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33–595 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 109–128]

APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED FROM

HURRICANE KATRINA: HOW THE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IS

PREPARING FOR THE UPCOMING

HURRICANE SEASON

HEARING

BEFORE THE

TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND

CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

HEARING HELD

MAY 25, 2006
(II)

TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

SUBCOMMITTEE

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey, Chairman

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

JEFF MILLER, Florida

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts

ADAM SMITH, Washington

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, Georgia

ROGER ZAKHEIM, Counsel

BILL NATTER, Professional Staff Member

BRIAN ANDERSON, Staff Assistant
(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2006

Page

HEARING:

Thursday, May 25, 2006, Applying Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina:

How the Department of Defense is Preparing for the Upcoming Hurricane

Season ................................................................................................................... 1

APPENDIX:

Thursday, May 25, 2006 .......................................................................................... 41

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2006

APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED FROM HURRICANE KATRINA: HOW

THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IS PREPARING FOR THE UPCOMING HURRICANE SEASON

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Saxton, Jim, a Representative from New Jersey, Chairman, Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee ...................................... 1

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee ................................................. 2

WITNESSES

Blum, Lt. Gen. H. Steven, Chief, National Guard Bureau, U.S. Army .............. 5

Bowen, Maj. Gen. C. Mark, the Adjutant General of Alabama ........................... 12

Burnett, Maj. Gen. Douglas, the Adjutant General of Florida ............................ 9

McHale, Hon. Paul, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense ...... 3

Rowe, Maj. Gen. Richard J., Jr., Director of Operations, United States Northern Command, U.S. Army ................................................................................... 7

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Blum, Lt. Gen. H. Steven ................................................................................ 58

Bowen, Maj. Gen. C. Mark .............................................................................. 92

Burnett, Maj. Gen. Douglas ............................................................................. 76

Landreneau, Maj. Gen. Bennett C., Adjutant General of Louisiana ............ 97

McHale, Hon. Paul ........................................................................................... 45

Pickup, Sharon, Director Defense Capabilities and Management, U.S.

Government Accountability Office ............................................................... 108

Rowe, Maj. Gen. Richard J., Jr. ...................................................................... 69

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Documents submitted.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Questions submitted.]

(1)

APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED FROM HURRICANE

KATRINA: HOW THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IS

PREPARING FOR THE UPCOMING HURRICANE SEASON

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, May 25, 2006.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m. in room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Saxton (chairman of the

subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY, CHAIRMAN, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. SAXTON. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and

Capabilities meets this morning to discuss how the Department of

Defense is preparing for the upcoming hurricane season. As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated last year, when there is a catastrophic

disaster, the military will be called upon to aid in the response.

During Katrina, the military, and the National Guard in particular, shouldered this responsibility and completed its mission with

valor.

There is always room for improvement, however. This hearing

will investigate how the Department of Defense has incorporated

lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina as it plans and prepares

for the upcoming hurricane season. In the weeks and months following Hurricane Katrina, the Federal response to the disaster was

scrutinized and critiqued.

The Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation

For the Response to Hurricane Katrina, the Government Accountability Office and the White House have all issued reports reviewing the Federal response to the hurricane, and the military response in particular.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how they are responding to the findings and recommendations of these reports. It

is important to note that the military mission in responding to domestic catastrophes is primarily a support mission. Other agencies

are in the lead.

As a result the military ability to complete its mission rests on

the level of coordination between the Department of Defense, the

National Guard, Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the Department of Homeland Security, and State and local entities as well.
2

In many ways, mission success will be determined by the level and

quality of interagency coordination.

I encourage the witnesses on both panels to address this issue

during the testimony.

Unfortunately, the planning, training and exercising for hurricane response operations are not a theoretical matter. Just this

week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted for this year 13 to 16 named storms with 8 to 10 becoming

hurricanes of which 6 could become major hurricanes, Category 3

strength or higher.

While I hope this hurricane season passes without any Category

3 hurricanes or higher, our military in coordination with Federal,

State and local entities must be prepared for the worst.

It is also important to keep in mind that military preparedness

to deal with catastrophic events is important for reasons beyond

hurricanes. While Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the great challenges our leaders face when implementing an emergency response

plan, we have to remember that in the case of Katrina we had

three days warning. In the case of a terrorist attack, we will have

not have the luxury of any warning.

The military’s mission to provide support for civil authorities applies to manmade disasters as well as natural disasters. As chairman of this subcommittee, I am constantly reminded that al Qaeda

and its affiliates actively seek to carry out a catastrophic event on

our soil. This threat is another reason where why the military capabilities to respond to catastrophes is a matter of great importance. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the criticality of getting

right our response to disasters.

To me, the importance of this matter is simple. The more we perfect our response capability, the more lives will be saved.

With us this morning are the Honorable Paul McHale, a great

friend, and we are glad to see him back again for the second day

in a row, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security.

Lieutenant General Steve Blum, also with us for the second day

in a row, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and Major General

Richard Rowe, U.S. NORTHCOM. Thank you for being here again

today, General.

Major General C. Mark Bowen, the Adjutant General of the

State of Alabama and Major General Douglas Burnett, the Adjutant General for the State of Florida.

We welcome you and look forward to your testimony.

After consultation with the minority, I now ask unanimous consent for Mr. Taylor to sit as part of this panel. Welcome, my friend.

Before we begin I want to recognize Adam Smith for any remarks he may have as today’s ranking member.

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM

WASHINGTON, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS

AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. Mostly

I just want to agree with everything you said. I think you outlined

it very well. And the thing that I am most interested in is the coordination aspect of it. We obviously haven’t had an event like this

in the Pacific Northwest, but I have been in many, many meetings
3

with the energy management folks and all the different layers, city

county, Federal, and I think the big issue everybody is interested

in is how do we coordinate when an event like this happens, how

did we very, very quickly figure out who is in charge and what the

hierarchy is, because I think there are a great many experiences

that time is lost, so sort of looking around saying, well, we have

all got a role to play but who is organizing it? And certainly, I

think our experience with the hurricanes in the South was that the

Department of Defense (DOD), once they got on the scene, did a

better job than anybody else.

So I think you probably have a lot to offer in terms of that coordination. I am curious to hear about that.

With that, I yield any additional time I have to Mr. Taylor, who

is joining us, who I know has very specific concerns in this area,

if you had anything to say.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. With that, we will begin

with Secretary McHale. We look forward to your testimony, Mr.

Secretary.

STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL MCHALE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

OF DEFENSE FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE

Secretary MCHALE. Good morning, Chairman Saxton, Congressman Smith, distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank

you for inviting my colleagues and me to address the progress we

have made in preparing for the 2006 hurricane season.

Mr. Chairman, I have submitted my formal statement for the

record and in the interests of time and to maximize the opportunity

for questions, I will give you, if I may, an abbreviated summary of

that formal statement.

Mr. SAXTON. Without objection, thank you.

Secretary MCHALE. Hurricane Katrina, as noted, Mr. Chairman,

was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history in terms of

persons displaced, businesses disrupted, commerce effected and a

projected aggregate economic loss.

In response to the massive devastation caused by the storm, the

Department of Defense’s deployment of military resources in support of civil authorities after Hurricane Katrina exceeded in speed

and size any other domestic disaster relief mission in the history

of the United States.

As President Bush said on April 27, 2006, in New Orleans, one

of the things we are working on is to make sure we have learned

the lessons from Katrina. We have learned lessons at the Federal

level, the State level and the local level, and now we are working

closely together in preparation for the upcoming hurricane season,

end of quote, echoing in many ways Representative Smith’s comments, that coordination is the key to an effective response during

the 2006 hurricane season.

Mindful of the lessons learned during Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Defense has taken deliberate actions to prepare for the

2006 hurricane season.

By June first, 2006, just a few days from now, the Department

of Defense will have assigned a defense coordinating officer, a

DCO, to each of the 10 Federal Emergency Management Agency
4

(FEMA) regional offices. DOD is giving priority to hurricane prone

regions. Region IV, that is Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,

Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and

Region VI, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and

Texas.

Both of these FEMA regions will have a fully staffed DCO and

a five-member defense coordinating element complement by June

first, 2006. The DCO and Defense Coordinating Element (DCE) will

have the capability to deploy in support of the interagency joint

field office.

Representative Smith, again, that is where the coordination that

you talked about takes place and in the questioning we would welcome the opportunity to talk about the new paradigm in place to

ensure that at the joint field office, all of the participating response

elements, to include our Department, have been fully integrated in

that combined effort.

In coordination with the Department of Homeland Security,

FEMA and Department of Transportation, DOD has developed

what we call 18 prescripted requests for assistance to expedite the

provision of DOD support to civil authorities. These 18 prescripted,

basically boilerplate, RFAs, requests for assistance, address DOD

support for transportation to include helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, communications, public works and engineering, damage assessment, mass care, resource support, to include installations, mobilization centers and ground field distribution, public health and

medical services, to include helicopter Medevac and temporary

medical facilities.

In short, those prescripted RFAs drawn from the experience of

Hurricane Katrina provide a template which when completed will

automatically trigger the types of support that I have just described. We don’t want to be writing these RFAs in the middle of

a crisis when we can anticipate the mission requirement and have

that draft largely complete before the crisis ever occurs.

March 31st, 2006, FEMA and the Defense Logistics Agency

(DLA) signed an interagency agreement stating that DLA will provide logistic support to FEMA. DLA has been working with FEMA

to prepare and plan for logistical support during all phases of a response.

FEMA has provided $70 million to DLA to procure, store, rotate

and provide supplies, including meals ready to eat (MREs), commercial meal alternatives, health and comfort kits, tents, generators, fuels, medical supplies, construction items, and other equipment. DOD has been participating in weekly interagency meetings

with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of

Transportation, the Department of Justice, the Department of

Health and Human Services, and other departments and agencies

to coordinate Federal planning and preparations for the 2006 hurricane season.

Secretary of Defense is currently reviewing U.S. Northern Command’s revised contingency plan 2501 for defense support to civil

authorities.

DOD has published a defense support to civil authorities standing execute order that authorizes the commanders of the United

States NORTHCOM, United States Pacific Command (USPACOM),
5

and the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) to

prepare DOD assets in order to be ready to deploy in support of

civil authorities in response to natural disasters. Some of the areas

covered by the executive order would include senior officers for

command, control and coordination, identification of DOD installations as staging areas, helicopters for search and rescue, support

for the movement of special needs patients, communications teams,

logistical specialists for the establishment of food, water, and medical supply distribution points.

In April, 2006, the Department of Defense in coordination with

the Department of Health and Human Services developed the DOD

sections of the medical services concept plan again for the 2006

hurricane season. In that regard potential DOD support would include surgical support augmentation, including general surgeons,

anesthesiologists, operating room nurses, and surgical support personnel.

DOD is supporting FEMA efforts to augment communications capabilities in the gulf coast region.

Interoperability of communications proved to be one of the major

challenges in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Accordingly, before the hurricane season this year DOD will participate in four FEMA communications exercises to validate interoperability among Federal, State and local emergency management officials.

In addition, DOD in conjunction with FEMA has developed

prescripted requests for assistance providing deployable communications options that can be called upon in the case of disaster.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the DOD response to Hurricane

Katrina was the largest, fastest, civil support mission in the history of the United States. Nonetheless, as noted by the chairman,

any military mission includes a serious after action review, and

with an unflinching eye, we have been our own worst critics in

terms of where we could have performed better last year. We have

not only learned the lessons of Hurricane Katrina, we have acted

upon them.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to your questions upon the conclusion of the opening statements by my colleagues.

[The prepared statement of Secretary McHale can be found in

the Appendix on page 45.]

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for the very

thorough statement. We appreciate it. And General Blum.

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. H. STEVEN BLUM, CHIEF, NATIONAL

GUARD BUREAU, U.S. ARMY

General BLUM. Chairman Saxton and distinguished members of

the committee, it is our honor and privilege to be here today to talk

about the National Guard and the actions taken since Hurricanes

Katrina, Rita and Wilma and get ready for the current season,

which is upon us in the next few weeks.

National Guard response has been described as the fastest and

largest in the U.S. history, but that does not mean that we are

ready for this hurricane season without improving what is already

an outstanding record of accomplishment. For the last 9–1/2

months we have been working feverishly with interagency, inter-
6

governmental partners and our active duty partners to ensure that

we have the capabilities and equipment that we did not have last

year so that our response this year will be even more effective than

what you saw last year.

There are two things that are very key to this, and the Congress

has been very, very instrumental in providing the resources to

make those capabilities possible.

I came before this committee about 8 months ago now and said

that we needed $1.3 billion for communications equipment and for

tactical vehicles, high water vehicles, so our mobility and communications and command and control could be better utilized, particularly in an area that would lose all its infrastructure, electrical

grid and normal means of communication, and because of the generosity of the Congress we have spent $900 million on improving

that capability for interoperable communications.

Last year I had three deployable satellite communications systems that could stand up and operate independently, very few satellite phones, as Congressman Taylor knows. This year we had 39

of those deployable forward positioned command and control satellite Field Emission Display (FED) systems that work off their

own power, and beyond that we have now a system that will integrate not only the Department of Defense communications so that

the National Guard can talk to the Army, Air Force, Navy and the

Marine Corps that may be operating in the area, but we also have

systems integrating equipment that allows us, more importantly, to

talk to the civilian first responders on the 800 megahertz system,

the 900 megahertz system, Ultra High Frequency (UHF), Very

High Frequency (VHF), land line radios, cell phones or any other

known communication architecture that exists in the United States

of America. We have mapped that architecture out. We know what

exists normally in those States and the territories, and we have

now programmed our communications to be able to interoperate

with the civilian first responders as well as the military responders

that would show up on the scene.

Beyond that, any good team gets good with practice or better

with practice. Nobody goes to the Super Bowl without a huddle and

nobody goes there without scrimmaging and lots and lots of hard

work. That is what we have been doing for the last 9–1/2 months.

Secretary McHale adequately described what we have done.

There are two that I want to highlight. We have participated in all

of those with U.S. Northern Command, the Department of Defense,

Department of Homeland Security, FEMA itself, to make sure that

we are seamless. When we are called to support the lead Federal

agency, we don’t want to be exchanging business cards on the day

of the hurricane. We want to make sure that we know who the

DCO the DCE and important players are down there, and that

they know our capabilities and our limitations so that Northern

command can lean forward to fill the gaps that the Guard may not

be able to provide.

For instance, we don’t have any gray hull ships and we don’t

walk on water. So we are going to need the Navy and the Coast

Guard and rely on them very heavily.

Two important exercises were the ones that we conducted in

April in South Carolina where we had the hurricane States rep-
7

resented from the Mid-Atlantic States. I am going today to New

England because this hurricane, the hurricane season is upon us.

Where it is going to hit, no one knows. Where it will make landfall,

nobody knows.

But we are being told this year we may see more activity on the

Atlantic Coast, even as far as north as New England, and so I am

going to New England to make sure that they are not complacent

in New England in their preparation for the hurricanes and if they

have the same vigor and interest and are prepared for hurricane

season as the Southeast does and the gulf coast has put great attention to this.

The exercises conducted in the southeastern part and the Middle

Atlantic States and, in particular, we just conducted as recently as

last week an extensive look at Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi’s

hurricane preparation. We conducted this in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and we did this with the interagency partners, the intergovernmental partners and our DOD partners, specifically U.S. Northern

Command, again every one of these all along the way.

Last year, the visibility or seam that some of you may have perceived between the National Guard and the Department of Defense, that seam has been closed and you will not see a seam this

year.

As General Rowe knows, he has perfect visibility on what we are

doing at all times and I have perfect visibility knowing what

NORTHCOM is anticipating to come in and support the National

Guard when it is required.

I think this ARDENT SENTRY exercise that we just conducted

was deliberately designed. It was a U.S. Northern Command exercise, was two weeks long in length. Rich? I will leave that to him

to talk to. But I can tell you the big outcome of that is that the

relationship between the National Guard and NORTHCOM is absolutely critical when you are talking about homeland defense, support of the homeland security, and I think that we have that relationship about as solid as it has ever been and we will make it

more solid each and every day. It is that important.

So by applying the lessons learned learn that you identified and

the very tough scrutiny that everybody’s response to hurricane

Katrina Wilma and Rita really underwent, we have taken those

lessons very seriously. We have taken those criticisms not personally, we have taken them professionally, and we are trying to

shorten the list so that if we respond to hurricanes this year, that

list will even be shorter the next time we are taken to task.

I anxiously await your questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of General Blum can be found in the

Appendix on page 58.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, General Blum. General

Rowe.

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. RICHARD J. ROWE, JR., DIRECTOR

OF OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES NORTHERN COMMAND,

U.S. ARMY

General ROWE. Chairman Saxton, Congressman Smith, members

of the subcommittee, it is an honor to be here to represent Admiral
8

Keating today and the men and women of U.S. Northern Command.

I am privileged to be part of a total force team, military, active

and reserve, and to get to the extent of the partnership. During

Secretary Chertoff’s visits to the Governors recently, I have had the

honor of sitting next to General Burnett and General Bowen in

both Florida and Alabama as part of that teaming effort that we

are trying to describe.

Day to day, our headquarters is focused on deterring, preventing

and defeating attacks against our homeland. We also stand ready

to assist primary agencies in responding quickly to man-made and

natural disasters when directed by the President or Secretary of

Defense.

We maintain situational awareness through our NORAD/

NORTHCOM command center, into which in the past year we have

embedded a specific watch desk manned by highly qualified officers

and noncommissioned officers that provides us direct insight into

the National Guard deployments and the operations within the

various States. We are networked with our subordinate commands

and other government agencies and are prepared to bring all necessary capabilities to bear.

In the past year, both the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force have dedicated headquarters as component commands for U.S. Northern Command and today, 5th Army

in San Antonio and 1st Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base in

Florida are assigned those missions directly responsive to the U.S.

Northern Command. That is different than last year.

We support civilian authorities by providing specialized skills

and assets to save lives, reduce suffering and restore infrastructure

in the wake of catastrophic events. In 2005, we supported the Department of Homeland Security in responding to four hurricanes,

including the unprecedented response to Hurricane Katrina.

We have taken significant steps to improve our response capabilities based on the lessons learned and findings in the House, Senate

and White House reports on Hurricane Katrina, as well as our own

very detailed internal review.

Secretary McHale highlighted many of those actions. I will just

list the names: The joint staff standing execution order for defense

support of civilian authorities to support the operational planning

for the hurricane season; the integration of full time defense coordinating officers and staffs to each Federal Emergency Management

Agency region; the development of and actual authorship of the

language for the prescripted requests for assistance for the Federal

Emergency Management Agency.

Notable events include a hurricane preparation conference in

which Admiral Keating had the distinct privilege of hosting 10 adjutants general from the gulf coast region as well as the U.S.

Northern Command senior leadership in February for fairly extensive discussions on what we learned from 2005 and how we wanted

to approach 2006.

Our information management mobile training teams have deployed across the country to demonstrate and instruct the use of

collaborative tools, and information sharing processes to our Department of Defense and interagency partners.
9

To improve our communication capabilities, U.S. Northern Command has purchased, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, cellular network packages that include over 100 cell

phones, 40 laptop computers, a satellite terminal and radio bridging. We also procured 300 satellite phones to assist in distribution

for first responders in a disaster when directed.

In addition, we established a link into the homeland security information network picture in exchange liaison offices with the Department of Homeland Security, a national communication system,

National Guard Bureau and the FEMA and joint field offices.

We are indeed much more prepared today to respond to a catastrophic hurricane than we were just a few short months ago. In

the absolute worst case scenario, we will respond. We will respond

with every bit of effort that we can to support our fellow Americans. We will do this as fast as possible. We will give it every bit

of effort needed, and our success will be a result of the consideration that we have had and the hard work as a team.

We are working this as hard as we know how, at the same time

maintaining a balanced approached to look at the defense requirements of our area of responsibility.

Gentlemen, I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of General Rowe can be found in the

Appendix on page 69.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, General Rowe. Before we

move to General Bowen and General Burnett, let me just say, I

probably should have introduced General Blum this way, never before, at least in the 22 years that I have been here, have we depended on the National Guard to the extent that we do today. Tens

of thousands of National Guardsmen are deployed overseas. We

have just initiated a new program for the National Guard on the

southwest border, and we are here today to discuss the important

role the National Guard plays in response to hurricanes and other

natural disasters here in the homeland.

So we are very fortunate today to have leaders like General

Bowen and General Burnett with us today to help us understand

the role the Guard plays in this homeland security role.

Thank you for being with us here today and we will begin with

Major General Burnett.

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. DOUGLAS BURNETT, THE

ADJUTANT GENERAL OF FLORIDA

General BURNETT. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Saxton,

Mr. Meehan, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the

invitation to appear before your committee today. I know you are

deeply committed to national security and our Nation’s response to

domestic threats, including natural disasters. For me personally it

is an extreme honor to be present before Members of Congress who

represent the people of this Nation. I know of no higher honor for

a military leader than to appear before the people.

As the Adjutant General of Florida, I speak on behalf of nearly

12,000 soldiers and airmen of the Florida National Guard. I have

submitted my full statement to the committee, which I ask be

made part of the hearing record. I would like to now give a brief

opening statement.
10

My remarks this morning focus on three topics, Florida emergency response systems, our preparation for this hurricane season,

and some thoughts for the future.

My intent is to highlight improvements we have made since the

2004 and 2005 hurricane season and outline Florida’s comprehensive culture of preparedness. The Florida system of the National

Guard is part of the statewide emergency management team led by

Governor Jeb Bush and the State coordinating officer, Director

Craig Fugate. These are strong, experienced leaders, each with a

well-earned national reputation in emergency response operations.

The Governor serves as the State incident commander. In short,

Governor Jeb Bush leads the cavalry in Florida. A Federal coordinating officer positioned in the State emergency operation center

works closely with our State coordinating officer to ensure the ongoing flow of supplies, resources and assistance. Our unified response is based on a comprehensive emergency management plan

with extensive preparations which take place throughout the year.

The State of Florida’s funding and preparation for domestic crises are significant and unparalleled. During this past legislative

session, Florida’s legislature strongly supported and fully funded

Governor Bush’s $565 million for disaster response. In fact, the

number really is closer to $700 million of State funds. More than

$97 million of these funds will be allocated to hurricane preparedness supplies, public education, and for strengthening home structures. 154 million was committed to emergency planning for special

needs shelters for our most vulnerable, evacuation planning and

county emergency operation centers. And, yes, Florida has accommodations for pets in our shelters.

Florida National Guard is the Governor’s first military responder, and by statute I serve as its principal military adviser. We

prepare for homeland security and domestic security operations

with the same intensity as we prepare to conduct combat operations, which we have been involved in in the last five years.

During the early stages of a significant domestic crisis we position a command team with the Governor in Tallahassee. The Adjutant General then appoints a joint task force commander to provide

command and control over military forces in support of relief operations, while at the same time our joint force headquarters in St.

Augustine establishes a common operating picture of the impacted

areas and maintains constant communications with the National

Guard Bureau, the State Emergency Operations Center, 5th Army

and U.S. Northern Command.

Good communications builds trust, and trust builds speed, and

speed is the essence of what we do.

National Guard liaison teams join each of Florida’s 67 counties

in their emergency operation center. They are well trained and

they serve as a liaison to elected leadership. Our goal is to assist

State and local agencies in reestablishing their governing responsibilities, while being sensitive to not getting out in front of elected

leadership, but in support of, which is the way it should work in

a democracy.

As part of Florida’s comprehensive response team, the Florida

National Guard remains in the affected area until local elected

leadership, agencies and contractors are functioning and can meet
11

the needs of our citizens. Our Florida National Guard leadership

team represents a highly experienced team, each having served in

more than ten State activations for hurricane duty. In the last two

years alone, they were all major teams.

I was actually on the ground as an airman in 1964 in our hurricane season in Mississippi as a lieutenant during Camille and that

hurricane season, 1969, and for the last two years.

Let me turn to current assessment. In 2005, responders to devastation of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Dennis and Wilma on Florida.

We also deployed assistance or advisory teams to both Louisiana

and Mississippi. We learned much from these experiences. I think

we all did.

Based on Louisiana-Mississippi lessons learned, we adjusted our

plans and refined procedures to improve the ability to respond with

large-scale forces to storms of serious orders of magnitude.

Along with our southeastern State partners we have revalidated

our emergency management assistance compacts. Mr. Chairman,

EMAC is a very workable system. It is effective. It saves money,

and it relieves the active military certainly in a time of combat operations overseas.

EMAC ensures quick and effective movement of National Guard

forces and State employees across State lines, and I cannot say

enough about EMAC. Some military planners have accused me of

liking this legacy system. Well, I like legacy systems such as the

Constitution and having the military in support of civilian leadership and having elected leaders charged with the response efforts.

We have also conducted numerous training exercises. In fact

when I left for Washington yesterday Governor Bush, his agency

heads and more than 170 State emergency operations staff reloaded their entire staff to Camp Blanding from Tallahassee to

show that we could reconstitute government and we could move

from Tallahassee and never miss a lick in responding to the needs

of our citizens.

And by the way, this exercise was a Category 4 hurricane the

size of Katrina hitting Tampa and at the same time including two

terrorist bombings in our cities.

We have more than 8,000 soldiers and airmen currently available

for disaster response, and we have the equipment as well. We

thank Secretary of Defense. We thank the Congress and General

Blum for resetting National Guard equipment. As you know, we

left a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we understand that and respect those reasons. We also thank the Congress for funding the

Guard and our needs that General Blum addressed earlier.

My staff and I met with teams from NORTHCOM, the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, 5th Army, and the National

Guard Bureau to ensure we have one common message, one common response effort. The integration of these forces will lead to

unity of effort in support of the Governor. In short, we believe we

have made the appropriate preparations. And I can’t say enough

about the collective capabilities of the National Guard Bureau. No

one could put thousands of soldiers on the ground as quick as General Blum.

Our final thoughts, Mr. Chairman, we need to improve our communications capability. As we move from one interoperability with
12

local first responders, our ability to up channel quickly, we think

we are getting there. Congressman Bill Young funded significant

amounts of money last year, and Florida has probably five times

the capability to communicate in a blinding storm than we had in

the 2004–2005 season.

In summary, let me say the State of Florida and the Florida National Guard will be ready this season. I know this subcommittee

and Members of Congress will continue to provide focus and resources on improving our response.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of General Burnett can be found in the

Appendix on page 76.]

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you. Thank you very much. We are going to

move now to General Mark Bowen.

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. C. MARK BOWEN, THE ADJUTANT

GENERAL OF ALABAMA

General BOWEN. Chairman Saxton, Congressman Smith. First,

thank you for your kind words about our soldiers. This is what it

is all about as far as I am concerned, and thank you for those kind

words. They have carried a pretty big load, and they are doing very

well.

It is certainly an honor for me to be here today to testify before

this committee here in Congress, and I want to thank you for allowing me to be here.

As you know, I appeared early this year before Representative

Tom Davis’s Katrina review committee and I understand the General Accountability Office and many other groups have issued reports on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but today I want to present

what we have done in Alabama and what we did right, what we

did wrong, what we have done since then, because as the Adjutant

General for the State of Alabama, I work for Governor Riley. He

has taken a very personal interest in this. So we have made some

changes on what we did.

So what we are really talking about is how does the Alabama

National Guard provide the military support to the civil authorities. Well, you know, the way we look at this thing is the first

thing, first duty we have is we want to get into an area, we want

to alleviate the pain, we want to provide security, we want to provide comfort, we want to do search and rescue, and we want to provide distribution of supplies if needed. So that is what we have to

do.

So the first thing we have to do is response time, and that is

what brings me here. Our response was very quick in Alabama. We

start watching that cone, where the hurricane is about 72 hours

out, and as it starts approaching the gulf coast and gets toward

Mobile, we get a little bit antsy. At that time is when we start

moving soldiers. So the thing that would help us is an early declaration, so I can place soldiers and airmen on duty 72 hours prior

to landfall.

So that will give us approval of Federal funds, Title 32, for the

pay allowances, operation and maintenance, and this would further

enhance my ability because what I do is I move soldiers down toward the coast. You know they just don’t show up. They have jobs.
13

They may be on 18 wheelers driving. So I have to get them a little

alert time so I can get them back to the army, I can load the trucks

and equipment, the sand bagging equipment, whatever I need, and

start prepositioning it, the dozers, the frond-end loaders, the dump

trucks off to the side of the hurricane. Because if I do that, then,

wherever the hurricane hits, then I am able to move in as it comes

through. I don’t want my soldiers driving through the front of it.

So we try to come in from the side.

Now the reason I say 72 hours is because you know how the hurricanes do. They may hit Alabama. They may hit Doug over in

Florida. The good thing about that is I will have a task force on

board that is prepared to go down, and I can turn left or right. I

can go help Doug over in Florida, I can go help Harold in Mississippi or I can help Bennett over in Louisiana, which we did all

of this last time.

I sent nearly 2,000 to Mississippi, 1,500 to Louisiana. I sent 100

to Texas and had 1,000 in Mobile, and I sent Doug about 100 over

there. So we know how to do this.

But things we have to do, we have to alert. We have to mobilize,

preposition troops and supplies. So I just need a little time to do

that in.

We have a joint force organization that works very well. Doug alluded to it. What we have in our task force and I can bring up one

task force, two task forces or three. They have the capability for security, communication, medical, logistics, and that is internal and

external logistics. When I send a task force to Mississippi or Louisiana, I send it self-contained. I want it to have everything it needs

for seven to ten hours—seven to ten days so nobody has to worry

about resupplying them where they are self-contained. And that

has worked very well for us in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Again the Title 32 status I want to emphasize that provides a lot

of the benefits for our soldiers, particularly in areas of injury, disability, duty related deaths. State active duty for Alabama, I will

be honest with you I hate to pull them up on State active duty because if I do they have no death survivor benefits. They have workman’s comp and that is all. I hate to tell you that, but it is the

truth. So State active duty is not an option I like to go with. Title

32 again is the answer.

We talked about joint communications already. In this task force

that I put together I flew over Mississippi the morning after the

hurricane and the first thing I realized there was nothing down

there. So I put together my task force. I used my satellite communication out of my Air Guard, and I used my multiple scriber

equipment, MSE equipment out of the Army because that allowed

my Humvees to talk to each other. There is nothing else down

there. The long range satellite gave me the capability to talk back

to Alabama, to talk to General Blum at National Guard Bureau or

to NORTHCOM if it needs to go. That is how we did it, and we

did it well.

So now we are doing some things different. We did not deploy

our civil support team this time with the interoperable van that we

have that makes us talk to everything because I sent it to Mississippi. But I now have, the State of Alabama has picked up more
14

of those vans, like Doug was talking about, so now then we will

have those also available.

One of the things I do, I believe in putting liaison officers to each

one of the headquarters. I send them to the Alabama emergency

management agency, their emergency operations center (EOC). I

also send them to the counties that are affected and I receive them

from the State Emergency Management Agency (EMA) or National

Guard Bureau or from NORTHCOM. We just believe it works well

if they got situational awareness and knows exactly what is going

on in Alabama because that provides better response for our people

here.

One of the other things I do that we had not thought about the

last time we did it is sundry packages. You think that is not important, but when you put a soldier out there working 18–20 hours in

water up to his knees in the filthy conditions, we were able to contract porta potties from Birmingham, Alabama because there is not

any down there, also shower units. We send sundry packages that

had everything from Gatorade to post exchange items and personal

because these soldiers are working hard and they are in miserable

conditions, I will tell you. One of the soldiers told me, he apologized, he said, sir, I lost a magazine of ammunition. I said, well,

how did that happen, son? He said, well, I was in New Orleans,

we were doing search and rescue, and it fell out while I was rescuing somebody off a house and, sir, I wasn’t getting in that water.

And I understood. We will write that one off. But it is very miserable conditions they work in over there is what I am trying to get

across to you. It is very important we take care of those soldiers.

Medical package, I think a medical package command of Army

and Air also, and I do that because I have got a few more docs and

Physicians Assistant (PAs) in the Air than I do the Army, but the

Army had the medication. And I do that to take care of my soldiers. I will let the civilian authorities and the other agencies come

in and take care of the civilian population. But I have to have medical help there for my soldiers. We did deliver a baby while we

were down there. We will do things if we have to. I tell them if it

has a bone sticking out and it is bleeding, we will take care of it.

But we are not there really to take care of the civilian population.

Another thing we learned worked very well, I have topo units,

topographical units that makes maps. We got to Mississippi and

there were no street signs and no maps, Shreveport same way, and

New Orleans.

So we sent a topo unit that made maps for us right there. They

became the most hot commodity down there besides the water and

ice. Everybody needed a map because you know when you get in

there you can tell where you are. That worked very well.

So now we have loaded that into our task force. So when I load

that task force, topo unit will be with it. Very critical. So that is

one of those things we learned.

The EMAC General Burnett referred to in a minute, that works

great. It is not broke, let’s don’t fix it. If Doug calls me or if General Cross from Mississippi calls me, it is a done deal, and it works

very quickly, very smoothly. But one of the things we need to remember is that EMAC is not just for Alabama National Guard. It

is also for the Department of Transportation, Department of Public
15

Safety, Fish and Wildlife, law enforcement agencies. We sent a lot

of law enforcement agencies into Mississippi, Louisiana. They all

worked under the EMAC system. That works very well. So that one

is not broke.

One of the things I do want to do is we have been faxing and

stuff back and forth, and that fax gets a little smudged after it goes

so we are working on, they assured me in Baton Rouge, to have

it where they do that electronically and that will work much better.

What did I do wrong? I sent college students, pulled them out of

college. Sent them. I needed them. Their unit was called and they

went. But then some of them on college scholarships, some of them

on military scholarships, and the parents got a little antsy. So after

4, 5 days I sent a bus back over there, we loaded about 44 of those

college students up, brought them back home. I learned from that.

I won’t send them next time unless it gets real tight. They don’t

want to come home. They were happy as they could be. But that

is one of the things I learned.

We have to get those public affairs people in there quicker. We

have to tell the Guard’s story. We did not do a good job of that.

Now we sent some locally but it went to local newspapers. And we

have been talking that everywhere I have been. We ought to have

sent them in initial forces. We have to manage it a little better.

The public wants to know about the logistics, about the safety,

about the issues, what is going to happen next? We have to do a

better job of that and we will do that.

Internal planning, just like the rest of them, Alabama National

Guard conducted internal exercise. We called it DRAGON SLAYER, went to include all agencies. We exercised our joint operations

center headquarters, our standard operating procedure (SOP). We

wanted to validate it, make sure we have been using it, it works

great. The Governor had a table top exercise that brought all the

agencies in. We started 96 hours out and we went in a big room

and everybody had to say 96 hours, 72 hours, 40 hours, what are

you doing, what is going on? We have worked out, we had FEMA,

we had NORTHCOM with us.

One of the things that came out of these is we will have a (PFO),

principal Federal officer, there that can make the decisions on the

Federal dollars right there without having to go through several

layers of bureaucracy. That went very, very well. I think that is

done up very good.

We did the same things. Hurricane States have a quarterly hurricane conference. They meet regularly. And they have identified

the worst case scenario, which is for me a Category 4 or 5 off the

middle of Mobile Bay, probably have a 20-foot storm surge, would

drain out pretty quickly, not like New Orleans. We do have some

equipment shortages based on deployments, units to overseas and

Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of equipment left. We do have some

shortage. I feel confident that Congress will take care of those

issues so we will have those equipment. I know in Alabama one of

the things I am going to have this next time probably is going to

be some shortages of engineer equipment, fuel haulers always critical, if you will think what it was last year we really had a fuel

shortage that time. And then aircraft. My first 131st Aviation deployed right now to Iraq. I won’t have the Blackhawks that I had
16

last year. But I will be calling through EMAC, my sister States

here, and say, hey, I need a little coverage this time.

Federal coordination, as I say, we sponsored all that, we have

done all those kind of things. We had a commander summit here

in Alabama made up of Maxwell-Gunter, Redstone, all the active,

and we have—altogether we have a list and the preference was for

us to identify all the capabilities of all them kind. And they are

ready.

I just got back from a—General Rowe referred to it—I asked the

general conference, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the focus of the hurricane, the conference was hurricane preparedness. They were talking about EMAC agreements. We talked about National Guard Bureau’s role. We talked about public affairs. I am very confident in

the planning that has happened in the local and State, national

levels for 2006.

One of the areas that we haven’t talked about is what we call

RSOI, reception, staging and onward integration. One of this

things I found in Katrina and Rita we had a lot of States, we

moved a lot of soldiers down there. A lot of them drove through

Alabama, and they wanted to spend the night in Alabama, and

they wanted me to refuel them. Fuel was short. We got fuel everywhere we could get it. We had to take care of them. We had to

house them. It was very intensive. We used all our maintenance

shops, we used all our air bases and all our armies taking care of

these coming through. I have assigned that to the 167th Theater

Sustainment Command. They will have that mission this time we

are prepared.

We also built some container express (CONEX) containers. Each

CONEX container will handle about 500 soldiers and in that

CONEX we have MREs, we have water, chain saws, gloves, goggles, reflective vests, communication packet radios, chem lights access, everything you need. So if I am going to send a task force of

500, 1,000, 1,500 we just load them on the trailer and here they

go.

I talked about Civil Support Teams (CST) vans. We know that.

I talked about the lack of aviation. I am going to have the Memorandum of Understanding between States, the law enforcement,

the rules of engagement. They are working to get that sort of

standardized, so it is not a real problem.

Another area you wouldn’t think about was the disengagement

criteria, and that is that it is hard to get out of there. When you

get in there, the public people want you. And so we have to have

disengagement criteria and we established that early on.

One of the things we look at, is the Wal-Mart open? If they are

open, it is time for us to go home. And we engage with them early

on because we are here, but we are going to leave early.

Again let me remind you, we do need some equipment. We need

to practice. We need Title 32. That is the critical things we need

right here. Alabama furnished about 6,000 soldiers this last time,

and I am confident in our ability to respond this next time, and

again I certainly appreciate you having me come here, and thank

you.

[The prepared statement of General Bowen can be found in the

Appendix on page 92.]
17

Mr. SAXTON. General Bowen, thank you very much and, General

Burnett, thank you for being here with us today.

As I said at the outset, we are dependent on the Guard today

more than any time in recent history and so we thank you for the

leadership roles that you play.

Mr. LoBiondo and I both represent coastal districts in New Jersey, and the last time that I recall a direct hit, a serious hit from

a hurricane was 1962. And in your case, every fall or every summer and fall when the hurricane season starts, you have to be sitting there thinking, which one of us is it going to hit? So we appreciate your situation, and your experience and the wisdom that you

bring to today’s discussion is very much appreciated. We are going

to go first for questions to Mr. Smith. And go ahead, sir.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for the

testimony. It was very informative and appreciate the work that

you do.

A couple of areas I want to hit on. One, as I mentioned, coordination, I guess the aspect of it I am most interested in is coordinating

with the locals, the local communities, and most specifically, you

have to sort of deal with the executives, whether it is a governor

or mayor, county executive. And all the emergency preparation that

is going on on the Federal level and even on the State level, you

know it is primarily a lot of career people who are involved in that.

And by and large I think they do an outstanding job. It is what

they do. They are used to talking to each other. They get to know

who is who and are ready to go. But then when the disaster hits,

well, you have to deal with a bunch of politicians, and local politicians, who you know have been running a whole bunch of different

issues.

And I think one of the things we tried to do in my State and that

General Lowenberg, who is our Adjutant General in that State, has

really worked very, very hard. Every time a mayor gets elected,

every time a county executive gets elected, they bring them in and

say, hey, if something happens in your county, we are set up ready

to go. You are the guy who has to make the decision. Are you ready

to that?

I am curious in your plans on how you are doing, how you coordinate, specifically with those local officials, and on the Governor

level, may work very closely with National Guard and all that. It

is more on that local level I am interested in. Mr. McHale and then

General, if you will.

Secretary MCHALE. Congressman, what I will do is just give a

brief introduction and then turn to others who at the operational

level have been integrating their planning and deployable capabilities with State and local officials. One of the real differences this

year compared to last year is last year a Principal Federal Official

under the National Response Plan wasn’t named until we were

well into the crisis. If I recall correctly, the hurricane came ashore

on August 29th and it wasn’t until August 30th that we had a

Principal Federal Official named to take charge of the coordination

of the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

By contrast this year a Principal Federal Official has already

been selected. His name is Gil Jamieson. He has been physically

located—I am focusing now on Louisiana. He has been physically
18

located in Louisiana. Although I don’t know his schedule precisely,

I would estimate for about two months. He was named about three

or four months ago. He has been on the ground communicating

daily with State and local officials to ensure that when we in the

Department of Defense support the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA in the integration of Federal response capabilities

of the type that we have all been describing during the last hour,

that that capability in turn is properly coordinated with State and

local officials.

Our engagement with State and local officials exists in two ways.

At the policy level we do it through the Principal Federal Official,

Mr. Jamieson, and our contact with him has been very close and

very detailed. He knows exactly what capabilities DOD can deliver.

And then at the operational and tactical level, General Rowe,

who is seated on my left, General Blum, seated to my right, use

Title 10 forces and Title 32 forces to integrate with State and local

authorities.

And I would like to turn to them to bring it down a couple of

rungs to talk about how they operationally have been engaging

with their Louisiana counterparts.

General ROWE. In Louisiana we have a full-time planning team

collocated with the Federal coordinating officer planning team,

headed by Lee Foresman, who works for Mr. Jamieson. It is headed

by a Colonel. It includes representatives from Northern Command,

but also from United States Transportation Command, Joint Readiness Medical Planner, and they are working with the State officials, extraordinarily good relationship with the National Guard

State Headquarters.

I took a debriefing this week from one of our planners, and the

officers in charge down there was the Colonel, who remained in

touch in New Orleans for almost 60 days and he has a very, very

good relationship with Terry Ebert, who is the City Emergency

Manager in New Orleans. They are working very hard to understand the local and the State plans.

I think, as has been highlighted, there have been challenges with

sheltering, there are challenges with the details of the transportation plan. Until you know where you are going to take someone

to be sheltered, it is hard to build your transportation plan. We are

very actively working the special needs population. One solution is

to throw the hands up and say U.S. Transportation Command

(TRANSCOM), come with big airplanes and help us. The problem

with that is if you wait until you throw your hands up, big airplanes can’t come in and fly into the airstrips, and so we are really

working the details of that to understand, very good relationships.

Backing out from Louisiana, there are currently a review led by

the Department of Homeland Security, but with the strong Department of Defense effort to look at 131 State and local, large local

regional plans associated with overall evacuation, tries directly

to——

Mr. SMITH. If I may, General, one more thing I have to ask on

behalf of Mr. Taylor before I go, and General Bowen, you looked

like you have something specifically you want to say. If you do that

I quickly and I will ask Mr. Taylor’s question quickly and move on.
19

General BOWEN. Very quickly, I want to take it to a little bit

lower level. The way I tell my people to respond to those mayors

who come out, who are elected and the police chief, they are in

charge. We are there to support them from below. They may have

two deputies in a whole county and 150 MPs. But we work for

them.

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely and sometimes that is the problem, because you are trained and you are experienced, and they are like,

this didn’t come up in the campaign.

So are you working, are you working with them now as they

come?

General BOWEN. Yes, sir. We had all the sheriffs in the hurricane

counties that came to Montgomery for the hurricane. We know

them very well. We work with them daily and on other issues. It

is not a problem.

Mr. SMITH. That is what really needs to happen. You never

know—obviously I mentioned the campaign. In Louisiana if you are

running for mayor of anywhere it is a big issue. But it wasn’t two

years ago.

So the question Mr. Taylor was interested in, specifically someone had mentioned the problem with fuel and he was wondering

if there had been plans set in place on two fronts, one, if we are

talking, primarily talking about coastal areas, if you are talking

about hurricanes to barge in fuel, take advantage of—Mr. Taylor

had mentioned during the Katrina thing some hospital ships were

brought in and sort of used the access points of the water, if there

are any plans in place to barge in fuel, first of all. And second of

all, the issue of contracting in advance for fuel. I realize that can

be a little tricky and that you are contracting for something that

you hope won’t happen, but if you don’t you show up in a situation

where fuel prices are going through the ceiling and anyone who has

got it to sell knows that every day they hang on to it it is more

expensive, and I know that was a bit of a problem in Katrina.

So if someone could touch on those fuel issues quickly. I see a

couple of hands. I will go to General Burnett and General Rowe

and I am done.

General BURNETT. Florida uses 25 million gallons of fuel a day.

That is a lot. We get most of our fuel through barges because of

our littoral coastline. There are issues there. One, you have to keep

the fuel in the tanks full before the hurricane come along because

there is structural integrity based on fuel moving in the tanks.

What the Governor has done, he has partnered with our filling

station vendors. They have generators now in place to pump gasoline. We try to manage that throughout the State with our Department of Environmental Protection Agency head. So we learned that

in 2004, and I think we have a very good plan to do that across

Florida, balancing those fuel loads. It is a tough one to handle, but

I think we have our arms around it and lessons learned from the

past.

General ROWE. This is from traveling with Secretary Chertoff

and Mr. Paulson, Chief Paulson. They have built within FEMA a

construct to position fuel early along the evacuation routes. I have

not heard discussion about delivery of fuel over the shore following

a storm strike. Certainly that is a possible solution.
20

Mr. SMITH. I am sure Mr. Taylor would want to follow up and

find out, and so will I. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you

being generous with the time.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith.

Mr. Kline.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for

being here. It is good to see you again. Most of you are here again,

and again it is nice to have the The Adjutant Generals (TAGs)

here.

Several directions I would go here, I am interested in the resetting the Guard’s equipment issue, but we could probably talk about

that all morning.

Let me go instead to the how do we get activated, and when do

we get activated, and the who is in charge question, not between

the National Guard and the sheriff, but I guess I am swinging

around to you, General Rowe. When I was out visiting you guys a

couple of months ago, a great tour, I was very, very impressed with

the discussions with Admiral Keating and with your folks, well organized. NORTHCOM has representatives from virtually every relevant agency, as I recall, including even nongovernmental agencies

like the Red Cross. So I was very much reassured that

NORTHCOM is in a position to coordinate, to command if necessary, had the information necessary, the intelligence, if I can use

that word in this context. But the question is, and I am looking at

you, Mr. Secretary, or you, General, how do we activate that and

in what terms?

Let me just talk for another 30 seconds and I will look for some

input from you. I would assume, for example, that the use of your

satellite phones, General, could be made available at the drop of a

hat, there is not a whole lot involved in that.

And if the TAGs in Florida or Alabama or Louisiana or something needed more communication, that kind of thing, you could

do—we have talked about some support from the Defense Logistics

Agency, probably not a lot involved in that. But if you are looking

about command and control, as we saw in Katrina, when we went

from FEMA to Admiral Allen, that was a significant change in who

is in charge and how it was run.

So my question, Mr. Secretary, General, anybody, is what does

it take to put NORTHCOM in charge and is that something in your

judgment that we want to do?

Secretary MCHALE. Sir, the literal answer to your question is no.

Nor is that provided by the law. But your question, nonetheless, is

a very good one. The person who represents the senior Federal authority on the scene is the PFO, the Principal Federal Official, and

unlike last time, as I said earlier, where Mr. Brown was not designated until the day after landfall, Mr. Jamison as the PFO was

already in place, already down in the Louisiana area. I didn’t mean

to focus disproportionately on Louisiana, but because of the remaining damage from Katrina and the amount of temporary housing in Louisiana, Louisiana remains our most vulnerable area in

terms of a hurricane this year, though obviously we face a danger

throughout the entire region. In any event, the PFO is Mr.

Jamison, and we in the military bring our forces in to the area of
21

responsibility in to the AOR to support him in his DHS/FEMA mission.

Mr. KLINE. Let me interrupt. I understand why you are talking

about Louisiana and Mr. Jamison in the past, but as we have discussed, we could be talking about a catastrophe anywhere.

Secretary MCHALE. It could be a terrorism attack.

Mr. KLINE. So I would like to kind of put it in that broader context. It is not enough when it comes to the point where the tag—

the government of the tag simply can’t do it and you have the—

okay, we have the agreements with the other States, and we have

said that is not broken. We don’t need to fix that. But there comes

a time when it is overwhelming.

Secretary MCHALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. KLINE. And I guess——

Secretary MCHALE. And that is when we get engaged.

Mr. KLINE. So I am working back to the point where I was earlier. I know I am going to run out of time. NORTHCOM has got

in place all the pieces. It appears to me. All the pieces that you

need to coordinate.

Secretary MCHALE. Yes, sir. And give me just a moment, and I

will try to be of assistance.

The PFO is either in place, or if it is some other part of the country, if it is New England, the PFO will be named by Secretary

Chertoff as soon as the requirement for a PFO would become apparent. Throughout the gulf coast, we have already—Secretary

Chertoff has already named the PFOs in anticipation of hurricane

season. So he names the PFO. Now to get to the heart of your

question. We should bear in mind that in response to Hurricane

Katrina and in a similar manner in anticipation of future catastrophic events, only about 30 percent of the military force came

under NORTHCOM. About 70 percent of the military force, the National Guard, came under the EMAC agreements and the respective governors.

So we anticipate that in a future domestic response whether it

is a hurricane or terrorism attack, that rough ratio would probably

remain in place. So NORTHCOM has everything they need for the

Federal active duty piece, but that is probably only about 30 percent of the military response. The 70 percent, the more robust element of the response would be through the EMAC agreements described by General Blum and our two adjutant generals, and at

this point, let me pull back and let NORTHCOM talk about how

they would be put in a position for rapid deployment. Essentially,

it would be in my judgment the verbal authority of the Secretary

of Defense to transfer Title 10 forces to NORTHCOM consistent

with the needs identified by Admiral Keating and that would be

the 30 percent of the force.

For the 70 percent, we would go back to the EMACs and the dialogue between the adjutant general coordinated by the chief of the

National Guard bureau to move in that larger portion of the force.

But let me turn to General Rowe and General Blum for their comments.

General ROWE. Sir, you really lay out—we will generally be in

support. And ahead of a storm strike, unless incredible circumstances where a governor and a President agree, the change
22

how we are going to handle a natural disaster we will be in support

for the lead Federal agency and the lead within the State will be—

the governor will lead that fight using all of his tools as the tags

have laid out. Post strike post natural disaster, which hurricanes

give us a little warning, they don’t tell us where. Other natural disasters might not give us any warning at all. Now it is the read

there has been a culmination of the culpability of the local responders and the State capabilities to support the people who need—to

have their lives saved to preserve life, to do the immediate recovery, to protect infrastructure, they have. Those circumstances, I

think, could result in a call to say a Federal response, once again,

agreed on conversation between the governor and the President

and the Presidential decision, in which case an area would be defined, the force arrangements for command and control when they

are defined we are set up superbly for that poor—I don’t think

there is a high probability of that, but we are set up well with that

now with the standup of 5th Army, the development during our

qualification of their operational command post, which is now joint

configured to be prepared to come in, either to be in support of a

Federal agency and support of the State, or if given the responsibility, to be a lead effort in which case the student body arrangements

would be in the other direction. But most of the time we will be,

when directed, in support for civil support.

General BLUM. Let me make a point. You hit on a very core issue

here. This is the United States of America, which obviously nobody

in this room needs reminding, but it is, to put it in context. The

United States military always, as long as we are the United States

of America operating under a constitution, will have its uniformed

members in support of the elected civilian authorities that have

been charged with the responsibility and authority to govern our

States and to govern our Nation.

Having said that, the only time that the military is ever in

charge of anything is that they are in charge of commanding and

controlling the military assets that are being sent in support of

that mayor, that governor, the President or whatever elected official in our Nation or in our States, or at the local level, if necessary, needs the assistance that only, that only the military can

provide because it either ceases to exist, or it did not previously

exist somewhere in the civilian community. As good as DOD is, you

don’t want it running the government of a State, a county or this

Nation at any given time.

Having said that, I would like you to put up that chart, please.

We take our responsibilities of support very seriously, and even

though as Chairman Saxton said, we have 71,000 people involved

in that gray part of the chart overseas fighting the war on terror.

And we have 6,000 recently assigned to a mission on a southwest

border. That still leaves you 367,000 citizen soldiers and airmen

that are commanded by the kind of guys you see at this table in

50 States and four territories of our Nation, and all of that blue

pieces are the States that I think are vulnerable for the hurricane

season that is coming up.

So we at the National Guard bureau are working very close with

Northern Command, they know what our capabilities are and they

know what our limitations are. We cannot do everything. But we
23

can do much of what is routinely required for a natural disaster

response.

And then Northern Command, to specifically get to your question, what do they do, they fill in the gaps and fill in the niche capabilities that the National Guard that is forward deployed in literally every place that anybody votes in this Nation, because that

is where they live, and that is where anybody cares where anything

happens. We have a presence in 5,400 communities around our Nation. So we are the first military responders, but we are responding

in support to whatever legal elected official is in charge of that

property, the political boundary and that problem that affects that

boundary.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you. I yield back.

Secretary MCHALE. In responding to Congressman Kline’s question. I said in a general sense, that about a third of our force would

come out of Title 10 forces in response to a future disaster and

about two-thirds would come out of the National Guard, and that

is true for a natural disaster.

The point I wanted to make in closing, was if we have a terrorist

attack involving chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear contaminants, the percentage of the Federal force under NORTHCOM

would likely go up as a relative percentage, the Guard would go

down because some of our most robust high-end capabilities for a

terrorist attack involving seaborn contaminants can be found primarily within the active duty force, so that rough construct onethirds/two-thirds generally fits, but it has got to be adjusted to the

requirements at hand.

Mr. KLINE. Exactly. If you can indulge me since we reentered the

conversation here. I do understand civilian control of the military

and I appreciate the reminder and the lesson, General but the

question was looking at the capabilities that NORTHCOM has got,

inherent in the command in the building with all the people there,

when and how would they be activated to be able to bring that to

bear, never mind the forces, the 70 percent, 30 percent or 50 percent or 50 percent or 30 or 50, it is what is involved in that command. The people, the structure, the communications, the ability

that in the event of a terrorist attack or some very major attack,

you may want to bring that to bear, and the question was how do

you get them to bear.

Secretary MCHALE. A very good question. I am sorry, sir. We

didn’t give you an adequate answer. The answer is as soon as—we

are talking about a hurricane it would differ obviously for other

kinds of—but if it is a hurricane, we would probably get notice a

week out of a tropical storm approaching a given area of the country. We began tracking the hurricane that became Katrina about

seven days before landfall. It was a tropical storm, very low level

tropical depression, I think, out at that point out in the Atlantic,

but we knew about it. We had no idea at that point it would be

so severe. We track very carefully in advance. We have a standing

executive order that has been signed by the Secretary of Defense

that has already delegated to Admiral Keating at NORTHCOM,

certainly preliminary authority within his own authority delegated

by the Secretary to begin to respond to an approaching catastrophic

event.
24

So about seven days out, six days out, five days out, Admiral

Keating has the authority to deploy those Damage Control Officers

(DCOs). He has the authority to select bases for staging areas. He

has certain other competencies that has been delegated to him. But

I would estimate as the storm becomes more severe, three or four

days out, the Secretary of Defense based on the recommendation of

the combatant commander at NORTHCOM would then transfer

from our operating forces, our service components, the capabilities

to NORTHCOM that would seem to be appropriate for the mission

that was at hand, the approaching catastrophic storm or a catastrophic hurricane.

And it would be our expectation that is consistent with what is

known at that point, about three to four days out, DOD would chop

forces to NORTHCOM for employment in a possible response and

at the same time our civilian leader would be looking at issues

such as evacuation, potential search and rescue, those kind of

things.

So the time line is dependent in the case of a hurricane on what

you can anticipate in terms of weather for coast and about the

outer limit of that is maybe seven days out from landfall with significant military action taking place in response three to four days

out.

General BLUM. To include the repositioning Naval forces so they

can be in the right place to come in and help. That is what

NORTHCOM would do. The Guard can’t do that.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much for the great questions, Mr.

Kline. Mr. Langevin.

Mr. LANGEVIN. I want to thank you for being here this morning.

I especially want to thank Secretary McHale and General Blum.

We always appreciate you being here, and appreciate the job you

are all doing. I would like to actually build on that question on an

area that I wanted to touch on.

Because I recognize that much of today’s potential involvement

to hurricane response will be dependent upon assistance from

States, and as well, as the Department of Homeland Security. So

to what extent and does DOD coordinate with States and Homeland Security immediately prior to an event. As you were just discussing, you know, the National Hurricane Center projects that a

level 4, level 5 hurricane is approaching the U.S. Coast. Is there

or what is the mechanism for DOD to reposition any supplies or

equipment to expedite disaster response?

Secretary MCHALE. Again, let me give a brief introduction and

turn to the officers who have been coordinating this on a tactical

level. Our coordination with the Department of Homeland Security,

and specifically with FEMA, in anticipation of the 2006 hurricane

season has been daily, and that coordination has been at that level

of engagement for many, many months now. I spent, just as an example, I spent three hours in a tabletop exercise yesterday with

Secretary Chertoff and other cabinet officials, where the scenario

being examined was a catastrophic hurricane passing directly over

New Orleans. General Rowe is the operations officer for

NORTHCOM, has just concluded a two-week exercise, a major ele-
25

ment of which was a catastrophic hurricane coming ashore in Louisiana.

We have been working with FEMA, with HHS, and with all

other interagency’s partners for many months now in a series of almost unlimited exercises to determine what are the requirements

to assist civilian authorities to include law enforcement authorities

in the case of National Guard capabilities, and what do we need

to get those ready.

And we have a high level of confidence that based on that degree

of coordination that I would ask these two gentlemen to describe

in detail that we have spring loaded—a rapid DOD response with

robust capabilities to provide an even faster, more competent response than the very good response that we provided as a Department last year.

Last year was the largest fastest military civil support mission

by far in our Nation’s history. This year we can do better because

of the coordination. I would ask these gentlemen to describe.

Mr. LANGEVIN. Can you also expound on the mechanism you are

using to coordinate directly with the State who you are talking to,

and one of the things that we heard from Katrina, there was not

good coordination between State and local and Federal Government.

Secretary MCHALE. I will ask General Blum to talk about that.

The direct coordination between the Federal civilian leadership,

and the civilian leadership of an individual State is a responsibility

assigned to the Department of Homeland Security. Secretary

Chertoff has the responsibility to communicate with the governors

to ensure that communication from civilian to civilian at the elected level of leadership, or in the case of Secretary Chertoff, that our

senior civilian Federal and State are talking to each other. We are

in a supporting role to Secretary Chertoff, and what we do is communicate closely daily continuously with a full-time staff from DOD

over at DHS to make sure we understand the overarching Federal

plan, and what we do is communicate operationally primarily

through the adjutant general in the individual States through the

military contact that we have.

We support through those military contacts the overall civilianled effort where Secretary Chertoff has the ultimate responsibility.

So I would ask General Blum to talk about how he has been coordinating with the States through the respective adjutant general.

General BLUM. Great question.

Short answer: In the past, what you described the coordination

between DOD and the State and local level, it didn’t exist.

In the last, particularly in the last year and a half, it has gone

through what I would call the crawl phase to the walk phase to the

full run phase, and I think we are—right now, it is probably as

good as it has ever been and probably—and probably not as good

as it needs to be, but we are working on it every day.

I can tell you that the National Guard and Northern Command

constantly, the communication between us is constant and is continual and it is ongoing. It never quits. It is a dynamic process.

And we are constantly tweaking our capabilities. NORTHCOM

knows what we can do, and he knows what we cannot do, and they

plan what we cannot do or what they might have to do, if we can-
26

not do what we think we can do, and that is not double talk. That

is actually a military contingency plan, and it is going on at the

highest level of DOD, and having said that, what Northern Command lacks and will never have, and I will never have at the National Guard bureau level, is the local knowledge, the existing relationships that are necessary for the confidence trust and efficiency

when a disaster strikes that area, and the trust and confidence of

the local people.

That is where these two gentlemen put the foundation for a solid

response. They can’t do it all by themselves. But they do, in fact,

at the—for the military part of it, they set the foundation for the

military response at the State and local level, and they field me the

same situational awareness and common operating picture of what

their capabilities are, and what their limitations are, frankly, in

equipment or personnel, or in skills or certain expertise sets.

If I can find them through EMAC, through emergency mutual assistance compact that the governors have signed on to from next

door in Alabama and even in Rhode Island, we will arrange for

that. If I don’t have it and I can’t get it, I communicate that to

Northern Command, and they find it within the DOD Army Navy

inventory, which is quite capable, obviously.

Now having said that, that is not the whole solution, sir, because

you do have at the State level, and here is where—that same kind

of process that I just described that is happening on the military

level at State, national and DOD through Northern Command

needs to happen with the State emergency managers who are the

civilian counterparts of the Department of Homeland Security in

these States. That has to also occur at that level so, that we have

the State energy planner emergency what the month emergency

planner capable of doing, and what they are not capable of doing

and that has to be passed up to regional people that work for DHS

and ultimately to the national level because when it happens, either at the State level, at a national level or DOD level, the uniforms are still going to come in support of the Department of

Homeland Security, probably, or one of their sub elements that are

to leave Federal agencies.

Secretary MCHALE. With two-thirds of our force likely to be

drawn from the National Guard, the military portal into the State

is through the adjutant general. Two-thirds of the military response for a natural disaster will likely be drawn from the National

Guard, and so to find out how we can best employ those guardsmen, many of whom will be coming from other States, this gentleman seated on my right, General Blum communicates constantly

with the adjutant general of the State so that we can be informed

as to how those forces can be best employed under the command

and control of the governor.

Bear in mind two-thirds of the response though paid for by DOD

will be under command and control of the governor so the adjutant

general of the State becomes the critical player in enabling most

of the military response.

Mr. LANGEVIN. Just one quick follow up to that, if I could. I recently, over the weekend, I had a discussion with our State’s adjutant general. And he was talking about trying to look at better options for getting preapproval for deploying assets when it is likely
27

to be a federation of a Federal disaster. And is there a better mechanism that we could almost give preapproval for deploying assets.

I think the States would likely to predeploy assets if, in fact, they

knew they had at least some support and there was going to be

some Federal reinforcement.

General BLUM. That is an excellent, excellent point. And is good

preparation is largely dependent on the resources that the State

has to be able to apply for that appropriation. You heard General

Bowen say, and all of the governors and all of the adjutant generals can call out their National Guard in a non paid status if they

need to. But then as we tragically found out in Katrina, sometimes

we lose national guardsmen in responding to hurricanes and trying

to save lives.

And they get injured. And they are not covered properly. And

they are not compensated properly. So in the past there was no appetite and no interest at the Department of Defense level for providing Federal funds to the States for hurricanes. Zero interests.

That has changed. And I think if we were—had reasonable data

that said we are going to have landfall in Newport, Rhode Island

when the next 72 hours, or it was even possible I think that we

would be able to obtain at this point the resources beyond calling

people up on State active duty or probably Title 32 would probably

be made available in reasonable amounts where in the past that

wouldn’t even be considered. And I will leave the rest of that to

Secretary McHale.

Mr. LANGEVIN. Is there a change in the law that we need to

make sure that we can do that.

Secretary MCHALE. I don’t think there is a change in the law,

but I think we need to and will likely implement some of our procedures under the national response plan along a different time line

than what we used last year. From numerous meetings that I have

attended with Secretary Chertoff on this topic, I think particularly

with regard to some of the vulnerable areas of the gulf coast, we

would likely see an early emergency declaration recommended by

Secretary Chertoff and a very cautious approach to an early declaration of an incident of national significance.

We frankly, within the Department of Defense, have no difficulty

at all resolving the very significant question of whether those

50,000 guardsmen should be placed in Title 32 in response to

Katrina. That was a huge decision quickly and relatively easily

made, because it was clear to the senior decision makers, most especially the Deputy Secretary of Defense, that placing those forces

in Title 32 was the right thing to do. What I am suggesting is that

in light of what we have learned from Katrina, if we were to have

an early declaration by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security that we faced an incident of national significance, it

is quite probable though the decision belongs to the Secretary of

Defense, it is quite probable we would do exactly what we did last

time, and that is place the Guard forces in Title 32 without serious

debate.

Mr. LANGEVIN. I appreciate your answer, and I think that would

be an important step toward making sure we are as prepared as

possible if this occurs.

Secretary MCHALE. Yes, sir.
28

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you.

Mr. SAXON. Thank you very much for the great questions. Very

pertinent. Thank you.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky,

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Listening to all of the

comments of planning remind me of the first rule of Roger Rangers

don’t forget nothing. Just brings to mind a couple of questions that

I would like to ask regarding the leadership aspect of this. There

is certainly no substitute on the ground for initiative in the localities where disaster strikes on the front lines, and we saw firsthand, at least from a distance, the human factors impacting leaderships in the different States.

There were some qualitative contacts, and based on that local

leadership, we saw great local officials move forward, but one thing

that I am particularly interested in is if you have a first of two contingency questions worked into your exercises dealing with a recalcitrant State or local elected official and dealing with your chain

of command, if they are paralyzed, unable to make a decision, how

you would work around that and coincidental with that, is do you

have a plan in place for federalizing assets in the case of that type

of resistance?

Secretary MCHALE. Congressman, let me answer that again,

first, as a matter of policy and then invite comment from my colleagues.

We are the Department of Defense and if there were to be a situation where, let’s say, a State official exercised profoundly poor

judgment in terms of responding to a disaster, the Federal official

who would have the responsibility to deal with that, let’s say that

governor would not be the Secretary of Defense, that responsibility

is entrusted by law to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Our military role is to support that Secretary of DHS and so if

a decision were made to bring in the military a greater unified

command and control role, the option that is available by law to

the President is to federalize the National Guard, which is a Presidential decision authorized by statute and to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow Title 10 military forces to engage in

law enforcement activity.

So for the portion of the duty that we face, the law is clear and

well established, and that is in order to overcome State opposition

manifested through the National Guard, when the statutory requirements are met, the President can overcome that opposition by

federalizing the Guard and invoking the Insurrection Act.

That pertains only to the military portion of the response. I don’t

think anyone at this table is qualified to address the larger civilian

implications that go beyond the military piece, but that is an accurate description of how local opposition could lawfully be overcome

within the military sphere.

Mr. DAVIS. I think both of us understand the constitutional implications. But I am kind of a practical guy. I want to come down

to the basic level all politics is local, and it would be very difficult

for the President to willfully federalize a situation if there is an intact structure in the State just because of the perception of avocation of local leadership and all of the civil political impacts of that.

I guess what I am asking is a practical question of have you
29

worked contingencies of a workaround for example, and certainly

with the adjutant general sitting at the table, I know that would

not be a problem within your States at all. Have you considered

this contingency of establishing be the kind of relationships to execute integrated operations with that State’s assets as well as your

outside assets so you didn’t leave that uncovered or unnecessarily

having them redundant?

Secretary MCHALE. Let me preface it and quickly turn to General Blum. If we have competent leadership at all levels of government, the expectation is there would be a likely JTF commander

assigned by NORTHCOM and that JTF commander would coordinate with the adjutant general of the State so the senior active

duty 10 officer would have a coordinating relationship with the adjutant general of the State.

If that coordinating relationship went well, we would proceed as

we did during Hurricane Katrina, with General Honore conferring

constantly with General Landrino. That was a good relationship

that worked well. But if it were to deteriorate in some future instance, that is when the President would have the responsibility to

consider the possibility of federalizing the National Guard to

achieve unity of command.

What I would like to do is ask General Blum, is talk about that

coordinating relationship to get a sense of how we are working out

the dual chain of command that is inherent in federalism to make

sure we have coordinated military activity.

Mr. DAVIS. I appreciate your answer, Mr. Secretary, but that is

still not answering the practical question of let’s assume that got

the leadership implosion, and let’s say you don’t have the right to

replace the patrol leader, what other contingencies do you have

systemic contingencies to deal with that to maintain out-of-uniform

level and working with public safety?

General BLUM. The first part of your question is a political decision. I am not authorized to make those kind of decisions, fortunately. So I will have to sidestep that, because that is a political

decision made at the very highest level of our government. It is inappropriate for me to even comment on. If I get to what you are

asking about, let’s say, I have a competent leader who is incapacitated or has diminished capacity for whatever reason, do I have an

ability to replace that leadership?

Yes, we do. We do that through EMAC and we did that. Very

competent good leaders were soon overwhelmed and fatigued by

the enormity by the tasks they had to perform the magnitude of

the operation, the scope of the operation, and frankly, the physical

exhaustion that they were experiencing in the operation.

And we did flow in command and control headquarters from the

National Guard from other States to the affected States to replace

the command and control that was not there because it happened

to be in Iraq or Afghanistan at the time. We had three very competent brigade headquarters that were overseas fighting the Global

War on Terror, so to make up for that shortfall, we brought in a

division headquarter out of the midwest and we brought in division

headquarters also out of the midwest, unaffected areas, so that we

didn’t take leadership out of an area that had their own problems.

We brought those down and they were highly, highly effective in
30

Mississippi, and they were highly effective in Louisiana in affecting

command and control, or expanding the capabilities that were

there to be large enough to handle the enormity of the situation

they had. Does that get to what you are talking about?

Mr. DAVIS. Not completely, but this perhaps is more appropriate

in an off-line discussion, since the cameras are rolling. I would like,

if I could, have the chairman for a follow-up to this.

Do you believe that DHS is sufficiently clarified, and this is for

the adjutant generals specifically, clarified the rolls of the Principal

Federal Official, and Principal Federal Coordinating Officer. And is

it clear to you who will be in charge of coordinating the Federal response, and ultimately, I guess the final piece of this is if it is not,

who do you think should be in charge from a Federal level.

General BURNETT. Congressman, with the experience of eight

hurricanes in the last year, I would tell you there is no better coordinating officer than this defense coordinating officer. It works

well. There is no question that that can be stepped up. I know of

no need that we had that was unmet to strong leadership of officers like Colonel Mark Fields. That was a huge storm for us. If it

was C–17s or C–5s bringing in the equipment we needed, or meals

or water, whatever it was, that works very, very well. Certainly

there is a role for the Principal Federal Official to play, and I think

we respect that. By the end of the day, under Governor Bush’s

leadership, his team going right to the DC0 you can get everything

this Nation has to offer.

Leadership is in place. What we need is other things, and we

found it is certainly available and we spoke every night. If I could

follow on, sir, and go back, starting out early and it is popular to

recall these folks. Every night, I call the leadership of First Army.

I call the leadership of General Blum at home, and I called Northern Command. Here is what we are looking at. Here is what we

are doing and, if you want to adjust that calibration, I was open

and I would present that to Governor Bush, and we did that consistently throughout that spectrum.

I said to General Clark and Admiral Keating, here is what we

are doing in Florida in this hurricane exercise, so we build that

trust. They know we are communicating; they know we are communicating. But we think the DCO is the answer. There may be

things beyond it but at what price do we need things that are

working well now. And I think we have it.

General BOWEN. I understand exactly how it works. I think putting the Principal Federal Officer in there the other day, and we

met him the other day, we know him. He understands what our capabilities are. We know that if we can not do it, all we have to do

is ask for it. No problem at all.

Mr. SAXON. Thank you. The Chair will recognize Mr. Larsen.

Mr. LARSEN. Gentlemen, thanks for coming to help us out today.

First question is for General Blum. It is kind of deja vu all over

again for you and me, because I think I was sitting in this exact

chair, you were sitting probably right there the last time we talked

about equipment and people, because you mentioned we have

350,000 available National Guard folks. I am wondering how many

people will be available. How many are committed doing something
31

else in Conus or something else but so not available of that

350,000.

The second thing, looking at some of these numbers that you

have supplied to us where you have 101,000 pieces of equipment

in different missions around the world, and then the request over

the next 5 or 6 years for Air National Guard, and Army Guard,

about $23 billion worth of equipment; and then thinking about

Major General Bowen’s comment needing fuel haulers, aircraft and

so on, if push comes to shove, what are we doing to ensure that

our tags, and you and perhaps Northern Command aren’t chasing

the same piece of equipment in this hurricane season.

If you could talk a little bit about that, so how many people do

we have and what do we do to ensure that we are not all chasing

the same piece of equipment because of where other equipment is.

And then I have got a separate set of questions for Secretary

McHale.

General BLUM. I will try to keep it short and to the point. I

would say about 300,000 citizen soldiers and airmen are available

in the United States to go anywhere in the United States to do

whatever is needed to be done, natural disaster response, terrorist

acts whatever would be required. That is the first part of your

question.

The equipment piece we are working feverishly with the Air

Force and the Army, and I say with them, that is a good thing. Because now the Army has accepted the response of national disasters, is a very significant mission of the National Guard and a mission of the Army, and the Air Force as well. So the Army and the

Air Force are working with me to ensure that I have, even faster

than the PALM or the program of record will deliver this equipment.

We are taking extraordinary measures right now to move equipment into the hurricane effective State to give them brand new

trucks, divert them from where they were originally intended to go,

active units, Guard units, Reserve units and move—redirect the

distribution of that equipment so that it is available in the next

few weeks and months for the hurricane season.

I think that is a tremendous step forward and a great demonstration of sincere commitment on the part of the Air Force and

Army to step up and recognize this mission should not be laid on

the backs of the States. They share in this responsibility.

Are we going to get well from this effort? No. Will we improve

significantly from it? Absolutely.

The money that is in the program of record needs to stay in

there, and if it gets diverted or it gets taxed or used for another

purpose, then we are not going to be as capable as the National

Guard as we need to be. So I watch that every day and I try not

to blink, frankly, because it is very important to our Nation, it is

very important to our adjutant general that equipment and that

money gets to where it is supposed to go.

Mr. LARSEN. Is that plan for that $23 billion, as so as right now

you are coordinating with Air Force and Army to fill a potential

equipment gap, and looks like it is going to get filled. But as that

$23 billion gets spent and we purchase new equipment, does that
32

come to the National Guard and the equipment that you have then

reverts back to Army Air Force. Is that how——

General BLUM. That is not my intent, sir. I am not aware of any

intent to do that. That would not make much sense to me, to be

honest. I mean, that is direly needed, once it is there, it needs to

be left there and then we need to improve a lot of the others out

there to face forest fires in a different season, and flooding in a different season, and then you can’t have the equipment chasing the

event.

That is not the way you want to do it. You want the equipment

in the local area, because when it happens, everybody talks about

a week’s notice. I would love to have a week’s notice for specificity

of where a hurricane is going to land. I don’t think that is possible.

I have talked to experts and they spent their life doing this and

they really don’t have a good idea of where it is going until about

three days out. Some say five days out, but even when that projection is there, you have a very wide window of area.

Secretary MCHALE. General Blum is correct on that, which is

why we are going to have to make decisions far enough out from

landfall, based on imperfect information. Seven days out we are

going to know there is a storm, but we are not going to know within hundreds of miles where it might come ashore. Nonetheless, specifically in the case of New Orleans, we are going to have to be

looking, meaning as a government, State, local, Federal, at evacuation plans at a stage where the information is going to be imperfect.

So it is entirely possible that acting in due diligence with imperfect information of the type described by General Blum, we may

have one or more evacuations that turn out to be false alarms, but

to protect the lives, we may have to do that.

Mr. LARSEN. If I may, Mr. Chairman, for Senator McHale. There

is one about Com Plan 2501 and covers with the National Guard

Association (NGA). In your testimony, you said the 2501 is now in

front of the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), and you haven’t got

approval on that. When do you expect to get SECDEF okay, and

is there going to be time to apply principles and concepts? I know

you have been practicing some of things. Is there going to be time

to practice those, but also communicate those concepts to folks so

you can put 2501 in place.

The second on NGA, the Government Accountability Office

(GAO) points out the first gap in the GAO study was the lack of

timely damage assessment. I note in your testimony, you met with

NGA to talk with damage assessment the availability of assets to

make those kind of assessments. What kind of cooperation are you

getting from NGA, and what are they telling you and what can

they expect?

Secretary MCHALE. Let me take the second half of the question,

and then I am going to ask General Rowe to answer the first half.

The relationship, the approval of Com Plan 2501 involves the relationship between the combat commander, who develops that plan

and that relationship flows directly not through me, through the

Secretary of Defense, I have visibility into it, but I think General

Rowe can give a better perspective. If you look at the GAO report

that was written on Hurricane Andrew in 1992, you will find in
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that report an observation that the post damage—the post landfall

damage assessment was slow and inaccurate.

And if you look at any fair minded assessment of Hurricane

Katrina, you will see that the post landfall damage assessment was

slow and inaccurate. If you look at we, in the Department of Defense did in anticipation of Hurricane Rita, you will see, from having learned from the experience of Andrew and Katrina for Hurricane Rita, the combatant commander developed a very comprehensive system of DOD capabilities, mostly aerial imagery and NGA

capabilities to rapidly assess over a wide area the amount of damage that had occurred because media reports historically have been

very inaccurate during those kinds of chaotic circumstances.

So the short answer to the second part of your question is for

Rita and for all future events, shaped by the combatant commander, we will have damage assessment capabilities, mostly aerial imagery from NGA and from other lower level aerial observational capabilities P3s, C–26s, C–130’s, up to and including NGA

type assets to get that aerial imagery so that we, more rapidly and

accurately, understand how bad the damage is. Let me turn to

General Rowe.

Mr. LARSEN. It seems from General Bowen’s comments this is the

kind of commission you need to dump on these guys.

Secretary MCHALE. DHS—here is the linkage that has to take

place. DHS has to get that, because damage is not a DOD responsibility, but we have the best collection assets to download and

forcefeed to DHS so that our civilian leadership has a much clearer, much more accurate understanding of how bad the damage is.

We didn’t have that after Andrew. We didn’t have that after

Katrina. We were prepared as a department to provide that to

DHS after Rita, and we will be similarly prepared for all hurricanes in the future. And NGA is a big piece of that.

General BURNETT. If I can respond to that just from experience.

In Florida, we put mass on the objective. We reconned with force.

We know a Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 hurricane is going to do about these

kinds of things, kind of like when a baby cries, everybody knows

you grab a diaper, you go grab some food, you go nurture. Well, we

go down range with our people and we send reports back. But we

know what we are going to see. It is, just did it go beyond that,

or is this street blocked, or this one blocked, so we do use a lot of

search and rescue National Guard special forces, fish and wildlife

team.

But we send forth knowing what we are going to get, and like

the Secretary said, certainly there is an overhead piece of that we

can do it in 24 hours. Can’t mobilize overhead assets in 24 hours.

So you got to be there and we can do it with large numbers of National Guards in our State response and it works.

Mr. SAXON. Thank you very much.

Mr. Gibbons.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much for your presence up here

on the Hill. I know the rigorous schedule of constantly being

dragged to the Hill interferes with your ability to do your job, but

it helps us better do our job, and we thank you for that.

You know, there is something, Mr. Chairman, that I wanted to

add to your remarks and apologize for having to be taken away to
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go down to the floor for an amendment, but when you talked about

the importance of the Guard and its contribution to natural disasters, forces overseas, the war on terrorism, I don’t think you could

have made a clearer message as to why we need to treat the National Guard as a joint force provider to give them the recognition

and the status.

General Blum, as Lieutenant Blum should be a 4-star general,

not just because we want to make the National Guard a co-equal

branch of the Air Force or the Navy. That is not it at all. But because he needs the authority and the ability to sit in those meetings and have a voice that competes as a joint force provider. And

to me, that is the one thing this committee should be looking at,

should be doing is giving the National Guard a voice. To equal the

mission in the world that they play and not only the war or terrorism, natural disasters, but the whole picture of how they supplant

and actually, in many cases, support all of our active duty forces

as well.

That being said, General Burnett, I wanted to tell you that in

1969, I was a young lieutenant at Egland Air Force base in special

operations, so I remember Hurricane Camille as well as you do. We

were there probably together in some fashion.

But what I wanted to ask about today is, of course, General

Blum, when we look at the logistics and the transfer and the needs

are we projecting where we will have the resources and the dollars

to move those people to move those equipment without having to

rob Peter to pay Paul at that time, because we know it is coming,

we see it out there, and oftentimes, budgeting gets reprogrammed

and shuffled around a little bit. Can we in Congress help you do

that job better?

General BLUM. Congress has done a magnificent job in recognizing the needs of the Guard and addressing them. A perfect example

is post Katrina you ask—this body asks what we needed. We say

we needed about $1.3 billion. You rightfully said how did you come

to that number. We listed every piece of equipment that we

thought we needed to be better prepared to respond to the next

hurricane season. You graciously provided $9 billion. We have

spent it exactly the way we said we would, and our capabilities are

much better.

I would like to not comment on your earlier comment, but I

would like to add a clarification to it.

We are, in fact, indeed, and have been a joint force provider for

at least the last 5 years in ways that we have never been in the

previous 350 years.

But that joint force is in a Title 32 joint force provider. We are

not a Title 10 joint force provider. We do that through our services

and that is our secondary role. I mean, the Guard is unique. It is

the only DOD force that is a joint force provider in Title 32. All of

us are joint force providers in Title 10, sir.

Mr. GIBBONS. What I was trying to do and trying to get at, but

more importantly on budget, do we have the budget means without

having to take away from training, without having to take away

from equipment purchases down the road in order to meet the

needs and the expenses, and moving our Guard group in an emergency. I want to make sure that we are giving you the right budg-
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etary latitude within which to do that, without having you have to

come waltzing back up here and beg us to back bills where you

need to take that money from.

We know your obligations. We know your commitment. We know

what you have got to do in the future. We want to be able to enable

you to do that without worrying about stealing it from training,

taking it or reprogramming it to purchase equipment and such.

That is all I was trying to get at.

General BLUM. You are right. We have developed an art and

science over the years as to how we rob our own Peter to pay our

own Paul. And if we were adequately resourced, we would have to

do less of that.

Mr. GIBBONS. My time is running out very quickly.

Secretary McHale, welcome back again. Can you give me a very

quick rundown of what the chain of command would be, or what

is the command scenario when we go into one of these situations?

Where is the responsibility as we go through this chain of command membership?

Secretary MCHALE. With the passage of the Homeland Security

Act in 2002, and the publication of national response plan at a Federal level, this is basically the way it works out. The cabinet level

secretary, who has the overall coordinating responsibility for Federal assets, is the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Secretary Chertoff is in charge of coordinating the entire Federal response. The official he would name, normally in the area

that has been hit is the Principal Federal Official, the PFO. And

in the case of the hurricane season coming up, Gil Jamison is the

predesignated PFO for Louisiana.

We have other PFOs predesignated throughout the rest of the

gulf coast area. The PFO works with the Federal coordinating officer out of FEMA. His partner is the defense coordinating officer.

On the military side, we support Secretary Chertoff to achieve his

civilian-led mission. The military chain of command goes from the

President of the United States to the Secretary of Defense to the

affected combat commander, Admiral Keating. So Secretary

Chertoff is in charge of Federal coordination. We in DOD get mission assignments or requests from assignments from FEMA working for Secretary Chertoff. We retain command and control over

our own forces, but we roll in under DHS to assist them in the execution of their mission.

Mr. GIBBONS. I had one small question, and I apologize for taking up extra time in this. But I guess maybe if I could talk to the

adjutant generals that we have here, to maybe respond as to are

we getting back the resources that we truly need? Is Congress

doing an adequate job of preparing you monetarily to enable to

handle all of these disasters. But most importantly, in your mind,

do you think we have a strategy like we do in DOD for a 2 war

major theater war strategy do we have a 2 major disaster, for example, if we had Mount Rainier explode in south of Seattle, and

a hurricane hit New York City, magnitude force 3 or greater, can

we respond National Guard-wise to that sort of a magnitude of

command and challenge for us?

General BOWEN. Well, you have gone a little above my level, but

I will tell you that I feel very confident. When you say do I got
36

enough—when I sent them to Louisiana, and I send them to Mississippi, and I am fighting a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he

is real concerned that I have enough, and I show him the numbers

that I have got, I am very confident in what we do.

By the same token we had the numbers up here a while ago that

the way we responded to Katrina and Rita it was 50, 60,000. We

still had soldiers left over. Yet, the more you deploy, the more you

are going to run out of equipment because in Alabama, we have to

cross level because we are not 100 percent fully funded, but it has

never been, and it is probably not going to be, but I have a lot of

confidence.

General BURNETT. Congressman Gibbons, responding to the

equipment issue specifically, yes. Yes, we do have the right equipment to do the job, and we can do the job you talk about, and it

takes a lot of moving around. The National Guard has gotten pretty good about that, certainly when you look at some of the cuts

that came our way recently, I think to Congress, that didn’t occur.

Before 9/11, we had about 74 percent of our authorized equipment

in the National Guard. Now we are somewhere between 27 and 34

percent. It depends on the State. In Florida, we have an adequate

amount, thanks to General Blum. He makes sure that hurricaneprone States are kind of preset, ready to go. We thank Congress

and Bill Young in the Appropriations Committee for the huge support of National Guard reset of equipment, and we think we are

about where we can be considering the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we think we are okay.

Mr. GIBBONS. I want to make sure as we focus on Hurricane

Katrina that we also look at natural disasters in other parts of the

country as well.

General BURNETT. May I make one statement to Congressman

Taylor?

Mr. SAXON. We are going to go to him for questions.

Mr. TAYLOR. Let him get the first swing.

Mr. SAXON. Go ahead.

General BURNETT. I am a lifelong resident of Florida. However,

I am a graduate of Southern Mississippi. I want to tell you it is

an honor to deploy with over 4,000 soldiers Florida State employees

to be based in St. Louis after Katrina, and reestablish local operations with the mayor, the police chief and certainly the superintendent of schools. The people of Southern Mississippi are great,

and I know they appreciate your leadership.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Mississippi, who knows

more about this subject than anybody else on this panel. Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you. Being a resident of St. Louis, when the

Floridians showed up, I think on Thursday night, they were very

welcome and greatly appreciated.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t want to overdramatize this, but really, in

the immediate aftermath of Katrina, as I looked around having

been on this committee for a long time, it really did hit me when

there is an attack on the United States, not if, this is what it is

going to look like. There is not going to be any food, any fuel, communications are going to be shot. There is not going to be a place

to put the dead. The hospitals are going to be out. You know,
37

thinking whether it is in the EMP, electromagnetic pulse, whether

it is a dirty bomb, whether it is someone blowing up the levees in

New Orleans, that is what it is going to look like.

I think it is great that we have these gentlemen here because it

is great to talk about what they did right and the National Guard

did a heck of a lot of things right, but we also need to address some

of the things we could have done better. I would ask Congressman

Smith to mention it and Paul, I know you would be a very smart

guy, but I can’t emphasize this enough, one of the things that was

lacking was a water-borne strategy. We were bringing fuel from

over 200 miles away from areas that had no fuel. You are going

down roads where you know the four-lane highways are down to

one lane where you are lucky because the trees have fallen and

hurricanes are going to hit a waterfront community.

Floods are going to a hit waterfront communities. The biggest cities in America are all waterfront. The idea that we did not have

a strategy to get fuel there by the barge load is a glaring omission

that has to be fixed. When you think of the problems of getting people out of New Orleans, a water-borne strategy to put them on off

shore fly boats, of which there are hundreds in Louisiana, or put

them on deck barges in which there are hundreds in Louisiana,

and get them out of the area and get some up to Baton Rouge, get

them some place where it is easier to feed them and house them,

and take care of them again, it is lacking, but not just with this

scenario, but for any scenario of a disaster, either man made or

natural, when you consider how many of our big cities are on the

water.

It has got to be a piece of it. I distinctly remember at Stennis

Airport that I had to describe to General Blum in Hancock County

out of the middle of nowhere bringing in planeloads of ice. Welcome. Wonderful stuff. That is the most expensive way to get a

fairly heavy, fairly inexpensive product to some place. And so we

do have better strategies, particularly when you keep in mind a

fuel barge has its own generator, it has its own pumping capacity.

You don’t have to deal with gravity. You can be loading trucks

there. Can be loading individual vehicles there.

So again, I belabor this point because I mentioned this to Secretary Chertoff. I don’t think he gets it. I mentioned this to others

within the Department of Homeland Security. They don’t seem to

get it. You are the kind of guys who gets things. And so if they

won’t fix it, I am asking you to fix this, because remember, there

is always going to be a good side and bad side of every hurricane.

Generally, if you are on the west side of the hurricane you are

going to be okay, because you are catching the breezes that are upcoming from onshore. So if a hurricane hits Pensacola, New Orleans will probably do okay. If a hurricane hits New Orleans, Houston will probably be okay, because it lies to the west. So you ought

to have a strategy.

And the second thing is, you have to have contacts in place. A

couple years back, Secretary Rumsfeld came before the committee.

At that time, our local engineering unit was just getting back from

Iraq. They had been instructed to leave every piece of equipment

in Iraq. By the time the storm hits, they had 60 percent of their

equipment and they did a magnificent job. I can’t say enough good
38

things about the 890. They cleared the streets so when the police

showed up from Florida they could actually get down those streets.

But, remember, they had only 60 percent of their equipment. We

need to do better than that.

And the second thing is, after a disaster, the piece that hit me

is I distinctly remember the Secretary saying we will just go out

and buy it on the market. When a disaster hits, the demand on

that market has tripled, quadrupled, exploded over night. You have

every contractor in America trying to buy the same generator, trying to buy the same piece of heavy equipment. So we need contracts in place to guarantee that equipment will be there at a fixed

price, fuel in particular.

I strongly suspect that some of the jobbers in south Mississippi

sat on their inventories. Why did they sit on their inventories? Because when the gulf went down, the price of gasoline went up overnight; and these guys knew they are making tens of thousands of

dollars a day every day they sat back and didn’t sell their fuel.

You have to have a contract in place that says this is what you

are going to be paid; you are going to show up and this is going

to be the market price on that day. You can’t count on the market

because any disaster to the homeland you are going to see the price

of gasoline jump from 50 cents to a dollar overnight, and you have

to have someone who is going to be a willing seller on that day.

Last, it is great to hear about the communications. But again

going back to the one satellite phone that was operating out of

Hancock County on that Tuesday night, the first call, if I am not

mistaken, was to General Blum; second call to the Chief of Naval

Operations (CNO).

And what was really interesting on one hand and really scary on

the other is I said, guys, this is really, really serious. I really, really

need your help. I am not exaggerating. Our hospitals are out. We

have no fuel. We are looting the food stores to feed people, et

cetera, et cetera. Without going into the whole scenario, both of

them, the first reply back to me is, tell me about your bases; where

can I put people.

Now what is scary for me sitting down there is that the CNO

doesn’t know what Homeport Pascagoula looked like, that you don’t

have a good assessment of what Kessler Air Force Base and its

huge runways look like, that you don’t have a good assessment of

what Seabee Base looks like.

I am sitting in a county that is more or less isolated because all

the bridges are destroyed and the ones that are still there are

under water, and I have to tell them what these things look like?

So, again, not just what the Guard and Reserve do but within

the regular forces. And, again, an attack on homeland is going to

look just like this. We have to have a better job of communicating

between our bases and the Pentagon so that we know our starting

point for where you can launch out of to help other people. And I

cannot emphasize that enough.

To this day, I have never had a good answer from either the Air

Force or the Navy as to when they first got in touch with the Pentagon to let them know their status and, you know, whether they

need to spend their time taking care of themselves or whether they
39

were prepared to go out in the community and help others. And

your job, that has got to be something that gets fixed.

The other thing I can’t emphasize enough, that hurricane happened in August, early September. It is warm. No one is going to

die of cold. What if one of these attacks happens during the dead

of winter? No generators. No water. No food. One of things that hit

when I am calling around trying to get tents for shelter for people,

all the tents are in Iraq. They are in Afghanistan.

So things that we on this committee can consider, ‘‘tail,’’ because

we have been trying to put more money into ‘‘tooth’’ for fighting—

when the attack occurs on the homeland you are going to need a

lot more tail, you are going to need a lot more generators, you are

going to need a lot more tents, you are going to need a better way

of getting water to people than buying it one bottle at a time. That

is great in the short term, but it is also the most expensive way

we get water to people. We have to have a strategy of getting the

wells up and running again and maybe even digging wells if the

need occurs.

MREs are wonderful. You can drop them from a helicopter to

feed people. It is also a very expensive way to feed masses of people.

Again, if it is an attack on Los Angeles or New York, we are

going need a more efficient way to feed a lot of people under bad

circumstances.

So just my observations. I have offered at least one solution

when it came to the fuel that we need to be taking advantage of.

And, quite frankly, Paul, there are copycat crimes and there are

copycat attacks. I think any future foe of the United States is going

to blow the levee in New Orleans. They saw how easy it was. If

I was an enemy of the United States, I would sure as heck do it.

We also know you can simulate an electromagnetic pulse. There

was a barge out on the Chesapeake 10, 15 years ago. It was called

the Empress. Its purpose was to simulate an EMP attack on a ship.

So we know we can do that short of a nuclear device. So if we could

do it 20 years ago, you have to figure any potential foe can do it

now. So you have to have backup communications that are somehow sealed against that, that you break out after the attack and

get the word out and get the things done that can be done.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SAXTON. Listen, thank you, Mr. Taylor.

This was a very good hearing. We want to thank each of you for

participating with us here today——

Mr. TAYLOR. One last thing, if I may. I will keep it short.

Mr. SAXTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. General Blum was right in pointing out we lost a

National Guardsman that night. And this is something I hope we

can address administratively; and, if not, we need to address it legislatively. He was a veteran of the battle of Fallujah. A Marine

came home, joined his local Guard unit and tragically died the

night of the storm trying to rescue what turned out to be his own

grandparents. Had he died in Fallujah, his widow and children

would have gotten twice the benefit.

Now, because of the horrible circumstances—General Blum was

great. General Cody was great. Working it from both ends we were
40

able to see to it that he got the same benefit as if he had died in

Iraq.

But I would hope that under that narrow window of being in a

Presidentially declared natural disaster that those families would

be treated the same as if they had been in Iraq or Afghanistan.

It just makes no sense at all. If he had died in Fallujah, his family would have gotten, I believe, $400,000. But because he died in

Poplarville, it would have been only $200,000. Again, it was corrected. And I am greatly—and I know the family is extremely

grateful for doing that. But that ought to be a matter of policy for

us, rather than an exception.

Secretary MCHALE. Did he die in State active duty status before

title 32 was invoked?

General BLUM. No, sir. He was covered in title 32.

Secretary MCHALE. Because of the retroactive nature of it?

General BLUM. Because the Secretary of Defense authorized title

32 back to the 29th of August. He died on the evening of the 29th.

Secretary MCHALE. But your concern is what if in some future

event the approval from the Secretary was not retroactive to an

early date immediately after or even before the occurrence of the

event.

Mr. TAYLOR. And let’s say—you know, let’s say some of the rumors that turned out not to be true about New Orleans really were

true? What if there really had been shooting at Cornville? Whether

you are 20 miles from home or 2,000 miles from home——

Secretary MCHALE. Congressman, we will take it back there for

review by the Office of General Counsel (OGC). My initial impression is if we have a situation where a soldier is already in title 32,

that in terms of death benefits and so on he is well cared for. The

concern would be, if we didn’t have a retroactive declaration—

which we did have for Katrina—where there might be a gap between the time of the event and the declaration of title 32, where

in State active duty status, the benefit wouldn’t be nearly what it

is. We heard some discussion of that earlier in title 32.

Mr. TAYLOR. In all honesty, I attended the funeral. If the officer

assigned by the National Guard to take care of the family had not

brought it to my attention, it might not have been fixed.

So, again, for the next time, it ought to be something that automatically gets fixed.

Secretary MCHALE. Yes, sir. We understand.

Mr. SAXTON. Once again, thank you for being with us today. We

appreciate your being here, and we appreciate very much the job

that you are all doing. And, hopefully, when we have our next

event, we will be better prepared than we were last time.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of General Landreneau can be found in

the Appendix on page 97.]

[The prepared statement of Ms. Pickup can be found in the Appendix on page 108.]

[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X

MAY 25, 2006

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