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55–274 PDF 2010

U.S. MAYORS SPEAK OUT: 

ADDRESSING DISASTERS IN CITIES 

(111–94) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

March 4, 2010 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

PHIL HARE, Illinois 

JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio 

MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan 

BETSY MARKEY, Colorado 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

VACANCY 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chair 

BETSY MARKEY, Colorado 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

VACANCY 

(Ex Officio) 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

VACANCY 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

Berginnis, Chad, Senior Specialist, Hazard Mitigation and Floodplain Management, Michael Baker Corporation, testifying on Behalf of Association 

of State Floodplain Managers ............................................................................. 29 

Cownie, Franklin, Mayor, City of Des Moines, Iowa ............................................ 6 

Duffy, Robert J., Mayor, City of Rochester, New York ......................................... 6 

Gispert, Larry, Past President, International Association of Emergency Managers ...................................................................................................................... 29 

Maxwell, David, President, National Emergency Management Association ...... 29 

Nagin, C. Ray, Mayor, City of New Orleans, Louisiana ....................................... 6 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia ................................. 47 

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 49 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Berginnis, Chad ....................................................................................................... 52 

Cownie, Franklin ..................................................................................................... 65 

Duffy, Robert J. ........................................................................................................ 72 

Gispert, Larry .......................................................................................................... 77 

Maxwell, David ........................................................................................................ 82 

Nagin, C. Ray ........................................................................................................... 88 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Cownie, Franklin, Mayor, City of Des Moines, Iowa, Duffy, Robert J., Mayor, 

City of Rochester, New York, Nagin, C. Ray, Mayor, City of New Orleans, 

Louisiana, response to questions from the Subcommittee ................................ 71 

Maxwell, David, President, National Emergency Management Association, 

responses to questions from the Subcommittee ................................................. 87 

Nagin, C. Ray, Mayor, City of New Orleans, Louisiana: ......................................

Report of the Stafford Act Reform Task Force ........................................... 100 

Responses to questions from the Subcommittee ......................................... 117 

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(1) 

U.S. MAYORS SPEAK OUT: ADDRESSING 

DISASTERS IN CITIES 

Thursday, March 4, 2010 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:09 p.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton 

[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Ms. NORTON. We apologize for the delay, but we are pleased to 

say good afternoon and welcome to all, especially to our witnesses, 

and particularly our three mayors, to today’s hearing which will 

address the recent report of the United States Conference of Mayors, a Stafford Act Reform Task Force, and disasters. And we will 

be speaking about disasters in cities in particular. This report from 

mayors who have on-the-ground experience with emergencies and 

disasters is an important contribution to the Subcommittee’s ongoing work to improve the Robert G. Stafford Disaster Relief and 

Emergency Assistance Act. 

We are pleased that the United States Conference of Mayors convened its task force of 24 mayors to review and make recommendations on the Stafford Act, as well as on the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency’s programs, regulations and policies. Today 

we will receive testimony from three of the mayors who are members of the task force, as well as from professional emergency managers and floodplain managers regarding the task force recommendations. 

The task force report is comprehensive, covering a number of 

areas, including catastrophic disasters, hazard mitigation, individual and household assistance, insurance, emergency preparedness and response, and FEMA administration. Many of the recommendations in the report have wide support and agreement, and 

some are already in legislation or on the way to the floor with legislation. However, in other cases, as we will hear today, some of the 

recommendations may require further analysis and discussion. 

Not all of the report’s recommendations require legislation, I am 

pleased to say. Many could be implemented by FEMA administratively through regulations or changes in policies. And the Subcommittee has always encouraged much greater use of FEMA’s 

considerable administrative authority, and also say for the record 

that we regret very much that often the Subcommittee has had to 

enact legislation that we did not believe was required because 

2 

FEMA did not use the considerable authority that it already has. 

And we will be watching attentively to see whether FEMA is quick 

to dig into these recommendations to pursue them on its own to the 

greatest extent possible. 

We recognize that there are some cases in which law will be necessary, and we are prepared to consider those changes. The Committee already has addressed some of the recommendations in legislation, including H.R. 3377, the Disaster Response Recovery and 

Mitigation Enforcement Act of 2009, and other legislation that I am 

pleased to be a co sponsor of, along with Chairman Oberstar and 

Ranking Members Mica and Diaz-Balart. H.R. 3377 reinstates the 

Mortgage and Rental Assistance program and contains a provision 

to provide additional mitigation assistance to States that adopt 

building codes. And if you have watched what has happened in 

Haiti and in Chile—I don’t know why I want to say Costa Rica and 

Chile—you will understand the importance of the assistance we 

will give to jurisdictions that adopt their own building codes. 

Both of these ideas are recommended by the task force report. 

H.R. 3377 has already been ordered reported favorably to the 

House, and I expect it to be taken up by the full House soon. 

I am pleased to recognize the mayors who are testifying on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, including Mayor Franklin 

Cownie of Des Moines, Iowa, and Mayor Robert Duffy of Rochester, 

New York. 

If I may, I shall say a special word about Mayor Ray Nagin, who 

also is testifying and has testified before the Subcommittee a number of times. This is likely the last time he will testify as mayor 

of New Orleans. We commend Mayor Nagin for leading his city 

through the greatest natural disaster to strike our Nation and for 

chairing the task force to help ensure that cities across the Nation 

can learn from his experience and the experience of the citizens of 

his city. 

We look forward to hearing the testimony of all of today’s witnesses about how we can improve how our Nation addresses disasters in cities. 

Ms. NORTON. Why don’t we proceed with the mayors in the order 

in which they have seated themselves, or maybe the Chairman 

would like to go first. 

Mayor Nagin, would you like to go first? 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes, Madam Chair, I would. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I am sorry, there is a Ranking Member here 

today, even though Mr. Diaz-Balart is not here. Well, he is here almost. And if he would like to offer an opening statement or—he 

will offer his usual opening statement. 

Mr. Diaz-Balart. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I 

apologize for being a couple of minutes late. 

I want to thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for holding this hearing today on addressing disasters in cities and the recommendations of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. 

In January, as everybody knows, the U.S. Conference of Mayors 

Stafford Act Reform Task Force issued its recommendations on how 

we can better improve, and prepare really, and mitigate against 

and respond to future disasters. The task force began its work in 

3 

September and included representatives from a number of cities, 

including two in Florida, I might add, and we are very proud of 

that. Unfortunately it is because Florida has too much experience 

in these issues, not something that we have done by choice, mayors, as you know. The Chair of this task force is Mayor Nagin of 

New Orleans, and we thank him for being here today. 

As a Member from the State of Florida, a State that has seen 

and continues to see its share of disasters, I particularly appreciate 

the experience and work that the task force members put into developing their recommendations. 

Look, you know, we all know that Hurricane Katrina was a 

wake-up call, a big wake-up call. It has now been nearly 5 years 

since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and devastated parts of Louisiana, 

Mississippi, Texas and Alabama. And since that time I think Congress has taken a number of important steps to strengthen FEMA 

and our Nation’s emergency management capability, including, not 

limited to, but including, passing the Post-Katrina Reform Act. 

But while legislation took important steps to improve preparedness and response, there is obviously a lot more work that remains 

to be done. For example, all too often recovery following a major 

disaster has been slowed by red tape, bureaucratic red tape, and 

by inflexible policies in some cases. And the impact of this red tape 

is especially magnified following a large-scale disaster when assistance is critical to rebuilding local communities. And we know that 

that is a long and arduous and difficult process. In hearing after 

hearing we have received testimony about the slow and—you know, 

that slow process which communities have to try to navigate and 

have to try to figure out in many cases. 

Congressman Cao, who is sitting now as Ranking Member— and, 

again, thank you, sir, for starting, and, again, I apologize to you 

and the Chairwoman for being a little late—has worked tirelessly 

to cut through the bureaucracy and free up funding for the recovery in Louisiana. And I again once again want to publicly, as I 

have done before, thank him for his tireless efforts in trying to get 

that done. 

Last year Ranking Member Mica hosted two roundtables at Congressman Cao’s request to bring together FEMA and the State and 

local representatives to try to work through some of that funding 

backlog. And last year a new arbitration process was established 

to expedite recovery funding, which really has freed up more funds 

for the rebuilding of Louisiana. But—and again, but it should not 

have to take roundtables and meetings and arbitration panels to 

cut through the bureaucratic red tape. Responsible changes to the 

Stafford Act and FEMA policies can go a long way to speed up the 

recovery of communities devastated after natural disasters like 

hurricanes. 

We understand that Administrator Fugate, as you all know, 

somebody who has vast experience, is committed to reviewing 

FEMA’s policies, to examining the ways to streamline and improve 

FEMA’s role in assisting State and local communities. For example, 

allowing for the mitigation reconstruction of damaged structures 

would make more sense in many cases than simply elevating old 

structures to mitigate against flooding, which does little to protect 

against wind. Again, those are some common sense ideas. This is 

4 

just one of many examples of changes that can’t be done administratively without requiring Congress to act without legislation. 

In this Congress I worked with Chairwoman Norton of the Subcommittee, along with Chairman Oberstar and Ranking Member 

Mica, on H.R. 3377, the Stafford Act bill, which was ordered reported in November. That bill includes provisions intended to improve preparedness and mitigation, including incentives for building codes, improving the Nation’s public alert and warning system, 

and providing for the transfer of excess goods and housing units to 

local communities. It also includes proposals recommended by Congressman Cao to provide more flexibility in response to widespread 

disasters. 

As we move forward on this important piece of legislation, input 

from you all, from the mayors, is, frankly, critical. I know you are 

on the front lines of these issues. So good planning and response 

to a disaster starts with you all, right, at the local level, local and 

then State levels. And we know that many mayors in local communities unfortunately have firsthand knowledge, practical knowledge, of what may need to be improved and may need to be 

changed. 

And I say—I mean, obviously it is an experience I know that all 

of you wish you didn’t have to have, but unfortunately you do have 

it, and we have had instances in the past, and we know that they 

are going to come again in the future. 

I hope that today we will be able to examine closely the recommendations of the U.S. Conference of Mayors to better inform 

our consideration of changes to the Stafford Act. I want to first, 

again, thank you, the witnesses, for joining us today. And I would 

be remiss without thanking once again the Chairwoman of this 

Committee for her leadership. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Diaz-Balart. 

Ms. NORTON. Opening remarks from Mr. Cao. 

Mr. CAO. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

First of all, I want to extend my thanks as always to you and 

to Ranking Member Diaz-Balart for your unwavering support for 

the District and for the recovery of Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. 

I want to also extend my thanks to our witnesses today and look 

forward to a real nuts-and-bolts discussion about the act, which 

plays such a critical role in disaster preparedness, response and recovery. 

I appreciate the U.S. Conference of Mayors being here today, 

and, as you know, the Conference of Mayors is being led by my own 

mayor, Mayor Ray Nagin, who more than anyone knows the effects 

of disasters on a city and its population. And, Madam Chair, I just 

want to reiterate that. I also noticed that he has been here quite 

often. And since he is leaving, it makes me wonder whether or not 

he is seeking my seat. 

Mr. NAGIN. You don’t have to worry about that, Congressman. 

Mr. CAO. But we know it has been 4-1/2 years from one of the 

greatest disasters in the history of this Nation when Hurricane 

Katrina destroyed my district, and major institutions like our universities were closed for business for several months after the 

storm, and many remain closed after waiting years for recovery asVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
5 

sistance. Many of our critical institutions like Charity Hospital and 

basically the entire health care infrastructure in the hardest-hit 

New Orleans East have never reopened. Basic services like hospital, police, fire and rescue, libraries and schools were wiped away 

by the floodwaters, or today they are simply empty shells of buildings. 

In the immediate area around New Orleans, 80 percent of the 

buildings and 50 percent of the housing stock were damaged in 

some way. This is to say nothing of the thousands who tragically 

lost their lives as the waters rose around them and literally engulfed them. 

This happened in the greatest Nation on Earth and stands to 

happen again if the way we think about disaster preparedness, response and recovery is not dramatically changed. Recovery has 

been too slow-going, and this is due in large part to the red tape 

that is at FEMA. The Stafford Act is currently set up to provide 

recovery dollars on a project-by-project basis. For the Gulf Coast 

States that were hit by the massive and widespread destruction of 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, this process just did not work. 

After talking with my constituents, Federal officials, local officials, including Mayor Nagin, and FEMA Administrator Fugate 

about what changes need to be made to the Stafford Act, I took action. So in September of last year, I introduced H.R. 3635, the Disaster Relief and Recovery Development Act. This bill has the support of the entire Louisiana delegation. H.R. 3635 was a step in the 

right direction so that communities hit by disaster never have to 

go through the anemic recovery that we had to endure in my district and along the Gulf Coast. 

As introduced, the bill would streamline operations and increase 

accountability and transparency by FEMA by calling for review of 

FEMA regulations and requiring a report to Congress within 18 

months of enactment, requiring regular reporting to Congress on 

the status of the speed with which public assistance project worksheets and other contributions are being made for open disaster, 

requiring FEMA to shift to a cost-estimate model by requiring regulations to be prepared within 6 months of enactment. 

The bill also focuses on FEMA’s role as a recovery and coordinating agency by formally establishing and preconstituting emergency recovery teams to establish the FEMA’s dual role as both a 

recovery and response agency in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. It also seeks to establish a Federal Interagency Disaster Recovery Task Force with the purpose of ensuring Federal agencies 

with a role to play in recovery are coordinating before a disaster, 

and full Federal resources are identified to be activated at the time 

of a disaster. 

Those are some of the provisions that we seek to change in regards to how the Stafford Act regulates FEMA. And I am pleased 

to report that in November last year that the vast majority of these 

critical reforms were included in the Disaster Response Recovery 

and Mitigation Enhancement Act of 2009, which was authored by 

this Committee’s Chairman Mr. James Oberstar, Chairwoman 

Holmes Norton, Ranking Member Mica, who was with me at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, and Ranking Member Diaz-Balart. 

The remaining provisions the Chairman and I are working on for 

6 

consideration. I have had the chance to review the proposal of the 

U.S. Conference of Mayors, and I am pleased to report that a number of the recommendations are reflected in my bill. 

The success of these provisions is good for the constituents in 

Louisiana’s Second Congressional District because it represents 

progress and change on how FEMA does business. With this bill we 

have taken a comprehensive relook at the Stafford Act and the regulations that support it, and we have made it better. 

I am grateful for your consideration and collaboration and that 

of your staff, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking Member. They 

have been wonderful to us, and they have been very cooperative in 

trying to establish the changes we need to the Stafford Act. And 

we are still in the midst of recovery, and we are still many years 

off due to the extent of Hurricane Katrina’s damage to my district. 

Many of the critical institutions like Charity Hospital and other 

health care institutions are still not reopened, but we are working 

towards a revitalization of the area, and through other economic 

means we hope to once again bring New Orleans back to once it 

was one of the greatest cities in this country. 

So with that I thank you very much for holding this hearing, and 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Cao. 

Ms. NORTON. Actually I will let the mayors decide in what order 

they want to proceed. You may have your own sequences. 

Mr. NAGIN. I will go first, Madam Chair, if that is okay. 

Ms. NORTON. Mayor Nagin, please go ahead. 

TESTIMONY OF C. RAY NAGIN, MAYOR, CITY OF NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA; ROBERT J. DUFFY, MAYOR, CITY OF ROCHESTER, NEW YORK; AND FRANKLIN COWNIE, MAYOR, CITY 

OF DES MOINES, IOWA 

Mr. NAGIN. To Chairwoman Norton, to Ranking Member DiazBalart and to my Congressman, Congressman Cao, and all the distinguished Members of the Subcommittee panel and guests. My 

name is C. Ray Nagin. I am the mayor of the City of New Orleans. 

I want to, first of all, thank you for this opportunity to speak to 

you today about reforming the Stafford Act, which as many of you 

have already said and are aware, is a Federal law that supports 

preparation for and response to disasters. It gives the President of 

the United States the power to issue disaster declarations that authorize help for States and local communities overwhelmed by 

events that have disrupted their normal functioning. 

Although it was written to give discretion to Federal administrators for tailoring a response to the need, the flexibility in the Stafford Act is not adequate to handle the widespread destruction 

caused by the kind of disaster that New Orleans faced from Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding--a catastrophic disaster. Response is too often impeded by this limiting piece of legislation, bureaucratic inefficiency, and conflicting or unclear policies and regulations. 

In New Orleans we are rebuilding following the devastation of 

Hurricane Katrina. Although problems with the Stafford Act and 

its implementation have led to major delays in our recovery, we are 

now creating a city that is even better than we had before. But the 

7 

structure under which we have struggled to recover remains largely unchanged today and will continue to cause significant problems 

in future disasters. 

I want to thank you once again, Congresswoman Norton, for all 

you have done to support New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina 

and to help us better prepare the country to respond and recover 

from disasters. Many of the special one-time fixes that gave New 

Orleans relief following the 2005 storms very graciously began with 

this Subcommittee under your leadership, and you have been a 

leader in initiating positive, permanent changes to the Stafford Act. 

I want to also publicly thank President Obama’s administration 

and other key leaders in Congress who have worked to improve disaster response and recovery since the catastrophic events in New 

Orleans demonstrated the needs so clearly. 

You know, one of my goals since this disaster has been to learn 

from it and to make sure that no other American city ever has to 

face the difficulties that we had in New Orleans. Because disaster 

response and recovery is important to every city, the United States 

Conference of Mayors asked me, along with some other mayors, to 

put together a task force to formulate some recommendations 

which you referenced earlier. We are 24 mayors represented on this 

Committee from 18 different states, and it was unanimously approved by the entire body of the USCM. I have been working with 

my co-chair, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and with participating mayors, emergency managers, and other staffs from cities 

around the country, and we have outlined a set of comprehensive 

reforms. 

Congresswoman Norton, we are also very appreciative that you 

introduced H.R. 3377. And if you haven’t heard it before, we support this bill; we are just hoping that it will have some of the modifications that we have included in our report. 

I want to really cover five key issues, and I will try to do those 

very briefly. First, the Stafford Act should provide for a catastrophic designation to speed up funding, availability, and recovery. 

And I know we have had some discussions about the different categories that are already in this act, but we firmly believe that some 

type of catastrophic designation would be appropriate going forward, and we can talk about how to define that. 

One of the thoughts we had was a multi-state designation, if 

there were an event that happened that affected multi States. Another thing that we talked about is if it had significant impact to 

the national economy. We think there should be some automatic 

provisions that kick in in the event of a catastrophic-type event. 

One of the other things we found that would help this is that the 

FEMA organization, in my experience, has been more of a compliance-driven organization. They are into the compliance with the 

rules, and that tends to slow things down. In a catastrophic event, 

you need a mission-driven organization that is clear about what 

they are trying to accomplish over a very short period of time, and 

we think this designation would help a lot. 

Second, the $5 million cap on the Community Disaster Loan Program must be removed. This is an area where we have had a onetime fix, if you will. But keep in mind that during Hurricane 

Katrina, it was catastrophic, and our economy was completely shut 

8 

down. So in October 2006, after a year of lobbying, a full year of 

lobbying, Congress was very gracious in providing the city and 

other affected entities with the ability to borrow up to 50 percent 

of our annual revenue loss, but we had to go through a full year 

with the act basically saying that the maximum we could get was 

$5 million. 

Thirdly, the law should give grant standing to local jurisdictions 

that are CDBG Entitlement Communities so that we may deal directly with the Federal Government. I want to clarify something 

here. We are not talking about the immediate aftermath of the 

event-- categories A and B. We are talking about once the community starts to clean up debris and get the recovery going. That is 

when those grants should come directly to the local municipalities. 

On my fourth issue, and I have one more, and then I will be finished: the Hazard Mitigation Program must be adequately funded 

and streamlined. Hazard mitigation is a great concept. It uses 

probably the toughest dollars there are to spend. There is so many 

rules and regulations, and then it goes through the States, and 

they struggle to spend those dollars also. But in the event that 

happened in New Orleans, New Orleans had about 57, almost 60 

percent of the damage, and thus far we have only been allocated 

about 5 percent of the hazard mitigation dollars that have gone to 

the State. We have been awarded only $30 million out of the $1.4 

billion that was allocated. So we are pushing for direct funding on 

that. 

And then, lastly, there must be an increased support for communities hosting evacuees and the cities that provide direct assistance 

to disaster-affected communities. These communities should not be 

penalized for their generosity. They should receive 100 percent reimbursement for personnel costs and lost revenues incurred to help 

manage and implement assistance for evacuees. Unfortunately, 

during our experience, that did not happen. 

I want to thank you again for your focus on this important issue 

and for the commitment that you have demonstrated to our city. 

Despite all the challenges that I just mentioned, New Orleans is 

rebuilding, and we will be a stronger, smarter and better city than 

ever before. Over 80 percent of our population is back. Our city is 

growing at at least a 7-8 percent growth rate per year. Our unemployment is among the lowest in the nation because we have a tremendous amount of construction-related activity going on in our 

city. 

And as I prepare to leave office and not run again for any public 

office-- Congressman Cao-- I remain as committed as I was just 

after Katrina to make certain that no other city faces the recovery 

and rebuilding difficulties that we had in New Orleans. It has been 

my honor to lead the task force on behalf of the U.S. Conference 

of Mayors. Our recommendations are based on actual experiences 

and actual frustrations in working with a structure that must be 

overhauled to better serve the American people. Reform of the Stafford Act is critically important to the future of our cities, and it 

must be reformed now. 

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you, Mayor Nagin, for that. 

9 

Thank you again for your service. I recognize it probably was the 

roughest mayoral service. 

Mr. NAGIN. Of all time. 

Ms. NORTON. Perhaps even all time. And I note your pledge to 

Mr. Cao to leave him be, at least for you to leave him be. You 

should note that we did not swear in the witnesses. 

Mr. NAGIN. So noted. 

Ms. NORTON. Shall we hear from, which of you, Mayor Cownie, 

who is mayor of the City of Des Moines? Please go on, Mayor 

Cownie. 

Mr. COWNIE. Thank you, Chairwoman Norton, Ranking Member 

Diaz-Balart and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Frank 

Cownie, the mayor of Des Moines, Iowa, and I am a member of the 

U.S. Conference of Mayors Committee on the Stafford Act Reform 

Task Force, chaired by Mayor Nagin, and also have enjoyed, quite 

frankly, getting to know Mayor Nagin and watched his work as 

many of us around this country did during their time of need. I 

also serve as Chair of the Mayors Metro Economies Committee. I 

am honored to have the opportunity to speak to you today. 

Under Mayor Nagin’s leadership and his Vice Chair, Sacramento 

mayor Kevin Johnson, our task force did really a remarkable job 

by identifying the various Stafford Act provisions which caused 

problems for local officials trying to prevent, mitigate and respond 

to disasters, and of developing recommendations intended to solve 

some of those problems. Today I would like to touch on our recommendations regarding hazard mitigation and then talk a bit 

about our experiences in Des Moines relating to flooding, which occurred in June of 2008. And I might also take about 30 seconds to 

tell you about our experience in 1993. 

Hazard mitigation recommendations by our Committee. The hazard mitigation measures have proven to be effective in reducing 

property damage, cost of repair and replacement, and loss of life. 

FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program provides funding to assist communities in implementing long-term hazard mitigation 

measures as we repair or rebuild following a major disaster. 

A congressionally mandated study for FEMA estimated that $4 

can be saved for every dollar we invest in mitigation. More funding 

should be made available for hazard mitigation after a disaster, 

and communities that are at high risk should have more funding 

and financial incentives or hazard mitigation programs available to 

them. Additionally, the entire hazard mitigation grant process 

should be streamlined so less funding is lost to complex and bureaucratic administration, and more can be spent on the actual 

construction of safer structures. 

Now, quickly I will talk about our experience in Des Moines. In 

1993, we had a—I was not in elected office at that time, but had 

the experience of going through a devastating flood in our city. In 

2008, we had a similar experience. Through watching some of the 

trials of some of our mayors, including Mayor Nagin, we all learned 

and we knew that preparation certainly was necessary. 

And I will tell you that in 2008, the City of Des Moines, we had 

about 99 percent of the water that we had in 1993, but because of 

preparation and a lot of the work that we did, we only had 5 percent of the damage in our city. However, I will also tell you at the 

10 

same time that 73 of the 99 counties in the State of Iowa in 2008 

were declared national disasters and was ranked, some say, in the 

top four national disasters—natural disasters of all time in this 

country, right in the middle of the heartland of this country. It is 

not a coastal situation. This happened as a result of flooding and 

heavy downpour and, some would say, climate change. 

In June of 2008, Des Moines was threatened with serious flooding. We discussed our experience in Des Moines with the task 

force, and as a result, it was recommended that disaster assistance 

funds should also be provided to reimburse costs associated with 

preventative measures. The Stafford Act prevent funds are provided through annual grants to assist with preparation in hardening of structures. Reimbursement should also be provided to jurisdictions that use resources to take urgent preventative measures 

to mitigate the effects of potential disasters which appear to be imminent threats. These measures, which could include precautionary 

evacuations and target hardening of facilities or levees, should be 

covered even if the path of the threatening event changes or the 

preventative measures successfully mitigate the effects of a disaster. 

In our experience in Des Moines, a vast majority of the disaster 

funds were allocated and administered by the State of Iowa. This 

resulted in major delays in assisting disaster victims. The State 

had to set up administrative procedures, hire new staff, set up new 

tracking systems, and establish methods of communication and reporting. 

Certainly cities like the City of Des Moines and Entitlement Cities have capacity; we have engineers; we have past experience of 

administering Federal grants, whether it be CDBG or HOME or 

ESG, lots of Federal programs. We know how to do it. We are Entitlement Cities. We get annual funds from the Federal Government. 

We can help the States get that money out more quickly. 

Many administrative rule changes were made and are still being 

made resulting—and I am just talking about our experience in 

2008. There is still more delay and confusion. 

While this administration and administrative model may be necessary in rural and unincorporated areas, certainly many of the 

areas hardest hit are the Entitlement Cities. And we experienced 

federally funded programs, as I mentioned a minute ago, CDBG 

and HOME funds. Entitlement Cities, including Des Moines, we already have in place those staffs and accountability and understanding needed to administer those programs. Direct allocation to 

those Entitlement Cities was done during the floods, 1993. As I 

mentioned earlier, we had those funds on the ground in 60 days 

working to mitigate immediately. Obviously we responded immediately, but we had the Federal funds already in motion. We have 

the capacity. 

Because the funds are allocated to the State, localities have had 

much less control over how the funds are spent in their communities. The State of Iowa set up specific programs and allocated 

funding based on Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, 

and Small Business Administration, SBA, assistance received. This 

allowed little discretion to decide what is most critical at the local 

level. In Des Moines, for example, dealing with aging infrastrucVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
11 

ture is a high priority. Much of our infrastructure is over 150 years 

old, and we—it is significant prevention in mitigation strategy to 

work on those pieces of our infrastructure, but limited competitive 

funds were made available for this activity at the State level. 

Direct allocation of disaster recovery funds to Entitlement Cities 

would allow for expedited assistance to victims and increased local 

control over priorities without jeopardizing administrative or financial accountability. 

We were able to have direct access to know who—actually we 

were unable to get direct access to know who in our community received FEMA or SBA assistance. This information would be helpful 

in assessing where to concentrate our outreach, as well as to verify 

the amount received for the duplication of benefits process that is 

required under the Stafford Act. 

FEMA recipients were unaware of the specific items their funds 

could be spent on, home repair versus personal property, et cetera, 

or that they needed to even keep receipts. 

The on-line system that FEMA recipients can utilize to get a 

copy of their FEMA awards is cumbersome, and it is hard to use. 

The assessment that FEMA did in order to award funds seemed 

to be all over the place. We had families awarded as little as $60, 

when, in fact, they had thousands of dollars’ worth of repairs. We 

understand that FEMA is just the front line, and that more assistance will be available, but many of the families in the Jumpstart— 

by the way, the Jumpstart was an Iowa program that took CDBG 

funds and used those—were not. Some took payday and car title 

loans to pay for those repairs that the FEMA funds did not cover. 

We need coordination between FEMA and the U.S. Corps of Engineers in each and every event where both entities exercise jurisdiction. The absence of this coordination is particularly problematic 

for communities told by FEMA that levee repairs, for example, are 

not FEMA-reimbursable expenses because they view this as a 

Corps-reimbursable expense, while the Corps says the expense is 

Corps-nonreimbursable because they view it as a FEMA-reimbursable expense. 

So the response time from FEMA is also slow. The Birdland area, 

which is one of our areas where we had a breach in the 2008 event, 

the City of Des Moines was substantially damaged by flooding, and 

the area was not eligible for property acquisition under HMGP because it is protected by a levee. And since that area did not qualify 

for that type of assistance, the City of Des Moines was forced to 

administer a locally funded flood buy-out for damaged properties 

after those floods. The HMGP program needs to be amended, or a 

different program needs to be established to include these types of 

properties as the impact on these properties was as severe as it 

was to properties eligible under the HMGP. 

Grant administration is ineffective and overly time-consuming, 

and it is often difficult to understand the rules of FEMA involvement in the midst of a disaster, and is often difficult to determine 

who our cities should use as a FEMA point of contact having authority to represent the Agency during the disaster. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the matter, and I will 

be happy to participate in the question and answer. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mayor Cownie. 

12 

I want to move quickly then to our final mayor, Mayor Robert 

J. Duffy, who is the mayor of the City of Rochester. Welcome. 

Mr. DUFFY. Thank, you Madam Chair. 

Chairwoman Norton, Ranking Member Diaz-Balart, Congressman Cao, Members of the Subcommittee, I am Robert Duffy, mayor 

of the City of Rochester, New York. I am a member of the U.S. 

Conference of Mayors Stafford Act Reform Task Force, chaired by 

Mayor Nagin, and also serve as a Chair of the organization’s Criminal and Social Justice Committee, which has policy jurisdiction 

over the issues we are discussing today. I am honored to have the 

opportunity to appear before you this afternoon and ask that you 

include my full statement in the record, and I thank you for this 

chance. 

Before I focus on addressing disasters in cities, I want to thank 

the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and its leaders for their efforts to address the many complex transportation 

and infrastructure challenges before our Nation. We recognize that 

the next surface transportation bill presents an opportunity for renewed commitment to investing in cities and metropolitan areas, 

and we recognize that challenges will be encountered along the 

way. Please know that mayors stand with Members of this Committee who are committed to sustainable transportation policies 

that reinvest in our Nation’s cities and metropolitan areas, the 

areas in which 84 percent of our people live, and more than 90 percent of our future economic growth will occur. 

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Mayor Nagin for the outstanding job he has done as the Chair of our task force, and also 

to Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, the task force’s Vice Chair, 

for the great assistance that he provided. Mayor Nagin has experienced something that I hope no other mayors will ever have to experience in their careers. We all appreciate his willingness to chair 

our Stafford Act Reform Task Force and to lead our efforts to identify needed reforms in Federal disaster assistance. 

In January, the Conference of Mayors adopted a policy resolution 

which incorporates the recommendations of the Stafford Act Reform Task Force. This means that recommendations included in 

the task force report represent the official policy of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Today I would like to cover several of these recommendations. 

Under disaster assistance programs, many programs created by 

the Stafford Act have limitations set by law, regulation or policy 

that have caused problems and delays in recovery of impacted communities. The requirement for grant programs to be run through 

the States instead of directly with cities adds an additional layer 

of bureaucracy and delay. Another serious impediment is the limitation on the use of grant funds to pay regular as well as overtime 

hours for work performed by the staff of affected jurisdictions following an event. 

We all believe that disaster grant programs, including Hazard 

Mitigation, should be changed to give grant standing to local jurisdictions that are Community Development Block Grant Entitlement Communities so that they may deal directly with the Federal 

Government. 

13 

Further, assistance programs should be changed to cover both 

regular and overtime pay for the work performed by State and local 

public employees, such as first responders, building inspectors, 

health care professionals and sanitation workers, following a disaster. 

Under individual and household assistance, the Stafford Act 

should be changed to increase funding for and improve administration of programs to meet the needs of individuals and communities 

experiencing disasters, as well as the host communities providing 

assistance. Stafford law and regulation have authorized many programs to assist people affected by emergencies and disasters, but 

current funding for the program is insufficient to meet the need, 

and the implementation of the programs themselves needs improvement. The existing deficiencies hurt both disaster victims and 

the communities that host those who are evacuated. 

This is a particularly acute problem in catastrophic disasters in 

which significant time passes before evacuees can move back to 

their communities. For all disasters, thorough case management 

handled by qualified professionals as opposed to inadequately 

trained temporary workers is essential to the success of Individual 

Assistance and other programs that offer help to victims. Further, 

changes in law and regulation are needed to ensure that host communities are made whole after providing shelter and resources for 

the victims. 

Under FEMA administration, there is a final recommendation I 

will cover that could go a long way to improving administration of 

our disaster programs. The Stafford Act and related laws and 

amendments should be consolidated into one code to reduce variable and conflicting interpretations and to provide clear guidance 

for FEMA and communities that are working to apply disaster policy, regulation and law in preparedness, response, mitigation and 

recovery. 

With the situation that we experienced in Rochester, in our City 

of Rochester and our surrounding Monroe County, we have had numerous disasters over the years that required Federal assistance. 

These include the ice storm of 2003-- I am sure is hard to imagine 

ice and snow in upstate New York-- which required $16 million in 

Individual Assistance, $9.2 million of public assistance and $76,000 

in mitigation funding. While this event did not garner nearly as 

much national attention as other disasters that have occurred in 

other areas of our country, it is a reminder that all disasters have 

the potential to create a tremendous amount of suffering and financial hardship in the communities in which they strike. The $16 million in Individual Assistance, for instance, aided no less than 6,400 

households that were in some way affected by that storm, based on 

the fact that FEMA awards no more than $2,500 to each affected 

household. 

Clearly many lives are disrupted by disasters. This is true for all 

cities in metropolitan areas, those which are at particular risk of 

disaster because of their geographic location or other factors, and 

those whose risk of disaster seems to stay below the national radar. 

For this reason we are all obliged to do everything possible to be 

ready if disaster strikes. I feel as strongly as my colleagues who 

have experienced major disasters that the Stafford Act must be reVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
14 

formed. I feel just as strongly that our recommendations can help 

to guide that reform. 

I want to thank you for this opportunity to testify on this very 

important topic. We look forward to working with you and this 

Committee on the needed improvements for the Stafford Act, and 

we are also very happy to take your questions. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mayor Duffy. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me start off the questions in this way. I am 

particularly interested in this notion that you have raised and a 

number of others have raised about an additional designation. You 

and others have called it the ‘‘catastrophic designation’’. I think 

this was authored by New Orleans, as a matter of fact, without intending to, that there are disasters and then there are 

megadisasters. 

Now, you point out as well, I think you did, Mayor Nagin, it is 

very hard to get into matters of definition. Everybody thinks the 

world is falling apart on his watch, and they want the highest and 

best designation they can find. 

I can tell you, all three of you, that certainly for the first time 

that I can remember, and I was born and raised in the District of 

Columbia, a Presidential major declaration, a disaster declaration, 

has been issued just today for the District of Columbia, already for 

counties in Maryland and Virginia, because we had what you, Mr. 

Duffy, would perhaps regard as light snowfall here, but for us it 

was quite major. And perhaps the best evidence of that is it not 

only shut down the schools—they shut in a moment’s notice if 

there is a few drops, sometimes even raindrops—but it shut down 

every regional government, it shut down the Federal Government 

for almost a week, it shut down our subways. So I had no doubt 

that we would get a major disaster declaration. I talked to FEMA 

all during it. Of course, the Executive had to request it. So I began 

to personalize this and to identify entirely with you. 

Now, we have a provision in this bill that I have repeatedly cited 

in my opening remarks, 3377, and we call it special procedures. 

And that would occur when a President determines that there 

are—and we use these words in the statute—extensive and widespread damage. Do you believe that H.R. 3377 covers essentially 

what you are talking about and would provide the assistance you 

would need in what you call a catastrophic disaster? 

Mr. NAGIN. Madam Chairwoman, I think that the bill you reference definitely gets us much closer than we have ever been. Our 

argument has been for an event that is so devastating that it 

would either totally shut down the area for an extended period of 

time, or the population would have to be totally evacuated, or it 

would impact a multi-state region, or it would have a significant 

impact on slowing down—a significant impact in the Nation’s economy. Now, that is very difficult to—— 

Ms. NORTON. That is interesting. You have just almost written 

some regulation for that. You said the Nation’s economy. And, of 

course, that happened in New Orleans. 

Do the rest of you think that the Nation’s economy should be implicated in order to get this? 

Mr. NAGIN. This would be something that would be very infrequent and unique, and something that wouldn’t happen often, but 

15 

if it did happen—for example, we are watching these earthquakes 

in Haiti and now in Chile, and we know that some areas of the 

United States sit on major fault lines that haven’t had an event in 

quite some time. I mean, I wouldn’t want to wish this on anybody, 

but in the event that something happened like that in the United 

States, and you had to evacuate a million people or something like 

that, then you would have these designations to kick in. 

And if I could be very frank, Madam Chairman, giving the President’s authority and using the existing FEMA regulations is fine 

if you have your politics fairly lined up. The experience in New Orleans is that we had conflicting political agendas. And there is 

something in the Federal regulations that talks to posse comitatus, 

and we ran into that during Hurricane Katrina where there was 

a Governor who is of one party and did not invite the President of 

another party in to allow troops to come in and do what they had 

to do. Then we were kind of stuck in this no-man’s land. 

I hope that has been subsequently fixed. I hear there was something that was done after Katrina. But those types of instances 

should automatically trigger special provisions. 

Ms. NORTON. Mayor Nagin, I am going to go to either Mr. DiazBalart or Mr. Cao—they can decide which—next, because for reasons having to do with a pending bill to give residents of the District of Columbia full voting rights, I can vote on some measures, 

but not on most on the House floor. So we are going to have to decide about how to proceed on questioning. 

But I am going to allow the other Members to proceed, and let 

me tell you why. Because, Mr. Cao, Resolution No. 2 on the floor— 

you will be pleased to hear this resolution, Mayor Nagin—congratulating the National Football League champion New Orleans 

Saints for winning the Super Bowl and for bringing New Orleans 

its first Lombardi trophy in franchise history. And I understand 

that you, Mr. Cao, have introduced this bill, so maybe Mr. DiazBalart will let you go first, if the gentleman who is the Ranking 

Member would allow that courtesy. 

Go ahead, sir. 

Mr. CAO. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And then since 

it is my bill, I better be there and vote for it. 

But, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Duffy and Mayor Cownie, first of all, 

thank you very much for being here. 

My first question is focused on the CDL. In the proposal that you 

all drafted, you proposed that CDL loan forgiveness, at least the $5 

million cap be removed, and that the amount available for loan 

funds should match the amount of revenue lost. Can you explain 

to me how is it different from how CDL is being conducted right 

now, and how do you see that as an improvement over what we 

presently have? 

Mr. NAGIN. Well, the CDL requirement in the current act caps 

the loan amount at $5 million, period. We came in and got two subsequent amendments or one-time exemptions for the New Orleans 

experience. I think it was in October of 2005 we got it raised to 25 

percent of the revenues that we lost, and then a full year later that 

was bumped up to 50 percent. Am I answering your question? That 

was a one-time change. 

16 

Mr. CAO. But based on the amount of loans that you received 

under the present regulations, are they adequate in order to cover 

the amount of revenue loss that you suffered? 

Mr. NAGIN. We made it work at 50 percent of the annual revenues that we lost. But what I am saying is that going forward, if 

we had another Katrina event, we would start again at the $5 million cap. 

Mr. CAO. Now, as you are fully aware, subsequently after 

Katrina the recovery process was somewhat uncoordinated. We 

have Federal agencies, we have State, we have city in which the 

whole recovery process was—at least from the perspective of the 

average citizen did not go—the process was not carried out in a 

concerted effort. We are looking at ways to propose that there 

should be a coordinating agency. We have the office of the Federal 

coordinator, but she did not have the power to do much of anything. 

Based on your experience, Mr. Mayor, how can we revise the 

Stafford Act in order to allow a better coordination of the recovery 

process, coordinating between the Federal agencies with the State 

and with the city, and who should be the point person? 

Mr. NAGIN. Wow, that is a big question. They tried to set up a 

recovery czar, but that person had to go negotiate with each Secretary to get things done, and the priorities just weren’t synced up, 

so it never moved quickly. 

If you are going have someone who is going to coordinate everything, then that person should have responsibility for the key 

things that you need during a recovery. Let me just hit quickly on 

housing, for example. In my humble opinion, I think that HUD 

should be the agency that steps in at some point in time. Once a 

disaster has been stabilized, FEMA should move to the side, and 

HUD should be responsible for providing whatever temporary and 

long-term housing that that particular community needs, because 

that is basically what they do on a day-to-day basis. FEMA at some 

point just continued to be in the compliance mode, and everything 

ground down to a very slow pace. 

Whether there is somebody who can manage every aspect of a recovery, I am not sure. The closest you probably have to that today 

is probably the Secretary of Homeland Security, but then HUD is 

not part of that. 

Mr. CAO. Mayor Cownie, based on your experience with, is it Des 

Moines, do you see adequate coordination between the different 

Federal agencies with your State, with your city to recovery? And 

if you were to recommend a better coordination with respect to recovery, what would you recommend? 

Mr. COWNIE. Again, that is a—I don’t know how many hours we 

have to discuss that, but there needs to be a person who is in 

charge. We had Corps of Engineers, we had FEMA, we had HUD, 

we had all kinds of Federal agencies, and different programs were 

in place, and, of course, you couldn’t have duplication of payments 

on anything, and trying to get anybody to make a final decision 

was very hard. And I think that if your question was how would 

we do that, I think, as Mayor Nagin said, if there was a central 

place of control, and they coordinated all of the agencies together 

much as we do in the cities—I mean, I know what my housing deVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
17 

partment is doing, I know what the police are doing, I know what 

fire is doing, I know what public works is doing, and we manage 

our resources. And if we had some way to make that happen with 

Federal agencies as well, I think it would coordinate and expedite 

not only the movement of funds in the help to people, but it would 

make better use of funds in Federal dollars and certainly, as I say, 

move it across. 

Here we are sitting in 2010, and I will tell you that right here 

sitting in Washington, D.C., we have got 4 foot of snow sitting on 

the ground north of us and 2 foot on the ground in Des Moines, 

and with just a regular rainfall, we could be looking at a situation 

much worse. 

Mr. COWNIE. If we have 2008-type rainfalls come in the next 60, 

90 days, we need to start coordinating right now. 

So I just think that maybe sort of a pre-coordination between all 

those folks to decide how we are going to start thinking about it, 

what our mitigation plans are. Certainly we have experience in 

doing that. We were successful in 2008, but I think coordinating 

not only all Federal agencies but working with all other levels of 

government, State and local, city, county governments, and coordinating all those efforts would really be helpful to the people, which 

at the end of the day that is who we all serve. 

Mr. CAO. Do you propose that the mayors themselves be the coordinating entity, since you are the ones who know your city inside 

out? Or do you propose the State or a Federal agency to do the coordinating? 

Mr. COWNIE. Again, using our 1993 experience, we had funds 

come directly to us through CDBG and other programs that we 

were directly funded for. We had that money out the door and in 

the projects almost immediately, 60 days after the event. 

Unfortunately, in Iowa, as I mentioned earlier, the State had to 

set up all kinds of a new bureaucracy and put people in place to 

manage it; and in February of 2009 they were still trying to figure 

out the rules and the regulations and roll dollars out and help people. 

In the city of Des Moines, we used our own funds to go ahead 

and do that. There are other cities in the State of Iowa that still 

have caibo sitting on the streets almost 2 years later. 

Mr. CAO. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Diaz-Balart, before you go, do you have any 

questions for any of mayors? 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Not at this time, Madam Chairwoman, thank 

you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. 

Let me then proceed with questions for each of you. 

Mr. Duffy, I think you were not the only one of the mayors, 

Mayor Cownie, I think, also testified about increasing the Hazard 

Mitigation Grant Program. This is a favorite of the Subcommittee. 

When you speak about floods, the first thing that occurred to me 

was I hope there has been a lot of hazard mitigation. You think 

about the kind of snow you have to melt. The only difference between you and us is you presume to have the equipment to try to 

remove some of it, but that doesn’t take care of all the flooding that 

is expected. 

18 

Could I have this map? The flooding, because the colors are vivid, 

perhaps you can see, everything in pink and red is expected to go 

through flooding this year. The only dry spot is over in the west, 

for some reason. So we take very seriously what you are saying, 

Mayor Cownie and Mayor Duffy. 

First, we do have hazard—we have indeed focused on hazard 

mitigation rather considerably. It is our own H.R. 3377, which—if 

I might go to building codes—which we have included in that provision. 

Now, I mentioned in my opening statement Chile and Haiti. Now 

Chile had a worse earthquake and what appears to be less damage, 

less physical damage. I hope everybody is paying attention to Chile 

and Haiti, because that is the kind of two cases—look at them and 

think about, yes, there are parts of the United States on a fault 

line or, for that matter, where similar problems could occur. Because people just think it won’t happen to them. 

So we have included building codes. Now do you believe these 

changes? I don’t have any idea of the extent to which building 

codes are in fact. You are mayors. I don’t know if you find it mostly 

in cities and not in rural areas. Why do you think they are so important? Do you think they are important largely for cities and 

other jurisdictions on fault lines? 

You go so far—I think it is Mayor Duffy—to say that the cost of 

building code and permitting officials should be part of FEMA’s 

public assistance program. So I wish you would explain how you 

see building codes fitting into the Stafford Act and where you see 

them as most useful. 

Mr. DUFFY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I would like just to comment briefly in terms of building codes. 

Our city and really the State of New York has very strict codes 

which are often—— 

Ms. NORTON. Is that a State code. 

Mr. DUFFY. The State has a code. We have a very strict code in 

the city of Rochester, but the State also has a very stringent coding 

system. Those who are building homes and developers often find 

them very difficult to get through because of some of the restrictions. I think—— 

Ms. NORTON. The State restrictions or city restrictions? 

Mr. DUFFY. For us, it is the city, our city restrictions. 

But the one thing, as you just mentioned, the part of the building 

code process which is so important is that, first of all, we are ensuring that buildings when they are built can sustain damage and 

certain catastrophes. They also are built to code for fire, fire protection. So some of the things we have seen in Haiti and Chile—and 

it is more in Haiti than in Chile—reinforces the need for that code 

system. 

And if there is a disaster—and no one can speak like Mayor 

Nagin about this—but I believe building inspectors, when they go 

out in the midst of a disaster, have to be on the front line with our 

first responders. I think they are a critical component to the assessment and rebuilding of areas that are hit very hard by disasters. 

Mr. COWNIE. If I might also—and I am sure Mayor Nagin has 

a similar appearance—but when we were going into areas that had 

19 

been devastated and had homes under water, the first people in 

there were the building code people. They had to see and, first of 

all, give us some estimate of the level of damage that each of those 

structures had sustained; secondly, whether or not they could be 

repaired or were inhabitable; and, if not, what needed to happen 

to either secure them or move straight to demolition. 

Now often that happened way before we ever saw any Federal 

funds or even a hint of them. As soon as the water went down, we 

were in there. And I think that those are the kinds of things that 

we need to know, is sort of a first, initial valuation; and those are 

the kinds of things that you want to know as well. And we think 

that at least in part those, if not in whole, those should be covered 

expenses either by grant or loan. 

Ms. NORTON. Do the three of you think H.R. 3377 covers your 

concerns? 

Mr. NAGIN. I think it does, Madam Chair. 

The one other thing we would ask is that, as it relates to hazard 

mitigation, there is a requirement for us to, if we tear down a 

building in a residential area, that you have to turn it into green 

space. And in an urban environment we don’t think that is very 

smart use of land in a city. So we think there needs to be some 

modification to that. There is a pilot that we have been working 

with to basically tear down and rebuild something similar in that 

same space. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, that sounded strange to me. Yes, they don’t 

want people to rebuild in the floodplains, so the alternative to 

green space would be building in such a way that you don’t go 

down again in the flood. I could see if you are in the middle of town 

you may need that space. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes, sometimes you have in the middle of cities some 

areas for one reason or another that may be subject to repetitive 

flooding. You can build there. You just have to build higher. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, you would want that. You wouldn’t want it 

to go under. 

Mr. NAGIN. Absolutely. You want to build higher and smarter. 

But if you use hazard mitigation money and you do demolition on 

that spot, then it is required to be green space. 

Ms. NORTON. Mayor Duffy. 

Mr. DUFFY. Madam Chair, just to reinforce what Mayor Nagin 

said, Rochester is situated on a great lake, a river, and a canal; 

and a large portion of our area from our center city on out is located in Federal floodplains. I would agree with Mayor Nagin that 

while there have to be decisions made in terms of the rebuild after 

a catastrophe—and we have had serious flooding going back two or 

three decades ago—they should be made at the discretion of the 

local government. Green space may be applicable, but this may not 

be reasonable or appropriate. 

Mr. COWNIE. Madam Chairman, I also would like to just reinforce what my fellow mayors have said, but I will tell you in most 

of the large cities in the State of Iowa and probably in most of the 

States that have rivers and are on the coast, we are all subject to 

some level of flooding. 

We, the city of Des Moines, sits at the confluence of two rivers, 

and it was put there for a reason, originally for transportation, but 

20 

we are protected with levees. The problem is sometimes you get a 

certain amount of rain with the levee; and if the river is high 

enough you have some other issues on how to get the water into 

the river and so you have sewer backups, have different kinds of 

flooding. And so we have to be cognizant of that, at least in the 

State of Iowa. 

I would say the 10 largest cities all sit on rivers and a certain 

portion of them are subject to different types of flooding. The city 

of Des Moines has been successful in mitigating many of those 

problems, but there may be a circumstance that we haven’t foreseen that would cause that to happen yet again. 

Ms. NORTON. I am a lawyer, so I wanted to see these words. 

Again, I live in a city, and I can imagine this process, this happening. 

Now it does say any property acquired, accepted or from which 

its structures would be removed to protect will be dedicated and 

maintained in perpetuity for use that is compatible with open 

space, recreational, and wetland management practices. It looks 

like it was built for some rural areas or something. 

Now the technical notion is that, yes, you can use it if you are 

going to take existing structure and elevate it in some way, but if 

you are going to buy it out altogether, then you can’t use these 

funds. You can do it, but not mitigation funds, not using these 

funds. 

I think we really are going to have to look at the experience of 

cities and what we are talking about here. 

Mr. NAGIN. Madam Chair, I can just give you some very specific 

examples in New Orleans. There are some areas of our city where 

we are building and we are elevating the residence where the bottom floor, the first floor, is strictly for parking; and we are building 

apartments that way, also. Which, if you use hazard mitigations in 

a creative way, you can facilitate more of that in cities; and that 

is what we are saying now. 

Ms. NORTON. So you don’t want to elevate it because you don’t 

mind the cars getting flooded? 

Mr. NAGIN. We don’t mind the cars getting flooded. That is okay. 

We can deal with that. But, right now, if we are in an area that 

we know floods and we use hazard mitigation money, then that 

space is gone. You can’t build something like I just described. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, this hearing is about cities; and I am making 

sure that the Stafford Act conforms to the needs of cities in particular. 

Mayor Duffy. 

Mr. DUFFY. Madam Chair, just to go back to a comment— a 

question asked a minute ago-- perhaps in its consideration this 

body should look at some flexibility with the legislation that would 

give the mayors or county executives or executives of local areas 

flexibility, but with justification and accountability. 

So if cities made decisions—say Mayor Nagin made decisions 

that may controvert some of the language-- I think if Mayor Nagin 

could justify why he is making those decisions, there should be 

flexibility-- philosophically as in block grants-- in which mayors are 

given flexibility about how to spend funds, but should be held accountable for those expenditures. 

21 

Ms. NORTON. I hear you; and, of course, I am sympathetic to 

what you are saying. We know that the word ′′flexibility′′, like 

other words we spoke of earlier, needs definition. But also, where 

the cities are very different city to city, I don’t like that kind of language in law. When you write a statute, the best way to write a 

statute is very broadly and to require the administrative agency to 

issue regulations based on experience. This is the old common law 

experience that you learn from experience. 

So I immediately—when you have something in law that says 

something like that and it must revert to green space, and then I 

think about the United States of America, you know, it was all 

green space until we messed the whole thing up. So we ought to 

be a little more humble when we put words into language. 

I think we have got to look at this, but we have also got to—if 

we were making changes, we would have to have FEMA come back 

to us with cases in point. 

You see, part of the reason we are having this hearing and why 

your testimony is so valuable is we really are trying—as you can 

see from 3377—to conform the Stafford Act to places that the 

Framers perhaps did not envision. 

And the cities have become central to every jurisdiction, every 

area—excuse me—in the United States. So even when people move 

out of the city, the city still is the focus, it still the capitol. When 

Haiti went down, the capitol went down; the whole city went down. 

So we have found, frankly—and I don’t need to tell you this— 

when you gave FEMA flexibility it runs from its own flexibility. We 

have had to beat them about the head and shoulders just to get 

them to do what the statute says. 

But we have got a new administrator who has on-the-ground experience. This is something we certainly will try out on them. Still 

hasn’t been to the floor yet, so we still have some opportunity to 

work on it. 

We don’t want your—we are glad that you have come before the 

matter is completely resolved. We see the difficulties, but we also 

see the problem of simply going ahead and ignoring what the experience has been. 

I am very interested in experience like the experience you offered, Mayor Nagin. To put that example to someone, you can’t rebuild in a floodplain. That is kind of doing the same thing over 

again and asking the government to pay for it. And the question 

becomes, obviously, the government is not going to pay if this happens. You have got to carry flood insurance there. 

So first thing I think is, well, what do I care? If the city wants 

to build that way and it wants to have people understand that if 

they park their cars on the lower level it is up to them, don’t come 

to the city. 

Notice, though, what FEMA—I am just giving you an example— 

would say. Okay, so it weakens the entire framework because you 

have elevated it. Well, you ought to elevate or require that it be 

elevated so it doesn’t weaken anything. 

But hypotheticals help me to understand that flexibility is indeed 

relevant or beneficial. So I would ask you that within, I would say, 

14 days to get us any examples that you could of how flexibility 

might be useful in cities where people live in congested—more conVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
22 

gested than they do in rural areas and where the city has limits 

so there is nowhere to go outside of there. You can’t just say we 

are going to take part of the county to make up for the space that 

is gone. 

I was very concerned—I think it was you, Mayor Nagin, that 

talked about hazard mitigation funds and huge—well, relatively 

huge amounts, all of it small, but tiny amounts making its way to 

the cities. You have to make me understand. Would you say the 

figures again and then try to march us through how you could get 

so little money after the amounts had been granted to the States? 

Mr. NAGIN. Our experience has been I think for any catastrophe 

or any disaster that happens based upon the value of the damage 

I think it is 3 percent—or I may have my percentages wrong—of 

that damage amount goes into a hazard mitigation fund. It is administered through the States. There is significant amount of regulation and bureaucracy. It is probably the most difficult money we 

have to spend. 

The thing that was alarming to me is that we had 57 percent of 

the total damage in the State, throughout the entire State. So that 

means a significant portion of that 1.4, $1.5 billion should have 

come to my city, but, thus far, today, four and a half years after 

Hurricane Katrina, we have only been allocated about $30 million. 

Ms. NORTON. Has more money gone to more parts of the State? 

Mr. NAGIN. It is just stuck. 

Ms. NORTON. So that is what I am interested in. What sticks it? 

What keeps it from coming forward? If you got 30,000 out of how 

much? 

Mr. NAGIN. Thirty million out of 1.4, $1.5 billion. 

Ms. NORTON. And you believe you qualify for more than that? 

Mr. NAGIN. Fifty-seven percent, we had 57 percent the overall 

damages in the State. 

Ms. NORTON. That doesn’t mean you would automatically qualify 

in the statute, does it. 

Mr. NAGIN. No, but I think we can qualify for a higher amount 

than 5 percent. 

Ms. NORTON. We will ask the next panel how they could explain 

that small percentage being allocated in light of the catastrophe. 

Mr. NAGIN. My impression is that the States, this is hard money 

to spend, so they try and deal with CDBG first. 

Ms. NORTON. Hard money to spend because? 

Mr. NAGIN. Because of the regulations, the rules. You have to do 

environmentals. You have these rules about green space. It is just 

very difficult money for them to get out the door. And there is no 

real requirement about how they spend the money. So instead of 

it being formula based for the most devastated areas in the city, 

it is almost an arbitrary process. 

Ms. NORTON. I am interested that you indicate—I think it is 

you—it may be Mayor Cownie indicates that the program should 

be in proportion to the damage. Are you talking about some kind 

of specific formula? Some would argue if you move that flexibility 

that the funds might not go to the areas in greatest need of mitigation. Do you have any thoughts, further thoughts about that? 

Mr. NAGIN. We have advocated—I will turn it over to Mayor 

Cownie-- but we have advocated for some sort of formula. There 

23 

may be a range in that formula, but it should be based upon repetitive flooding, repetitive damage, overall damage that happened in 

that particular State. 

Ms. NORTON. Mayor Cownie. 

Mr. COWNIE. I would agree with Mayor Nagin. I think that because of the size of these larger cities in places—Mayor Nagin 

speaks of 57 percent of all the damage that happened in the State. 

Among other things, that is because he has the most value in his 

city of most any other place in the State. 

The State of Iowa, our metropolitan area is about 27, 28 percent 

of the GDP, the employment, the jobs, the buildings, especially the 

larger ones. And, again, we sit in areas that are densely populated. 

So when we see something happen, it happens with infrastructure. 

We make much better use of our infrastructure. 

I want to quickly also point out that, for Mayor Duffy and I, our 

situation is a little different. We don’t sit on a coastal area. And 

part of the problem that happens to us is exacerbated by policy 

that is set out in other parts of the State. The cities north of the 

city of Des Moines didn’t much care about containment and capture 

and control release of flood stuff, because it all came downstream. 

But when the cities and little suburbs north of some of our suburbs 

started happening and they started flooding, they started becoming 

very aware that there ought to be some sort of policy that governed 

this. 

Some of the things that have happened over time exacerbate our 

situations. Pre-settlement times, the State of Iowa, 85 percent of 

the water that fell on a piece of ground was absorbed right there 

on that piece of ground. Now it is 15 percent. We do other things 

with the ground today. They are hard surfaced. It doesn’t necessarily say that there is an increased amount of water, but certainly the velocity of the water coming off of that watershed is 

much more today than it was 50 or 100 years ago because of the 

hard surfacing and the gray infrastructure that has been put in 

place. So it causes us to have to handle our situations in the more 

densely populated areas a little differently than we did 20, 30, 50, 

100 years ago. 

Ms. NORTON. Of course, the State is looking at, among other 

things, what is the most cost-effective projects; and this becomes 

very difficult, particularly if the amounts are totally out of whack 

for where the damage is. 

I don’t want to hold you much longer. I do want to ask you about 

this straight time for State and local employees. Because FEMA is 

supposed to do only for things above what a State would be doing 

anyway, so the regulations do not pay for other than overtime. Can 

you explain why you want FEMA to adopt a policy of paying for 

straight time for employees? 

We are talking about they are working to help with the disaster, 

and the way in which this difficulty comes is that straight time is 

part of the regular budget, and most people would be on the ground 

anyway, and all we are supposed to be is supplementing the local 

efforts. 

Mr. NAGIN. The argument that we are making is that after a 

major disaster that you have a significant amount of individuals in 

24 

the organization who, basically, their full-time job becomes to deal 

with the disaster. All of our inspectors for—— 

Ms. NORTON. But they are working 8 hours on doing what they 

were doing. It just happens they are doing other kinds of things because they have a disaster on their hands. 

Mr. NAGIN. Not for us. I mean, our norm turned into disaster 

management. It just wasn’t—the things we dealt with before the 

storm just went away. So we are having to supplement the straight 

time with a significant amount of overtime, trying to catch up with 

all the requirements of assessing the damages. 

Ms. NORTON. I see the distinction you make. I think FEMA 

should take a look at its regulations in light of the existing experience. It is true that if you were, let’s say, collecting garbage, you 

are not collecting garbage anymore if you are in New Orleans. 

Mr. NAGIN. Debris. 

Ms. NORTON. Yeah, debris or worse. That is something you have 

never done before. And I can see you would not be collecting anything, but you may need every man and woman on the ground to 

be doing something. 

Mr. NAGIN. And there should be a sunset. There is a period of 

time—— 

Ms. NORTON. Sunset for? 

Mr. NAGIN. For the straight-time question. At some point in time 

after the disaster you should go back to the city’s normally paying 

for what that function was. 

Ms. NORTON. Of course. You have to have, as we do with most 

of these so-called benefits. 

I have got to ask you about an experience we had. I nearly blew 

my gasket at a hearing involving New Orleans. I don’t think you 

were here, Mayor Nagin, but we learned there was over $3 billion 

lying on the table, including dollars for Charity Hospital, that 

hadn’t been spent. And why—so, in true cross-examination—I 

couldn’t stand it. Because we were about to do the stimulus bill. 

And so I tried to get at how in the world could this happen. 

And what we found out was something very, very disturbing; and 

I was particularly disturbed with FEMA. What it was was simply 

a stalemate. Each side did what each side is supposed to do. Each 

side—the State side asked for the most amount it could find, and 

the government is supposed to keep you from getting the most 

money you can find. So we delved to see what can we do about 

that. 

One thing I am looking closely at is the notion of each side having an expert. How ridiculous. Once you say you are going to get 

a divorce, you get an attorney, and you get an attorney, you know 

what you have set up. And so what we have is consensual divorce 

now, because we finally have some common sense. 

Now somebody—after these two experts, both of whom are qualified, get together, somebody still is going to have a decision to 

make. It is so irrational that one of the things I am looking at is 

why shouldn’t we have the parties agree on a single expert? Just 

require—okay, we will go through a number of experts until you 

agree that is the expert. 

But we are already doing something in New Orleans that this 

Subcommittee altered. First, my good friend from Louisiana, SenVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
25 

ator Landrieu came with a nuclear bomb. Her nuclear bomb was 

she was so put out that this money wasn’t being spent that she 

was going to have the President appoint arbitrators. We said, well, 

that is going to take some time. We came to the notion of arbitration, but we used administrative law judges. 

Now we have in place and we are going to have a hearing at the 

6-month period to see how this arbitration has worked out, rather 

than have each side go ping pong until the money gets left on the 

table more and more. 

Mayor Nagin, now I understand there already is an award for 

Charity Hospital. So I would just like to have first your on-theground review. Because you are undergoing it now. We may spread 

it. And then the opinion of the other mayors about, one, having one 

expert they both agree on and, two, going to arbitration when there 

is a stalemate early in the process, rather than going back and 

forth until you finally whip out an agreement as if you were plaintiff and defense attorneys. 

Mayor Nagin first. 

Mr. NAGIN. Madam Chairwoman, I think that is a brilliant idea. 

We have gone back and forth with FEMA particularly on estimating exactly how much it is going to cost to fix a public facility. 

They have their expert, and we hire our expert. We present our 

findings, and they still don’t agree with us, and we were stuck 

until you had this arbitration process that was put in place recently-- now things are suddenly starting to move. And I think we 

had a huge case that was settled with Charity Hospital that is now 

going to allow us to really build a medical district that we have 

been needing for a long time. 

The only other thing I would add, Madam Chairwoman, is that 

the Office—OMB needs to be brought in the loop on this. 

Ms. NORTON. Who? 

Mr. NAGIN. OMB. 

Ms. NORTON. Oh, they are an extra government agency. 

Mr. NAGIN. I am just bringing it up to this Committee’s attention. Because now they have had the settlement with Charity Hospital, I think it is about 400 or $450 million, they are now claiming 

they have run out of money and that their funds are exhausted. So 

now every project that we had pending is now on hold. We can’t 

get any more PWs versioned up. So we have a good process, but 

I think somebody needs to be doing a cash flow analysis to make 

sure there is enough DRF funds as the arbitration settlements 

come down that we don’t stop recoveries. 

Ms. NORTON. Mayor Nagin, yes, the Disaster Relief Fund is running out of more money. I understand the President of the United 

States has put a billion and a half in there. Much of it will go to 

your school district and to Charity Hospital. 

Mr. NAGIN. Okay. 

Ms. NORTON. What do the other two mayors think about this arbitration process and one agreed-upon expert rather than dueling 

experts? You have experienced a major disaster where this was a 

major consequence, but surely you have experience where you go 

up against one another and the government is trying to low ball 

you and you are trying to do something else, shall we say. 

26 

Mr. COWNIE. Madam Chair, I think that for us in Iowa and mayors across the country, and especially those of us in entitlement cities, it would be very helpful if there was one authority that would 

move it forward and make a decision and not create a lawsuit out 

of it, to come to a resolution to decide how much should be spent 

or who is going to spend or what are the limits of the spending or 

what is allowable and what is not. And I bring my guy in, and you 

bring your guy in, and then we have a third party that is going 

to listen to all the arguments. And 6 months later we are still arguing, and we still can’t believe, and we are appealing, and we are 

doing whatever we can do. 

I think the interest of all of us is to help our citizens and do it 

as expeditiously as possible. 

I would tell you that—back to one of my original points—I think 

the rest of us, we have capacity in certain cities of certain size to 

be able to understand Federal programs and move money out immediately. And we are more than willing and able and have 

worked with all levels of Federal Government, and they insert 

other levels of government between those that have the capacity to 

carry out right projects immediately. 

It really exacerbates the ability of the State government to make 

them be the funnel and then have to put it back to agencies that 

already understand how to make programs work. So I would go 

back to that. 

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Probably one expert that we all 

agree on to settle it would be much better than moving into arbitration or litigation over some of these issues when there are people out there who need help, infrastructure that needs fixing today, 

not next year or 2 years from now or 5 years from now. 

Mr. DUFFY. Madam Chair, if I could add briefly, I also agree with 

your recommendation to streamline the decision-making process 

with an arbitrator. I think that the more you could do, that would 

be effective. 

If I could go back to something I think Congressman Cao asked 

Mayor Nagin earlier about which agency do you think should be in 

charge. Whichever agency the government decides. It is really up 

to you to make that decision. I think, philosophically, it is streamlining the process, making the process happen where somebody is 

in charge making decisions and can make that happen. And, according to your point, to appoint one person and not spend weeks 

or months going back and forth would be a much more effective use 

of time and certainly would free up the blocked funds so that they 

can go down to where they are needed. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, you know, when it comes to the coordination—and I know he had a question—that is one thing with people 

going back and forward on who is in charge. We have had great 

problems. We think FEMA is in charge. FEMA is on the ground. 

It shouldn’t have anybody from Homeland Security trying to tell 

them what to do. They shouldn’t have people from Washington trying to tell them what to do. It is hard enough to know what to do 

when you are on the ground. 

With respect to the nitty-gritty though, when you know that 

there is some money and that the government is in for some 

money, as I understand your testimony, you do believe that the 

27 

States and the cities could in fact get together, at least agree on 

experts so you won’t have dueling experts. 

And if Mayor Nagin’s—the use of arbitration process, after a certain period of time in which people would have tried to work it out 

themselves, the early use of an arbitration process with administrative law judges would be satisfactory to all of you. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. 

Now I do have a special announcement to make. The House has 

just voted 37 to 1 with—and I am taking names. We are looking 

to find out who that was. I understand he was not of my party, Mr. 

Diaz-Balart—and 3 present to congratulate the National Football 

League champions, the New Orleans Saints, on their recent victory. 

I believe I know who that one must be. There are sore losers in 

this House. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Madam Chairwoman, we tend to agree on a lot 

of things, and we agree here as well. 

Ms. NORTON. So, with that, I release my troika of mayors who 

delivered such beneficial testimony. Unless Mr. Diaz-Balart has 

some additional questions of his own. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Actually, if 

that is all right with you, I would like to have just one question, 

and I will ask that also of the second panel. 

Mayor, the task force—and it is really to either one of you. 

Mayor Nagin probably has, unfortunately, more experience than 

others on this. The task force recommended to permanently adopt 

the Demolish/Rebuild Pilot Program developed after Katrina and 

Rita. And I mentioned a little bit of that in my opening statement. 

A lot of times it is more cost effective to rebuild, to maximize mitigation against multiple hazards, as opposed to just lifting a building that is going to have other issues. 

Can you talk a little bit about your experience with this Demolish/Rebuild Program and if you believe it should be an eligible activity under HMGP? Is that something you think works? 

Mr. NAGIN. Well, we wholeheartedly support it. We touched on 

it a little bit earlier. But for an urban environment there are sections in the city that for one reason or another may repetitively 

flood or may have an issue; and we firmly believe that you can 

build smarter, you can build higher. 

I gave a couple of examples where Brad Pitt is doing a project 

in the Lower Ninth Ward for example; and every house that is 

being built in the Lower Ninth Ward now is being built in an elevated fashion, where parking is on the first level but the living 

space is above. So if there is another catastrophic event, God forbid, the flooding will be minor, and all you will lose is a car, but 

you pretty much will be okay. We have apartment complexes that 

are being built that way. 

In New Orleans East, we are getting ready to restore a hospital 

out in New Orleans East. And the design of that hospital is that 

the first floor, for the ground level of that hospital, will not be anything but driving the emergency vehicles in there-- the ambulances, 

and then everything else will be on higher levels. 

So, for an urban environment it makes sense for us to preserve 

that land and not necessarily turn it into green space. There may 

28 

be some instances where green space is appropriate, but there 

should be a certain amount of flexibility to make the case, like 

Mayor Duffy said, and be held accountable for what we do. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Mayor. And the other two honorable Mayors, you also agree that this Demolish/Rebuild Program 

makes sense? 

Mr. DUFFY. I concur with Mayor Nagin. We have discussed that 

before, and it does make sense. I think having the flexibility is important-- while I understand flexibility is sometimes harder to find 

in law-- especially in cities. 

We have a large flood plain in our city that we would want to 

rebuild and would want the flexibility to do so, as opposed to just 

providing green space, especially as space gets condensed. I think 

Mayor Nagin has the most experience with this of any of us. Clearly, I fully support his position; I think it does apply to our city as 

well. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you. 

Mr. COWNIE. Yes. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Mayors. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. NORTON. We have to look at the statute to make sure that 

cities like yours and mine, cities all over the United States, fit into 

the Stafford Act; and that is the whole basis for this hearing. This 

is why your testimony here and particularly your task force has 

been so useful to us. 

Remember, the Stafford Act is old; and I think it is a very broad 

and useful act. We are trying to improve it step by step as we go 

along, and your testimony has been superb. We very much appreciate your traveling from such distances to be with us today. And 

we congratulate you all and especially Mayor Nagin as he leaves 

office. Thank you very much. 

Mr. NAGIN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you, 

Members of this Committee. 

Ms. NORTON. We will call the next panel: Larry Gispert, the past 

President of the International Association of Emergency Managers; 

and Chad Berginnis—I am sorry. I am missing someone. David 

Maxwell as well, National Emergency Management Association; 

and Chad Berginnis, who is Senior Specialist at Hazard Mitigation 

and Floodplain Management, a Michael Baker Corporation. He is 

testifying on behalf of the Association of State Flood Plain Managers. 

We will be most interested to hear your take on what we have 

asked them, the Mayors, about, beginning with Dave Maxwell, 

President of the National Emergency Management Association. Mr. 

Maxwell. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Madam Chairwomen, could I have a moment 

of personal privilege? 

Ms. NORTON. Always. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for allowing 

me. 

One of the witnesses today is from Florida, from Hillsboro County. He is the past president of the International Association of 

Emergency Managers. He has testified before our Committee several times, and we always appreciate his expert counsel, as we do 

29 

of all the witnesses. But, yes, I am a little parochial, and it is good 

to see you, sir. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mr. GISPERT. I will be going back to Florida tonight. 

Ms. NORTON. Localism is preferred here. We appreciate that. 

We appreciate to hear first from Mr. Maxwell. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID MAXWELL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION; LARRY GISPERT, 

PAST PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EMERGENCY MANAGERS; AND CHAD BERGINNIS, SENIOR SPECIALIST, HAZARD MITIGATION AND FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT, MICHAEL BAKER CORPORATION, TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF ASSOCIATION OF STATE FLOODPLAIN MANAGERS 

Mr. MAXWELL. Thank you. 

Chairwoman Norton, Congressman Diaz-Balart, and Members of 

the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify today. 

I come before you representing the National Emergency Management Association and the emergency managers of all 50 States, territories, and Washington, DC. 

As the Committee considers H.R. 3377, we continue to appreciate 

the Committee’s swift action on this critical legislation and hope 

the bill will be quickly approved in order to strengthen emergency 

management capabilities across the country. You and your staff are 

to be commended for the work you have done thus far. 

The Stafford Act stands as the pinnacle piece of legislation affecting the emergency management profession. The original Act was 

intentionally written in a broad manner to allow maximum flexibility for practitioners and discretion by the President. NEMA continues to support this flexibility. In recent years, however, we have 

experienced reduced flexibility through unnecessarily strict interpretations of the law. These interpretations have led to more rigid 

regulations and policies not accurately reflecting the true intent of 

the Act. A majority of NEMA members agree the primary issue 

during disaster response rests not with the Stafford Act overall but 

rather with disaster assistance policy. 

Fortunately, FEMA leadership has recently taken strides to address previous policies and regulation interpretations. We applaud 

FEMA’s efforts and wish to allow them appropriate time to complete their full review. This current policy review will surely drive 

any potential need for more broad-reaching Stafford Act changes in 

the future. 

While NEMA continues to place trust in FEMA’s leadership during this review process, we continue a doctrine of trust but verify 

and intend to advise accordingly. Discussions continue within 

NEMA regarding whether or not the Stafford Act requires amending to address catastrophic disasters, but we remain steadfast in 

our belief that the Stafford Act does not require broad and sweeping legislative changes at this time. 

Regardless of when and if major changes are ever considered to 

the Stafford Act, one issue behind which NEMA stands unified is 

the necessity for State governments to remain the sole source of 

entry for Federal assistance into the States. When devastation at 

the hand of a disaster occurs, it remains the responsibility of GovVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
30 

ernors and State governments to support communities by insuring 

a seamless disaster response among all levels of government. State 

responsibility also includes the provision of resource coordination in 

a timely and efficient manner, interstate mutual aid as necessary, 

and State and Federal disaster assistance programs appropriately 

implemented. 

While NEMA would prefer not to see the Stafford Act significantly amended at this time, the imperative of reauthorizing aspects of the Act remains. Specific provisions within H.R. 3377 currently before your Committee achieves such reauthorizations, and 

NEMA supports many of them. 

I have outlined NEMA’s position in detail in my written testimony, but, in general, our priorities include the reauthorization of 

the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program; the reauthorization of 

the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System; and support to 

Urban Search and Rescue Teams, about which two other NEMA 

members have testified before this Committee; the reauthorization 

of the Disaster Relief Fund; and the reauthorization of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, or EMAC. 

Specific to EMAC, the capabilities of this program remains sustained by the efforts of all States and would be bolstered by reauthorization. Also, while EMAC currently receives FEMA grant 

funding, fulfilling NEMA’s request for our $4 million line item appropriation would codify the program for use in future disasters. In 

my opinion, $4 million in Federal funds stands as a minimal investment for maintaining a proven national emergency response 

capability that day to day is equipped, trained, and ready to provide critical disaster response resources and support between 

States. 

Overall, NEMA remains pleased with the current structure and 

outline of H.R. 3377 and discourages broad and sweeping changes 

to the Stafford Act. Should legislative changes become necessary in 

the future, implementation at the State level should stand as the 

single most important undercurrent to any recommended Stafford 

amendments. 

I welcome any questions you may have, and NEMA will continue 

to offer support to this Committee and your staff as H.R. 3377 continues to move forward in the process. 

Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Maxwell. 

Next, Mr. Gispert, who is the past President of International Association of Emergency Managers. 

Mr. GISPERT. Madam Chairwoman Norton, thank you. 

I am Larry Gispert, the Director of Emergency Management for 

Hillsboro County, Florida, located in the Tampa Bay area. I am 

past President of the International Association of Emergency Managers. IAEM is our Nation’s largest association of emergency management professionals, with close to 5,000 members. Our members 

serve mostly at the local level, which includes both large urban 

areas as well as the smaller rural communities. 

Since Hurricane Katrina, a number of organizations and experts 

have examined the need for changes in the Stafford Disaster Relief 

Act as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s regulations and policies. Most recently, the U.S. Conference of Mayors 

31 

has performed a review and issued the report which is the subject 

of this hearing. Opinions differ widely as to how, but everyone 

agrees our local communities need to prepare and recover as rapidly as possible. 

We would like to comment on a few of the issues raised by the 

Mayors’ report. 

One of the key issues is a request for a catastrophic disaster designation. To some, a definition of a catastrophe would be any devastation severely impacting a community, while, for others, it 

would also require in addition some major impact to the overall 

Nation. We would urge caution in changing existing laws and policies. 

Caution is also warranted when considering enhancing the role 

of the Federal Government, including the military, at the expense 

of the authority and the responsibility of the State and local governments. However, if it is decided to define a catastrophic trigger 

and make additional resources available, those provisions should be 

contained within the Stafford Disaster Relief Act. The Mayors’ report agrees with this position. 

The Community Disaster Loan Program is currently capped at 

$5 million. We believe this cap to be too low. We don’t have an increased amount to recommend to you. 

We do agree that a strong case management program is necessary, and we understand FEMA is currently testing one in a pilot 

program. 

The disaster declaration process needs to be quick and deliberate. After FEMA makes its recommendation, the Presidential decision on the declaration should be forthcoming without further layers of review. 

We also urge considering use of the Cost Estimating Program to 

expedite the repair or replacement of eligible projects. 

We are quite concerned about making private for-profit entities 

eligible for disaster assistance. We believe that it would act as a 

disincentive and cause private entities to consider not purchasing 

insurance and also not having a business continuity plan. If you 

allow reimbursement for one, then you may create a slippery slope. 

Where do you then stop? 

We would like to make comments on H.R. 3377. We urge reauthorization of the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program. We strongly 

support the work of national Urban Search and Rescue Teams and 

the authorization of them in your bill. 

We support the Emergency Management and Assistance Compact. Under EMAC, the State of Florida sent more than 6,200 personnel to assist Mississippi in their recovery from Hurricane 

Katrina. Most of those personnel came from Florida counties and 

cities. 

Any discussion of disaster recovery also must include preparedness. Proper preparedness depends on a strong foundation of emergency management systems at the State and local level. Many local 

governments are finding it difficult to maintain an independent 

management agency. They are assigning these duties to other 

agencies that are already overburdened with existing responsibilities. 

32 

Every community needs someone continuously planning, training, exercising, and thinking about resource allocation. When this 

responsibility is relegated to another agency, proper planning suffers from the inherent lack of attention. 

In Florida, we say the first 72 is on you. This recognizes the responsibility of individuals to be prepared. We believe all citizens 

should do their utmost to take care of themselves, family, and, 

hopefully, their neighbors. If our citizens would do this, we could 

then concentrate our focus on helping those who cannot help themselves. 

It is also vital that all levels of government provide information 

to citizens that explains what the authorities can and cannot do in 

a disaster situation. Citizens’ expectations will always exceed the 

ability for any government to deliver services during a disaster. 

Knowing full well that it takes people and money to properly respond, our citizens will still expect us to respond rapidly and effectively, regardless of the current economic situation. 

Finally, we would like to address the 100 percent Federal reimbursement issue identified in the report. Like the reimbursement 

to private entities issue, we believe this would act as a disincentive 

to proper planning and preparedness. We believe that it remains 

important for State and local governments to have some skin in the 

game. This makes all members of the team responsible for jointly 

setting recovery priorities as well as minimizing fraud, waste, and 

abuse of these taxpayer funds. 

My father always told me, them that pay for it have a right to 

call the shots. No local community really wants the Federal Government to totally dictate how they rebuild and recover from a disaster. 

I will be happy to answer your questions. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Gispert. 

Now we have, finally, Mr. Chad Berginnis, testifying on behalf 

of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. He is a Senior 

Specialist at the Hazard Mitigation and Floodplain Management 

Michael Baker Corporation. 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

I am Chad Berginnis, Mitigation Policy Coordinator for the Association of State Floodplain Managers. I am also a former ASFPM 

Chair and a former State hazard mitigation officer in Ohio. So the 

mitigation programs that have been talked about, I have administered those Statewide for several years. Interestingly, my experience with the hazard mitigation grant program was that of a local 

project manager in the late 1990s for a flooded small village. 

My organization represents over 14,000 individuals working in 

all aspects of floodplain management, disasters, and mitigation. 

Along with our 29 chapters, our mission is to reduce flood losses 

and enhance the natural and beneficial functions of floodplains. 

I wish to share three guiding principals of ASFPM that are applicable to the testimony I am giving: First is the concept of shared 

responsibility among all levels of government but a recognition that 

local leadership is essential. Another is our belief that those who 

inhabit the floodplain bear some responsibility for their actions and 

their choices. Finally, we believe that hazard mitigation is the cornerstone of effective floodplain management. 

33 

The Conference of Mayors report is a useful document reflecting 

the direct experience of mayors and local officials who have dealt 

with disasters. The ASFPM largely supports the spirit and intent 

of the recommendations, even though we may have some different 

ideas for implementation. Also, there are a few recommendations 

that we do not agree with. 

I would like to first highlight several points of concurrence. In 

certain situations, ASFPM believes that adjustments to cost shares 

for various programs can be done. However, we also believe States 

and communities must have a stake in the long-term recovery and 

resilience. Therefore, we cannot support full Federal funding or full 

cost share for any program, including those disaster programs. 

It is our experience that when an entity invests in its own sustainability it is more successful. Cost shares can be adjusted based 

on circumstances such as catastrophic events and maybe can be adjusted based on communities taking proactive mitigation measures, 

the concept of sliding cost shares. 

We concur with the need to expedite assistance, especially hazard mitigation assistance. As a colleague of mine has said, when 

dealing with flood disasters, mitigation assistance is needed while 

the carp is still flopping on the couch. 

Even though that is not the reality of mitigation programs today, 

there are many things that can be done, but we must be mindful 

that it isn’t done at the expense of the first mitigation actions that 

truly occur after an event, the enforcement of local codes and regulations. While most of these are local, there may also be State and 

Federal standards that must be adhered to as well. 

We fully concur with recommendations on speeding up cost-effectiveness determinations and streamlining environmental review. 

Mr. BERGINNIS. I do want to take a moment to discuss an area 

of significant disagreement with the report, and that is related to 

bypassing states and making local jurisdictions eligible grantees, 

especially for hazard mitigation programs. As I stated earlier, 

ASFPM believes Federal, State and local jurisdictions all have a 

role. A State has a responsibility to have a trained competent staff 

to administer these programs in a fair and expeditious manner. 

Some States live up to this responsibility, sadly some States do not. 

However, this basic framework has served the country well since 

the mitigation programs were established in 1988. ASFPM can provide many recommendations from a statutory rule and operational 

standpoint to ensure that all local jurisdictions are served fairly 

and timely within the existing framework. 

Finally, I wish to highlight some recommendations in our written 

testimony where ASFPM would like to see future Stafford Act reforms. The first of these is authorization of public assistance for 

local cost of damage inspection and permitting. Who are the first 

mitigators after a disaster occurs? Those are the local code enforcement officials. As was discussed earlier, ASFPM supports both the 

compensation of straight and overtime for this particular group of 

officials, and we can explain why on further questioning. 

Yet current policies specifically prohibit FEMA from reimbursing 

these officials for those activities from the public assistance program. There is a specific policy that actually prohibits this. Our 

second and third recommendations have a direct bearing on speedVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
34 

ing up the mitigation assistance process, an ongoing State technical 

assistance program for mitigation and implementing the ten-year 

old statutory language for delegating State mitigation programs to 

capable States. 

Third, in aligning recovery in mitigation programs the cost 

shares should be the same for a particular event. There have been 

many events, for example, where public assistance is cost shared 

at 90/10 but hazard mitigation grant program is at 75/25. This 

disalignment has led to much confusion in many different disaster 

scenarios. 

Finally, it is time for an independent evaluation of our mitigation 

planning efforts. In the space of 10 years 15,000 communities have 

participated in mitigation planning. As plans are now being updated it is time review what has been done, identify successes and 

failures, best practices and identify what changes need to be made 

in planning requirements and future outcomes. This concludes my 

testimony and be happy to respond to any questions. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I take your points about moving precipitously 

to change a statute that at least at the statutory level, at the level 

of the words in the statute, have not generally been much criticized. Of course, the implementation of this statute has been such 

a huge criticism on occasion, in part because FEMA reads the statute very narrowly, covers its you know what by doing as little as 

possible. In that regard, I asked the Mayors about, and I think one 

of you referred to dueling experts, certified local professional staff, 

where we almost do it by hand in New Orleans, mandated an arbitration process that has finally gotten, Charity Hospital, of all 

places, just got money out where we found literally billions of dollars just lying on the table for a while there. 

And then separately the notion of what seemed to me the idiocy 

of mandating that each party go out and find themselves an expert 

to back them up so as to take as long as they can in the process. 

So let me ask you, do you think the notion of requiring the parties to agree upon an expert in advance would be beneficial in promoting action and reducing delay? 

Mr. MAXWELL. I will comment on that. Yes, ma’am, I think that 

would be beneficial. We do agree with the adjudication process. 

Ms. NORTON. Did you have an answer for that, Mr. Gispert? 

Mr. GISPERT. Yes. We would prefer that we have reasonable 

thinking people implementing the law and doing it up front and 

not having to cause arbitration. I am here to tell you the Stafford 

Act has been in existence for quite some time and it has not required major modifications to it. Just like why are there so many 

lawyers, because they can take the same simple English sentence 

and interpret it 20 different ways. 

Ms. NORTON. Precisely. 

Mr. GISPERT. You have the same problem when you are interpreting is that an eligible project or not. So I say keep the law the 

way it is, get reasonable people, do the reasonable thing and most 

people are willing to accept reasonable. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Gispert the one thing we haven’t been able to 

control is reasonable people. That is the one thing. All we can do 

is give them a law. But you have got to concede the structural 

problem of FEMA saying, you get your expert and you get yours 

35 

and then we will decide. Now that invites conflict. Why should the 

government invite conflict? Maybe people can’t agree upon an expert. But if the statute says to the reasonable extent possible you 

have got to do that, rather than put it through an even longer process that appear at least in New Orleans to go on forever would 

there be any objection at least to asking people in the first instance 

to agree upon who the expert would be instead of trying to decide 

between their respective experts who are instructed to disagree. 

Can we at least agree on that? 

Mr. GISPERT. Barring reasonable people, I will agree with you 

that arbitration is probably a legitimate method of—— 

Ms. NORTON. Remember, the arbitration which came about. This 

would assume that the parties hadn’t even begun to deal with one 

another. But it anticipates what we found even outside of New Orleans that if you tell people to go get their experts, they are going 

to go get the one with their view. All right. Let’s begin with an 

agreement on who the expert will be and then you eliminate something. You are right about arbitration. We do not assume that 

there will be an arbitrator that would come in anywhere near immediately. We assume that the people have been at the table, and 

at some point, a stalemate had been declared and that there are 

people on the ground waiting for some money, or at least to know 

whether they are going to get any money. 

But what we found in New Orleans was that the subject was interminable in the worst disaster in history. Now, I agree with you, 

you can’t take New Orleans as your template. We will never have 

another New Orleans. But we certainly want to learn from New 

Orleans. And we recognize that people may work these things out 

when the disaster has not been as great. But we would like at least 

FEMA not to be there. Remember now, when FEMA is the one I 

am not sure how objective an expert you got, FEMA is the government, FEMA’s job is watch out because Norton is going to call you 

to account at a hearing, or somebody is going to go with a newspaper article if it looks like you gave too much to your respective 

jurisdictions and somebody is going to second guess you. 

So they will second guess themselves by saying the taxpayers 

don’t have much to give you and my job is to guard our money. But 

if you are one of those jurisdictions with people hurting on the 

ground, your job is to interpret our statute to your benefit. So we 

are trying to cut through that. And we recognize that—as I say, we 

hope never to have another New Orleans, or we hope never to go 

through a period. And we don’t think you even hear about the 

other stalemates. We just think that when it isn’t a New Orleans, 

people just keep going at it and keep going at it until they get it 

straight. 

Does that save the government money or not? Obviously it 

doesn’t. We end up owing more and more money as the disaster is 

lying out there. And then what we finally come up with is not 

enough and everybody hates that they didn’t get enough in the first 

place. 

How many times do you keep going around that mulberry bush 

before something gets done. And so I recognize your cautious approach, and we are only looking for ways to make sure everybody 

is included in the statute. You know, there are cities and there are 

36 

counties with vast amounts of land, and there are other people who 

are landlocked into rather smaller spaces. Making this statute conform to them all is not altogether easy. And that is why your balancing testimony is so important to us. 

Now, you heard these cities talk about how in certain circumstances that they should be direct grantees of FEMA for public 

assistance programs and for the hazard mitigation program. They 

argue that they are the ones on the ground who know it and that 

there are great delays. Do I take it you don’t agree, and if so, why 

not? I don’t know if you all have been State officials and that is 

why you don’t agree or if you can give me some objective. 

Mr. GISPERT. I will take the first crack and then I will pass it 

to our friends of the State. I have always been a local official, but 

you have, when you have disasters they normally affect a fairly 

large geographical area and you have to have somebody at the 

upper level looking upon the needs of the whole. Now, just because 

you had all the damage doesn’t necessarily mean that you need all 

the hazard mitigation money. That money may be more useful to 

more people somewhere else. So many States have hazard mitigation plans and project lists and they administer them. It is very 

easy to look at the CNN dot-com disaster which is where all the 

cameras are and ignore the rest of the community that is possibly 

affected and not let them get a piece or a taste of the pie, and that 

is what the State and upper officials are supposed to do. 

Ms. NORTON. Do the rest of you agree with that? 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Madam Chairwoman I certainly would agree 

with that. And I was the State official that administered the programs in Ohio. 

Ms. NORTON. So the State and locality come together on this one. 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Yes. And the State—let me explain just briefly. 

With the State mitigation programs the processes should be, at 

least as established by the way, should be largely transparent and 

known to the communities. States are required to have State mitigation plans that identify the processes by which they are going to 

coordinate with the local communities. In addition, after a Federal 

disaster declaration States are required to prepare an administrative plan, and that administrative plan details the processes and 

procedures by which those funds are going to be distributed. Those 

are documents that certainly communities can have input into. But 

the point that was stated early is well taken. Is that at the State 

level you look at the needs of the whole and you establish a selection process that distributes at least those funds in as fair of a 

manner as possible. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, the Mayors suggest that cities should be able 

to provide assistance at least to each other directly. Do you believe 

that that assistance should also have to go through the State before cities can help sister cities or do you think the States have to 

decide that as well. 

Mr. MAXWELL. I am mincing words here. I am trying to think of 

appropriate comments. To some degree I think you saw in Katrina, 

not necessarily with New Orleans but a lot of the outlying cities, 

cities going and helping each other. They can do that. However, the 

existing emergency management assistance compact is a State-toState assistance compact. It is an agreement that is ratified by 

37 

Congress that the States have agreed to. We can help—that can be 

utilized to share city resources, certainly. If a city wants to go to 

another city directly between those two, they can do that. They will 

not have the protections of the compact. 

Ms. NORTON. I can see what you are saying. I can see the balance you are trying to strike there. Mr. Gispert, did you have a response? 

Mr. GISPERT. As a part of the EMAC process and mutual aid 

process, all the legal issues have been resolved and agreed to; who 

handles the workmen’s comp, what happens if a helping public employee gets injured on the job, who is going to pay for that? All that 

has been resolved. Who pays how much for the bulldozer, for the 

crews. If a city in Iowa decides to say I want to send somebody to 

help down in Tampa, Florida, and if it is on their own nickle, it 

is on their own nickle. 

And none of these issues have been resolved. There is no workmen’s comp understanding. And what we are saying is if you go 

through processes such as EMAC and mutual aid all that is laid 

out, it is all legal, it is resolved and you get your help in a timely 

manner. 

Mr. MAXWELL. And in most cases, it is entirely seamless to the— 

a city who requests assistance they don’t care where they get assistance. They need help. 

Ms. NORTON. But they need it quickly. 

Mr. MAXWELL. And normally the channel that they would go to 

is turn to the State and say we need help. We can then do that 

going out to the other States who reach out to other cities and do 

it. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to ask Mr. Diaz-Balart if he has any 

questions at this time. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, a 

couple actually, if you will allow me. One is, Mr. Gispert, you recommend caution, I think is the word, in considering changes to enhance the role of the Federal Government following a huge catastrophic type disaster. Can you talk a little bit about key issues 

that should be examined closely in considering an enhanced role for 

the Federal Government? 

Mr. GISPERT. I am about ready to end a 32-year career at local 

government. I am going to retire soon, thank God. And over my career there have been events in my career what I call knee jerk. 

When something happens, somebody wants to do something so they 

end up doing something quickly and it winds up not being the right 

thing and you have to go later on and clean it up. The Stafford Act 

has been a well-established law that has been in existence for quite 

some time. It works. It may might need some minor peaks and 

tweak, but our caution to you is do not make major changes to you. 

Now, the other thing that happens is if you open up the Stafford 

Act for amendment there are other agencies out there that might 

want a piece of the Federal pie. They might want to say, well, you 

need to identify X, Y and Z as reimbursable that are currently not 

reimbursable, because as you know the Stafford Act is primarily 

designed for local governments and citizens to get reimbursement. 

So that is why we caution you don’t knee jerk it, don’t change 

38 

something that really doesn’t need changing. If you do do a change, 

make sure it is necessary and it does what you want it to do. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you sir. I asked the previous panel a 

similar question about the Demolished/Rebuild program. And if the 

three of you can kind of comment, do you think FEMA should allow 

funding for Demolished/Rebuild in its mitigation programs? Do you 

all believe that FEMA already has the legal authority to provide 

funding for the Demolished/Rebuild? And can you also talk a little 

bit about how Demolished/Rebuild can be effective in helping to 

mitigate against future disasters? If you all would care to, and I 

asked a similar question to the previous panel, so I thought I 

would like to hear from you as well. 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Yes, Ranking Member Diaz-Balart. Let me first 

by saying that we view mitigation as a tool box where different actions are available. And through the mitigation programs, a community chooses the most appropriate mitigation actions that is 

based on their future goals, development objectives and so on and 

so forth. And so among those options that are currently available 

under HMGP you have acquisition and demolition. And as the previous panel talked a little about when you do acquisition land is 

deeded as green space. 

So there is always a tradeoff on that one. And it is important for 

folks to understand it. You have—for flood mitigation you have elevation in place elevating a damaged building higher than the flood. 

You have retrofitting of buildings, changing the systems, hardening 

the building or making it flood proof to where it is resistant to 

flooding. So Demolished/Rebuild is another tool in the tool box, and 

it focuses in on those areas where it is not cost effective to do an 

elevation in place because perhaps the building is simply too rickety to withstand the elevation process, it costs too much and it is 

actually more cost effective to demolish it and rebuild something 

with a similar type structure. 

So from the standpoint of it being another tool in the tool box, 

yes, we do support Demolished/Rebuild and its use. The one caveat 

that we would put on that, but as well as elevation and some of 

the other options, is that again it has to be suitable for the site. 

So something like demolish rebuild for example really does not 

make sense in areas like floodways which are the highest hazard 

high flow areas and maybe things like coastal high hazard zones, 

the velocity zones. Thank you. 

Mr. GISPERT. As you know being from Florida that is going to be 

our nightmare when we take a big hit and our coastal communities 

are devastated and they are going to want to rebuild back and we 

are going to say it wasn’t smart for you to build there originally 

and it is not smart for you to build back. So it is going to be a legal 

teeth gnashing and stuff like that. But if you are a purist you say 

God told you that you shouldn’t have built there, I took your home 

away from you with a hurricane, you got a wake-up call, don’t build 

it back. So I think the build and rebuild is an appropriate thing, 

and it needs to be considered when you want to get structures out 

of known areas that will always cause you problems. The flood 

zones, the coastal high hazard area, I am not looking forward to 

that day but it is going to happen. 

39 

Mr. MAXWELL. NEMA has not developed an official position on 

that but we will be happy to vet it with the membership and get 

you an answer. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Great. I appreciate that. And Madam Chairman if you would allow me one last question. 

Ms. NORTON. If you would yield me on just that question, demolish rebuild? 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. I always yield to the Chairwoman. 

Ms. NORTON. He is such a gentleman. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. That is why we have such a great relationship. 

Ms. NORTON. All you have to do is come down here and you will 

see it is not true. But the demolish rebuild, you heard the exchange 

between the Mayors and me, and I was trying to look to see if flexibility made any sense because I certainly don’t support just building again and having the damage again. 

And Mayor Nagin did say, for example, and I asked for other examples and I asked him to submit examples, a hypothetical, so I 

could have some sense of whether or not this rather blanket language in the statute that says green space only essentially is appropriate for every living place in the United States, including big 

cities. I need only think about the Federal triangle. You can say, 

and it is a flood plain, and we are having to do the same 100-year 

work that you all are doing. But I bet you one thing. They are not 

going to stop having headquarters in the Nation’s capital. 

But let me go back to really what I am after. And that is the example that Mayor Nagin put, that in New Orleans they agreed it 

would have to be a structure, would have to be absolutely stable, 

you couldn’t build, it would be elevated, but he said for cars, you 

could have that first floor to be for garages and it would essentially 

help a city, which obviously before the hurricane had a hard time 

keeping people. 

Now, would that be an example of where some flexibility left to 

perhaps some language that would bottle it or encase it would be 

useful and would make a statute applicable to various areas of the 

United States, including areas that might be rationed for space. 

Mr. GISPERT. We have a model in emergency management. It is 

called Semper Gumby. 

Ms. NORTON. Translate that for me. 

Mr. GISPERT. Always flexible. So the issue is there may be reasons that you want to not follow the rule and some official says for 

the good of the order we want to do this. That should be an option. 

But generally speaking—but once again, the other thing is he was 

told, you can rebuild, you just can’t use HMGP money to do it, so 

he needs to go after other money to possibly do it if he doesn’t want 

to get into that green space stuff. But flexibility is an issue that 

I think should be in the rules. 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Let me clarify on HMGP at least, again, having 

administered the program. HMGP inherently has a lot of flexibility 

in it. In those first few days after a disaster, and I did this with 

the City of Finley in Ohio after a massive flood disaster, we sat 

down with community leaders and we talked about the different 

options available for funding under HMGP. 

Only one of those being acquisition triggers the green space requirement. And it is one of those things where we needed to lay 

40 

out the array of options for local leaders to then choose. ASFPM 

would find it very problematic to change the language that deals 

with green space because at the very beginning communities have 

the option of either doing a buy-out or doing the elevations as 

Mayor Nagin had indicated where you park the cars underneath. 

That is an equal and different option that is available under 

HMGP right now. Thank you. 

Mr. MAXWELL. And I would just add that NEMA fully supports 

HMGP and we fully support any flexibility that you can build into 

any program. 

Ms. NORTON. I am sorry, I yield back to the Ranking Member. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I actually 

just have one more question. Do you all agree that FEMA should 

finally implement its existing authority to delegate the administration of HMGP to the States that meet certain criteria? If so how 

do you believe this would improve the process. Your thoughts on 

that? 

Mr. MAXWELL. Yes, we would like to see the States that would 

want to do that and meet the criteria that they have that capability. Certainly any streamlining, any cost saving measures that 

could be put in place we would be all for. 

Mr. GISPERT. If they can do the job, then they should be able to 

do it. The key criteria is can they meet the requirements and fulfill 

the requirements. 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Several years ago, FEMA piloted the concept 

called the managing State program. I would not call that delegation of the program as is required as is mentioned in the statute. 

But in the managing State concept, and we were one of those, once 

we received that designation we were able to process HMGP applications without the FEMA regional review. And that did expedite 

the process significantly. 

So when you have a capable State in theory delegating that authority to the State you eliminate one level of review and you 

would have a faster process. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. And I do understand. In the State of Florida, 

we have had some serious delays in getting FEMA to move forward 

to the point where they have had to get extensions even. Not because the State wasn’t doing its part, but just because getting 

through the whole FEMA process. So there is a consensus here 

that FEMA should finally go ahead and do that and that it would 

help, right? 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Yes. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. And we have heard obviously that there has 

got to be criteria and that is obvious. 

Mr. BERGINNIS. And I am sorry, Ranking Member, if I could add 

just one more comment. Since that time FEMA has also developed 

the enhanced State mitigation plan requirement, and they are very 

high standards that a State has to pass. But you can be qualified 

as an enhanced plan State. You get more mitigation funding when 

you do that. Enhanced plan States should be able to qualify quite 

easily for a delegated State program. Thank you. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you very much. And again, thank you 

Madam Chairwoman for always being very generous with me and 

my time. Thank you. 

41 

Ms. NORTON. Always Mr. Diaz-Balart. And I must say I would 

be impressed with the, I don’t know, model program that you describe. I am—obviously the State has to have a plan and the State 

gets monitored. I do believe that where a State has shown they get 

the money out, that is important, and that it is closer to the ground 

I don’t see why Washington should be put to the task of managing 

such a program. 

The fact is that we don’t manage lots of programs from Washington. Most of the programs are managed in the States. We don’t 

try to manage welfare programs for example, say a big program 

from here. We don’t try to manage transportation programs, we 

don’t try to manage public works programs. What do we know 

about it. We are about to do, based on a horrific accident here, with 

the metro system here where 11 people lost their lives, no safety 

regulation in the State, so how do you do it. There was actually a 

law that said you can’t regulate safety. You regulate everything 

else; railroads, air travel, not this. And so now we have had this 

catastrophe and so everyone is looking at it now. But it is interesting how we are looking at it. I would like the Ranking Member 

to see that this is the administration’s proposal I think takes into 

account how State administration can be not only beneficial but 

better. 

Essentially it says, and I am looking at this as the kind of model 

you are describing, Mr. Gispert, it says, okay, States, you come up 

with a plan for a safety regulation of your on transit system. Now, 

there are going to be Federal regulations because we have seen 

what happened, what we had when States had their own systems. 

These made you want to sob. They were systems where essentially 

there was virtually no staff. There was systems where there was 

no regulation. So they set up faux systems. So it said you set up 

your own system, adapt it, according to broad Federal regulations 

of a kind that I think you must be talking about, Mr. Berginnis, 

because they had to do a plan that met Federal regulations, then 

you manage it. 

Now, if you don’t want to do that, the Federal Government says 

in this statute, that I guess is before our Full Committee, if you 

don’t want to do that, then the Feds will make you conform to the 

statute and we will do it from Washington. It gives the State that 

wants to do it, is equipped to do it or the moment it gets equipped 

to do it, it is closer to the ground, it does it the way it regulates, 

or sorry, administers most problems—most programs in our country. 

So I would agree with Mr. Diaz-Balart. You have a State that is 

particularly practiced in hazard mitigation, and for that matter, almost everything else having to do with disasters. So the Committee, the Subcommittee is looking for that kind. We expect people 

to be on the ground, not where we are up in the stratosphere. We 

know where we are. And we know, that is why we go to areas to, 

in fact, find out something. If FEMA were, and staff reminds me 

in H.R. 3377, which you heard me refer to over and over again, because we are trying to see if there is anything we should do to try 

to perfect it even further, FEMA must establish criteria for State 

management of the hazard management program within 180 days. 

So that is really the answer. 

42 

I did not know this, how specific we had been in that regard. It 

shows you that we are at one on this. Let me just ask you a few 

more questions. We have kept you a long time, but we have done 

so because just as you say watch what you wish for, you wish you 

hadn’t wished you wish you hadn’t done it. You call for something 

that some would consider radical, I think it is you, Mr. Berginnis, 

that the hazard management program should be 100 percent federally fund, it is about 75 percent federally funded now. 

But Mr. Gispert said everybody needs some skin in the game. So 

could you all get on this the way you did on the last question that 

came before you? 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Actually, our position, I apologize if I misspoke, 

but I think Mr. Gispert and I do agree on the fact that everybody 

has to have skin in the game. And that even though there may be 

reasons to adjust a cost share towards 100 percent there should 

never be a situation where you have a full 100 percent. 

Ms. NORTON. So you do agree? 

Mr. BERGINNIS. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. So the 75 percent match makes some sense to you? 

Mr. GISPERT. We don’t necessarily want to issue a rock statement 

that it has got to be 75 percent, 80 percent, 90 percent. What we 

are telling you is to blanket say it is always 100 percent will be 

a disincentive. 

And we think that you need to have a—there may be cases 

where the Federal Government says that should be a 90/10 situation or it should be traditionally 75/25. There just needs to be 

something. They need to be invested in the program, because if 

they don’t they will ignore it. 

Ms. NORTON. Sure. Why should we put anything in it. Go to the 

Feds. And you see how small the program is. It makes us cry. 

When you see the good that it does relative to the amount of money 

we put into the program, oh my. No cost effectiveness. That is why 

we are always going back asking for more money. Let me ask you 

this, unless Mr. Maxwell had something to say on that. Now, the 

Mayors want the hazard mitigation program to be distributed in 

proportion to the damage. Now, you have reservations about such 

a system, as I understand it. 

Mr. GISPERT. Yes, ma’am, I do. 

Ms. NORTON. Would you explain that? 

Mr. GISPERT. Once again, remember the process of the State, the 

overall plan. We have sat there and thought what happens if we 

have a major disaster, here are all the projects that everybody 

thinks they will need. And then when we see that the State of Florida is going to get $50 million then they go to that plan and they 

say that $50 million can be best spent on these projects. And it 

may not necessarily be focused totally on the ground zero of where 

the disaster was because everybody gets impacted. 

So we think it should be according to a well thought out plan and 

distribute the money most good for the most people. 

Mr. MAXWELL. Also I would like to add that most of the time 

mitigation is declared for the entire disaster area or the entire 

State. So the State will look and try to coordinate the funds as best 

we can. But there are a lot of factors that go on with this. There 

is a cost share. Oftentimes, the city or county that was directly imVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
43 

pacted by the disaster might not have the funds to match so they 

can’t do the mitigation project. So there are a lot of factors in there. 

Each local entity has their own mitigation plans, their own projects 

that are delineated. So the State then can look at what is there 

ready in the disaster areas along with the rest of the State. 

Mr. GISPERT. I need to correct something. In the State of Florida, 

we do take into consideration the impact of communities. That is 

a part of the idea and the thought of where the money is distributed. It is not the sole criteria. And I think the Mayors were, in 

essence, saying that you know they needed a bigger chunk of the 

pie, we took the hit, we should have got a comparable amount of 

money. We don’t think that is the right way to do it. 

Ms. NORTON. And of course, it is interesting that that was not 

just the New Orleans template. Mayors all seem to think that 

when the damage occurs in places, like in congested big cities, it 

is greater damage and therefore they should, that greater damage 

probably comes simply because they are more congested, there is 

more to damage in a space that is smaller. 

You say, Mr. Gispert, well, one factor should be—I guess the 

startling figure which may be due to something else coming out of 

the State of Louisiana where they had, I don’t know, 57 percent or 

some such number of the damage and it is a tiny morsel of the 

mitigation funds, when you see how it can become a gain in New 

Orleans and on the golf course kind of made me shutter, when you 

want to mitigate as much as possible there. 

Mr. GISPERT. I did hear the mayor say that there is a lot of 

money hung up not yet distributed. He only got X amount of percentage of the money distributed. 

Ms. NORTON. Do you think this is just a question of the efficiency 

of the States involved? 

Mr. GISPERT. It could very well be ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Because you don’t think that that is widespread, 

that notion of—I asked him how come it is stuck, how can you unstick it. You don’t think that that is more generally a problem since 

we are looking at a statute generally not just at one area. 

Mr. MAXWELL. I think that may be a unique situation in that you 

are just seeing things like Charity Hospital being approved for the 

PA program. There are a lot of factors that are going on in that 

area. 

Mr. BERGINNIS. And I would agree with Mr. Maxwell on that. It 

probably is more process oriented. Those numbers were startling. 

And again, from the standpoint of having administered one of those 

programs, in a garden variety disaster that funding should be able 

to be distributed very quickly. 

States should have the processes to do that. Again, Katrina was 

very unique from the standpoint the massive amounts of funding 

and things that happened, but certainly process improvements 

could be made. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask one final question, at least from my 

questions. And whether the rest of you agree with Mr. Gispert’s 

testimony. He says that in Florida, Mr. Diaz-Balart, he tells his 

citizens the first 72 is on you. Now, some of us—well, let’s take the 

situation I know best. It is true that when we heard there was a 

big storm coming, they cleared out all the—you know you couldn’t 

44 

find a shovel, you couldn’t find a loaf of bread. People did seem to 

know. You ought to know certain things just by living where you 

are. 

And apparently people knew that they better rush to the store, 

and it was a big day for every supermarket or every hardware 

store in the region. Is that what you mean or is there a problem 

for citizens being left to believe that they are on their own in the 

first 72 hours. 

Mr. GISPERT. I want to give you a real good example, and Mr. 

Diaz-Balart will remember it. 2005 Hurricane Wilma hit the southeast coast of Florida where millions of people live. The storm came 

in off the gulf so it backdoored them. The biggest problem they had 

in reality was a total loss of power along that whole coast. 

The storm had not stopped blowing and those people started 

standing in line waiting for food, water and ice. And my question 

to them is where is your hurricane kit. They go, huh. Well, we have 

been preaching how long everybody should have a hurricane kit, 

and these people, thousands of people stood—you know the wind 

stopped blowing and they are waiting for food, water and ice. 

So you have to get a little abrupt to them and say the first 72 

is on you. Our motto used to be we are from the government and 

we are here to help you. Well, the thing is we are from the government and we may not be able to help you for a while so you need 

to be able to help yourself, your family and your neighbors for 72 

hours. And that is why we use the first 72 is on you. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. If I may, Madam Chairman. What I also remember is that before the storm was over you had people asking 

for food, water and ice in many cases in places that you could just 

turn on the tap water. We hadn’t lost water. And so—and I don’t 

mean to be critical but sometimes, you know—I guess in the case 

of Florida I will tell you that sometimes we are a little bit victims 

of our own success because people expect, since frankly photo has 

its act together, that you know the light goes out and 20 minutes 

later you are going to have government services there saying what 

do you need. 

And the reality is that if a big storm comes, I don’t care if you 

are Florida and you have got the best situation and the best prepared people in the world, the big one comes you are going to be 

on your own. And there is that balance of telling people, well, we 

have a very good system and we are working on that, but people 

need to understand that if you do have a problem you better be 

ready because, yes, we are—— 

And Madam Chairwoman, thank you again because the Chairwoman has been there personally to see it and witnessed it and 

talked to people there and she has seen how prepared we are. But 

it doesn’t matter how prepared you are. If something happens 

chances are you are not going to be able to get help. So in Florida 

we have people kind of expecting that we are going to be there 

thinking that since we got our act together there is never going to 

be a problem. That is just not the case. 

And I can tell you, Madam Chairwoman, that in my house, my 

household, and it all changed for me after Andrew, because before 

Andrew, Madam Chairwoman, I thought a hurricane is coming, big 

deal. After Andrew I am paranoid. And I have got MREs, I have 

45 

got water in packets, I have food, I have backpacks ready to go. 

And God willing, I will never need them, and after 5 years when 

they go bad, before that hopefully I can donate them so others can 

use them before they go bad or whatever, but if we have a real 

problem we can’t expect the government to be there no matter how 

efficient, well run and how good things may be. 

Mr. MAXWELL. And if I could add to that I think this is an extremely important point. We are all in this together. It shouldn’t 

be worrying about Federal Government, State government, local 

government, it is also the people. It is citizens, local government, 

State government Federal Government all trying to do the same 

thing trying to help the people. So we have got to have that local 

involvement, those citizens involved in their own preparations, and 

that just has to be what the system evolves to. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. And again, I just want to reiterate something 

which I think sounds funny but it is true. People were waiting in 

line, by the way sometimes for hours, for water and all they had 

to do was go home and turn on the tap, open the tap. 

Mr. GISPERT. Would you like to hear another funny story. I went 

down, I am from Tampa which is 250 miles away, and I went down 

to help my friend in Broward County because he had been up for 

60 hours, and we are in his EOC. Wilma comes through, the storm 

has subsided and gone off and the people are cueing up. One of the 

local TV channels had its TV camera and there was a middle aged 

gentleman standing in line. He had a pair of khaki shoes on, Tshirt and one of them Australian hats flipped up like this. And the 

cameraman said, sir, how long have you been standing in line. He 

said three hours. He said what are you standing in line for. He 

says water. He says where do you live? He said Pembrook Pines. 

He said, sir, the municipal water system is back on line. He said, 

but you don’t understand, I drink nothing but bottled water. I 

wouldn’t lie to you sir. I wish I had a copy of that tape to play. 

Ms. NORTON. And now we are having to try to unlearn people 

about bottled water with all of the additional problems that the 

bottles cost and with the fact that the water probably came from 

the tap anyway. I appreciate those examples. The last thing we 

want to do at any time is to foster a culture of dependence, particularly since ultimately we are all dependant upon one another. We 

want to foster a culture of personal responsibility with the government getting there as soon as it can to assist you in meeting your 

personal responsibility. I say that with some passion because people don’t even think that the emergency management personnel got 

to get from where they live to how they can help you. Somehow 

they have been flying up in the stratosphere saying whatever 

comes, we will parachute down to help you. The notion of that 

sense of emergency managers, because they have such an excellent 

reputation, will be very bothersome. 

So I must say that I think that all it takes is a disaster like the 

one we just had here for people to learn and to learn quickly what 

to do. And I think you in Florida and in the other areas, especially 

you emergency management experts, have taught us much we need 

to know. I hope we don’t have to experience anything like the kinds 

of disasters we have had here, let alone Katrina, in order to get 

that culture of dependence out of us, or this notion I only drink botVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:29 Jun 03, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\55274 JASON
46 

tled water, you know, the notion that somehow we are above the 

ordinary amenities I think this recession will drive out of a lot of 

us when we are going back to basics. 

But your testimony has certainly helped us to go back to basics 

in getting balance on how we should go about any restructuring we 

do and any changes we make in the Stafford Act. I can’t thank you 

enough for the testimony of all three of you, and especially for you 

suffering through our many questions of those who preceded you. 

Thank you so much for coming all the way to Washington to help 

us out. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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