[Senate Hearing 113-533]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-533
FIFTY YEARS SINCE THE GREAT ALASKA
EARTHQUAKE: THE ROLE OF FIRST RESPONDERS IN CATASTROPHIC DISASTER
PLANNING
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FIELD HEARING IN ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
__________
APRIL 4, 2014
__________
Available via http://www.fdsys.gov
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
89-525 PDF WASHINGTON : 2014
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
JON TESTER, Montana RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARK BEGICH, Alaska MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
Gabrielle A. Batkin, Staff Director
Keith B. Ashdown, Minority Staff Director
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Lauren M. Corcoran, Hearing Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS, AND
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
MARK BEGICH, Alaska Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
JON TESTER, Montana MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
Pat McQuillan, Staff Director
Brandon Booker, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey Stroud, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statement:
Page
Senator Begich............................................... 1
WITNESSES
Friday, April 4, 2014
Hon. W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management
Agency......................................................... 4
John W. Madden, Director, Alaska Division of Homeland Security
and Emergency Management....................................... 6
George Keeney, Fire Chief, Valdez Fire Department................ 15
Victor Joseph, President and Chairman, Tanana Chiefs Conference.. 18
Danita Koehler, MD, Chair, Rural Committee, National Association
of Emergency Medical Services Physicians....................... 20
Victor Joseph, President and Chairman, Tanana Chiefs Conference..
Michael K. Abbott, Assistant Superintendent, Anchorage School
District....................................................... 24
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Abbott, Michael K.:
Testimony.................................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 54
Fugate, Hon. W. Craig:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Joseph, Victor:
Testimony.................................................... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 44
Keeney, George:
Testimony.................................................... 15
Prepared statement........................................... 42
Koehler, Danita, MD:
Testimony.................................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Madden, John W.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 38
FIFTY YEARS SINCE THE GREAT ALASKA
EARTHQUAKE: THE ROLE OF FIRST
RESPONDERS IN CATASTROPHIC DISASTER PLANNING
----------
APRIL 4, 2014
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Emergency Management,
Intergovernmental Relations,
and the District of Columbia,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BEGICH
Chairman Begich. Good afternoon, let me go ahead and call
the meeting to order. I want to welcome you all here. This is
the Subcommittee of Emergency Management, Intergovernmental
Relations and the District of Columbia. Obviously, we are not
going to be talking about the District of Columbia today.
Most of our witnesses today are Alaskans, but I want to
welcome to our State for his first time Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate. We really
thank you for being here. He has had already a quick whirlwind
tour of Alaska.
We have taken him out to the Valley and saw some activity
out there, met with some tribal community leaders and after
today, he will literally be on a plane in a few hours to
Washington State for the disaster that they are experiencing
there with the mud slides. So we thank him for taking his time
out here. We know it is a long trip from Washington to be here
and his job requires him to travel quite a bit. So thank you
very much for being here.
We are meeting here today just a week after communities
around Alaska marked the solemn anniversary of ``The Great
Alaska Earthquake''. It has been 50 years since the 9.2
magnitude quake centered 75 miles east of Anchorage and rocked
our State. The quake also triggered tsunamis inundating our
coastal villages.
Happening only a few years after Alaska became a State, our
entire focus on how to respond to and recover from disasters
has been shaped by the earthquake. The lessons we learned have
had a big impact on how our State has developed and how we
continue to plan for disasters.
In 1964, Alaska was a young State with a population of
about 225,000. Since then, we have more than tripled our number
and our economy has grown significantly and the State's
tremendous and critical resources like oil and gas, as well as
our military strategic location.
I can remember, I was only two during the earthquake, but
it was stories afterwards, because for the younger students
here, in those days, we did not have DVDs, digital cameras. We
had slide shows. So we had slides and some of the folks that
are my age might we remember this you would get a carousel of
slides and you would show them and all of your trips and I
remember growing up seeing the earthquake.
In our house, I lived in east Anchorage, and the only thing
that broke: we had these three swinging lights that went back
and forth and smacked into each other and that's only because
we were on gravel soil, but I saw these incredible photos of
Turnagain Arm and what happened in Valdez, which I know we will
hear something about here and what Valdez is doing on
preparedness, but it is an amazing--I can still remember
Penney's, for those that go downtown at all, the Penney's side
that faces the garage that faces the store had just peeled
right off. The side of the Penney's store just peeled right off
like a piece of paper coming off of it because the earthquake
was damaging, but it was incredible to see that and where we
look back now, the impressive growth over the last 50 years, an
achievement related to all Alaskans, that should be proud of,
but it does raise the stakes of disaster much higher, because
we have more to protect and more to be prepared for.
With additional important infrastructure and assets,
there's additional stress on local and State capacity to assess
our vulnerabilities and plan to respond to disasters. First
responders, the police, fire fighters and medical personnel,
who are essential to any successful response are vital assets.
They have worked hard over the years to plan and equip
themselves to respond to many potential threats to our State
and one of the best ways, the local, State and tribal and
Federal first responders can test their capabilities they have
built over the years without a real-world catastrophic disaster
is by participating in exercises. In addition, the role of an
educated engaged public has been critical in successful
disaster response.
Later today, we will hear about schools, what schools are
planning for disasters, as well as discuss the recent responses
to flooding in Galena and in the incident in Valdez with regard
to the avalanche.
This past week, the State, Federal, tribal and local
emergency management officials came together during a recent
Alaska Shield exercise, which recreated the massive 1964
earthquake. Preventing loss of life is the most important goal,
but we must also make sure families and communities have the
resources they need to recover.
Failure to provide those resources has the potential for
devastating long-term effects on the economic, cultural and
social fabric of our State. Our communities faced this very
issue last spring when flooding along the Yukon forced citizens
to evacuate hundreds of miles away to Fairbanks.
Assuring that all families who wanted to return to their
homes were able to was not just an effort to keep the community
intact, it was an effort to assure jobs were not lost, schools
were not empty and homes were not abandoned.
Alaskans are tough and independent people, but we know the
strength of our communities is the most important asset, both
before and after a disaster. Assistance from external
organizations may arrive in communities in the Lower 48 within
a matter of hours after a disaster. Alaska's vast geography and
the transportation challenges mean that many Alaskans must be
prepared to cope for days without significant Federal
assistance.
This reality means smart planning. Involving all members of
the community is essential. Our communities do not have the
room for error that those in the Lower 48 may have and I am
glad that our witnesses for today's hearing represent the
diverse collection of these communities.
Response leaders, State emergency management leaders,
tribal organizations, local fire officials, emergency medical
services (EMS) professionals and school administrators all play
a critical role in community preparedness. They are all looked
to and relied upon to support swift response and recovery
efforts. I thank each of you for your hard work you have
already done to prepare our communities and to respond to past
disasters.
While predicting catastrophic disasters like earthquakes is
nearly impossible, planning for the aftermath must continue to
be a priority for all members of a first responder community.
I am encouraged by the work our emergency response
officials are currently doing and I look forward to examining
the FEMA uses and the lessons learned from Alaska's Shield to
support this planning from the Federal level.
I hope the exercise and Administrator Fugate's trip have
highlighted the economic, transportation, communication and
cultural realities that make Alaska the great State that it is.
I will continue to urge FEMA to recognize the unique needs that
may not fit neatly into existing policy boxes and to increase
its adaptability to States like ours.
Just as we did after the 1964 earthquake, Alaska will keep
moving forward. We will keep learning, keep improving and we
will emerge better prepared to plan for and respond to any
disasters that may occur in our great State.
So let me go ahead and again recognize our panels. We have
two panels. The way this will work today, and we thank you very
much again to all the panels that are participating. I will ask
the first panel over here to each give their testimony. I will
do a few questions and then I will ask the second panel to do
their testimony, ask a few questions and then, the way I have
done these before is there may be a little crisscross; I may
hear something over here that I want to ask this panel or vice
versa.
It is a formal field hearing, but I try to keep it a little
more relaxed in the sense of how we are trying to do this
because I think it is an opportunity for all of us to learn and
improve, especially around the issues of catastrophic disaster
planning.
So let me now start with Administrator Craig Fugate, who's
the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Administrator.
TESTIMONY OF CRAIG FUGATE,\1\ ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Fugate. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the other thing we
normally do at these hearings is that we have these long
written testimony. So I will formally ask Mr. Chairman to
accept my written testimony and we will not read that verbatim.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Fugate appears in the Appendix on
page 29.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Begich. Without objection.
Mr. Fugate. Alaska may be one of the youngest States, but
you joined a particular form of government, is how some people
describe it, and I am pretty sure, Senator, if I go to most any
Governor, to any senator and talk about their State, there's
always something unique about their State that you have to
factor in. And for those of you that didn't really pay too much
attention in your civics class, what's unique about the United
States is we are just that, we are not a national government.
We are a Federal Government, where our constitution said
those powers not reserved to the Federal Government belong to
the States and the people and part of that is the ability and
responsibility and the authority that is arised from each
State's constitution by how they govern themselves in disasters
and where those emergency powers come from and each State based
it upon their history, their needs and in some cases, their
history of dealing with disasters.
So when people look to Washington, DC. sometimes for one-
size fits all answers to problems, that's not how our
government's established. It has to recognize that each State
is unique; each State is different and that our Federal form of
government recognized that, that it could not be just a
national government where all decisions can be made in D.C.
We are a representative government where we elect our
senators and our representatives to help govern, but this is
also the basis of our disaster model. The Federal Government's
not in charge. A lot of times, the national media, when there's
a disaster, you see FEMA and people think, ``Well, FEMA's in
charge.'' We are not in charge. The Governor and the State
constitution and those authorities vested in local officials,
they are the ones managing that response. They are the ones
that are leading it.
Our job at the Federal Government is to support that. We do
not come in to take over. Our job is to support, but we also
have to be cautious and recognize that you, as taxpayers,
expect this to be a shared responsibility, a responsibility
that locals and States also share, including funding for.
So we also try to make sure that we support, but not
supplant local and State responsibilities, and the more complex
the disaster, the lines get blurred. So we have also learned
that we can not wait until it is so bad and overwhelms a State
before the Federal Government gets ready or begins to prepare.
We work together as one team, but we have to understand,
our job at the Federal level is not that we are going to come
in and take over. Well, first of all, we would not even know
what to do when we got here in many cases.
Our job is to come in and support the Governor and their
team and work with the local officials, and this can be very
expensive. Your Senator is part of one of the more substantial
changes to how we fund disasters. Previously, we had to go get
additional funds every time there's a disaster because we
barely had enough money to operate. This could disrupt previous
disasters, and it meant that there could be delays in response
waiting for money to come in.
Congress has taken a different approach over the last
couple of years and they have fully funded what many people you
talk about disaster response, there's a fund. It is the
Disaster Relief Fund (DRF). It is very unique in that it is
funded, not only for disasters we have, but it is also the
funding for the disasters that occur every day in this country
and to make sure we have enough funds to respond to that no-
notice earthquake, that catastrophic event.
That funding allowed us to respond to Hurricane Sandy 2
years ago without having to shut down every other disaster we
were working on and it gave Congress time to deliberate and
find additional funds for the full recovery, but it is that
shared responsibility that as a Nation, we come together to
support States in disasters.
Our primary mechanism for doing that are those funds which
the Senator has been part of; is ensuring that those funds are
there. But our job at FEMA is to coordinate on behalf of the
Governor's request, the Federal resources and Federal support
that they need to respond to, but also recover from disasters.
So those people that think that somehow FEMA's in charge
and FEMA does everything, we only do it as part of a team and
we do it through support of the Governor's team to the local
officials. Sir.
Chairman Begich. Thank you very much. Let me now introduce
John Madden, Director of Alaska Division of Homeland Security
and Emergency Management, Alaska Department of Military and
Veteran Affairs, but also, John, you just finished and did your
term just end, is that right?
Mr. Madden. Yes, it did.
Chairman Begich. It's the National Chair of all the
emergency managers.
Mr. Madden. There are people within my position in every
State.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Madden. And it's the National Emergency Management
Association (NEMA), of which I just finished a year as their
President.
Chairman Begich. And let me just say, before you do your
testimony to the group here, and just in general, you have been
to my committee in D.C. more than once and other opportunities,
not only representing Alaska, but on the national end, and for
Alaska to have a national representative is just a real plus.
So thank you for your work you have done there and thank you
for kind of--I know you represent the national net, but I
always knew when you were there, we are going to be talking
about Alaska issues, so thank you for kind of having dual hats
at those meetings I had.
Mr. Madden. Well, thank you, sir. It is very widely known
within the Nation that if you can get something to work in
Alaska, you can get it to work anywhere.
Chairman Begich. There we go. That is the motto, if you can
do it in Alaska, you can do it anywhere.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN W. MADDEN,\1\ DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF HOMELAND
SECURITY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Mr. Madden. And that's why it Is a good opportunity for us
to address this topic; not only of the first responder, but the
second responder and then jobs I call the sustaining responder
and probably the restoring responder.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Madden appears in the Appendix on
page 38.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This nation and my State has a proud history and the
heritage of our citizens stepping forward and being organized
for swift response with the hazards we face, but through the
years, we have learned some very hard lessons. If we wait to
respond, then our people suffer and our priority and our
property is laid waste, but this approach for the good of the
Nation is fading away and new approaches are coming forward to
prepare for the inevitable and even the unpredictable events
that come before us.
The traditional perceptions of first responder are the fire
fighter, the police officer, the emergency medical provider,
but our society and economy are becoming increasingly more
complex. So we must add others to that; the electrical linemen,
the transportation providers, the logisticians and others, as
well as our community leaders, but even with this expanded
enterprise, we cannot meet the extreme needs of the public just
by the acts of heroic individuals, nor can we isolate or have
random acts of response that cannot serve the greater needs.
First responders do not stand alone. So we believe in this
State that our system supporting them could not be. We need the
systems to support the first responder through training,
equipment, sustainment, planning and exercises. For an example,
we in Alaska have formed several task forces in peacetime that
we anticipate needing and using in the disaster in which will
enhance the first responder.
Medical and health, housing and shelter, energy,
transportation; these standing forces study the likely
consequences and try to solve the problems before they come
about and as you said in your opening remarks, sir, to
commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1964 earthquake, we
just finished the largest, most complex exercise our State
has--or ever designed, the Alaska Shield and in this exercise,
we recreated the geology of 1964, but we placed it in today's
built environment, today's technology, today's supply lines.
And we tested our plans, and stressed our partnerships, and
challenged our assumptions.
We rigorously tested the concept of the dual status
commander where a general officer of the Alaska National Guard
is empowered by both the Governor and the President to command
Guard and active duty troops, and their missions they received
during this exercise far exceeded the capabilities of either
one or the other and could only be done jointly.
So with this definition and the role of the first
responder, it must expand to include those who lead our
communities in our State. In this exercise, Governor Parnell
was a first responder when within minutes of the event, he gave
me clear direction and set the priorities for the State.
Major General Katkus, the Adjutant General, was a first
responder when he coordinated the integration of all the active
components with the Secretary of Defense. My operations team
members were first responders when they deployed across the
State to serve at the side of mayors and city managers and
giving them counsel and support.
Brigadier General Wenke, the dual status commander, was a
first responder as he shaped the readiness and effectiveness of
all of the uniformed forces within our State. The members of
the FEMA Alaska area office were first responders, as they
supported the State in the early hours as the vanguard of the
Nation rising up to support the State.
Lieutenant General Handy of the Alaskan Command and Major
General Shields were the first responders when we worked to
create better methods on the fly to integrate our missions.
We strive toward the day when every Alaskan and every
American when asked their role in an emergency will answer with
pride, ``I am a first responder,'' and that they contribute
through learning CPR and first aid, building an emergency kit,
a commitment to help their neighbors when they cannot help
themselves and the first responder. Whether in the biggest of
our cities or the most remote of our wilderness and all the
variations in between, must be ready to respond with the needed
swiftness and effectiveness to make a difference in life and
death. And we, the leaders of the Nation and our States and our
tribes and our local governments, must work together to ensure
our efforts to prepare and our actions to alleviate suffering
are second to none.
Chairman Begich. Thank you very much, John. I have a few
questions. I will say also something else just for the
audience's knowledge, usually the way these hearings work, too,
usually the--I am here, all these panels are there with your
back to them. We have done something different when we do them
here in Alaska. I like to have this format so people see the
conversation, rather than seeing the backs of heads all the
time. So that's the way we like to do it here.
Let me, first, Administrator Fugate, if I can ask you just
a couple--we had a conversation just before we came out here
with the tribal community and talked about some of their
issues, but can you--I know we have talked about this. We did
not elaborate too much, but can you tell me how it is working
now with the new language with regard to tribes who are now
able to directly ask, and just kind of--I know you have done a
couple, but what have been those problematic areas that you
think you have to kind of still plow through as you are working
through these disasters with tribes doing direct requests from
them?
Mr. Fugate. Well, what the Senator is referring to is with
the amendments of the Stafford Act, which is the authorizing
language of the disaster programs, it changed the definition of
federally recognized tribes from political subdivisions of the
State to having the ability to be recognized as sovereign
governments with the United States, and it is not a small
change.
What it does is allows tribal governments whose sovereignty
is not underneath the State. It is separate. It is a
recognition through Federal law that they are separate
governments and that they have certain rights under the
Stafford Act to request disaster declarations.
So when the law was passed, we did not have any structures
for tribes to operate under, except for the State structure. So
what happened, Senator, the first declarations that came
through in--and I think there was a lot of information going
out through a lot of the National Congress of American Indians
and other Associations that the law had passed.
Tribes came in and we made a decision of whether postponing
accepting applications until we have draft rules. We just used
the rules as written. So they came in just like a State would
come in. They had to meet their per capita thresholds. They had
to have hazard mitigation plans.
Chairman Begich. Their match requirements----
Mr. Fugate. Their match requirements, all their
certifications and what we found by and large is what we
thought we would see was for larger tribal governments, this
was something they were anticipating, prepared to do, but we
also recognized that this is a very high threshold for many
smaller tribes and so we are in the process of now developing
draft rules of how can we provide more flexibility, but
recognize that it is still a shared responsibility.
There's still cost-share requirements. There's still the
requirements to have mitigation plans and the things that
States are held to, because again, this is shared
responsibility between the tribal government and the Federal
Government and we are responding to disasters, but the most
important thing is we want to make it optional.
We know that in some cases, States do provide cost-share.
That may not be there if they come separate from the State and
again, this had to apply across all of the tribes, not just
those here in Alaska. So it was inherently flexible self-
determination, but it does recognize their sovereignty.
Chairman Begich. Let me ask you, if I can, a couple more
things. We have had some disasters, most recently the Galena
flooding that occurred, and there was a couple of things that
came, at least when I was out there, but also heard from people
a couple of things; logistics, personnel on the FEMA end and
here's the two kinds of broad examples.
On the personnel end, sometimes not fully understanding
kind of the Alaska way of life and the culture and I think we
heard actually in a meeting earlier that Victor laid out kind
of, just because the group is quiet does not mean they are
accepting, it is more of a listening process. So that's the
first point, and then I will ask the question to both of these,
and then the other one was how to get resources out to some of
these remote areas and remote or not; I mean even here in the
urban areas like Anchorage or Fairbanks, or Juneau or Kenai, or
so forth, the logistics in winter months can radically change
in how you can move things.
Can you give me a sense of what you have done internally?
For first, the personnel part of it, how they become more aware
of the local environment they are entering into and two, then
on the logistics, how to compensate or deal with some of these
unique logistics issues and I mean, I was just having a
conversation with someone just literally as we were walking out
of the last meeting and we had to get to three villages or not
we, but FEMA had to get to three villages and their response
was, ``Well, we have to take a commercial flight.'' Of course,
that's not happening all in one day. That's what they wanted to
do in one day, and yet, the Borough said, ``We'll loan you our
plane.'' It's a government-owned plane, but they could not take
it because it was considered--I do not know what it was
considered, gift or something, but I mean, I just went through
this experience up in Wainwright where I could not get the
plane from Barrow to come get me. So I had to take a charter
all the way from Wainwright to Anchorage, which is not a cheap
operation, but I would have been 2 days stuck out there.
So can you, again, the logistics part on both resources
and/or that example I just gave you up north, and then the
other is personnel and how they become more--what are you doing
to make them more aware of the surroundings and the individuals
that are working with them, I mean as----
Mr. Fugate. Well, we do have----
Chairman Begich. Does that make sense, those questions?
Mr. Fugate. Yes, sir.
Chairman Begich. OK.
Mr. Fugate. Again, Alaska does have a very small footprint,
but we have permanent staff up here, a very small office.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. Most States do not have that. Part of the
regional office in Seattle was to work with the States and
building that competency, but because of the size and geography
of Alaska, it is still a challenge. So we are looking
particularly with tribal, we are working with a region now on
additional staff tied to all the disasters we have here, and as
you saw in our budget, we are doing a pretty significant shift
internally in our budget across the Nation to provide more
permanent staff in the tribal, but to be honest with you, sir,
sometimes the message gets confused between being good stewards
of the public's tax dollars and understanding you are in a
different environment.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. So things that people get conditioned into of
driving down our overhead becomes counterproductive if you do
not know when you have to adjust, because in many cases, it
would be cheaper for us in that situation just to charter
aircraft and move our teams around versus doing commercial, but
because in the Lower 48, you would not think of doing that----
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. You tend to get locked into being cost
effective driving decisions, particularly if we are just
dealing with a recovery event where there's not immediate life
threat/life savings. So it is changing that mind set and a lot
of time, headquarters is looking at something and looking at
cost going, ``Well, this doesn't make sense,'' and the people
in the field are going, ``Well, it makes perfect sense if you
know what we are doing with it.'' So it is trying to make sure
that we are good stewards of the money. We just don't want to
spend money, but also making sure that in the operational
environment that we are in, we may have costs that are going to
be higher.
Chairman Begich. Is there----
Mr. Fugate. It is just you have to make sure that you
understand that going in, versus we are looking at this as, how
do I maintain lower costs? Well, it is not going to save you
much more money because you are not going to get things done.
Chairman Begich. Yes, let me give you an example in this--
if this makes sense and then maybe a question off of this, but
for example, to go from Barrow to Anchorage, we had seven
people, it would have been about $5,000 commercial flight. We
were trapped in Wainwright. It could have been 2 days. We
anticipated afterwards we did learn it would have been 2 days
we would have been stuck up there, doing that same flight out
of Wainwright for the seven of us, it was $16,000.
Mr. Fugate. Yes.
Chairman Begich. So when you present that back in
headquarters, they look at that and they go, ``Are you kidding
me?''
Mr. Fugate. Yes.
Chairman Begich. Wait for the commercial flight.
Mr. Fugate. Right.
Chairman Begich. And the problem is, how do you quantify
that 2 days?
Mr. Fugate. It goes back to the mission.
Chairman Begich. Is that the----
Mr. Fugate. Yes, that's part of the challenge, is getting
people that understand that when we are in a disaster response,
we need to be doing things expeditiously, particularly if we
have things we need to get going to get to a point of
stabilization.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. I mean, I would be kind of reluctant if we were
merely in the process now, projects are working and----
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. We are just doing the inspections, but if we
are still in a response phase, it is----
Chairman Begich. Then you have to measure those----
Mr. Fugate. Yes.
Chairman Begich [continuing.] On time, because time is
value----
Mr. Fugate. Yes, in your committee and in the whole
committee you sit on, one of the things you look at is
effectiveness and efficiency of fraud, waste and abuse.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. So you have one mind set day-to-day where you
are trying to minimize the cost to the taxpayers of how you are
doing business and then when you get into a disaster, in many
cases, you do not throw caution to the wind, but you have to
shift gears.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. But so much of your day-to-day is written on
the day-to-day reducing that cost that you sometimes get that
mismatch. So what we try to do is make sure we are doing a
better job of giving that authority to our Federal coordinating
officers that until we are stabilized, we are going to have to
do things that would not be financially, the most efficient way
to do something, but the outcome is what needs to drive that,
not just the cost of that travel.
Chairman Begich. Is it helpful, and I will end on this
question with you, Administrator, and that is, is it helpful--I
know Congress knows no administrator likes to hear what I am
about to say, but I think maybe as a rule, I think we do not do
enough of and that's we do not do enough oversight and maybe
usually we respond, something bad happens and then we kind of
jump on everybody because one item did not work and then we are
going to yell at everybody, but what I have tried to do, at
least in the two subcommittees I Chair, is have this process of
review and oversight and more of a, let's have more of this
aired, rather than--is that a role maybe this committee could
take in the sense that as--to help educate folks on these
unique cost issues?
I mean, I was in one meeting, as you know, and I think
Shaun Donovan or who got beat up by one of my Members, I think
it was Secretary Donovan, on a purchase, and you know, when you
are in the moment of a disaster, you are trying to manage time.
Sometimes money becomes secondary. Time is more valuable,
especially in a winter climate where you could have disaster
and it is 30 below by the evening, you have lost 4 hours. You
could literally have created a second disaster.
Not that I would subject more Members to oversight or----
Mr. Fugate. Yes.
Chairman Begich. Or the poor staff here to do things like
that, but is that a better--I mean, how do we get this better--
explanation out there than the----
Mr. Fugate. Senator, we are always going to have the got-
you moments of things when people look at it and go, ``How
could they possibly have done that? What were they thinking,''
but you are absolutely right on speed. I came up with this down
in Florida when I realized that speed was paramount
stabilization and basically, you can have it cost effective,
you can have it accurate or you can have it fast. Pick one.
That in responding to this earthquake scenario, if we
waited for the State's typical assessments in requesting
resources, things would not have been in the pipeline fast
enough.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. And in some cases, you are going to be flying
things here that would normally come in by ship, and that cost
of that air traffic will in some cases exceed the actual price
of the produce retail.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. But the fact is----
Chairman Begich. Galena was an example, some of the freight
costs were----
Mr. Fugate. Yes. You are having to make these decisions
based upon what is it taking to stabilize the incident. Now
once you get stabilized and the ports are back up and the conex
containers are coming in, you stop flying stuff.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. But when people look at, ``Well, what did that
bottle of water cost you,'' and this is what they gave me in
Florida. They said, ``Well, that bottle of water in Florida in
the 2004 hurricanes cost you $10. That's insane. You could have
gone to the store and bought it.'' I'm like, ``You don't
understand. There were no stores to buy that water from.''
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. We had a community that was cutoff.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Fugate. The roads were wiped out, a quarter of a
million people in high heat, no water. We were flying it by
Chinooks. There was no other way to get the water there, but I
think as the oversight, being able to ask those questions, get
those responses, so that we are held accountable, but people
understand that in disaster response, sometimes you are going
to do expensive extraordinary things to stabilize a situation,
understanding that the normal order of business, the normal
order of procurement, the normal safeguards, can actually be
counterproductive and so you have to have that balance.
We need to be responsible to the taxpayer not to waste, but
we are also dealing with a situation where precision is not
necessarily going to happen. If you wait for all the
information, it may be too late.
Chairman Begich. Right or it creates a second disaster.
Mr. Fugate. Yes.
Chairman Begich. Yes. Thank you very much. John, thank you,
as always, and I am curious, you just had the pretty
significant training exercise. If you could pinpoint, one, two,
three, what where those things that you said, ``Wow, here's
where we better get some focus on,'' knowing that you took an
incident from 1964, but transplanted it in current times and
then used the logistics chain of today, what were those two or
three things that you could say, ``This is where we better get
some focus on, because we have not done enough or there needs
to be significant improvement based on an earthquake disaster?
''
Mr. Madden. Senator, I designed the exercise so that we
would--it was an exercise of discovery more than anything else
and in the first 3 days, while our local communities, and there
were a dozen or more that had a truly challenging exercise, we
needed to discover the areas in which our excellence at the
small and medium disasters well served the catastrophic or did
not, and we found that while we have excellent records on the
Yukon floods and the Kuskokwim River floods and the sea storms,
none of those reached the complexity of the catastrophic, so I
wanted to--and then in the middle of it, reconfigure, and what
we did was put into place some of our thinking over the last 2
years of we are smart enough in peacetime to gather people
together with the right skills and abilities and authorities to
solve most of the problems, the big ones on health, on
transportation, on public safety, on search and rescue, and
when we put those into place during this exercise, we found
that was a good investment.
The same people we work with in peacetime, we work with in
the event and that's a little bit different, because it is not
easy for a State to maintain those types of groups through
peacetime.
We also found that by having the State being the functional
area in which our Federal partners fall in on, there would not
be that confusion about logistics. We would have our Alaskan
experts alongside of FEMA's logistical experts and we would
start solving problems, but the key was the participation in
the problem-solving, rather than waiting for a mission
assignment, rather than finding things at the end of the
process where there could be an impediment or a problem. Let's
get those impediments and problems at the beginning and that's
one we had not done into realistic and rigorous standards, and
we did that.
The other one we found was that we had a little stumble for
a few hours on the dual status command process about how the
Governor requested it and the Secretary of Defense approves it,
but then all the mechanics of how to get the full weight of
thousands of troops under this dual status command.
It turned out very good, but we had underestimated their
ability to form rapidly and we did not have the right parts of
the scenario. So late Saturday night, using my own
understanding of it, I injected a few things that could only be
solved through a joint National Guard and active duty and they
formed in very well, but I also worked it out so that no
mission in this entire exercise was the responsibility of one
group.
Every single mission was joint, Federal and State, State
and local, private sector and public sector, volunteers and
other non-governmentals, requiring it to be tested vigorously
on how do we work together in peacetime.
Chairman Begich. Because you saw some of those
modifications, are those things now that are systematically
going to be implemented, so you do not have to--like you
mentioned the couple of hours of bumps there, but
systematically that you will be able to look back and say,
``OK, this is what we are going to change so we do not have
that 2, 3-hour delay,'' or I should not say delay, but the
bumps that you had there? Is that a systematic change you think
you can do?
Mr. Madden. It is systematic and----
Chairman Begich. It sets into play now?
Mr. Madden. Within our uniformed partners, both Guard and
active duty, we met for hours yesterday to make sure that we
captured every one of those things that we need to then
institutionalize. The other things of our relationship with
private sector, our use of the volunteer organizations, our
problem-solving enterprises, those task forces, we put those
into place in the last 2 years and have been using them very
effectively on our predictable disasters and this exercise was
the one in which we wanted to turn up the heat and really try
them out.
We found a few things there about how much we can solve in
peacetime and how much is going to be relied upon the event.
Chairman Begich. Got you.
Mr. Madden. So that problem-solving and the ability to
adapt--the biggest discovery I think we had across all of the
people participating is that realization that a plan cannot and
does not make a decision, a leader does, and to have the plan,
such that has guidelines and that the plan is a point of
adaptation and I think many times throughout the Nation, we
have exercises in which the disaster is moved over to fit the
plan----
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Madden [continuing.] Rather than the plan adapting
over----
Chairman Begich. So you have more situational awareness?
Mr. Madden. Yes, sir, and then when we had 300 people: 100
from the State, 200 from our Federal partners all together in
the Egan Center with their joint field office. It was
heartening as to how rapidly that group changed over to this
approach of problem-solving leading to decisions, leading to
the missions and the missions were far more coordinated. We
will be taking our discoveries and refining them so that we can
make it last.
Chairman Begich. More systematic then?
Mr. Madden. Yes, sir.
Chairman Begich. Let me ask you one last question because I
want to move to the other panel and give time, but this is one
that actually came up in the last meeting, and for the folks
that are here who talked to me about pets, this is one that's
interesting. I became more and more aware of it as I have been
chairing this committee, but also just in my work when I was
Mayor.
In that planning, and I think there's a fair statement that
would be made, that we saw it in Hurricane Katrina and others
where people will not leave their homes without their pets and
they create a bigger problem, and then here in Alaska, it has
dual issues, pets, but also dogs can be transportation issues
in the smaller villages in the wintertime.
So how do one of the concerns we have heard is there's not
enough effort by the State to recognize that as a part of the
broader picture or making sure there's an organization ready to
be able to be pulled locally or within the region. This is kind
of a new issue for me, so I am just going to put it on the
table and I do not know if you have a response, but I would
love to get your thoughts and maybe now or into the future on
this.
Mr. Madden. There were two components of this, Senator, and
one is on the local and several of our jurisdictions that
participated in the Alaska Shield did have pets as part of
their sheltering function and in----
Chairman Begich. Pets with families or pets separated?
Mr. Madden. Pets adjacent to.
Chairman Begich. OK.
Mr. Madden. And I think Cordova had several of their high
school students be part of that response to aid in the shelter
and also aid with the pets just immediately outside. In a
larger sense, within the joint field office, we had the
professional assistance from U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) that has a primary Federal role to supporting this.
We ran missions of how do we obtain the right number of
cases and dog cages and food as part of those problem-solving,
and the reason we gave this such an emphasis, sir, is that in
the ``Life'' magazine from April 1964, it had a full page
picture of a gentleman, one of our elders with his big dog in
his lap asleep because the dog was too frightened from the
earthquake.
Chairman Begich. Right.
Mr. Madden. The dog's name was Beauty and the headline what
the man said was; ``All I have now is my Beauty. I have nothing
else to live for.'' That's what I show to all the people so
they can get it--it is not the numbers. It is the humans and
where there's humans, there are the animals.
We found that we needed to pick up the pace and be able to
do things earlier, which is part of the reason why we exercise.
Chairman Begich. Very good. Thank you very much. I thank
both of you for this first panel. Let me move to the second
panel and I will start with George Keeney, Fire Chief of the
Valdez Fire Department and again, I thank all four of you for
being here and thanks for--we will pass that microphone as it
goes, but I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Is that mic on? Make sure. Is it green?
Mr. Keeney. It's green.
Chairman Begich. OK, you are good.
Mr. Keeney. Can you guys hear me?
Chairman Begich. For some reason, get ready, we might swap
mics here in a second.
Chairman Begich. Is that good?
Mr. Keeney. How about if I go closer?
Chairman Begich. There we go.
TESTIMONY OF GEORGE KEENEY,\1\ FIRE CHIEF AND EMERGENCY MANAGER
FOR THE CITY OF VALDEZ
Mr. Keeney. I'm George Keeney. I am the Fire Chief and
Emergency Manager for the city of Valdez. The question on first
responders in my definition is everyone. In my community, I
rely on everybody to respond, no matter what age.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Keeney appears in the Appendix on
page 42.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You do not have to be a medic or a fireman or anybody, in a
sense, you have to be part of a family or part of the community
and that's what we pull in. Part of this, though, is the
training of those folks.
Believe it or not, in Valdez, I am well known for my
disasters, especially with Alaska Shield. It seems like we
planned for Alaska Shield--I have lots of disasters before that
hits, practicing for the exercise.
Chairman Begich. Your real-life practice?
Mr. Keeney. It is real-life. The one thing, though, is we
teach our youth and we start out from elementary school--we
have backpacks for their drills, for their evacuation. We have
a web page where they can go on there. They can fill out
information about their families and so forth. So we teach our
youth.
You folks in the crowd right here, I am glad to see the
youth are here because you are the ones that actually are the
responders that I want to make sure I train. I can train us
older folks and hopefully, they will learn, but you guys are
the ones that I want to really teach and that's what we do.
We try and hit everybody from elementary all the way
through high school. I run an Explorer Post and in that is in
my fire department, and those young adults are actually taught
to be CERT instructed or CERT trained and then also, they're
usually taught emergency trauma tech (ETT), and what they do
then is, since they volunteer for me, I use them the best I
can.
I have them go to all the games and stuff, and standby. So
that gets their skill level real good and my daughter's a real
good athlete and she's actually one of my ETTs, so she might be
playing or doing something, somebody falls down and gets hurt,
she will automatically go into that role of an emergency trauma
tech. She will take care of that person. So my youth actually
take care of us old folks, because it is usually us that fall
down and get hurt.
The other thing is we try and teach as much first aid and
CPR in our classes as we can. I teach probably 100 to 150
people a year first aid classes myself. I teach all kinds of
EMS. I am an EMS instructor. Through Mary Carlson and her crew
over there, she makes sure I do it right, but anyway, what we
do is we teach as much into our public and then as they all
know, once I do my roster, my roster then becomes part of my
emergency plans, because now I have your name and your phone
number and your email address and I can get you at any time. So
I use those folks.
Drills and stuff, we use as much in drills as we can on an
annual basis. If we have an exercise, whether it is an oil
spill, whether it is a plane crash, I will moulage, fix them up
so they look real bad and then I will have all the responders,
I will even pull in boy scouts and girl scout teams to actually
go in there and take care of their kids or their--actually
adults and--I use those kids in my drills.
The one thing I have found that those kids love to be the
victims. Well, believe it or not, as victims, you learn a lot
about your care and you learn, what they are doing to you and
you can see that, and so the youth that we use, I use them as
my volunteers. I will throw them out there in all the exercises
and they will see that too.
This last Alaska Shield, like you brought up, we have
thrown about 300 people at different locations into all kinds
of disastrous stuff. I have even thrown people in the water in
this drill and actually, it is cold. We had the Coast Guard
responding to those folks and they did a fantastic job, along
with a State Trooper vessel that we had out there and the State
Parks and actually, I used one of my State Park rangers,
because he is a good medic, I put him in a dry suit and
moulaged him up and threw him up. I said, ``You are one of the
casualties.'' So they had to take care of him ,too. So he got
to see the whole thing.
The one good thing out of all of these exercises, the more
we do it, the more muscle retention you have as to exactly what
you are doing and then that skill stays in the brain, and what
is neat is seeing those exercises work in our community. It
works in a true emergency or disaster.
We have had quite a few accidents lately in our community
where this last big one was a 50-person mass casualty. We had a
school bus full of cross-country skiers and the chaperones run
into the back of a semi-truck. We set up an alternate care site
at the elementary school. We had teachers, parents coming in
there, responding to that incident just like they would on any
time I ask for help.
We also had medics and Explorers at the alternate care
site. We were able to use those folks to actually take care of
the young kids and adults, and then get them to the hospital as
we needed to or as we could and yes, the critical ones went
right there, but that type of training, as we work it through
the whole process, we teach our youth and our residents in the
community. They see that too and what is neat about Valdez is
they pull in on all these exercises and we have more and more
want to play.
We just finished up Alaska Shield this last week and then
we ended up having a first aid class taught by the National
Guard crew and believe it or not, I had 40 people and the
residents there that wanted to take that class, too, a 2-day
course. That's how involved they are in our community.
You, as the youth, and--you need to push it that the youth
need to learn about what hazards they have in their community
and be able to respond to it. As an emergency manager, I love
teaching all the aspects of emergency management and in that, I
push all the education to the kids.
The one thing that I know our FEMA Director said that, they
are there to help the State and guess what, the State helps the
city, but it is the residents in that city, it is their
problem. It is their emergency. They control it. They respond
to it. We, as the city or local government, yes, we are there
to help too, and we are going to do it. It is all of our city
organization, it is our accident. It is our emergency. It is
our disaster and we respond to it.
We ask the State--and what's fantastic about this State is
I have some folks over here too, I know these folks by their
first name. I do not have to say, I can say Mr. Madden because
I usually call him Mr. Madden anyway, but I could actually go
up to him and say, ``John, I need your help,'' and I can call
him 24 hours a day and he would respond or his team. Mike and
Brian and the rest of them over here, they would actually
respond. So it is that first-hand knowledge that has gotten
through the exercises, and what we have learned and how we have
learned it to where we can actually call them up.
I can call these folks up 24 hours a day and even in
damalanche, which is not a nasty name. It was an avalanche that
created a dam in Keystone Canyon. Believe it or not, my city
manager and the police chief and I were sitting in an office
and we were discussing it and quickly he said, ``I need to talk
to an expert. I have to talk to an expert about this avalanche,
because I do not know if I want to take and shut down this
subdivision and set up a shelter.'' He says, ``What do I do?''
I said, ``Well, let's talk to the expert.''
So I called Cary over there at the SEOC, just called their
800 number and said, ``I need to talk to Cary down there in the
SEOC.'' I said, ``I need an expert.'' Within about 2 minutes,
he had someone in from River Watch, one of the professors, and
she was able to get on there and believe it or not, with
technology, she said, ``Hold on a second, I am looking at
something,'' and then pretty quick she said, ``I am looking at
your site there. Yes, you guys got a problem and it is a big
one,'' and then at that time, she was able to tell us within a
couple of minutes what her opinion was about that disaster.
Well, that technology did that and also the fact that we had
the State SEOC that was set up to where they can respond to our
emergency within seconds and actually take care of our
situation, and provide that technical expert to where we can
turn around and tell the people in that subdivision, ``You have
to move out, folks. You need to voluntarily move out.''
We had 885 million gallons of water behind that dam. That's
what the low river gave us. So Alaska Shield, we were testing
tsunamis and I was ready to test a tsunami in Keystone Canyon.
So it was a little bit scary.
That inter-relationship has to stay. The inter-relationship
with health and social services, I do the same thing with Mary
Carlson and her crew. It is a one name type thing. I can call
her or any of her crew. I know them personally because all
these exercises we do. It helps the community, but it takes
those in the community to be able to respond.
So when, as a planner, as an emergency manager, I love
teaching this. I will respond to everything that we have in our
community, but the one thing is I definitely have to have that
back up and that's what we use.
Chairman Begich. Thank you very much for that. Let me go
ahead and go to Victor Joseph, who's the new President and
Chairman of Tanana Chiefs. It is very good to have you here.
Thank you very much, Victor, for being here.
TESTIMONY OF VICTOR JOSEPH,\1\ PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN, TANANA
CHIEFS CONFERENCE
Mr. Joseph. Thank you, Senator Begich. Tanana Chiefs
Conference (TCC), serves 42 tribes throughout the Interior of
Alaska. The comments and descriptions I will be discussing
today are written to highlight TCC's work in emergency
response, problems experienced and some ideas for solutions to
move forward.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Joseph appears in the Appendix on
page 44.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TCC has taken an active role in disaster response since the
break-up floods in 2009, when it appeared that quick action was
needed to protect health and safety and again in 2013.
TCC prepares every spring for breakup flooding. Our
preparations include making a list of medically fragile
patients in each community, coordinating with the State
Department of Homeland Security, Red Cross and others, working
with the airlines to prepare for evacuation charters,
purchasing supplies and keeping staff and others informed.
TCC has made significant efforts over the years to
encourage and assist emergency planning at the local level in
TCC villages. During the disaster response, TCC seeks to do
what is necessary to protect the health and safety of community
members throughout the TCC villages.
TCC has provided the following responses during disasters;
evacuate medically fragile village residents, charter flights
to evacuate village populations at large, purchase and deliver
emergency supplies, shelter evacuees, act as a vendor for the
State of Alaska, provide health care and assist in setting up
emergency supplies and treatment services.
In a recovery stage, TCC engages in the recovery process,
although not to the degree that we engage as in the response.
The main task TCC takes during our recoveries are: helping
communities with project worksheets and reimbursements, assist
tribes with recovering public buildings and facilities, such
as, clinics, water treatment plants, wastewater facilities and
landfills.
The problems that we see in planning and preparedness, the
most significant problem in the area, is creating effective
plans in each community and a lack of training at the local
level.
Planning and preparedness solutions that we see is provide
training for local employees that can lead the planning effort
and ensure the plan is exercised annually.
Response problems, the biggest problems with the response
effort has been coordination. Once again, I would be looking at
the Galena flood as I am talking about this. The lack of
coordination and the number of parties involved in the Galena
evacuation was very confusing. There were airplanes showing up
at the airport full of evacuees and nobody knew who was coming
or going, and it happened very haphazardly and people were put
throughout the State of Alaska.
Part of that confusion was when we were ready to send
charters, the State of Alaska was not prepared at that time to
authorize the flights.
In summary, the lack of communications during the Galena
evacuation proved very difficult. Confusion during the
evacuations, State policy conducting rescues, not evacuations
led to the slow response, slow emergency evacuations and a lot
of confusion.
Response solutions are improve the State policy on
authorizing an evacuation, and locate facilities and purchase
supplies ahead of time.
Recovery problems, TCC does not normally interact with FEMA
until the recovery stage of the disaster. Once the recovery
begins, many problems become apparent. The dual State FEMA
damage assessment is a problem for home owners and tribal
governments. It appeared to add delays and seemed duplicative
and unnecessary to people trying to rebuild their homes.
Some of the policy that FEMA applies is not consistent
throughout. There were several procurement issues that also led
throughout this process and established a lot of concerns about
getting things that may be a little more appropriate for the
area.
Over the past several disasters, TCC has developed a good
working relationship with the State of Alaska Department of
Homeland Security and I really appreciate that. It has meant a
lot to our region, but it--and FEMA's communication with the
local government, individuals and regional problems, that is
some of the concerns and we would like to see how we can
establish better relations there.
So our solutions for recovery are combine:, the dual damage
assessment process, to expedite that, develop a checklist or
flowcharts to make the process of seek and assistance from FEMA
easier to understand, improve communication with the tribal
governments, potentially include regional 8(a) profit
corporations in the process and ensure that information is
getting to the affected individually timely.
I would like to see that FEMA and TCC establish a
relationship similar that we have established with the
Department of Homeland Security to expedite the process. In my
report that I submitted, there's Appendix A, Senator Begich,
and that's from the city of Galena, the tribe and the comments
that they offered. Thank you very much.
Chairman Begich. Fantastic. Thank you very much and just
for the record, not only testimony, but the submitted
information also is all part of the official record. So I want
to make sure and I got a good packet from you. So I thank you
for that, Victor.
Let me move to the next panelist, Dr. Koehler, Chair of the
Rural Committee on National Association Emergency Medical
Service Physicians. Doctor.
TESTIMONY OF DANITA KOEHLER,\1\ MD, CHAIR RURAL COMMITTEE,
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES PHYSICIANS
Dr. Koehler. Thank you for holding out, everybody. I Am
going to switch up a little bit with your permission, Senator?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Koehler appears in the Appendix
on page 50.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Begich. Sure.
Dr. Koehler. Because what has been said, George and I are
both field people. So I have two challenges. First, to the
people in the audience, some of the new leaders in disaster
management, the challenge is to get involved now in your
volunteer local agencies, EMS, ambulance services is the common
name. We need your help. We're in a crisis in recruitment and
retention of volunteers.
As George will tell you, there is nothing more gratifying
that saving a life. Come join us, and with that, if the
gentleman that I met, who is in search and rescue, could you
stand up, please?
What I am saying is dedicated to him and 49 plus other
search and rescue organizations in this State, 49 that are
composed of volunteers. EMS in this State is also largely a
volunteer system. These are selfless, dedicated volunteers who
are out there at 2 in the morning, 40-below, responding when
you call 911.
We have taught the public to call 911, sir, and they do
anytime day or night. We need your help. There's just a few of
us. Most of us have been doing this for 30-some odd years. It
is a wonderful career and the next generation of EMS is
preparing for career progression that includes disaster
management interweaving, lots of opportunity.
The second challenge is to the Federal disaster
preparedness and your Senate Subcommittee. I apologize, some of
this will be boring. Emergency medical services providers are
the initial health care providers at the scene of disaster.
They are often the first to recognize the nature of
disaster and can immediately evaluate the situation and
determine the need for resources. Response is provided by
various levels. In our State, we have a unique program called
Emergency Trauma Technician Training and you all can get that
at the high school level and you should.
Everyone in this audience needs to be proficient at hands-
only CPR. You can save a life. It is the most gratifying thing
you will do.
It is important to understand, sir, that EMS providers may
be the first to apply crisis standards of care. The dispatch
and field providers are integral partners in local, State,
tribal and territorial efforts related to development and
implementation of crisis standards of care planning.
In crisis standards of care, the goal is not necessarily to
save everyone. That's a hard thing to get your head around. It
is rather about saving as many lives as possible with the
resources that are available. Prehospital EMS is the only
safety net of access to emergency care on a day-to-day basis
for everyone in this audience, and for all who are listening
in, but in fact, during a disaster, Senator, EMS is the
gatekeeper of protection to a nation's health care
infrastructure.
EMS is responsible for approximately 1 percent of the
country's health care cost, but such a small train drives
approximately 40 percent of our overall health care
expenditures. While our daily mission is to triage, treat and
transport patients to the right medical facility the first
time, in a case of a biochemical attack, ambulance crews must
recognize and ensure only decontaminated patients arrive at the
door of an emergency department. Failure to do so will result
in cross-contamination and an infrastructure crisis from
hospital closures. In Alaska, there's 24 hospitals. In
Fairbanks, there's one. In many of our regions, there's one.
EMS matters and it needs to be, this is according to the
feds, it needs to be at the table of every policy conference,
and needs to be targeted with specific funding and a lead
Federal agency.
There are eight major sources of funding for EMS, again,
thank you for your patience with me, one, Center for Disease
Control (CDC) and Prevention. This is primarily for public
health departments to build a capacity for infectious disease
emergencies.
A young person in the audience that talked to me about
vaccinations, CDC operates this area. Eighty percent of State
EMS offices have no or occasional involvement in this grant
program.
The second of eight EMS potential funding areas, Pandemic
Flu Supplemental funding. More than half of State EMS offices
reported no or occasional involvement in this grant program.
Third, Emergency Management preparedness grants. Eighty-five
percent of State EMS offices have no or rare involvement or
were not eligible for these funds.
Fourth, Public Health and Human Block grants, although all
State EMS offices were eligible for funding, 65 percent
reported no involvement in this grant. Fifth, Hospital
Preparedness Program, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and
Response, more than half of State EMS offices have no or
occasional involvement or were not eligible to participate in
this grant.
No. 6 of eight, Department of Homeland Security grants, 62
percent of State EMS offices have no or occasional involvement
in this grant program. No. 7 and eight are important for you in
Alaska in the rural areas, Urban Areas Security Initiative, \2/
3\ of State EMS offices have no or occasional involvement in
this grant.
No. 8, Metropolitan Medical Response System, nearly \3/4\
of all State EMS offices had no or occasional involvement in
the Medical Response System for metropolitan areas.
For rural and remote areas, for tribal areas, where is the
equivalent of Urban Area Security Initiative? Where is the
equivalent of Metropolitan Medical Response System? So as to
not sound doom and gloom, Mary Carlson, will you stand up?
Mary Carlson is your Chief of Emergency Programs in the
State of Alaska and truly a dedicated selfless serving person
who is a mentor, a friend. Thank you for the work you do, Mary,
and thank you for these lessons learned from the Capstone
Alaska Shield 2014.
The information gained at the local, State and Federal
level from Federal partners from Alaska Shield could not have
been replicated without full scale play. So thank you, our
Federal partners. Forward patient movement from the disaster to
casualty collection points, alternative care sites, and
disaster air medical staging facilities are complex actions
involving multiple agencies, and they are only understood when
practiced.
For you young people, wouldn't that be fun to play in next
time? We learned, for example, that even using every available
transport asset equipped for litters, ambulances, an ambulance
bus, a dual use fill vehicle that we could transport a maximum
of 24 patients, when the receiving medical treatment facility
could have handled 50.
Bariatric and special needs patients will require special
transportation knowledge during disaster, as equipment and care
requirements are different and affect maximum throughput for
patient evacuation.
For example, a bariatric patient will be required to lay
flat on a military medical transport during the flight with
current arrangements for standard transport of a medically
unstable patient. The litters are available, but this limits
the total number of patients transported in a single flight.
The ability of EMS providers and hospital personnel to be
aware of these fine distinctions in the triage and resource
allocation are critical to the success of the overall mission,
and what about children? We also learned there are minimal
military resources available with specific pediatric
capabilities and those require deployment time.
Specific funding and training for critical pediatric
stabilization and transport must be strengthened in order to
respond effectively. This is not just in Alaska. This is
throughout the country.
In the small port town of Valdez, my friend George, and
further up north toward Glennallen, we clearly illuminated the
crisis in volunteer EMS systems that struggled to sustain daily
operations, and do not, I repeat, do not have the ability to
surge the uniformly throughout this Nation, not just Alaska,
are the forgotten heroes of first responders.
I recommend a concerted effort by all States to access the
true value of their volunteer EMS systems, Mr. Madden, and
transform the next generation of EMS to be supported by
volunteer labor, but not solely reliant on it. You will not
miss us until we are gone.
Some of the best practice and most interesting things, sir,
for your Subcommittee are this; Alaska was the first State to
stand up and operate a State-owned former Federal medical
station now known as the Alaska Medical Station.
The purpose of alternate medical treatment sites are to
decompress hospitals and allow access to care for those
patients less seriously injured or ill. In this exercise, local
EMS providers worked side-by-side with military medics, as well
as volunteer nurses, physicians, support staff and the Alaska
Department of Health and Social Services. This is another
opportunity for you all to volunteer.
What we learned is that while the roles of basic responders
are clear, anything beyond basic life support demonstrated a
lack of interoperability between military and civilian licensed
EMS, nursing and medical providers. Support in a catastrophic
event and during recovery will be hampered if States are not
part of the proposed interstate compact for licensure of EMS
personnel. To not bore the audience, more information is in the
written part of my testimony.
I will say this one thing that is not in that extra
information in support of my tribal partner, the interstate
compact for licensure of EMS personnel is exactly what we need,
but for the places in this country that are impoverished, for
those places in this country that are tribal reservations, that
are off-road where there are so few volunteer EMS providers,
this interstate compact, before it is fully vetted, must ask
these people what will work for them. It is one gap that we
need to address.
A second and last--thank you for your time and patience
with me. A second best practice that I think your Subcommittee
members from the rural States need to know about; the frontier
extended stay clinic model is a best practice for rural States.
Alaska's frontier extended stay model of 24/7 emergency
care on a day-to-day basis, as well as in disasters, is a best
practice model of disaster preparedness for rural and remote
areas of our Nation. These federally qualified health centers
are located in communities in Alaska where hospitals are not
easily accessed and are designed to address the needs of
seriously ill or injured patients who cannot be transferred
quickly.
This matters even to you in Anchorage and Fairbanks and
other urban centers in this country. These few clinics that are
positioned in the areas where you go to travel, to recreate.
They have the ability to initially provide life-saving
emergency care, monitor and observe patients for up to 48
hours. Why this is important to preparedness on the Federal
side, sir, is that during the very time that hospitals are in
most need of decompressing from receiving patients, these
frontier extended rural clinics have the ability to stabilize,
treat, monitor and observe patients during that first 48 hours.
It is a little known pilot project which was started in
2003 and again, important for Members of your Subcommittee from
Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota.
Chairman Begich. Doctor, can I have you summarize your
comments?
Dr. Koehler. Thank you for the opportunity. How's that?
Chairman Begich. That's pretty good. Thank you. I know you
had more testimony and additional information in your written,
I thank you. We are right at the time, but I want to--very
important to have the last speaker, Mike Abbott, Assistant
Superintendent of Anchorage School District, so you go ahead
with your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL K. ABBOTT,\1\ ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT,
ANCHORAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT
Mr. Abbott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, on behalf of
the Superintendent, the Anchorage School Board, the students
and the staff here, let me welcome you to South Anchorage High
School. This is one of our newer buildings. It is a great
school. The wolverines of south Anchorage are nationally
acclaimed for many academic, as well extracurricular
activities, and I know they are very proud that the
Subcommittee is with them here today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Abbott appears in the Appendix on
page 54.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I will be very brief, Mr. Chairman. We have presented
written comments that we are more than happy to respond to
questions about at any time of the Subcommittee's desire. The
school district is--I believe sets a national standard for
preparation and preparedness for disaster response, both at the
school level, our annual emergency action planning efforts, as
well as our community support efforts, I believe are among the
best in the Nation.
Our partnerships, especially with the Municipality of
Anchorage and also with the State and our Federal partners, our
partners with the Department of Defense (DOD), as you know, the
JBER operation has a large percentage of Anchorage's
population, as well as a number of Anchorage School District
facilities on the installation.
We work with all of those folks closely and I believe we
are well prepared in the event of an emergency here in
Anchorage and we take that responsibility very seriously. I
think if you spoke with any building principal, you would find
that their No. 1 priority is to make sure that their students
and staff are safe, whether that's on a regular school day or
in the event of an emergency.
The planning, preparation, drills and exercises that they
participate on at their buildings, as well as the district
systematically, I think put us in the excellent position to be
successful.
On any given day, perhaps even earlier today, approximately
10 percent of the population of the State of Alaska is in an
Anchorage School District facility. As a result, we have a very
significant working responsibility to be prepared in the event
of an earthquake or a wildfire or any number of other types of
emergencies that might call on our students and our staff to
equip themselves well, both for their personal protection, as
well as to offer support for the rest of the community and
Anchorage. In our partnerships with the rest of the community,
we feel that we have invested both time and resources in that
preparation effort and Senator, with that, I will close my
comments this afternoon and make sure we are available for any
questions there might be.
Chairman Begich. Fantastic, I know we are over time, but I
will ask just a couple of quick questions, but first, I will
start with you, Mr. Abbott, thank you very much. Thanks for the
tour of the facility outside. We got to see one of the 22----
Mr. Abbott. Twenty-two.
Chairman Begich. Twenty-two locations that you have
designated. What happens, how is the school district prepared
knowing--let's say there is a disaster that occurs, let's say
it is here or let's say it is any one of the schools, but you
know you have parents and community members who might be
working or living in Girdwood, Mat-Su, wherever else. How does
that work with managing those kids and making sure the parents
have that information as quickly as possible?
This is one of those common kinds of questions. We had an
incident in Washington, DC. My son goes to school there during
the school year and then back here, obviously, during the
summer and the school was on a shutdown, and how that
communication worked, it was very efficient and no matter where
we were, I was actually traveling and I was able to get a text
message very quickly on what the status was. How does it work
in the school district here and how do you deal with parents
who do not live in the Anchorage Bowl?
Mr. Abbott. You bet. The school is prepared to provide
immediate shelter and support for the entire student population
and the staff, as well. So if there was an emergency, the
initial priority of the building would be to ensure the safety
and security of the students and staff that were on the site at
the time of the event.
Immediately thereafter, once that has been secured, once
the facility and the people have been made as safe as possible,
then we begin to try to communicate with parents and families.
If the normal communication tools that are available to us
normally are available, we will use those and we have a variety
of systems that allow us to use telephonic and digital
communication to reach folks.
We also take advantage of the media, as well. We encourage
families to, if they can, to come and get their kids and in a
situation like a secondary school, like a high school like
this, many of our students might well decide to discharge
themselves and make their own way back and there's a procedure
where we are able to determine whether the students are in a
position to do that or not, and we follow that procedure.
For dealing with elementary school age kids, obviously, we
are not going to release them, unless there's an appropriate
adult. We insist on getting the best possible emergency contact
information. That's why it is very important that you not only
make sure that parents themselves are listed, but any other
adults that might be in a position to support your family in
the event of an emergency are also listed as school contacts,
because we want to make sure that if someone comes to the
school and says, ``Hey, I should take John home with me. I live
next door.'' We want to make sure that we are in a position to
help make a good decision as to whether that's the appropriate
option for Johnnie.
If there are children that ca not get home for whatever
reason, we have plans in place to make sure that we
concentrate, if you will, the kids from a variety of buildings
that might not be available to--or might not be able to get
home. We concentrate them and we are prepared to take care of
them for as long as necessary, days, weeks, whatever's
appropriate and with that, of course, the whole community would
be involved in the response at that point, and would be
supporting the district in making sure that those kids were
well-taken care of.
Chairman Begich. Thank you very much. I am going to ask two
last questions, and I know the Administrator has to catch a
plane. So I am going to be very quick here because I know many
of you and Doctor, I am going to probably not ask you one,
because you gave me so many ideas I have written down here, but
also, I know your testimony is very strong in the sense of some
of your recommendations.
I know also, Victor, you had some good recommendations. So
I want to ask you--one statement that you made, I want to make
sure I understand what you do. Is it right that as TCC, you do
an annual assessment of those that may need special care to be
transported out in case of emergency? What I was not sure I
caught that 100 percent. I want to make sure I understand that,
and that leads to my question for the Chief I am going to ask
next, so----
Mr. Joseph. OK.
Chairman Begich. Did I hear that right or----
Mr. Joseph. Almost.
Chairman Begich. OK.
Mr. Joseph. What we do is as we are following the report
and as it is breaking up or if a community's endangered, we
start looking immediately at those ones that are medically
frail.
Chairman Begich. So they are at--when that community's
becoming potentially at risk, you do a quick inventory of what
individuals may----
Mr. Joseph. Yes, but we consistently have that information
on-hand so it does not take us very long to bring it up through
our electric health records.
Chairman Begich. Got you. OK, that's what I think that's a
great idea. I think that's fantastic. For the Chief, you had
mentioned, and I thought it was interesting, you had talked
about all these resources from volunteers and people you are
training and so forth.
Can you at any given time say, ``OK,'' because Valdez is
one of those communities that could be isolated, right? We have
seen that, right?
Mr. Keeney. Yes.
Chairman Begich. So do you know at any given time within
your community, here's an inventory of people who have had
certain training or, ``Gees, we know maybe they were a
physician, but they're retired, but they are in this
practice,'' so you could call on them or, someone, like I would
use Donny Olson as an example up north. He's an attorney. He's
a doctor. He's a pilot. Two of those are good in emergencies. I
will leave you to try what the third one--I can say that, but I
mean, right, so you kind of can, I know if I am with Donny, I
am feeling pretty good, but tell me, do you have that kind of
inventory or is that something that--I mean, I was thinking
that's a great idea of all the people you are training----
Mr. Keeney. Yes, the medical corps actually does have that
same process. In Valdez, what we do is I have a list of those
folks that have been retired, have any medical training, all my
first aid/CPR classes, all those rosters. What's amazing, too,
is just like the bus crash, I sent out word that I needed a few
more medics, and within, I would say 30 minutes, I had 45
medics right there at my gym and they were ready to respond and
yes, we had some that had not been in the service right away or
active, but yet, they were quickly pulled in. We do have a list
and also the hospital has a list of those that are in the area.
Chairman Begich. That you can tap into?
Mr. Keeney. That we can tap right into and then Mary
Carlson and her group, they are working on credentialing and so
forth. That's the one big issue. If I have the City Manager or
the Mayor declare a disaster, then there's some other forms
that we can pull credentialed people in on and so we even have
that option, too.
Chairman Begich. Let me end on this with a comment for the
Doctor. You mentioned quite a few things and they were very
good, frontier hospitals are something I aggressively support
for all the reasons you said, 24/7, it is a fantastic program.
I think some of the urban centers do not understand the value
of those, and it is something we are constantly working to
educate, but not for today, but I would like to get going to
have my team followup with you on the eight grants or eight
funding sources, I should say, and some of your data points,
because I would be very interested in what we can do
functionally within our role of how to increase that capacity
of engagement, because I think that's a good point.
I'm a believer in EMS. I have been saved by EMS. I remember
the Spirit of Youth organization, which I will be at an event
tomorrow night. Many years ago, we presented an award to a
group of young women under the age of 18 that had already
become EMS or gone down that path of being trained.
It's incredible. You know what I'm talking about? I can not
remember the group. They had a name and it was very catchy
name, but very powerful of what they can do. So I want to make
sure my team follows up with you, if that's OK, because I think
you had some really interesting data points that are worthwhile
for us to figure out what can we do to create that engagement,
if that's OK.
Well, first, let me say, again, to the witnesses, to our
guests and always our regular guest, kind of like a talk show
host, John, you are always here, thank you for being here and
thank you for the information. This has given my Committee more
information that we can use to help craft policies that we hope
will be improving and can improve emergency response, may they
be in catastrophic or otherwise, and so we thank the panels for
being here, and to staff, do I need to do anything technically
here? OK, the record will be open for 15 days for other
questions or additional information that may be desired by
other Committee Members, and we do thank everyone for being
here and again, thank you to the panelists that were here
today.
At this time, the meeting is adjourned.
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]