welcome to today's important hearing on september the seventh two thousand and seven representative corrine brown who is trying to join us this afternoon introduced h r three for nine of the kids in disasters well being safety and health act of two thousand and seven a bill i was pleased to co sponsor provisions of h r three four ninety five were later incorporated into h r twenty seven sixty four the consolidated appropriations act of two thousand and eight which became public law number as as shall be indicated in december h r thirty four ninety five created the national commission on children and is asked to conduct a comprehensive study examining and assessing the needs of children as they were they to recovery preparation and response for all hazards including catastrophes this asters and emergencies hurricane katrina exposed many problems concerning the nation's ability to meet the needs of children during disasters about a quarter of the people who lived in areas damaged or flooded by hurricane katrina were under age eighteen more than four hundred thousand children under the age of five lived in or were evacuated from counties and parishes that were declared this aster areas about thema as a result of hurricane katrina the vulnerability of kids present in many unique issues for example fifty five thousand one hundred ninety two children were report missing or displaced by the national center for missing and exploited children as a result of hurricane katrina and rita and it took six and a half months to reach not reunite the last child separated from her family in addition eleven hundred schools were closed immediately following hurricane katrina these statistics reveal the importance of examining the special needs of children in disasters a specific focus on children therefore is justifiably the commission's special concern although we took a pro active role in directing the creation of a commission concerning the well being safety and health of children in disasters and we had previously recognize the importance of assuring that thema addresses the needs of all vulnerable populations caught in this aster responsible for encouraging local and state governments to plan for evacuations of all special needs populations are post katrina emergency management reform act of two thousand and six required fema to appoint a disability coordinator to ensure that the needs of individuals with disabilities are properly addressed in a disaster the special needs population  also include hospital and nursing home patients who may not be able to move quickly because of their health the worst example during hurricane katrina involved thirty four people who died in a nursing home waiting for help for days in the heat of august without power air conditioning sanitation or running water at temperatures in the building approaching one hundred  ten degrees some of the elderly and disabled in new orleans simply drowned when they were left behind the new york times reported on the work of dr and co and a position in the middle of the of physicians who was working in the middle of hurricane katrina and was also forced to make several difficult decisions in the absence of clear standards of care for very sick patients trapped in her hospital since hurricane katrina dr pao has been a leading proponent for changing the law and establishing a standard of care in the event disaster or pandemic persons with disabilities are two are the third largest sorry the third largest minority group in the united states numbering over thirty two million if people with impairments are included the number increases to over fifty one million in addition there are approximately five million disabled children and youth under the age of eighteen after hurricane katrina congress recognized that the disabled must receive special focused of children in particular in a disaster children and other vulnerable populations have unique needs that demand focused action plans that inch that ensure the same survival for them in this aster as for other americans several of the witnesses today have stories to share that were reminded us of what is a stake for children and citizens with disabilities and why is there must be no more delay in building a comprehensive plan for addressing the needs of our children and other vulnerable populations in a disaster i welcome today's witnesses look forward to their testimony and i'm pleased to hear any opening remarks from our ranking member mr diaz but let me thank you first and i'm showing for holding this important hearing as a floridian this is the kind of hearing that hits home literally hits home last month we held a hearing on the on the integrated public alert and warning system and whether those with disabilities or those with limited english proficiency are are able to article receive alerts and warnings came storm or other disaster is coming now unfortunately we found that much work still remains to be done today we're focusing more broadly on the issues whether merge the preparation response and recovery if those efforts have adequately or do adequately address the needs of the very young of the elderly and others who varied others who may have also a number of different special needs in two thousand and four president bush issued an executive order establishing that it is a policy of the federal government to ensure the needs of individuals with disabilities are incorporated in the planning for disasters in two thousand and eight congress allison national commission on children disasters to study and report on the need of children in preparing for and for and to respond after disasters congress also charged the national council on disability with examining the inclusion of people with disabilities in emergency preparation and establish a disability corner within fim so there have been some efforts and there's obviously there's obviously been some emphasis from both the executive and also congress not withstanding these efforts and unfortunately work still remains to be done for example according to the national council on disability many emergency managers and people with disabilities remain unprepared for a  disaster and disaster planning continues without full consultation or even participation of people with disabilities which is obviously contrary to what we're trying to do and as hot as highlighted in the national commission on children and absolutely unacceptable because the consequences as the chairman was saying a little while ago can be very dire and tragic folly following hurricane katrina thousands of children were separate from their families and there are so many accounts of individuals with disabilities and seniors who were unable to evacuate and we've seen and we know what's resulted from that scenario with nearly half of our population living with disability or under the age of eighteen we must ensure that the interest and the needs of these individuals are fully fully incorporated in our planning in our response to and recovery from disasters and as we will here today each of these categories of individuals whether it's children or seniors people with disabilities have unique unique issues that must be examined and addressed in our emergency management system again as as it sure when so eloquently said a little while ago balart in light of the fact that the author of the bill has arrived and is a subcommittee chair in a parallel committee i'm going to ask mr brown if he has any opening remarks in this  chair thank you all committee let me join this hearing today this subcommittee this is a very important topic in my home state of florida we deal with the aftermath of hurricanes every year and have struggled to deal with the unique needs of these vulnerable populations i look forward to listening to the comments made by then and found this and to move forward on this very important issue as to how to check out the nation's children elderly citizens and the with special needs doing a major disaster in particular i want to think mocs private but his leadership the children commission thank you nearly two years ago i worked to pass the kids wish act a a nation's commission on children and disaster the commission who's represented to months rather is here today to report back to us on these most important fantasy and recommendations and what ha have you done in the two years of stella to examine the root causes and challenges as they relate to the needs of children doing and after all hazards disaster and emergences join the events and aftermath of hurricane katrina our nation so the tremendous gap in our emergency management response and recovery we saw this to be is specially true with regards to children and the children these are unique and are not as easy to carry out in an emergency planning for adults congress as a body of work and along with numerous groups work on this extremely important issue here today must again if i invest in prepare response and recovery plans for children to ensure that what we saw during hurricane katrina does not happen again i want to repeat we in congress have to make sure that what happened with hurricane  never happens again in this country perhaps what is most troubling to me about the current state of emergency preparedness system as it relates to our children's questions to this day remain an answer for example will issue to have diapers baby food and children medication there from a sex offenders in the shelter how do disaster survivors find their children if they're separated during an evacuation certainly if anyone has the answers to think about all the various needs of rhodri he or she will quickly realize that many of our communities schools in state and local emergency managers do not have the concrete answers so over the past two years this new commission the nation's commission on children and disaster work to come up with solutions to these questions and understand that just then to make children an immediate priority to disaster planning so again i look forward to hearing on the palest a day and in particular the recommendations being put forward by the commission so that we can implement as soon as possible i have instructed my staff to draft the commission recommendation into legislation and i hope that we as a congress are able to turn them into law thank you again madam chairwoman for this opportunity to participate in this in their important discussion  here back the balance of my time thank you very much mr representative brown's to carnahan you have any opening remarks thank you madam chairman just briefly i want to thank you and large for holding this important hearing thank you would insist for being here and really shining a light on special needs individuals in the event of natural disasters whether that be children the elderly disabled or others  this is a very important component of our overall preparedness and i thank you for contributing to that we definitely from looking back i can tell we need to have a more holistic approach a more comprehensive approach to incorporating these special needs and i have the stickler interest being a representative from the to missouri in terms of how our state is hit and in particular in our region along the mississippi river we are among the most frequented states for natural disasters floods tornadoes were on the new madras fault line and we had a bout of ice storms not long ago so we've been hit by many but some of the same issues each of the witnesses for your testimony today there's probably not one among us at least here in the washington area that doesn't remember you know having a child being separated from a child on nine eleven and the confusion that that caused and the need for the kind of coordinated response that you'll be testifying to today my son was actually in fact on capitol hill on that day and i remember as a parent being very concerned about  to get to him in the wake of that disaster and of course these disasters that we have to prepare for are both natural disasters and their manmade disasters we need only point to the experiences of the oklahoma city bombing in the vulnerability of children in that disaster in any number of natural disasters whether hurricanes tornadoes fires and the like and so i appreciate your testimony today just yesterday i was out in prince george's county in maryland with first responders looking at the kind of advanced technology that they have to identify places institutions elder care facilities assisted living facilities child care facilities schools of greatest vulnerability and using their technology to make sure that they have their eye on the pulse when it comes to coordinating response in the event of of an emergency and obviously we need that in know our own districts but certainly in our states and in our region the tragedy of hurricane katrina and these other disasters really point to the need to coordinate response for our most vulnerable  populations children the elderly elderly disabled those who are in need of immediate medical attention who might be separated from from their providers and so i hope today that we're also able to look forward at a set of standards  training and assistance for child care providers and for those who work in assisted living and other facilities with these vulnerable populations who often report that they're at a loss as to what they might do in a more in an emergency situation and so i look forward to learning from you today and to working with my colleagues and thank you especially to the leadership of representative brown to make certain that we consider these vulnerable populations in all of our emergency planning and i yield the balance of long time thank you we will hear testimony in the order in which you are sitting first to manning deputy administrator national preparedness director ri german norton ranking member diaz and those distinguished members of the subcommittee good afternoon it's a privilege to be before you here today on behalf of fema department homeland security and i'm glad to join my colleagues from the red cross national council on disability and the national commission on children and disasters mussel pleased to report to you that femurs established the children's working group as of august two thousand and nine to serve as the agency's primary advocate for children the working group is responsible for ensuring that children's needs are incorporated into all of our disaster preparedness response and recovery efforts and coordinates the resources necessary to meet the needs of children in times of disaster the group is chaired by a very senior member of the department's leadership team and as its members represent all sectors of fema specifically the children's working group is focused on the following key areas child specific guidance for evacuation shelter and relocation disaster related needs of children with disabilities tracking  families coordinated case management support and hands preparedness for child care centers and hence national planning clearing the incorporation of children into national planning scenarios and exercises incorporation of children's needs into grant guidance improved recovery coordination across the federal government with state tribal and local partners in support of children's education health and housing consideration as to how the federal family can help ensure childcare centers are able to rebuild and restore services more quickly following a disaster and increased public awareness efforts to educate families and protect children during disasters historically the us has approached disaster planning by focusing heavily on the needs of what we may refer to as the general population and is not devoted sufficient advanced attention to those who may have special needs and thus require special specific immediate attention in a crisis and chairwoman team is changing this paradigm we believe the children the elderly persons with disability and other special needs populations must be fully and consistently integrated into preparedness efforts and planning efforts at every level of government from the beginning we must not avoid we must avoid putting planning considerations specific to those with special needs in a separate box and instead build better disaster response and recovery plans that account for the fact that those with special needs comprise a significant percentage of the population one of our top goals is to institutionalize this procedure crosser agency and throughout emergency management in december two thousand and seven congress created the bipartisan national commission on children and disasters the commission of the commission is evaluate existing laws regulations policies and programs that affect children's and disasters and we have received the interim report and look forward to the final report in two thousand and ten he has been meeting with the commission regularly and looks forward to working with the committee and congress in implementing the commission's recommendations rather than waiting to move forward however femurs establish the children's working group allowing us to address the commission's recommendations in a proactive manner for example we have participated in the creation of a shelter supply list in concert with the commission the red cross and other subject matter experts in emergency management pediatric care this list identifies the basic supplies necessary to sustain and support ten infants and children up to three years of age for two a twenty four hour period commission recommends state local jurisdictions provide caches of the supplies to support the chair care of children and mast care shelters for a minimum of seventy two hours if you miss build a strong network of both public and private partner organizations that will help unify and strengthen our combined capabilities for instance f worked with the national center for missing and exploited children to establish a national emergency child locator center if you miss working hardly hard to ensure that its own basic planning addresses special needs populations that we are supporting in assisting our states tribes and localities in this regard we are reinforcing the critical need and during the for personal preparedness to encourage individuals and families to adequately prepare themselves for disaster events recognizing that better individual preparedness translates into better community preparedness and resilience and sharing conclusion fim in the department of homeland security are committed to advancing our nation's preparedness by emphasizing the disaster needs of our nation's most vulnerable citizens our efforts must begin with personal preparedness a process of individual thinking and consideration of basic steps that each of us and our families must take to event and prepare for the next disaster in times of crisis government plays a critical role in coordinating the response and recovery efforts especially in protecting and providing for the most vulnerable members of our population members of our communities with special needs cannot simply fall to secondary planning considerations must be one of the central focuses of our planning response and recovery thank you madam chairman members of the subcommittee for allowing me to testify today i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you very much deputy administrator manning now before we go to mr schreiber i know that our very busy full committee chairman has come by this hearing we very much appreciate his being here for whatever time he can devote and i think it is an indication of the offer his own comments which i will ask him to do at this time thank you madam chair i don't want to interrupt the flow of testimony but i do want to welcome the commission that especially mark shriver dedicated that the service she was the inspiration for it to start she came for its dedication and there is a facility in her name the eunice shriver swimming pool which is something she suggested for physically intellectually challenged persons and it is regularly used not only by those who are resident at the center but also people of the community she is known and loved and her memory treasured  in was a minnesota and elsewhere around the country at an event that we had just recently i noted frequently i would see sarge and eunice and mark at mass giving of himself to great public causes thank you you were the inspiration for this legislation to create a commission and welcome your testimony here thank you for your continuing contribution with disabilities we will hear next from the chairman of the national commission on children in disasters and shriver thank you very much thank you very much madam chair and congressman oberstar thank you very much for your kind congressman carnahan congress woman edwards and of course this congresswoman brown thank you for your leadership on this issue you really picked up the ball and made it happen in the house under this committee and i'm we're awfully grateful for your support a couple of years ago in making this hat hearing happened today i am mark shriver i am chair of the national commission on children in disasters and it really is an honor to be here up at this panel to discuss this very important issue madam chair i think the last ten years when you look at in so many for so many of us especially for children this will be remembered as the disaster decade our kids have looked at t v and from their windows the scene skyscrapers collapsing communities underwater entire neighborhoods leveled by tornadoes or engulfed by fire and during so many of those events children have been left vulnerable because of a disaster management system that treats them as little adults and doesn't account for their unique needs you've heard as you said madam chair some of the statistics that are truly appalling after katrina took up to six months to reunify the last child with their family after i can do stop shelters didn't have enough supplies including diapers formula and cribs and many cases children are not counted separately from the general population in a number of shelters making it difficult to provide supplies and services to meet their specific needs research conducted just a few months ago showed that only seven states meet the basic child protection standards for schools and childcare facilities across this country and the statistics and new orleans after katrina and rita show that there were fifteen thousand seven hundred thirty one day care slots had two hundred sixty six licensed centers before the storm hit and a year after eighty percent of those centers and seventy five percent of those slots were still gone and we often wonder why new rowland's has not had the economic development that it need when you don't have childcare centers childcare facilities up and running families with young children will not come back to work children represent twenty five percent of the american population there are seventy four million kids under the age of eighteen eighteen and under we need to put their lives and wellbeing at the front and center of the federal government and its partners have not made children a higher priority than tat's in disaster planning and management and i gotta say madam chair that's outrageous instead children are considered at risk or special needs population and they're grouped in among the elderly persons with disabilities the medically dependent persons with limited english proficiency proficiency yet they make up twenty five percent of the american population consequently they are given less attention and resources when disaster plans are written and exercise when equipment and supplies are purchased congresswoman edwards you spoke about that but those efforts are not given and not addressed for children so congress created is we've already discussed a national commission on children and disaster to look at this cycle of benign neglect we did issue our interim report last week we gave it to president obama and members of congress and the as the interim report identified a couple of disaster shortcomings in disaster preparedness response and recovery and provides recommendations to make children an immediate priority in disaster planning for the purposes of today's hearing i would focus quickly on just a few of the twenty one recommendations provided in the interim report the first one madam chair is to incorporate children as an immediate priority within the white house and the federal emergency management agency the white house plays a central role in leadership in coordinating role and advise in the president's and on matters affecting national security including disaster the commission has recommended the president that coordinating council be formed composed of senior white house staff and collaborating with the national search city council domestic policy council and national security staff to serv focal point for presidential policy development specific to children in disasters as legislators i would ask you to ask those entities whether they ever hear about children's needs in planning for responding to disasters and i will tell you the answer is unequivocally no they don't hear at the higher levels of government about children's needs fema also plays a central role in coordinating support does during disaster plan and management for partners communities and citizens and ten spoke a little bit about that commissioner if you get created a children's working group that serves as a centralized platform across the agency but as to mention this just started in august of last year and i hope that as legislators you will keep pressure on fema to make sure that that children's working group has access to the administrator and really does focus on children's needs we talked about child care centers we second recommendation is to provide a safe and secure emergency shelter environment for children including access to age appropriate services and supplies commission facilitated the development as tim mentioned of the standards in indicators for disaster care for children this is being piloted in by the american red cross in american samoa during the one nine hundred during the two thousand  hurricane season standards and indicators will be evaluated and revised as necessary incorporate in a comprehensive document to provide general shelter guidelines and training for shelter managers and staff the commission also facilitated the development of a list of age shabelle shelter supplies for infants and toddlers based on this list federal state and local disaster supplies can be created or expanded to support shelter managers with essential costs reimbursable supplies like baby formula diapers and cribs the third recommendation is that congress should require tougher preparedness requirements for child care providers and increased support for child care services in the immediate aftermath of and covering from a disaster congress can take immediate steps to prioritize child care and disaster preparedness response and recovery include a requirement of the reauthorization the child care and development block grant that requires child care providers to have comprehensive all hazard material plans that at a minimum incorporate specific capabilities such as sheltering in place evacuation relocation family reunification and accommodation of children with special needs required child care provider disaster plans to be coordinated with state and local disaster operation plan to provide reimbursement from the stafford act to support child care services to displaced families establishment of temporary disaster child care and repair of reconstruction of child care facilities and we know madam chair th it is looking at that issue but i would ask that the committee work to make sure that that decision is expedited we don't have to wait finally and all wrapped up the federal government must take make up its mind to establish a single holistic disaster case management program with an emphasis on achieving positive outcomes for all children and families after katrina and rita the federal government provided least two hundred ninety million dollars for disaster case management services these programs had poor outcomes and illuminated the need for greater coordination of programs evaluation in the provision of disaster case management services commission recognizes that fema has as authorized for pilot disaster case management programs following gustava night but it is unacceptable that after a year fema and its partner still haven't worked out a case management system that is comprehensive affective and deployed in a rapid manner and in conclusion the commission strongly believes that the best way to instill public confidence in the way our nation prepares for response to a coverage from a disaster is to make sure the needs of children are immediate priority in the aftermath of a disaster effectively providing for safety and well being of kids provide greater stability and help families and communities recover thank you madam chair members of the commission for this time to talk and we look forward to working with you on legislation that will make it a better situation for kids all across the country thank you mr driver and especially for your work in chairing this commission the next witness is john von of the chair of the national council on disability mr vaughan madam chairwoman ranking member balart and members of the subcommittee on behalf of the national council on disability thank you for the opportunity to talk about this critical issue here in our country  the testimony i will offer today is based on n d and cities work in emergency preparedness that started back in two thousand and three simply put it in c d s interest is in a coherent national disaster framework that is inclusive of people with disability when we say coherent we are in visioning leadership that involves the fact of government coordination and collaboration across federal state and local levels of government when we say inclusive we are talking about a transparent ongoing consideration of people with disabilities within the same three mark as non disabled people according to the u s census bureau approximately fifty four million americans have disabilities the incidence of disability cuts across all age groups i'll never there is a cool crowd however there is a greater prevalence of disability as people age for example middle age people have a disability rate of about twenty two percent sixty five year olds about forty four percent and over eighty some seventy five percent by two thousand and thirty the population of people sixty five and older will nearly double comprising nearly twenty percent of the u s population as a consequence it is likely that disability will touch every american's life either personally or through that of a loved one so when we talk about considerations of special needs populations and times of disaster we are really talking about a topic that affects or touches every american i would like to note two of the major policy gaps we've identified through our research one there's a lack of involvement of people in all aspects in all phases of disability planning in the community and throughout the lifecycle of an emergency secondly there is a lack of available resources to local communities to address the merges the concerns in the local community affecting all people and especially those with disabilities here are a few of quick examples these illustrate these gaps one people with disabilities are routinely dis routinely kept from being involved in local drills preparedness exercises and other planning processes to one study noted that thirty disaster sites only twenty seven percent percent of the emergency managers had taken advantage of and completed available training on disability people with disabilities remain largely forgotten during the response phase of a disaster and for the warnings for people with disabilities is woefully inadequate most disaster warnings are only handled through a conventional communication system which is usually inaccessible to people with cognitive hearing and vision disability from our research it is clear that much work needs to be done in order to build a coherent and inclusive national management framework we would suggest the following that fellow following federal grant incentives be used to ensure the direct involvement of people with disabilities in state and local funding proposals to fema and to d h s s under such an approach judging of state and local funding proposals would establishing benchmarks and and evaluation criteria that demonstrate quite inclusion and demonstrate that they will address the needs of people with disabilities the challenge is faced by people with disabilities during emergencies shouldn't and these shouldn't be viewed as a special interest group because planning for an accommodating people with disabilities offer often means that we're better equipped to serve all people during an emergency history has taught us that failure to plan for inclusion is a plan to fail we thank you for the opportunity to be with you and we will look forward to any questions thank you mr vaughan final witness is trevor regan senior director of direct services american red delivery for the american red cross when disaster strikes the american red cross is there to provide shelter food critical resources and support to those in need our first priority is to ensure that those affected have a safe place to stay food to eat and the tools they need to start the recovery how are organizations and the sector as a whole meet these challenges can go a long way toward ensuring a more effective and inclusive relief effort to benefit those in need moving forward as the ranking member mentioned there's a lot of work ahead of us to meet the critical challenge the concerns laid out in both the enemy report by the commission and then cd to build on and on that important work to come today with four key recommendations one government local agencies plan for more permanent housing solution is critical that families with children the elderly and people disabilities are prioritized for assistance to the children are best served if the regular routine of their day to day life can be restored as quickly as possible therefore we recommend that we all work together to sure schools can open as quickly as possible after disaster our third recommendation is we support accelerating the development of a national recovery framework this important recess resource will help to coordinate the vast number of agencies that are willing to come forward for long term recovery and finally children the elderly and people with disabilities must be considered as distinct populations and not part of a larger special needs category this lack last recommendation is would like to focus on the rest of my time over time the term special needs has become a catch all for any person who may need additional services be on the quote unquote average survivor as a result disaster plans have become a lengthy list of a panda sees an attempt to capture the multitude of possibilities and needs created by disasters the assumption that the majority of persons fit in the average or one size fits all category has proven to be false and plans to meet the needs of this entire community must change accordingly in short special needs is not an adequate description as we all agree children are not small adults and people disabilities and the elderly have distinct needs that demand our attention over the past four years the red cross has made significant improvements on our focus to these  like n c d save the children and family we are beginning to both define the needs and build those requirements into our general planning one example this is the proper resourcing of our shelters based on the analysis of critical barriers and we have strategically stockpiled key resources to increase accessibility and provide critical durable medical corpsman to our clients this includes items such as transferable cots adaptive equipment for showers and toilets and essential communications equipment the red cross is also currently working with them on a development of a national capability to resource shelter with caregivers this will assist local government in the identification of a qadri that will help fill that gap for the daily living assistance many of our clients require and deserve additionally we have implemented important training to enhance workers awareness and our technical ability for assisting those with disabilities and the elderly over five thousand red cross volunteers have been trained so far and we anticipate even further enhance to this particular moving forward most recently we  closely with the commission on children in disasters to develop some exciting tools because by the standards and best practices for children shelters this includes the much needed supply a list of critical items we need when disaster strikes and cleaning diapers formula bedding and other basic necessities are beginning now to aggressively move forward a resource or chapter structure with the identified supplies for children and find the appropriate balance of both caches of the supplies and locally accessible items through partners and vendors a great example of this work is right here in the d c area our local chapter the national capital region has worked closely with the national organization on disability to ensure that services and shelters are accessible to people with disabilities and this includes review of all shelters for accessibility and identification of specific items that would create a barrier to anyone needing access the chapters also receive key government funding secure additional equipment and supplies here locally and conclusion madam chairwoman a distinguished members thank you for allowing us to testify today we must all plan to serve our entire community after disaster and i thank you for your interest or concern is important issue i look forward to any questions you may have that thank you mr reagan so i thank all the witnesses a very helpful testimony and i'm going to ask one overriding question of witnesses then i'm going to go to the ranking member and to other members with for i ask another set of questions i have when we are concerned about  clear people don't come in ones into zeese some might have thought that this report would be called in its head had there been any other disaster it would probably have been called  families and children there are very few children in foster care and if they are they also not suppose to be unsupervised i want to make sure that in fighting the last war we are also fighting the next war the same is true mr vaughan when it comes to people with disabilities most of them do not live alone i was particularly impressed mr von statham only about the elderly because a good number of them live alone and would be absolutely helpless if there were a disaster they live alone they get around their homes well enough they may even go to the store and do some things for themselves would you tell them to be a shelter x we're in trouble and they are in trouble so i am a little concerned that and focusing on people of a specified group whether those people are children or people with disabilities we may lose sight of the context in which the where they live i will be very personal with you i have a child who is now a woman with down's syndrome she is thirty nine years old and i am pleased and proud that she lives with me and so far as i can make possible always will live with me but i believe it catherine if there were terrible hurricane in washington lovely institute of for the drama and such that she goes to every day so that the chances are at least given the hours that i have and the hours and many parents have that would be there children than to how we treated families moreover our focus on children comes before because when they when we found so many children disconnected from the living unit we were not prepared to deal with them as disconnected children we didn't have the supplies we didn't have the personnel we didn't have the focus so you would help me in looking at these groups which we see as disparate we think children and families may live in one way but we don't and we want to focus on film with families who have to be handled in one way we see that there will be a special focus for people who are disabled and elderly but when you consider the disability coordinator the recommendations so far of the commission and others i would like to know whether your recommendations conceive of them in the units where they are located or should be located were it not for the disaster and what your recommendations have what recommendation you have to us about dealing with first family or whether it is natural family or other reunification as a function of whatever services we think we are supposed to provide so beginning with you mr manning i would like all four of you to address the notion of of the units in which these people that we're discussing today will either already part of or should be a part of if we are to provide them with the services they need after a disaster then i go down the line thank you madam chair i think that is of course the the most crucial part of our planning and our failure to plan in the past that we have built a planning system for disaster preparedness for emergency preparedness that focuses on the general population and then when we recognize or we communicate with our partners that we have at the table today that bring to our attention that we have forgotten about a segment of our population we tend to respond by the clues and of an additional planning guidance or the recommendation that we write an additional plan to support provide for those members of the community what we've recognized is that what we need is a better way to plan we need a better system from the ground up so that we incorporate the needs of all the members of the community all the members of our society not a particular disability group or children as an annex or an afterthought or an add on to our plans and our preparedness activities but one that cross cuts from the beginning administrate if you get used the example of having been offered the opportunity to buy a certain number of cots for sheltering and then a certain number of eighty eight compliant cots and he asked the question why am i buying two sets of cots why don't we just buy cots and then there are available they are available and for use by everyone is that kind of thinking that needs to permeate what we do it's a new way of doing business and it's one that we will we are undertaking with great speed and due diligence to bring across the entire mission of fema an emergency management thank you as many of the greatest to keep their children with them no matter what and then lots of things they can themselves once you with your mom or your provider mr driver madam chair i think that  we need to do a better job addressing the issue you've talked about i mean you look at i mention the child care issue and the child care facilities that weren't rebuilt in new orleans and that are part of the reason that city is still struggling so i don't think we've looked comprehensive at the needs of families if that is what your question is getting at so we rebuild or put dollars through the stafford act for facilities for levees for schools but if you have a little kid we have a four year old if you have a little kid who's going to school in second grade and there's no place to put your four year old you're not going move back to new orleans or you're not going to move to d c so we don't i don't think look comprehensively at the needs of families in children within those families childcare facilities here in washington d c if a dirty bomb were to drop and you were evacuated in your daughter were to go to a different place the facility that she's at or the place that she works at i don't know if they're clear on where they're going to evacuate your child where your child is and how your child is going to be reunified with you if your phones are jammed is there a backup plan for your daughter to reach out to another family member so we don't set minimum requirements for child care facilities across this country or other facilities whether it's a juvenile detention facility or the place where your daughter is i would be willing to bet you right now does not have a comprehensive accusation plan in place because the city th city does not require it and most states in this country don't require it so they're not looking at kids needs within the family structure and when it is a child care facility i have great respect is that she was demanding that most cities don't have an evacuation plan for special needs to philly and i'm sure that is a local requirement and that is most likely true that the vast majority do not and i'm talking for your daughter but also through child care shelter child care facilities across this country it's not uniform in washington d c we've actually working with the councilman evans right now to try to get legislation that makes those basic standard or requirements part of the law and it's a no cost or low cost alternative so we're not looking at children within the families deal with hundreds of country care facilities which deal with hundreds of thousands of kids in this city and millions of kids across this country  i think the present leadership of fame is done a great job looking at children's needs and they've only been in office for four months but unfortunately when we respond or when there was a response to american samoa when fema sent a team out there they did not take within the department of health and human services the administration for children and families which focusing on children's needs they took aspirin which focuses in on the health needs but it's not focused in on the needs of children you know we can go back and forth about why that didn't happen you know i have great admiration for the administrator but i think that should have been part of the plan we should be looking at not just the health needs of people impacted in america samoa but have experts on the ground that understand the needs of children the mental health needs of children if your daughter gets separated from you for hours if not days that's going to cause some real issues for you and your daughter mad and if your kid is two years old and separat the mental issues that they're going to have to deal with a five or six year old if their home is washed away if they don't have the resources there to deal with that i think the answer is we have a lot of work to do and making sure the children are in particular in the case going on to clarify the childcare centers can receive assistance in the event of disaster or for that matter that the kinds of places where kids hang out like boys and girls clubs or even our own head start centers would qualify to receive assistance in the wake of a disaster madam chairwoman yes there are currently facilities that meet those descriptions that are private non profits or non governmental organizations are eligible for disaster assistance and we are exploring how we may be able to extend assistance  beyond those facilities where you have for profit facilities that they are excluded and we are looking at that currently it's meant to thank you mr manning it's very important that we focus where the children are in families or in these other facilities and mr von i was impressed by what you said and regard to the question i have asked because you mention the elderly and people with disabilities i mean we have people with very first disability you know somebody who is completely blind who goes to work every day is very different from someone who has to stay at home because he is so hard of hearing that he does not and has nobody to go out with him or the elderly person i mentioned earlier  are my written testimony to the committee we we talk about the holistic planning that needs to occur at the national local state level and whether it be making sure  local level that there's temporary housing to deal with the needs of families who get displaced or whatever i think it gets back on a lot of these to me and i think in our recommendation that we need to get availability of grants to get that kind of planning done i suspect that i serve on and then in florida where i live on the local disability committee and one one issue just came up the other day i mean the issues keep coming up this had to do with the rising problem of children with autism and the impact on shelters so i think everything gets be very holistic and i really really believe that there's just got to be more effort because i think what we've heard from all four of us that a lot of it's not getting done in the local communities and living in florida like i do in the west coast we have four hurricanes four years ago and one year so you better be looking after your own needs but it's got to be a holistic approach to the needs functional needs of everybody as it is as a blind person a portion of the my wife is cited but in a hurricane i could become where i'm having to fend for what you think how the how to how people handle in the context i want to thank the chairman for this question because i think this really gets at the crux of the issue we're talking about today the the family structure in a shelter is very important and i'll start with the shelters and part of the recommendations we work with commission and we're starting to develop now is to ensure that families are held together in shelters very closely and that we're making sure that children are both protected in the family structure remained contained remains its resilience after disaster which is extremely important five did you find in katrina that sometimes the parents because it was so many people you know were made to sleep on cots here in the children on cots someplace else in the children's section or something of that kind it is an extreme in specially in large disasters or large shelters it's extremely challenging throughout a day when the resources are coming into the shelter or the parents have to leave the shelter to get resources and services the children do get cordoned off sometimes and that's we're trying to get that's what we're trying to avoid we want to get the family structure  back and worst case scenarios we don't want shelters to split up based on need we don't want one part of the family to go to a special needs shelter and one part of the family to be a general population shelter we want the family to stand back and have each type of shelter be able to absorb that that population that's extremely critical the other piece on and remain in the family as the pictures we have over here to the right are from american samoa and this is our partnership with save the children on the ground there is some great work on working with children which you don't see as the case work that happens in the village and this is because we have to go to the family and every family is different disabilities can take all forms they can be cognitive mental physical issues of the elderly in that family can be different the family size can vary and so the individual case work of sending a worker a volunteer to sit down with the family and have them listen to the story what are your needs how can best meet those needs if we can keep a family in their home that since them forward on recovery much quicker than having them have to move to shelter weeks later so the case we're peace is extremely important the paraphrase it but he basically stated that that when you know when you when you plan and you do a better job with people with disabilities or you help everybody because everybody benefits everybody does well everybody  planned for better have a couple questions for mr manning the integrated planning system has been pretty widely criticized by this committee as you know an emergency management community as well as being too complicated the labor intensive just difficult to implement at the state and local levels are there are you with can be replaced are you looking at that scenario a scenario based system with an all hazards type approach as opposed to what we have now and the idea what the status is on that the integrated planning system is under review it's being reviewed the review is being led by the national security staff and the disaster readiness group which fema on the department online security well number of chairs the emergency unit management community has had a tradition of doing all hazards based planning where we do a base plus and explaining we do a base plan for those things that crosscut all types of disaster then specific annexes to deal with the incident specific issues that is one of the more prominent options that's back on the table for the for future planning system there isn't a f disability in all aspects of the national preparedness system and how will you ensure that implements this obviously very important requirement and actually chordates with the  d in the planning and preparation for disasters which we've heard is not quite there yet so we we do have a very close working relationship and i was count national council on disability and as we come in i'm sorry i'll move closer as we come into the the review of the national response framework for will be beginning shortly and there will be a disability community as well as all of the people representing all factions of our  hearings on the subject that a great deal of discussion about it and i think we have just put some language rather than all these things that the commission has recommended can be done if you look at the forward's sastre manager recovery mental  health child physical health and trauma and so on all of those can be done by executive order you know how long it takes for executive orders to make their way through you know how long it takes to go through the federal register process and the amount s of documentation that they take and months of publication of notice of advance notice of proposed notice of proposed rule making proposed rule making final rule making already that could be years i think we just put some directive language in our bill in consultation with the minority members of the republican members of the committee and take these well thought out recommendations in in in policy statement and direct fema to move on them i don't think we i don't think we can wait i don't think children can wait i don't think as you rightly pointed out older  persons persons older than children persons with other disabilities and you touch my heart so deeply with the story about your daughter the center that i talked about the range center has numerous down syndrome children who are being wonderfully cared for but if we don't get hurricanes in northern minnesota we've we get blizzards and white outs and if one of those should strike and people should be locked in there as happens we have a similar situation would be  hell of a lot colder than during hurricanes so we we have an opportunity here and i think we ought to just move ahead with this do it by legislation germans impatien is well placed it seems to me in light of the committee's report and the testimony we've heard today and that this subcommittee will work quickly mr chairman in light of what you've said mr carro have you any questions important hearing and i'd like to thank again your sustained attention as demonstrated by this series of hearings related to disaster response and recovery especially what happened in my district during hurricane katrina and now i'm sure you're absolutely right one of the greatest tragedies of hurricane katrina was the needless suffering of children the disabled and those with special needs  i've heard i've heard of terrible stories from my constituents about their experiences during hurricane katrina and let me just tell you a couple here an elderly woman was in my home area of shift evacuation center where he died while waiting for medical most to treat his diabetes and those are just a couple of stories that basically explain  one of the biggest problems that i've seen so far deals with the questions of recovery especially in the area helping those who who are mentally ill those where we have shortfalls in our plans and getting schools reopened to get a sense of normalcy in the community get students back into their where they can learn where they have their period support groups is absolutely critical we were  certainly nowhere near the magnitude fortunately of what your constituents went through in the rianna in american samoa within a week we were able to get all but one or two of the schools reopened and were able to get arrangements made for the students of those schools to attend others in the short we have made the restoration of essential services including schools one of the highest priorities in our stabilization of an incident as we transition from lifesaving to life sustaining operations we will continue to examine closely how we do how well we do how well our our partnership with the local and state governments and the nonprofit non governmental organizations is we come together as a as a team to respond to disasters where we can be better and modify our plans instituted ition additional training in and ensure that the needs of our most vulnerable citizens are met as quickly as actually i experience that difficulties myself i remember driving all over the district trying to find a place where i can have people care for my two daughters and it was a very slots in child care facilities in new orleans and i know that that is an ongoing issue and i know it was an issue in mississippi as well i think that the real question is a clarification of roles in what services are to be delivered for recovery and who is supposed to deliver those so if it's child care facilities and to be rebuilt is that siemens responsibility mental health services and case management services i think are all very critical components to recovery not only in louisiana but across the country how many dollars should be put into those different traunch is and who is responsible for implementing those so you see not only in the gulf coast but you see last year as well after i can do stuff of that the issue of case management who is responsible for a case manager what is case management mean is that theme is responsibility and is finding shelter housing constitute a successful closure of a case where you need mental health services do you need health services child care services and i think that that is something that you and your oversight and responsibilities as elected officials should really work thema to clarify that and i think to defend fema that they have not had great clarity in that in the past and i think you know the ministry of few gate has done a good job trying to get children's needs as part of the overall plan as compared to an addendum to a plan but i think that those issues of case management is fema do you want them doing case management work mr mann can you provide a response to mr s certainly thank you we we are actively working with the health and human services to establish an interagency agreement that's going to resolve the issue of the case management by the end of the year we expect that now that's obviously that's not fast not because disastrous could happen at any moment we need to be able to do that this afternoon so we have worked with h h s to establish the prescriptive mission assignments we can do that today we can deploy this quickly today is correct in that we have not always been timely and there are sometimes we are dealing with h h s we make be focused we may focus in on the emergency exclusion of the the the other parts of the department and the other needs of the community we've recognized that we've taken steps to account for that and we have the ability to send that those facilities get reopened how do you come up with a plan for example to work out some of the issues in dealing with for example if the if the facility was insured under some private insurance plan  had those details been worked out miss you know that the the responsibility for the restoration for the reopening of childcare facilities is one that shared by the community for him as a role is one of supporting the governors in support of the local communities in response to a disaster we can certainly and do provide planning guidance to communities to be able to expedite that through the delivery of essential delivery of assist services and disaster assistance can expedite that as well where a facility won't have won't have the means to reestablish themselves we can assist in that as well we do consider child care centers when operated by private non profits to be performing an essential government service and we'll work with them and then going forward look at rule making to clarify that as well i think  is really pointing out the difference between and i think mr shriver is comments go to this to you know if the child care if they're in a child care facility then we need to make sure the childcare facility knows what to do  the need for childcare facilities of the family is fortunate to go back to work and there's no standing in child care facility whether it is one she used before or not then of course case management as fallen very short mr brown thank you madam chair let me just say that i think katrina will go down as one of the worst disasters in the history of the united states not just that it was one of the worst disasters it was one of the worst responses and of course you so a government that was incompetent  you know thousands of people got killed that should not have happened and you know what lessons have we learned but one of the things that was encouraging was how the communities came together and work together m community came together and communities came together all over the country and we sent ten tractor trailers full of you know we call and say what do you need we need diapers we need a war or whatever they need it we put it on those tractor trailers and we sent it to new orleans and we had the state reps there that unloaded and they should get out to the people and so there is you know the american people looked at it and this came from all over the country and it you know what can we do this could be us and so we've got to make sure i've made it my business to go there at least twice a year and i'm getting ready to go there again the first of november as telling their member lodge i want to come and see how we work and what we're doing and so mrs fryer if you can you give me you know your report i know you know it's lengthy but what recommendations what should i be looking for when i go the first of november its partners because it seemed that you know it was no one t one fight there in that whole region yes so i think that clearly the relationship fema has with its partners is much much better today than it ever has been and i think you've got a real sense not only the national commission but my other job working for save the children which does respond to disasters have a much better partnership with fema than we've ever had the door open partnerships are much stronger than it ever has been and there's a real change in the last four months since administrator few gate and mr manning in that team came on board and it's also true with the red cross there's much better partnership opportunities and much better responses than there's ever than there ever was clearly under katrina or as been in the past i think you can continue to ask about the partnership opportunities and put pressure on all of us to work better together i think you should ask in new orleans about the case management issues that are happening in the gulf coast i think you should ask about the case management response in texas as a result of last year's hurricanes are services being provided to families and kids that need those services was that done in a timely fashion mr manning talked about coming to grips with a comprehensive case management system set up by the end of this year i think you should ask about that i think you know after i can do stuff when last year there were and this is before the present administration was in there there were months and months of delay for case management being  services being delivered but if that happened in my family if if that happened to your family i think there'd be a lot of held to be paid and the bottom line is that unfortunately for too many families that are impacted by disasters they're poor many cases minority and they don't have a mouthpiece to get their message out so i think you could look and ask those questions about not only the case management after katrina which is ongoing and the mental health needs of the kids that are still in the gulf coast is so profound it's unbelievable and i'll send you congressman some of the statistics that are out there and the lack of resources for mental health services for those kids i think those are all questions you should be asking the federal government if they're going to provide those services the medical center that will put that this service is because they know that they had no possibility of complete hospital was wiped out and the veterans facility was wiped out but it will be the center and working with a group coordinating for the community so there is progress but we need to make sure that we continue the progress i agree with you congresswoman i think as mr diaz balart said at the beginning of his comments or and throughout his comments that there's still a lot of work that needs to be done no question thank you we should be asking the administration one of the lead recommendations that we that i spoke about and that's in the report is having folks that understand children's needs be part of the domestic policy council national security council and we've talked to those folks and they will tell you that those needs kids do not come to the forefront i've talked to members of congress have told me that after katrina there was a lot of focus on housing and on levees and rebuilding those in the infrastructure which is all critical but we forget about the human service needs and we forget about poor kids and we forget about the mental health the health services of those kids and we move on to the next disaster and it's almost been five years now and i think we need to ask this administration to really step in and address some of the glaring inadequacies in the planning for responding to and recovery of disasters generally but in particular the one that's still going on in new orleans which is still a disaster as we sit here today and speak just returned from haiti but there's a chance city right there in new orleans where families children live in under the bridges so there is a lot of work that we realize we still have to do to support the families this in those communities and madam chairwoman i want to thank you again all in this hearing and i'm looking forward to thoroughly review and the report from the commission thank you thank you ms brown for your leadership miss edwards thank you madam chairwoman i just have a couple of questions i want to you know when you think about the population twenty five percent children  eighteen and under twenty percent of our population with identified with disabilities at a minimum about twenty percent elder population you start adding those numbers although there's some overlap it's our population and so i really do share the the view i think expressed by each of you in different ways that when it comes to disaster management we do need to look holistically because we're talking about the population not a special population not a segregated population but really all of the population that requires a certain set of needs my question goes to a couple of things one i recall during during katrina because i did much more work around issues of domestic violence that many of our national domestic violence organizations were able to reach out to the administration for children and families not through fema to provide relief and relocation services for mostly a population of women and children who'd experienced domestic violence one of the things that was happening in new orleans is that those women and children who had to be evacuated from shelters were in fact moved to a place exactly where their abuser was and that present it and when you get to issues around case management there is a really clear need for case management because if you had a case manager who's looking holistically at the family and its needs that kind of placement actually would not have happened and there was some additional work done through the children for administrator and the administration for children and families it really was not fema related when it came to relocation of of some of that population and so i would just draw your attention to it i also am really concerned on this issue of standards and so i wonder if each of you might speak to that the kind of standards for preparedness that might be necessary for childcare providers but also long term care providers adult daycare facilities all of these sort of different kinds you know daycare arrangements for  for adults with with special intellectual and physical challenges and many of these kinds of institutions already regulated by the state and so how difficult would it be to encourage our states or facility or facilitate our state's ability to provide both tougher standards also the training and tools needed to paid effectively in in disaster disaster management efforts and so i wonder if you would speak to that and then and in some instances i know in the state of maryland most childcare is actually not provided in these you know more regulated child care facilities its home base child care even multiple children and home based child care and so i would be concerned if we're only focused on on ensuring the needs in that environment when we're missing the needs of a much bigger population for children have in reaching individuals and trying to increase individual and family preparedness community preparedness we would face we do face in reaching the the child care center that's based in the home that is maybe a we can issue that will address that what we can do is to continue to try to push on our individual and family preparedness initiatives in our partnerships with the team at state and local governments and private non profits throughout the community throughout the country to try to reach those at the same time as we work with the established and regulated child care facilities again as you mentioned they are regulated largely by state governments and in some cases municipal codes and it's not something that barring federal legislation we can reach from fema we have often success in implementing those types of programs through grant guidance but again as there aren't grant programs specifically designed for child care centers there's a population that's missed we plan to and are in currently incorporating the recommendations from the commission and our partners into the grant guidance that's going to our state and local partners and part of which will encourage the incorporation as we've discussed a plan of the entire society in our planning and this can be one as well but we've seen through the tragedies of school violence over the last number of years columbine and virginia tech and others that there has been a response by the secondary and higher education high school t's to do this planning to do safety planning they're required to there are grants for and they do it the the encouragement of child care facilities to do that same type of planning is a natural extension of that same school safety planning initiatives that we've had for our secondary elementary secondary and higher education facilities and i believe that we have success in encouraging that messaging  well in the state of maryland congresswoman in the last legislative session there was legislation introduced by senator frosh that was passed that said these basic requirements for the state of maryland they were supported by the department of human resources and the department of education as low cost or no cost alternatives these basic requirements this is for child care facilities also reaches into home based care as well because as you know they are regulated by the state they have less obviously kids in the home but you can have those standards why across the board and they've done it i believe in maryland as well for seniors centers as well so they are low cost to no cost alternatives you can tie federal dollars as i mentioned in my opening statement through the child care development block grant to any entity that's getting c d g be money to maintaining or reaching federal standards also you know you can this is not i would say not necessarily f responsibility the administration for children and families and their child care bureau ought to have conversations with them this is a team is part of the team but they i get it gets back to the clarification of roles i don't think they need to be driving that issue but should a c f be requiring that should they be setting the standards should they be finding what those standards are in him and setting those across the country the answer i think is yes i just i you know there's there was pushback as i testified on behalf of the bill in maryland and there was some concern about cost and the bottom line the fiscal note said there was no cost other states are doing this now including mississippi and alabama and they deal with both homebased and larger centers and that's why i specifically said child care facilities because it includes both the home based as well as the centers that serve more kids so i think you ought to you know bring in the administration for children and families and ask them what they're going to do on this issue as well and whether they have standards that should be implemented across the country and push them to do that management indeed one of my questions you mr manning is how many people are still listed as in case management from katrina and on the gulf coast this is been a very troublesome area for this committee which has had a number of hearings on the matter madam chairwoman i apologize i don't have that information today but i will provide it to you thirty days mr manning we will get us that is on that information you mentioned mr shriver the notion of case management need for what you call holistic case management we know from the hearings we've had that these families already dislocated and displaced have been compelled to go here and there are four services housing here health care there are no transportation  to get there or very scattered transportation and yet that is logistically very difficult as we have seen by the failure of both the states and fema in in this regard i wonder if you would indicate what you mean by holistic case management you know what would it consist of who would be involved would it only be the government would it be nonprofit how would you put together as thank you very much venture as you know fema has entered into relationships with i believe it's four different approaches to case management within the interim report which i'm happy to send you we can we spell out what holistic conference of case management is it includes health mental health nutrition education human service needs of kids and families does involve voluntary agencies that would provide case management services you see different examples of it as a result of the hurricanes that have gone through the gulf coast over the last four and a half years i don't want to go through the i mean do you mean that these would be working together in a group i mean these services all exist in some form or fashion whether they would only get to them that's correct and i think again what i would say is you i think you as your oversight capacity ought to be asking fema in the federal family or the federal government agencies that are working on case management what approach they're going to take that is comprehensive in nature and when are they going to make that decision by and i think it is just don't have let me go to mr manning on that z and a b and c you are here by constituting the case management group for the parish of x yes what you're all in the same group you're all under the same tent you want to say how and where to go you go together what keeps that from happening mr manning what are you doing to loud that to happen so that we don't have scattered services and are you working with nonprofits in the same group as for profits and in the same group as as the agencies of the state and thema itself how does that work with trying to plan a picture in our mind after having been frustrated over and over again by the same complaints about here and there and nonprofits couldn't even get into the mix so i need to know what your vision is of case management as directed by as i mentioned earlier when we are entering into an interagency agreement with h h s with the with a c s for exactly that we we are dissatisfied as well the we in the past have had a inconsistent approach clearly we share your frustration the long term solution and the reason that it is planned to take until the end of the year so that we can do exactly as you're describing incorporate fin outline of how this would operate we can't tell when the next hurricane is coming we think it is too late for a fact that asked that question and we are very fearful that we will be held just as responsibility as a new a because we've been asking if ever doesn't mean we we'll continue to tolerate what seems us to be maybe i'm making this over over simplistic let me ask mr riggins he's been in this business longer than government the red cross at least the services you provide in the contacts you have in the community together under one umbrella to work together you of course work with pharaoh which may have anything deed stable of you at least in the past have done so could you tell us something of your experience bringing together the several case i'm sorry services that you render as a part of red cross thank you thank you madam chairwoman is this is a great question and to build on the now getting to some of the real crux of caseworkers and that ability of organization to start with meet with families and not only identify the families themselves by defy their needs and then to share that information across agencies one of the biggest tragedies for families to have to tell their story twelve or thirteen times depending on who they're going to see on the red cross work with many other agencies after nine eleven to build a system called the coordinated assistance network which allows casework to flow between agencies so that if a client comes to the red cross tells the story expresses their needs that cases and been able to be seen by other agencies shared across the network so the families think go to see that agency and receive services as well in our case work and actively push those clients to those those resources as they become available the other thing we've done is to as a red cross as we've changed our strategy casework we've come much more holistic in our initial push casework must happen in the national we not much there has to be that ability go door to door to talk to families in need the elderly who are homebound people disabilities who can't get out of their homes or don't have the transportation we want to come to your front door have the conversation see what the needs are before the family starts to degrade before the the individual to be compensated and needs additional systems how do we get those resources the show up on day four on day five and then transition that data and recovery information to the case management whether they be federal local or state we want to provide that resource and be a holistic team to do that so as part of a caseworker we really reinvented is not only the caseworker but the health worker the mental health worker and then bring in the community and alongside with all their additional resources that we provide to our client in the weeks not months after disaster and i don't see the logistical problem we live in the age of video conference i had video conferences with with residents of the district of columbia in federal prison for god say i really don't see the issue here which is which accounts for the  concern we have now mr manning i hope you understand what is our concern as we understand it if you are a resident and if you have been dubbed and maybe there's a way to do this ahead of time or during the time if there were a organization but as i understand it mr manning other nonprofits or private entities which are well recognized and which some say provide better service in emergency and nonemergency then the government are not recognized and therefore cannot be reimbursed do you have a process that will be used or is being used to be helpful for example the american red cross has itself in agreement with save the children and church of the brother and i don't know if if they get reimbursed but let me ask you both first mr manning i'm  reimbursement for folks trusted in the community even more so than having h h s or some that are a government entity which they may never heard of come in under whatever rule making you are engaged in will there be a way to formally designate more such entities who could be useful to the government and to the community in case of a  disaster as to the specifics of the rule making we can get a report to within within thirty days or this is very important to learn we don't have any druthers here we have had heartbreaking testimony from religious organizations for example from weezer billy lewsey and are willing to offer services some of whom have indeed offered services when thema and the state was not even present believe we relax government standards and we want to make sure that you aren't aiding people of your religious group only church state means everything to at least this member and that separation must be obtained in the provision of services as catholic services for example always recognizes but we are concerned with those who can be most helpful not those who have a government title necessarily who may a shelter and those resources come into an environment and church the brother provides a workforce for us to be able to buy temporary child care for families in shelters or other service delivery sites as they go seek assistance as they spend time with the caseworker or case manager to know what the next step are and that's a program that we do manage that that operates as a part of the red cross services it does absolutely so they would be designated to be reimbursed most of our services are not we do not seek reimbursement from the federal government they done and just to speak to the earlier point around the compassion and the generosity of the american public the public has come forward in every disaster with immense generosity and they continue to do so and those funds come from private donations large and small and we work with our partners to help them with costs much like we do now in sheltering if a local church wants to open our doors or to shelters we can seek to provide them the training in the skill set to do that and we also help to recover their costs through a very very important i want to i want to again we don't we're not trying to but what what their religion tells them they should be doing anyway my major concern is that thema has often contracted and here i'm talking about people food with whom you contract has often contracted with profits before they were contract with non profits who have reputations for service delivery we couldn't understand why a for profit would be better equipped than a nonprofit who may have served in the community for some time and perhaps be receiving grants from the state wouldn't why that wouldn't be someone that would be considered for the service  von you talked about the role of come prepared nurse he talked about warnings education transportation and sheltering services you know when people hear us talk about that or mr manning at a hearing where fame appears they may have sume that this is what the was supposed to do could we make clear what the federal role here is what the state role when and i'm going first to go to mr vaughan because he raises the question of the design of the warnings and the education and the and the transportation the sheltering services which would of course be particularly vital for elderly and disabled people what have you found with respect to those services mr vaughan which move people around which warn people who are disabled or elderly and mr manning is this is mr  von you know what we what we we've learned from from our research again is that most most communities maybe thirty percent or more are doing the planning they need and i think a lot of this discussion that's been going on here with you all about case management we again hear about that people trying to get in touch with sort of security or whatever and i think the bigger concern is what happens if we have another disaster you know we couple of us in this room have  in florida and you just know that someday that's going to happen so i think we're not prepared locally and i think people at the local level are looking to the federal government or to their state governments and yet they know they need to be doing it in the local community because when the problems hit that's where the people organize specked services to be so that's why we see fema in this role where people look to him or look to the federal government i guess we're looking to the federal government looking to females in this whole concept that we're talking about of a coherent policy where all the different levels are talking and communicate with one another again we think that we've got to get money down into the local communities through grants where whatever so that the planning can happen because if not five years from now we'll be talking about who knows what disaster and saying didn't we learn from the lessons strikes me mr shriver talks about working with the city council it strikes me that a lot of this provision of transportation mr von raises sheltering services you know they must not  again here goes the chairman a lot of this is written in regulations in the rest but if it was so clear how come it took us time to find out who should have gotten people on trains and buses out of new orleans turned out to be a state responsibility and because there was confusion fema wasn't sure what to do and whether they were overriding the governor or the mayor it was it was a pitiful frankly my own notion was you know what if they don't do what justin they're doing guess what and that's what happened finally they said the coast guard an all hands on deck but that was after considerable confusion  von you you you ask for and you ask but you raise the notion i guess it is a regional disability coordinator now there is i take it mr manning one disability coordinator government but is there somebody who could take on that responsibility in the region or do you think the disability coordinator recently set up pursuant to statute is sufficient unto the moment madam chair think first we are we are examining how the regions are structured and what responsibilities devolve from washington from fema headquarters to the regions where the responsibilities lie and where where the functions  best served and i think that examination is happening currently but i should emphasize that as we've discussed today the the solution to this isn't necessarily  additional functions or additional personnel or additional plans or additional initiatives set aside to address the gaps the the solution we believe is eliminating gaps it's establishing it's taking care of these of all the members of our community all of the members of our society from the beginning in how we conceive of our policy in the first place how we write our plans in the first place how we do our operational development in the first place and we see that as the solution so while yes ma'am we are looking at how we are structured in the regions and whether and how we would best serve the disability community throughout the country we are at the time trying to eliminate the need for special consideration in our planning and in our policies thank you very much i thought it was a cow do you have any further questions you know i don't disabilities of sound do you believe is the implication of your report that there needs to be quite apart from the disability coordinator a separate two people in fema be designated as the kids person or the disability person or potentially both that what needs to happen is it needs to permeate the organization plans that go forth the frameworks that are proposed across what we don't want is to have kids being the denim because i've talked to countless emergency managers across the country and they have these reports and by the time they get through the reports or the  needs populations including kids to be written in throughout the plans and to be part of the entire agency so that you don't have a one off for kids or one off for people with disabilities so i think that that approach is the right approach i think the administrator deserves credit for that and i do think madam chair just to your question on case management i know this isn't exactly what you just asked but i think it was strongly recommended that case management reside within h and congress in its wisdom gave the appropriations to fema to spearhead it and i would suggest that fema should not be in the business of delivering or being held responsible for case management they are part of a team but that it really ought to go to the folks that have the experience like the administration for children and families that contracts with catholic charities it's delivered by a nonprofit but that that responsibility ought to be primarily with h h s instead of with fema who has other mandates out there and i think you know congress frankly i think made a mistake in shifting that responsibility i don't know their female agrees with that at this point but i think that they're part of that role and they don't have the expertise to be case managers we ought to be given it and put in the federal government that has the expertise it focuses in on this and have fema be part of that team rather than be the entity that makes those decisions  but i can tell you that this congress if anything out of him a consolidated all of it in the department of homeland security and it runs somewhat counter to your notion of trying to deal with these problems in case management to say there's another whole bureaucracy that needs to come over and to thema the question of priority when you're really a part of something else not ongoing emergency management as opposed to saying you are part of a case management team because we otherwise we're going to be told that they were disabilities we should hand that over to somebody and then i guess h h s and people who deal with nursing homes given what happened to the people who were left there we should give have relations across agency lines need only go across the street to find one another why you and the agencies cannot  who shall be part of case management which must be rendered someplace if it's gone be rendered under somebody's eyes or to be somebody who is expert in emergency management thema has got to convince me that it must be dismembered in order for us to get people under the same umbrella working on the same group of people i still cannot know understand why a simple decision in favor why that was not done i believe if you had called the secretary of the various agencies it would have been done i detest government bureaucracy and love government and believe some of my colleagues want to take we give the man your nation wanting to take apart government precisely because we are not able to do common sense things  getting the same room so i can understand what mr driver means and i know where the expertise lies but i also know where the priority to deal with an emergency lies and i know the next thing we would be criticized with don't is not rapidly responding from one source one to one emergency so you know it's it could be six of one and and half a dozen of another but i believe congress is made that decision we are going to leave this mr manning i can tell you and you can see people even want to take some of your services away we're going to leave it to see if this administration can do better  and carrying out or or or or outlining what you're going to do and i do want to announce i mean reagan said you have something to respond to that you seem to be asking for attention solid agreement with the role i want to express that the voluntary agencies have moved forward on the case management in unison and part of the voluntary agencies active in his after the national organization has come together to create standards around case management and case work and that allows us to share the data to work collaboratively so work we're excited to see some progress towards the federal case management and hope that we ensure that they're both connected that there's not a disparity between the voluntary agencies working and the government working with us are connected and well integrated madam chair just alluded to one of the problems that the president addressed during his visit to new orleans this past week is the need for the different federal agencies to be better coordinated i know that he has tasked secretary napolitano on that task mr manning can you provide us with a status or at least provide us with a written status in the next two weeks with respect to how this plan to better organize into better coordinate the different federal agencies are coming along and my other question to you is besides working with the different  and whether it is adequately understood and followed is probably the question that we need to do a better job about involving our communities and our partners as we develop our procedures as we implement our plans as we respond to disasters is something we work on every day we analyze our response to every exercise every disaster and try to find where we didn't do well enough and do better the next time and as we revise national response framework next year towards the end of this year and into next we will certainly absolutely involve everybody across the response spectrum across the entire team of emergency management and heard a number of times very famous not the teams part of the team our responsibility is one to bring people to the table all provide the tools and resources in order to perform their job where necessary and where absolutely necessary standby and support of others so the the initiatives of working to better together with the inner agency with all of our federal partners that is one that is improved greatly in recent well in recent years and certainly in recent months through the disaster readiness group the d r g the inner agency body that works together for disaster preparedness and following on your question from earlier about the i'm sorry your question about the question earlier about the integrated planning system as we are revising that system we are building a new planning system in consultation with the inner agency as opposed to fema or the department of homeland security creating and developing and handing over a planning system for the entire federal government and our inner agency partners to work together on we're going to build that in collaboration in the beginning so it will take into account the resource shortfalls of other agencies and we can have true collaboration between federal departments in response to disasters like you've seen in your community and the thought has to be limited to thank you one final question i'm taking a page out of mr shriver's testimony as a kind of model that and i need to know more about it that he says is already in existence now this has to  do only with children but it is a model for getting together the disparate this but agencies missed a driver says on page four that the administrative missed a few dates has announced quote the creation of a children's working group there is a nice word working group if ever every disaster you just had a working group of case management you might have what we are thinking about now maybe we're being too simple so correct me if i'm wrong but anyway let's look at what we've done with this children's working group it says which will serve as a centralized platform across all female directors ensure that the unique needs of children are incorporated into all this asked their plans the working group is tasked not only with the dentist buying a facilitating how best to integrate children into of theme of planning efforts but also with improving themis capacity to work collaboratively collaboratively with its partners and other key governmental stakeholders so it looks like there'd be this working group that already understood what to do with children the question is can we have a working group and the this asked the area which would simply pull in the same way that you appear region and they already are sitting right there to work with the working the same a working group and you manager i think the the easy answer to the second half your question is that we believe we have that in place through sense when the planning bodies we've had in place for a number of years that have not had the attention not had the focus necessary but have been so you tell me there was a working group for case management in louisiana and each parish already know man what what i'm suggesting is that there was a body there is a body that's been in place that we have given that mission there the regional interagency steering committees the risk groups one of the fema regions that have designees that have representatives from all of the federal inner agency bodies within the region has been mentioned earlier and there  them in region nine based in california to do catastrophic disaster planning to work closely with the community because they live in the community and they're part of the community with another body we pronounce all of our acronyms the u s flags the emergency support function coordination groups those are the lead agencies and all of the federal agencies that are assigned to a particular function so in the case of yourself six in the mass care there are bodies both within the federal inner agency led by fema here in washington working in coordination with counterparts in this case in the case of california fema region nine for the federal region nine to do exactly as you described to build something plant federal meeting where all the agencies are located just like they are in every region there was already a case if there were to be in that case probably earthquake case managers would immediately be under the same umbrella and be working together based on this model the planning is around the response the whole the holistic response to the earthquake the functions of case management under reassess six are assigned to health and human services that the way that disasters are managed the science mission tasks mission orders to federal agencies to coordinate the response to a particular function preparedness this is our is this  response this is a response plan and preparedness and then use the plans in the response phase yes now there is so so these there would be case managers who would be pulled out in the event of an earthquake in california are you saying or not i mean i any interested in the people level because what we've heard from thema for five or six years now is that there are elements of the bureaucracy that are already pulled together to do x y then people will people come in and say we never saw him before so i'm asking about case management in particular mistry ever said that was in disarray for children and it turns out it was also in his rape elderly people anybody else who needed to be brought together what i am asking and region whether region is going to give us the makings of a case management on ground zero for people on the ground in the case of an earthquake and whether that could be replicated in other regions across the country chair i believe that that will be the case we are we have written we are writing prescriptions assignments we are identifying a particular task with a particular team to go and perform in the case of case management that function that that initiative is happening here and in washington not specific to that particular initiative not specific to region nine but it is happening so that wherever a disaster may occur we can the health and human services  will the administration for family for children families will leave that mission and there to the people to the team will deploy in the immediate hours of a disaster yes man this  manning i'm encouraged by what you what you say i urge you to use region on where you here already begun work as a kind of pilot i was a federal government official heading an agency  at one time and i found the agency in total and complete disarray in putting it together i did not say ok i know what to do and i thought i knew what to do i had done something similar at the state level i said let's do this i said we will do pilot projects we are not listened we will see if this works in a particular location since we're talking preparedness and not a disaster of course that would that would be for example if case managers were already understood to be to who they were where they would come from if the agency had already designated people as case managers during the time from the various agencies that would be involved that's what i'm talking about as a result we chose in this case three sections of the country and the successes there and some of the deficiencies taught us what to do we were able to essentially reform the agency from the ground up based on experimentation within the agency learning from our mistakes and what i'm afraid of is that we'll be in a situation like memo was last year the ice storms there were floods and so we got to figure out all in a number of different emergencies at the same time they made it a better job but we do really still get a seat of your pants  rather than a number will emergency response from the mine and part of it is that preparedness is a whole lot more than you know making sure that there's water on the ground it's making sure that there are people on the ground prepared to serve people as mr reagan said you know one thing to look at how would you get people door to door in an earthquake could you do as mr reagan said if you don't do it in the first week forget about it they're going to try to make their way to a shelter so we'd like to see some kind of case in point an operation because of our exasperated from the community from complaints from the community throughout the years on case can we can read the report we use it to cross examine the government officials to hear further from those from the private and non government sector and then to try to figure out how to actually get something and we measure ourselves and the agency by which by the notion of whether out of the hearing has come concrete action that at the end of the year we can point to that is that is why w that was made and frankly not slow to criticize when people kept coming from mississippi and louisiana in particular to complain particularly about case management we had one of the worst hearings in my career in the congress regarding people who were left in trailers for the longest time and recording the most vulnerable people on the katrina these were the people who lived alone who were disabled who were able to care for themselves when they were elderly and you told they'd be much older and their time was up and they never had any place to go before and they did have a new place to go there and  said well but we are providing you with a place and it seem i was providing them with a place and we had heard before us and i'd say that's right the most right we've got the place and what was not in place was the case management somebody who would take that person not as a statistic as somebody who's blind and lived alone and as being told to go to some bar of county to live alone but as somebody who was a case manager would have been willing to go to that adjoining county to live in it if set up with the proper case management that is complicated work but we are convinced it can be done and it is a standard that we know your administration is committed to