committee will come to order the committee is meeting today to receive testimony on thema housing and examination of current problems and innovative solutions today's hearing will examine them ability to provide and somehow thing after a catastrophic event while we intend this hearing to look toward the future we must recall the past almost four years ago the most destructive series of hurricanes this nation has seen struck the gulf coast one after another katrina rita wilma devastate thing blows to a region of this country that i call home mississippi louisiana alabama and texas all buckled on though the force of the stones hurricane katrina destroyed an estimated three hundred thousand homes displaced seven hundred thousand people and resulted in a death of more than one thousand three hundred individuals in the aftermath of the rains the winds and the broken levees the people of this region had to begin the process of rebuilding their lives and that is when they look to theme in response thema purchased over twenty seven thousand travel trailers off the lot twenty five thousand mobile homes at a cost of eight hundred fifty million dollars and over seventeen hundred modular homes at a cost of fifty two million dollars unfortunately prior to these purchases thema did not have a plan for how these homes would be used some of them remain a lot in hope arkansas texarkana texas purvis mississippi and bad ruin louisiana we have a picture of that a lot and hope arkansas on the screen while themis pair to plan is disturbing well more disturbing is the office of inspector general's report that prior to hurricane katrina thema was not fully prepared to provide sheltering transitional housing to victims of a catastrophic disaster as a result of themis player yet to play in the last four years have been a series of miss missed opportunities and misspent money we've seen the federal government resort to all forms of housing cruise ships converted miller tara barracks apartments hotel and trailer parks we've even seen the federal government pay over one hundred thousand dollars a mobile home yet we've not seen a comprehensive plan to address the continued dislocation of the families along the gulf on january sixteenth two thousand and man in the last week go to bush administration thema released a housing strategy that strategy called for developing an operational plan and building disaster housing capabilities in essence it's a plan to make a plan i think that leaves us without a plan administrate a few gate on the old leadership i won't seem to develop a comprehensive housing plan this plan can either ignore the people who remain homeless after katrina nor continue to rely on the same old solutions i hope this hearing today will begin a dialogue to create innovative cost effective and more temporary housing housing gives people a sense of security after the disaster knowing you have a home is truly the beginning of recovery i want to thank our witnesses and i look forward to th testimony the chair now recognizes the gentleman from in the anna miss the south for an opening statement i thank the chairman i would like to welcome our witnesses and thank them for taking time to be with us today ranking member king is unable to attend this hearing today due to a scheduling conflict this hearing is an opportunity discuss a broad range of issues surrounding how our nation provides housing for disaster victims this hearing also marks the first time that craig if you gate the new administration ministre to see my has testified before the full committee since his confirmation thank you for being here today team has made significant progress since a gulf coast hurricane two thousand and five but more work remains to be done in coordinating the overall disaster housing response managing disaster assistance programs and clearly didn't plenty adding roles and responsibilities for community recovery it is important for size that fema cannot and should not handle disaster housing on its own resources from the department of housing and urban development the small business administration state local and tribal governments non governmental organizations in the private sector all needed to achieve a comprehensive disaster housing capability also femurs housing programs by law are temporary that means  housing options that seem up provides such as travel trailers and mobile homes are not intended to be long term solutions for victims of disasters but rather a means to help disaster victims return to their lives and recover their communities a lack of housing in rental properties mutely after hurricane katrina and more recently after hurricane ike for example made temporary housing units a reasonable solution for victims who want to stay close to their homes especially for example in katrina for many low income people  their land and their homes where their only assets and they've been in their families for many many years so they don't want to leave their local area i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about how fema can potentially use a national disaster housing strategy in addition to new innovative designs to continue identifying practical cost effective options for temporary housing while female housing is an important issue i'd like to note that mr few gate testified in a related topic on the last month and subcommittee and there are many other pressing issues on wh most trader could testify today such as the state of preparedness for this year's hurricane season and his plans for managing fema we really have two fundamental questions one is the short term housing question which in my district many of the units were provided from elkhart county there are expectations and many frustrations and claims about the so called trailers not being able to be lived in some were not intended to be long term but in fact millions of americans do live in other types of trailers for many many years in and many locations across united states without problems and i believe the problems were exaggerated as evidenced by there was actually greater problems with formaldehyde in traditional housing in louisiana than there was there so i don't believe any of these units were intended to be long term housing but i do believe the frustrations have led to some false information the second thing having been into new orleans twice right after the meet only after the first group that came in from homeland security and the government form committee and then going back for a number of days of years later that part of what we have to deal with in the challenge that you have is a smaller scale disaster and then a larger scale disaster because when you got down into new orleans people wanted to go back to their land at the same and their homes at the same time the entire infrastructure was destroyed over a whole section of the city and when you met with the different leaders as they tried to work through how do you get medical facilities there is going to grocery stores are going to be a school how when there's not in an area that didn't necessarily have an easily restorable financial sector how do people go back and what's the motive for the do the retailers come first the medical come first the housing come first and it is at a massive scale i think something that seem i have to separate through a short term disaster and one when there is a large scale that's going to take a long time to rebuild and there needs to be like two different types of strategies to address these and tell we do that i think you're going to continue to have very frustrated members of congress looking at these massive ones and saying these people were supposed to be out of it these units years ago and yet you're trying back members of the committee are mandate that on the committee a rules opening statements may be submitted for the record i welcome our first panel of witnesses our first witness is administrator craig fugate administrators of the same management agency missed a few gate began his career in emergency management as a volunteer firefighter that's not a bad beginning and emergency paramedic prior to his confirmation by the u s senate in may of two thousand and nine he served as the director of the florida division of emergency management a second witness is mr richard skinner inspector general of the united states department of homeland security mr skinner was confirmed as the department of homeland security and inspector general on july twenty eighth two thousand and five between two to december ninth two thousand and four and july twenty seventh two thousand and five he served as acting inspector chance to you know living in the city serving as mayor in a city called kansas city missouri and in across the river is another city called cancer kansas and some people with a hundred seventy five i q don't know the difference between missouri  kansas and so they will ask me you know how things in kansas or how it's dorothy which of course don't know the answer overland park is a suburb of kansas city missouri but overland park is in kansas another state and our city codes were in shambles we had protests from organized labor we had complaints from development lawyers we had complaints from home builders all upset over our code system and how difficult it was to do business in kansas city as we heard it and then fortunately for us we had someone just across state lines who had done a fabulous job over and over on park kansas as the building code engineer and that was of course general jones and so we were able to recruit him he did not volunteer to come to kansas city missouri we recruited him to come in to kansas city and mr chairman he completely reorganized  entire system developed a one stop shop so that people could come through the city get their codes and building permits and so forth in a very easy way and it is a process that still is underway to my great pain he for the national earthquake hazard reduction program he is an expert if we have ever had an expert come before this committee and i'm very pleased mr chairman that he was invited and agreed to be with us today challenges will be as long as our housing stock is vulnerable to the hazards we face and the numbers can be staggering we're never going to get to where we need to be on housing if the homes we're building are sound in the first place to give you some examples that mr chairman to do in our catastrophic planning looking at various parts of the country what would happen in a major earthquake a major hurricane type scenario looking at natural hazards here some numbers we're dealing with if we look at the new b earthquake based on our catastrophic planning if a major quake occurred there today approximately two point six million people or roughly a million households will need housing assistance if south florida struck by category five hurricane so more to the great miami hurricane one thousand nine hundred sixty three point six million households would be uninhabitable or major damage san francisco and a seven to seven point nine earthquake about one hundred thousand would be short term thirty six thousand longer term pretty low number until you understand that california's been doing seismic code for a long time and had been building in structures for that occur in our history have occurred and so in looking at how we address short term to longer term permanent housing solution i think it's very appropriate mr chairman that one of the  one thousand four hundred families who need housing needs assistance our programs provide a temporary housing for over three hundred of those families that is typical of many other sponsors that occur every day in this country from areas or temporary housing units were able to provide a shelter environment to allow people to either rebuild back on their property repair their homes or find other housing in the area but there is a point where those systems will not scale up in a catastrophic event and oftentimes we're looking at the short term shelter issues temporary housing units as a bridge it's a bridge that doesn't get us to a long term solution as stock for people to move out of those we look at these numbers what we find is we are often now facing a point at which we have to make decisions about how do we best manage housing in the sheltering  we need to work as partners with our state local government with our private sector mr chairman with you and your committee on how we weigh out a plan i think right now we have been able to present that we have many tools in the toolbox but without a good architectural blueprint i'm not sure we're always getting to where we want to go when we build out for temporary housing differently mrs khanna you and now have five minutes for your testimony thank you and good morning mr chairman members of the committee and thank you for having me here today my testimony today on past and ongoing work performed by my office and focuses on efforts to improve is a disaster housing operations as mr few gate pointed out disaster housing is one of the most complex challenges facing emergency managers at all levels of government following a major disaster deficiencies in the government's housing response to hurricane katrina and hurricane rita were well documented the bottom line is that no one was prepared to deal with the housing crisis created by a disaster the size of hurricanes katrina and rita nevertheless there were many failures in the federal housing response that could have and should have been avoided the absence of completed housing plans for catastrophic events is not new to fema it is not new to it is not new to the federal hundred three more than fifteen years ago and i quote alternatives need to be exploited for explored for situations in which suitable rental resources are not readily available fema recognize these problems in prior to august two thousand and five prior to katrina and rita rita making landfall had made at least three felled attempts to develop a catastrophic disaster housing plan had such a housing plan existed prior to katrina and rita making land the amount of vailable housing would have probably increased and the cost of temporary and permanent housing would most likely have not been as great as it was or is developing this vast a housing plan which includes better alternative housing solutions is important for a number of reasons but a key one is the cost of the current housing approach estimated that the average lifespan of temporary housing is going to be at will be as long as three years in the life span cost could range from twenty six thousand three hundred seventy nine dollars for a travel trailer at a private site to two hundred twenty nine thousand dollars for a travel trailer at a group site in addition to these cars fema estimates is currently spending about one hundred million dollars per year to store over one hundred thousand trailers in manufactured housing units that will that they eventually plan to dispose of the used to manufacturing housing might be a reasonable approach after most disasters as mr pointed out but no wake of a catastrophic event as hurricanes katrina and rita have taught us seamen needs better alternatives that quickly re store housing stocks and represent a cost effective option for american taxpayers it is critical to understand the impact that pose disaster housing stock levels have on just a disaster housing operations the repair and rest duration of existing housing stops is one of the most important challenges in its response recovery partners face following a catastrophic catastrophic housing disaster all other housing decisions and programs and join this single verily when january sixteenth of this year fema released a national disaster housing strategy required by the post katrina act of two thousand six this is famous fourth attempt to develop a catastrophic disaster housing strategy since two thousand and two the strategy summarizes the sheltering housing capabilities principles and policies that will guide the disaster housing process is a positive step forward but it's only an interim step that provides the framework for much needed changes in disaster housing policy and outlines a number of potential programs and federal agencies they can help victims find housing solutions but this strategy does not include the operational plans that everyone acknowledges are needed for successful post disaster housing recovery these plans should be tailored to meet the needs of the particular event for disaster scenario that is from the garden variety disaster to the catastrophic disaster fema needs more flexibility to explore innovative and cost effective solutions to disaster housings challenges in our two thousand and eight report sheltering transitional housing activities after hurricane katrina we encourage people to explore alternatives themas national disaster housing strategy and a recent u s senate report on disaster housing recognizes the challenges in the importance of developing greater flexibility in providing housing solutions some promising ideas came out of those studies catastrophic disasters are high consequence low probability events in preparing for these events is extremely complex and difficult as mystically gate is pointed out it's not something that we're going to fix overnight joining everyone to sit around the table federal state local nonprofit  disasters to meet this challenge fema needs flexible innovative and cost effective ways to help victims repair housing stops it is critically important that all disaster stakeholders at the federal state and local levels and private sector maintain this momentum and continue to implement needed changes over time only by doing this will we as a nation be better prepared for the next catastrophic disaster mr chairman that concludes about testimony i'll be happy answer any of your questions what i was able to accomplish in the city of kansas city missouri was only possible because the legislature the council gave the will and the resources to let me do it and i think that applies across the board i'm here today as a member of the national institute of building sciences which was created by congress in one thousand nine hundred seventy four as a single authoritative national source to make findings and advise both the public and private sectors on t use of building science and technology to achieve national goals and benefits our board is diverse and includes six public interest members appointed by the president confirmed by the senate as part of our mission we work to reduce social an economic losses from natural hazards by improving collaboration among all entities involved in mitigation by bill liberally promoting risk both i hazard risk reduction in the planning design and operation of build environment and not just let it happen later we serve as a focal point for dissemination of information on major policy issues we work closely with fema for many years in several areas hazard mitigation to manage post disaster information and ensure that lessons learned from each disaster are documented disseminated by written testimony provides documents of our collaborative work and many of the things that we've done with  over the years our last project was to assist fema supporting the joint housing solutions group as they attempted to evaluate the many different temporary housing solutions offered we assisted them in developing syria and methodologies to determine the suitability of temporary structures including hazard resistant designs materials taking into account geographic location problem hazards weather environmental requirements cost delivery and other factors that must be considered in reacting to a disaster we helped a council develop a spreadsheet assessment tool that had some one hundred seventy five characteristics of a proposed housing unit that included such things as production capability the ability to ramp up production storage  and it provided a standard frame of reference for comparing traditional and innovative emergency housing alternatives as a result of an open solicitation by fema  then had representatives on a field assessment team that looked at some forty potential solutions we looked we went into various parts of the united states puerto rico and canada looking at the various proposed solutions there were a wide variety of units submitted and the team assessed each one as we were on the site and then the team tried to do a team ranking as we went along it's my understanding that those rankings have been taken into consideration in the units that are currently under testing right now we congratulate them on the work they've completed under the housing group but there's always a but we think that there is more work to be done in the nature of what is the transition between temporary and permanent is a local building official let me tell you that i have some temporary structures that are twenty years old we have no scientific basis for how we have the term and the interface between temporary and permanent  a community is very sensitive to compatibility with its housing stock and we need to take that into consideration and right now in my opinion we're winging it we're doing our past experience that says this work or this will work there are scientists out there who can provide additional scientific basis for trying to reach a longer term goal of how do we reach transition into permanent  we thank you very much for the opportunity to make these opening remarks and be happy to try to deal with any questions you may have thank you thank you very much i want to thank you for your testimony our man each member that he or she will  going forward you'll see some legislation that's been introduced to kind of reflect that as a priority but for the here  strategy would be and how we would implement temporary housing for half of the housing units destroyed as you heard in the opening remarks about the variety of catastrophic effects those numbers don't reflect every potential scenario but i believe it's important that we stress the plan to see where it breaks at what point would temporary housing no longer be an option versus having to relocate population windows it now makes sense that we have to look at how do we recover and repair and salvage the existing structures which our programs currently do not address both the stafford act and other prohibitions against going into rental properties or repairing private homeowners above and beyond individual  today is that because you think the theme a lot of united states government ought to do more than just what they've done so far i believe we need to do some additional scientific study by winging it i meant that in my own case especially i'm depending on past history and experience but i have no scientific basis to back up my intuitive decisions and i think that on the long run we need some more research and i know research is kind of a bad word sometimes but i think we need to do more in depth review of this issue of what is temporary when is the transition take place how do you transition from something that's readily available on the spot to make it permanently available and desirable that's why  from twenty six thousand to two hundred and twenty and i thousand at a private site those are significant figures have we looked at whether or not the travel trailer alternative missed a few is the only alternative available in this situation have we axed the private sector to help about but i guess the question i have is have we actually asked the public what they need again i think we have situations where my home is damaged and i can get a travel trailer or travel or whatever we're going to call it but my driveway so i can stay there and fix my house that may be my preference in many cases it will be do we have a rental property that we can rent or hotel motel rooms while you do that repair what if the home isn't yours as a rental unit is there any way we can get that rental unit back on line i think we have to look at these tools and go back and go based on various scenarios what does the public want to be able to do my experience has been just locating people even tens of miles in their community is so disruptive that their preference is not to leave if they have property to move outside that area but sometimes the tools are not going to provide us with options other than relocation to rental properties or other location or housing exist analysis of these units  terms here temporary permanent type homes this thing is missed a few gate pointed out we have to do is work with the communities we still want to have the issue of do we want the units in our community do we want to make these units permanent does the community want to have these units there permanently these are the questions you have to work locally with the local community to address i'm not go thank you and i appreciate you all showing the complexity whether you're working on your own home what your neighbors are like whether we're in a beachfront community or an area where they may not have the assets with which to rebuild because most people may not even have a job at the particular point in time depending what has been hit and it's an extremely complex price range and and style of home challenge and assets of the individual i want to make sure i point out for the record mr if you get in your testimony you say and you reiterated here that many states and communities do want the travel trailers you stated your testimony that they're not suitable for people who need solution for a prolonged period of time and while i would agree that certain of those units are not the fact is that many people spend their whole lives in larger versions of these and sometimes we get confused the park trailer which is very small not as much ventilation are intended for emergency use in fact most of what are in arkansas are not for sale to the general public they were famous back that you would not have in a regular situation that were designed specifically for short term but many because fema purchased all kinds are now being smeared beyond that and saying well you shouldn't live in those long term but millions of americans and in our parks service in our border patrol and our government agencies living in different forms of trailers for extended periods of time in addition to that modular housing which gets thrown in with this we have classrooms in this for many years as we try to make the transition and you know this temporary transitional and permanent housing is not only confusing in emergency after disaster it's when a neighborhood gets a new school and they didn't have enough building for it and you have trams so to speak you have how you put the police department back up the fire department back up an emergency health unit where you going to get groceries in the neighborhood all those things are variations of modularizing now my my and temporary and we should look for a simplistic quick fix also some people have four kids and big family and the grandparents the are single people size and scale cost but i think that that all of the of mr jones in particular and i want to ask mr skinner this question fundamentally just as a business guy i don't understand why we don't have a fixed time where this is a team a emergency management and then it gets handed off to hide or housing agency why is fema involved in something four years  later that would a logical way to do this say fema your responsibility as if it then would you say one year two years take your emergency and then there is a long term that looks at the neighborhood it looks like complexity of problems because fema isn't supposed to need a plan if i may recall my time for just a second because it's taking down you said several different things you said eighteen months but the stafford act can be continued indefinitely would be one question the second thing is is that once again we're going emergency housing into transitional housing into permanent housing why is fema in transitional housing that's a housing question not an emergency management question and that nobody's arguing that some of these things don't take longer the question is if it takes a fully developed plan why would fema be doing the development plan i'm not here it's just that they're getting into these massive long term plans and merges these are coming up all over the place that that it seems to be a different skill set even and different people that you need in different strategies you can develop a comprehensive plan i think definitely needs to be at the table they have the responsibility to shelter people to put them in temporary housing and they need to pass off those people into permanent housing horizontally but vertically down at the local level they are major players it's the state and local that have a responsibility be worked to put their citizens back into permanent housing  is responding and they have a statutory responsibility to help people recovery in the community they have to be working with the people in the infrastructure for example you pointed out do you want to put a neighborhood i just came back from the lower ninth ward just this past week as well as biloxi mississippi and do you want to be putting people back into housing with there are no shopping where there is no where there are no medical facilities all of this has to be taken into consideration and female needs to apology on the financial services and we're marking up so i'm going to leave i have one question the photograph that was shown on the screen with all of the trailers in hope talks about your testimony today when you look at all of those homes it makes sense to somebody like me but if we're going to  have a mass holding place for temporary housing that it would be located in the areas that have been mentioned by your testimony midwest not i mean because of what happened in greensburg and all around the midwest and particularly northern part of texas we know that's tornado alley so would it make sense and save money if we located temporary housing maybe even a manufacturing center near areas that we could expect just based on history and and weather patterns for disaster to hit or is that just beyond anything that we can  do or even imagine i think something should be part of our strategy and i believe it also should be part of our operational plan incidentally with hope arkansas that we just want to several sites it and the reason that so much attention is because of the volume of trailers went in there that were never were not eventually deployed for four years but as far as it is a manufacturing of these things that that's something i think maybe the private be a hurricane area that's prone to hurricanes on an annual basis so those things had to be obviously taken into consideration hope arkansas was actually i believe my recollection was a good place other th tornado threats that could go through that region because of the highway systems they could be deployed easily to mississippi they could be deployed easily over to louisiana and texas and reason what that's like was in fact  we were not prepared we were not prepared for a catastrophic disaster and we were not prepared to handle a housing disaster of this magnitude that's what we need to have in place before the disaster we were we were actually preparing in the developing in thinking along these lines and i think team is now taking the first step for we do have a strategy we now have to fill in the blanks the devil's in the details we have to start developing operational plans it's not going to be easy and it's going to  involve a lot of layers once that is put together we should not have to be developing and amending our strategies during the course of the disaster or after the disaster str any specific any specifics to housing plans what plans do you have for instance to have people floor a period of three months six months twelve months two years can you provide us with some  specifics yes or if you have tens of thousands we can probably house people in their communities using a combination of reading not impacted property and chambray housing units that can s also lose a lot of infrastructure and so you end up with a situation that there is a point at which we will not be able to bring in housing or find enough housing in the media area and we have to look at relocating people now the next part of that question and this is the one that i think of great concern everybody particularly the communities is how long will that relocation take place we know and this is something i've faced in florida in many disasters that once people are moved from their community for any period of time a certain percentage will not return and that number will increase by the time frame it takes to reestablish a housing base for people to move back to provide school safety and infrastructure so they  people and try to bring the resources to them and that is why things like temporary housing units because that is something that we can add to the housing stock when the housing stock but that is finite and it is not time are fast enough and in many cases we have to determine and this is part of where i want to go in our planning from the strategy to employment this community leaders if we have a disaster you would know that if we were dealing with several thousand this would be the response and the solutions that we can bring to bear and the time frame we can bring it to bear if it's larger than that the answer may not be what people want to hear but the reality is if we cannot establish enough housing those out probably semantics but what we do it seem odd look at a shelter and even up to two years is not a long term solution but if we can provide enough shelter and whether it's congregant whether it's individual to keep people in that community that is the initial first starting point that's the best option we would have but there will be a point where that option will not work we can either get it there or is there enough property that we can repair rebuild or somehow get back on line we need to know early that we're go have to relocate people and then what that plan is as been pointed out here what is the housing solution our business is sheltering we may be up to two years but our business is sheltering we do not have the solution for how do we reestablish bill that person to fix or house point out will spend considerable sums of money to put on a temporary housing in their driveway and that goes back to permit that goes back into work in the private sector because even if you have financial assistance you may not have enough contractors you may not have enough materials these disasters in florida took better part of a year year and a half three repairs from the zero four hurricane season and that had nothing to do with the fed response they had to do with supplies contractors and workers thank you for i think what will turn out to be a very important instructive hearing and also thank you for leadership on making some changes that i think are crucial in the structure that we have i am a veteran and would never call myself a victim of hurricane katrina rita and i and unless i've missed it missed if you gave let me extend an invitation for you to come to the gulf region i think i've mentioned it to you in the past but what i have seen and my colleague from new orleans probably lives it every day certainly we lived through the ninth ward i as a guest visiting as a member homeland security committee others have lived with it but then of course the region that i live in took tens of thousands of hurricane katrina survivors compounded by hurricane rita and what we now call the forgotten hurricane hurricane ike so i'll fly straight is mountainous it is the question of getting housing in fast enough and the right kind of housing you were not there but you know the question of talk fitty the trailers that were unlivable but people lived in them for a period of time so my question is going to go to both mr skinner and our new female director as to what has changed as the first question and to the mr skinner if you would speak to this question of more flexibility and also the idea that when a disaster of mountainous proportion occurs do we need to look at consider review the idea of usurping  overwriting and maybe with certain criteria certain ordinances and zoning laws that really have inhibited people from being able to get a temporary structure in some should i say a light bulb just went on of course we're in a flood zone that's where we live and you have us kicked out i think can't go back because you're telling us we're in a flood zone you've answered that let me just put two other questions on the table you have a  pilot program if you can tell me what the status of that is in texas we're still trying to be able to respond to that power program i spoke with you a couple weeks ago i've not heard back from you on the environmental issue and if you can give me a report on the new contract you have on the alternative housing that is out in maryland propose i would suggest that we should not do that what we need to focus on is parents we need to know what city is what because that would prohibit us from responding to a disaster on different scales and to work with the local community to find solutions before the disaster strikes so then when the sastre does strike we know where to go for example in the state of florida mr few gates were state question about flexibility and a reason why i say that is that's not always the best approach as some people believe that the fix is in when you get contracts at a time but i don't want to focus on that what about the flexibility issue on the i always keep referring to flexibility and this is something that i've been that i've referred to not just from katrina or rita but goes back to hurricanes andrew and northridge earthquake and that is that we have to define the stafford act we we i think their funds and we will reimburse them i've always challenge the question that interpretation yes it's a reimbursement program but that's at the end of the day not at the beginning of the day and if you need that working capital fund or need that advance to get the work started then you should have that flexibility to do that lady's time has expired about sequester and that created a problem  peninsula which is on the east side of galveston county suffered probably the greatest single damage in one area during galveston county there has over three hundred road projects with the majority that right there on the peninsula and many of these projects are in a state of flux right disaster planning for hurricanes is of significant concern to us but if you think that that would be wrong in two thousand and five i was a county commissioner and i can tell you that the people in our county watching their televisions what was going on with hurricane katrina were angry they're angry at the federal government they're angry at every level of government for not being in a position to respond actively and our county was asked by fema to take some of the katrina veterans on a very short term basis we got called we said sure we got called four times and we said sure and nobody ever came and what we ran into was time and time again fights and wranglings instead of working with local community here that was willing to help and i just want to say that it's just appalling to me that even the face of disaster like that people can stop their jurisdictional infighting we came up with the plan very quick rickenbacker nobody ever came and that's fine but what really struck me was the lack of planning in the winging it that was going on and now today to get the sense that we still don't have the kind of planning this necessary and i think it was general that said in war a plan is useless the planning is essential and i think right starting from evacuation out is all part of the housing relocation how people are evacuated where they're evacuated to affect kind of housing is going to be needed and how we're going to be able to get them back to their homes to do that kind of repair so that's enough for the speech to really encourage you and i think one of the things you point out is a lot of was happening of how we were dealing with based upon we had kind of a concept but we never put an outcome on there and that's why coming back and saying let's look at a half in the housing unit and what we're going to do within sixty days and then start driving and go on the years we're likely to see those types of events and start planning ahead and going if we had to evacuate because of earthquakes parts of arkansas where are those people going and they go with those state to work with those states and going alright based on the plan your willingness to accept people how do we make this work so that we much better framework we won't have all the answers as you point out but we  have the framework and we will have built a team that can address these issues and it's going to take all the moving pieces of a community it cannot just be done at the federal level but we're we've already looked at these large scale impacts to housing from disasters and plan how we would handle and do relocation or something occurs outside that area least we've built a concept in the team that we can then apply to things that maybe we had not anticipated but hope arkansas and other pictures those a ongoing process and that's what i think with the administration is very much focused and is how do we bring in all the federal family to address the long term housing needs after disaster and what is the appropriate role for each and how do we provide a s system from we evacuated shelter to we do temporary or sheltering operations out to the point where a long term housing solution is present in that community thank you  florida legislature as you probably know florida recently completed an emergency management training exercise just strengthen the state's plan for preparing for and responding to a catastrophic hurricane one of the scenarios considered during this exercise focused on potential options for housing the evacuees from a category four hurricane that could displace hundreds of thousands of state residents state emergency management officials suggested temporary housing such as evacuee many of whom have yet to return to their homes what should you have any thoughts on that actually listening to this when they propose something like this i have major concerns we listen to it and in fact i was part of those original discussions of how we would look at those properties and i think the way to approach that and the way i would look at the way i was looking at originally was that we would look at would banks be willing to lease or rent those properties like we would rent the rental unit and do it on their our traditional program if we could acquire a rant or a lease with that property owner whether it's the mortgage holder or the bank or the institution effective actions our constituents can take the first one is if you are living anywhere since we're talking hurricanes in the hurricane prone areas of the know if you're in a vacuum wages are not and if you are your plan should be divac you wait with local officials tell you time to go and not wait for the next six hour forecast and hope it gets better the second part of this is all of us our responsibility to get a plan to protect our families get trained take c p r first day and when disaster strikes do one more thing once you are ok in your family's ok check on the neighbor gentleman from texas mr green for five minutes thank you mr chairman i thank the witnesses for appearing like to speak rather quickly on a number of topics and specifically i'm concerned about the role of a congress person in the post disaster recovery understand that there's a need to work with the local and state officials but for whatever reasons and i can cite many constituents tend to think that congress persons have a significant role in the process and when pods are being located they assume that the congress person will have some input when n g o s are not being reimbursed as they perceive reimbursement should take place they assume that congress persons should have a role in the process so if you can take about one minute and give me your perception of what the role of the congress person is in this process  your role represent you and work with our external affairs and figure out where is the best place to answer the questions at this local if it's our state partners if it's something federal agencies are doing our job to work with you to help get those answers and to work with your constituent issues and again it may be something that the local government's got the best response or their responsibility could be the governor or it could be federal programs that we need to address well let's examine that statement and i appreciated it was stated here is what happens under the current thinking methodology process if you will it almost becomes adversarial as we proceed because we find that we are engaged in this process after things have occurred and we are trying to have one a better terminology straighten things out and it creates some tension that i think we need not have and there must be some way for us to find our way into this process in a different manner so as to be helpful as opposed to reactionary as opposed to trying to resolve things after they've they've become too much of a problem to be resolved in some instances let's just talk for a moment about one circumstance that we might try to help people with o s will come to us after the fact and have receipts and say i really should be reimbursed for all of this the rules seem to be dynamic as opposed to static there are times when they can be reimbursed and there are times when they cannot is there any codification with reference to reimbursement of n g o s they say based institutions yes sir and it's a complex as you point out process for any applicant receiving assistance under a public assistance for what we generally refer to as category b or c protective measures there are a lot of activities that are  nonprofits engage in whether they're a faith based community based or your traditional response organizations that could be reimbursed there are others that are not and oftentimes is making sure we understand clearly what activities are taking place was eligible work and was done in the declared area and to find how we can support that but from time to time we also run the challenge of some of the things they're doing which are good things our were not eligible for that process and for most communities the more understandable cuts down alternately i believe that will save us money and give us greater accountability of the programs are easy to explain to anybody not just somebody who's been doing the program for some time with reference to equipment that may be needed for example an air conditioner we find that sometimes they're difficult to come by and this isn't a disaster relief is there any way for us to have a working relationship with reference to trying to facilitate the placement of needed equipment how big america we're talking about something that usually will co the pending upon how that program there may be something that would be done under the individual systems program under what they call other needs assistance in general those types of processes we would just be supporting a request that the governor makes reference what that team would need whether support for our support from working with the problems that my time is up i just want to give you this clear indication i really want to work with you on these projects and i'd like to try to find a means by which we can establish that working congress in the impacted areas i think that would help for a more smoother process as we go forward i want to bring up again just a few issue i brought up at the previous hearing on the discrepancy between the systems provided in hurricane katrina versus hurricane ike i know some of this probably has to do with some of the good legislation we passed after the good work that was done by mr skinner's office on the fraud waste and abuse that we saw after hurricane katrina and we passed the theme reform bill having said that i want to do you want to put some numbers out there because the discrepancy is pretty high in hurricane ike the housing assistance was seventeen percent of applicants received assistance and so that's a pretty low number compared to katrina were seventy four percent of the applicants received assistance other needs assistance katrina was three times more than  ike total assistance the average payment was almost five thousand dollars per application or registering and katrina and about seven hundred in hurricane ike to boil down less than one fifth of the victims who were referred for assistance were actually deemed eligible for assistance which means about eighty percent of the people who applied for assistance didn't get that assistance and these numbers toxic gases those are less restrictive but the current ones we have because of the ongoing issue those that are not covered on the quarter that we are releasing we're making a very clear that the temporary housing units are labelled not for long term  ability to resale in a temporary unit back in use for another emergency and we have a look at that as a condition for what kind of units we look at yes are primarily was that program was built around mobile homes fractured housing type units that were actually built that they would be used and then potentially be used again the smaller units were basically the wear and tear is generally such that it's a cost benefit of how much you invest in repairs those versus their normal lives span and how they're used as a part of that has been because of these large amatory that we have which was again consequences of the response not necessarily the plan is what's the best way to go forward in some of these units we're looking at the pilot programs are looking at it from that standpoint of recycled bill t rehabbing and being able to reuse them but in the event where the law span of them in the wear and tear salvage it is that it does have a much better process i think the chairman field i just want to make a brief comment on mr clark comment that there is a distinction between whether something is safe and whether a community might get sued there were three cases in the united states of complaints being filed prior to katrina and that all those were lost  it doesn't appear that most of the suits are being one either but just because they certify doesn't mean somebody is going to get sued unless we get liability protection gentleman from alabama str more about lessons learned and we've talked about this in the past lessons learned after post katrina one of the thing themes that we heard in myths in louisiana mississippi and alabama was that these local communities needed the ability to use the ability latitude to go ahead and negotiate when things are armley deals with people for debris removal as well as other services that they would have to have immediately after disaster rather than having to use some contractor from far away that comes in and the only way the city gets reimbursed is a contractor we've had plenty of time please tell me those contracts have been authorized and their employees as well as prepositioned supplies search programs are oftentimes not going to sustain we had a polyp program for debris management that would increase t cost here and a disaster that was not of the magnitude of traina from our average cost here seventy five percent federal twenty five percent state and local we wanted to unsanitized that we had a polyp program that provided if you had an approved debris management plan in your back and look at is how do we in sanitize people taking those steps to preplan identify and have contracts in place because many communities will face a disaster and it is again competing with every other resource and every other time constraint of trying to get these things ahead of time that an a smaller disaster cochere could be a factor that would drop that but what timeline do you expect to complete that pot of study and move that to other local communities so that the mayors and c require again taking a look at whether we have the authority to do that under staff or aware that we'd have to get guidance from congress on how to implement well you know we're back in the hurricane system season and if we're hit with a hurricane this year and these local leaders have this problem again it's a shame on us this isn't it is inexcusable to go on this long and not have given them the one thing that all of them said they needed after katrina that is the authority to preplan these things negotiated have signed off on both by all that contractors are credible and the contracts are agreeable but it's just a shame that it had not happened already i want to go back to a point that the chairman was talking about earlier and the reasonable period of recovery has ended that we don't transition the responsibility for housing when it becomes more interim housing are permanent over the hood that is not famous responsibilit in my view mean they're they're there to move on to the next disaster you said eighteen months was how much was in the stafford act but why don't we see hood move them because they've got more expertise and skill sets and personnel prepared for this row  transition that's our star ultimate goal what's the end game to get people back into their homes to rebuild the community and but what i was suggesting is that team has a role to play up to that yeah i agree i think i should be at the table like you said in the planning stages but there should be mutual agreement that it's a twelve month period of this eighteen month period whatever that hood then takes over that housing responsibility and if you if you recommended that my next question is has a policy been put in place to to mandate that  we didn't recommend a timeline because of the extenuating circumstances every disaster is going to be a little different some may take twelve months some eighty eighteen months some may take twenty four months some does this committee need to do anything to  you could the committee do we need to do anything statutory legislatively to help you what we could do the committee could what i think needs to look at roll their disaster housing program their disaster assistance housing program to institutionalize that program that's something i think that came in late after katrina and rita and it's something that we might want to consider continuing and if they had a legislative base that would be helpful yeah i think one thing as a staffer that kicks in and that t n i and we have to work with them to try to negotiate with the absolutely correct one of the issues with that is you know mrs jones you put in place part of that strategy i'm a little concerned that nothing's happened since you did the first step is that your  almost over whelmed times with the magnitude of the here and now and it's a little hard under those circumstances to think four and five years down the road and so our recommendation i believe is to get busy on some longer and so that's why i wanted to use a large number of half a million housing units in the sixty day period and see what is actually possible with the existing infrastructure what we can do with current capabilities and that we'll never get that number of the day that starts the cost of these things out i think the more we plan we think about these things you know we've had some experience now it's not like come of the stuff cold and figure these things out you know nothing's going to be perfect but but i don't want inventory that we maintain based on the disasters we know i will never be able to maintain enough amatory for the larger scale about what should we maintain short of those types of events to have ready to go within a short time frame those products and then what texas first of all let me thank you for your service and it is refreshing to hear your testimony here today as someone who understands the problems that this committee is posing to you and has given some thought and has provided us with some insights i noticed in your written testimony you started out by explaining that fema can't do it all and that in fact fema should be the one that does most of it it is a local and state responsibility and a personal responsibility i wish you would underscore that a little bit because while i come from a state that does not hit by hurricanes we have just about everything else and whenever we get the big one th that team that oftentimes our plans we don't recognize the public they are one of our best resources and they sure that we're going to be successful the better prepared they are the more we can focus on our most vulnerable citizens and make sure that we can address the needs of children always be local and state government and more importantly individuals being prepared to the best of their ability now earlier than some questions asked of you about the difference in both per capita expenditures and eligibility and so forth and in part of your response you said well i'd have to look at the either said the number the percentage of insured property can you actually paid a little bit on that whole intention of the stafford act  areas had insurance or were able to insure their property was which is what we want to encourage as opposed to suggesting that you're not doing a good job when fact we had a situation where people were responding on a personal basis the way we want them to respond mr skinner just a very quick question and that is you mentioned your testimony the high cost of current housing options mr responded as to what the dilemma is in terms of determining the life mr gates said about how we might be able to bring the cost of these housing options down certainly did i think we definitely need to do a some type of cost benefit analysis as as what our options are that is having pre ward contracts or something i call refer to his call contract with those manufacturers with some type of agreement that they have the capability or the willingness to provide us with what we need after a disaster or what a disaster strikes versus maintaining the trailers or maintaining a tory of of housing stock which can be very expensive seen that one time back in the eighty's did in fact maintain trailers in three different locations around the country and they gave up that they discovered back in the early ninety's and mid ninety's it was not cost benefit wise to make you continue to maintain those trailers they and we have about seven minutes left the question we can do to do in two and release palin take next witness on an excellent gentleman from connecticut mr hands with two minutes i'll be very quick i was encouraged to see in your testimony the commitment to working with hud i wonder general question can you characterize whether you're satisfied with the communication between your agencies obviously very important as an entity that understands where housing is regionally and nationally and specifically coincidentally right now the financial services committee is marking up the section eight voucher reform act i don't see or hear a lot of discussion about the potential for the use of temporary section eight vouchers which strikes me at least in theory as a as an interesting way where you might provide a temporary solution i think our dialogue with particularly as the new teams come on board  good section eight actually there is one kind of interesting you have those that are applied to the individual and their transportable you have those are applied to the solti and are not transferable and i've had situations as a state director where i had people that did not have their own section so that rental unit was destroyed they had to go back to the housing authority and get in line to get another section eight vouchers so they could get rattled property which put them at a disadvantage competing with other people that still had not been able to get section eight housing vouchers what if we what if we for example created in response to a catastrophe temporary section eight vouchers that could be distributed precisely to people like that i  think i want to work with our partners at hud but i think giving them more tools or more options is again what we're looking for because as pointed out all disasters are different we need a variety of tools based on do we have housing available what section eight help meet responsibility and it's their responsibility to be prepared i've been watching a lot of news and if people had difficulty in two thousand and five responding we now have major financial crisis going on has your plan been reevaluat consider the crisis that people are going through many people are unemployed don't have the resources don't have the vehicles all the things other people help each other those things we won't necessarily be able to count on have you evaluated your plan given the current financial state of this country yes we have and again as we point out we want people to care bester bill that we know that people don't have transportation those are transportation dependent populations are local governments plan for we provide support as we do with supporting the state of louisiana if we have to evacuate orleans parish the other issue that we wanted to take with hurricanes is making sure that we are able to with our state local partner shelter people closer to the area that many cases there evacuation the less costly as for the people ok i've got twenty six seconds let me make sure i'm really clear and you evaluate it the jobless the financial situations things that happen in these major cities that we could expect an occurrence to occur have you looked at that and evaluate what specific additional things need to be done in order to deal with what we think will probably be even more people who are not prepared ye 's the production production and technical services i believe that is the same a process effectively cut out small medium sized potentially many minority owned business is a serious problem it was done in december of last year i don't want to get off i know i don't have the time but i want to do what i don't have done what i'm asking to do is to remedy the decision to allow each fema region to make its own decision as to whether they would like to stick to the idea i q contractors or choose the new p t s contractors the people who work in each fema region the people who work in our backyards should be responsible for these decisions not contracting services here in washington d c we're doing just the opposite of what we said we're going to do eight years ago as far as i know nothing in either set of contracts precludes the all or from being used and the p t s contractors can supplement the work of i b i queues instead of supplanting them mistretta food are you willing to undertake this solution instead to medicate mitigate the effects to small and medium sized businesses to these flood mapping contracts particularly in view of what the financial situation is that this is unconscionable or stance or an i am researching it to give you an answer by friday as to where we're at very much i will begin with the next panel and about twenty minutes at the time we finish the next two votes committers recess i'd like to reconvene hearing a number of members have indicated they will come as the testimony is given given some of the other matters i now welcome out second panel of witnesses former member of the lose and a state legislature weighs service to add a senate select committee without objection the witnesses for statement will be inserted into the record i now recognize miss gibbie's to summarize the statement directors for the american institute of architects thank you for this opportunity to appear today to discuss disaster assistance and housing issues there are strong connections between the dual challenges of post disaster housing and sustainable approaches to mitigation and long term recovery architects and their allied design and construction professionals are ideally and uniquely suited to help fema state and local emergency management agencies and communities addressed post disaster housing and recovery in a number of ways through our disaster assistance program works to put design professionals on the ground to assist communities after a disaster hits in the short term architects and fellow design professionals conduct rapid damage assessments to homes businesses and public infrastructure to begin the process of rebuilding license design professionals need to be involved to identify exactly what can be repaired and rebuild and what must be torn down or reconstructed this process is what gets people out of emergency housing and back into their community with regard to temporary and transitional posted after housing there are a lot of interesting and ambitious ideas in the field and many of our members are engaged in finding creative approaches the main criteria that should be used to judge such housing are practicality comfort and sustainability we are going to continue working with the joint housing solutions group and designing construction professionals to continue fostering innovative housing solutions we also urge the mature work with these stakeholders to address not just the quality of the housing units themselves but also that of the places where those units are located to avoid the theme of ill effects of isolated unsafe and unsustainable clusters of temporary shelter cut off from the rest of the world as a community transitions from short term response to long term recovery it will need to make decisions affect even significantly alter the built environment it is essential therefore that they are made aware of the opportunities to not just rebuild but rebuild better among these opportunities are comprehensive neighborhood redesign urban redesign plans design preservation and appreciation of little known assets and utility relocation at the we have been providing long term assistance through pro bono public service programs that offer unique opportunities to build long term recovery strategies which are inexpensive and achievable we are encouraged by the recently announced partnership between dot and e p a on livable communities we believe this approach has application in the post disaster context as well and we urge to explore ways to work collaboratively with these agencies i would like to discuss some key principles that my fellow architects and i have observed through our program first building the local capacity to respond to disasters is at the center of our strategy there is no national one size fits all approach to disaster response our programs foster local communities ability to take action in the wake of disaster by deploying the assets that are already in place they also help to develop an engaged knowledgeable community of citizens ready to respond the second principle is the importance of partnerships effective collaboration between emergency management agencies and professional associations to be the centerpiece of efforts moving forward it is vital that these partnerships are planned and formed before the disaster strikes so that plans can be put into motion immediately communications are often challenged in the aftermath of a disaster having a well established in place network beforehand is absolutely critical the final principle is speed the ability to get trained and licensed design professionals on the ground to perform damage assessments quickly is no less an urgent need then providing food and medicine getting people back into their homes lessens the need for temporary shelter and other forms of emergency provisions this is a key part of our disaster assistance program that is why it is very important that governmental the national interest to house our working poor elderly and disabled and the interest in responding to the housing needs of those displaced by disaster federal disaster housing strategy increasingly depends upon what housing voucher program but acknowledged someone a voucher if there are no other forms housing available at or near the fair market rate is not worth a lot recently mississippi requested funds for five thousand housing vouchers citing fema data two thousand disability for housing and for improvements to case management in the interim housing also crucial to meet the needs of the affected population and i've detailed recommendations in my written statement and exhibits on the subject i want to close with  chairman distinguished members of the homeland security committee my name is captain don cutely and i'm president of inner shelter incorporated headquartered in juneau alaska i would like to thank you for the privilege of addressing you here today my full testimony be included in the record in or shelter produces in markets a revolutionary new portable prefabricated building called the interest i applaud you mr chairman and the committee for the vision and leadership to take a hard look at the status quo and potential new innovative options and first responder an emergency shelter and how soon for victims there are a few issues as important as to those most in need after a devastating event that has left them injured or homeless in fact in a detailed report dated december sixteenth two thousand and six by by the department of homeland security looking at how they and other first responders could have improved their response to the horrific aftermath of katrina they identified five top priorities that they felt would improve future disaster relief efforts number three and those top five were pop up shelters improved and increased numbers of them frankly that is exactly what our domes are pop up shelters in that report they also concluded that hurricane katrina transformed thousands of people's lives into a battle for survival and for some finding adequate shelter proved at least as difficult as finding something to eat or drink after the recent earthquake in italy north of rome i had the opportunity to talk to one of the leaders at the embassy here in c about their response to those devastated communities and their victims while discussing his nation's response to the quake he said something to me that was very profound he said you know mr acutely i'm embarrassed to tell you that the emergency shelters were responding this disaster with is the very same thing the romans used after i'm out the studious destroyed pompei tents we all understand the attributes of tents in a situation like this they're portable easy to assemble and be warehoused until needed but just as a obvious to all of ever been forced to live in a tent are there many shortcomings there too hot in the tropics they're too cold in the northern climes they're damp an unhealthy and wet inclement weather they're extremely susceptible to fire they're drafty and on windy and dusty days and become projectiles in anything greater than a gale force wind and they have very short life expectancy and once damp are prone to mold and mildew if stored for reuse i think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who's had to go from a normal housing situation to a tent that would tell you they are either comfortable or impressed and cannot wait to get out of them perhaps that's one of the strongest assets of chance they have a very easy exit strategy in regards to improving on tense i would like to share with you a letter dated may sixteenth from the head of the alaska national guard mr kuby i would like to offer support encouragement to all federal agencies that might be interested in particular in your temporary don't shelters for emergency use these dogs provide safe reliable shelter in all types of extreme weather conditions they are easy to assemble and easily transportable the shelters are optimal for use as temporary shelters in times of disaster emergencies and these domes would be exceptional for use in alaska they far exceed the existing canvas tents mr chair i would say that if these were this well in alaska the most extreme and remote state in our union and they would work very well nationwide a well known expert on emergency preparedness mr ellis stanley former director of l a county emergency preparedness preparedness is convinced that in an emergency room search scenario in or shelter domes are the answer for proper properly responding to the multitude of injured and contaminated victims in a letter to me mr stanley wrote after reading today's m s n b c s article fema trailers toxic tin cans i want to renew our discussion regarding the domes that have been working so well here in los angeles with the homeless community as we discussed earlier i believe this system has some great utilization as we continue to do our pandemic planning as related to surge capacity around hospitals at airports etc as a thirty two year career emergency manager we see very few opportunities to really make giant leaps in the way we do things in disaster preparedness and i believe in or shelter is one of those opportunities when we can really do different in the same space it takes to ship one  trailer mr chairman we can ship enough domes to house twenty five families instead of costing seventy thousand plus a unit for a building that cannot be disposed of our buildings could be totally sustainable and self contained for under twenty thousand dollars a unit instead of having to figure out what to do with the now unusable trailer we power wash our units disassemble them in a matter of minutes install them for the next hurricane season or for any other disaster or emergency that might happen between hurricane seasons we stand ready to provide the next generation of emergency shelter in the numbers needed at a vast savings given to the united states mr chairman and members of the committee again i would very much like to thank you for the honor of being able to address you here today godspeed to you and god bless america thank you very much we now recognize mr ranney girl for five minutes thank you chairman thompson and distinguished members of the committee for the invitation an opportunity to testify before you today on behalf of bread joe incorporated and as american people in considering products for use in the conjunction with the emergency preparedness program we made three points our priority affordable safe and substantial affordable units will save the american taxpayers money by reduced initial costs and re usability safe we have a class a fire rating green and we are f kiri and house flexibility non wheeled units promote dignity and pride of ownership one of the options recover the unit reuse it or store it in the future deployment for future deployment they can be used as adjacent structures further increasing the tax base but to realize the cost of factness of effectiveness of our design we must address emergency preparedness the breadfruit preparedness alternative consists of understanding the foundation issue which is continuity of community the bridge over hurricane and house addresses the need to maintain and preserve the continuity of the community in a disaster situation because of its ease of transition of the dwelling from quick response to intermediate and then finally to permanent housing where possible which preserves the tax base ease of construction using local on skilled labor encourages team effort people helping people quick response is imperative to maintaining a community response means hope and hope sustains faith in our country's system quick response requires emergency preparedness the bridge or preparedness families in meeting the crisis head on by demonstrating the ability to fill the void of the initial impact of the disaster by having product on site within twenty four hour period of notification creating the time  necessary to meet the need well cementing goodwill with the american people emergency preparedness requires a proactive decision inventorying product in the tory warehousing alternative will comedy sixty thousand people short term for approximately one hundred fifty million dollars now with much of middle and testimony i have the details on that container based product by comparison utilizes approximately twenty percent of the comparable size wheel units eighty percent savings please note container based products well ease of security preventing damage due to vandalism and exposure to the elements container based product reduces freight costs because you can ship bread joe eight gradually hurricane houses for every one we old unit the point  container based product is the ability to manage the product whether in inventory during transition or on site in closing history shows us that change is imperative i'm here to assist in improving  we address disaster relief through product design we believe that by using correct product initially we enable local and state governments to build on what has provided this product as in thirty six countries throughout the world a pilot project for permanent housing is currently underway in lafayette louisiana under the lafayette louisiana housing authority and ladies and gentlemen i offer my personal pledge to provide our full support to achieve the ultimate goal of this program the rapid and dignified restoration and recovery of american communities devastated by acts of nature or man chairman thompson and distinguish distinguished members i thank you for the opportunity to be today i come from a thirty year history and be in a motorway industry doing business basically all over the united states calls foreign countries i was elected to louisiana senate two thousand and four one year and eight months after my introduction into politics we had hurricane katrina the hundred twenty two thousand boats where we began the rescue operations that in lower ninth ward making our way to st bernard parish i had firsthand witness of loss of life the lack of food and medicine water ice no communication system go coordination no coordination from a state or federal response for almost eight days through bipartisan experiences of having thirteen feet of water in my house during everything as well so i have the experience of seeing more grief upset and death after the storm if we track the lives of the people that died after the storm instead of during this on the numbers would be staggering because these people lost everything they worked for and had nowhere to turn people couldn't get back into their communities because of the housing and a logistics or the lack of logistics that  so basically what does this mean i'm someone here today as a civic leader i'm a businessman a family man the veteran of two national sassed as a former occupant of a fema trailer and i have to say what a challenge that was so as i looked as fimo progress and their housing options i felt that will miss in a very key opportunity and what i'm here today to present to you is a solution a solution to interim housing this is where i began the establishment of help housing the emergency logistics program because it's not just a matter of providing housing unit it's getting the unit there it's taking care of the unit during the process of why it's there and then removing the unit and re storing and reusing for another disaster  the last thirty years i've been modifying containers for the offshore oil industry as well as anyone opportunities and using containers for different use what i proposed to you today is looking at the of the help unit and with the help unit if you look at the national disaster housing strategy is a range of used to live ability to time unison the cost but what's great about this the range of use is that we able to use the current in a model system that is that exist today and i'll just give you an example when we talk about having the units in harm's way i had thousands of detainees us both in jacksonville charleston south carolina used in texas and st bernard parish don't always hurricanes and they were all there and they all stayed there and so we have a durable unit that can be reused again and i'll industry these units amritsar ised over fifteen years so therefore we have the long japanese the initial cost is much cheaper than the options that are put out there today but in putting that unit together we're also going to cooperate all of fallon's of the activities that people need an example once you've got the trailer you need electrical pole you needed a plumbing system you need a water hookup all of this will be contained in that module itself so when we deliver that module all you have to blocks will be inserted into the record and how to manage each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel and i now recognize myself let me also indicate  shelter in multiple situation temporary or potential long term that's the most important thing that you can get multiple use that you do not have housing sitting there waiting for that eventual emergency but that you have as much as possible we have committees are studying this out looking at this so we can get back to more details just difficult about that but the other aspect in response to your question is that the location of these units looking at the work that we do with our communities if dad's program we've submitted some written testimony about that but we have expertise going into communities and looking at their overall infrastructure their planning and mitigation and also with our disaster assistance coordinators we're doing the same thing and what we're looking at ahead of time is where you would place units where you have saved areas how you can take existing areas of communities that are at risk and already design them so they're in other locations but they're elsewhere and it's really that planning ahead of time that's very very important and how then those shelters fit in to that to that vision and also looking at public structures and i'll finish with this comment looking at public structures that you're building that used to be in the sixty's in the past we provided bomb shelters during the cold war i'm sure everybody remembers that our public buildings had a dual usage and that's something to consider potentially in the future as we look at public buildings that they again have that full time use in the event an emergency thank you one of the comments the first panel talked about was the ability to  either mass produce a ramp should an emergency occur and it was based on what i interpreted that the the existing trailer industry the travel or mobile home industry was a better fit i just like for the record to get three companies represented to see whether or not the chairman that's really an excellent question and i think it goes to the heart of what i'm hearing at this table today you know when you go into the battlefield and i've never been in the service so  i'm speaking as a layman when you get out into the battlefield and you call in for helicopter support or more ammunition you've got to know that that helicopter was built a long time ago and that the ammunition is right behind the  line that you're on if you wait for them to build it before they bring it to you to help you you're in serious trouble and that's exactly what these people are talking about here today is preparing and and planning and and staging shelters before the problem happens and absolutely we can ramp up to mass production capability that is that is needed and that really is our mission and goal here today mr  is to is to offer that ability and that that new product that new innovative product out there that has never been available to fema or any other emergency service organization before and and we would suggest that the way to do it is as we've proposed to p m o with my partners a our global which is team that a lot of which just came from dying corps that have hundreds of years of tactical military experience in responding to emergencies and setting up communities the way to do it sir is to have regional warehouses in strategic places like for example on the east side of the san andreas fault so when the big one hits l a not if but mode of transportation is available the other way to do it is to store containers around the country in all fifty states so in a matter of twenty four hours whether it's a tornado or hurricane or an earthquake you can have a facility set up within twenty four means you must have in stock something to draw from so if you don't mind i'll just read this paragraph earlier that the transition capability that our youth redesign offers and abel's going from quick response shelter status to intermediate temporary housing and permanent housing when possible this capability will have a major effect on the entire effort across the board three design may be used in existing sites an alternate sites of the host community once again units will qualify as a permanent housing and real property thus maintaining a tax base now where housing is we have set up a model for you if there was a disaster that happened off the coast of california you could position those units and put them by rail and by truck and have them delivered the same thing goes with any other state as far as one of us asked on multiple that disasters i think the other point that really rings home is that we heard today they spent over one hundred million dollars store and fema trailers i can put two thousand detainers in the same footprint as one hundred eighty feet with trailers and so therefore the cost of storage is going to probably about less than one third of what field of currently pays today but what it does it gives you a rapid deployment fleet that you can bring in and move in but also in the design that we have is by using the skin of a shipping container as we have a modular design that could be manufactured at the current trailer manufacturers today and where you insert this and to the out of shale and security to the out of shell itself so instead of building a trailer that's only going to last a year or two is that we could use those same people to assist us in ramping up cost and we're real concerned as a committee that the present cost to respond is there and the cost to maintain because they've been sitting there with your time as a question as to whether or not they will really be able to be pressed into service but what i have heard from you is that you have a product that can be re the other issue that that is important to a lot of us on the middle is how thema approaches putting vulnerable where they already are and so strongest recommendation is to encourage congress to put into place some mechanism to repair to the maximum extent possible maximizing the existing housing in place even if it's a little bit damage that requires legislative change to enable for you to be able to run a repair i strongly encourage that to occur as i mentioned in my previous testimony was a big missed opportunity there i think the problem that comes up and it comes up particularly in this interim housing situation for trailers or for cottages and it would certainly come up with these other alternatives that the gentleman here are talking about is there inevitably becomes an impulse to try to convert the interim housing to a permanent housing solution were to try to take a one of any of these other very interesting alternatives and to make them to be permanent probably not completely intended to be permanent some of them could be modified to be to be done but what it does is it makes it a target on the backs of low income which are predominantly minority populations in and makes it very easy indirectly for local governments to increase the burdens of return for more vulnerable populations right literature given to people at the outset so that they can spot the problem and to come up with a coordinated solution a memorandum of agreement some kind of teamwork approach that will enable people to solve problems like the family in gulfport who faced blatant a nation in the same a trailer and it took more than three years for a point a citizen complaint to work its way through the workings of the fair housing department it's got to be a better more expeditious answer for that and i can't imagine anything more discouraging for somebody than to be discriminated against when they're storming well and i think i talk with chairman frank about that particular situation and he's trying to to to get the agencies who are involved to come up with a streamline be an option what might work in one region of the contract from a temporary housing standpoint may or may not work but what i have seen is this overreliance on one model as a temporary model and i think what we have to do is broaden the view on what the temporary model is so that  have one of these tight unit is acceptable and one area it might be the way to go but i think right now based on what information we received that the committee is just one model and and that's it and i think we need to give the director of theme of the flexibility to look at  community standards and other things to see what's acceptable and try to mirror any resistance that may or may not happen and this notion of one size fits all is probably not the best approach to members are committed raised it is whether or not these temporary units can be re used and if you can reuse a unit a second  that something that could be factored into the overall approach to looking at this  ability actually we were just talking about that earlier and there i think there are a lot of ways to look at this we all have to turn this problem upside down but i give one example just one of many we have a real need for caring for our elderly ailing parents and the elderly there are a lot of we've seen doing work in our communities a lot of communities are adapting accessory unit zoning bylaws to allow access or you know to be added to a single family have to care for an ailing family member so imagine for example you have a community that is safe that is out of harm's way a disaster but you have a possibility of adding a mobile accessory unit that is can be used for an ailing as they transition to more  extended care or could be used for a family after disaster that temporary basis that's one example of flexibility that's possible and that that i think is really important to look at there are many government thank you very much first of all i'd like to express my appreciation for mrs g s comments today i think a lot of the really important things right on the head as far as practicality  practicality comfort durability versatility and we agree that's absolutely essential in whatever shelters they use the enter shelter force five dogs can be used for first responders for communication centers matt and one of the things that we've heard over and over again today mr chairman was the desire to have something that allows people to remain as a family unit near their neighbors in their communities and their clergy and the folks they know they're already been through enough trauma with our units they could drive down the street to count up to each family to use and the family themselves can put up their own houses they can remain as a family unit they can stay with their friends and neighbors they can they can supervise the rebuilding or repairing of their homes and and they can protect what few belongings they have left on earth instead of being taken away and stuck in the superdome or and some tent city and an army camp somewhere being able to stay together as a family unit is crucial in the healing process and once that once the disaster is over once their houses are repaired our units can break down in less than an hour you power wash him off you just assemble them you put him back in their crates and you can warehouse him until the next hurricane for the next ten hurricane these can be reused over and over and over again which of course dramatically cuts the cost of the unit i think that's an important factor  government they can also change the configuration we have what we call houses teahouses l shape our houses where you take one two or three units and add them together to make a larger square footage to meet the is going to be much cheaper we figure around a thirty thousand dollars range for a family of six and for a couple twenty foot module will probably be around twenty thousand dollars range but one thing please consider with our units is that fema will not have to have a buy electrical poles again well due to stack construction that is needed because we'll be able to take care of it all in a unit itself i don't have the activation the ventilation system and one thing i kind of want to make clear is that there is there are several types for rental people they have to have a different situation but you have people that would just love to go back and front of their home that they can get start working and cleaning their home out and rebuilding it and that's what we were up against because we couldn't get the famous rails quick enough and so therefore you lost those family units and then you know same with trailers that we had to deal with i had one family that had three of them because they couldn't fit their whole family in one unit so therefore the cost door ability and it's just factual knowledge as far as how long it lasts and the industry itself in a way to financial markets look at itself fifteen years should be no problem thank you very much one of the reasons for having this hearing plan that includes flexibility and someone else things we've heard here today i'm convinced that we will be in a better position to respond to whatever the emergency might be  but i do want to make sure that we've given as much foresight to ingenuity and flexibility we had a number of staff members go up to and e but this is a very important issue you are ability to have resilience and recovery after natural or manmade disaster will speak to a whole lot of what our civil society has morris mr morris private groups had to sue fema to make its housing accessible to people with disabilities and had to return to court numerous times after fema failed to comply the brow v fema lawsuit filed on behalf of katrina evacuees who needed emergency housing that was accessible to people who wear chairs or other mobility limitation illustrates the most complete failure in my assessment to address the particular housing needs of people with disabilities attorneys involved in the case have reported that even after the settlement it was necessary to go back to court repeatedly to get fema to fulfill the terms of the settlement agreement it is not clear at all that the measures put in place as a result of the student have resulted in housing for people with disabilities in response to browse the fema lawsuit brought by private groups following hurricane  order ten percent of its temporary housing units comply with the uniform federal accessibility and put into place some other mechanisms to ensure people with disabilities have the necessary  response under that under that leadership and i do believe and hope that we will a lot greater responsibility out of the current director  does specifically indicate the steps that must be taken to address the persons with disabilities in their neighbor and in a building down to access temporary housing and shelter and just to say to  thank you for the work that you're doing but encourage you to be as innovative as possible in the work that you do and recognize those nuances as we look to be prepared in the bed of future disaster in our nation mr chairman i want to thank you for holding this hearing and i yield back the balance of my time thank you very much i guess the question for the the company is is a problem with your unit being handicapped accessible or thank you very much i want to thank our witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for that question before concluding i'd like to remind our second panel of witnesses that the members of the committee may have additional questions for you and we will actually to respond expeditiously in writing to those questions they have been no further business the committee stands