**Chairman Tom Davis Opening Statement**

**Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and
Response to Hurricane Katrina**

**Hearing on Preparedness and Response by the State of Alabama**

**November 9, 2005**

Good morning, and welcome to this morning's hearing on the State of
Alabama's preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina.

We have spent the last two months examining this catastrophic disaster.
It has become increasingly clear that local, state, and federal agencies
failed to meet the needs of the residents of Alabama, Mississippi, and
Louisiana.

Our hearings thus far have revealed plenty of heroes and plenty of
goats. We've begun demystifying the process of emergency management,
beginning with what is and is not the province of the federal
government.

It's no doubt true that many Americans falsely view FEMA as some sort of
national fire and rescue team. So we focused early on FEMA's role and
responsibilities, getting an accurate description for the record of what
FEMA *is* -- what it can and cannot do based on what it is *actually
charged* with doing.

We all know now that FEMA is **not** a first responder agency with the
resources to assume principal responsibility for overwhelmed state and
local governments during a disaster.

And that's probably a good thing. I continue to believe the worst lesson
to be learned from Katrina is that *all* answers reside in Washington.

But just because they're not "first responders" doesn't mean we can
excuse a response that was at best second class.

Today we turn our attention to Alabama, in what will be the first of
three hearings focused on state and local preparation and response, and
state and local coordination with the federal government. We'll continue
asking the same tough questions we've asked of federal witnesses at our
previous hearings.

How policy *implementation* became so wildly divorced from *policy
creation.*

Why there seemed to be such profound government hesitancy at all levels.

Why we appear to have confused getting the *government* ready with
getting *people* ready.

We are well prepared for today's hearing, in large part due to the
cooperation we have received from Governor Riley and his staff. State
documents arrived on time, and for that we are grateful. Select
Committee staff traveled to Alabama the week of October 10^th^ to
interview state officials, review documents, and visit the Emergency
Operations Center and the Red Cross Regional Operations Center.

With the help of our witnesses today, we hope to fill in the blanks.

We all know by now that in the event of an emergency, state and local
government officials bear responsibilities under both the National
Response Plan and their own laws and directives.

This hearing will explore Alabama's laws, policies, procedures, and its
interface with the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA when
confronting the prospect or reality of a catastrophic disaster.

We'll look at the respective roles of the Governor, the Directors of the
Alabama Emergency Management Office, the Director of the Alabama
Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Directors from
Mobile and Baldwin counties, the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.

The National Response Plan (NRP) and the National Incident Management
System (NIMS) were crafted to provide the framework and template,
respectively, for the federal government to work with state and local
authorities to prepare for and respond to crises. In turn, states,
localities, tribal governments, and nongovernmental organizations are
asked to align their plans and procedures with federal guidelines and
procedures.

Alabama has established both a Department of Homeland Security and an
Alabama Emergency Management Agency (AEMA). During a crisis, the AEMA
activates an Emergency Operations Center organized around the fifteen
Emergency Support Functions outlined in the NRP.

How the Governor, AEMA personnel, and local officials conducted response
operations during Hurricane Katrina, as well as how well the federal
government provided support, are of primary interest to our
investigation. Specifically, what occurs at the state and local level
during catastrophic incidents when local resources are overwhelmed and
when, if ever, is it appropriate for the federal government to step in?

What this Committee is doing isn't rocket science.

We're gathering facts and establishing timelines based on some fairly
rudimentary but important questions posed to the right people at all
levels of government.

What did you need and what did you get?

Where were you in the days and hours right before, during, and after the
storm? Who were you talking to? What were you doing?

Does that match what you were *supposed* to be doing? Why or why not?

In other words, we're matching what was *supposed* to happen under
federal, state, and local plans against what *actually happened*.

Our findings will emerge from this process of matching.

As we'll again discover today, government did not fail people because of
a lack of plans. Government failed from a lack of initiative. Government
failed because it did not learn from past experiences.

There were plans, but there was not enough plan-*ning*.

I think we'll hear from our Alabama witnesses today that often there
were too many cooks in the kitchen, and because of that the response to
Katrina was at times overcooked, at times undercooked.

Because everybody was in charge, nobody was in charge.

I don't want to unduly preview what we'll hear from our witnesses today,
nor do I want to suggest that all went well in Alabama, because it
didn't. But I do think we've already learned some lessons from our
friends in Alabama.

Like many other state officials, Alabama's leaders are concerned that in
the post-9/11 environment, undue emphasis -- primarily in the form of
federal funding \-- is placed on terrorism-based hazards, when natural
disasters pose a much more likely, perhaps inevitable, risk.

I expect we'll hear today that FEMA's logistics system is broken. Take
commodity procurement, for example. Alabama officials have expressed
frustration over FEMA's tendency to second-guess or discount validated,
data-driven state requests for commodities and equipment. Ask for 100
trucks, FEMA decides you only need 16.

Concerns have also been raised about seemingly arbitrary restrictions on
FEMA recovery and mitigation funds. It's a mystery to me, for example,
why funds would be available to buy stationary electrical generators,
but not portable ones.

Applying the lessons learned from Hurricane Ivan, the state upgraded the
tracking system used to determine hospital bed vacancies giving state
officials real-time visibility of surge capacity. This made it possible
to direct those with special medical needs. But then HHS activated the
National Disaster Medical System without prior notice or consultation
with Alabama, taking 200 beds from the inventory the state believed on
hand, and to which state officials were still directing patients.

Likewise, Coast Guard search and rescue operations were bringing
survivors from Mississippi unannounced to already full hospitals until
Alabama sent its own personnel forward to help triage cases and
coordinate the direction of Coast Guard flights.

The state-focused hearings we begin today will highlight one of the most
prevalent shortcomings our investigation is uncovering -- a complete
breakdown in communication and coordination. A glaring absence of
information sharing.

As we did after 9/11, we are again realizing that we are still an analog
government in a digital age. Again realizing that we are woefully
incapable of storing, moving and accessing information.

Information would have been an optimal weapon against Katrina.
Information moved to the right people at the right place at the right
time. Information moved within agencies and across departments. And
information moved across jurisdictions of government as well.
Seamlessly. Securely. Efficiently.

Unfortunately, no government does these things well, especially big
governments.

We spend \$150 billion a year on information technology. You'd think we
could share information by now.

I look forward to having Alabama officials share their story with us
today.