good afternoon and welcome to days hearing on the federal emergency management agency is national urban search and rescue rescue program pardon me its role in haiti and the lessons i subcommittee can learn from the humanitarian work of our u s teams and their experience that might be applied during disasters in the united states the using the authority of the stafford act and is within the jurisdiction of this subcommittee today we will hear from team up from officials from california a state that faces risk virtually every type of disaster and from four participants in the national urban search and rescue program including two heroes who have just returned from their deployment in haiti themas us in our program was developed after devastating results after the devastating results of the mexico city earthquake in nineteen eighty five in the loma prieta earthquake which struck california in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine it was clear  after many people were trapped in the aftermath of the mexico city earthquake but a national capacity was needed for a large scale rescue from structural collapses in the u s today we again look to a tragic earthquake in a neighboring country lessons learned femur which established the urban rescue program in one nine hundred eighty nine to create a nationwide capacity with twenty five task forces and now grown to twenty eight task forces in nineteen states we are fortunate that two of them are in the national capital region maryland task force one based in my government county and virginia task force one based in fairfax county every deployment of these task forces anywhere in the country or abroad must be understood as preparations for disaster here as well us in our is a classic all hazards response program not an earthquake was spots program urban rescue task forces respond to the consequences rather than to the cause of disasters doesn't matter that what causes a structure to collapse whether it's an earthquake or hurricane gas explosion terrorist attack bomb or structural failure the essential elements of the operation remain the same the expertise the urban rescue teams build reinforces the breadth of the possible applications  the rescue and response network within within the fema system is built on a fish and an economic and economical federal state quid pro quo model fema provides the training and resources to the task forces which in turn are available to the federal government as needed while we see urban rescue task forces on television when they are deployed to large disasters they are more often used using their expertise in their own states and communities as well as in the neighboring states for events that do not reach the level of a major disaster or emergency declared under the stafford act among the incidents for which fema has deployed urban rescue teams are the marri federal building explosion in wichita kansas in one nine hundred ninety eight the attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon in two thousand and one the four florida hurricanes of two thousand  after course hurricane katrina and the golf course in two thousand and five and hurricane ike in texas in two thousand and eight two of the task forces also have agreements with the united states agency for international development id for overseas deployments the task force is based in fairfax county virginia and in los angeles california when task force is deployed overseas they are using training and equipment provided by fema usa i d s then we have bursars these task forces for the replacement and refurbishment of the quitman that is used however the earthquake in haiti marks the first time that task forces were sent they did not have an agreement already with usa id and that of course reflects the need in high end hevia particularly tragic and expensive earthquake for task forces including two that are represented here today were called upon by a female on loan to usa a id for this  through want to greenman between fema and usa id today's hearing we will discuss whether this is a model that should be used again in the future i'm pleased to be a co sponsor of h r three three seven seven t protections they will need including a clear and specific authorization as well as workers compensation and tort liability protection h r three three seven seven was reported favorably to the house by the full committee in november but we will revise or strengthen this legislation before the house takes it up is today's hearing makes that necessary i'm also please determination at and work as first responders to victims of disasters including the recent earthquake in haiti this resolution is co sponsored but chairman over star ranking members the lot of mica and a number of other members of congress already we we will get more i think we need fifty co sponsors that will be very easy to get in order to bring this resolution to committee and to the floor i look forward to hearing the testimony of today's witnesses and thank them in advance for being available to us as this tragedy is ongoing so then we can learn lessons man not a year from now not five years now from now but right now because we do not know when a tragedy of this kind i don't know earthquake but a tragedy involving rescue and and recovery will occur in our country given the diversity of our population and of our to rain i'm very pleased now to the eel to the ranking member and to congratulate him i believe that he has had a team from florida and haiti now and that he was instrumental in bringing to the attention of the administration the the that this team could be useful mr diaz blanket very much amount of drone firstly thank you for this very point during a very timely hearing to thank obviously the witnesses for for taking of their valuable time to share some insight with us and if i may be a little parochial and i'm sure when you mention miami dade county i would speculate to welcome  that i did make some phone calls but i can also i think that we also have to thank the ministration because you know we know that bureaucracies are are very difficult to break through and we called the administration and within hours  not being too concerned about you know fiefdoms or kingdoms or walls they broke down those barriers and and in order to get the job done and i think some porno we that we recognize that look devastation and the destruction that occurred on genera was really without parallel and it's difficult to comprehend the level of devastation and destruction no matter how much you see it on television unless you've been there unless you've seen it which is why it's so important to hear from the from those  first responders that were there and some of them are here today i know the people of haiti are very grateful for the selflessness and the bravery of these responders who responded to this horrible horrific disaster you know and it's also by the way it a lot about about about the greatness of our country the united states of america i mean we know that these are difficult economic times  but the american people as always have responded to the devastation of haiti by donating millions upon millions of dollars goods and services and even donating time and physical labor  to try to help people who are struggling in haiti and obviously then through their government also the tax as taxpayers also have contribute greatly to the efforts and their  mentioned our our state governments and obviously the search and rescue teams for their believable generosity working through those incredible challenges on the ground including the limited airport capacity it was impossible at first to get things in and out the fact that the port was basically destroyed the damage of the infrastructure the search and rescue teams were in haiti within hours of the earthquake and quickly began their efforts  when they were there six of the search and rescue teams comprising over five hundred personnel were sent from the u s to join other teams from other countries again to search for survivors and to try to get save people from from the rubble and these efforts did result in numerous numerous many lives actually being saved in fact just last week international red and rescue operations found a sixteen year old girl still alive more than two weeks after the earthquake which is just hard to believe the efforts of the search and rescue teams resulted in the largest number of survivors of this type of this kind of effort in history is my understanding so we can't just we can't speak highly enough of the effort they're doing now it's years before before the response in the rebuilding process is complete but the scars but they will eventually complete but the scars never go away and we know that but it's my hope that we can learn from this disaster in order to be even better prepared for you know to mitigate against and to respond to the next major event whether it's in the united states or whether it's abroad i  really want to thank again the witnesses for joining us today i know they have well you've all been a slightly busy even busier than usual in the last few weeks and i appreciate all of you taking the time to travel here to the capitol to share your experiences and your expertise with us today and i'm as the chairwoman said and i get i need to thank her for her leadership you know whatever is learned i know that i've already heard some issues that we can improve on and we're we will do what we can to try to incorporate it into the legislation the again thank you all for being here and thank you madam chairman for for this very important hearing thank you mr lott will go now to the panel william also a member of the now the national emergency management association representing emergency management managers and their agency managers across the united states why don't you begin hundred six and retired in two thousand and five i returned to pima last may in my present position during my earlier years i toured in the field and senior management positions during major disasters including the nine eleven world trade center and hurricane katrina and mississippi during these events i work closely with our nation's urban search and rescue teams i appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today to discuss our nature nation's urban search and rescue teams and capabilities use our system is an outstanding example of a highly effective local state and federal partnership the team approach that the ministry if you gate has stressed in addition to focusing on the concept of team one of the ministry or if you gauge highest priorities this year is to enhance the nation's overall preparedness to respond to a catastrophic event the national urban search and rescue response system has been and will continue to be a critical part of this overall effort the system plays a vital role in providing essential capabilities not only for the twenty eight teams themselves but it has a multiplier effect through its establishment of standards for procedures and equipment this is a very significant benefit as many of the national methodology is are adopted by other departments many of which have received substantial grants to increase capabilities under post nine eleven programs under the lead of the united states agency for international development usa i d the late lifesaving capabilities of the united states use our teams were clearly demonstrated during the response to the cast product earthquake in haiti our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the people of that devastated country as the recovery continues side by side with our colleagues from the international sar community the courageous americans including fairfax virginia task force one the first international soccer team door live in haiti worked around the clock and dangerous conditions to locate and save survivors for summer u s team members their efforts were very personal several french creole speaking members of the miami fire department were integrated into the deploying south florida task force each one had baling members in haiti these brave haitian americans played an important role in recovering seven survivors under dangerous and unpredictable conditions one of these firefighters remained in a void comforting a survivor for over fifteen hours another was on the scene of collapse market for twenty two hours reassuring the survivor and gathering information finally able to touch the survivors hand as the teams broke through the concrete rubble during this rescue four point zero magnitude aftershock reports rescuers to evacuate the collapsed building momentarily but immediately following the tremor the team continued rescue efforts under these are curious because conditions in another remarkable case a member of the miami use our team help to rescue a woman who had been trapped for over one hundred hours it turned out that she had a son living but a few blocks away from the team members pembroke florida home madam chair these are but a few of the callous examples of the courage and selflessness displayed by the us are responders and all united states task forces ready rescued forty seven survivors while there are over forty international teams this number represents one third of all saves the impress performance of united states teams was based on years of experience an adaptation to changing threat and vironment coordination planning between local state and federal partners on the development of standards and methodology so resulted in expanding the scope of search and rescue capabilities these include operations and hurricane flood navy ation crash events based on our renewed focus on catastrophic event preparedness and experience as of last year's flooding in north dakota and haiti deployments use our community will conduct a comprehensive review of operations training equipment and organization this review would be conducted by those who best understand there are search and rescue system including task force sponsoring agencies individuals who are responsible for this stablish in the system and others with recent field experience the goal of the review will be the development of recommendations on how to enhance the capabilities of the teams to respond to sense of all kinds with the additional flexibility and agility and how team members with national x expertise might be leveraged to quickly train others perform light urban search and rescue and large scale events although it's premature to draw conclusions and lessons learned from the haiti response ultimately we believe this experience will contribute to improving our future domestic response operations and closing on behalf of ministry if you gate an entire fema team i want to express my admiration and appreciation to the courageous members of all the search and rescue teams for their humanitarian and lifesaving efforts in haiti i also want to thank you for your continue support and oversight of these important teams i look forward to answering your questions testify and share our experiences not only with the urban search and rescue team to speak more broadly though about mutual aid and emergency management assistance compact and the leadership of this subcommittee and specifically you madam chairwoman in your support for emergency management homeland security and h r thirty three seventy seven which is important for all of us i'm here on behalf of the california mirja sea management agency as well as the national emergency managers association which represents all fifty states the district of columbia and our five u s territories let me begin by commending secretary napolitano administrator fugate and my good friend well crags also a good friend and bill carwile for their he their support and their leadership it has been a pleasure to work with and as the ranking member now as it seems florida sort of has the monopoly over the administrator with chief policy and the former administrator this is been important partnership it is about the team effort bill spoke to the committee about it is about those partnerships and the team effort because it's not a federal effort it's not a state or local effort it's a national effort and this isn't a wonderful opportunity for the subcommittee and the public to learn about the great things that we are doing but the bottom line is when we look at emergency management and we look at preparedness not only does it have to be a national program we have to recognize that all incidents are local and you need to build capabilities from the bottom up and that's one of the things that the emacs the emergency management assistance compact and the urban search and rescue teams are based on it is that all incidents are local and as you said madam chairwoman it's one for all and all for one in terms of sharing and leveraging these resources which is critical for the wise investment and use of our scarce taxpayer dollars i am pleased to come from a state who has gotten this and has led the nation in terms of its mutual aid efforts governor schwarzenegger makes clear to his cabinet all the time that public safety has to be government's number one priority constitutionally when you look at it it is only government who can provide law enforcement services and the kind of things that the voters expect in our constitutional form of government expect us to do is to provide them with public safety and one of the ways that we can effectively do this and most effectively do it and efficiently is through the mutual aid system we are please of the twenty eight teams that fema sponsors in terms of urban search and rescue eight of those are located in california they have been vital for responding to all sorts of disasters as well as building collapses and day in and day out events where they are there twenty four seven three sixty five saving lives and property it is a wise investment that we have made both at the state local and federal levels to support those teams those teams have been deployed to the gulf states in two thousand and five after katrina and wilma they also with gustaf and ike were deployed to and louisiana as we had those earthquakes in our teams the eight that we have have been built up with swift water rescue capabilities it is something that all twenty eight of the use our teams should have earthquake risks are not alone to california i'm originally from and did homeland security for the state of illinois the new magic fault that last went off in eight hundred ten and eighteen eleven which rang church bells out in boston and philadelphia shows that the mid west is also at risk for the type of catastrophic incident that these use our teams would be important to support one of the questions we all get madam chairwoman and that we often hear is why should the federal government support these state and local assets and their principally local assets it's because the federal government doesn't own these capabilities and they shouldn't build these capabilities to have them sitting around waiting for the call like the maytag repairman rather instead they should be billed as they have been  local departments where they are there working training exercises exercising and saving lives twenty four seven three sixty five the cost of these teams is shared but the bulk of the expense falls on locals and states fema currently provides a million dollars a year to each of the twenty eight teams we estimate the cost just for equipment and exercising as you go through that is about one point seven million dollars a year that's not counting the cost of personnel state and locals are assuming about a ten million dollars cost for these teams which consist of seventy members in each of the positions for medical hazardous materials search and rescue capabilities those personnel costs those insurance costs licensing costs are picked up by state and locals and that's and having those seventy positions filled three deep is about two hundred ten people for each one of these task forces and about six thousand people nationwide if you add those up at approximately cost about ten million dollars a year in personnel costs and then exercising to maintain these teams so we need to have the support of team to fully fund the operational costs which would come to about additional million dollars a year in support in addition there are liability issues that have been not resolved for our urban search and rescue teams and h r thirty three seventy seven will go a long way to addressing them  another way to deal with it would be to do it under the emergency management assistance compact which has live below the issues worked out but these heroes who are going out and saving lives should not have to be worrying about what may happen to them or their families if they are hurt injured while they're rescuing saving lives and providing comfort to those who have been victims of a catastrophic incident while i'm here i want to plug in the emergency management assistance compact which is a way that not only can we share urban search and rescue teams but fire resources with water rescue teams hazardous material response all of that can be done through the emergency management assistance compact which supports thema and the four million dollar investment that you make to support the system which is also in h r thirty three seventy seven is a bargain for the american taxpayers let me conclude by saying that we in government continue to work very hard to get better prepared and do the work that we need to do to build our capabilities and resources and leverage those resources efficiently and with value to the taxpayers through mutual aid but citizens have a responsibility to get prepared themselves and are paid response teams in terms of the urban search and rescue teams are also supported by great volunteers who are out there such as community emergency response teams a concept developed in los angeles and in california and we have those teams that are also there as a surge capacity to assist us  in these catastrophic incidents it requires an informed and prepared public so that we have survivors not victims so i thank you for your support i thank you for the opportunity to be here and welcome any of your questions madam chair first of all madam chair i would like to introduce you to a group of students from the oil and they are from the mackay school they were in my office and we were discussing about the u s government and how  congress operates and and do work up here so i asked them to follow me to a subcommittee hearing and i just want to orleans get the money that we need in order for us to rebuild and to recover so we owe a great debt of gratitude to to chairwoman or and i hope that once you get back to your louisiana for the generosity of his of his remarks and thanks it's been a pleasure to work with him particularly given the great priority we believed that the golf course and especially new orleans which suffered this ravaging tragedy should have with you raise your hand so we can see which welcome we just want to welcome you here mr kyle was working very har he wants to make sure that we're c n n new orleans are brought up every time every day every every moment he can so i appreciate that that he has invited you to this hearing and hope we're not boring you too much are there any other any comments from any other members let me then no let me then begin first with buying three times already i think members have learned from your testimony now how many carwell could you tell us approximately how many personnel and urban or rescue teams are deployed from the united states to haiti at this moment some of them i know have returned i'm just trying to get a handle on about how many of our people have been there doing this work we've seen them on television yes manager on the number was five hundred sixty sixty four members of both urban search and rescue teams those are the two and overall communications for both the urban search and rescue teams and other us government agencies that's when this is important these are communication teams yes man a in a country which not only  its basic infrastructure up but i can't believe that any communication and mr kyle understand from louisiana that much of the tragedy stem from not being able to communicate are you able  s any communication last man there was it was severely damaged as you suggest so without having sent down the mobile emergency response system would have been much more difficult for our search and rescue the prime minister didn't have a radio that he can talk to anybody with that we have a kind of equipment that can set up communication in a country that essentially has not and we can do that in haiti you can imagine how important that is and in the united states because we have we have states that are vast where whole millions of people or certainly hundred thousand people would be left without any way to communicate and we've already seen what happens in louisiana i'm interested in cos the people of the united states not only through their federal government but through the state and local governments have borne this expense and i think we need to understand how that   personnel law below the costs are borne by the state principally by our our local governments because these teams are based like for example task force two from teams are you or your normal emergency management folks with a lot of expertise and they acquire a lot of our more of it as they are deployed elsewhere but these are people that the state or the local government pays for but when these teams are in another state and you see your fairfax county for example all over the country and other places are in haiti thema picks up the cost all the cost cost while they are deployed while they aren't of course replace equipment but you know on a twenty four seven basis these firefighters these hazardous materials experts nears the paramedics they're on the payroll to be ready and to be on call and that is the expense which is the largest expense of maintaining those teams this is a wonderfully  efficient way to do government if you are in fairfax county today you're not on get a lot of practice doing major disasters i hope that you're right across the river from  so if a disaster comes your law that expertise that you may have you not really had real time experience this way when you go to haiti or when you go to another state in essence that is helping you to not only acquire but to maintain expertise you need in your local jurisdiction you pay for it while they're there we pay for it when you're deployed elsewhere if  you in california were needed in the battle who would pay for that if there was a presidential declared disaster fema would pick up the cost now if it weren't a presidential declared disaster as we deploy these throughout california or elsewhere critically within california we have our own disaster assistance act where the state would pick up seventy five percent of that cost i think it's also important when you talk about these real life events that they respond to these teams these professionals are training and exercising all of the time and as you talked about construction accidents collapses train derailments as we've seen here in d c these teams are equipped and prepared to respond to those and save lives and property it is that training and exercising and those local incidents that go through that equipment that requires the support from fema it's a small price to pay for the federal government to have these assets and resources available as national assets in the time of catastrophe and when we're talking about the expense right now the federal government's picking up only about ten percent with a million dollars that they're funding each of those teams they should fully cover the cost of the equipment training and exercising that goes on for these teams taking a buyer percent when you clarify that picking up ten percent of the cost of what of maintaining and supporting these teams when you look last thought that does with furbish and help with equipment a million dollars a year it cost one point seven million dollars in equipment and training expenses each year to maintain each of these teams as the other big benefit i think of the teams as they set standards and procedures and doctrine for the rest of the nation i mean that's one of the other added benefits just to tag on with my friend matt ben hauser talked about i have just one more question and then i'll move to the ranking member i was pleased to learn that the u n working with haiti prior to the earthquake was apparently trying to replicate something of the model we have something called the citizens emergency response team program that began in the states is there do you see the possibility that something like the urban response rescue and response teams can in fact be on the ground in a place like haiti and as any other jurisdiction where  that serve taken up this model on their own and i can that the practice of the united states agency for international development those two teams to deploy is to leave their equipment and then train the host nation individuals in this case to haitians on that equipment moreover i know several countries around the world of used the united states model for search and rescue teams i know before the beijing olympics for example the people's republic of china was looking to create ability and they used our teams as a model for that equipment and jaws alive all those kinds of pretty sophisticated equipment but this is part of the usa id program to train the host country and give them a capability that remains there does that mean that people are are fantastic they are our surge capacity in terms of what they do in training and can come in behind the urban fema sponsored urban search and rescue teams we have those located in communities throughout california the governor created the first cabinet level position of service and volunteer ism to help support us because the public is anxious and sometimes we in government just don't ask them for their help and support and these search teams are valuable i mean they come with the technical expertise three years ago we started a nationwide training exercise for other states that have sort of brought them out how they train and exercise together but they being radio communications abilities they  bring just like the urban search and rescue teams they bring those capabilities and they are used throughout here throughout the united states deployed to the gulf states for katrina now whether they would be deployed internationally it's not likely given the depth that we have with the twenty eight teams you know we had task force one and two the usa teams we had task force five and seven at the at our airports ready to go from orange county in sacramento with those twenty eight teams i think that there is probably engaging in discussions we early this morning with the national guard and to train others including the national guard on how to do you know basic light urban search and rescue to get you know kind of as i think much like california does but that's not that's not a game of activity man the sponsor of the put together the program instruction marry up the urban search and rescue teams with a national guard unit another will k whether or not the trailers can be put in better use obviously with the people of haiti than they are probably living in tents a lot of them don't have they don't have shelter over there had i'm pretty sure that these trailers implement in future disasters in the united states and that's a really good question and that's why we're going to undertake and have a game plan to undertake a very detailed a differences the basic blocking and tackling the saving lives the working the rubble certainly in an overseas environment is very similar whether it's mexico city armenia or haiti or and the united states  there are some differences and i'm sure my colleague colleagues who follow on can address those and terms of working in an international environment under the united nations under the usa i do you know the over forty teams from around the world that were down there so some of those so the lessons learned may have to do with you know working that different kind of environment but certainly lessons learned i think and my colleagues the chief that come up are really experts in this can address this but it's been evolving program and continues to make sure and and learn lessons through every every single bit all the events that the the  based on the cost to the bill per square foot i know that this hearing is not deal with directly with with the company issues and with individual homeowners but still if you can provide me with information regarding what is foot limit that can can can assist all the issues that deals with individual homeowners applying for has a medication that they want to apply t in the discussions on h r thirty three seventy seven while it doesn't go to individual assistance for homeowners the national emergency managers association and in that bill supports the reauthorization for the pre disaster mitigation funding and that's critical dollars spent on prevention is going to save a lot in response and recovery costs and so in h r thirty three seventy seven it would help us a lot in government for the public assistance to be have the r authorization for the pre disaster mitigation grant funding peter that is in the language of haiti creole language thank you madam chairman only in creole and in french it's not i'm president i love to have the  you're a loaded mule means you've got a lot of work but with many hands the work is lighter or we'd say many hands make li mr couch suggested sounding fema trailers to haiti not with the formaldehyde though we wouldn't want to in addition to the international problems of moving products from the us overseas with foreign trade issues and others that attend this matter and then the question of how you bring them back what you're supposed to do at the end of their use for an emergency we would not be exporting a source of illness certainly not to our neighbors in the caribbean lessons learned  i think the lesson is the most important lesson learned from haiti is to have building codes never had building codes if they had there there's no inforced mechanism haitian government has so many other things to be worried about that building codes are way down the line the list of of their issues of concern  and and for enforcement i think haiti's on track to do that i think the lesson learned in haiti is is more important for the haitians than than for us and that is you need to have the building codes you need to have an enforcement mechanism you need in the rebuilding process don't just put concrete block on concrete block in many cases without mortar without without foundations in light of what we know this this this is one of the most active seismic areas in the hemisphere and  that issue never never had had raised itself there's no preparation lesson learned from minneapolis when the bridge over of i thirty five or the paul through three day training exercise two years before it was a year and a half before the collapse of the bridge when it happened they were prepared they all knew what  they had communications they had coordination they had available they had hospitals prepared to accept the injured and and the mechanisms to deal  with the fatalities there's no such planning in haiti no such as the coast guard was the first on on station on response they did everything they could i just like to read i get a daily report from the coast guard and a four after that they for coast guard cutters were off shore two more in route from  health services technician larry berman today gave my partner gomez and i the mental break we needed from running the clinic for the past thirty days without any medical officers to team with he elias ran the pharmacy and i ran the medical supply i took a moment to pray and thank god for the surgeons as our emotions surface with surgical soap used to cleanse and prepare prepare an area for surgery and to cleanse wounds we started the day with two and a half gallons and we never ran out every patient had wounds requiring beta died some need lots of data not i'm telling you it was god that kept that soap flowing otherwise the clinic would have had to stop seeing team everything is needed and it's needed all at once in haiti lesson important lesson learned is coordination there are a host of organizations all working at the same time from many countries many cultures many languages many different practices all within a government structure which largely was destroyed by the earthquake and government buildings collapsed important ministers killed staff personnel disrupted present having having to operate out of out of inadequate haiti under a contract for the haitian government prior to the earthquake guiding and training people in disaster response didn't have much time hadn't been there very long before the infrastructure and i've had discussion with the chairman chairwoman norton and with our wonderful ranking member mr diaz about art about long term recovery and we need to be doing some things here in this committee to prepare for that command and control and coordination on the ground that is still an issue still something that needs  coordination with the ten thousand n g o s non governmental organizations that are in haiti why do you have ten thousand because during the devalued dictatorial era no government was willing to deal with the corruption of divide so they went around the government and worked with the n g o s which proliferate it and in the end in that process government atrophied it had little or no capability to respond to its own needs and this round can share of our rail some many can tell you she has organized time and again shipments of of goods to preval all and he said when you have that problem call me well she said write me mr president it's all respect we shouldn't have to call you you should have a governmental structure in place that response that's a failure government if the president has to be involved in getting goods off a dock and into the hands of people who need the food and the clothing and the and the other materiel that we're sending so so these coordination among the n g o s and and developing governmental structure is critical in this process so i i think the the task in  the ground is converting he from a government of n g o s to a self sustaining government with a structure and with personnel in place there are more talented and gifted haitians living outside the country working for the international monetary fund the world bank the interim american development bank for african nations haitians have their gifted talented skilled but because there was no future for them in their own country they left we need to bring them back and and assure them there is going to be a solid stable political future and i think we have that opportunity now at our fingertips if we do this recovery right with the international community but engaging the haitian people at every step this is their country and they're proud of their country i'll just conclude with one of my favorite of the haitian expressions from observing it and having folks on the ground reporting back each day i know that the international community led under the united nations is certainly a different environment in terms of command control communications and i know that the usa idea and the white house have been working very closely to put together a structure down there was the government of haiti going forward to it enable them to have the kind of recovery that you described her  i do think that from what we learned from the teams it's going to be one of the lessons learned from haiti is those coordination issues the international community has been adopted like we have here in the united states california the national incident management system and standardise has our teams of deployed understand incident command and unified command and i think you're going to hear some of the challenges with the international partners there who are not as familiar with that kind of unified command and the use of the national instant management system thank you mr chairman thank you mr bennett house and we're going to move on to ms edwards and then quickly move on to our next panel before there is a vote concern me that the recent news reports that indicate perhaps some consideration of using the formaldehyde laden fema trailers in haiti and i would like to hear directly from sema and from secretary an apology that this is absolutely off the off the table i think that we owe that to the haitian people and we owe it out of respect frankly to mississippians and those in the in the gulf who were subjected to these  to these trailers also men i'm sure i want to enter into the to the record so that we make sure that we have a statement that a certification that's actually required on the in the bidding process when these trailers are being sold in an open bid that is essentially a hold harmless statement that purchases are required to fill out with respect to the acquisition of these trailers and there's a portion of it that says that  that requires the purchaser to acknowledge that quote the sale lot number may contain formaldehyde and i agree the united states shall not be liable for personal injuries to disability of or death of any persons arising from or incident to the sale of this property trailer use or its final disposition and to hold the united states harmless from an shall indemnify the united states against any  all debts liabilities judgments cost demands food actions or claims of any nature arising from or incident to the sale of the property and this order this hold harmless statement is required to be submitted to be filled out by those who purchased the trailers and yet there's this conversation about dumping and i do use that word dumping these trailers on to the haitian people you know as the chair as the chairman over stars pointed out  the haitian people are resilient they're smart they're talented they're their expatriate community is all across the world and their talents spread everyplace and need to go back to haiti but just because you're poor and your immune system may be compromised and you don't have someplace to live doesn't mean that you want to live in a formaldehyde trailer and so i would really appreciate it if the secretary and if fema would simply take it off the table not make it a part of the discussion anymore and out of fairness to the haitian people i want to say also that thank you because the service of our urban search and rescue teams is really tremendous you know great people doing work that some of us couldn't possibly do under the most difficult circumstances we've seen that it work in haiti we've seen that it work here on our own shores i'm curious as to whether there are barriers to more of our urban search and rescue teams being trained or certified or whatever it takes to do more international work because i do think it provides the kind of hands on you know on the ground work that isn't always accessible here in the united states and that we need the talents of multiples of these of these teams able to do that kind of work and i wonder if you would respond to that  to stand up the other teams are working off the teams and didn't have passports and didn't have shots and didn't have those kinds of things very quickly to respond to an overseas deployment so i can i think there be a lot of lessons learned for domestic teams as we come  here is u s idea usa idea it's in its own jurisdiction and it's doing the best it can would it in light of the expertise of the federal government where it is place the expertise  what would be better for thema to exercise that incident command and let me explain what i mean where multiple agencies get together work on a single disaster where there's no time to waste there's no time to get together how you get them all together and how you deploy them for the first time if the federal government has a lead agency for doing that when they are by some memorandum of understanding or action by this subcommittee be best to say when you're overseas and you are using or needs the money the most help fema will be your incident command system control and we would always be you correctly described our role in terms of the national instant management system and the incident command system much of which came from our great state of california but we would certainly offer up our assistance to help train other i'm asking another question you know government bothers me because government immediately goes into bureaucratic your credit response is women who supposed to do this look we went through this with the money where we were supposed to do it on paper seem to be how it must be done and where the flexibility to do what has to be done when there's nothing in the statute saying that you are verboten to doing it was not exercised so this committee subcommittee had to pass a post katrina act in the katrina already i mean they've already had the authority to do much much of what was in it now when i'm trying to find out this is a hearing this is an oversight hearing we do fact finding here i want to know what is the fastest and best way to deployed overseas it's us i d s a id says we need thema for your urban rescue teams what would be lost and what will be required  saying not only are we deploying you some people and some expertise we are deploying the answered in command control to make sure they do in fact work together on the ground is that the best practice overseas the way it is the best practice in the united states of america i think it is the best practices and support team that provides the overhead management of the teams using the command system and and and actually we did send unified command they have that they also bring that kind of overhead support that is doing the ways that it was that they use our teams themselves have that capability within that theme on top of that also spent sent in these overhead the issue that i think is going to come out of this though is while you're having good command control and communications with your teams that are deployed the issue there was heard for example there were forty international search and rescue teams there the overall coordination if we're talking about a lesson learned some of these international responses they are not using the same necessarily the same system we are plus there was the additional challenge that there was not coop incog continuity of operations and continuity of government existing there it had completely collapsed so in terms of our teams going over there they were correctly following it's a challenge i think it's going to have a sort of that coordination when it's not things that we that has and i don't i don't doubt that they were correctly following it  t what you said about the foreign teams only emphasizes my point i can't expect you all to take control of those teams but if we've got two agencies over there we experienced this on the ground katrina that was huge confusion about who is on the ground is in charge now the incident command system should be in in the hands of somebody who has used it before recovery does that mean that the teams are coming home and they've done all they can do in haiti as far as the urban search and rescue effort there are twelve members of the there were  not deployed that have been deployed two days ago from los angeles and from fairfax to provide technical assistance to the contractors who are undertaking the recovery efforts at the hotel montana and there the communication mobile they're going to remain for how long probably for another two weeks ma'am and we're trying to reconstitute that it's got some critical capabilities down there well prior to the hurricane season international teams are deployed they leave equipment on the ground and then there's training so how many people are still on the ground in haiti performing that function training haitians about the use of the equipment and maintaining it and doing service release on the duties of those twelve that are providing technical systems i believe they're doing some of that training as well but so that was a great part of it was done before the teams to redeployed back as i understand  before the teams came back this time this first go around all right thank you thank you very much we may have a vote that i have are so we want to thank this panel very valuable testimony and ask the next panel the last panel to come forward and  this is panel we must hear from this is the panel that has been on the ground here and elsewhere and i'm going to call upon them in this order  subcommittee i've been a philadelphia firefighter from thirty five years and i'm speaking today as a first responder in relation to my duties in philadelphia and as a fema national use our responses to member who arrived in haiti on january nineteenth as a female use our national task force leaders representative i also have the responsibility and privilege to speak on behalf of the nearly six thousand members of the federal emergency management agencies use our national response system with all due respect and condolences to the people of haiti in the aftermath of this devastating disaster it is important to look at the international emergency response to this incident and determine how to apply lessons learned in eighty two our future operations here at home following observations and recommendations are in no way intended to serve as a criticism of the response operations in haiti they were submitted with the thought that we have an obligation to use this experience and leverage what we learned in the sole interest of better preparing our nation and serving our citizens there were many lessons learned and i'd like to focus on four main areas cheered response we must ensure that we continue to develop a structured tiered response capability that places an emphasis on first responders and common operating platforms all disasters start as local level of events the faster we can engage technician level rescuers in a cheered response after a sudden onset of then the more likely it is that we will save many more lives haiti did not have a fully developed technical rescue use our capability at the local regional or the national law well and precious time was lost in the immediate hours after the initial earthquake as a sufficient number of skilled rescuers were not quickly able to engage in rescue operations it is vital for us to continue to fund local government technical rescue and use or initiatives by way of the homeland security grant program urban area security initiative grants maritime port security grant program and possibly other related federal funding mechanisms that are not tied specifically to response to terrorism it is important for famous national use our system to continue our outreach to other responders including the state urban search and rescue alliance to assist them in building upon their good work as they continue to develop technician level response capabilities at the local regional and state levels this will enable our nation to put rescuers that are trained to the highest technical levels to work in the shortest amount of time possible second areas coming in and control strong unified command and control element is essential for successful rescue operations a catastrophic events in haiti use our operations were coordinated by the united nations on site operations coordination center at a similar event in the u s operations would be directed by the local authority having jurisdiction with assistance from the federal government with the fema use our incident support team having a significant role the thema use our system needs a structured formal mentoring and shadowing program for  experienced incident support team members we have an obligation to fully train and exercise these field managers before we assign them to critical roles at a natural disaster one of the many observations i was communicated to me by fema use our system task force leaders operating in haiti was that international teams of widely varying staffing and capability were assigned to similar size large operational areas which in haiti were called sectors and that certain sectors did not have enough resources assigned to adequately perform prioritize search operations in a given operational period at home we should continue to develop and implement the national incident management system resource typing standard we need to develop a comprehensive national catalog of all use our resources in this country and we need to catalog them in relation to the names typing standard and then eventually validate their readiness by the use of an assessment tool similar to the fema use our national response system operational readiness evaluation program two specific aspects of reconnaissance and search operations in haiti war in our attention here at home the foundation of how we operated here in the u s for our concept of operations for effective search and rescue actions at large scale catastrophic events is effective reconnaissance sector assignments and corresponding mapping during the reconnaissance phase and haiti presented a significant challenge in the first days of operations florida task force one and some of the other fema use our task force is deployed to haiti where using tourist maps provided by the u s embassy search assignments were developed along geographical borders rather than like sized grids the fema use our system has a strong working relationship with the national geospatial intelligence agency their analysts and technicians are able to provide sophisticated mapping that contains detail good references with corresponding up to date satellite images as well as light detection and ranging or light or graphics soon after a sudden onset disaster occurs included in your briefing packets in the section following my written testimony are examples of the mapping products developed by n g a we have to continue to use their technology when we have disasters here at home theme administrator fuel gauges recently shared his vision of a force multiplier concept with the leadership of the fema national use our responses to them this force multiplier concept would use a twenty eight family use our task force is to assist impacted local and state governments at disasters when requested and build upon their operational capabilities and expertise by training selected department of defense assets and not the may use process by pairing these train resources with the twenty eight the may use our task forces reconnaissance and initial search operations and complex events could be accomplished in a much more efficient uniform manner creating a significant positive impact in the areas of search documentation and operational planning it is vital that we continue to support and further develop our all hazards national use our system which also serves as a best practices model for our local regional and state use or teams and it is important that we address a number of related administrative and funding concerns chairman oberstar as house resolution thirty three seventy seven addresses the current administrative concerns involving the national use or program by consolidating the statutory authority for the system under the stafford act and explicitly authorizing the use or system as of january twenty sixth that was reported that a total of one hundred thirty four people were rescued from collapse structures in haiti by rescue teams that responded from all over the world forty seven of those people were rescued by the efforts of the six use our task forces from the united states some of those rescue operations were extremely complex with one of them taking a task force from the u s thirty hours to complete those rescues did not occur by chance they were the direct result of the dedication of our personnel the extensive training that is provided to them the specialized equipment cash and logistical support package that the task forces deploy with the framework of the national use our system that enables them to operate in a uniform and efficient manner and the unwavering support of the sponsoring agencies and participating agencies that furnish all of the nearly six thousand members of our national system based on our lessons learned and reinforced during the response to the earthquake in haiti i would respectfully ask that the committee consider the continued support of the family use our national response system thank you chairwoman norton ranking member  here today my name is dave downey currently serve as a division chief of miami dade county fire rescue in south florida and also as a task force leader for florida task force one my written testimony and comments today from my perspective as a task force leader who led an eighty person search and rescue team to discuss my direct observations from the mission with the goal of identifying lessons learned that can be applied here at home shortly after the news that a magnitude seven point zero earthquake struc country florida task force one alerted in roster to search and rescue even though our task force is not currently designated for international response our close proximity to the island coupled with our past international response and training experience  being prepared if called upon based on the plenary reports it was clear that this would be a catastrophic event requiring tremendous amounts of international aid after receiving our activation orders we began what would turn out to be a day long effort trying to secure transportation to move the eighty person task force and sixty two thousand pounds of rescue equipment ultimately would be transported by a contracted carrier one for personnel and a different carrier for equipment while the plane carrying the personnel landed without delay in port au prince the following morning the two planes carrying our equipment cash were delayed and diverted to santa domingo ultimately one plane landed with primarily base camp supplies the next morning almost twenty four hours after we got there and the other plane with our rescue cache quitman most essential to this mission didn't arrive until another thirty six hours later specific airframes and providers capable of moving us our assets rapidly and efficiently is essential additionally when airports are inundated with a myriad of flights priority must be given in the early days to search and rescue once on the scene of this disaster once on the scene the size of this disaster was overwhelming my first thought was where do we begin our priorities were already established we first were directed to look at hospitals universities and schools multi story buildings and any other large structures while the priority seemed logical the mapping and sector assignments were woefully inadequate the maps that we use for the first two days were as my colleague described tourist maps like this one provided by the embassy these  maps details such as street names and the locations of these significant structures we were supposed to prioritize search sectors were developed along geographical borders rather than life size grids this created very shape  sizes for each sector and with the lap of and with the lack of adequate maps sector boundaries were difficult to determine again i've included in my testimony some examples of the mapping that we were using the first actually the first week greatest struggle we had in performing our job every day the task forces competed for the use of a small contingent of transport vehicles we should not expect the local infrastructure that is already devastated by a disaster to supply transportation if a task force is deployed is deployed without their transportation assets dedicated onsite transportation has to be secured during collapse search and rescue decides the type of construction we're confronted with our greatest enemy is time to be successful we must be able to get the right resources to the right place as quickly as possible in order to save as many lives as possible to the task forces must ensure operational readiness the implementation of pre established transportation assets is essential and ongoing issue that's yet to be resolved as a security for task forces operating in a disaster site during this response our personnel operated every day without any protection  plans were made to evacuate an area of a confrontation developed the reality was that based on the damage and the topography and the lack of familiarity with the area it would have been difficult to actually retrieve let me conclude by saying that this mission wasn't without the efforts of the six use our task forces from the united states coupled with the other forty teams from around the globe resulted in the largest number of survivors rescued in history and we should all be proud of them and i was pleased to see that the years of work put into developing our equipment caches and training is paid off this year marks the twenty fifth anniversary of the mexico city earthquake and the first organized use our response to such a disaster from the united states since that time the united states has developed a robust national capability that today we today we know has incorporated the equipment the training the most important personnel to be successful this capability is built on a foundation supported by the twenty eight sponsoring agencies countless participating agencies and affiliated personnel that collectively provide the six thousand member ready reserve that we know is a national use our response these agencies support this national system sometimes at the expense of local services and this can continue support of legislation as defined in chairman over stars house resolution thirty three seventy seven coupled with adequate funding is necessary for the national user program to sustain current capabilities as well as floor new opportunities introduction i'm steve kovar and i currently serves the fire chief for the city of virginia beach fire department and as such i'm the sponsor an agency chief from virginia task force to one of the twenty urban search and rescue teams have also been asked to serve the urban search and rescue program as one of three sponsored representatives representing the nine eastern region teams i would also like to recognize fire chief robert kahn from the phoenix fire department who represents the central division and fire chief raymond jones from sacramento fire for both of their leadership along with me i've served in various capacities within the urban search and rescue program since its inception i'm speaking to you today as a sponsor and as such i want you to know how proud i am this program the men and women who serve our nation through the urban search and rescue program are committed competent professionals who care deeply for both the program and the citizens they serve every team member is a professional provider in his or her locale whether a firefighter a medical doctor or a trained search dog handler these professionals respond to natural disasters with the same skill sets that they apply every day in their home towns the concept is fairly simple utilization of an all hazards approach to incident mitigation special training special equipment and special people the urban search and rescue system is part of a tiered approach to managing disasters it has the capability to augment local and state resources with federally sponsored teams that can readily plug and operations at the local level following the national incident management system these urban search and rescue teams made up of local providers who are on their local payrolls until activated are far less expensive to maintain and a resource that may otherwise be fully funded by the federal government the twenty eight urban search and rescue teams and their localities benefit from the training equipment and experience that comes from being part of this program just as the system members apply the skills learned at home to national disasters they applied the lessons learned while on federal missions in their local jurisdictions the same search and rescue methods that were utilized and refined during the nine eleven hurricane katrina and haiti responses are performed throughout america daily by our members the recent haiti response just as fema urban search and rescue deployments in the past once again prove the value of the program to the people impacted by this disaster before fema urban search and rescue teams florida regina task force one in california cass task force to perform some forty seven live rescues while in haiti many of the international teams did not have the heavy braking and breaching capabilities that our teams did this coupled with the rapid deployment of our teams made a difference our training equipment and processes worked and lives were saved as a result the deployed teams knew each other and operated from a common operating platform grounded in training similar equipment and common policies several of the remaining twenty eight urban search and rescue teams were on standby at their points of departure waiting to deploy as augmentation or in relief of the first teams that were deployed in search and rescue program office also work diligently to coordinate the deployment of the teams and to ensure the practice is applied to a domestic response would also be applied here as a sponsor of one of the deployed teams it was nice to know that support was there and spelled out in the activation orders as with every deployment there are areas for improvement and we feel confident that after action issues will be addressed by not only the urban search and rescue teams but the program office well i would i would like to thank mr carlisle mr fenton and the entire urban search and rescue program staff for their efforts and support mr carlisle has clearly made an effort to make himself and his staff available to the sponsor d representatives and the task force leaders representatives this increase spirit of cooperation will go a long way toward making the program even better i feel that issues identified with the haiti response ranging from transportation resupply and force protection will be refined and improved upon this will ensure our teams are mobilizing transported to the disaster site within the window of opportunity for successful search and rescue operations whether in a domestic or foreign or from a sponsored agency chiefs perspective their legal and financial financial liabilities that are of concern we want to send the best trained teams to assist others while ensuring our localities are not exposed in this economic climate expensive th expenses that have been borne by sponsoring agencies in the past are being more being more closely scrutinized by our localities many of the sponsoring agencies are facing staffing cuts that have not been seen in thirty years we continually being asked to do more with less in our municipal it is increasingly more difficult to place a fire company out of service for urban search and rescue training or equipment maintenance than we do not have enough resources to protect our community t levels we have in the past we feel it important for this program to have recurring funding in order to support training exercise acquisition and manus of equipment and medical we're monitoring for all responders workers compensation and liability protection for personnel is also very important god forbid a member of one of our task force is injured or killed while deployed on a mission we want the proper protections in place for that member and their family additionally we want to ensure our deployed outlined and your support through house resolution thirty three seventy seven will assist in providing the needing needed funding in legal suspicion for this worthwhile program we stand ready to assist in making this proven system better now and according to the lansing testimony we will try to hear your testimony even i have to vote on this when i vote in the committee of the whole so we are asking members to the extent that they can please come back but would you largest all responder service agencies as well as a sponsor agency chief for california task force five as a professional firefighter for the last thirty one years i've been involved in their been search and rescue program since its inception in the early  i'm here today to speak on behalf of the california task force five one task force in the western region and the request to use our system as a sponsored agency the orange county fire authority is proud to be associated with the twenty seven other teams comprised comprising the national urban search and rescue response program as one of the original use or teams within this program evolved from responding to natural disasters such as earthquakes hurricanes all hazard mitigation response your use or program has been able to adapt primary to its twenty eight groups of professional first responders from across the country work together seamlessly to address the needs of this great nation regardless of the cause we respond with the intent to mitigate the impact of the consequences of the event last month california task force five was one of the u s or task forces activated but not deployed to haiti although disheartening for the task force we understood the magnitude of the mission of this mission and were ready to ship out or to stand out as required the quick response is a result of preparation training dedication of our personnel along with support from federal state and local government i strongly believe that without the support the urban search and rescue program would not exist and could not exist as it does today however we're facing a fundamental challenge that need to be addressed if we're continue to be the federals first responders these are difficult financial times we'd like you to consider the cost to the sponsoring agencies and their local taxpayers and what the impact of the civilian professional personnel that make up these task forces i'd like to address the cost of the program on january thirty first two thousand and six or even search and rescue rescue program office provided an overview their report to congress on the status of the urban search and rescue program based on this report to congress the average cost to maintain a national task force is a proxy one point seven million dollars in contrast the actual pro project funding for that year was approximately six hundred thousand leaving the balance of one million for the sponsoring agency to incur orange county fire authority subsidizes this program in many ways such as the allocation of overtime funds the allocation of workload insurance and maintenance of vehicles are financed section estimated the cost of the fire authority to sponsor this program is over one in half million dollars we believe that the funding fifty two million allocated in house resolution thirty three seventy seven would more accurately balance the partnership between the federal and local governments h r thirty three seventy seven also dresses three fundamental flaws within our system that affect our sponsored agencies our professional personnel with licenses and those not normally employed by government agency therefore were very much in favor of this bill these three fundamental flaws are workman's compensation protection of professional licenses and reemployment rights workman's compensation varies between states so does this give me workman's compensation varies between states so does the cost of the sponsor an agency if the task force member is injured during the deployment if a task force members agency's workers compensation is greater than the federal government's protests the sponsoring agency or participant agenc required to make up their difference this not only becomes a financial burden to the local governments but impacts the individual task force members the second item several members essential to the mission the task force are required to have professional licenses these license real rights of our civilian task force members as a program manager during hurricane katrina was shocked when one of our heavy riggers who was deployed to louisiana gave his heart and soul to the response came home and was terminated by his employer we need to same protection and safeguards that are afforded under userra in the task force members in conclusion the sponsoring agencies urgently request that the federal government codify this important national response program in doing so provide the necessary protections adequate recurring funding by sponsoring and passing h r thirty three seventy seven in twenty two days i'll be retiring after thirty one years of professional firefighter it's been my honor to serve the public in the nation but after my retirement i'll probably not be involved at this level however it's still important to me although in a selfish level that the members of this great system are provided with the protections that they deserve as my son kyle is a member of  from people who have been on the ground in the united states and in other countries so i'll ask you to excuse us for few minutes after five votes maybe more about that but it could take in a half  hour or even maybe forty five minutes but we do not intend to close this hearing without giving members an opportunity yes your question is not only for the record but so that we can use your answers to some of the very issues you have raised with respect to the reauthorization of the organ rescue bill now going to the house floor we will return we will return the hearing is now in recess put up i'm looking at a map or some maps of port au prince except they're not tourist maps d more technical one is which you would understand but i would not was apparently not available to you when you put the other slides up again the other side of that and you have that in my testimony that's that's what the well that was actually what sectors on to that map and then utilize fortunately with handheld g p s units we were able to at least fix our positions and once we had internet access we were able to use quite honestly google earth and use google earth and our g p s units to help fix the locations where we were working and so it was a very rudimentary  the country absolutely in fact while there i was reflecting on my response to katrina arrived in new orleans a day after the storm with our our team and we quite frankly were using maps that we have from service gas stations as our original search and rescue maps in the first in the early days and that was when we were first made aware of the capabilities of the national geospatial intelligence agency  trouble getting homeland security to understand that having somebody from homeland security and having somebody produced confusion on the ground who really was in farge palletized so that it gives us the most flexibility whether we have to load it in a truck load it in an airplane we're able to configure the equipment cache as best we can depending on the transportation of vehicles operating there were four teams operating out of the u s embassy we had a pool of vehicles that were available to all four teams problem was we were all competing for the same piece of equipment there were only two flatbed trucks some of this equipment for instance of california or florida two was working on another rescue we would have to recover that truck have it come back to the embassy so that we could load our cash go out to the new rescue  impossible given the many many missions that came together at one time i think the latter part of your statement there were so many missions coming together there was such a need to get all these reconnaissance teams out that we just didn't have enough rescue them one time one time or some aerial reconnaissance of the distant areas to look at but the fact of the matter is the topography of port au prince and the amount of devastation trying to do any type of aerial reconnaissance was impossible by helicopter and if we found something it would have been impossible to land a helicopter in the area i mean over the road transportation was by far although stressful trying to get through the traffic especially in the daytime was the only way to move had a country already without the basics you had the worst disaster in fact if you look at california california has had earthquakes of that found most significant that could be transferred here i mean assuming for example california by the way is not the only but on the only state which is fall in line tennessee we have lines all over the united states and of course i'm not referring only to earthquakes but it is not difficult to envision a country which is prone to literally every time of disaster is not difficult to conceive of entire counties which would be the functionally equivalent of this country going down where nothing was left up to the fact is we don't often encounter that but we didn't offer encountered katrina and we were not prepared for it so i have been looking back those of you who went and those of you who have gone on and who know about could you know i'm sorry  paid and i understand what has happened there what do you think most significantly transfers to disasters involving rescue in the united states where their rescue from water as and katrina from collapse from roads that go out bridges that go out and you can't get from here to there but the hospitals all over there if you give us some thought of how you might use what you understand from haiti to train in the united states but similar disasters or disasters that are not s madam chairwoman one of the things i spoke about early in my testimony was tiered response and the ability for us to put highly technician level trained rescuers to work as soon as possible and i think  irman oberstar mentioned the bridge collapse in minnesota and he use that analogy that highly trained people had exercised that within two years before before that event and they were able to successfully engage at a technical level coupled with the incident command structures that we have in a country that's another important lesson learned direct command and control of tactical operations or that's a lesson learned what was back to you when you didn't have quite the instant command i have become used to in the united states correct and i would benefit from that in haiti it was dave what would be the right way to say there's probably a little bit looser in in the united states there's definitely an organizational structure there's definitely responsibilities there's definitely accountability for field actions we have incident command system forms there's divisions operational areas that are broken out into specific assignments given with reporting and documentation that follow that on the international response in haiti that wasn't quite as evident they will let you talk to that again the big topics to take on topics i  had we we've touched on it and i'll stress again transportation transportation was an issue for us in katrina because we didn't have the boats transferred has been an issue for us in this haiti response in the ha ve been overcome with what i think pre established air transportation assets knowing what military entity or commercial carriers going to provide transportation having dedicated over the road transportation all of the twenty eight teams were given money back in two thousand and three to purchase transportation for all of the equipment cash we need so we can move up to twelve hundred miles across the of having a team deployed was resupply my personnel there to make sure they had their basic needs met when by that i mean that they ran out of supplies it was difficult to get them supplies that our teams are self sufficient when they go out the door certainly we don't want to be a load on the exact folks that we're going to help so so our folks went out the door with five days worth of m r reason water and checking back with my task force leader that was there at one point resupply was an issue there they were not sure  with the with the airframes in and out of the country whether those needs would be met certainly haven't eighty personnel deployed there that was an issue for me you know i want to make sure that we had that covered and they did they worked it out as i understand it were and were in different areas of the country over housed at the airport their base of operations so resupply and making sure we have the basic needs met is something that has has been an issue in the past as well and we want to make sure that that's a lesson learned that we improve on another area of concern for me was force protection when when when  these folks come into an area that has been just absolutely decimated those people are hurting and you know after a certain period of time when they don't get their basic needs met  there's there's consternation that can occur and i worry about that haven't folks over there that have supplies have resources so i want to make sure that that they're protected not only for us to do water rescue that's one of the things that several as the secretary from california mentioned when he was talking that we have swift water capability all the task force in california has that capability under e ma water teams with us that's one aspect of the task force that not all task forces enjoy that aspect because the state of california wanted us to have that resource they trained  but thank you for your patience thank you madam you know we've heard i think some really really really really good specific recommend let me just kind of ask a couple questions of katrina because you know there are some of the issues that we've heard today that are kind of no brainers for you all that does of us that are not on the field donna so i think about all the time i was aware of the job that you all did in katrina but i have to admit to you that would never i never asked myself the question how did i get there now how did you get there from different parts of the country i'm assuming that from florida maybe you drove drove yourself there but from california i mean so how do you all get there with all your assets like dave was describing to the ground transportation package that we have is the way the majority of the task force has traveled and there was two distinct operational theaters in katrina mississippi and new orleans i was assigned as the operations chief for mississippi we were flown in in advance of the storm hitting flown into a central location then obtained vehicles and actually weathered the storm who flew you  domestically that's the way it works now it gets a little bit more complicated with with now when you travel internationally historically you know whether it's in you know mexico city or whatever how is up and i mean is it you're on your own like some of you all were in our deal deed take care of it or how does it usually work on this particular response we were working directly with us in washington who was tasked with arranging the transportation as i stated in the testimony pretty much took all of the day after we were activated to figure out how we were going to get down there our equipment cash our task force is housed at homestead air reserve base so initially assumption was that we would go out military out of homestead air reserve base we've done that before with responses to turkey in the earthquakes and in turkey there were aircraft there but out of the airport some of the task forces california to los angeles came by military airlift fairfax came by the same method we did which was a contract carrier florida to came on u s coast guard by the haitian government who was planning who wasn't adds to the to the problem here but but it would seems to me that who does have the capability of doing that particular internationally is the farm department of defense but there isn't a preexisting compact whatever with a deal to have under specific cases to have assets available correct i think in the case of the two usa teams that have the agreement with usaid an off the there might be more of a priority but as far as the may use our system this deployment was way outside of our normal range of operations and sure we don't we don't have anything prescribed mission wise that would seem to me and that's one that's one of the things i know you've talked about that we need to look at see how we can get a better handle on that in making sure that we can have something called yes or if i could add during nine eleven we did fly california did fly military aircraft to obviously because everything else was grounded right during katrina we did fly our swift water teams military and then our full task force drove is right now all of our equipment are configured so we can fly either fly military or fly commercial or go by ground we have military pilots that everything's loaded on we have all the plans for each type drive there or or you can you can hire us id on domestic female going to hire some planes but if it's a big one it would seem to me that under certain circumstances there should to speak of because i was destroyed and then we had in essence really want to airport that was overtaxed at best it would seem to me that we had to have to have some sort of prearranged the same kind of thing that we're talking about fo there seems to be these are he was horrible it's not necessarily unfortunately the worst case scenario you know you always have to plan for even a worst case scenario that's possible hopefully never will be possible but  assets that you already have that so that u s adding others don't have to start scrambling to figure out how to get you there because i'm not saying sound like something that makes sense it does exactly yes sir and i think part of the after action process is going you assume i would assume that it's the local law enforcement that provides the or how does that happen i don't think and you know we there but so how does that work domestically internally in our program there is a program directive united nations peacekeeping forces in there that over spoke of there was almost two separate operations there was the operations run out of the airport and they were the operations run out of u s embassy at the that if you do deploy and deploy in a place where there was you know there were seven thousand u n troops in haiti before which was obviously a huge help in a lot of those as we got hit hard but but they were but if you up with there is there isn't anything pre established and quite frankly i'm not sure what the answer is because one or two soldiers when there's a crowd of three or four hundred people i'm not quite sure how much they're going to be able to provide for us i go back to my roots as a firefighter and for the most part everybody's happy to see us when we get there and in the event things start to look like they're getting on we need to back out except that if you don't have transportation haven't done so in a case like we have in haiti you know luckily again you know people were very happy to see you but but if it would have not been that case gotten very things have gotten pretty home that's correct after katrina we had one of our heavy riggers who when he got home was told that he was no longer because he'd been gone for as you've been gone for a couple weeks much of our task force a lot of the task force obviously our firefighters deal with the rescue but we have specialties within the task force that are necessary but certainly firefighters there are people that have other jobs some of our dog handlers have other jobs we have physicians that may be working in the local emergency rooms we have structural engineers that have firms doing architecture and design and such so if they're working for an employer they're not protected if they go with us n you know living in a state that unfortunately is used to lots of storm of events i've seen what you all do and i've seen it in south florida i've seen of after you know we have you know what is it for hurricanes in one  year and then to see what you all do not only the muscle better nationally is something that i know all americans are proud of and grateful for your service your incredible sacrifices the men and women that you are representing here today that's time away from your families and want to understand exactly how to behave no matter what the situation is now as i understand it the troops do know how to behave and they were told that they weren't law enforcement though that people who are risking their lives don't have a beef that protection around them and we will get out all right legislation to see whether  where you go either out of state or for that matter to a foreign country are you satisfied with what we have in the bill regarding the employment rights they have in the national guard and the reserve for a real and ongoing basis amounts to haiti being rare for that matter out of state yes madam chairwoman an example of this would be that the skill sets that we require our rescue specialists to maintain can be collapse that buried seven firefighters without the training that we received through the fema use or system or specialized units there would never have been able to get them all out alive so you know that's an example of a partnership with the type of partnership and the benefit of  a with when it comes to skill sets and a common operating platform and similar equipment in our operability you know and then you can take that a step further in that your response concept and do that at the regional level in the state level  the system has been used as a best practices model by all of the local regional and state assets that are developing this capability so it is across the board it's very beneficial for a local jurisdiction to be involved with this hazardous materials technicians are utilizing many of the same monitoring and detection equipment on our streets daily for hazardous materials incidents for example our team has been our folks on a and in our towns and cities where they all come together it's quite a quite a fighting force if you will for example this past weekend in the city virginia beach we had a major snowstorm snowstorm that we haven't had in say twenty years many of the planning elements that we use to ready our our city were the skill sets were learned the plans people that we used there in virginia beach where the same folks that would be working on plans on many of these we did have some issues with the workman's comp as we stated earlier in my testimony the workman's comp were covered whenever we respond nationally under the federal work system however if you're a local agency and you have a state workman's comp it's at a higher level than the federal that employer is going to be covered under that state because we can't give them less than what they are already negotiated  rescue equipment and that's what they will be training the haitian government on but all of the other task forces like dave said left primarily as a logistical support equipment the medical performs to ticals and some other support things that were very important for the how do you deal with that aspect of it it's even gets more complicated when you're dealing with now because you're you know i guess there's water rescue assets and then there are water rescue assets and depending on the circumstances they can be larger or smaller and  that's that's that's a little bit that's kind of a difficult task to try to figure out how to how do you who has those assets and who can you know that you all can tap into most of the assets we actually did a study from your research and rescue program about probably four or five years ago right after katrina what the cost of what assets we need and there were the zodiac as you mentioned there are different levels of water rescue locally at home for the level that might require a helicopter obviously the task force can't have that but just the capability to have boats to get into areas and rescue thought fred correct me if i'm wrong i think the cost for us to get to be the water rescue is like about thirty five thousand dollars a task force reasonably low because the task force is right now although they're not if you will water rescue but they're already there yeah we do have the ability for self protection so we have devices the helmets we have things for our task force already you would need for this with water and again  ask and thanking the truman again for four dollars i just want to end up in one i know and it has nothing to do with this issue but i know that you know there are those who like to bash america they've always existed and they continue to exist and they will be there in the future and i know that some of our even our allies are bashing united states for too much of a presence in haiti and so be it you know i for one i'm not apologetic about the fact that once again the american people through our heroes and our first responders and our armed forces were there to provide incredibly maritime humanitarian relief and if our wonderful friends and allies like the french and italia federal union that also is joined to its cause honan parts and those component parts added here come together whether at home or abroad in time of distress that you have made the whole notion of the federal union which has worked so well in our country for more than two centuries because when we are most needed somehow the other for all the differences among the states the federal government the state and the states and localities come together and really heroic words and we know it's an overused word you know people use hero when a kid comes home with passing grades we try since we deal with very serious issues in a subcommitte because we see you at home and people when they saw you in haiti literally identified with you because they know you and they know what you've been doing this country so mr endicott of philadelphia pennsylvania mr downey miami presumptuous to say on behalf of the american people that made thank you for your testimony today for what you do every day for what you do under extraordinary circumstances even not in this country and let me assure you that your testimony has been  struck and you will see parts of it that are not already in the bill code from today's hearing thank you again for taking the time to come on fairly short notice to testify before us today we have learned much from you this hearing is a