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26–744 PDF 2006

S. Hrg. 109–591

HURRICANE KATRINA: PERSPECTIVES OF FEMA’S

OPERATIONS PROFESSIONALS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 8, 2005

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

DAVID T. FLANAGAN, General Counsel 

JONATHAN T. NASS, Counsel 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

ROBERT F. MUSE, Minority General Counsel 

MARY BETH SCHULTZ, Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 1

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 2

Senator Stevens ................................................................................................ 4

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2005

Scott Wells, Federal Coordinating Officer, FEMA Joint Field Office, Baton 

Rouge, Louisiana .................................................................................................. 7

Philip E. Parr, Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer, FEMA Joint Field Office, 

Austin, Texas ........................................................................................................ 9

William L. Carwile III, Former Federal Coordinating Officer, FEMA Joint 

Field Office, Biloxi, Mississippi ........................................................................... 13

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Carwile, William L. III: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 13

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61

Parr, Philip E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 52

Wells Scott: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43

APPENDIX

Exhibit 1 ................................................................................................................... 71

Exhibit 8 ................................................................................................................... 83

Exhibit 9 ................................................................................................................... 90

Exhibit F ................................................................................................................... 94

Exhibit G .................................................................................................................. 99

Exhibit H .................................................................................................................. 102

Exhibit I ................................................................................................................... 104

(1)

HURRICANE KATRINA: PERSPECTIVES OF 

FEMA’S OPERATIONS PROFESSIONALS 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2005

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Hon. Susan M. Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Collins, Stevens, and Lieberman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. The Committee will come to order. Today, 

the Committee continues its investigation into the preparation for 

and response to Hurricane Katrina. 

This morning, at our eighth hearing, we will hear from three witnesses who are among the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s most experienced emergency managers and operations professionals. Each of our witnesses—Scott Wells, Philip Parr, and William Carwile—was directly involved in Katrina preparation and response. They will give us a more complete understanding of 

FEMA’s role, share their observations about the State and local response, and provide their insights and recommendations for reforms. 

One of our witnesses today has described the national emergency 

response as a ‘‘bottom-up system,’’ with local and State authorities 

leading the way and Federal authorities coordinating operations 

and the deployment of resources. In Katrina, this system broke 

down, and the result was the very deprivation and suffering the 

structure was designed to avoid. This system must be fixed from 

the bottom to the very top. 

One of the most glaring breakdowns was in communications. 

This powerful storm devastated the land-based communications infrastructure throughout the Gulf region. This, however, was an utterly foreseeable result of howling winds and surging water that 

apparently was not adequately anticipated, nor compensated for. 

At our last hearing on November 16, we heard testimony from 

private sector witnesses who stressed the critical importance of 

maintaining communications in disaster management. They emphasized that good communications are the life blood of emergency 

operations, allowing for the effective movement of personnel and 

other assets as well as real-time assessments. 

2

In each of these companies, developing and maintaining robust 

systems, importing extra communications gear, and re-establishing 

contact with the outside world were of the utmost priority and a 

key component of their preparedness plans. Their outstanding performance, unfortunately, stands in stark contrast to the inability of 

government at all levels to plan and execute backup communications systems. 

FEMA has mobile communications vehicles. But by the time anyone thought to bring one to the Superdome, the building was already surrounded by water, and FEMA was apparently unable to 

figure out a way to get its equipment into the building. 

FEMA also has communications equipment that could be airlifted in. But despite Mr. Parr’s urgent request for such equipment, 

none arrived. In his interview with the staff, Mr. Parr estimated 

that the lack of communications equipment reduced his team’s effectiveness by an astounding 90 percent. 

Much of the post-Katrina criticism has been justifiably focused 

on FEMA. But today’s witnesses will explain that Katrina also exposed serious flaws at the local and State level that contributed to 

the suffering experienced by so many in the Gulf region. 

For example, according to the staff interview of Mr. Wells, Louisiana’s emergency operations officials failed to follow—perhaps 

even to comprehend—the National Response Plan, which is an integrated system designed to coordinate the Federal, State, and 

local responses to a disaster. Indeed, Mr. Wells noted that Louisiana’s emergency managers were getting training on the critical Incident Command System 2 days after the storm hit. 

Today’s witnesses will also help us determine how FEMA, State, 

and local officials can do better. They are all current or former Federal Coordinating Officers (FCOs) and possess a wealth of emergency management experience. The FCOs play a critical role in 

FEMA. 

In June of 2004, the FCO cadre urged Under Secretary Michael 

Brown to undertake reforms to remove obstacles to command, control, and core mission accomplishment and to reconfigure and enhance the national emergency response teams. The memorandum 

strongly advised that these reforms be implemented to help prepare for ‘‘the next big one.’’

But we will hear today that disturbingly little was done in response to these recommendations, far too little to prepare for the 

big one when, indeed, it hit 14 months later. 

I very much appreciate the testimony of our witnesses today so 

that we can be better prepared for the catastrophic events yet to 

come. 

Senator Lieberman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman, for 

calling this hearing and for your continued leadership of our investigation. 

We have already held several important and informative hearings about Hurricane Katrina on subjects that range from the fate 

of the levees to the actions of the private sector in the wake of the 

storm, to the testimony of FEMA employee Marty Bahamonde durVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:55 Sep 28, 2006 Jkt 026744 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\26744.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
3

ing those dangerous days when he tried to get help to the thousands stranded in the Superdome. 

This morning’s witnesses, FEMA’s operations professionals who 

were on the scene in the Gulf Coast, will, I am confident, move the 

Committee’s investigation forward toward finding out what went 

wrong before and after Hurricane Katrina so that we can achieve 

the purpose that Congress and all of us have in mind, which is to 

make sure that it never happens again. 

I want to thank our witnesses for the testimony they are about 

to give. I want to thank them for their distinguished careers of 

public service that each of them has. And those careers should not, 

in any sense, be diminished by the criticism that FEMA is receiving and may well receive today. 

I will say that, having reviewed your testimony prepared for this 

morning and the interviews that you had with our Committee staff 

and having now gone over other testimony and documents gathered 

by the Committee so far, it certainly seems to me that FEMA is 

a troubled agency that failed at its prime mission, the mission it 

draws its name from, which is emergency management. 

The fact is that the whole world watched on television as Hurricane Katrina, a disaster waiting to happen, developed in the Gulf 

of Mexico. The whole world listened to the experts who said that 

this was the long-dreaded ‘‘big one’’ that could take out the levees 

and flood the Big Easy. Yet FEMA seemed to underestimate the 

gravity of the storm coming and/or failed to realize that doing business as usual was unacceptable and would compound the disaster. 

Katrina obviously was not a typical hurricane in response to 

which FEMA or anyone else—Federal, State, or local—could work 

off of a typical playbook. Katrina required a more urgent, comprehensive, and aggressive governmental response. 

Katrina was a catastrophe. It knocked out many of the State and 

local communications, as Senator Collins has said, and response capabilities and overwhelmed those that remained. But FEMA 

seemed to expect a severely damaged State and local response network, itself the victim of the catastrophe, to operate as if it was at 

full and normal capacity. 

Like Senator Collins, I have been very surprised and upset to 

learn in the course of our Committee’s investigation that America’s 

battle plan for catastrophes, the National Response Plan’s Catastrophic Incident Annex, was never activated in response to 

Katrina. And FEMA apparently still believes that it should not 

have been activated. 

As we will hear today, FEMA deployed too few people to respond 

to Katrina and deployed them too slowly. Many of those that did 

deploy apparently failed to appreciate what the breaking of the levees around New Orleans meant, and that failure had disastrous 

consequences, as we all know, for the people of New Orleans. 

As we learned at our previous hearings, New Orleans industrial 

canal levees were leveled by the storm surge early Monday morning, August 29. That led to almost immediate flooding in the eastern part of the city, including the lower 9th Ward. By mid day, the 

Lake Pontchartrain levees were also breaking, and that led to a 

much slower flooding of downtown New Orleans, what we so often 

heard referred to as New Orleans ‘‘filling up like a bowl.’’

4

Mr. Bahamonde, previously referred to as FEMA’s first man on 

the ground in New Orleans, told us that he communicated these 

facts by mid day Monday to FEMA and had a conference call with 

FEMA officials at the emergency operations center, among others, 

that night. We now know that other sources were providing the 

same information throughout the day to the Baton Rouge emergency operations center, where FEMA’s top regional operators were 

stationed. Yet, as we will hear today, the FEMA emergency response team did not depart Baton Rouge for New Orleans until 

noon on Tuesday, significant hours later, almost a full day after the 

hurricane had hit and already passed. 

By that time, Lake Pontchartrain had been dumping its waters 

into downtown New Orleans for hours, making it impossible for the 

FEMA team to bring its vital communications tractor-trailer, socalled ‘‘Red October,’’ into the city. This left the team without any 

reliable means of communications and reduced its effectiveness in 

New Orleans, as Senator Collins said, by some 90 percent. That is 

according to Mr. Parr’s testimony that we will hear this morning. 

But that wasn’t the only costly delay. Unfortunately, we have 

learned from other witnesses that the Coast Guard was performing 

rescue missions as soon as hurricane-force winds abated on Monday afternoon. The State itself sent out rescue boats later Monday 

afternoon. But FEMA’s search and rescue teams didn’t arrive in 

New Orleans until Tuesday morning, and we want to ask why. 

Given the catastrophic nature of Katrina’s damage, we must understand why FEMA wasn’t prepared to move sooner. And of 

course, the most vexing part of it all is not just that this was all 

foreseeable, but that, in fact, it had been foreseen. This precise disaster scenario was used in the Hurricane Pam planning exercise 

conducted in June 2004. It also had been the topic of numerous stories in the media and hurricane conferences over the years. 

This was not a failure of imagination, as some might want to 

label it. It was a failure of realization. Realization that the catastrophe, about which we had all long been warned, was about to 

occur and that FEMA and everybody else, State and local, had to 

move quickly to address it. 

Yes, a disaster like Hurricane Katrina is an act of God. Yes, 

there will be confusion in such extraordinary natural disasters. 

Yes, mistakes will be made by people who are well intentioned. But 

adequately preparing for and responding to a disaster of this magnitude required a well-led, well-trained, well-drilled, and wellmanned FEMA that had a plan in place and a sense of mission to 

guide its actions. 

Regrettably, it appears to me, at this point in our investigation, 

that all of these things were lacking as disaster swept across the 

Gulf Coast region last August. This morning, we want to ask why. 

And I am confident that these three witnesses can help us answer 

that question. 

Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Stevens. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS 

Senator STEVENS. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator 

Lieberman. 

5

I regret to disagree with the Senator from Connecticut. Our Committee took a trip to New Orleans. As a result of that trip, we became convinced that what happened in New Orleans was that 

Katrina went through New Orleans. We saw the buses in line that 

were ready to deal with the evacuation. The people of New Orleans 

were prepared for Hurricane Katrina. They were not prepared for 

the failure of the man-made systems of levees and gates and the 

enormous impact of that canal from New Orleans to the sea, which 

should never have been there. 

It is like saying that in terms of our earthquake, which we had 

in the Anchorage area, that someone was at fault because they 

didn’t notify Kodiak and Seward that a tsunami might hit them—

which did happen. What happened here is in the aftermath of 

Katrina going through, because of the subsequent series of events 

that caused the failure of the levees, the failure of the system, it 

was impossible to execute the plan. 

Now the plan for New Orleans was caused by a provision in the 

1998 appropriations bill, which the last administration failed to 

make. But finally, in 1999, we mandated that plan. It was prepared. It was actually exercised after the start of 2001. It was 

there, and I think the people of New Orleans started to follow that 

plan, and they started to move their people to the dome and to the 

various places which should have been safe. 

But with the failure of the man-made systems and the failure of 

having the ability to shut off the surge that came across Lake 

Pontchartrain, this became a man-made disaster. And I do not 

agree that we can fault FEMA or the City of New Orleans or the 

State of Louisiana for failing to anticipate the complete failure of 

the systems that were prepared in the past. 

As a matter of fact, I think you can go back to President Johnson’s time and find that he tried to build even better systems at 

the time, and the funding was turned down. 

But as a practical matter, this damage, as sad as it is—it is a 

sad thing—it is not a failure of the warning system. The warning 

was there. It was a failure of systems that were put in over the 

last 30 years to prevent the surges that happened in a way and the 

combination of them was by the time that surge came in from the 

ocean, it came up that canal, it was like a tsunami coming up that 

canal. Had the canal not been there, those levees might not have 

failed. 

So this is not some time to critique the failure of the people involved to predict that the basic systems for protection that had 

been designed over a period of years would simultaneously all collapse. And that is what happened. Every single one of them collapsed. 

Now those were man-made. This isn’t an act of God. This is a 

failure of our basic engineering systems, our basic concepts of protection, and we have to do better in the future. I am not going to 

join in criticizing those who tried to do the best in the most extraordinary circumstance I have ever seen. 

Now this Senator has seen war. I have seen cities in China totally destroyed. I never saw destruction like I saw in New Orleans. 

No person on Earth could have predicted that. It had to be a comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:55 Sep 28, 2006 Jkt 026744 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\26744.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
6

bination of circumstances caused by Katrina going through, and 

then the surge and all the collapse that came afterward. 

So I hope we look at FEMA and the rest of these people and ask 

them what can we do to prevent this in the future? Let us quit 

looking backwards and trying to assess blame. Let us find out what 

can we do to assure that this won’t happen not only in New Orleans, but anywhere else where we are relying on levees and manmade protections to prevent disasters. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman COLLINS. I would now like to welcome our panel of 

witnesses before us today. 

Our first witness, Scott Wells, joined FEMA as a Federal Coordinating Officer in 1999. Since that time, he has been deployed by 

FEMA to more than 20 disasters. For Hurricane Katrina, he was 

the second in command, serving as the deputy FCO. 

Mr. Wells arrived at the emergency operations center in Baton 

Rouge on Saturday, August 27. Mr. Wells previously served as an 

Army officer for more than 20 years, and he was the DOD liaison 

to FEMA before retiring from the Army in 1999. 

Next we will hear from Philip Parr. For more than 20 years, Mr. 

Parr served as a firefighter for New York City, ultimately rising to 

the rank of battalion chief. In January 2004, Mr. Parr left the New 

York City Fire Department and joined FEMA as a Federal Coordinating Officer. 

During Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Parr led the emergency response 

advance team and was deployed to New Orleans. Mr. Parr and 

members of his team arrived in the Superdome on the morning of 

Tuesday, August 30. He later led FEMA teams into the hardesthit parishes of southern Louisiana. 

William Carwile joined FEMA in 1996 as director of Region 10, 

headquartered in the Pacific, and was a Federal Coordinating Officer for five tropical storms in the Pacific. His emergency management experiences on the mainland include New York City following 

September 11, the 2003 California wildfires, and four hurricanes 

that struck Florida last year. 

During Hurricane Katrina, he served as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Mississippi. He is a retired U.S. Army colonel 

with a 30-year military career. 

I want to thank each of you for your testimony today and for 

your public service. Because this is part of an ongoing investigation, I would ask that you each stand so that I can swear you in. 

Please raise your right hand. 

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give to the 

Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth, so help you, God? 

The WITNESSES. I do. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. Wells, if you would go first and proceed with your statement? 

7

1The prepared statement of Mr. Wells appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

TESTIMONY OF SCOTT WELLS,1 FEDERAL COORDINATING OFFICER, FEMA JOINT FIELD OFFICE, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA 

Mr. WELLS. Good morning, Chairman Collins and Members of 

the Committee. 

My name is Scott Wells, and I am honored to appear before you 

today. My current position with FEMA is Federal Coordinating Officer in Louisiana for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

I would like to start this morning by thanking you for the invitation to testify before this Committee. I appreciate the opportunity 

to share my perspectives on FEMA operations before, during, and 

after our Nation’s costliest disaster, Hurricane Katrina. 

It is my intention today to speak candidly with you about my experiences in Louisiana, both leading up to and following Katrina, 

as well as my perspectives on emergency management. I will begin 

my testimony today with a brief overview of my professional career 

in emergency management. 

For almost 2 decades, I served in various positions of emergency 

management. Beginning in 1985, for 2 years as a first responder 

MEDEVAC pilot. During my 24-year military career, I also spent 

10 years in the Pentagon providing military support to civilian authorities. My last military assignment in the Pentagon was as a 

military liaison officer to FEMA. 

In these assignments, I was involved in numerous disasters and 

emergencies such as Hurricane Andrew, the Northridge earthquake, the Midwest floods of 1993, the Oklahoma City bombing, 

the Haitian/Cuban immigration emergency, the Waco siege, and 

the Ruby Ridge incident. 

I retired in 1999 from the Army and have been working for the 

Federal Emergency Management Agency as an FCO for the past 6 

years and served on several disasters and emergencies to include 

Tropical Storm Allison in Texas and the Columbia Shuttle recovery 

operation. 

On August 27, I was assigned to Louisiana as the Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer to Bill Lokey for Hurricane Katrina. I 

served in that capacity until September 19. At that time, I was reassigned to Texas as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Hurricane Rita, as she made her way through the Gulf of Mexico. As the 

FCO for Rita, I remained in Texas until the first week of October, 

at which time I returned to Louisiana to replace Bill Lokey for 

Hurricane Katrina. 

Detailed preparation for a Katrina landfall in Louisiana started 

in earnest on Friday, August 26, when the National Weather Service quickly changed the projected zone for landfall to include Louisiana. Much work had been done earlier in the week, but the focus 

of those efforts—given the projected path of the storm—was on 

Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. 

Field deployments to Louisiana began on Saturday, August 27, 

with the emergency response team’s advance elements deploying to 

the Louisiana emergency operations center here in Baton Rouge. 

The Federal regional and national staffs consolidated that night 

and started conducting field operations in preparation for landfall. 

8

In addition to the command and control element being set up in 

Baton Rouge, we concurrently were setting up an operational staging area in Alexandria, Louisiana, that served as a Federal logistics base for Katrina operations. 

The first actual employment of Federal resources—that is, where 

we provided—FEMA provided response assets to the State—occurred on Sunday, the day before landfall, when we shipped six 

truckloads of water and three truckloads of MREs to the Superdome. Two of the truckloads, one each of water and MRE, did not 

complete delivery. They were denied entry by the Louisiana State 

Police before reaching the Superdome. 

That was the beginning of response operations and was soon followed by many other response resources, such as medical teams, 

search and rescue teams, and other critical commodities, such as 

water, food, and ice. 

There has been much said about the slow Federal response to 

Katrina. From my perspective, with all due respect to Senator 

Lieberman, I want to say nothing could be further from the truth. 

We had a fully operational logistics base, a fully operational command cell, and response teams in place, all before landfall. We even 

moved some supplies in before landfall and attempted to move in 

a medical team. 

On the day of landfall, we moved search and rescue teams, medical teams, and critical supplies into the affected area. It may not 

have been enough for an event of this magnitude, but it was fast. 

I think the real issue is that the response was not robust. It was 

not enough for the catastrophe at hand. And as you look—as we 

all look—to make it better next time, I think it is an important distinction to make. ‘‘Slow’’ means one thing. ‘‘Not enough’’ means 

something else. More importantly, the corrective actions between 

fixing ‘‘slow’’ and ‘‘not enough’’ could be significant. 

Emergency management is unlike any other system in the government. It is a bottoms-up approach. The people on the ground 

are in charge. The first responders are supported, as required, by 

local government, then State government, and as a last resort, the 

Federal Government. Ultimately, authority for disaster response 

operations rests at the local level. The State and Federal Governments are not in charge, but are responsible for assisting local governments. 

And that is how it should be, as all disasters are local. Disasters 

start at the local level, and disasters end at the local level. This 

system works for small to medium disasters. It does not work so 

well for large disasters, and it falls apart for a catastrophic disaster. I think that is a fundamental problem with the response to 

Katrina. 

Following are some of the other major problems and proposed 

changes I believe could improve our national readiness posture to 

respond to future disasters. And I will list them, but in the interest 

of time, I won’t go through all of my statement, but you will have 

it. 

(1) We need to strengthen the emergency management capability 

at the State and local level. 

(2) We need to review the emergency management architecture 

for response and recovery operations. There are problems associVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:55 Sep 28, 2006 Jkt 026744 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\26744.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
9

1The prepared statement of Mr. Parr appears in the Appendix on page 52. 

ated with the implementation of the Stafford Act as it is executed 

through the National Response Plan and the Incident Command 

System. 

(3) We need a trained, staffed, and equipped Federal response 

team. 

(4) We need to change the financial management of disasters. 

(5) We need to simplify the public assistance process. 

(6) We need to simplify individual assistance process. 

(7) We need a greater investment in the leadership and management within FEMA. 

Emergency management is not a simple system. Accordingly, 

there are no simple solutions. To have an effective national disaster 

response structure, we must have a viable local, State, and Federal 

capability. If any of these links in the emergency management 

chain breaks, the system itself begins to break down. If we cannot 

have viability at all three levels, then we should change the system. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share a field perspective of Hurricane Katrina. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Wells. Mr. Parr. 

TESTIMONY OF PHILIP E. PARR,1 DEPUTY FEDERAL COORDINATING OFFICER, FEMA JOINT FIELD OFFICE, AUSTIN, 

TEXAS 

Mr. PARR. First, I want to say good morning to this august Committee. Good morning, Chairman Collins. 

My name is Phil Parr, and I want to thank you for the opportunity of testifying before you about my experiences and the response to Hurricane Katrina. The views expressed in my testimony 

are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Homeland Security. 

Presently, my position with FEMA is that of Federal Coordinating Officer. I have been involved with response and emergency 

management for the past 26 years. I was sworn in as a member 

of the New York City Fire Department in 1979 and rose through 

the ranks to attain the level of chief officer in 1999. 

During my tenure with the FDNY, and particularly during my 

tenure as a chief officer, I served in many capacities, including, but 

not limited to, fire and emergency ground commander, operations, 

planning for Y2K scenarios, and as a deputy director in the New 

York City Office of Emergency Management. I have played an active role in countless disasters and crisis situations to include the 

September 11 attack at the World Trade Center, where I was on 

scene prior to the towers collapse. 

Since January 2004, I have been a member of the Federal Coordinating Officer program, assigned to FEMA Region 1, New England. In this role, I have served in various capacities, including 

FCO for three presidentially declared disasters. 

Before I continue with my testimony, I think it is important to 

mention that I have always taken great pride in my years of service as a member of the New York City Fire Department. At one 

10

time, I would not imagine serving in any other position in which 

I would serve with the same feeling and pride. 

However, during my tenure with FEMA, the dedication to service 

as displayed by its members and their care for disaster victims has 

allowed me to serve with the same pride and satisfaction that I experienced during my previous 25 years of public service. So it is 

with that passion that I speak before this Committee, and I thank 

you again for the opportunity to do so. 

On Saturday, August 27, I was informed that I would be the 

emergency response team advance element team leader for the 

State of Texas. My team was composed of personnel from FEMA 

Region 1, New England, and we were instructed to rendezvous in 

the Region 6 Regional Response Coordination Center in Denton, 

Texas, on Sunday, August 28. Soon it became clear that Texas was 

not in the path of Hurricane Katrina and that members of my team 

and I would be assigned as the lead element in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

I flew to Louisiana immediately following the hurricane passing, 

Monday, August 29, with a contingent of my team. And Tuesday 

morning, August 30, we helicoptered into the Superdome. Our mission was threefold. One, form a unified command with the State, 

as represented by the Louisiana National Guard, and the City of 

New Orleans. Two, maintain visibility of commodities ordered. And 

three, build out a base from which FEMA teams could be formed 

to locate and assist in the hardest-hit parishes. 

To accomplish these goals, we were to meet a mobile emergency 

operations and communications vehicle and use that as a base of 

operations and communication. Due to extensive flooding in the 

city, our communications vehicle was unable to enter the Superdome, and this severely hampered our operations. 

Despite this, and while working under the most difficult of circumstances, we were able to assist the National Guard in maintaining a supply of food and water to Superdome evacuees—all 

were fed and provided water—and, even with limited communications, facilitate the arrival of what was to become over the next 4 

days a thousand-bus convoy to evacuate the City of New Orleans 

to start the day after our arrival. 

The FEMA disaster medical assistance team treated hundreds 

and identified seriously injured and special needs patients who 

were evacuated via air and ground assets throughout the operation. 

In addition, several meetings were held with the mayor and his 

staff, ranking National Guard officers on the scene, and other Federal officials to include DOD and the Coast Guard. This facilitated 

the initiation of a unified command structure. 

Due to the enormity of the event, not all of our initial goals were 

met. A delay ensued in placing teams into other hard-hit parishes, 

which I believe took place that Friday and Saturday. 

I have been asked whether FEMA was overwhelmed, or could 

our response be considered slow? To consider the latter first, I 

must say, in my opinion, no. FEMA teams—response, management, 

medical, and urban search and rescue—were in position in four 

States pre-landfall. Commodities were staged close to the impacted 

areas, and in some cases, the hand-off to the State had already 

taken place. 

11

In addition, and as previously mentioned, FEMA mission assigned Emergency Support Function 1, the Department of Transportation, and they verified that, by September 3, 990 buses were 

in service performing evacuations. It is estimated that over 66,000 

persons were transported by that date. The number of buses grew 

to over 1,100 in the next 2 days. 

Were we overwhelmed? The simple answer is yes. But what 

needs to be understood is that, at any disaster, the initial response 

always feels overwhelmed. I must draw on my experience as a local 

responder to give you an example on a small scale of what I mean, 

and then a larger one. 

The police officer who pulls up to a 2-car accident with severe injuries while he operates alone, waiting for help, is overwhelmed. 

The fire officer who pulls up to a burning structure with people 

trapped inside is overwhelmed. But the true professional, while responding and operating, knows that he is constantly sizing up the 

situation, gaining intelligence, shifting strategies, modifying plans, 

and calling for assistance where needed to meet unfulfilled needs, 

whether expected or unexpected. 

I would like to refer back to the disaster of September 11 and 

its effect on the emergency personnel operating at the World Trade 

Center. First, it must be remembered that within the 369 square 

miles of New York City are the resources of a State with a strong 

central government. There are over 35,000 New York City police officers, about 13,000 firefighters and emergency medical personnel. 

These numbers only begin to enumerate the assets available to the 

city. No other city in the country can begin to come close to the responders that are contained within New York City. 

The response to the attacks on the towers was immediate. The 

enormity of the task at hand was overwhelming. Then with the collapse of the towers, it was chaos. Emergency services within New 

York regrouped almost immediately and restarted operations, but 

a full, coordinated plan took days. 

The World Trade Center complex was 13 acres. The landfall of 

Hurricane Katrina affected four States and covered an area of 

90,000 square miles, an area the size of Great Britain. It affected 

millions. 

Effectively, Louisiana was hit by two disasters. First, a devastating hurricane along with its associated blast damage and, second, a catastrophic flooding event caused by levee failures. Hurricane Katrina was the most devastating disaster to hit our country. 

We were all overwhelmed—the city, the State, the affected parishes, and the Federal Government. 

What can FEMA, individuals, local governments, and States do 

to be more prepared? First, it must be realized that the response 

to any crisis or disaster is the responsibility of every individual and 

form of government in this country. Emergency management is 

more than just coordination. It is about partnership with all entities previously mentioned. 

Each of us plays a vital part, and any one of us who fails in our 

part fails in that partnership. That failed responsibility must be 

picked up by one of their partners, and that causes delay, confusion, and lack of coordination. 

12

For FEMA’s part, it is my belief we have not done what is needed to get that message across to individuals, locals, and States. We 

have worked to create an image that Uncle Sam will be on your 

doorstep with MREs, food, water, and ice before the hurricane-force 

winds subside. We have created an expectation that in a large or 

no-notice event, such as a terrorist attack or an earthquake, we can 

never hope to meet. 

As an agency, we must help our partners understand their role 

in the emergency management cycle, as many States and locals do 

now. To this end, I believe we can do much with conditional and 

competitive grants to State and local governments to achieve this. 

Generally because response is immediate and local, FEMA’s primary role in disaster is recovery. With some notable exceptions, 

what is described at the Federal level as response in actuality is 

‘‘response support’’—that is, supplying life-saving commodities—

with local and State responders performing what we traditionally 

call response. 

But as an agency, we can do better in the response role. Primarily, I believe this can be accomplished by a shift in attitude and 

training by some in management and decisionmaking roles in our 

agency. 

In another area of improvement, FEMA has initiated a total 

asset visibility system whereby truckloads of commodities can be 

located via satellite transponder and tracked more closely. This 

system must be fully put online before our next hurricane season. 

We should recognize that FEMA is a small agency, especially 

when compared with other Federal agencies. But its strength lies 

in the fact that the National Response Plan identifies it as the coordinating agency for the entire Federal response. 

I believe more drills, familiarization and otherwise, are necessary 

between FEMA and other Federal agencies to help clarify roles and 

responsibilities under the NRP and in their critical emergency support functions. Understanding their contribution and role in the 

emergency response team structure is essential for effective response. These crucial elements must be established and become 

routine to help ensure that a better-coordinated Federal package 

can be delivered to States to assist them in their response. 

Additional standardized and practical training must be provided 

to personnel who may be asked to serve on response teams at the 

county or local level. Training programs and expectations that 

build on practical experience from this and previous operations, 

with input from States, must be provided to FEMA staff, who may 

be needed to assist at the local level in response operations. 

As with any operation, I hope that, as an agency, we can make 

these changes based on lessons learned. I would also hope that 

State and local officials will review their emergency management 

procedures and also adopt necessary changes. Finally, each citizen 

has a responsibility to plan, heed warnings, and do whatever is 

within their means to prepare and respond to disaster. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this subject. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Carwile. 

13

1The prepared statement of Mr. Carwile appears in the Appendix on page 61. 

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM L. CARWILE III,1 FORMER FEDERAL 

COORDINATING OFFICER, FEMA JOINT FIELD OFFICE, BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI 

Mr. CARWILE. Good morning, Chairman Collins and distinguished Members of the Committee. 

I am Bill Carwile. Thank you for inviting me today to testify 

about operations in Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina. 

Between August 29 and October 15, I was initially the Federal 

Coordinating Officer and later the Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer. I recently retired from FEMA and am currently affiliated 

with the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval 

Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. I am testifying today 

as a private citizen. 

There are many lessons to be learned from the responses to Hurricane Katrina. I applaud your efforts to gather information critical 

to charting a future for disaster operations in our country. I hope 

my testimony will, in some way, make a contribution to that undertaking. 

My perspective is from one who has been in the field, on the 

ground in large-scale disasters during much of the last 9 years. My 

recent experiences include serving as operations section chief for 

the World Trade Center operations in New York, serving as Federal Coordinating Officer for the 2003 wildfires in California, and 

FCO for each of the four hurricanes last year in Florida. 

I joined FEMA in 1996 as the director of the Pacific area office 

in Honolulu, Hawaii, where I reside today. In 1999, I became one 

of the first members of the Federal Coordinating Officer program 

created to provide a pool of trained professionals to manage the 

Federal side of disasters. 

In 2003, I was appointed as one of the first predesignated principal Federal officials by former Homeland Security Secretary Tom 

Ridge. Prior to my service with FEMA, I retired as an Army colonel, having served almost 3 decades as a special forces and infantry 

officer in the regular Army. My assignments included two tours in 

Vietnam. 

I would like to address three major points in my oral testimony. 

First, there were three separate presidential disaster declarations 

as Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast—Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. These were three different disasters in the 

type and extent of destruction, the number of people affected, and 

each State’s constitutional relationships with its local jurisdictions. 

While each disaster was different, they were similar in that in 

each disaster the governor of the State was in charge. As FCO, I 

was appointed by the President as his representative to support 

the governor using the authorities provided for in the Stafford Act. 

While there were three distinct disasters, today my comments will 

cover only operations in Mississippi, where I was. 

Second, in my view, this was the first time we fully implemented 

appropriate portions of the National Incident Management System, 

the National Response Plan, and the Incident Command System in 

a major disaster response. During the summer of 2005, following 

the distribution of the National Response Plan, many Federal and 

14

State emergency managers underwent training on the plan and 

ICS. 

Fortunately, I and key members of our emergency response team 

in Mississippi, which is mostly comprised of personnel with whom 

I have worked for years, had participated in extensive ICS training. Similarly, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Director Robert Latham and his staff and most county emergency managers had recently undergone NIMS and ICS training. 

One of the key members of my team, operations section chief Bob 

Fenton, has long been involved in the doctrine on training development, is an expert on how to adapt ICS for large-scale operations. 

Using this training and our experience in prior disasters, Robert 

Latham and I and our teams established a unified command to a 

degree beyond which I believe is envisioned by the National Response Plan and began the joint incident action planning process, 

which set our priorities for each of the operational periods, which 

is a 24-hour period at first, following the ICS concepts. Governor 

Barbour attended and participated in many of our meetings and 

provided leadership and important strategic guidance. 

During the response, we found that some aspects of the National 

Response Plan did not fit our organizational needs for a joint State/

Federal response to a catastrophic disaster. We found it necessary 

to modify some important aspects of the plan. These changes are 

detailed in my written testimony. 

While it is my belief that ICS works well for fires and smaller 

disasters, some substantial modifications are required for largescale events. Mostly, these modifications revolve around the need 

for unified command up and down the organization and in order to 

address political and operational realities. 

I would recommend that an effort be made to capture the experiences of the individual geographic and branch directors and division supervisors. They were down in the communities and provided 

us a manageable span of control. This might be accomplished 

through interviews, similar to the Army’s oral history program, to 

find out what really worked down there, where the rubber meets 

the road. 

This effort will provide a more detailed view of what changes to 

the NRP should be made to accommodate the realities of joint 

State/Federal response to a catastrophic disaster. 

Third, there have been questions raised about the competence of 

FEMA personnel in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In my career 

in FEMA, I worked with many dedicated and highly competent individuals who were committed to serving both our country and the 

victims of disasters. Many routinely give up holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and normal family lives to help others. I am 

proud to have been part of FEMA and especially proud of the many 

individuals whose heroic efforts helped the people of Mississippi 

and other States in which I have served. They deserve our thanks. 

A disaster can bring out the best in people. There are thousands 

of stories of individual acts of heroism and kindnesses during 

Katrina. Mississippians helped their neighbors. Hundreds of local 

officials, who had just lost everything, reported for duty. And all 

around the country, volunteers left their lives behind and headed 

for the Gulf Coast to help. 

15

We should not forget, however, that in a catastrophic disaster, 

the government and those wonderful voluntary agencies can never 

provide adequate aid in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. 

We all need to better prepare ourselves and our families and be 

ready to help our neighbors. 

In my written testimony, I provide comments about what I think 

went well and what didn’t go well in the response and initial recovery for Katrina in Mississippi. Two main points. The State/Federal 

unified command worked well in Mississippi. But this success was 

obscured by the fact that requested resources did not arrive quickly 

enough. Better, more effective methods must be adopted to quickly 

deliver resources in a catastrophic event. 

In Mississippi, while temporary housing has been provided in 

numbers far exceeding any previous effort, this success is obscured 

by the overwhelming need and an exceptionally long period of time 

that people remain in shelters. New methodologies must be examined and implemented to take care of Americans in need of humane 

housing while in a catastrophic event. 

These are but two of the many challenges the Nation faces if it 

is to really prepare for the next catastrophic disaster. We must do 

all we can to capture the lessons learned, both good and bad, from 

Katrina in Mississippi in order to make real changes so that the 

next time, elected and appointed officials will be able to better support the needs of victims. 

I thank the Committee for undertaking this important work for 

the Nation. I will be glad to try to answer any questions you may 

have. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you for your testimony. 

I want to start my questioning today to get your judgment, your 

assessment of preparedness and response at the State and local 

level. As Mr. Wells pointed out in his testimony, our Nation’s emergency management structure is often referred to as a bottom-up 

structure. It has key roles for local, State, and Federal Governments to play. 

I thought that Mr. Wells made an important point when he said 

that there is some misconception on the part of the public about 

who plays what role in our emergency response system. So starting 

with you, Mr. Wells, if FEMA and the Federal Government are at 

the top of the structure, how did the bottom part work, in your 

judgment, for Hurricane Katrina? How would you assess the State 

and local response in Louisiana? 

Mr. WELLS. Well, a lot of it is situational. Each parish in Louisiana has different capability. The important thing in emergency 

management is you have to have a foundation established for the 

Federal departments to build on. 

When we go into a disaster, the locals are in charge. The locals 

ask for assistance from the State, who, in turn, asks for assistance 

from FEMA. If there is no structure, if there is no organization, if 

there is no capability at the local or the State level, there is no 

foundation from which we can build. 

I will give you one example to compare between Katrina in Louisiana and Rita in Texas to try to demonstrate what I mean by 

that. In Texas, for Rita, I was there for the preparation phase, and 

we are just going to talk about prior to landfall because it is equivVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:55 Sep 28, 2006 Jkt 026744 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\26744.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
16

alent to Katrina in that no disaster struck. It wasn’t catastrophic 

in Texas for Rita. So, post landfall, it was different. So let us just 

talk about pre-landfall. 

In the State of Texas, they had plans. They had plans at the 

local level. They had plans at the State level that leveraged the 

Federal capability. One example, evacuation. In Texas, we were 

asked—the Federal Government—to provide evacuation support 

prior to landfall. The State of Texas had a plan to build on, and 

so we worked with the State of Texas and the areas of Beaumont 

to Houston to evacuate special needs patients, elderly, and the disabled. One person had an iron lung. 

This is a very difficult mission. Just getting one patient onboard 

an airplane is very difficult, and they did somewhere between 

11,000 and 13,000. And we were able to have an effective national 

response structure—national is local, State, and Federal—because 

the Federal Government had something to build on. We did not 

have that in Louisiana. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Stevens informs me that he has to 

leave, and he has one question that he would like to ask before he 

does so. 

Senator STEVENS. Thank you very much. I am going to the reconciliation meeting. 

One of the problems we are having is that there seems to be a 

congressional feeling about the extent of our responsibility to the 

people in New Orleans, who really suffered damage from what I 

call really man-made disasters. I wonder if the two of you would 

join me in sending a letter from this Committee asking the Department of Justice if there is a different standard of liability for the 

Federal Government to those areas that were not harmed by 

Katrina, but were harmed by the failure of the levee and other systems that were man-made? 

Chairman COLLINS. Well, as the distinguished Senator may be 

aware, we have had one hearing looking at why the levees have 

failed. We have a second hearing scheduled for next week, which 

is going to look at all the roles of the various players—the local 

levee district, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the State of Louisiana, and the Commonwealth of Louisiana’s Transportation Department. 

There is a lot of confusion, our investigation has found, over who 

was responsible for the maintenance and the inspection of the levees. I would like to wait until we complete that hearing before proceeding. But I hope you will be able to attend that hearing. I think 

it is going to be a very interesting one, based on what our extensive 

investigation has found. 

Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes, thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Senator Stevens, obviously, I would be glad to look at any letter 

you put together. But I agree with the Chairman, it is probably 

best for us to wait until after the hearing next week. 

I will just say very briefly, because I know you have to go, where 

I think we agree is that the immediate cause of most of the damage 

in New Orleans was the failure of the levees. And there is some 

reason to believe—I can’t conclude at this point—from what we 

17

have heard that there was a failure of construction, design, and 

other issues. 

Where I think we disagree is that, unfortunately, I believe that 

was foreseeable. In other words, the levees may have failed more 

quickly and in some different ways than people expected. But we 

have a lot of history that we put together here that shows that the 

experts were all saying if a category 3 or higher hurricane hit New 

Orleans, those levees would not hold. 

Maybe more of them broke than we thought. Maybe they broke 

sooner. But there is a lot of communication indicating they might 

fail. In fact, the Hurricane Pam exercise that was carried out in 

June 2004 was based on the levees failing and what would we do 

as a result. And that is where, I think, we have a reason to ask 

FEMA why it wasn’t ready to deal with it. 

Senator STEVENS. Well, I think my question goes to who is going 

to be responsible? There is a lot of damage out there now that was 

not covered by insurance, either flood or otherwise. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Senator STEVENS. And attempts to try and use Federal funds to 

meet some of that damage is being met with resistance. I think the 

duty of this Committee is to demonstrate that there is an extra 

added level of responsibility in the areas where those levees failed. 

And it is true that there were predictions. When we did our thing 

in appropriations in 1998 and 1999, we had the feeling that there 

were severe problems. We had people that told us there were problems there. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Senator STEVENS. But notwithstanding that, we got a plan. But 

no one really fixed the levees, and no one fixed the gates, and people have suffered enormous loss. Now we have to have a greater 

feeling in Congress about our responsibility to those people who are 

in that one area where it was not just Katrina, a natural disaster, 

but damage from man-made disaster. 

I think there has been a failure in Congress to recognize that difference. But I appreciate and I hope I can attend the hearing. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

I am going to resume my questioning with Mr. Wells to try to 

get us back on track a little bit. 

It was helpful to hear your different experience dealing with Louisiana versus Texas. In general, were the Louisiana officials that 

you dealt with familiar with their responsibilities under the National Response Plan? And did they understand how the Incident 

Command System worked, in your view? 

Mr. WELLS. No. Short answer. 

The Incident Command System is very important. You cannot do 

anything without command and control. If I may take a minute to 

read something from an emergency services person who is on a 

workgroup for the search and rescue mission, which was a combined effort of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, 

the Coast Guard, the state police for Louisiana, DOTD, and FEMA, 

to show you what it is like when you don’t have an effective Incident Command System? And I am just going to read this verbatim. 

It is unvarnished. 

18

‘‘Establishing a State/Federal search and rescue workgroup on 

August 28 was a great concept. However, there were some shortfalls. The workgroup was a joint effort in name only. We had a 

great initial meeting and established solid operational concepts, but 

had no decision-makers present with the authority to obligate their 

agency’s resources. 

‘‘The State appointed a workgroup leader who was to oversee the 

State assets. However, this workgroup leader flew to Jackson barracks the afternoon after the initial meeting and was not heard 

from for 9 days. For 3 weeks, I sponsored’’—this was the FEMA 

person—‘‘the workgroup’s twice-a-day meetings that were attended 

by FEMA, who had resources and authority to direct search efforts. 

‘‘The U.S. Coast Guard, who had junior officer representation but 

no authority to direct search and rescue air operation, all operations were directed by senior Coast Guard officers from another 

location. These officers refused to meet and conduct joint search 

and rescue operations with FEMA and State agencies. 

‘‘State wildlife and fisheries had representation but no authority 

to make management decisions on search and rescue operations. 

That authority remained with senior officers who conducted solo 

operations. 

‘‘State police, who had an interest in following up on 911 calls, 

but had no State search and rescue authorities or resources to assist. 

‘‘Civil air patrol attended and had air resources to support search 

and rescue, but had no State taskings to engage their resources. 

‘‘The DOTD, the State Department of Transportation, had resources to support joint search and rescue missions, but refused to 

attend any of the meetings or plan joint efforts.’’

This is a failure of the Incident Command System. It is all about 

having people that can make decisions on the spot and get on down 

the road. This is just but one example of why things were slow and 

why things didn’t work out as fast, as efficient, or as effective as 

they should. If people don’t understand ICS, we can’t do ICS. And 

if we can’t do ICS, we cannot manage disasters. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Parr, what is your assessment of how 

the Incident Command System worked in Louisiana? 

Mr. PARR. I want to echo Mr. Wells’s sentiments. It is extremely 

important, in my experience, at a local level, as something that is 

near and dear to my heart. I think, and as I said before—and this 

is not necessarily to point fingers, but hopefully, for us to critique 

ourselves and learn how we can do better next time—I cannot 

begin to explain the dedication that the police officers and firefighters in the City of New Orleans, how they acted, how they responded. 

The same thing with the National Guard. I was working with 

people every second of every day who literally lost everything. But 

they were there doing their jobs, working as hard as they could. 

I think one place where we need vast improvement is in their 

preparation. It is the responsibility of local authorities to evacuate 

their people. It is the responsibility of local authorities to set up 

shelters that are properly protected from flood waters, that are 

properly protected from hurricanes because not all are going to be 

19

able to be evacuated. It would be unreasonable for us to expect 100 

percent evacuation of a city the size of New Orleans. 

I found that there was very little preparation. No information on 

shelters other than the Superdome. There was no assets or commodities at the Superdome, other than what FEMA gave to the 

State, which they did distribute at the Superdome. 

There were no sanitation facilities before the levees broke. You 

can imagine the difficulty of moving sanitation facilities into a city 

with 4, 5, 6, and, in some areas of the city, 14 feet of water once 

that happened. That is the job of local and State governments. And 

simply, that just did not happen. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Carwile, how did the Incident Command 

System work in Mississippi? 

Mr. CARWILE. Madam Chairman, I think it worked very well at 

the top. There had been training previous to Hurricane Katrina by 

the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency on down to the 

county emergency managers. So it worked well. 

We quickly were able to form a unified command with both myself and Robert Latham, my counterpart from the State. And we 

included at the top of the unified command the Adjutant General 

for the State of Mississippi, Major General Cross, as well as the 

commissioner of public safety, George Phillips, because each one of 

those brought so much to the table in terms of resources to manage. 

I think where the difficulty becomes—and I believe Senator 

Lieberman talked about this in his opening remarks—in a situation, a catastrophic disaster, it is very difficult to build from the 

bottom up if there is no bottom. Mayor Tommy Longo of Waveland 

and over in Hancock County, Mississippi, I mean, he lost every fire 

truck, and the fire station. Every police officer lost their home. 

There was no city hall. There was nothing left for Mayor Longo to 

build on. 

Similarly, in Hancock County, the emergency operations center 

in the county had to be evacuated, and we moved our folks over 

to Stennis in order to have a communications and a coherent system. So I think it is true that it builds from the bottom up. But 

in a catastrophic, we have got to be able to reach down and to supplement the absence of a coherent system down below. 

And to get around that, we predeployed division supervisors with 

communications from both the Federal and the State teams to the 

three what we believed would be, most impacted counties with 

available resources to prop up, if you will, those great first responders and emergency managers and mayors down in the local areas. 

We did not do that to the degree we would have liked to have 

done it because, frankly, there was a paucity of trained personnel 

to do that. But I think overall, and I believe in ICS. I think that 

we need to make some modifications as we look at a catastrophic, 

however, because, to me, the unified command as it is outlined in 

the National Response Plan calls for unified command only at the 

top, a few people. 

I believe that unified command has to go all the way down the 

structure, and we have to be able to use State and Federal personnel to prop up local communities that have been totally destroyed by something like Katrina. 

20

1 Exhibit 8 appears in the Appendix on page 83. 

2 Exhibit 9 appears in the Appendix on page 90. 

3 Exhibit G appears in the Appendix on page 99. 

4 Exhibit H appears in the Appendix on page 102. 

5 Exhibit I appears in the Appendix on page 104. 

Chairman COLLINS. I think that is an excellent point that perhaps we should take a look at whether the system is scalable, 

whether it makes sense to expect the State and local governments 

to play the role that is envisioned when the magnitude of the catastrophe may wipe out all of the capability at the State and local 

level. 

Mr. Carwile. 

Mr. CARWILE. Yes, ma’am. And I think we can do that without 

in any way encumbering or impeding the constitutional authorities 

within the State constitutions of the local elected and appointed officials. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Wells, under the current system, FEMA 

is besieged with requests from State and local governments for various commodities or forms of assistance. I would like to refer your 

attention to certain exhibits that are in the book that is by you, 

specifically Exhibits 8, 9, G, H, and I. They all reflect requests 

made by State and local government entities in Louisiana to FEMA 

for assistance. 

And I am just going to go through what those are. Exhibit 81 is 

from the New Orleans police department asking FEMA for, among 

other things, 400 M–4 weapons, 25,000 rounds of ammunition, 

1,500 pairs of black military boots in various sizes, and 200 Crown 

Victoria police cruisers. 

Exhibit 92 is from New Orleans parish, and it asks for 10 gaspowered golf carts to transport firefighters around Zephyr Field. 

Exhibit G3 is from Mayor Nagin’s office. It seeks a bus to Shreveport. Exhibit H4 is also from the mayor’s office. It seeks portable 

air conditioning units to cool offices. And Exhibit I5 is from the 

Louisiana Department of Social Services, asking for a taxi to take 

one person from a hospital to a shelter. 

As I was reading through these requests, they struck me as not 

the typical requests that State and local governments would make 

to FEMA during a natural disaster. But obviously, I don’t have 

your experience. 

First, let me ask you, are these typical of the requests that you 

would expect to get from State and local governments to FEMA in 

the aftermath of a disaster? 

Mr. WELLS. The problem with these is we got literally hundreds 

and hundreds of requests like this intermingled with valid requests. And when you get that volume that are not screened, it 

clogs down the system for legitimate requests that we need to process. 

I think this is an indication of just a lack of understanding—this 

came from the local level—the lack of understanding of what 

FEMA is there for, what we can do, and probably more importantly, what they can do themselves. 

Also, we normally with most disaster operations, when the request comes to the State emergency ops center, they will screen out 

21

all of those requests prior to us even getting them. So this is not 

typical. No, ma’am. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks to you 

three gentlemen. 

Having heard your opening statements and the questioning thus 

far, I go back to what I said at the beginning. You are three extraordinary professionals. I admire the work that you have done. 

We are lucky to have had you working and to have you still working, at least in two cases, for FEMA. 

And what strikes me as particularly significant is that you have 

something to add from the ground about what we could do to perform better in the next catastrophic natural disaster. That you are 

proud of your service in FEMA, but you are not defensive about everything that happened. And I think that is the spirit of this Committee. We are not out to get or protect anybody in this. We are 

out to figure out what happened. 

In response to what Senator Stevens said, just beyond what I 

have said when he was here, there is no question that New Orleans 

suffered a lot because the levees failed. It was a hurricane that 

would have had one level of damage. But the levees failing compounded it enormously. The failure of the levees was not only foreseeable, but was foreseen for years if the hurricane was above category 3. 

In fact, there is some reason now to believe that maybe the levees failed even earlier with a lower category impact of the hurricane because of some kind of negligence in design or construction. 

That is a very important question we have to answer. 

But having said all of that doesn’t mean that FEMA was ready 

or did everything it should have done. And that is why, in a nondefensive way, we want to get at it. I will say and ask my first 

questions to you, Mr. Wells, that just a few of the things you have 

said so far suggest to me changes that ought to be implemented. 

For instance, as you said, and in some sense was expanded upon 

by Mr. Parr and Mr. Carwile in response to Senator Collins’ questions, the bottoms-up approach makes a lot of sense in many disasters or emergencies. I wrote it down quickly, so I may have missed 

it. But when you get to a large disaster, it doesn’t work so well. 

And when you get to a catastrophe, the bottoms-up falls apart. 

And part of what I think, therefore, we probably want to do as 

a government going forward is, as you all said, to put in place for 

FEMA and the rest of the Federal apparatus some plans in those 

more significant disaster situations when the bottoms-up won’t 

work, and the Federal Government really has to assume a significant amount of responsibility. 

Second very instructive thing I thought you said, you compared 

the preparation of Texas for Hurricane Rita to the prepareatin of 

New Orleans and Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina. Texas had an 

evacuation plan that was adequate to the circumstances. We all 

understand that Rita didn’t hit at the level of catastrophe that 

Katrina did. But you saw a plan there, which you didn’t see in the 

case of Louisiana. 

So this suggests to me that part of what we may want to do as 

a matter of law or regulation, probably law, is to have some more 

22

aggressive Federal oversight of the emergency planning of State 

and local authorities to the point of having to certify and make 

sure not just that we look at it, but that they actually have as comprehensive a plan ready for emergencies as possible. 

Mr. Wells, let me, in that spirit, go on. Because as I read the 

statements that you made to our staff in the interviews, I am 

struck by one quote after another in which you are willing, from 

the ground, in a very professional and confident way to say this 

just didn’t go as it should have gone. And I am going to quote a 

little bit. 

You talk about FEMA’s ability to respond, ‘‘But FEMA is not 

trained. FEMA is not equipped. FEMA is not organized to do very 

large response operations.’’

You talk about inadequate communications, ‘‘What we had was 

a communications kind of vacuum here in Baton Rouge.’’

You speak of FEMA’s difficulties in staffing positions. ‘‘Just 

about every position we have, this is a secondary job for people. I 

think everybody fails to recognize this. Very important.’’ 

‘‘Our system is based on—this is whole interagency—who is 

available at this time, put them in there, get them out the door.’’ 

You acknowledge difficulties in planning. ‘‘Now we did do some 

different things here that would need a lot of study like the continuity of government. We didn’t work continuity of government at 

all. In New Orleans, they melted down. Their whole government 

was just melted down. We didn’t have a plan for continuity of government.’’ 

And I was struck also by your views of the Stafford Act, ‘‘You 

need different laws. The Stafford Act is not—the Stafford Act is 

like bringing a donkey to the Kentucky Derby.’’ Have you heard 

him say that before? ‘‘It is not designed for a disaster this big.’’

So what I am saying is that your candor is very important and 

very appreciated and very necessary as we work together to try to 

fix this. And bottom line, it would appear from your statements 

that FEMA was lacking a plan, communications, appropriate personnel, and various other assets to deal with a catastrophic disaster of this kind. 

I want to give you a chance now to comment broadly on those 

points that you made in the staff interviews. 

Mr. WELLS. I don’t know if I can remember all that you said, sir. 

Let us talk about the FEMA part——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. WELLS [continuing]. And the Stafford Act and all that. We 

are not, we do not have the capability versus equipment, people, 

expertise, training to do large catastrophic disasters. We do not 

have teams. We do not work as teams. The people you get, and it 

is not just FEMA—this was a National Response Plan. 

And people talk ‘‘FEMA this and FEMA that.’’ But you know 

what? FEMA, once you get out in the field, we are a very small 

percentage of what is out there. And at the height of Katrina, I 

think we had, if you include the military, maybe 70,000 people? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. WELLS. And FEMA was maybe 1,500 or 2,000 of that. And 

even when the military went down, it was still a small part. 

23

Senator LIEBERMAN. Am I right that full-time FEMA personnel 

are numbered at about 2,000? This is all around the country, not 

in that crisis. 

Mr. WELLS. Right. There are only 2,500. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. And so, what you are drawing on when you 

say 1,500 to 2,000 personnel for Katrina was redeployment of 

FEMA full-time personnel from elsewhere, but also a lot of parttime people or people just brought in for the crisis? 

Mr. WELLS. Right. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I want to get to that later. 

Mr. WELLS. Anyway, we do not have enough people. We rob 

Peter to pay Paul in disasters. Even in medium disasters, we are 

doing that. We have 10 regions we have to man. A regional office 

has to do three things. They have to do two things. They need to 

do three things, but they have to do two things. 

They have to set up a regional response coordination center. It 

is an emergency ops center. And they have to staff a team that 

goes forward to Louisiana like we did. Now you only have about 

90 people in a region. That is woefully inadequate to do both. You 

cannot do both. Pick one. 

When you get to a field, when we got to Louisiana, we had 

enough staff for our advance team to do maybe half of what we 

needed to do for a day shift. We had to do a day and night shift. 

So we had to prioritize. 

We did not have the people. We did not have the expertise. We 

did not have the operational training folks that we needed to do 

our mission. And it has been this way for years, sir. Years after 

years, you are working on the margins. You are getting people from 

other agencies with no experience or no experience in response operations. They are just filling a billet. We have never trained together. 

We need to really train together as a team. We need to work as 

a team. What you have with this National Response Plan in the 

field is we have no unity of command. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. WELLS. FEMA has more of a coordination role. We need to 

have a command role, where we can direct the sub-elements assigned to us to do things. And it doesn’t play out that way, despite 

what the National Response Plan indicates. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. That is a very important point. In some 

sense, as I read your testimony, as I hear you today, it is as if you 

are the generals, and you are first rate. But we haven’t really given 

you an adequate trained force to go into battle with you. 

I want to ask a few questions similar to Mr. Carwile. I know you 

also expressed some concern about FEMA’s staffing levels and 

problems. In your opening statement, you talked of how FEMA 

needs many more trained people. 

I know that you had a chance to look at these problems. I wonder 

if you would describe the impact of funding decisions on FEMA’s 

effectiveness, particularly the ERT–N team. And let me refer you 

24

1 Exhibit 1 appears in the Appendix on page 72. 

in particular to a memorandum that I believe you contributed to, 

dated June 30, 2004, which is Exhibit 1.1

In it, you refer ‘‘to the unpreparedness of national emergency response teams.’’ You say the teams are unprepared because of ‘‘zero 

funding for training exercises or equipment.’’ So I ask you to comment on that in light of what you found in the response to Katrina. 

Mr. CARWILE. Yes, Senator Lieberman. This has long been a concern of mine, as well as Mr. Wells. 

After September 11, I was asked by Director Allbaugh at the 

time to reconstitute a national team, an emergency response team 

national, and to write an operations plan and be prepared to respond to the next terrorist event. It was an all-hazards plan, but 

the focus, obviously, at the time was on terrorism. 

I took a small group from New York City, our joint field office 

there, went down to Atlanta and put together a team of very seasoned emergency managers and with members of other Federal 

agencies, including the military, and wrote what was known then 

as an ERT–N op plan. We were then able to build a team to about 

125 individuals, hand picked, from around the country, and we 

were able to routinely exercise that team because we had the funding in place to do so on the plan against several scenarios. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Were these full-time FEMA employees? 

Mr. CARWILE. Yes, sir. For the most part. We did have some reservists, which we called disaster assistance employees, on the 

team. But the intent was to use them only in certain areas where 

we have almost no full-time employees to do certain functions within FEMA. We rely solely on our reservists for things like administration and that sort of thing. 

We were asked to take the team to the Winter Olympics in Salt 

Lake City, and we exercised and exercised. And as well as buying 

satellite communications and being able to, we felt we had a robust 

plan, a well-trained team, and communications. 

It wasn’t long after that, and the longer we got away from September 11, the less funding we had. Funding, it appeared to us—

and I am just a field guy, not a headquarters person. The small 

amount of money we did have was being diverted, and we got no 

money in the out-years. So there was no money. 

Then we morphed that team into another team. The red team 

morphed, and we split it up and formed a blue team. And subsequently, a white team, which was a hollow team. But there was 

never any money. In former years, prior to September 11, when I 

was on a national team, we at least had money to do one training 

event a year and one meeting for the leadership of the teams. That 

money also went away. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. So in that period of years that you have described post-September 11, there was no money for training exercises? 

Mr. CARWILE. Except for that first year, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. That first year. 

Mr. CARWILE. Yes, sir. And after that, the money went away, and 

the emphasis on the readiness of those teams, as I said in my opening comments, I came from 30 years in the military. We had a very 

25

rigorous reporting system and the red/amber/green to report unit 

status. We had nothing like that in FEMA, although those things 

were being—anyway, I think there was a great problem in 

resourcing those teams. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. So this was not only a natural disaster 

waiting to happen, this was a personnel, kind of a FEMA disaster 

waiting to happen because we weren’t giving you the resources to 

get ready for this. 

If I may, Madam Chairman, I just want to ask one follow-up 

question because I think it is important. It is something I have 

come to learn myself, in the course of this investigation, which 

speaks to the fact that FEMA has relatively few full-time personnel. 

And this is the response teams and the so-called reservists, 

which in the interview you did with our staff, it seemed to me you 

were saying that these teams are mostly names on rosters. They 

are not really teams because they don’t train together, they don’t 

work together, and they don’t really have a budget. 

And I wonder if you could just give, for the record, a little background on what does it mean to be a reservist for FEMA in this 

regard? Who are these people, typically? And obviously, I assume 

you believe, based on what you said before, that if they are there 

as reservists that we ought to be spending more money training 

them? 

Mr. CARWILE. Yes, sir. I will specifically speak to the fine Americans that form the reserve cadre, which we call the disaster assistance employees, which we rely on almost to a great extent to our 

ability to surge personnel capacity to respond to any large disasters. In other words, in Florida last year, probably 90 percent of 

the workforce were disaster assistance employees. 

Those employees have traditionally, if you look at the demographics, many of them are retired from all sorts of walks of life. 

They are people you would be very proud to be associated with. 

They bring skill sets from decades of experience in various parts 

of the civil sector and some from the military. 

They are inadequately recompensed for the time they spend on 

active duty. They have absolutely no benefits. None, no benefits 

whatsoever, even when they are on active duty, we call them up. 

So, for example, if there is a holiday, and you happen to be on a 

big disaster, and there is no benefit. If you want to let a few people 

off, you can’t even pay them for being off on the holiday. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Am I right? They don’t really train as units? 

Mr. CARWILE. Sir, was that the individual part of your question? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. CARWILE. The collective part of your question and the teams, 

there is no training money and very little. Now the regions, as Mr. 

Wells indicated, they have a responsibility to field an emergency 

response team for a small to a mid-level disaster. They may, because they are all pretty much co-located, have an opportunity to 

do some, what we used to call in the Army, collective training as 

opposed to individual. But there is no money to do team training. 

So if you go out on a disaster, to me—and I was very fortunate 

in Mississippi because I had a team from my home region that I 

26

have worked with for years—you need to know how that other person is going to respond in a crisis. You need to have gone through. 

In the military, of course, we have a very rigorous exercise program that is evaluated. And I have long advocated, and it was included in a white paper that I wrote last year, that we should have 

a similar system and have emergency deployment readiness exercises for these teams, and go out and do a rigorous evaluation and 

give feedback to the team members, much like we do in the military. But that is not done, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. That is a real big gap that we have to 

figure out how to fill. I assume that there were a lot of people on 

the reserve rosters who were called up to respond to Hurricane 

Katrina? 

Mr. CARWILE. Sir, one of the national teams was deployed to Louisiana, that is the blue team—the blue team went down. In Mississippi, we had a lot of members that were on the national teams, 

but we did not deploy a national team, per se. There are only two 

remaining. Those two teams were reconfigured probably in the last 

month or so before Katrina. 

They were brand-new teams. New members were put in there, 

some of whom have been on other teams in the past. And they 

were pared down to, I think, around 25 persons per team, and 

they, to my knowledge, never had an opportunity to train together 

beforehand. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Carwile. Thanks, Madam 

Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Carwile, I want to follow up 

with some additional questions on this June 2004 memo that Senator Lieberman just questioned you about. 

First of all, this memo was an extensive memo. It includes many 

significant recommendations, and it also sounds the alarm. There 

is the heading on page 3 that says ‘‘unpreparedness of national 

emergency response teams.’’ It says ‘‘unprepared teams, zero funding for training exercises and team equipment.’’

It talks about the need for a single division for response and recovery. It mentions that there had been four different budget proposals submitted over an 18-month period. 

And just so we understand, this is from highly trained and important professionals within FEMA. It is the Federal Coordinating 

Officers. Did you get any response to this memo from Michael 

Brown or anyone else in his office? 

Mr. CARWILE. Madam Chairman, first of all, I wasn’t the author 

of the entire document. But these two——

Chairman COLLINS. You were the author of part of it? 

Mr. CARWILE. Yes, ma’am. These two issues were—and I am 

guilty as charged on that. Ma’am, we put this together, and probably Scott may have had input as well. I am pretty sure he did. 

Former Director Brown had asked the Federal Coordinating Officers for their input on things we thought were critical. And my 

former colleague Mike Hall was elected by the rest of us to put this 

together, each of us having some input. These were mine. 

Mike related to me that this had been submitted to the eighth 

floor, being kind of the command group in FEMA. And as far as 

I know, there was never any feedback on any of these issues. 

27

Chairman COLLINS. So, as far as you know, there were no actions 

taken in response to this detailed set of recommendations that the 

FCOs sent to Secretary Brown? 

Mr. CARWILE. That is correct, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. If the recommendations in this June 2004 

memo had been implemented, do you believe that the response to 

Katrina would have been improved? I realize that is speculative. 

But what is your best judgment? 

Mr. CARWILE. Yes, ma’am. I can’t help but believe that having 

trained and effective teams that are well equipped and have had 

opportunities to work together through training and rigorous exercises would not have made a difference. 

Again, I felt very fortunate because many of my colleagues with 

me in Mississippi had been with me on a national team in years 

past. It was kind of coincidental. 

But I can’t help but believe that trained and ready teams, people 

who have worked together, would not have made some difference 

in a positive way. 

Chairman COLLINS. Could you explain to us why you think that 

a single division for response and recovery would help improve the 

response to future disasters? 

Mr. CARWILE. Yes, ma’am. And first of all, that is not a novel 

idea. That was formerly that way. My former colleague is sitting 

right back here, who was formerly the associate director for FEMA 

for response and recovery. It was only with the formation of the 

Department of Homeland Security that the two efforts, that is response and recovery, were bifurcated. 

Formerly, there was a greater among equals division within 

FEMA was response recovery. Because when you go to the field, 

you don’t do response, and then all of a sudden, one day you say, 

‘‘Well, we are going to quit doing response. Now, guys, we are going 

to start doing recovery.’’ It is a continuous effort. 

I was looking at our timeline in Mississippi. On September 2, we 

were putting disaster recovery centers out to meet the needs of the 

people to be able to communicate with us and the Federal and the 

State officials. 

So, to me, and it is also from a person in the field, it is a little 

bit difficult to know who the heck you work for at headquarters. 

You know, on some issues, you go to one person. Other issues, you 

go to another. 

When they first bifurcated them, I was in the field, and we would 

talk to what is now called the National Resource Coordination Center, then known as the Emergency Support Team, and you really 

didn’t know who you were reporting to. Because was it the response guys or was it recovery guys? 

So, to me, it is a natural fit. It was an unnatural thing to break 

it up in the first place. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

I would now like to turn to the issue of evacuation. One of the 

problems that New Orleans had was evacuating citizens before the 

storm. Mr. Wells, are you aware of any requests from the City of 

New Orleans for assistance with evacuation? Any request to 

FEMA? 

28

Mr. WELLS. No. We would get the request from the State. The 

city would come to the State, and the State would come to us. And 

for any pre-landfall evacuation requests, we got none, zero. And as 

I mentioned earlier, that was totally unlike what we did in Texas, 

where we were actively involved. 

Chairman COLLINS. Now I understand that you were involved in 

the Hurricane Pam exercise. Did that include a segment on the 

evacuation of New Orleans and the vicinity? Was that part of the 

exercise? 

Mr. WELLS. No, ma’am. Evacuation was not part of it. When we 

set up the Pam exercises, we were developing it, we worked with 

the officials in Louisiana. And they determined I think it was five 

to eight functions that they wanted us to work as Federal/State 

partners in it. 

And I think we had talked about evacuation, and they said let 

us leave that off the table because the city and the State, we have 

been working evacuation issues. And we will park that over there, 

and we will just work on these other issues. So that was not one 

of the issues we addressed in the Pam exercise. 

Chairman COLLINS. And whose decision, just for clarity, was it 

to not include evacuation as part of the Hurricane Pam exercise? 

Mr. WELLS. Well, it would have been the deputy director of emergency management at the time in Louisiana. 

Chairman COLLINS. So it was a State official? 

Mr. WELLS. The State. Yes, they determined the issues that we 

were going to be looking at for Pam. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. Parr, another issue of evacuation arose after the storm, and 

that was the evacuation of the Superdome. You have previously 

told the Committee that you worked with the National Guard at 

the Superdome throughout Tuesday night and that you had a plan 

that was actually approved by your supervisors at FEMA and was 

in coordination with the National Guard to evacuate the victims at 

the Superdome, beginning Wednesday morning. Is that correct? 

Mr. PARR. That is correct. 

Chairman COLLINS. Could you explain what that plan was? 

Mr. PARR. Sure. As the population of the Superdome started 

growing almost exponentially on Tuesday and with the waters rising, the breach wasn’t able to be closed, we realized we had to get 

the people out of the Superdome. We felt, the Guard felt that there 

would be mass confusion, violence once the lights went out in the 

Superdome. That was the only thing that was keeping people together. 

We came up with a plan in conjunction with the Guard. It was 

the chief of staff or the adjutant general, the ops officer, the commanding general that was there for the Guard. What we were 

going to do was use Chinook helicopters because they are the largest in the U.S. inventory. The Guard had availability of three. 

We came up with a plan to move anywhere from 300 to 500 people an hour out of the Superdome by landing helicopters every 15 

to 20 minutes. At the time, we estimated about 15,000 people in 

the Superdome. We figured we could clear them out within about 

a day, about 30 hours or less, once we started the evacuation with 

an additional 9 helicopters. 

29

In addition to that plan, I should say it would be short haul 

trips. The airport was dry. I believe Belle Chase, which is a base, 

was also dry. We would have buses meet them there and then take 

them to shelters after that. 

Chairman COLLINS. That sounds to me like a very good plan that 

would have helped to evacuate people from a situation that was becoming increasingly unsanitary and dangerous. Why wasn’t it implemented? In fact, the evacuation did not occur the next day, despite your having what sounds like a very good plan. 

Mr. PARR. That is correct. At least the evacuation for the general 

population didn’t begin the next morning, as we had hoped. At 

some point during the early morning hours—this was a plan we 

worked on in the overnight hours. None of us slept at all as we developed this and had constant conference calls with Washington, 

DC. 

We couldn’t reach our command group at the EOC in Baton 

Rouge because of communications, but we were able to reach our 

response and coordination center in Denton, Texas. So we would 

have conference calls with those two groups. 

We were notified at some time around 5 a.m. that General 

Honore ́ had taken charge or was in charge of the evacuation of 

New Orleans and that all plans were to be put on hold, that he 

would be directing the evacuation. And that was the direction I got 

from the command group of the National Guard that they would 

be awaiting his orders. 

Chairman COLLINS. So, as far as you know, General Honore ́ canceled the plan? 

Mr. PARR. Well, I can’t speak to specifically what happened, but 

I will tell you that the Guard told me I got a call from General 

Landreneau at some point probably between 5 and 6 a.m. in the 

morning, thanking me and thanking us for our hard work. But 

they were awaiting orders of General Honore ́. Chairman COLLINS. So instead of the evacuation from the Superdome starting on Wednesday morning as it would have under your 

plan, the plan worked out with the National Guard, when were 

people actually evacuated from the Superdome? 

Mr. PARR. The start for the general population was about Thursday morning, about 24 hours later. 

Chairman COLLINS. So the result of the delay of that evacuation 

plan, which you had worked all night to put together, was that 

thousands of people in the general population in the Superdome 

had to spend another very unpleasant, hot, dangerous night in the 

Superdome. Is that correct? 

Mr. PARR. That is correct. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Wells, I noted in your bio that you had 

been the liaison from DOD to FEMA back when you were working 

for the Department of Defense. DOD has an unusual relationship 

with FEMA. As I understand it, FEMA can assign other agencies 

certain missions. But with DOD, it is my understanding the Department has to agree to accept the missions from FEMA, and it 

is a much longer process. Is that correct? Is my understanding correct? 

Mr. WELLS. Yes. When all of the agencies come into the joint 

field office and we give what we call mission assignments or 

30

taskings out to these agencies to do specific things, the approval 

authority generally rests with the person in the joint field office, 

and it gets done immediately. 

But the Department of Defense, their approval authority rests 

with the Secretary of Defense. And so, it has to go through a long 

process of validation and through their chain of command to get it 

approved. And that is more than awkward. It is more than cumbersome. It just takes a long time to execute. 

I need to say, parenthetically, that in Katrina we did not see that 

lag that we normally see in most disasters, and they were fairly 

responsive. 

Chairman COLLINS. But from your perspective, since you have 

seen it both as a DOD employee as well as a FEMA employee, 

should the Department be treated differently? 

Mr. WELLS. No. Having DOD is sort of like somebody giving you 

an 800-pound gorilla. You are supposed to take care of that gorilla 

and be responsible for that gorilla. But that 800-pound gorilla is 

going to do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, and how 

he wants to do it. So you lose some of that control in your organization with the Department of Defense structure. 

What they have is, when General Honore ́ came in, for example, 

he had really two organizations. He had a defense coordinating officer, who was in that joint field office. And he had a brigadier general, Mark Graham, with the staff, who worked directly with us out 

of the joint field office. And that fell within the architecture of the 

National Response Plan, and it was more organized. 

General Honore ́ had a joint task force that went and did things 

separate and beyond that. He did great things. Him and his joint 

task force did great things, but it wasn’t coordinated, and it led to 

some problems. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Carwile, did you have something you 

would like to add to that? 

Mr. CARWILE. Madam Chairman, in a previous life, I served as 

a defense coordinating officer, as Mr. Wells talked about, and I 

have had discussions with Secretary McHale on this very subject. 

And we spoke earlier about a unity of command and a unified command, and what Mr. Wells just described is outside of unity of command, unity of effort, and a unified command. 

In other words, you can’t have two Federal agencies, even if one 

is an 800-pound gorilla, operating independently of other Federal 

agencies. And there is a difference of opinion of my personal opinion as a private citizen between what I read in the Stafford Act and 

the way that the current secretary and assistant secretary for 

homeland defense read their authorities. 

And as Mr. Wells indicated, we mission assign other Federal 

agencies. DOD, I personally know—Secretary McHale and I have 

discussed this—takes exception with even the term ‘‘mission assignment’’ from FEMA to the Department of Defense. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Parr, do you have anything to add to 

that debate? 

Mr. PARR. I can tell you on a local level. After leaving New Orleans, I worked in St. Bernard Parish for about 30 days. I think Mr. 

Wells’ description of the 800-pound gorilla, because we had a major 

significant military DOD presence there, was true. 

31

1 Exhibit F appears in the Appendix on page 94. 

They did some great things. The men and women that were there 

were truly phenomenal. But keeping them—and I will use this 

term, but it is not pejorative—reined in to keep them in—remember, when they were there on the ground, it wasn’t me that was 

directing operations in the parish. It was the parish leadership. It 

was the parish president. It was the sheriff. It was the parish 

emergency manager. 

And keeping them from running over that was my job because 

I was supposed to be the lead Federal person there. And it is difficult. But they do bring a lot to the table, and they are a necessary 

part of the National Response Plan. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks again, Madam Chairman. 

The more we go on, the more I keep coming back to military 

terms because, in some sense, you are in a real crisis, almost a battlefield situation. And one I want to talk about is situational 

awareness. 

Obviously, in military matters, we are, through technology, dramatically improving the situational awareness of our forces. And 

that is not a bad ideal to set up for emergency response here as 

well. But it was, really in this case, lacking, again beginning with 

the fact that this was an extraordinary disaster. But part of what 

I want to get at is the details of that. 

Mr. Parr, I am going to ask you the first questions. We have seen 

photographs and video showing the absolutely devastating situation at the convention center. I know that most of the accounts 

have focused on what went on at the Superdome. But I want to ask 

you to talk a little bit about what was unfolding a mile down the 

road at the convention center, where thousands of recently homeless people sought refuge from the storm. 

I have taken a look at your notes from August 30, which is Exhibit F, and they mention that you had a briefing with Bill Lokey 

and Scott Wells. And your notes mention the convention center. 

But we don’t see anything in your e-mails or any other documents 

from yourself or the FEMA team regarding the circumstances in 

the convention center on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. 

So I wanted to ask you during the briefing with Mr. Wells and 

Mr. Lokey, first, what did you discuss, to the best of your recollection, regarding the Superdome? 

Mr. PARR. OK. You have an advantage over me, Senator, because 

since this was kind of a last-minute request for me to appear before 

you, I left my notes in Texas, where I am assigned right now. So 

I am not able to look and see exactly what you are referring to. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I am glad to try to get our staff to give it 

to you. 

Mr. PARR. I think it is Exhibit F? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes, it is Exhibit F1 in that exhibit book. 

Mr. PARR. Just one second. I am sorry. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. You went to the same handwriting course 

that I did. 

Mr. PARR. You noticed that, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. It is on page 8, noted at the bottom, 0008. 

32

Mr. PARR. Let me address, I believe, the phone call you are 

speaking about because this was probably the only time we were 

able to get a hold of the EOC, where Scott Wells, the deputy, and 

Bill Lokey were. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. So they were in Baton Rouge? 

Mr. PARR. Baton Rouge. Correct. And this was probably the only 

time we had any conversation, certainly any extended conversation 

with them. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. And at that point, you were——

Mr. PARR. I was? This was Tuesday. I would guess early afternoon? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. PARR. Or mid afternoon? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. And you had arrived a little earlier that 

day. 

Mr. PARR. We had arrived at some point Tuesday morning or late 

morning. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. PARR. This is when we went from the Superdome to the city 

EOC, which was across the street. At that point, we had called 

back to the State EOC. The primary purpose of that call was to 

give the city’s list of priorities to the EOC there up at the State, 

for FEMA and the State to start working on those priorities. 

If the call was an hour, the biggest part of that call, probably 45 

or 50 minutes, was getting visibility on what was being done to 

close I believe it was the 17th Street Canal breach. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. PARR. That is what was filling up the city, and there was a 

whole domino effect of things that happen if that breach was not 

closed as quickly as possible. Just to mention two of those things. 

The power plant, once that went under water, and it is my understanding that it was within inches—2 or 3 inches of going under 

water—the city would take about 6 months, it would probably still 

be under water right now——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. PARR [continuing]. If that was submerged. The emergency 

power at the Superdome was literally within 1 inch of overflowing 

the sandbags that were protecting the emergency generator there. 

We would have lost power there. It would have caused chaos there. 

So gaining visibility on that. Talking about it was the city—I am 

not sure of his exact title. I believe he was either the emergency 

manager or the homeland security person. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Let me interrupt you. By ‘‘gaining visibility,’’ you mean trying to get attention from the EOC onto those 

two significant problems you have just talked about? 

Mr. PARR. I was informed by Colonel Terry Ebert, who is the 

city’s, I think, homeland security director, that the breach——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. PARR [continuing]. That the Army Corps had stopped attempting to close the breach, and we weren’t sure why. And there 

were some significant issues with them trying to close the breach, 

and they were unable to do it, and they were working the problem. 

We did not know that at the time, which is one thing that prompted the call. 

33

So getting that back up on the table and letting them know back 

up at the State why it was so important to get that closed. Which 

that did not happen, at least not at that point, was the primary 

purpose of that call, and in addition, the other priorities that the 

city had, the Colonel, Terry Ebert, gave it to them on that call. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. Did you become aware in that conversation of the problem of the growing crowds at the convention 

center? 

Mr. PARR. Let me say that we were helicoptered into the Superdome and had no movement, no visibility of the city. The only thing 

we had was what the National Guard had given us. I don’t quite 

see my note on the convention center. I am sure I was told by the 

Guard that there were issues at the convention center. 

Like I said, I don’t have my notes. But because we were, in effect, literally on an island or stranded at the Superdome, if I have 

a note here about the convention center—OK, yes. I don’t think, 

that was not a note about conditions at the convention center. I see 

it now. I am not even sure I was aware of conditions at the convention center at this time. 

What that was, if you notice it says ‘‘convention center, EOV or 

com suite,’’ that was mentioned as another place that we can carry 

out operations because of the difficulty of carrying out operations 

at the Superdome because of the situation there. I was trying to 

identify another place in the city where we can operate from, and 

that was a place that was mentioned. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. So, obviously, you were at the Superdome. So you had an awareness of what the conditions were there? 

Mr. PARR. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. But you did not know at that point what the 

situation was at the convention center? 

Mr. PARR. Correct. There would be snippets from certain Guardsmen who were patrolling the city saying that the convention center 

was filling up. I am not sure when or how that was brought out 

to me. We had no personal knowledge of what was going on at the 

convention center. 

As a matter of fact, I learned more about what was going on at 

the convention center when I left and went back up to Baton 

Rouge. Then I had visibility on it. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. So during that period of days before 

you went back to Baton Rouge, which, if I recall correctly, was 

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that week? 

Mr. PARR. Correct. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. The FEMA teams that you were involved 

with did not do anything with regard to the convention center? 

Mr. PARR. No, sir, and I think this is an important point that we 

need to remember, and I alluded to this earlier in one of the answers to one of the questions that were given. There were no, to 

my knowledge, identified shelters in the City of New Orleans. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. PARR. That is a very important thing. What was used as a 

shelter was any place that was dry. Any overpass, any high piece 

of ground. It is important that the city had identified shelters and 

areas of refuge, and they did not. 

34

So I think that was an ad hoc—since it was largely dry, it is my 

understanding—an ad hoc shelter that people flowed to simply because it was out of the pool of water in the city. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Parr. 

Mr. Wells, you were a senior Federal official at the emergency 

operating center in Baton Rouge. When did you become aware of 

the crowds and the problems at the convention center in New Orleans? 

Mr. WELLS. To be candid, I am not exactly sure. It was probably 

around I would say Wednesday or Thursday, we got calls from here 

in Washington, DC. ‘‘What is going on at the convention center?’’ 

And I think they were getting reports from the media. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. WELLS. And as I recall, we tried to get communications up 

with Phil and his folks. We couldn’t get communications with him 

to have them go check it out. And so, we went to the State and 

asked them what they knew, and they used their National Guard 

and State police assets to give us some visibility. And the big issue 

was how many people were there? And what is going on, and how 

many people were there? 

And we did not get a clear picture. It probably took 24 to 48 

hours from the time we started asking the question to get a picture 

of just what was going on in the convention center. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. So your answers, I think, illustrate the real 

problems there were in communications under the circumstances 

there and the inability to have anything approaching the kind of 

situational awareness that you would want to have or we would 

want you to have. 

I want to go back to something you said in your interview with 

our staff, Mr. Wells, that there was ‘‘a big communications void,’’ 

which created a black hole in communication abilities from the 

emergency operating center in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. And 

if I asked you why, I know it may be an obvious question. But for 

the record, since obviously FEMA is supposed to be prepared for 

emergencies of this kind, why did that black hole of communications occur? 

Mr. WELLS. I don’t know. I was told all of the lines were saturated. The big vacuum was in Baton Rouge. No one could get in 

to us, and we couldn’t get out to anybody. The people in New Orleans could talk to our regional office in Texas in a degraded way, 

and they could talk to the national office here in Washington, DC. 

But nobody could call us in Baton Rouge, and we couldn’t call out. 

So that was the biggest vacuum in Baton Rouge. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Mr. Parr, I know that at some point in your 

testimony or work with the staff, you described FEMA’s Red October, the mobile command post 12 feet longer than a tractor-trailer 

with the most elaborate state-of-the-art capabilities for communications, which would have served as the base for communications in 

New Orleans. 

As the vehicle was in transport to the Superdome, I would just 

say for the record, it was determined that you could not get it into 

the area, and you were left with no communications at the Superdome. Am I right about that? 

35

Mr. PARR. That is largely correct, sir. That was the original intention to either move that vehicle or a similar vehicle into the Superdome, but because of the water around the stadium, we could 

not get it in. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. And there was no backup plan for anything 

else in that kind of circumstance? 

Mr. PARR. Well, sir, initially the backup plan was to have a 

smaller vehicle, a vehicle that was a little bit more maneuverable 

get into the stadium. I don’t believe that the situational awareness 

allowed us to know. I don’t believe that it was common knowledge. 

It certainly was not my knowledge that water would prevent us 

from getting those vehicles into the Superdome. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. And this is the final question because 

my time is up. You did previously state, as I mentioned and Senator Collins did, that your access to communications was ‘‘extremely, extremely limited’’ and affected your operations effectiveness, what you were able to do in the circumstance by, in your 

opinion, about 90 percent. Is that right? 

Mr. PARR. Yes, sir. And just to expand on that a little bit, as I 

look back on the events that happened, we were able to achieve a 

lot. At the time, it was extremely frustrating. It might take 2 or 

3 hours to get through to the people we were calling, but we did 

get through and we did get things done as far as the evacuation 

of the Superdome. We made sure that we kept some eye on visibility of commodities so people ate. 

But I believe we could have accomplished a lot more if we had 

the proper communications. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Sure. And when you did get through on the 

calls, what were you using? 

Mr. PARR. The National Guard had two communications vehicles, 

one with one phone and one with I think three or four phones. So 

it was kind of like waiting in line. When they finished their business, then we got to go. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Just a couple of concluding questions. First, I realize all of you 

were deployed to the Gulf region in your roles as FCOs. But are 

any of you living in the Gulf region? Mr. Wells. 

Mr. WELLS. I am staying there. 

Chairman COLLINS. Pardon me? 

Mr. WELLS. Yes, I will be in Baton Rouge. 

Chairman COLLINS. You are now. But prior to being deployed 

there, where were you living? 

Mr. WELLS. I was living in Texas. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Parr. 

Mr. PARR. I have only been living in the Gulf since August 28. 

But my home now or at least where I rent an apartment is in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Chairman COLLINS. I noticed you were Region 1, Senator 

Lieberman’s and my region. 

Mr. Carwile. 

Mr. CARWILE. Ma’am, my family is from Gulf Shores, Alabama. 

It is in Baldwin County, Alabama, on the coast. They have evacuated probably six times in the last 2 years, with my mother, who 

36

turned 89 last month. I personally reside in the State of Hawaii, 

though. 

Chairman COLLINS. I was surprised, when I looked at where 

FEMA officials were deployed from, that they weren’t individuals 

already assigned to the Gulf region. Would it increase the effectiveness of FEMA officials if they were from the region to which they 

are deployed, or does it not make any difference? 

The reason I ask is there have been some indications that FEMA 

officials were just not very familiar with New Orleans or the areas 

to which they were assigned. And I am wondering if it would be 

better to have the FCOs come from the area or whether it doesn’t 

matter. Mr. Carwile. 

Mr. CARWILE. Madam Chairman, the Congress authorized FEMA 

25 Federal Coordinating Officer positions back in 1999. 

Chairman COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. CARWILE. And those positions were sprinkled throughout the 

country. And ideally, the Federal Coordinating Officer would come 

from the home region impacted. For example, if the State of Maine 

were impacted, hopefully, Mr. Parr would be the person, as he 

would be. 

What happens in a very large disaster like Katrina, the resources 

are quickly stripped down in terms of personnel who are familiar 

to the area. So over in Alabama, Mike Bolch, who was the Federal 

Coordinating Officer, did come from Atlanta in the home region. 

But FEMA can get very quickly overwhelmed in terms of having 

people with regional experience. 

And Mississippi, fortunately, the team from Region 9, which was 

California and the West, that we brought in had been with Mississippi during Hurricane Dennis and also with a short exercise we 

had prior to the hurricane season in Washington. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Parr, do you have anything to add to 

that? 

Mr. PARR. I will say all of us are national assets, and traveling 

is very demanding on all of us. I know in the 2 years I have been 

in the Federal Coordinating Officer program, I have traveled about 

300 days. 

Chairman COLLINS. Wow. 

Mr. PARR. I don’t know. I think it is important that we have significant representation from the region that is experiencing the disaster. So, for instance, Scott Wells is a resident and member of Region 6, which is a large part of the Gulf Coast. 

The fact that I come from Region 1 and have a lot of experience 

in Region 2, which would be the New York area, I don’t know is 

significant. I think all of us are kind of, to a large extent, plug and 

play. You bring us to where we need to go, and the actions that 

we have to do are pretty much the same. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Wells, are you from the region? 

Mr. WELLS. Yes. And I think there is value added. You get your 

value in the peacetime planning. For example, with Katrina, prior 

to Katrina, in July, just a month before, Hurricane Dennis was 

threatening Louisiana, and we deployed our response team to Louisiana and did some training with them. So we had built up some 

experience with the State and did some hasty planning and things 

like that. And that was a benefit when we went back for Katrina. 

37

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. Carwile, my final question is for you. Both Senator Lieberman and I have been to the Gulf region since the hurricane struck. 

The damage in New Orleans and Louisiana is incomprehensible. 

But what really astonished me was the devastation in Mississippi. 

It is just extraordinary. 

Do you think Mississippi has gotten the attention that it needs 

compared to Louisiana? I am not trying to play off one State 

against another. That is not my purpose. But the devastation from 

wind damage in Mississippi matches in many ways the horrendous 

devastation from water that we saw in New Orleans. 

Mr. CARWILE. Madam Chairman, I have been on, I think, every 

major disaster in the last 9 years with FEMA to include four hurricanes last year in Florida and a number of super typhoons in the 

Pacific, and I have never seen—and I had two combat tours in 

Vietnam, special forces. I have never seen the damage that I saw 

and you saw in Hancock County and Harrison County. Total devastation of entire communities. 

We talk about communications. I have never been in a situation 

where we had such a shortfall in communications. Last year in 

Florida, fundamentally, we could use cell phones. Practically, just 

most of the time, we had to rely on sat phones. But I am talking 

about no communications. 

Senator Lieberman talked about situational awareness. Very difficult to have down there other than overflights. I know that Governor Barbour and his staff in the State of Mississippi have done 

an extraordinary job of leadership. I do think that there has been 

an awful lot of focus on the visual on New Orleans, and obviously, 

there was a great deal of suffering there that needed to be tended 

to. 

I do think that there could be more attention paid to the restoration of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, especially. I say ‘‘Gulf Coast,’’ 

but I was in Jackson when a storm—we had a category 1 hurricane 

go over Jackson. We were without power in Jackson for days and 

days, all the way up to the northern part of Mississippi. 

So the visuals are on the Gulf Coast, and obviously, that is terrible. In addition to wind damage, the 30-foot surge just cleared off 

whole counties practically. It was total devastation. But I would 

concur if someone were to suggest that Mississippi probably deserves more attention than it has been getting, ma’am. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman, do you have 

any questions? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I do, a couple. I will try to do them quickly. 

Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

I want to come back to the discussion about the communications 

and situational awareness, and I am struck that the National 

Guard had those two communications vehicles in the Superdome. 

And I understand this is always a question of hindsight is clearer 

than foresight. 

The understanding was growing in the preceding week that this 

was going to be a hurricane category 4 or a category 5. I was going 

to read this to Senator Stevens, but I didn’t. 

38

There was a communication from William Lundy of FEMA to 

you, Mr. Carwile, and to Robert Fenton and others, e-mailed on 

Saturday, August 27, at 11:41 p.m. 

‘‘Recent recon flight reports category 4 now, maybe a weak category 5 by Monday morning. Landfall around noon. Storm is carrying a lot of moisture. Experts predict that the levees protecting 

New Orleans will be breached late Sunday night, thereby flooding 

the city to a depth of 6 to 12 feet. Storm surge 13 feet, with 20-

foot waves on top of that.’’

Unfortunately, that e-mail was pretty much correct, except it estimated a little bit earlier than the levees actually broke. So here 

is my question. Again, hindsight clearer. And this is why some people say FEMA moved slowly. You have got this Red October, a fantastically equipped communications vehicle—why not move it into 

New Orleans in advance of landfall so you are there with a communications apparatus before, what was being talked about and predicted, the levees broke and the city was flooded? 

Yes, Mr. Parr? 

Mr. PARR. This was something that I discussed with the staffers 

that were down beforehand. One thing that you never want to do, 

especially when you are a response—we are not a rescue organization—but a response organization or an emergency organization, is 

put equipment or people into harm’s way. 

If we had brought those vehicles into the Superdome, they would 

have been exposed. They probably, almost certainly with the high 

winds of a hurricane hitting, would have been damaged and rendered useless. There are other things that we could have done. And 

in hindsight, if we had been fully aware of the situation, we could 

have helicoptered communications suites in. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Beforehand, you mean? 

Mr. PARR. No. Afterwards. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Afterwards. 

Mr. PARR. But in my opinion, and there is no response organization that I am aware of that puts people or equipment in harm’s 

way prior to landfall of a hurricane, unless it is a rated hurricane 

shelter beforehand, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes, I have learned this as we have gone on, 

and I am not prepared to argue against it. But I am prepared, not 

now, to question it as we go along. 

Because, obviously, the people on the ground there, the local fire, 

police, emergency personnel are there. And if you see something 

this big coming, it is tough. I don’t have an easy answer to this 

one. But it seems to me that there is an argument to be made that 

you would want to try to the best of your ability to get some people 

in, maybe equipment in there beforehand. But I want to come back 

to that. 

Mr. Parr, I do want to give you, while you are here, an opportunity to answer questions that were raised in Mr. Bahamonde’s 

testimony and then in other testimony before the Committee about 

the fact that you and your teams left the Superdome on Thursday. 

You were there Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then left on 

Thursday, which left, obviously, the Superdome without any FEMA 

presence, including the medical team that you had. 

39

So, obviously, we ask why. And I want to give you the chance 

while you are here to answer that. 

Mr. PARR. Certainly. I could give you the long answer or the 

short answer. So I will try to give you something in the middle 

ground that would give you the situation. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. You have got two centrists up here. 

So—— [Laughter.] 

Chairman COLLINS. The middle position is always a good one. 

Mr. PARR. I think that we have described the situation in the city 

as a whole. The situation in the Superdome was always a powder 

keg. The Guard first made the suggestion, one of the generals of 

the Guard first made the suggestion that I consider leaving Tuesday night. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Do you remember which one that was? 

Mr. PARR. Yes, sir. It was General Veillon. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. General Veillon. 

Mr. PARR. And that was when the city was filling, and they felt 

that once the lights went out that there would be pandemonium 

there. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. So was he suggesting that your safety might 

be in danger? 

Mr. PARR. Well, I believe the school of thought was everyone, including the Guard—because, remember, not everyone in the Guard 

was armed. Most of the Guard was involved with getting food, commodities in, running and helping with medical missions. As I said 

before, they did a phenomenal job in search and rescue, in everything, and assisting the New Orleans PD as much as they possibly 

could. So I think it was everyone’s safety. 

To skip many things, Thursday morning at first light, General 

Jones, who was the commanding general in place, said to me—I 

don’t remember his exact words, but there are certain phrases that 

he said that stick out in my mind very clearly. ‘‘I don’t believe I 

can protect you or your people any longer. We are going to be making our last stand,’’ and he pointed to a portion of the parking lot 

over there. He says, ‘‘Get behind us, and we will do what we can.’’

That is when we started making plans to leave. I spoke, since it 

was my responsibility to take care of the Federal forces on hand, 

I spoke to the NDMS teams, told them to continue to operate. I 

wanted to have helicopters standing by if the situation degenerated. We were unable to get helicopters in immediately. 

To make a long story short, I was informed by the DMAT team, 

the medical assistance team that was in the basketball stadium, 

that the Guard, in shortening their lines, had pulled all security 

from them. They told me that they did not feel safe and that they 

were evacuating. And they had high-water vehicles that they used 

to resupply and that they were pulling out in their vehicles. 

It was only at that time that I made the decision to leave since 

if conditions did degenerate, we would have no other way out. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I want you to know that some of the other 

folks who were there say that, in fact, there was not any behavior 

that would lead them to think that there was a riot or that there 

was a safety problem. I guess my final question to you is the following—to what extent did you see any behavior that would lead 

40

you to think that your personnel would be in danger, or was it derived from what the National Guard folks told you? 

Mr. PARR. There are many things that I left out in not giving the 

answer in total. The intelligence that we had all came from the 

Guard. That is the first thing. 

The second thing is is that—I just lost my train of thought. But 

one of the things to remember, when I did make the decision to 

leave, is not only did the Guard say that. You could see from some 

of the memos that the city asked for with 400 rifles, etc., the 

Guard—and this was what I wanted to say. The Guard had intelligence that there would be riot. That people would move in force 

against the Guard at some point that late morning. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. And they told you that? 

Mr. PARR. Yes, sir. And one of the things to remember is that 

I have worked in riot situations in my time as a firefighter and fire 

officer in New York City. I have worked in near-riot situations. The 

time for unarmed people, that is specifically a security and law enforcement issue, and the time for unarmed people to leave is before 

a situation starts, not after. And that is when I made the decision 

to leave when I did. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. I appreciate your answer. 

We are running out of time. I am going to mention something 

else. Maybe I will send a letter to each of you and ask for your response. 

This goes also to pre-storm, and the question is the following—

in a circumstance like the one we saw coming here, a category 4 

or 5 hurricane, with potential talked about widely that the levees 

were going to break. And what seemed to you, Mr. Wells, to be an 

inadequate evacuation plan in Louisiana as compared to what you 

saw in Texas, should we in the future have the Federal Government, perhaps through the military, be prepared to do pre-storm 

evacuation? 

Let me state it in a dramatic metaphor. If we had intelligence 

that led us to believe that a bomb was going to explode in one of 

our major cities within 3 days, and if we thought it was accurate 

intelligence, but we hadn’t found a bomb, I presume we would use 

whatever Federal resources we had to get in and evacuate as many 

people as we could. 

And in some ways, though not quite the same, if you put all the 

facts together, we were in a somewhat similar situation with 

Katrina. And my question is should the Federal Government try to 

develop a kind of standby capacity, particularly using the military, 

and have the ability to assist in that kind of massive evacuation? 

Anybody really want to give a quick answer? Sorry. 

Mr. WELLS. The answer is yes. And Katrina clearly showed that. 

But it needs to be expanded. I mean, the continuity of government. 

We need to have that capability. But this bottoms-up approach only 

works to a certain point, and we need to have a Federal capability 

that once you get beyond that point that can make up the difference. And it may mean a totally different architecture. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. WELLS. If that is the way it is, so be it. But this evacuation 

is a very important thing. And if we would have gotten those peoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:55 Sep 28, 2006 Jkt 026744 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\26744.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
41

ple out in time, we wouldn’t have lost close to 1,100 lives in Louisiana. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Absolutely right. 

Mr. WELLS. So those are things that I think we need to look at 

to make it better next time so we don’t have this happen again. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Mr. Carwile. 

Mr. CARWILE. Senator Lieberman, if I might? I agree with my 

colleague, Mr. Wells, on this point in terms of capacity. I get in a 

little trouble, I think that the governors of the States have constitutional authorities that we can bring Federal capacity, whether 

it is military or other, to bear in support of them to whatever degree they are comfortable with. But I just throw that small caveat 

out. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Parr, do you want to answer? 

Mr. PARR. Yes, sir. I also agree. I would defer a little bit. I think 

the military, the DOD is a support group in every emergency support function we have because they have so many talents and bring 

so many expertise to bear. In my opinion, I do not think they 

should be the lead in an evacuation, but certainly their assets could 

be used to help an evacuation. 

It might actually mean changes in statute. Until there is a disaster, the Federal Government has limited involvement, at least 

until there is some sort of declaration. I would like to see, personally, and I believe Mr. Wells in his writings has talked about expanding FEMA’s role pre-disaster declaration. So that we can, even 

if it is just technical assistance, provide some assistance to States 

and locals from the Federal perspective in helping for evacuations. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Very helpful responses. Thank you. You 

have been very helpful witnesses overall in assisting the Committee in fulfilling its responsibility. 

Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

I, too, want to thank each of you for appearing today, for your 

candid and insightful testimony. It has been very helpful for us to 

hear from those who were involved directly in the operations. 

We are going to be continuing our investigation and ultimately 

drafting some legislation for reforming the system, as well as recommending administrative reforms. And I would invite you to keep 

in touch with the Committee, and I hope you will be willing to 

react to proposals as we go along because you do have so much experience that I think is very helpful to this Committee as we attempt to determine what went wrong and what reforms are needed. So I thank you very much for your testimony and your cooperation. 

The hearing record will remain open for 15 days. We will include 

your complete written statements in the record, as well as any 

other materials that you wish to submit. 

This hearing is now adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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