have, if anything, destabilized you or in the past may have
    done so. Could you tell us about your experience, bringing
    together the several services that you render as a part of Red
    Cross?
        Mr. Riggen. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. This is a great
    question. And to build on Congresswoman Edwards' point on
    standards, we have really started to focus now on the recovery
    or the casework and case management standards. In the years
    after Katrina, there was a large focus on mass care, on the
    immediate evacuation needs, and on the sheltering needs. We are
    now getting to some of the real crux of casework and that
    ability of organizations to start to meet with families and not
    only identify the families themselves but to identify their
    needs and to share that information across agencies. One of the
    biggest tragedies is for families is to have to tell their
    stories 12 or 13 times, depending on who they are going to see.
        The Red Cross worked with other agencies after 9/11 to
    build a system called the Coordinated Assistance Network, which
    allows casework to flow between agencies so that if a client
    comes to the Red Cross, tells their story, expresses their
    needs, that case is able to be seen by other agencies and
    shared across the network so the family could then go to see
    that agency and receive services as well, and our caseworker
    can actively push the clients to those resources as they become
    available.
        The other thing that we have done at the Red Cross is we
    have changed our strategy about casework and we have become
    much more holistic on our initial push. Casework must happen in
    the initial week, not months. There has to be that ability to
    go door to door to talk to families in need, elderly who are
    homebound, people with disabilities who can't get out of their
    homes or don't have the transportation. We want to come to your
    front door, have that conversation to see what the needs are
    before the family starts to degrade, before the individual
    decompensates and needs additional assistance. How do we get
    those resources to show up on day 4, on day 5 and then
    transition that data and recovery information to the case
    management, whether they be Federal, local or State? We want to
    be able to provide that resource and be a holistic team to do
    that. So as part of that casework, what we have reinvented is
    not only the caseworker, but also the health worker, the mental
    health worker and bringing in the community alongside with all
    their additional resources that we can provide to a client in
    the weeks, not months, after a disaster.
        Ms. Norton. And I don't see the logistical problem. We live
    in the age of video conferences. I have had video conferences
    with residents from the District of Columbia in Federal prison,
    for God's sake. So I really don't see the issue here, which
    accounts for the concern. Mr. Manning, I hope you understand
    what is our concern. As we understand it, if you are a
    recognized--if you have been dubbed and maybe there is a way to
    do this ahead of time or during the time, if there were an
    unexpected catastrophe, but you have the status of a government
    entity for purposes of reimbursement on some occasions. You,
    the Red Cross, our oldest such service organization. But as I
    understand it, Mr. Manning, other nonprofits or private
    entities which are well recognized and which some say provide
    better service in emergencies and nonemergencies than the
    government can are not recognized and, therefore, cannot be
    reimbursed.
        Do you have a process that will be used or is being used to
    select in advance or during emergencies nonprofits who could
    reach out to be helpful? For example, the American Red Cross
    has itself an agreement with Save the Children and Church of
    the Brethren. I don't know if they get reimbursed.
        Let me ask you both: First, Mr. Manning. I am talking about
    reimbursement for folks trusted in the community. Even more so
    than having the HHS or some Federal Government entity which
    they may have never heard of come in. Under whatever rulemaking
    you are engaged in, will there be a way to formally designate
    more such entities who could be useful to the government and to
    the community in case of a disaster?
        Mr. Manning. Madam Chair, as to the specifics of the
    rulemaking, we can get a report to you within 30 days.
        Ms. Norton. Within 30 days, sir. This is very important to
    learn. We don't have any druthers here. We have had
    heartbreaking testimony from religious organizations, for
    example, from Louisiana willing to offer services, some of whom
    have indeed offered services when FEMA and the State was not
    even present, for whom not a dime of reimbursement. They are
    good Christians or good--and most of the time, they were
    Episcopalians or Catholics who simply couldn't help it. They
    simply came forward. We don't want to at all relax government
    standards, and we want to make sure that you are not aiding
    people of your religious group only, church/state means
    everything to at least this Member and that separation must be
    obtained in the provision of services, as Catholic services,
    for example always recognizes. But we are concerned with those
    who can be most helpful, not those who had a government title
    necessarily who may be strangers in the community, be the
    entities that you can look to. What about this trilateral
    agreement, Mr. Riggen, with Save the Children and the Church of
    Brethren? That is an agreement with you, I take it.
        Mr. Riggen. It is a fantastic agreement, mostly around
    shelters. It is an opportunity for Save the Children to provide
    some resources. Some kids that provide a safe place for
    children in a shelter and those resources come into an
    environment and Church of the Brethren provides a workforce for
    us to be able to provide child care for families in shelters or
    other service delivery sites as they go seek assistance, as
    they spend time with a caseworker or case management to know
    what the next steps are. And that is a program that we do.
        Ms. Norton. That operates as a part of the Red Cross
    services?
        Mr. Riggen. It does, absolutely.
        Ms. Norton. So they would be designated to be reimbursed?
        Mr. Riggen. Most of our services are not. We do not seek
    reimbursement from the Federal Government. They are done--and
    just to speak to the earlier point around the compassion and
    the generosity of the American public, the public has come
    forward in every disaster with immense generosity, and they
    continue to do so. Those funds come from private donations
    large and small, and we work with our partners to help them
    with cost, much like we do now in sheltering.
        If a local church wants to open their doors at shelters, we
    can seek to provide them the training and skill sets to do
    that, and we also help to recover their costs.
        Ms. Norton. That is very important. I want to indicate, we
    are not trying to pay churches for what their religion tells
    them they should be doing anyway. My major concern is that FEMA
    has often contracted--here I am talking about people for whom
    you contract--has often contracted with for-profits before they
    would contract with non-profits who have reputations for
    service delivery. We couldn't understand why a for-profit would
    be better equipped than a non-profit who may have served in the
    community for some time and perhaps be receiving grants from
    the State, why that wouldn't be someone that would be
    considered for this service.
        Mr. Vaughn, you talked about the role of preparedness. You
    talked about warnings, education, transportation and sheltering
    services. You know when people hear us talk about that, Mr.
    Manning, at a hearing where FEMA appears, they may assume that
    this is what FEMA is supposed to do. Could we make clear what
    the role Federal here is, what the State role is? And I want to
    first go to Mr. Vaughn because he raises the question of the
    design of the warning and the education and the transportation,
    the sheltering services which would of course be particularly
    vital to for elderly and disabled people. What have you found
    with respect to those services, Mr. Vaughn, which move people
    around, which warn people who are disabled or elderly? And Mr.
    Manning, is it clear whose responsibility this is? Mr. Vaughn?
        Mr. Vaughn. You know, what we have learned from our
    research again is that most communities, maybe 30 percent, are
    doing the planning they need. And I think a lot of this
    discussion that has been going on here with you all about case
    management, we, again, hear about that. People trying to get in
    touch with Social Security or whatever. I think the bigger
    concern is what happens if we have another disaster? A couple
    of us in this room have roots in Florida and you just know that
    someday that is going to happen. So I think we are not prepared
    locally, and I think people at the local level are looking to
    the Federal Government or to their State governments, yet they
    know they need to be doing it in the local community because
    when the problems hit, that is where the people expect the
    services to be.
        So that is why we see FEMA in this role where people look
    to them or look to the Federal Government. I guess when you are
    looking to the Federal Government, you are looking to FEMA in
    this whole concept that we were talking about of a coherent
    policy where all the different levels are talking and
    communicating with one another. Again, we think that we have
    got to get money down into the local communities through grants
    or whatever so that the planning can happen. Because if not 5
    years from now, we will be talking about who knows what
    disaster and saying, didn't we learn from the lessons.
        Ms. Norton. Well, Mr. Manning, I just want to alert you
    that one of the worst confusions to emerge from Katrina was who
    was responsible for doing what. Now it strikes me--and Mr.
    Shriver talks about working with the city council. It strikes
    me that a lot of this provisional transportation, Mr. Vaughn
    raises sheltering services. You know, FEMA is not supposed to
    fly in like Superman and set this up. I recognize you are new,
    but it does seem to us when we are talking about elderly people
    and children that FEMA stressed that what we are talking about,
    is not the case, mostly State responsibilities.
        Again, here goes the Chairman, a lot of this is written in
    regulations and the rest. But if it was so clear, how come it
    took us time to find out who should have gotten people on
    trains and buses out of New Orleans? It turned out to be a
    State responsibility. Because there was confusion, FEMA wasn't
    sure what to do, whether they were overriding the Governor or
    the mayor. It was pitiful, frankly. My own notion was, you know
    what, if they don't do it, jump in there. Guess what, that is
    what happened. Finally they sent the Coast Guard in and said,
    all hands on deck, but that was after considerable confusion.
    Now Mr. Vaughn, you raised the notion of a regional disability
    coordinator. Now there is, I take it, Mr. Manning, one
    disability coordinator? Boy, is that all we have got for the
    entire country, no regional coordinators? What do you think
    about that, Mr. Manning? Do we need somebody whose job--I am
    not suggesting the proliferation of new jobs in the Federal
    Government. But is there somebody who could take on that
    responsibility in the region? Or do you think the disability
    coordinator recently set up pursuant to statute is sufficient
    for the moment?
        Mr. Manning. Madam Chair, first, we are examining how the
    regions are structured and what responsibilities devolve from
    Washington, from FEMA headquarters to the regions where the
    responsibilities lie and where the functions are best served.
    That examination is happening currently. But I should emphasize
    that as we have discussed today, the solution to this isn't
    necessarily additional functions or additional personnel or
    additional plans or additional initiatives set aside to address
    the gaps. The solution, we believe, is eliminating gaps. It is
    taking care of all the Members of our community, all the
    Members of our society from the beginning, and how we conceive
    of our policy in the first place, how we write our plans in the
    first place, how we do our operational development in the first
    place. We see that as the solution. So while yes, ma'am, we are
    looking at how we are structured in the regions and how we
    would best serve the disability community throughout the
    country, we are at the same time trying to eliminate the need
    for special consideration in our planning and in our policies.
        Ms. Norton. Well, thank you very much. Mr. Cao, do you have
    any further questions?
        Mr. Cao. No, I don't, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Cao. Mr. Shriver, you have
    focused on children. We have all discussed the context in which
    children and people with disabilities are found. Is the
    implication of your report that there needs to be, quite apart
    from the disability coordinator, a separate focus on children
    or children and families?
        Mr. Shriver. I think the answer to that, Madam Chair, is
    what Mr. Manning just alluded to, which is that instead of
    having an extra senior level person or two people in FEMA be
    designated as the kids person or the disabilities person or
    potentially both, that what needs to happen is it needs to
    permeate the organization. The plans that go forth, the
    frameworks that are proposed across it, but what we don't want
    is for kids to be an addendum because I have talked to
    countless emergency managers across the country, and they have
    these reports.
        By the time they get through the reports or the plans, they
    are exhausted. They don't want to go to the addenda, and that
    is where kids and people with disabilities are often put, in
    the addendum. I think what Administrator Fugate has done and
    what Mr. Manning is talking about, which is the correct
    approach, is to get the special needs populations, including
    kids, to be written in throughout the plans and to be part of
    the entire agency so that you don't have a one-off for kids or
    one-off for people with disabilities. So I think that that
    approach is the right approach. I think the administrator
    deserves credit for that, and I do think, Madam Chair, just to
    your question on case management--I know this isn't exactly
    what you just asked--but I think it was strongly recommended
    that case management reside within HHS, and Congress, in its
    wisdom, gave the appropriations to FEMA to spearhead it. I
    would suggest that FEMA should not be in the business of
    delivering or being held responsible for case management. They
    are part of a team but that it really ought to go to the folks
    that have the experience, like the Administration for Children
    and Families that contracts with Catholic Charities. It is
    delivered by a nonprofit, but that that responsibility ought to
    be primarily with HHS instead of with FEMA, who has other
    mandates out there.
        I think Congress, frankly, made a mistake in shifting that
    responsibility. I don't know whether FEMA agrees with that at
    this point but I think that they are part of that role, and
    they don't have the expertise to be case managers. We ought to
    be giving it to an entity in the Federal Government that has
    the expertise, that focuses in on this, and have FEMA be part
    of that team rather than be the entity that makes those
    decisions. The horse may be out of the barn on that one.
        Ms. Norton. There is something to what you are saying, Mr.
    Shriver. Out of FEMA, there are now certain housing functions
    that were so embedded in HUD that essentially HUD is
    responsible for them, but I can tell you that this Congress, if
    anything, out of FEMA consolidated all of it in the Department
    of Homeland Security, and it runs somewhat counter to your
    notion of trying to deal with these problems in case management
    to say that there is another whole Federal bureaucracy that
    needs to come over into FEMA. The question of priority when you
    are really a part of something else, not ongoing emergency
    management as opposed to saying you are part of a case
    management team because otherwise, we are going to be told that
    people with disabilities, we should hand that over to somebody
    I guess in HHS and people who deal with nursing homes, given
    what happened to the people who were left there, we should give
    that over to them.
        We are going to, I think, go with a regional recommendation
    which is, we still do not see why a Federal Government laced
    together where people have relations across agency lines need
    only go across the street to find one another, why you can't--
    and the agencies cannot, by statute, be instructed that in case
    of emergency, HHS, HUD, whoever else shall provide services
    and/or personnel who shall be part of case management which
    must be rendered someplace. If it is going to be rendered under
    somebody, it ought to be somebody who is expert in emergency
    management as somebody in the day care department of HHS may
    not be or somebody who does nursing homes may not be in terms
    of alacrity and rapidity of response.
        Ms. Norton. FEMA has got to convince me that it must be
    dismembered in order for us to get people under the same
    umbrella, working on the same group of people. I still cannot
    understand why a simple decision in FEMA, why that was not
    done. I believe if FEMA had called the Secretaries of the
    various agencies, it would have been done.
        I detest government bureaucracy and love government and
    believe some of my colleagues want to take--we give them
    ammunition for wanting to take apart government precisely
    because we are not able to do commonsense things like get in
    the same room. So I can understand what Mr. Shriver means, and
    I know where the expertise lies, but I also know where the
    priority to deal with an emergency lies. And I know the next
    thing we would be criticized for doing is not rapidly
    responding from one source to one--to one emergency.
        So, you know, it could be six of one and half a dozen of
    another, but I believe that Congress has made that decision.
        We are going to leave this, Mr. Manning--I can tell you and
    you can see, people even want to take some of your service
    away. We are going to leave it to see if this administration
    can do better to serve under one umbrella all that people need.
        And you are there for 4 months. Count on us to have
    hearings within 4 months to see just how far you have gotten in
    carrying out or outlining what you are going to do.
        And I do want to announce--Mr. Riggen, did you have
    something to respond to that? You seemed to be asking for
    attention
        Mr. Riggen. No, ma'am. I am just in solid agreement with
    the role. I want to express that the voluntary agencies have
    moved forward on the case management in unison; and in part of
    the voluntary agencies active in disaster, the national
    organization has come together to create standards around case
    management and casework, and that allows us to share the data
    and to work collaboratively.
        So we are excited to see some progress towards the Federal
    case management, and hope that we ensure that they are both
    connected, that there is not a disparity between the voluntary
    agencies working and the government working, but they are
    connected and well integrated.
        Ms. Norton. If necessary, you know every Federal agency is
    located in regions, the same region where FEMA is. All you have
    got to do--you wouldn't even have to detail. If it got bad
    enough, as in Katrina, you could detail somebody from another
    agency. I mean, these are such obvious things that is a
    presumption in their favor that the agency would have to
    overcome if it decided to do something else.
        Mr. Cao.
        Mr. Cao. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And, Madam Chair,
    you just alluded to one of the problems that the President
    addressed during his visit to New Orleans this past week is the
    need for the different Federal agencies to be better
    coordinated. I note that he has tasked Secretary Napolitano on
    that task.
        Mr. Manning, could you provide us with a status or at least
    provide us with a written status in the next 2 weeks with
    respect to how this plan to better organize and to better
    coordinate these different Federal agencies is coming along?
        And my other question to you is, besides working with the
    different Federal agencies, do you have a plan in place in
    order to better coordinate organizations like that of Mr.
    Riggen, the Red Cross, as Madam Chair has pointed out to other
    nonprofit organizations, church organizations, to help in
    preparations and in recovery?
        Mr. Manning. Thank you, Congressman Cao. I will answer your
    second question first, in that I do believe we do have a plan
    in place, and whether it is adequately understood and followed
    is probably the question; that we need to do a better job about
    involving our communities and our partners as we develop our
    procedures, as we implement our plans, as we respond to
    disasters.
        That is something we work on every day. We analyze our
    response to every exercise and every disaster and try to find
    where we didn't do well enough and do better the next time. And
    as we revise the national response framework next year, towards
    the end of this year and into next, we will certainly and
    absolutely involve everybody across the response spectrum,
    across the entire team of emergency management.
        You have heard a number of times today, FEMA is not the
    team, it is part of the team. Our responsibility is one to
    bring people to the table, provide the tools and resources in
    order for them to perform their job where necessary, and where
    absolutely necessary, stand by and support of others.
        So the initiatives working better together with the
    interagency, with all of our Federal partners, that is one that
    has improved greatly in recent years and certainly in recent
    months through the Disaster Readiness Group, the DRG, the body
    that works together for disaster preparedness.
        And following up on your question--I am sorry, not your
    question--the question earlier about the integrated planning
    system, as we are revising that system, we are building a new
    planning system in consultation with the interagency. As
    opposed to FEMA or the Department of Homeland Security creating
    and developing and handing over a planning system for the
    entire Federal Government and our interagency partners to work
    together on, we are going to build that in collaboration in the
    beginning. So it will take into account the resource shortfalls
    of other agencies, and we can have true collaboration between
    Federal departments in response to disasters like you have seen
    in your community.
        Mr. Cao. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Norton. One final question. I am taking a page out of
    Mr. Shriver's testimony as a kind of model that--and I need to
    know more about it, that he says is already in existence now.
        Now, this has to do only with children, but as a model for
    getting together the disparate agencies, Mr. Shriver says on
    page 4 that the Administrator, Mr. Fugate, has announced,
    quote, "the creation of a children's working group." There is a
    nice word, "working group." If after every disaster you just
    had a working group of case management, you might have what we
    are thinking about.
        Now, maybe we are being too simple, so correct me if I am
    wrong.
        But anyway, let us look at what we have done with this
    children's working group. It says, "which will serve as a
    centralized platform across all FEMA directorates to ensure
    that the unique needs of children are incorporated into all
    disaster plans. The working group is tasked not only with
    identifying and facilitating how best to integrate children
    into all FEMA planning efforts, but also with improving FEMA's
    capacity to work collaboratively with its partners and other
    key nongovernmental stakeholders." So it looks like there would
    be this working group that already understood what to do with
    children.
        The question is, can we have a working group in the
    disaster area which would simply pull in the same way that you
    appear to be doing with respect to thinking through children?
    Where is that? Does it have a chairman? Is it an internal
    group? How does it operate?
        Could we get a working group for each disaster in Florida
    where there is a next hurricane? In Louisiana or Mississippi,
    would that help if each agency was designated--each agency was
    tasked to designate a person in the region, and they already
    are sitting right there to work with the working--the FEMA
    working group?
        Mr. Manning. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the easy
    answer to the second half of your question is that I believe we
    have that in place through----
        Ms. Norton. Since when?
        Mr. Manning. The planning bodies we have had in place for a
    number of years that have not had the attention, not had the
    focus necessary, but have been----
        Ms. Norton. So you are telling me that there is a working
    group for case management in Louisiana, in each parish already?
        Mr. Manning. No, ma'am.
        What--what I am suggesting is that there was a body--there
    is a body that has been in place that we have given that
    mission. The regional interagency steering committees, the risk
    groups in each one of the FEMA regions, that have designees,
    that have representatives from all of the Federal interagency
    bodies within the region, as has been mentioned earlier.
        And we have been using them in Region 9, based in
    California, to do catastrophic disaster planning, to work
    closely with the community, because they live in the community
    and they are part of the community with another body. We
    pronounce all of our acronyms; the ESFs, the Emergency Support
    Function coordination groups, those are the elite agencies, and
    all of the Federal agencies that are assigned to a particular
    function. So in the case of ESF 6 and the mass care, there are
    bodies both within the Federal interagency led by FEMA here in
    Washington working in coordination with counterparts in--in the
    case of California FEMA Region 9, the Federal Region 9, to do
    exactly as you described, to build----
        Ms. Norton. So in Region 9, where all the agencies are
    located just like they are in every region, there is already a
    case--if there were to be, in that case probably an earthquake,
    case managers would immediately be under the same umbrella and
    be working together based on this model?
        Mr. Manning. The planning is around the response, the
    holistic response to the earthquake. The functions of case
    management under ESF 6 are assigned to Health and Human
    Services. That is the way that disasters are managed. FEMA
    assigns mission tasks, mission orders, to Federal agencies to
    coordinate the response to a particular function.
        In the case of----
        Ms. Norton. I am sorry. Is this preparedness or response or
    both?
        Mr. Manning. This is in response. We plan in preparedness
    and then use the plans in the response phase, yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Norton. So there would be case managers who would be
    pulled out in the event of an earthquake in California, are you
    saying? Or not?
        I am really only interested in the people level. What we
    have heard from FEMA for 5 or 6 years now is that there are
    elements of their bureaucracy that are already pulled together
    to do X, Y. Then real people come in and say, We have never saw
    them before.
        So I am asking about case management in particular. Mr.
    Shriver said that that was in disarray for children, and it
    turns out it was also in disarray for elderly people and
    anybody else who needed to be brought together.
        What I am asking is whether Region 9 is going to give us
    the makings of a case management umbrella for people on the
    ground in case of an earthquake, and whether that could be
    replicated in other regions across the country.
        Mr. Manning. Madam Chair, I believe that that will be the
    case.
        We have written--we are writing prescriptive assignments.
    We are identifying a particular task with a particular team to
    go and perform, in the case of case management, that function.
        That--that initiative is happening here in Washington, not
    specific--that particular initiative, not specific to Region 9,
    but it is happening. So that wherever a disaster may occur, the
    Health and Human Services will--the Administration for family--
    for Children and Families will lead that mission and to the
    people, to the team, will deploy in the immediate hours of a
    disaster, yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Norton. Mr. Manning, I am encouraged by what you say. I
    urge you to use Region 9 where you appear to already have begun
    work as a kind of pilot.
        I was a Federal Government official heading an agency at
    one time, and I found the agency in total and complete
    disarray. In putting it together, I did not say, Okay, I know
    what to do. And I thought I knew what to do; I had done
    something similar at the State level.
        I said, Let's do this. I said, We will do pilot projects.
    We are not omniscient; we will see if this works in a
    particular location.
        Since we are talking preparedness and not a disaster--of
    course, that would be--for example, if case managers were
    already understood to be who they were, where they would come
    from, if the agency had already designated people as case
    managers during the time, from the various agencies that would
    be involved, that is what I am talking about.
        As a result of--we chose, in this case, three sections of
    the country, and the successes there and some of the
    deficiencies taught us what to do. We were able to essentially
    reform the agency from the ground up based on experimentation
    within the agency, learning from our mistakes.
        And what I am afraid of is that we will be in a situation
    like FEMA was last year. There were ice storms, there were
    floods; so they had to kind of figure it out, all in a number
    of different emergencies at the same time.
        FEMA did a better job. But we do really still get a seat-
    of-your-pants rather than a nimble emergency response from
    FEMA. And part of it is that preparedness is a whole lot more
    than, you know, making sure that there is water on the ground,
    is making sure that there are people on the ground prepared to
    serve people, as Mr. Riggen says.
        One thing to look at is how would you get people door to
    door in an earthquake? Could you do it? As Mr. Riggen said, if
    you don't do it in the first week, forget about it; they are
    going to try to make their way to a shelter.
        So we would like to see some kind of case in point in
    operation because of our exasperation from the community, from
    complaints from the community throughout the years on case
    management following Katrina.
        We use these hearings as assignments and as problem-solving
    missions. We do not gather information at hearings. We can read
    the report. We use it to cross-examine the government
    officials, to hear further from those in the private and
    nongovernment sector, and then to try to figure out how to
    actually get something done. And we measure ourselves and the
    agency by which--by the notion of whether out of the hearing
    has come concrete action that, at the end of the year, we can
    point to. And that is why FEMA received so much criticism
    before, because we saw it, Mr. Manning. We hadn't accomplished
    very much, and we hadn't gotten FEMA to accomplish more.
        We were very quick to commend FEMA for very significant
    improvement that was made and, frankly, not slow to criticize
    FEMA when people kept coming--from Mississippi and Louisiana,
    in particular--to complain particularly about case management.
        We had one of the worst hearings in my career in the
    Congress regarding people who were left in trailers for the
    longest time and regarding the most vulnerable people under
    Katrina. These were the people who lived alone, who were
    disabled, who were able to care for themselves when they were
    elderly; and FEMA told them their time was up. And they never
    had any place to go before and they didn't have any place to go
    then.
        And then FEMA said, But we are providing you with a place
    and FEMA was providing them with a place. And we had HUD
    before. HUD said, That's right, FEMA's right; we have got the
    place.
        And what was not in place was the case management, somebody
    who would take that person--not as a statistic, as somebody who
    is blind and lives alone and now is being told to go to some
    far-off county to live alone, but as somebody with a case
    manager who would have been willing to go to that adjoining
    county to live if set up with the proper case management.
        That is complicated work, but we are convinced it can be
    done; and it is a standard that we know your administration is
    committed to.
        May we thank each and every one of you for very useful
    testimony and we will hold all concerned, those from the
    private sector, accountable. And we know we have an
    administration that does want to improve in this regard.
        This hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 4:31 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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