Homeland Security: Observations on DHS and FEMA Efforts to
Prepare for and Respond to Major and Catastrophic Disasters and
Address Related Recommendations and Legislation (15-MAY-07,
GAO-07-835T).
As a new hurricane season approaches, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) within the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) faces the simultaneous challenges of preparing for
the season and implementing the reorganization and other
provisions of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of
2006. The Act stipulates major changes to FEMA intended to
enhance its preparedness for and response to catastrophic and
major disasters. As GAO has reported, FEMA and DHS face continued
challenges, including clearly defining leadership roles and
responsibilities, developing necessary disaster response
capabilities, and establishing accountability systems to provide
effective services while protecting against waste, fraud, and
abuse. This testimony (1) summarizes GAO's findings on these
challenges and FEMA's and DHS's efforts to address them; and (2)
discusses several disaster management issues for continued
congressional attention.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-07-835T
ACCNO: A69666
TITLE: Homeland Security: Observations on DHS and FEMA Efforts
to Prepare for and Respond to Major and Catastrophic Disasters
and Address Related Recommendations and Legislation
DATE: 05/15/2007
SUBJECT: Accountability
Disaster planning
Disaster recovery
Disaster relief aid
Emergency management
Emergency preparedness
Emergency response plans
Homeland security
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricanes
Logistics
Natural disasters
Strategic planning
National Incident Management System
National Response Plan
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GAO-07-835T
* [1]Summary
* [2]Background
* [3]FEMA Reviewing Its Responsibilities, Capabilities as It Impl
* [4]Leadership Is Critical to Prepare for, Respond to, and Recov
* [5]Enhanced Capabilities Are Needed to Adequately Prepare for a
* [6]Balance Needed between Quick Provision of Assistance and Ens
* [7]Several Disaster Management Issues Should Have Continued Con
* [8]DHS Has Reorganized Pursuant to the Post-Katrina Reform Act
* [9]Effective Implementation of the Post-Katrina Reform Act's
Pr
* [10]The National Preparedness System Is Key to Developing Disast
* [11]The Particular Challenge of Preparing for an Influenza Pande
* [12]Knowledge of the Effects of State and Local Efforts to Impro
* [13]Regional and Multistate Planning and Preparation Should Be R
* [14]Exercises Must Be Carefully Planned and Deployed and Capture
* [15]DHS Has Provided Limited Transparency for Its Management or
* [16]Concluding Observations
* [17]Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
* [18]FEMA Taking Steps to Improve Situational Assessment Capabili
* [19]Some Progress Has Been Made on Interoperable Communications
* [20]FEMA Taking Steps to Address Logistics Problems
* [21]Revisions Made to Evacuation Planning, Mass Care, Housing an
* [22]GAO's Mission
* [23]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony
* [24]Order by Mail or Phone
* [25]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
* [26]Congressional Relations
* [27]Public Affairs
Testimony
Before the Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives
United States Government Accountability Office
GAO
For Release on Delivery
Expected at 1:00 p.m. EDT
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
HOMELAND SECURITY
Observations on DHS and FEMA Efforts to Prepare for and Respond to Major
and Catastrophic Disasters and Address Related Recommendations and
Legislation
Statement of William O. Jenkins, Jr. Director, Homeland Security and
Justice Issues
GAO-07-835T
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss issues associated with the
Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) efforts to address the
shortcomings of the preparation and response to Hurricane Katrina and
enhance its capabilities for responding to major disasters, including
hurricanes. The 2007 hurricane season begins in just a few weeks.
Hurricane Katrina severely tested disaster management at the federal,
state, and local levels and revealed weaknesses in the basic elements of
preparing for, responding, to and recovering from any catastrophic
disaster. The goal of disaster preparedness and response is easy to state
but difficult to achieve and can be stated as follows:
To prevent where possible, prepare for, mitigate, and respond to disasters
of any size or cause with well-planned, well-coordinated, and effective
actions that minimize the loss of life and property and set the stage for
a quick recovery.
Achieving this goal for major disasters, and catastrophic disasters in
particular, is difficult because success requires effective pre- and
post-disaster coordination and cooperation among different levels of
government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector.
Individuals can also contribute to success through such things as knowing
evacuation routes, complying with evacuation orders, and having a family
and individual disaster preparation plan and supplies.
As the Comptroller General testified in February 2007 on DHS's high-risk
status and specifically disaster preparedness and response, DHS must
overcome continuing challenges, including those related to clearly
defining leadership roles and responsibilities, developing necessary
disaster response capabilities, and establishing accountability systems to
provide effective services while protecting against waste, fraud, and
abuse.^1 These issues are enormously complex and challenging for all
levels of government. It is important to view preparedness for and
response to major disasters as a national system with linked
responsibilities and capabilities. This is because effective preparedness
for and response to major disasters requires the coordinated planning and
actions of multiple actors from multiple first responder disciplines,
jurisdictions, and levels of government as well as nongovernmental
entities. Parochialism must be put aside and cooperation must prevail
before and after an emergency event. The experience of Hurricane Katrina
illustrated why it is important to tackle these difficult issues.
^1GAO, Homeland Security: Management and Programmatic Challenges Facing
the Department of Homeland Security, [28]GAO-07-452T (Washington, D.C.:
Feb. 7, 2007).
My testimony today (1) summarizes our key findings on leadership, response
capabilities, and accountability controls and the efforts made by DHS and
FEMA in their implementation of the Post-Katrina Reform Act^2 and other
recommendations made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and (2)
highlights several disaster management issues for continued congressional
attention. My comments today are based on our body of work on disaster and
emergency management including more than 30 reports on the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, our review of recent emergency management reform
legislative changes, and materials and statements provided by FEMA. We
conducted our audit work in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards.
Summary
Our analysis of the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina
showed the need for (1) clearly defined and understood leadership roles
and responsibilities; (2) development of the necessary disaster
capabilities; and (3) accountability systems that effectively balance the
need for fast and flexible response against the need to prevent waste,
fraud, and abuse.
A key issue in the response to Hurricane Katrina was the lack of clearly
understood roles and responsibilities. One aspect of this issue that
continues to be a subject of discussion is the roles and responsibilities
of the Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO), who has the authority to make
mission assignments to federal agencies for response and recovery, and the
Principal Federal Official (PFO), whose role was to provide situational
awareness to the Secretary of Homeland Security. DHS has designated a FCO
for each region that includes states at risks of hurricanes and a
supporting FCO for each of these states. It has also designated a PFO for
each of three regions--the Gulf Coast, the Northeast Region, and the
Mid-Atlantic Region--plus a separate PFO for the state of Florida and
Texas. It is critically important that the authorities, roles, and
responsibilities of these designated FCOs and PFOs be clear and clearly
understood by all. There is still some question among state and local
first responders about the need for both positions and how they will work
together in disaster response. One potential benefit of naming the FCOs
and PFOs in advance is that they have an opportunity meet and discuss
expectations, roles and responsibilities with state, local, and
nongovernmental officials before an actual disaster, possibly setting the
groundwork for improved coordination and communication in an actual
disaster.
^2The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 was enacted as
Title VI of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007,
Pub. L. No. 109-295, 120 Stat. 1355, 1394 (2006).
As we have previously reported, developing the ability to prepare for,
respond to, and recover from major and catastrophic disasters requires an
overall national preparedness effort that is designed to integrate and
define what needs to be done, where, and by whom (roles and
responsibilities); how it should be done; and how well it should be
done--that is, according to what standards. The principal national
documents designed to address each of these are, respectively, the
National Response Plan (NRP), the National Incident Management System
(NIMS), and the National Preparedness Goal (NPG). The NRP, NIMS and the
NPG are undergoing extensive review and revision by federal, state, and
local government officials, tribal authorities, non-governmental and
private sector officials. This effort is intended to assess the
effectiveness of the doctrine embodied in these documents, identify
modifications and improvements, and reissue the documents. The results of
the review for the NRP, for example, was initially scheduled for release
in June 2007. However, in April 2007 DHS officials notified stakeholders
that some important issues were more complex and require national-level
policy decisions, and stated that additional time than was expected was
needed to complete a comprehensive draft. DHS noted that the underlying
operational principles of the NRP remain intact and that the current
document, as revised in May 2006, still applies. FEMA officials have told
us that the final version of the NPG and its corresponding documents are
currently receiving final reviews by the White House and will be due out
shortly. We are concerned, however, that if the revisions are not
completed prior to the beginning of the 2007 hurricane season, it is
unlikely that the changes resulting from these revisions could be
effectively implemented for the 2007 hurricane season.
In addition to roles and responsibilities, the nation's experience with
hurricanes Katrina and Rita reinforced some questions about the adequacy
of the nation's disaster response capabilities in the context of a
catastrophic disaster--particularly in the areas of (1) situational
assessment and awareness, (2) emergency communications, (3) evacuations,
(4) search and rescue, (5) logistics, and (6) mass care and sheltering.
Overall, capabilities are built upon the appropriate combination of
people, skills, processes, and assets. Ensuring that needed capabilities
are available requires effective planning and coordination in conjunction
with training and exercises in which the capabilities are realistically
tested and problems identified and subsequently addressed in partnership
with other federal, state, and local stakeholders. In various meetings
with GAO, in congressional testimonies, and in some documents FEMA has
described a number of initiatives to address identified deficiencies in
each of these areas and progress is being made on these multiyear efforts.
However, a number of FEMA programs are ongoing and it is too early to
evaluate their effectiveness. In addition, none of these initiatives
appear to have been tested on a scale that reasonably simulates the
conditions and demand they would face following a major or catastrophic
disaster. Thus, it is difficult to assess the probable results of these
initiatives in improving response to a major or catastrophic disaster,
such as a category 4 or 5 hurricane.^3 Additional information on FEMA's
efforts can be found in Appendix I.
The National Guard has traditionally been an important component of
response to major disasters. States and governors rely on their National
Guard personnel and equipment for disaster response, and National Guard
personnel are frequently deployed to disaster areas, including those
outside their home states. However, as we reported in January 2007, the
types and quantities of equipment the National Guard needs to respond to
large-scale disasters have not been fully identified because the multiple
federal and state agencies that would have roles in responding to such
events have not completed and integrated their plans.
With regard to balancing speed and flexibility with accountability, FEMA
has stated it can register up to 200,000 applicants per day for individual
assistance while including safeguards for preventing fraudulent and
duplicate applications. The inability to reliably and efficiently identify
fraudulent and duplicate applications was a major problem following
Katrina that resulted in millions of dollars in improper payments. FEMA
has also taken actions to revise its debris removal and contracting
policies and to increase the use of advanced contracting for goods and
services. Again, we have no basis to determine the effectiveness of these
systems as they have yet to be tested on a large scale basis.
^3Section 602 of the Post-Katrina Reform Act defines "catastrophic
incident'' as any natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other man-made
disaster that results in extraordinary levels of casualties or damage or
disruption severely affecting the population (including mass evacuations),
infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, or government
functions in an area.
As FEMA enters the 2007 hurricane season, it is an organization in
transition that is working to implement the reorganization mandated by the
Post-Katrina Reform Act as it moves forward on initiatives to implement a
comprehensive, risk-based national emergency management system as required
by the act. In November 2006, the Comptroller General wrote to the
congressional leadership suggesting that one area needing fundamental
reform and oversight was preparing for, responding to, and rebuilding
after catastrophic disasters. Among the topics that Congress might
consider for oversight are:
o the development and implementation of the National Preparedness
System, including preparedness for natural disasters, terrorist
incidents, and an influenza pandemic;
o the assessment of state and local capabilities and the use of
federal grants in building and sustaining those capabilities;
o regional and multistate planning and preparedness;
o the status and use of preparedness exercises; and
o DHS policies that affect the transparency of its efforts to
improve the nation's preparedness for and response to major and
catastrophic disasters.
Background
Several federal legislative and executive provisions support preparation
for and response to emergency situations. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster
Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (the Stafford Act)^4 primarily
establishes the programs and processes for the federal government to
provide major disaster and emergency assistance to state, local, and
tribal governments, individuals, and qualified private nonprofit
organizations. FEMA, within DHS, has responsibility for administering the
provisions of the Stafford Act.
Besides using these federal resources, states affected by a catastrophic
disaster can also turn to other states for assistance in obtaining surge
capacity--the ability to draw on additional resources, such as personnel
and equipment, needed to respond to and recover from the incident. One way
of sharing personnel and equipment across state lines is through the use
of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, an interstate compact that
provides a legal and administrative framework for managing such emergency
requests. The compact includes 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto
Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.^5 We have ongoing work examining how
the Emergency Management Assistance Compact has been used in disasters and
how its effectiveness could be enhanced and expect to report by this
summer.
^4The Stafford Act is codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. S 5121 et seq.
As the committee is aware, a number of specific recommendations have been
made to improve the nation's ability to effectively prepare for and
respond to catastrophic disasters following the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina. Beginning in February 2006, reports by the House Select
Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to
Hurricane Katrina,^6 the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee,^7 the White House Homeland Security Council,^8 the DHS
Inspector General,^9 and DHS and FEMA^10 all identified a variety of
failures and some strengths in the preparations for, response to, and
initial recovery from Hurricane Katrina. In addition to these reviews, a
report from the American National Standards Institute Homeland Security
Standards Panel (ANSI-HSSP) contains recommendations aimed at bolstering
national preparedness, response, and recovery efforts in the event of a
natural disaster. A key resource identified in the document is the
American National Standard for Disaster/Emergency Management and Business
Continuity Programs (ANSI/NFPA 1600), which was developed by the National
Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The standard defines a common set of
criteria for preparedness, disaster management, emergency management, and
business continuity programs.
^5California is currently not a member of EMAC as the state's legislation
approving its membership in the compact had expired.
^6House of Representatives, House Select Bipartisan Committee to
Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina. A
Failure of Initiative: Final Report of the House Select Bipartisan
Committee to Investigate the Preparation for And Response to Hurricane
Katrina (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 15, 2006).
^7U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared (Washington, D.C.: May 2006).
^8White House Homeland Security Council. The Federal Response to Hurricane
Katrina: Lessons Learned (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 23, 2006).
^9Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General. A
Performance Review of FEMA's Disaster Management Activities in Response to
Hurricane Katrina, OIG-06-32 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2006).
^10Federal Emergency Management Agency. DHS/FEMA Initial Response Hotwash:
Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, DR-1603-LA (Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Feb.
13, 2006).
Hurricane Katrina severely tested disaster management at the federal,
state, and local levels and revealed weaknesses in the basic elements of
preparing for, responding to, and recovering from any catastrophic
disaster. Based on our work done during the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina, we previously reported that DHS needs to more effectively
coordinate disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts,
particularly for catastrophic disasters in which the response capabilities
of state and local governments are almost immediately overwhelmed.^11 Our
analysis showed the need for (1) clearly defined and understood leadership
roles and responsibilities; (2) the development of the necessary disaster
capabilities; and (3) accountability systems that effectively balance the
need for fast and flexible response against the need to prevent waste,
fraud, and abuse. In line with a recommendation we made following
Hurricane Andrew, the nation's most destructive hurricane until Katrina,
we recommended that Congress give federal agencies explicit authority to
take actions to prepare for all types of catastrophic disasters when there
is warning. We also recommended that DHS
1. rigorously retest, train, and exercise its recent clarification
of the roles, responsibilities, and lines of authority for all
levels of leadership, implementing changes needed to remedy
identified coordination problems;
2. direct that the NRP base plan and its supporting Catastrophic
Incident Annex be supported by more robust and detailed
operational implementation plans;
3. provide guidance and direction for federal, state, and local
planning, training, and exercises to ensure such activities fully
support preparedness, response, and recovery responsibilities at a
jurisdictional and regional basis;
4. take a lead in monitoring federal agencies' efforts to prepare
to meet their responsibilities under the NRP and the interim
National Preparedness Goal; and
5. use a risk management approach in deciding whether and how to
invest finite resources in specific capabilities for a
catastrophic disaster.
^11GAO, Catastrophic Disasters: Enhanced Leadership, Capabilities, and
Accountability Controls Will Improve the Effectiveness of the Nation's
Preparedness, Response, and Recovery System, [29]GAO-06-618 (Washington,
D.C.: Sept. 6, 2006).
The Post-Katrina Reform Act responded to the findings and recommendations
in the various reports examining the preparation for and response to
Hurricane Katrina. While keeping FEMA within DHS, the act enhances FEMA's
responsibilities and its autonomy within DHS. FEMA is to lead and support
the nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of
preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation. Under the
Act, the FEMA Administrator reports directly to the Secretary of DHS; FEMA
is now a distinct entity within DHS; and the Secretary of DHS can no
longer substantially or significantly reduce the authorities,
responsibilities, or functions of FEMA or the capability to perform them
unless authorized by subsequent legislation. FEMA has absorbed many of the
functions of DHS's Preparedness Directorate (with some exceptions). The
statute establishes 10 regional offices with specified responsibilities.
The statute also establishes a National Integration Center responsible for
the ongoing management and maintenance of the NIMS and NRP. The
Post-Katrina Reform Act also included provisions for other areas, such as
evacuation plans and exercises and addressing the needs of individuals
with disabilities, In addition, the act includes several provisions to
strengthen the management and capability of FEMA's workforce. For example,
the statute called for a strategic human capital plan to shape and improve
FEMA's workforce, authorized recruitment and retention bonuses, and
established a Surge Capacity Force. Most of the organizational changes
became effective as of March 31, 2007. Others, such as the increase in
organizational autonomy for FEMA and establishment of the National
Integration Center, became effective upon enactment of the Post-Katrina
Reform Act on October 4, 2006.
FEMA Reviewing Its Responsibilities, Capabilities as It Implements
Recommendations and Post-Katrina Reform Act
After FEMA became part of DHS in March 2003, its responsibilities were
over time dispersed and redefined. FEMA continues to evolve within DHS as
it implements the changes required by the Post-Katrina Reform Act, whose
details are discussed later. Hurricane Katrina severely tested disaster
management at the federal, state, and local levels and revealed weaknesses
in the basic elements of preparing for, responding to, and recovering from
any catastrophic disaster. According to DHS, the department completed a
thorough assessment of FEMA's internal structure to incorporate lessons
learned from Hurricane Katrina and integrate systematically new and
existing assets and responsibilities within FEMA.
As I stated in March 2007 testimony, the effective implementation of
recent recommendations and the Post-Katrina Reform Act's organizational
changes and related roles and responsibilities should address many of our
emergency management observations and recommendations. In addition, we
previously reported that DHS needs to more effectively coordinate disaster
preparedness, response, and recovery efforts, particularly for
catastrophic disasters in which the response capabilities of state and
local governments are almost immediately overwhelmed. Our analysis showed
the need for (1) clearly defined and understood leadership roles and
responsibilities; (2) the development of the necessary disaster
capabilities; and (3) accountability systems that effectively balance the
need for fast and flexible response against the need to prevent waste,
fraud, and abuse.
Leadership Is Critical to Prepare for, Respond to, and Recover from Catastrophic
Disasters
In preparing for, responding to, and recovering from any catastrophic
disaster, the legal authorities, roles and responsibilities, and lines of
authority at all levels of government must be clearly defined, effectively
communicated, and well understood to facilitate rapid and effective
decision making. Hurricane Katrina showed the need to improve leadership
at all levels of government to better respond to a catastrophic disaster.
As we have previously reported, developing the capabilities needed for
catastrophic disasters requires an overall national preparedness effort
that is designed to integrate and define what needs to be done, where, and
by whom (roles and responsibilities), how it should be done, and how well
it should be done--that is, according to what standards. The principal
national documents designed to address each of these are, respectively,
the NRP, NIMS, and the NPG.
All three documents are undergoing extensive review and revision by
federal, state, and local government officials, tribal authorities,
non-governmental and private sector officials.^12 For example, the review
of the NRP is intended to assess the effectiveness of the NRP, identify
modifications and improvements and reissue the document. This review
includes all major components of the NRP including the base plan,
Emergency Support Functions (ESF), annexes such as the Catastrophic
Incident Annex and Supplement; as well as the role of the PFO, FCO, and
the Joint Field Office structure. Also during the current NRP review
period, FEMA has revised the organizational structure of Emergency Support
Function 6 (ESF-6), Mass Care, Housing, and Human Services, and places
FEMA as the lead agency for this emergency support function. The Red Cross
will remain as a supporting agency in the responsibilities and activities
of ESF-6. According to a February 2007 letter by the Red Cross, this
change will not take place until the NRP review process is complete and
all changes are approved.
The revised NRP and NIMS were originally scheduled for release in June
2007. In April 2007, however, DHS officials notified stakeholders that
some important issues were more complex and require national-level policy
decisions, and additional time was needed to complete a comprehensive
draft. DHS noted that the underlying operational principles of the NRP
remain intact and the current document, as revised in May 2006, still
applies. FEMA officials have told us that the final version of the
National Preparedness Goal and its corresponding documents like the Target
Capabilities List, are currently receiving final reviews by the White
House and are expected to be out shortly.
A key issue in the response to Hurricane Katrina was the lack of clearly
understood roles and responsibilities. One that continues to be a subject
of discussion is the roles and responsibilities of the FCO, who has the
authority to make mission assignments to federal agencies for response and
recovery under the Stafford Act, and the PFO, whose role was to provide
situational awareness to the Secretary of Homeland Security. The May 2006
revisions to the NRP made changes designed to address this issue. However,
as we noted in March 2007, the changes may not have fully resolved the
leadership issues regarding the roles of the PFO and the FCO. While the
Secretary of Homeland Security may avoid conflicts by appointing a single
individual to serve in both positions in non-terrorist incidents,
confusion may persist if the Secretary of Homeland Security does not
exercise this discretion to do so. Furthermore, this discretion does not
exist for terrorist incidents, and the revised NRP does not specifically
provide a rationale for this limitation.
^12On May 25, 2006, DHS released changes to the NRP regarding leadership
issues, such as which situations require secretarial leadership; the
process for declaring incidents of national significance; and the scope of
the NRP and its Catastrophic Incident Annex. The revised NRP clearly
states that the Secretary of Homeland Security, who reports directly to
the President, is responsible for declaring and managing incidents of
national significance, including catastrophic ones. At the time of
Hurricane Katrina, the supplement to the catastrophic incident annex,
which provides more detail on implementing the annex, was still in draft.
Subsequent to Hurricane Katrina, DHS published the final supplement to the
Catastrophic Incident Annex, dated August 2006.
FEMA has pre-designated five teams of FCOs and PFOs in the Gulf Coast and
eastern seaboard states at risk of hurricanes. This includes FCOs and PFOs
for the Gulf Coast Region,^13 Northeast Region,^14 and the Mid-Atlantic
Region,^15 and separate FCOs and PFOs for the states of Florida and Texas.
It is critically important that the authorities, roles, and
responsibilities of these pre-designated FCOs and PFOs be clear and
clearly understood by all. There is still some question among state and
local first responders about the need for both positions and how they will
work together in disaster response. One potential benefit of naming the
FCOs and PFOs in advance is that they have an opportunity meet and discuss
expectations, roles and responsibilities with state, local, and
nongovernmental officials before an actual disaster, possibly setting the
groundwork for improved coordination and communication in an actual
disaster.
Enhanced Capabilities Are Needed to Adequately Prepare for and Respond to Major
Disasters
Numerous reports, including those by the House, Senate, and the White
House, and our own work suggest that the substantial resources and
capabilities marshaled by state, local, and federal governments and
nongovernmental organizations were insufficient to meet the immediate
challenges posed by the unprecedented degree of damage and the number of
victims caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Developing the ability to
prepare for, respond to, and recover from major and catastrophic disasters
requires an overall national preparedness effort that is designed to
integrate and define what needs to be done and where, how it should be
done, and how well it should be done--that is, according to what
standards. As previously discussed, the principal national documents
designed to address each of these are, respectively, the NRP, NIMS, and
the NPG, and each document is undergoing revision.
^13Includes Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
^14Includes New York, New Jersey, New England, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.
Virgin Islands.
^15Includes Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, District of
Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
Overall, capabilities are built upon the appropriate combination of
people, skills, processes, and assets. Ensuring that needed capabilities
are available requires effective planning and coordination in conjunction
with training and exercises in which the capabilities are realistically
tested and problems identified and subsequently addressed in partnership
with other federal, state, and local stakeholders. In recent work on FEMA
management of day-to-day operations, we found that although shifting
resources caused by its transition to DHS created challenges for FEMA, the
agency's management of existing resources compounded these problems.^16
FEMA lacks some of the basic management tools that help an agency respond
to changing circumstances. Most notably, our January 2007 report found
that FEMA lacks a strategic workforce plan and related human capital
strategies--such as succession planning or a coordinated training effort.
Such tools are integral to managing resources, as they enable an agency to
define staffing levels, identify the critical skills needed to achieve its
mission, and eliminate or mitigate gaps between current and future skills
and competencies. FEMA officials have said they are beginning to address
these and other basic organizational management issues. To this end, FEMA
has commissioned studies of 18 areas, whose final reports and
recommendations are due later this spring.^17
An important element of effective emergency response is the ability to
identify and deploy where needed a variety of resources from a variety of
sources--federal, state, local or tribal governments; military assets of
the National Guard or active military; nongovernmental entities; and the
private sector. One key method of tapping resources in areas not affected
by the disaster is the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC).
Through EMAC about 46,000 National Guard and 19,000 civilian responders
were deployed to areas directly affected by the 2005 Gulf Coast
hurricanes. We have ongoing work examining how EMAC has been used in
disasters and how its effectiveness could be enhanced and expect to report
by this summer.
^16GAO, Budget Issues: FEMA Needs Adequate Data, Plans, and Systems to
Effectively Manage Resources for Day-to-Day Operations, [30]GAO-07-139
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 19, 2007).
^17The areas are (1) individual assistance technical assistance contract,
(2) contractor management program, (3) facilities; (4) payment process for
contractors, (5) finance center operations, (6) capital planning and
investment control, (7) security, (8) human resources, (9) logistics, (10)
acquisition, (11) disaster emergency communications, (12) decision support
systems (data resource management), (13) disaster workforce, (14)
information technology, (15) federal coordinating officer cadre, (16)
financial systems, (17) budget process, and (18) disaster relief fund.
One of the resources accessed through EMAC is the National Guard. States
and governors rely on their National Guard personnel and equipment for
disaster response, and National Guard personnel are frequently deployed to
disaster areas outside their home states. However, as we reported in
January 2007, the types and quantities of equipment the National Guard
needs to respond to large-scale disasters have not been fully identified
because the multiple federal and state agencies that would have roles in
responding to such events have not completed and integrated their
plans.^18 As a liaison between the Army, the Air Force, and the states,
the National Guard Bureau is well positioned to facilitate state planning
for National Guard forces. However, until the bureau's charter and its
civil support regulation are revised to define its role in facilitating
state planning for multistate events, such planning may remain incomplete,
and the National Guard may not be prepared to respond as effectively and
efficiently as possible. In addition, questions have arisen about the
level of resources the National Guard has available for domestic emergency
response. DOD does not routinely measure the equipment readiness of
nondeployed National Guard forces for domestic civil support missions or
report this information to Congress. Thus, although the deployment of
National Guard units overseas has decreased the supply of equipment
available to nondeployed National Guard units in the U.S., there has been
no established, formal method of assessing the impact on the Guard's
ability to perform its domestic missions. Although DOD has begun to
collect data on units' preparedness, these efforts are not yet fully
mature.
The nation's experience with hurricanes Katrina and Rita reinforces some
of the questions surrounding the adequacy of capabilities in the context
of a catastrophic disaster--particularly in the areas of (1) situational
assessment and awareness, (2) emergency communications, (3) evacuations,
(4) search and rescue, (5) logistics, and (6) mass care and sheltering.
According to FEMA, the agency has described a number of actions it has
taken or has underway to address identified deficiencies in each of these
areas. Examples include designating national and regional situational
awareness teams; acquiring and deploying mobile satellite communications
trucks; developing an electronic system for receiving and tracking the
status of requests for assistance and supplies; acquiring GPS equipment
for tracking the location of supplies on route to areas of need; and
working with the Red Cross and others to clarify roles and
responsibilities for mass care, housing, and human services. However, a
number of FEMA programs are ongoing and it is too early to evaluate their
effectiveness. In addition, none of these initiatives appear to have been
tested on a scale that reasonably simulates the conditions and demand they
would face following a major or catastrophic disaster. Thus, it is
difficult to assess the probable results of these initiatives in improving
response to a major or catastrophic disaster, such as a category 4 or 5
hurricane. The section below briefly discusses actions taken or underway
to make improvements in each of these areas. Additional details can be
found in appendix I.
^18GAO, Reserve Forces: Actions Needed to Identify National Guard Domestic
Equipment Requirements and Readiness, [31]GAO-07-60 (Washington, D.C.:
Jan. 26, 2007).
Situational Awareness. FEMA is developing a concept for rapidly deployable
interagency incident management teams, at this time called National
Incident Management Team, to provide a forward federal presence on site
within 12 hours of notification to facilitate managing the national
response for catastrophic incidents. These teams will support efforts to
meet the emergent needs during disasters such as the capability to provide
initial situational awareness for decision-makers and support the initial
establishment of a unified command.
Emergency Communications. Agencies' communications systems during a
catastrophic disaster must first be operable, with sufficient
communications to meet everyday internal and emergency communication
requirements. Once operable, systems should have communications
interoperability whereby public safety agencies (e.g., police, fire,
emergency medical services, etc.) and service agencies (e.g., public
works, transportation, and hospitals) can communicate within and across
agencies and jurisdictions in real time as needed. DHS officials have
identified a number of programs and activities they have implemented to
improve interoperable communications nationally, and FEMA has taken action
to design, staff, and maintain a rapidly deployable, responsive,
interoperable, and reliable emergency communications capability, which we
discuss further in appendix I.
Logistics. FEMA's inability to effectively manage and track requests for
and the distribution of water, ice, food, and other supplies came under
harsh criticism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Within days, FEMA became
overwhelmed and essentially asked the military to take over much of the
logistics mission.^19 In the Post-Katrina Reform Act, Congress required
FEMA to make its logistics system more flexible and responsive. FEMA's
ongoing improvements to its logistics strategy and efforts are designed to
initially lean forward and provide immediate support to a disaster site
mainly through FEMA-owned goods and assets, and later on to establish
sustained supply chains with the private vendors whose resources are
needed for ongoing response and recovery activities, according to FEMA
officials. In addition, we recently examined FEMA logistics issues, taking
a broad approach, identifying five areas necessary for an effective
logistics system, which are discussed in appendix I. In short, FEMA is
taking action to transition its logistics program to be more proactive,
flexible, and responsive. While these and other initiatives hold promise
for improving FEMA's logistics capabilities, it will be several years
before they are fully implemented and operational.
Mass Care and Shelter. In GAO's work examining the nation's ability to
evacuate, care for, and shelter disaster victims, we found that FEMA needs
to identify and assess the capabilities that exist across the federal
government and outside the federal government. In an April testimony,
FEMA's Deputy Administrator for Operations said that emergency evacuation,
shelter and housing is FEMA's most pressing priority for planning for
recovery from a catastrophic disaster. He said that FEMA is undertaking
more detailed mass evacuee support planning; the Department of Justice and
Red Cross are developing methods for more quickly identifying and uniting
missing family members; and FEMA and the Red Cross have developed a
web-based data system to support shelter management, reporting, and
facility identification activities.
Balance Needed between Quick Provision of Assistance and Ensuring Accountability
to Protect against Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
Controls and accountability mechanisms help to ensure that resources are
used appropriately. Nevertheless, during a catastrophic disaster, decision
makers struggle with the tension between implementing controls and
accountability mechanisms and the demand for rapid response and recovery
assistance. On one hand, our work uncovered many examples where quick
action could not occur due to procedures that required extensive,
time-consuming processes, delaying the delivery of vital supplies and
other assistance. On the other hand, we also found examples where FEMA's
processes assisting disaster victims left the federal government
vulnerable to fraud and the abuse of expedited assistance payments.
^19GAO, Hurricane Katrina: Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the
Military's Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters. [32]GAO-06-643
(Washington, D.C.: May 15, 2006).
We estimated that through February 2006, FEMA made about $600 million to
$1.4 billion in improper and potentially fraudulent payments to applicants
who used invalid information to apply for expedited cash assistance. DHS
and FEMA have reported a number of actions that are to be in effect for
the 2007 hurricane season so that federal recovery programs will have more
capacity to rapidly handle a catastrophic incident but also provide
accountability. Examples include significantly increasing the quantity of
prepositioned supplies, such as food, ice, and water; placing global
positioning systems on supply trucks to track their location and better
manage the delivery of supplies; creating an enhanced phone system for
victim assistance applications that can handle up to 200,000 calls per
day; and improving computer systems and processes for verifying the
eligibility of those applying for assistance. Effective implementation of
these and other planned improvements will be critical to achieving their
intended outcomes.^20
Finally, catastrophic disasters not only require a different magnitude of
capabilities and resources for effective response, they may also require
more flexible policies and operating procedures. In a catastrophe,
streamlining, simplifying, and expediting decision making should quickly
replace "business as usual" and unquestioned adherence to long-standing
policies and operating procedures used in normal situations for providing
relief to disaster victims. At the same time, controls and accountability
mechanisms must be sufficient to provide the documentation needed for
expense reimbursement and reasonable assurance that resources have been
used legally and for the purposes intended.
We have recommended that DHS create accountability systems that
effectively balance the need for fast and flexible response against the
need to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. Doing so would enable DHS to
provide assistance quickly following a catastrophe and keep up with the
magnitude of needs to confirm the eligibility of victims for disaster
assistance, or assure that there were provisions in contracts for response
and recovery services to ensure fair and reasonable prices in all cases.
We also recommended that DHS provide guidance on advance procurement
practices and procedures (precontracting) for those federal agencies with
roles and responsibilities under the NRP. These federal agencies could
then better manage disaster-related procurement and establish an
assessment process to monitor agencies' continuous planning efforts for
their disaster-related procurement needs and the maintenance of
capabilities. For example, we identified a number of emergency response
practices in the public and private sectors that provide insight into how
the federal government can better manage its disaster-related
procurements. These practices include developing knowledge of contractor
capabilities and prices, and establishing vendor relationships prior to
the disaster and establishing a scalable operations plan to adjust the
level of capacity to match the response with the need.^21
20GAO, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Disaster Relief: Prevention Is the Key
to Minimizing Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Recovery Efforts.
[33]GAO-07-418T. Washington, D.C.: January 29, 2007.
In my March 2007 testimony I noted that recent statutory changes have
established more controls and accountability mechanisms. For example, The
Secretary of DHS is required to promulgate regulations designed to limit
the excessive use of subcontractors and subcontracting tiers. The
Secretary of DHS is also required to promulgate regulations that limit
certain noncompetitive contracts to 150 days, unless exceptional
circumstances apply. Oversight funding is specified. FEMA may dedicate up
to one percent of funding for agency mission assignments as oversight
funds. The FEMA Administrator must develop and maintain internal
management controls of FEMA disaster assistance programs and develop and
implement a training program to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse of federal
funds in response to or recovery from a disaster. Verification measures
must be developed to identify eligible recipients of disaster relief
assistance.
^21GAO, Homeland Security: Management and Programmatic Challenges Facing
the Department of Homeland Security, [34]GAO-07-452T (Washington, D.C.:
Feb. 7, 2007).
Several Disaster Management Issues Should Have Continued Congressional Attention
In November 2006, the Comptroller General wrote to the congressional
leadership suggesting areas for congressional oversight.^22 He suggested
that one area needing fundamental reform and oversight was preparing for,
responding to, recovering from, and rebuilding after catastrophic events.
Recent events--notably Hurricane Katrina and the threat of an influenza
pandemic--have illustrated the importance of ensuring a strategic and
integrated approach to catastrophic disaster management. Disaster
preparation and response that is well planned and coordinated can save
lives and mitigate damage, and an effectively functioning insurance market
can substantially reduce the government's exposure to post-catastrophe
payouts.
Lessons learned from past national emergencies provide an opportunity for
Congress to look at actions that could mitigate the effects of potential
catastrophic events. On January 18, 2007, DHS provided Congress a notice
of implementation of the Post-Katrina Reform Act reorganization
requirements and additional organizational changes made under the Homeland
Security Act of 2002. All of the changes, according to DHS, were to become
effective on March 31, 2007. As stated in our March 2007 testimony, the
effective implementation of the Post-Katrina Reform Act's organizational
changes and related roles and responsibilities--in addition to those
changes already undertaken by DHS--should address many of our emergency
management observations and recommendations.
The Comptroller General also suggested in November 2006 that Congress
could also consider how the federal government can work with other
nations, other levels of government, and nonprofit and private sector
organizations, such as the Red Cross and private insurers, to help ensure
the nation is well prepared and recovers effectively. Given the billions
of dollars dedicated to preparing for, responding to, recovering from, and
rebuilding after catastrophic disasters, congressional oversight is
critical.
A comprehensive and in-depth oversight agenda would require long-term
efforts. Congress might consider starting with several specific areas for
immediate oversight, such as (1) evaluating development and implementation
of the National Preparedness System, including preparedness for an
influenza pandemic, (2) assessing state and local capabilities and the use
of federal grants in building and sustaining those capabilities, (3)
examining regional and multistate planning and preparation, (4)
determining the status of preparedness exercises, and (5) examining DHS
policies regarding oversight assistance.
^22GAO, Suggested Areas for Oversight for the 110th Congress.
[35]GAO-07-235R (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 17, 2006.
DHS Has Reorganized Pursuant to the Post-Katrina Reform Act
On January 18, 2007, DHS provided Congress a notice of implementation of
the Post-Katrina Reform Act reorganization requirements and additional
organizational changes made under the Homeland Security Act of 2002. All
of the changes, according to DHS, were to become effective on March 31,
2007. According to DHS, the department completed a thorough assessment of
FEMA's internal structure to incorporate lessons learned from Hurricane
Katrina and integrate systematically new and existing assets and
responsibilities within FEMA. DHS transferred the following DHS offices
and divisions to FEMA:
o United States Fire Administration,
o Office of Grants and Training,
o Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Division,
o Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program,
o Office of National Capital Region Coordination, and,
o Office of State and Local Government Coordination.
DHS officials stated that they have established several organizational
elements, such as a logistics management division, a disaster assistance
division, and a disaster operations division. In addition, FEMA expanded
its regional office structure with each region in part by establishing a
Regional Advisory Council and at least one Regional Strike Team. With the
recent appointment of the director for region III, FEMA officials noted
that for the first time in recent memory there will be no acting regional
directors and all 10 FEMA regional offices will be headed by experienced
professionals.
Further, FEMA will include a new national preparedness directorate
intended to consolidate FEMA's strategic preparedness assets from existing
FEMA programs and certain legacy Preparedness Directorate programs. The
National Preparedness Directorate will contain functions related to
preparedness doctrine, policy, and contingency planning. It also will
include the National Integration Center that will maintain the NRP and
NIMS and ensure that training and exercise activities reflect these
documents.
Effective Implementation of the Post-Katrina Reform Act's Provisions Should
Respond to Many Concerns
As I have previously stated in my March 2007 testimony, the effective
implementation of the Post-Katrina Reform Act's organizational changes and
related roles and responsibilities--in addition to those changes already
undertaken by DHS--should address many of our emergency management
observations and recommendations.
As noted earlier, our analysis in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
showed the need for (1) clearly defined and understood leadership roles
and responsibilities; (2) the development of the necessary disaster
capabilities; and (3) accountability systems that effectively balance the
need for fast and flexible response against the need to prevent waste,
fraud, and abuse. The statute appears to strengthen leadership roles and
responsibilities. For example, the statute clarifies that the FEMA
Administrator is to act as the principal emergency management adviser to
the President, the Homeland Security Council, and the Secretary of DHS and
to provide recommendations directly to Congress after informing the
Secretary of DHS. The incident management responsibilities and roles of
the National Integration Center are now clear. The Secretary of DHS must
ensure that the NRP provides for a clear chain of command to lead and
coordinate the federal response to any natural disaster, act of terrorism,
or other man-made disaster. The law also establishes qualifications that
appointees must meet. For example, the FEMA Administrator must have a
demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland
security and 5 years of executive leadership and management experience.
Many provisions are designed to enhance preparedness and response. For
example, the statute requires the President to establish a national
preparedness goal and national preparedness system. The national
preparedness system includes a broad range of preparedness activities,
including utilizing target capabilities and preparedness priorities,
training and exercises, comprehensive assessment systems, and reporting
requirements. To illustrate, the FEMA Administrator is to carry out a
national training program to implement, and a national exercise program to
test and evaluate the NPG, NIMS, NRP, and other related plans and
strategies.
In addition, FEMA is to partner with nonfederal entities to build a
national emergency management system. States must develop plans that
include catastrophic incident annexes modeled after the NRP annex in order
to be eligible for FEMA emergency preparedness grants. The state annexes
must be developed in consultation with local officials, including regional
commissions. FEMA regional administrators are to foster the development of
mutual aid agreements between states. FEMA must enter into a memorandum of
understanding with certain non-federal entities to collaborate on
developing standards for deployment capabilities, including credentialing
of personnel and typing of resources. In addition, FEMA must implement
several other capabilities, such as (1) developing a logistics system
providing real-time visibility of items at each point throughout the
logistics system, (2) establishing a prepositioned equipment program, and
(3) establishing emergency support and response teams.
The National Preparedness System Is Key to Developing Disaster Capabilities
More immediate congressional attention might focus on evaluating the
construction and effectiveness of the National Preparedness System, which
is mandated under the Post-Katrina Reform Act. Under Homeland Security
Presidential Directive-8, issued in December 2003, DHS was to coordinate
the development of a national domestic all-hazards preparedness goal "to
establish measurable readiness priorities and targets that appropriately
balance the potential threat and magnitude of terrorist attacks and large
scale natural or accidental disasters with the resources required to
prevent, respond to, and recover from them." The goal was also to include
readiness metrics and standards for preparedness assessments and
strategies and a system for assessing the nation's overall preparedness to
respond to major events.
To implement the directive, DHS developed the National Preparedness Goal
using 15 emergency event scenarios, 12 of which were terrorist related,
with the remaining 3 addressing a major hurricane, major earthquake, and
an influenza pandemic. According to DHS's National Preparedness Guidance,
the planning scenarios are intended to illustrate the scope and magnitude
of large-scale, catastrophic emergency events for which the nation needs
to be prepared and to form the basis for identifying the capabilities
needed to respond to a wide range of large scale emergency events. The
scenarios focused on the consequences that first responders would have to
address. Some state and local officials and experts have questioned
whether the scenarios were appropriate inputs for preparedness planning,
particularly in terms of their plausibility and the emphasis on terrorist
scenarios.
Using the scenarios, and in consultation with federal, state, and local
emergency response stakeholders, DHS developed a list of over 1,600
discrete tasks, of which 300 were identified as critical. DHS then
identified 36 target capabilities to provide guidance to federal, state,
and local first responders on the capabilities they need to develop and
maintain. That list has since been refined, and DHS released a revised
draft list of 37 capabilities in December 2005. Because no single
jurisdiction or agency would be expected to perform every task, possession
of a target capability could involve enhancing and maintaining local
resources, ensuring access to regional and federal resources, or some
combination of the two. However, DHS is still in the process of developing
goals, requirements, and metrics for these capabilities and the National
Preparedness Goal in light of the Hurricane Katrina experience.
Several key components of the National Preparedness System defined in the
Post-Katrina Reform Act--the NPG, target capabilities and preparedness
priorities, and comprehensive assessment systems--should be closely
examined. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, DHS had established seven priorities
for enhancing national first responder preparedness, including, for
example, implementing the NRP and NIMS; strengthening capabilities in
information sharing and collaboration; and strengthening capabilities in
medical surge and mass prophylaxis. Those seven priorities were
incorporated into DHS's fiscal year 2006 homeland security grant program
(HSGP) guidance, which added an eighth priority that emphasized emergency
operations and catastrophic planning.
In the fiscal year 2007 HSGP program guidance, DHS set two overarching
priorities. DHS has focused the bulk of its available grant dollars on
risk-based investment. In addition, the department has prioritized
regional coordination and investment strategies that institutionalize
regional security strategy integration. In addition to the two overarching
priorities, the guidance also identified several others. These include (1)
measuring progress in achieving the NPG, (2) integrating and synchronizing
preparedness programs and activities, (3) developing and sustaining a
statewide critical infrastructure/key resource protection program, (4)
enabling information/intelligence fusion, (5) enhancing statewide
communications interoperability, (6) strengthening preventative
radiological/nuclear detection capabilities, and (7) enhancing
catastrophic planning to address nationwide plan review results. Under the
guidance, all fiscal year 2007 HSGP applicants will be required to submit
an investment justification that provides background information,
strategic objectives and priorities addressed, their
funding/implementation plan, and the impact that each proposed investment
(project) is anticipated to have.
The Particular Challenge of Preparing for an Influenza Pandemic
The possibility of an influenza pandemic is a real and significant threat
to the nation. There is widespread agreement that it is not a question of
if but when such a pandemic will occur. The issues associated with the
preparation for and response to a pandemic flu are similar to those for
any other type of disaster: clear leadership roles and responsibilities,
authority, and coordination; risk management; realistic planning,
training, and exercises; assessing and building the capacity needed to
effectively respond and recover; effective information sharing and
communication; and accountability for the effective use of resources.
However, a pandemic poses some unique challenges. Hurricanes, earthquakes,
explosions, or bioterrorist incidents occur within a short period of time,
perhaps a period of minutes, although such events can have long-term
effects, as we have seen in the Gulf region following Hurricane Katrina.
The immediate effects of such disasters are likely to affect specific
locations or areas within the nation; the immediate damage is not
nationwide. In contrast, an influenza pandemic is likely to continue in
waves of 6 to 8 weeks for a number of weeks or months and affect wide
areas of the nation, perhaps the entire nation. Depending upon the
severity of the pandemic, the number of deaths could be from 200,000 to 2
million. Seasonal influenza in the United States results in about 36,000
deaths annually. Successfully addressing the pandemic is also likely to
require international coordination of detection and response.
The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that during a severe
pandemic, absenteeism may reach as much as 40 percent in an affected
community because individuals are ill, caring for family members, or fear
infection. Such absenteeism could affect our nation's economy, as
businesses and governments face the challenge of continuing to provide
essential services with reduced numbers of healthy workers. In addition,
our nation's ability to respond effectively to hurricanes or other major
disasters during a pandemic may also be diminished as first responders,
health care workers, and others are infected or otherwise unable to
perform their normal duties. Thus, the consequences of a pandemic are
potentially widespread and effective planning and response for such a
disaster will require particularly close cooperation among all levels of
government, the private sector, individuals within the United States, as
well as international cooperation.
We have engagements under way examining such issues as barriers to
implementing the Department of Health and Human Services' National
Pandemic Influenza Plan, the national strategy and framework for pandemic
influenza, the Department of Defense and Department of Agriculture's
preparedness efforts and plans, public health and hospital preparedness,
and U.S. efforts to improve global disease surveillance. We expect most of
these reports to be issued by late summer 2007.
Knowledge of the Effects of State and Local Efforts to Improve Their
Capabilities Is Limited
Possible congressional oversight in the short term also might focus on
state and local capabilities. As I testified in February on applying risk
management principles to guide federal investments, over the past 4 years
DHS has provided about $14 billion in federal funding to states,
localities, and territories through its HSGP grants. Remarkably, however,
we know little about how states and localities finance their efforts in
this area, have used their federal funds, and are assessing the
effectiveness with which they spend those funds.
Essentially, all levels of government are still struggling to define and
act on the answers to basic, but hardly simple, questions about emergency
preparedness and response: What is important (that is, what are our
priorities)? How do we know what is important (e.g., risk assessments,
performance standards)? How do we measure, attain, and sustain success? On
what basis do we make necessary trade-offs, given finite resources?
There are no simple, easy answers to these questions. The data available
for answering them are incomplete and imperfect. We have better
information and a better sense of what needs to be done for some types of
major emergency events than for others. For some natural disasters, such
as regional wildfires and flooding, there is more experience and therefore
a better basis on which to assess preparation and response efforts and
identify gaps that need to be addressed. California has experience with
earthquakes; Florida, with hurricanes. However, no one in the nation has
experience with such potential catastrophes as a dirty bomb detonated in a
major city. Although both the AIDS epidemic and SARS provide some related
experience, there have been no recent pandemics that rapidly spread to
thousands of people across the nation.
A new feature in the fiscal year 2006 DHS homeland security grant guidance
for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grants was that eligible
recipients must provide an "investment justification" with their grant
application. States were to use this justification to outline the
implementation approaches for specific investments that will be used to
achieve the initiatives outlined in their state Program and Capability
Enhancement Plan. These plans were multiyear global program management
plans for the entire state homeland security program that look beyond
federal homeland security grant programs and funding. The justifications
must justify all funding requested through the DHS homeland security grant
program. In the guidance DHS noted that it would use a peer review process
to evaluate grant applications on the basis of the effectiveness of a
state's plan to address the priorities it has outlined and thereby reduce
its overall risk.
For fiscal year 2006, DHS implemented a competitive process to evaluate
the anticipated effectiveness of proposed homeland security investments.
For fiscal year 2007, DHS will continue to use the risk and effectiveness
assessments to inform final funding decisions, although changes have been
made to make the grant allocation process more transparent and more easily
understood. DHS officials have said that they cannot yet assess how
effective the actual investments from grant funds are in enhancing
preparedness and mitigating risk because they do not yet have the metrics
to do so.
Regional and Multistate Planning and Preparation Should Be Robust
Through its grant guidance, DHS has encouraged regional and multistate
planning and preparation. Planning and assistance have largely been
focused on single jurisdictions and their immediately adjacent neighbors.
However, well-documented problems with the abilities of first responders
from multiple jurisdictions to communicate at the site of an incident and
the potential for large-scale natural and terrorist disasters have
generated a debate on the extent to which first responders should be
focusing their planning and preparation on a regional and
multigovernmental basis.
As I mentioned earlier, an overarching national priority for the National
Preparedness Goal is embracing regional approaches to building,
sustaining, and sharing capabilities at all levels of government. All HSGP
applications are to reflect regional coordination and show an investment
strategy that institutionalizes regional security strategy integration.
However, it is not known to what extent regional and multistate planning
has progressed and is effective.
Our limited regional work indicated there are challenges in planning. Our
early work addressing the Office of National Capital Region Coordination
(ONCRC) and National Capital Region (NCR) strategic planning reported that
the ONCRC and the NCR faced interrelated challenges in managing federal
funds in a way that maximizes the increase in first responder capacities
and preparedness while minimizing inefficiency and unnecessary duplication
of expenditures.^23 One of these challenges included a coordinated
regionwide plan for establishing first responder performance goals, needs,
and priorities, and assessing the benefits of expenditures in enhancing
first responder capabilities. In subsequent work on National Capital
Region strategic planning, we highlighted areas that needed strengthening
in the Region's planning, specifically improving the substance of the
strategic plan to guide decision makers.^24 For example, additional
information could have been provided regarding the type, nature, scope, or
timing of planned goals, objectives, and initiatives; performance
expectations and measures; designation of priority initiatives to meet
regional risk and needed capabilities; lead organizations for initiative
implementation; resources and investments; and operational commitment.
Exercises Must Be Carefully Planned and Deployed and Capture Lessons Learned
Our work examining the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina
highlighted the importance of realistic exercises to test and refine
assumptions, capabilities, and operational procedures; build on the
strengths; and shore up the limitations revealed by objective assessments
of the exercises. The Post-Katrina Reform Act mandates a national exercise
program, and training and exercises are also included as a component of
the National Preparedness System. With almost any skill and capability,
experience and practice enhance proficiency. For first responders,
exercises--especially of the type or magnitude of events for which there
is little actual experience--are essential for developing skills and
identifying what works well and what needs further improvement. Major
emergency incidents, particularly catastrophic ones, by definition require
the coordinated actions of personnel from many first responder disciplines
and all levels of government, nonprofit organizations, and the private
sector. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of effective
interdisciplinary, intergovernmental planning, training, and exercises in
developing the coordination and skills needed for effective response.
^23GAO, Homeland Security: Management of First Responder Grants in the
National Capital Region Reflects the Need for Coordinated Planning and
Performance Goals, [36]GAO-04-433 (Washington, D.C.: May 28, 2004);
Homeland Security: Coordinated Planning and Standards Needed to Better
Manage First Responder Grants in the National Capital Region,
[37]GAO-04-904T (Washington, D.C.: June 24, 2004); Homeland Security:
Effective Regional Coordination Can Enhance Emergency Preparedness,
[38]GAO-04-1009 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15, 2004); Homeland Security:
Managing First Responder Grants to Enhance Emergency Preparedness in the
National Capital Region, [39]GAO-05-889T (Washington, D.C.: July 14,
2005); and Homeland Security: The Status of Strategic Planning in the
National Capital Region, [40]GAO-06-559T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 29,
2006).
^24GAO, Homeland Security: Assessment of the National Capital Region
Strategic Plan, [41]GAO-06-1096T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2006).
For exercises to be effective in identifying both strengths and areas
needing attention, it is important that they be realistic, designed to
test and stress the system, involve all key persons who would be involved
in responding to an actual event, and be followed by honest and realistic
assessments that result in action plans that are implemented. In addition
to relevant first responders, exercise participants should include,
depending upon the scope and nature of the exercise, mayors, governors,
and state and local emergency managers who would be responsible for such
things as determining if and when to declare a mandatory evacuation or ask
for federal assistance.
DHS Has Provided Limited Transparency for Its Management or Operational
Decisions
Congressional oversight in the short term might include DHS's policies
regarding oversight assistance. The Comptroller General has testified that
DHS has not been transparent in its efforts to strengthen its management
areas and mission functions. While much of its sensitive work needs to be
guarded from improper disclosure, DHS has not been receptive toward
oversight. Delays in providing Congress and us with access to various
documents and officials have impeded our work.
We need to be able to independently assure ourselves and Congress that DHS
has implemented many of our past recommendations or has taken other
corrective actions to address the challenges we identified. However, DHS
has not made its management or operational decisions transparent enough so
that Congress can be sure it is effectively, efficiently, and economically
using the billions of dollars in funding it receives annually, and is
providing the levels of security called for in numerous legislative
requirements and presidential directives.
Concluding Observations
Since September 11, 2001, the federal government has awarded billions of
dollars in grants and assistance to state and local governments to assist
in strengthening emergency management capabilities. DHS has developed
several key national policy documents, including the NRP, NIMS, and the
NPG to guide federal, state, and local efforts. The aftermath of the 2005
hurricane season resulted in a reassessment of the federal role in
preparing for and responding to catastrophic events. The studies and
reports of the past year--by Congress, the White House Homeland Security
Council, the DHS IG, DHS and FEMA, GAO, and others--have provided a number
of insights into the strengths and limitations of the nation's capacity to
respond to catastrophic disasters and resulted in a number of
recommendations for strengthening that capacity. Collectively, these
studies and reports paint a complex mosaic of the challenges that the
nation--federal, state, local, and tribal governments; nongovernmental
entities; the private sector; and individual citizens--faces in preparing
for, responding to, and recovering from catastrophic disasters. The
Post-Katrina Reform Act directs many organizational, mission, and policy
changes to respond to these findings and challenges.
Assessing, developing, attaining, and sustaining needed emergency
preparedness, response, and recovery capabilities is a difficult task that
requires sustained leadership, the coordinated efforts of many
stakeholders from a variety of first responder disciplines, levels of
government, and nongovernmental entities. There is a no "silver bullet,"
no easy formula. It is also a task that is never done, but requires
continuing commitment and leadership and trade-offs because circumstances
change and we will never have the funds to do everything we might like to
do.
That concludes my statement, and I would be pleased to respond to any
questions you and subcommittee members may have.
Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
For further information about this statement, please contact William O.
Jenkins Jr., Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues, on (202)
512-8777 or [email protected] .
In addition to the contact named above the following individuals from
GAO's Homeland Security and Justice Team also made major contributors to
this testimony: Sharon Caudle, Assistant Director; John Vocino,
Analyst-in-Charge; Flavio Martinez, Analyst; and Amy Bernstein,
Communications Analyst.
Appendix I: Enhanced Capabilities for Catastrophic Response and Recovery
Numerous reports and our own work suggest that the substantial resources
and capabilities marshaled by state, local, and federal governments and
nongovernmental organizations were insufficient to meet the immediate
challenges posed by the unprecedented degree of damage and the number of
victims caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Developing the capabilities
needed for catastrophic disasters should be part of an overall national
preparedness effort that is designed to integrate and define what needs to
be done and where, how, and how well it should be done--that is, according
to what standards. The principal national documents designed to address
each of these are, respectively, the NRP, NIMS, and the NPG. The nation's
experience with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita reinforces some of the
questions surrounding the adequacy of capabilities in the context of a
catastrophic disaster--particularly in the areas of (1) situational
assessment and awareness, (2) emergency communications, (3) evacuations,
(4) search and rescue, (5) logistics, and (6) mass care and sheltering.
FEMA is taking actions to address identified deficiencies in each of these
areas. Examples include designating national and regional situational
awareness teams; acquiring and deploying mobile satellite communications
trucks; developing an electronic system for receiving and tracking the
status of requests for assistance and supplies; acquiring GPS equipment
for tracking the location of supplies on route to areas of need; and
working with the Red Cross and others to clarify roles and
responsibilities for mass care, housing, and human services. This appendix
provides additional details of FEMA's actions in each of these areas.
FEMA Taking Steps to Improve Situational Assessment Capabilities
One of the critical capabilities that FEMA is working to improve is their
situational assessment and awareness. FEMA is developing a concept for
rapidly deployable interagency incident management teams, at this time
called National Incident Management Team, to provide a forward federal
presence to facilitate managing the national response for catastrophic
incidents. FEMA is planning to establish three national-level teams and
ten regional-level teams, one in each of the ten FEMA regions. These teams
will support efforts to meet the emergent needs during disasters such as
the capability to provide initial situational awareness for
decision-makers and support the initial establishment of a unified
command. According to FEMA's plans, these teams will have a multi-agency
composition to ensure that the multi-disciplinary requirements of
emergency management are met. The teams are envisioned to have the
capability to establish an effective federal presence within 12-hours of
notification, to support the state, to coordinate federal activities, and
to be self sufficient for a minimum of 48-hours so as not to be a drain on
potentially scarce local resources. National-level and regional-level
teams will be staffed with permanent full-time employees, unlike the ERTs,
which are staffed on a collateral duty basis. Team composition will
include representatives from other DHS components, interagency and
homeland security partners. When not deployed, the teams will team-train
with federal partners and provide a training capability to elevate state
and local emergency management capabilities. The teams will also engage in
consistent and coordinated operational planning and relationship-building
with state, local, tribal, and other stakeholders.
According to FEMA officials, these teams are still being designed and
decisions on team assets, equipment, and expected capabilities have not
yet been finalized. The new teams are envisioned to eventually subsume the
existing FIRST (Federal Incident Response Teams) and ERTs (FEMA's
Emergency Response Teams), and their mission and capabilities will
incorporate similar concepts involving leadership, emergency management
doctrine, and operational competence in communications. FEMA plans to
implement one National Incident Management Team and one Regional Incident
Management Team by May 25, 2007.
Some Progress Has Been Made on Interoperable Communications
As our past work has noted, emergency communications is a critical
capability common across all phases of an incident. Agencies'
communications systems during a catastrophic disaster must first be
operable, with sufficient communications to meet everyday internal and
emergency communication requirements. Once operable, they then should have
communications interoperability whereby public safety agencies (e.g.,
police, fire, emergency medical services, etc.) and service agencies
(e.g., public works, transportation, and hospitals) can communicate within
and across agencies and jurisdictions in real time as needed.
DHS officials have identified a number of programs and activities they
have implemented to improve interoperable communications nationally. DHS's
Office for Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC) was established to
strengthen and integrate interoperability and compatibility efforts to
improve local, tribal, state, and federal emergency preparedness and
response. SAFECOM, a program of OIC which is transitioning to the Office
of Emergency Communications (OEC)--in response to the Post-Katrina Reform
Act--is developing tools, templates, and guidance documents, including
field tested statewide planning methodologies, online collaboration tools,
coordinated grant guidance, communications requirements, and a
comprehensive online library of lessons learned and best practices to
improve interoperability and compatibility across the nation. DHS
officials cited the development of the following examples in their efforts
to improve interoperable communications:
o Statement of Requirements (SoR) to define operational and
functional requirements for emergency response communications.
o Public Safety Architecture Framework (PSAF) to help emergency
response agencies map interoperable communications system
requirements and identify system gaps.
o Project 25 (P25) suite of standards and a Compliance Assessment
Program. This project is in conjunction with the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to support the
efforts of the emergency response community and industry;
o Statewide Communications Interoperability Planning Methodology
to offer states a tangible approach as they initiate statewide
interoperability planning efforts. SAFECOM also collaborated in
DHS grant guidance to help states develop statewide
interoperability plans by the end of 2007.
According to FEMA officials, the agency is taking actions to design,
staff, and maintain a rapidly deployable, responsive, interoperable, and
highly reliable emergency communications capability using the latest
commercial off-the-shelf voice, video, and data technology. FEMA's
Response Division is the designated lead for tactical communications,
along with situational awareness information technology enablers that are
provided by FEMA's Chief Information Officer. Mobile Emergency Response
Support (MERS) detachments provide robust, deployable, command, control,
and incident communications capabilities to DHS/FEMA elements for
catastrophic Incidents of National Significance. The MERS mission supports
Emergency Support Function partners at the federal, state, and local
levels of government. The plan is to utilize enhanced MERS capabilities
and leverage commercial technology to provide real-time connectivity
between communications platforms in a manner consistent with emergency
communication deployment doctrine being developed by DHS and FEMA.
According to FEMA officials, emergency managers at the federal, state, and
local levels of government will benefit from an integrated interoperable
emergency communications architecture that includes the Department of
Defense, United States Northern Command and the National Guard Bureau.
Our recent work noted that $2.15 billion in grant funding has been awarded
to states and localities from fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2005
for communications interoperability enhancements helped to make
improvements on a variety of interoperability projects.^1 However this
work noted that the SAFECOM program has made limited progress in improving
communications interoperability at all levels of government. For example,
the program has not addressed interoperability with federal agencies, a
critical element to interoperable communications required by the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.^2 The SAFECOM
program has focused on helping states and localities improve interoperable
communications by developing tools and guidance for their use. However,
based on our review of four states and selected localities, SAFECOM's
progress in achieving its goals of helping these states and localities
improve interoperable communications has been limited. Officials from the
states and localities we reviewed often found that the tools and planning
assistance provided by the program were not helpful, or they were unaware
of what assistance the program had to offer. The program's limited
effectiveness can be linked to poor program management practices,
including the lack of a plan for improving interoperability across all
levels of government and inadequate performance measures that would
provide feedback to better attune tools and assistance with public safety
needs. Until SAFECOM adopts these key management practices, its progress
is likely to remain limited.
Further, little progress had been made in developing Project 25
standards--a suite of national standards that are intended to enable
interoperability among the communications products of different vendors.
For example, although one of the eight major subsets of standards was
defined in the project's first 4 years (from 1989 to 1993), from 1993
through 2005, no additional standards were completed that could be used by
a vendor to develop elements of a Project 25 system. The private-sector
coordinating body responsible for Project 25 has defined specifications
for three additional subsets of standards. However, ambiguities in the
published standards have led to incompatibilities among products made by
different vendors, and no compliance testing has been conducted to ensure
vendors' products are interoperable. Nevertheless, DHS has strongly
encouraged state and local agencies to use grant funding to purchase
Project 25 radios, which are substantially more expensive than non-Project
25 radios. As a result, states and local agencies have purchased fewer,
more expensive radios, which still may not be interoperable and thus may
provide them with minimal additional benefits. Thus, until DHS takes a
more strategic approach here, progress by states and localities in
improving interoperability is likely to be impeded.
^1GAO, First Responders: Much Work Remains to Improve Communications
Interoperability. [43]GAO-07-301 (Washington, D.C.: April 2, 2007).
^2 See 6 U.S.C. S 194(a).
FEMA Taking Steps to Address Logistics Problems
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA's performance in the logistics area
came under harsh criticism. Within days, FEMA became overwhelmed and
essentially asked the military to take over much of the logistics
mission.^3 In the Post-Katrina Reform Act, Congress required FEMA to make
its logistics system more flexible and responsive. FEMA's improvements to
their logistics strategy and efforts are designed to initially lean
forward and provide immediate support to a disaster site mainly through
FEMA-owned goods and assets, and later on to establish sustained supply
chains with the private vendors whose resources are needed for ongoing
response and recovery activities, according to FEMA officials.
According to FEMA officials, the agency is building forward-leaning
capabilities that include, for example, its MERS resources designed to
support a variety of communications requirements--satellite, land mobile
radio, computer and telephone systems--with the ability to operate from
one or more locations (mobile and stationary) within the response area of
operations. FEMA has also developed a Pre-Positioned Disaster Supply
(PPDS) program to position containers of life-saving and life-sustaining
disaster equipment and supplies as close to a potential disaster site as
possible, in order to substantially reduce the initial response time to
incidents.^4 Further, FEMA is developing a Pre-positioned Equipment
Program (PEP) that also consists of standardized containers of equipment
to provide state and local governments responding to a range of major
disasters such equipment as personal protective supplies, decontamination,
detection, technical search and rescue, law enforcement, medical,
interoperable communications and other emergency response equipment.
According to FEMA officials, currently FEMA has established 8 of the 11
PEP locations, as mandated by the Post-Katrina Reform Act, and FEMA is
currently conducting an analysis to determine where the additional PEP
sites should be located. FEMA has also stated that it has enhanced its
relationships with the public sector with its disaster logistics partners
and has worked to utilize the public sector's expertise through
Inter-Agency Agreements with the Defense Logistics Agency, the Department
of Transportation and Marine Corps Systems Command.
^3GAO, Hurricane Katrina: Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the
Military's Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters. [44]GAO-06-643
(Washington, D.C.: May 15, 2006).
^4States participating in the PPDS program sign a Memorandum of Agreement
with FEMA for the use of the containers.
According to FEMA officials, another critical component of creating an
effective logistics system is based upon FEMA's ability to work
collaboratively with and leverage the capabilities of its public and
private partners. FEMA's logistics efforts have identified private sector
expertise to improve and develop software systems to increase logistics
program efficiency and effectiveness. For example, the Logistics
Information Management System (LIMS) is FEMA's formal accountability
database system for all property managed within FEMA nation-wide or at
disaster field locations. At the same time, FEMA is also developing a
multi-phased Total Asset Visibility (TAV) program with the assistance of
the private sector to leverage the collective resources of the private and
public sector to improve emergency response logistics in the areas of
transportation, warehousing, and distribution. The current phase of the
program, which is operational at two FEMA logistics centers (Atlanta,
Georgia, and Fort Worth, Texas), encompasses two software management
packages designed to provide FEMA the ability to inventory disaster
response commodities upon arrival at a warehouse, place the commodities in
storage, and track the commodities while stored in the warehouse. FEMA
plans to expand the capabilities of this first phase of the system to all
FEMA Regions during 2007. This will provide FEMA with sufficient logistics
management and tracking capabilities until an expanded phase two can be
implemented. For the second phase, FEMA is currently conducting market
research to solicit input from the private sector and other sources to
facilitate final design of the program's second phase. According to FEMA
officials, initial operational capabilities for this phase are scheduled
to be in place by June 2008, and fully-operational in June 2009. According
to FEMA, the completed product will provide a more comprehensive approach
to producing real-time, reliable reporting and incorporate FEMA's
financial resource tracking requirements. It will also be able to support
other federal departments and agencies, non-government organizations, and
state, local and tribal organizations under the guidelines of the NRP.
While FEMA has been working to address its logistics capabilities, it is
too early to evaluate these efforts. We recently examined FEMA logistics
issues, taking a broad approach, identifying five areas necessary for an
effective logistics system. Below, we describe these five areas along with
FEMA's ongoing actions to address each.
Requirements: FEMA does not yet have operational plans in place to address
disaster scenarios, nor does it have detailed information on states'
capabilities and resources. As a result, FEMA does not have information
from these sources to define what and how much it needs to stock. However,
FEMA is developing a concept of operations to underpin its logistics
program and told us that it is working to develop detailed plans and the
associated stockage requirements. However, until FEMA has solid
requirements based on detailed plans, the agency will be unable to assess
its true preparedness.
Inventory management: FEMA's system accounts for the location, quantity,
and types of supplies, but the ability to track supplies in-transit is
limited. FEMA has several efforts under way to improve transportation and
tracking of supplies and equipment, such as expanding its new system for
in-transit visibility from the two test regions to all FEMA regions.
Facilities: FEMA maintains nine logistics centers and dozens of smaller
storage facilities across the country. However, it has little assurance
that these are the right number of facilities located in the right places.
FEMA officials told us they are in the process of determining the number
of storage facilities it needs and where they should be located.
Distribution: Problems persist with FEMA's distribution system, including
poor transportation planning, unreliable contractors, and lack of
distribution sites. FEMA officials described initiatives under way that
should mitigate some of the problems with contractors, and has been
working with Department of Defense and Department of Transportation to
improve the access to transportation when needed.
People: Human capital issues are pervasive in FEMA, including the
logistics area. The agency has a small core of permanent staff,
supplemented with contract and temporary disaster assistance staff.
However, FEMA's recent retirements and losses of staff, and its difficulty
in hiring permanent staff and contractors, have created staffing
shortfalls and a lack of capability. According to a January 2007 study
commissioned by FEMA, there are significant shortfalls in staffing and
skill sets of full-time employees, particularly in the planning, advanced
contracting, and relationship management skills needed to fulfill the
disaster logistics mission. FEMA has recently hired a logistics
coordinator and is making a concerted effort to hire qualified staff for
the entire agency, including logistics.
In short, FEMA is taking many actions to transition its logistics program
to be more proactive, flexible, and responsive. While these and other
initiatives hold promise for improving FEMA's logistics capabilities, it
will be years before they are fully implemented and operational.
Revisions Made to Evacuation Planning, Mass Care, Housing and Human Services
In an April 2007 testimony, FEMA's Deputy Administrator for Operations
said that emergency evacuation, shelter and housing is FEMA's most
pressing priority for planning for recovery from a catastrophic disaster.
He said that FEMA is undertaking more detailed mass evacuee support
planning; the Department of Justice and Red Cross are developing methods
for more quickly identifying and uniting missing family members; and FEMA
and the Red Cross have developed a web-based data system to support
shelter management, reporting, and facility identification activities.
Evacuation. Recent GAO work found that actions are needed to clarify the
responsibilities and increase preparedness for evacuations, especially for
those transportation-disadvantaged populations. We found that state and
local governments are generally not well prepared to evacuate
transportation-disadvantaged populations (i.e. planning, training, and
conducting exercises), but some states and localities have begun to
address challenges and barriers. For example, in June 2006, DHS reported
that only about 10 percent of the state and about 12 percent of the urban
area emergency plans it reviewed adequately addressed evacuating these
populations. Steps being taken by some such governments include
collaboration with social service and transportation providers and
transportation planning organizations--some of which are Department of
Transportation (DOT) grantees and stakeholders--to determine
transportation needs and develop agreements for emergency use of drivers
and vehicles. The federal government provides evacuation assistance to
state and local governments, but gaps in this assistance have hindered
many of these governments' ability to sufficiently prepare for
evacuations. This includes the lack of any specific requirement to plan,
train, and conduct exercises for the evacuation of
transportation-disadvantaged populations as well as gaps in the usefulness
of DHS's guidance. We recommended that DHS should clarify federal
agencies' roles and responsibilities for providing evacuation assistance
when state and local governments are overwhelmed. DHS should require state
and local evacuation preparedness for transportation-disadvantaged
populations and improve information to assist these governments. DOT
should encourage its grant recipients to share information to assist in
evacuation preparedness for these populations. DOT and DHS agreed to
consider our recommendations, and DHS stated it has partly implemented
some of them.
In his April 26, 2007 testimony statement for the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, FEMA's Deputy Administrator stated that FEMA is
undertaking more detailed mass evacuation support planning to help State
and local government plan and prepare for hosting large displaced
populations. The project is to include the development of an evacuee
registration and tracking capability and implementation plans for federal
evacuation support to states.
Mass Care and Shelter. During the current NRP review period, FEMA has
revised the organizational structure of ESF-6, Mass Care, Housing, and
Human Services, and places FEMA as the primary agency responsible for this
emergency support function. The Red Cross will remain as a supporting
agency in the responsibilities and activities of ESF-6. FEMA continues to
maintain a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Red Cross that
articulates agency roles and responsibilities for mass care. The MOU and
addendum were recently revised in May 2006 and December 2006,
respectively. FEMA is currently working with Red Cross and other support
agencies to revise ESF-6 standard operating procedures. According to a
February 2007 letter by the Red Cross, this change will not take place
until the NRP review process is complete and all changes are approved.
According to FEMA's Deputy Administrator, FEMA and the Red Cross have
developed the first phase of a web-based data system to support shelter
management, reporting, and facility identification activities. The system
is intended for all agencies that provide shelter service during disasters
to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the shelter populations and
available shelter capacity.
Temporary housing. Other recent GAO work noted that FEMA needs to identify
and assess the capabilities that exist across the federal government and
outside the federal government, including temporary housing. In a recent
report on housing assistance we found that the National Response Plan's
annex covering temporary shelter and housing in ESF 6 clearly described
the overall responsibilities of the two primary responsible agencies--FEMA
and the Red Cross.^5 However, the responsibilities described for the
support agencies--the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Housing and
Urban Development (HUD), and Veterans Affairs--did not, and still do not,
fully reflect their capabilities. Further, these support agencies had not,
at the time of our work, developed fact sheets describing their roles and
responsibilities, notification and activation procedures, and
agency-specific authorities, as called for by ESF-6 operating procedures.
Our February 2007 report recommended that the support agencies propose
revisions to the NRP that fully reflect each respective support agency's
capabilities for providing temporary housing under ESF-6, develop the
needed fact sheets, and develop operational plans that provide details on
how their respective agencies will meet their temporary housing
responsibilities. The Departments of Defense, HUD, Treasury, and the
Veterans Administration, and Agriculture, concurred with our
recommendations. The Red Cross did not comment on our report or
recommendations. As part of a housing task force, FEMA is currently
exploring ways of incorporating housing assistance offered by private
sector organizations. FEMA says it has also developed a housing portal to
consolidate available rental resources for evacuees from Federal agencies,
private organizations, and individuals.
^5GAO, Disaster Assistance: Better Planning Needed for Housing Victims of
Catastrophic Disasters, [45]GAO-07-88 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2007).
Appendix II: Related GAO Products
Homeland Security: Management and Programmatic Challenges Facing the
Department of Homeland Security. [46]GAO-07-833T . Washington, D.C.: May
10, 2007
First Responders: Much Work Remains to Improve Communications
Interoperability. [47]GAO-07-301 . Washington, D.C.: April 2, 2007.
Emergency Preparedness: Current Emergency Alert System Has Limitations,
and Development of a New Integrated System Will be Challenging.
[48]GAO-07-411 . Washington, D.C.: March 30, 2007
Disaster Preparedness: Better Planning Would Improve OSHA's Efforts to
Protect Workers' Safety and Health in Disasters. [49]GAO-07-193 .
Washington, D.C.: March 28, 2007.
Public Health and Hospital Emergency Preparedness Programs: Evolution of
Performance Measurement Systems to Measure Progress. [50]GAO-07-485R .
Washington, D.C.: March 23, 2007.
Coastal Barrier Resources System: Status of Development That Has Occurred
and Financial Assistance Provided by Federal Agencies. [51]GAO-07-356 .
Washington, D.C.: March 19, 2007.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Disaster Relief: Continued Findings of Fraud,
Waste, and Abuse. [52]GAO-07-300 . Washington, D.C.: March 15, 2007.
Homeland Security: Preparing for and Responding to Disasters.
[53]GAO-07-395T . Washington, D.C.: March 9, 2007.
Hurricane Katrina: Agency Contracting Data Should Be More Complete
Regarding Subcontracting Opportunities for Small Businesses.
[54]GAO-07-205 . Washington, D.C.: March 1, 2007.
Hurricane Katrina: Allocation and Use of $2 Billion for Medicaid and Other
Health Care Needs. [55]GAO-07-67 . Washington, D.C.: February 28, 2007.
Disaster Assistance: Better Planning Needed for Housing Victims of
Catastrophic Disasters. [56]GAO-07-88 . Washington, D.C.: February 28,
2007
Highway Emergency Relief: Reexamination Needed to Address Fiscal Imbalance
and Long-term Sustainability. [57]GAO-07-245 . Washington, D.C.: February
23, 2007.
Small Business Administration: Additional Steps Needed to Enhance Agency
Preparedness for Future Disasters. [58]GAO-07-114 . Washington, D.C.:
February 14, 2007.
Small Business Administration: Response to the Gulf Coast Hurricanes
Highlights Need for Enhanced Disaster Preparedness. [59]GAO-07-484T .
Washington, D.C.: February 14, 2007.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Federal Actions Could Enhance Preparedness of
Certain State-Administered Federal Support Programs. [60]GAO-07-219 .
Washington, D.C.: February 7, 2007.
Homeland Security Grants: Observations on Process DHS Used to Allocate
Funds to Selected Urban Areas. [61]GAO-07-381R . Washington, D.C.:
February 7, 2007.
Homeland Security: Management and Programmatic Challenges Facing the
Department of Homeland Security. [62]GAO-07-452T . Washington, D.C.:
February 7, 2007.
Homeland Security: Applying Risk Management Principles to Guide Federal
Investments. [63]GAO-07-386T . Washington, D.C.: February 7, 2007.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Disaster Relief: Prevention Is the Key to
Minimizing Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Recovery Efforts. [64]GAO-07-418T.
Washington, D.C.: January 29, 2007
GAO, Reserve Forces: Actions needed to Identify National Guard Domestic
Equipment Requirements and Readiness, [65]GAO-07-60 Washington, D.C.:
January 26, 2007
Budget Issues: FEMA Needs Adequate Data, Plans, and Systems to Effectively
Manage Resources for Day-to-Day Operations, [66]GAO-07-139 . Washington,
D.C.: January 19, 2007.
Transportation-Disadvantaged Populations: Actions Needed to Clarify
Responsibilities and Increase Preparedness for Evacuations. [67]GAO-07-44
. Washington, D.C.: December 22, 2006.
Suggested Areas for Oversight for the 110th Congress. [68]GAO-07-235R .
Washington, D.C.: November 17, 2006.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Continued Findings of Fraud, Waste, and
Abuse. [69]GAO-07-252T . Washington, D.C.: December 6, 2006.
Capital Financing: Department Management Improvements Could Enhance
Education's Loan Program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
[70]GAO-07-64 . Washington, D.C.: October 18, 2006.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Unprecedented Challenges Exposed the
Individuals and Households Program to Fraud and Abuse; Actions Needed to
Reduce Such Problems in Future. [71]GAO-06-1013 . Washington, D.C.:
September 27, 2006.
Catastrophic Disasters: Enhanced Leadership, Capabilities, and
Accountability Controls Will Improve the Effectiveness of the Nation's
Preparedness, Response, and Recovery System. [72]GAO-06-618 . Washington,
D.C.: September 6, 2006.
Disaster Relief: Governmentwide Framework Needed to Collect and
Consolidate Information to Report on Billions in Federal Funding for the
2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes. [73]GAO-06-834 . Washington, D.C.: September
6, 2006.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Coordination between FEMA and the Red Cross
Should Be Improved for the 2006 Hurricane Season. [74]GAO-06-712 .
Washington, D.C.: June 8, 2006.
Federal Emergency Management Agency: Factors for Future Success and Issues
to Consider for Organizational Placement. [75]GAO-06-746T . Washington,
D.C.: May 9, 2006.
Hurricane Katrina: GAO's Preliminary Observations Regarding Preparedness,
Response, and Recovery. [76]GAO-06-442T . Washington, D.C.: March 8, 2006.
Emergency Preparedness and Response: Some Issues and Challenges Associated
with Major Emergency Incidents. [77]GAO-06-467T . Washington, D.C.:
February 23, 2006.
Homeland Security: DHS' Efforts to Enhance First Responders' All-Hazards
Capabilities Continue to Evolve. [78]GAO-05-652 . Washington, D.C.: July
11, 2005.
Continuity of Operations: Agency Plans Have Improved, but Better Oversight
Could Assist Agencies in Preparing for Emergencies. [79]GAO-05-577 .
Washington, D.C.: April 28, 2005.
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Highlights of [87]GAO-07-835T , a testimony before the Committee on
Homeland Security, House of Representatives
May 15, 2007
HOMELAND SECURITY
Observations on DHS and FEMA Efforts to Prepare for and Respond to Major
and Catastrophic Disasters and Address Related Recommendations and
Legislation
As a new hurricane season approaches, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) faces the
simultaneous challenges of preparing for the season and implementing the
reorganization and other provisions of the Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform Act of 2006. The Act stipulates major changes to FEMA
intended to enhance its preparedness for and response to catastrophic and
major disasters.
As GAO has reported, FEMA and DHS face continued challenges, including
clearly defining leadership roles and responsibilities, developing
necessary disaster response capabilities, and establishing accountability
systems to provide effective services while protecting against waste,
fraud, and abuse.
This testimony (1) summarizes GAO's findings on these challenges and
FEMA's and DHS's efforts to address them; and (2) discusses several
disaster management issues for continued congressional attention.
[88]What GAO Recommends
This testimony includes no new recommendations, but identifies issues to
which Congress, FEMA, and DHS may wish to give continued attention so that
FEMA may fulfill the requirements of the Post-Katrina Reform Act. These
issues are based on the findings and recommendations of more than 30
Katrina-related GAO reports.
Effective disaster preparedness and response require defining what needs
to be done, where and by whom, how it needs to be done, and how well it
should be done. GAO analysis following Hurricane Katrina showed that
improvements were needed in leadership roles and responsibilities,
development of the necessary disaster capabilities, and accountability
systems that balance the need for fast, flexible response against the need
to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. To facilitate rapid and effective
decision making, legal authorities, roles and responsibilities, and lines
of authority at all government levels must be clearly defined, effectively
communicated, and well understood. Adequacy of capabilities in the context
of a catastrophic or major disaster are needed--particularly in the areas
of (1) situational assessment and awareness; (2) emergency communications;
(3) evacuations; (4) search and rescue; (5) logistics; and (6) mass care
and shelter. Implementing controls and accountability mechanisms helps to
ensure the proper use of resources. FEMA has initiated reviews and some
actions in each of these areas, but their operational impact in a
catastrophic or major disaster has not yet been tested. Some of the
targeted improvements, such as a completely revamped logistics system, are
multiyear efforts. Others, such as the ability to field mobile
communications and registration-assistance vehicles, are expected to be
ready for the coming hurricane season.
The Comptroller General has suggested one area for fundamental reform and
oversight is ensuring a strategic and integrated approach to prepare for,
respond to, recover, and rebuild after catastrophic events. FEMA enters
the 2007 hurricane season as an organization in transition working
simultaneously to implement the reorganization required by the
Post-Katrina Reform Act and moving forward on initiatives to address the
deficiencies identified by the post-Katrina reviews. This is an enormous
challenge. In the short-term, Congress may wish to consider several
specific areas for immediate oversight. These include (1) evaluating the
development and implementation of the National Preparedness System,
including preparedness for natural disasters, terrorist incidents, and an
influenza pandemic; (2) assessing state and local capabilities and the use
of federal grants to enhance those capabilities; (3) examining regional
and multi-state planning and preparation; (4) determining the status and
use of preparedness exercises; and (5) examining DHS polices regarding
oversight assistance.
References
Visible links
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