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26–749 PDF 2006

S. Hrg. 109–403

PREPARING FOR A CATASTROPHE:

THE HURRICANE PAM EXERCISE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JANUARY 24, 2006

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 

JENNIFER C. BOONE, FBI Detailee 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

ROBERT F. MUSE, Minority General Counsel 

F. JAMES MCGEE, Minority Professional Staff Member 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

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

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 3

Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 25

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 28

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2006

Wayne Fairley, Chief, Response Operations Branch, Response and Recovery 

Division, Region VI, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Denton, 

Texas ..................................................................................................................... 7

Sean R. Fontenot, Former Chief, Planning Division, Former Chief, Preparedness Division, Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, Baton Rouge, Louisiana .................................................................... 10

Jesse St. Amant, Director, Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, 

Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana ........................................................................... 13

Madhu Beriwal, President and Chief Executive Officer, Innovative Emergency 

Management, Inc., Baton Rouge, Louisiana ...................................................... 15

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Beriwal, Madhu: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58

Fairley, Wayne: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 41

Fontenot, Sean R.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47

St. Amant, Jesse: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 56

APPENDIX

Response to Questions for the Record from: 

Mr. Fairley ........................................................................................................ 68

Mr. Fontenot ..................................................................................................... 75

Ms. Beriwal ....................................................................................................... 78

Exhibit B .................................................................................................................. 80

Exhibit D .................................................................................................................. 90

Exhibit E .................................................................................................................. 94

Exhibit F ................................................................................................................... 95

Exhibit H .................................................................................................................. 100

Exhibit K .................................................................................................................. 104

(1)

PREPARING FOR A CATASTROPHE: 

THE HURRICANE PAM EXERCISE 

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2006

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room SD–

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

Present: Senators Collins, Lieberman, Levin, and Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. The Committee will come to order. Good 

morning. 

Today, the Committee on Homeland Security continues our investigation into Hurricane Katrina. Over the last 4 months, we 

have conducted 10 hearings on major aspects of the causes and 

management of this disaster, including a field visit exactly 1 week 

ago to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and to New Orleans. Our staff 

has conducted more than 200 interviews and has reviewed more 

than 300,000 pages of documents. 

Now, we are about to enter the final phase of our work. Hurricane Katrina proved to be one of the deadliest and certainly the 

most costly natural disaster in America’s history. If our Nation cannot give a good account of our ability to manage such a predicted, 

known, and trackable event as a hurricane, we must surely question our preparedness for dealing with a stealthier, more sinister 

terrorist attack. 

Therefore, based on all we have learned from our previous hearings, interviews, and document review, this Committee will undertake over the next 3 weeks a series of hearings to cover the most 

troubling aspects of the response to Katrina as a prelude to drafting our final report. 

The focus of today’s hearing is the simulation called Hurricane 

Pam, a federally funded exercise to plan for a catastrophic hurricane in Southeast Louisiana. We will examine both the lessons 

learned and the lessons that with such terrible consequences went 

unlearned. This hearing is intended to shed light on the following 

issues: How did Hurricane Pam come about? Who took the initiative to promote it? What does its history say about the state of 

emergency preparedness in Louisiana prior to Katrina? What roadblocks had to be overcome to get Federal funding for the exercise 

in both President Clinton’s and President Bush’s Administrations? 

2

Do these roadblocks raise concerns about government priorities in 

improving emergency preparedness? What was the scope of Hurricane Pam, including assumptions about the specific planning scenarios? How did pre-storm evacuation come to be largely excluded 

from the exercise? Did Hurricane Pam create the impression within 

FEMA that Louisiana had evacuation under control? Why was the 

plan not completed? How did the failure to complete the plan affect 

its usefulness in Katrina? What aspects of the draft Pam plan were 

used in responding to Katrina? What aspects could have been used 

but were not? 

The Hurricane Pam exercise was conducted in Louisiana by 

FEMA from July 16 through 23, 2004. It brought together as many 

as 300 local, State, and Federal emergency response officials. This 

fictional storm was designed as a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane that had sustained winds of 120 miles per hour at landfall. 

It caused as much as 10 to 20 feet of flooding throughout most of 

New Orleans and the surrounding parishes as the result of heavy 

rain and a storm surge that overtopped the levees. Pam’s mock 

damage spread over 13 Louisiana parishes and was extensive. In 

the scenario, utilities were knocked out and chemical plants were 

flooded. The human cost under the scenario was staggering. More 

than a million people evacuated, 175,000 were injured, 200,000 became sick, and as many as 60,000 lives were lost. 

As a dry run for the real thing, Pam should have been a wakeup call that could not be ignored. Instead, it seems that a more appropriate name for Pam would have been Cassandra, the mythical 

prophet who warned of disasters but whom no one really believed. 

In many ways, the hypothetical problems identified in Pam predict 

with eerie accuracy the all-too-real problems of Katrina—overcrowded shelters undersupplied with food, water, and other essentials; blocked highways with thousands of people trapped in flooded 

areas; hospitals swamped with victims and running out of fuel for 

their emergency generators. The list goes on and on. 

The history of Pam dates back to 1998, when New Orleans experienced a near-miss from another hurricane. In the fall of 1999, 

local, State, and Federal officials met to discuss their concerns 

about the adequacy of plans to respond to a direct hit on the city. 

The State of Louisiana followed up with a written request to FEMA 

in August 2000 for a planning exercise. But delay followed delay. 

Then FEMA reduced the funding allocation so the scope of the exercise had to be scaled back. In reaction, the State agency chose to 

exclude the critical issue of pre-landfall evacuation and the possibility that the levees could be breached rather than merely overtopped. 

The Pam exercise that finally commenced in July 2004 was supposed to be just the first installment of an ongoing process. A follow-up session scheduled for September 2004 was postponed and 

critical workshops were not reconvened until late July 2005, with 

the result being that no additional planning documents were generated before they were so urgently needed. 

Instead, Pam became Katrina. The simulation became reality. 

And optimism became the awful truth. We were not prepared. 

There are instances in which the Pam exercise did improve the 

response to Katrina. For example, the Louisiana National Guard 

3

1 Exhibit E submitted for the Record by Senator Lieberman appears in the Appendix on page 

94. 

incorporated lessons regarding the staging and distribution of such 

essential commodities as food and water. The State Department of 

Health and Hospitals adopted concepts developed in Pam on how 

to evaluate individuals saved through search and rescue efforts. 

Our witnesses today represent a wide range of entities involved 

in the Hurricane Pam exercise. I’m very interested in hearing their 

frank views on the questions that I raised earlier. 

An evaluation of the Pam simulation is important for at least 

two reasons. First, the stated purpose of the Hurricane Pam exercise was not fulfilled when it counted, with catastrophic consequences. Second, throughout our Nation, local, State, and Federal 

emergency response agencies engage in a great many training exercises at considerable expense in anticipation of a wide range of natural and manmade disasters. We must use and learn from the experience of Pam and Katrina to close the gap between planning 

and execution so that we are better prepared the next time simulation becomes reality. 

Senator Lieberman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman, for 

convening this 11th hearing in our investigation of how the government prepared for and responded to Hurricane Katrina, and as you 

said, this one begins a 3-week series of hearings in which we have 

the opportunity to make public a lot of the hard work that our 

staffs have done in investigating what happened. 

The title of today’s hearing is, ‘‘Preparing for a Catastrophe: The 

Hurricane Pam Exercise.’’ Preparing for a catastrophe—the phrase 

makes a mournful sound when said against the backdrop of the 

misery and destruction the world saw on television last year and 

that Members of this Committee still saw last week when we visited the Gulf Coast and held a hearing in Mississippi. The plain 

facts are that Katrina was a very powerful storm, but it would 

have caused much less misery and destruction had we prepared for 

it better. 

This enlargement from the New Orleans Times-Picayune,1 August 30, the day after Hurricane Katrina hit landfall, really tells 

it all. The big banner word is ‘‘Catastrophic,’’ which it was. But in 

smaller red print at the top, over the masthead, it also tells it all. 

‘‘Katrina: The Storm We’ve Always Feared’’—the storm people in 

the Gulf Coast had always feared, the storm people knew would hit 

one day, the storm they actually practiced for in the Hurricane 

Pam exercise that is the topic of today’s hearing. 

In the 10 Committee hearings on Katrina we have already held, 

in our staff interviews of more than 200 witnesses, in our review 

of tens of thousands of documents, we have already learned enough 

to be not just disappointed, but truly infuriated by the poor performance of all levels of government in preparing for and responding to Hurricane Katrina, and these conclusions, amplified as I am 

confident they will be over the coming weeks, should compel us to 

4

achieve top-to-bottom reform of the way we prepare for and respond to disasters. 

Katrina was not just predictable, it was predicted over and over 

again. As the FEMA Coordinator for the Hurricane Pam exercise 

told our investigative staff last Friday, Katrina was a ‘‘replication’’ 

of Pam and Pam itself was staged in response to the flooding in 

Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1998 caused by Hurricane Georges that made 

State and local officials of the Gulf Coast realize they could be 

overwhelmed if and when the ‘‘big one’’ hit. The Hurricane Pam exercise in the spring and summer of 2004 actually and eerily predicted the emergency response crises and the devastation that occurred last August and September. 

Today, we are going to hear from four witnesses who participated 

in the Hurricane Pam exercise who will tell us that the problems 

we saw last August and September were known long before 

Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, even long before Pam predicted them. 

The fictional hurricane of the Pam exercise was a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane, quite similar to Katrina except that in the fictional exercise, Pam hit New Orleans directly, and as we know, 

thank God, Katrina blew about 15 miles to the east of the city. Had 

Katrina hit New Orleans head-on as the Pam exercise predicted for 

Pam, 67,000 deaths would have resulted. That is what the Pam exercise projected. That gives us an idea of how much more catastrophic Katrina could have been and therefore how much more urgent disaster preparation should have been. 

The Pam exercise also put State and local governments and 

FEMA and its parent, the Department of Homeland Security, on 

notice that the people of New Orleans would experience exactly the 

problems that we all witnessed last August that Senator Collins 

has spoken to. The Pam exercise also predicted widespread flooding 

throughout New Orleans, hospitals and nursing homes underwater, 

hundreds of thousands of people displaced, and local first responders incapacitated. In this regard, Pam gave DHS and FEMA explicit notice that State and local governments would be overwhelmed when New Orleans got hit with a catastrophic hurricane 

and that comprehensive Federal assistance would, therefore, be 

critically and urgently necessary. 

But despite these warnings from Pam, preparations for Katrina 

were shockingly poor. Two to 3 days before Katrina hit, it became 

clear that it would be catastrophic. In fact, as Katrina approached 

the Gulf Coast 2 days before landfall, Saturday, August 27, our 

staff has obtained a document which shows that FEMA issued a 

briefing at 9 a.m. on that Saturday morning before the Monday of 

landfall which declared that the Pam ‘‘exercise projection is exceeded by Hurricane Katrina real-life impacts.’’ The failure to heed the 

fictional Pam’s many warnings compounded the tragedy when 

Katrina hit in real time and full fury. That is the sad story that 

our Committee’s hearings will tell in detail in the 3 weeks ahead. 

Before closing and as we embark on this stage of the investigation, I feel compelled to say a few words about the conduct of the 

investigation. First, I want to thank Chairman Collins and her 

staff for working with me and my staff to conduct an aggressive 

and thoroughly bipartisan investigation. This has become our norm 

on this Committee, but I don’t want the Chairman to think that 

5

I take it for granted. We have worked together as all investigative 

committees in this Congress should, without partisan division and 

with a shared view that our goal is to uncover what happened with 

respect to Hurricane Katrina so that we can make sure our government is much better prepared the next time disaster strikes. 

Unfortunately, though, I cannot give the same high marks to the 

Executive Branch for its response to our investigation, and the 

problems begin at the White House, where there has been a near 

total lack of cooperation that has made it impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough investigation we have a responsibility 

to do. Why does this matter? Well, here is an example. 

The Committee has found evidence that we will describe in the 

hearings ahead that beginning on Friday before the Monday of 

landfall, there are explicit statements in e-mails by high-ranking 

officials at FEMA which show they understood the severity of the 

storm that was coming—Friday, the document I quoted earlier on 

Saturday morning, and then on the evening before Katrina made 

landfall, that Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security circulated to Federal agencies sitting in the Homeland Security Operations Center a report that the storm had at that time been upgraded to Category 5 and that ‘‘any storm rated Category 4 or 

greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching. 

This could leave the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks 

or months.’’

Among the offices receiving that memo was the White House Situation Room, which received it at 1:47 a.m. on Monday, August 29, 

several hours before Katrina made landfall. What happened to that 

report and the other awareness that FEMA officials and others at 

DHS had of the severity of the coming storm? Why was the President of the United States left so uninformed that he said 3 days 

later, ‘‘I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.’’ 

At this point, we cannot answer that critical question because 

the White House has produced just a very small portion of the documents we requested. In addition, they have opposed efforts to 

interview White House personnel and they have hindered our ability to obtain information from other Federal agencies regarding 

White House actions in response to Katrina. I have been told by 

my staff that almost every question that has been asked Federal 

agency witnesses regarding conversations with or involvement of 

the White House has been met with a response that they could not 

answer on direction of the White House. There has been no assertion of executive privilege; just a refusal to answer questions. 

Indeed, as recently as yesterday in his staff interview, that is, 

interview with our staff, former FEMA Director Michael Brown’s 

agency lawyers advised him not to say whether he spoke to the 

President or the Vice President or comment on the substance of 

conversations he had with any other high-level White House officials. This assertion of a kind of virtual immunity of the White 

House from this inquiry has obviously frustrated our Committee’s 

ability to learn and tell the full story of Katrina. In my opinion, it 

is unacceptable. 

While some agencies like FEMA, and I want to stress this, have 

been very cooperative, other executive agencies, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human 

6

Services, have essentially ignored our document and information 

requests for months and to this day have produced much less than 

half the information we asked for. HHS has produced not a single 

requested witness for an interview, and the Department of Homeland Security, which is at the center of our investigation because 

it has overall responsibility for national disaster preparedness and 

response, including in Katrina, has produced too little, too late. Repeated requests for critical witnesses and documents have been ignored or delayed. 

My staff on this investigation believes that the Department of 

Homeland Security has engaged in a strategy of slow walking our 

investigation in the hope that we would run out of time to follow 

the investigation’s natural progression to where it leads. I hope 

they are wrong, but at this time, I cannot disagree. 

Madam Chairman, I do want to thank you publicly for your continuing efforts to elicit more cooperation from the Administration. 

I hope the Committee will continue to pursue all these unanswered 

questions asked of the Executive Branch until we have the information we need to answer the questions that must be answered. 

In the meantime, because hurricane season begins again in June 

and the threat of terrorist attacks persists, and because our staffs 

together, notwithstanding the difficulties I have described, have 

done some excellent investigative work, these hearings are ready to 

go forward and must go forward and the Committee’s report must 

be written as soon as possible to help American Government be 

better prepared to protect America’s people from disasters that history tells us will come, disasters that are natural or unnatural. 

In that spirit and with thanks to you, I look forward to today’s 

witnesses and those that follow in the 3 weeks ahead. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Our four witnesses today represent State, 

local, and Federal Government, as well as the private sector entities most involved in the development of the Hurricane Pam exercise. Wayne Fairley is the Response Branch Chief for FEMA in Region VI, I believe it is. As such, he oversees regional operations, logistics, and planning. He has served with FEMA for 24 years. Before that, he served in the Louisiana State Government. He was involved in discussions of a federally -funded catastrophic plan for 

Southeastern Louisiana since 1999 and was involved in designing, 

planning, and the exercising of Hurricane Pam as a member of the 

steering committee. 

Sean Fontenot was in charge of the planning at the Louisiana 

Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in the 

late 1990s when the concept of a federally unded exercise to plan 

for a catastrophic hurricane was first discussed. In May 2005, he 

joined the Innovative Emergency Management Company as an 

emergency planner. 

Jesse St. Amant is the Director of the Plaquemines Parish Office 

of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. He is also the 

President of the Southeastern Louisiana Hurricane Task Force. He 

participated in the Hurricane Pam exercises and the follow-up 

meetings in 2005. 

Madhu Beriwal is President and CEO of Innovative Emergency 

Management, Incorporated. IEM is a Baton Rouge-based research 

company that works with emergency managers in the public and 

7

1The prepared statement of Mr. Fairley appears in the Appendix on page 41. 

private sectors to develop and improve their emergency preparation 

and response capabilities. IEM led a team of three firms that developed the Hurricane Pam scenario under contract with FEMA. 

I want to welcome all of you to the Committee today. We very 

much appreciate the cooperation you have already given us, and we 

will begin with Mr. Fairley. 

TESTIMONY OF WAYNE FAIRLEY,1 CHIEF, RESPONSE OPERATIONS BRANCH, RESPONSE AND RECOVERY DIVISION, 

REGION VI, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ADMINISTRATION, DENTON, TEXAS 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Good morning, Madam Chairman and Members of 

the Committee. I am honored to appear before you today to discuss 

this subject and to further any discussions I have had with your 

various staff over the past week and to answer any questions you 

may have. 

To start off with, I believe it is best to provide a little historical 

background on the Hurricane Pam exercise. As I recall FEMA’s 

goal based on the 2003 Catastrophic Initiative was to identify areas 

of the country that could be vulnerable to catastrophic disasters 

and in cooperation with the relevant State and local governments 

to examine projected damages and effects associated with catastrophic disasters, confirm current disaster response capabilities, 

identify anticipated response shortfalls, and to initiate comprehensive planning strategies to address these shortfalls. Products developed under the Catastrophic Planning Initiative were envisioned to 

include incident-specific response plans for pre-selected geographic 

regions and disasters, planning templates that could be applied to 

other areas, and new response contingencies. 

In late March 2004, FEMA headquarters notified FEMA Region 

VI that the State of Louisiana had been funded for a catastrophic 

hurricane plan. Thirteen Southeastern Louisiana parishes, including the City of New Orleans, were selected as the initial geographic 

focus for FEMA’s Catastrophic Planning Initiative because of their 

vulnerability to hurricane disasters. This resulted in the Southeast 

Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Planning Project. The initial 

concept was to have a draft plan by the end of July 2004. 

The Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Planning 

Project was designed to bring together responders and decisionmakers from all levels of government and the American Red Cross 

to begin analyzing and addressing the overwhelming operational 

complexities that would be involved in responding to a catastrophic 

hurricane striking Southeast Louisiana. Accepting the fact that 

only limited funding and time were available, topic-specific planning workshops using a catastrophic hurricane scenario called Hurricane Pam to frame these discussions were selected as the best approach for identifying and qualifying the scale of requirements 

needed to build a plan for responding to a catastrophic hurricane. 

The results were intended to reveal to the Louisiana Office of 

Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and FEMA the 

shortfalls in existing plans and to begin developing additional plans 

for catastrophic hurricane response. 

8

Existing plans, strategies, policies, and capabilities were reviewed by LOHSEP before the first workshop. As preplanning for 

the first workshop conducted in July 2004, the Louisiana Office of 

Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and Federal representatives identified a list of planning topics based on those provided by the State of Louisiana as the most urgent or complex topics needing discussion, to include hurricane pre-landfall issues, 

search and rescue, temporary medical care, sheltering, temporary 

housing, schools, and debris. 

During the first workshop, participants were presented with a 

catastrophic hypothetical Hurricane Pam disaster scenario to frame 

discussions and then divided into breakout groups by responsibilities and topic for detailed discussions. The breakout groups identified operational concerns in each of the topical areas, addressed 

issues, and drafted plans for dealing with the identified concerns. 

To address other urgent subtopics that emerged during the discussions, additional breakout groups were established. The following 

additional subtopics were discussed: Access control and reentry; 

billeting of Federal response workers; distribution of ice, water, and 

power; donations management; external affairs; hazardous materials; transition from rescue to temporary housing; and unwatering 

of levee enclosed areas. 

It became clear after the first workshop that a series of workshop 

cycles would be needed to address the full range of complex response and recovery concerns associated with this type of catastrophic event. Additional workshops were held in November 2004, 

July 2005, and August 2005 to provide further input for topics. 

Topics selected for further discussion during the subsequent workshops included the following. In November, sheltering, temporary 

housing, and temporary medical care. In July, transportation, staging, and distribution of critical resources and temporary housing. 

And in August, temporary medical care. 

The goal of the Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane 

Planning Project was to begin addressing immediate, intermediate, 

and long-term needs; create plans immediately usable by planners 

and responders in the field; and to seed the eventual development 

of a comprehensive and systematic operational plan The ultimate 

goal is for the concepts identified in the Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Planning Project to be integrated into a final 

catastrophic plan. The project did not result in a catastrophic planning document per se, but rather a framework for developing such 

a plan. 

My participation in the process included working with the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness 

counterpart as a member of the steering committee. That involved 

project management, workshop design and participation, budgeting, and headquarters and contractor interface. At the workshops, this included monitoring the workshop sessions; providing 

FEMA law, regulation, and policy information; dispute resolution; 

and overall directional guidance in meeting our workshop objectives. 

Participation included the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security 

and Emergency Preparedness, State emergency support functions, 

local emergency management staff from the 13 Southeast LouVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:06 Dec 01, 2006 Jkt 026749 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\26749.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
9

isiana parishes, FEMA Region VI, FEMA headquarters, FEMA 

emergency support functions, other Federal agencies as requested, 

and private industry partners. 

Areas of responsibility were assigned in the workshops according 

to existing State and Federal laws, regulations, policies, procedures, and plans. No planning effort was made to recreate or modify any existing authority. Directed or institutional agency authority on any given subject area was only reviewed and used as guidance by the planning session participants. However, participants 

were able to comment and provide opinions on existing State and 

Federal laws, regulations, policies, procedures, and plans and the 

possible need for future changes. Two such State plans included 

the Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation Plan and the Louisiana Sheltering Plan. 

These planning sessions laid the groundwork for future detailed 

subject plans. They identified the primary areas of concern by the 

local, State, and Federal agencies and began the process of identifying who would address these areas and how they would be addressed. These sessions brought together persons responsible for 

the implementation of emergency management from all levels of 

government and helped lay a groundwork of cooperation that had 

never existed before. 

Future intentions were to include continued subject-specific sessions. Some topics were to be expanded. Some topics would be 

added. Some topics would only be maintained with updated data. 

It was our hope that the plan would not end or become stagnant 

but would continue to be a fresh and growing plan that included 

new data and innovative ideas. It was also hoped that the newformed working spirit between local, State, Federal, and private industry would continue to grow and lead to a concept of ‘‘ours’’ 

versus yours or mine. 

Although the catastrophic planning process has been interrupted 

by the impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the workshops and 

planning process—knowledge of inter-jurisdictional relationships 

and capabilities, identification of issues, and rudimentary concepts 

for handling the consequences—have been quite beneficial to all involved in the hurricane response. 

I know that this Committee and others are concerned about what 

occurred as a result of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, and I want 

to assure this Committee that all of my fellow employees at FEMA 

are also concerned. I want to assist this Committee in any way I 

can in ensuring that what occurred never happens again. I want 

to thank the Members of this Committee for their past support of 

FEMA and appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Fairley. Mr. Fontenot. 

10

1The prepared statement of Mr. Fontenot appears in the Appendix on page 47. 

TESTIMONY OF SEAN R. FONTENOT,1 FORMER CHIEF, PLANNING DIVISION, FORMER CHIEF, PREPAREDNESS DIVISION, 

LOUISIANA OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA 

Mr. FONTENOT. Thank you. I would like to thank the Committee 

for inviting me today to speak on the events of the planning exercise known as Hurricane Pam as part of the Southeast Louisiana 

Catastrophic Planning Project. With this event, we began the process of trying to fully understand and prepare for the effects of a 

catastrophic hurricane hitting Southeast Louisiana. These remarks 

are a synopsis of the prepared testimony I have already submitted 

to the Committee. 

In 1998, the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness, now 

known as the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, realized after Hurricane Georges that more 

planning was needed for post-landfall consequences after a major 

hurricane. A working group was convened consisting of Federal, 

State, and local participants to brainstorm the issues that Louisiana would be facing if a Category 3 or higher storm ever hit 

Southeast Louisiana. This work and a later meeting held in New 

Orleans in 1999 led to the development of a white paper, which 

outlined the planning proposal that was submitted to FEMA in August 2000 and then again in August 2001, asking for FEMA’s help 

in planning and preparing for a catastrophic hurricane that could 

hit Southeast Louisiana. 

In August 2001, FEMA headquarters awarded a contract to URS 

Corporation for catastrophic planning support. However, due to the 

events of September 11, 2001, there were many delays. In December 2001, a kickoff organizational meeting was held in New Orleans with FEMA headquarters, FEMA Region VI, and LOEP to organize this planning process. In January 2002, FEMA headquarters informed the State and Region VI that there would be no 

further funding for this project due to budget shortfalls. Following 

Hurricane Lili, the process was revived again for a short period in 

December 2002, but it also ended unsuccessfully. 

In September 2003, there was a conference call with FEMA Region VI and FEMA headquarters to discuss the catastrophic planning. This led to a meeting on November 18, 2003, in New Orleans 

on this subject. Attending this meeting was a representative from 

the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. At this meeting, LOHSEP and FEMA Region VI briefed the need for catastrophic planning, and he was astonished that as of that date, we 

had not completed this type of plan and promised to do what he 

could to help us get further funding for the planning process. 

This brings us to the Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Planning 

Project. On March 17, 2004, FEMA headquarters called FEMA Region VI and the State of Louisiana and informed us that there was 

funding for catastrophic planning. The very next day, LOHSEP and 

FEMA Region VI organized the Unified Command and steering 

committee. Later, a representative from FEMA headquarters was 

also added to the steering committee, as well. The concept was presented and approved by the Unified Command. 

11

On April 7, 2004, another meeting was held during the National 

Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Florida, to discuss the concepts 

with representatives from FEMA headquarters and to request that 

FEMA find a contractor to support this planning process. 

On May 19, 2004, I was at FEMA Region VI working on the details of the proposed exercise. We were informed by FEMA headquarters that they intended to award the contract to IEM to support this planning project. 

From the word ‘‘go,’’ it was understood that this was not a typical 

exercise. In fact, when the concept was first given to me that we 

were going to have an exercise to develop a plan, I immediately disagreed. Usually, you write a plan and then have an exercise. However, when it was explained to me that we were going to take an 

exercise scenario which generated real consequences and real data 

and bring operational level people in so they could make decisions 

using the real data and consequences which could then drive the 

writing of a plan, I quickly got on board. I championed the fact that 

we were using operational people to write this plan because there 

are too many times a plan is written without taking the operational aspects into account and this leads to non-usable plans. 

We initially met the contractor, IEM, at FEMA Region VI on 

May 20. At this meeting, we presented the exercise concept to IEM, 

and I pointed out, and FEMA Region VI agreed, that we had to 

work as a team and stick to our game plan to get this event accomplished in the time period available. We only had 53 days to put 

together something that would normally take 6 months to a year, 

and we couldn’t push it back any further because August and September are the hot months for hurricanes in the Gulf. 

We tried to involve local emergency managers as much as we 

could. For instance, when IEM developed a set of consequence estimates, the planning committee would meet with and poll local 

emergency managers to include them in the planning process from 

the beginning. 

The Hurricane Pam exercise ran from July 16 to 23. On a typical 

day, the main exercise had six breakout rooms which had the same 

assigned topics for the entire week. Then we had three action 

rooms which were assigned topics on a day-to-day basis. Each day, 

the breakout rooms were responsible for writing a certain portion 

of the action plan based on the template that we had agreed upon 

with FEMA Region VI and LOHSEP prior to the event. The contractor had a facilitator and a recorder in every room to make sure 

that the room completed its task for the day. Also assigned to each 

room was a Federal and State lead who was responsible for briefing the Unified Command on a day-to-day basis. This process 

lasted for 5 days. 

FEMA Region VI and LOHSEP expected that the action rooms 

would only produce the beginnings or the framework of a plan that 

would have to be fleshed out later. The breakout rooms were expected to produce more of a complete plan. However, we also knew 

that the breakout rooms would not develop a 100 percent answer. 

Since this was not a standard exercise, there was no formal evaluation process. As I mentioned previously, this is an exercise designed to develop a plan, not test a plan. In my opinion, the exercise was very successful, not because it developed the perfect plans, 

12

but because it brought operational-level players to the table to 

begin the planning process. We never expected to come up with a 

100 percent solution. It was always felt that if we had a 70 percent 

start, that we would be successful. 

The scenario-based planning exercise, in my opinion, has produced the foundation of a very successful plan. However, due to the 

funding and time constraints, we had to be very selective about the 

topics covered during the main exercise and during the follow-on 

exercises. 

The planning committee developed a scenario to show that it did 

not take a Category 4 or 5 hurricane to cause catastrophic damages 

in Southeast Louisiana. The National Weather Service Southern 

Region helped in the development of the weather scenario for Hurricane Pam. I wanted a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane that 

overtopped the levees of New Orleans, and the National Weather 

Service, working with the other NOAA partners, came up with the 

exact track and characteristics of the storm. The overtopping of the 

levees was included to cause the catastrophic flooding conditions 

from the storm surge. 

The contractor was responsible for development of the consequences based on the storm scenario that the National Weather 

Service developed. All consequences were reviewed by the planning 

committee and the Unified Command. In addition, certain consequences were reviewed by the parish emergency management officials. This was to ensure the believability of the consequences and 

to get buy-in from the local emergency management officials. We 

knew that if the consequences weren’t believable, then the focus of 

the players during the exercise would be on disputing the consequence numbers and not on developing the plans. 

One of the primary things LOHSEP recognized at the conclusion 

of the exercise was that we needed to update our State Emergency 

Operations Plan to reflect the Federal Response Plan, now known 

as the National Response Plan. Essentially, we changed our State 

plan from a functional format to the Emergency Support Function, 

ESF, format, including the 15 ESFs associated with the National 

Response Plan. In this process of updating the plan, all function 

areas with the exception of one remained with the existing State 

agency that had been responsible for the function prior to the plan 

update, with the exception of the ESF–1 transportation, which was 

moved from the National Guard to the Louisiana Department of 

Transportation and Development. The final result of the plan update was that we had equivalent agencies at the State level talking 

to their Federal counterparts. 

Initially, LOHSEP proposed to FEMA that we have a second 

major planning event like the Hurricane Pam exercise to focus on 

some of the areas that we did not get covered during the first exercise. It became clear after the first follow-on workshop that there 

would not be another large exercise due to funding. Therefore, 

FEMA Region VI and LOHSEP decided to use the second followon workshop to focus primarily on transportation, staging, and distribution of critical resources because it affected all the other plans 

in one way or another. Although I came to work for the Hurricane 

Pam exercise contractor, IEM, I recused myself from the Hurricane 

Pam follow-on activities due to my previous State responsibilities 

13

1The prepared statement of Mr. St. Amant appears in the Appendix on page 56. 

in line with counsel I received from the Louisiana State Ethics 

Board. 

In spite of the funding, scheduling, and policy changes we faced 

with the Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Planning Project, I felt 

that we had started down the right path. We still had a way to go, 

but we were heading in the right direction. It is my opinion that 

the scenario-based planning activities like Hurricane Pam are the 

way to go when trying to formulate plans to deal with catastrophic 

events. The realism that is brought to the table during these events 

really makes the planning feel more urgent. 

I would like to thank the Committee once again for hearing my 

testimony. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. St. Amant. 

TESTIMONY OF JESSE ST. AMANT,1 DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, 

PLAQUEMINES PARISH, LOUISIANA 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Good morning, Madam Chairman. Thank you for 

having me here today. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to 

speak before you and this group. Certainly, I would really like to 

thank you, as well, and your staff. They have really done a terrific 

job. 

When I look at my notes and my statement I wanted to make, 

you two have covered it. I pray that someone is listening. The 

voices in the wind for too long have been out there. Time and 

again, we have expected and hoped that someone would hear our 

plea. 

Mr. Fontenot just described to you something that I have here, 

a stack of documents going back, just these, from 1993 to current, 

and there are a lot more, telling of the horror stories that you have 

seen, and I really appreciate the fact that you have seen it because 

it is beyond description of what we are dealing with. So let me encourage you and the people in this great hall of justice that we are 

in, don’t forget us. This is just the beginning. The horror story is 

not what has happened, it is what is still happening and continues 

to happen. I am going to get to that later. 

Let me reassure and reaffirm some of the things that you have 

made known. Fair warning—Mother Nature has given us fair 

warning, and we have tried, as Sean said, to echo that. I remember 

telling, as the President of the Southeast Hurricane Task Force, 

stating this. If there is any significant loss of life, I would be the 

first to volunteer before any Congressional hearings, as I figured 

there would be some, because the fatality count could have been 

100,000, not under 1,200. So for me, the Hurricane Pam exercise 

was really a success story because some of the lessons gleaned from 

that were some of the issues that we took back to our local jurisdictions to assist us in evacuation. Some of the things that we took 

back, we couldn’t do alone, which is the reason I stated I would be 

glad to testify before anybody because we needed the continuing 

support to have a Pam exercise, and my group of directors representing Southeast Louisiana and some 15 jurisdictions had to 

14

beat on the desk a little bit to make sure that it would be funded 

because someone didn’t think that it was important. 

Well, in any case, we got it done, but Mother Nature has a sick 

sense of humor. She showed to us that I will hit you before you are 

ready. I hear this diatribe about 50-foot levees or what they call 

Category 5 levees that are being planned or being cried for and 

being asked for. My experience in emergency management tells me 

this. You build a 20-foot levee, Mother Nature will give you a 25-

foot storm surge. The maximum envelopes of water, the loss of the 

wetlands, we can blame everything and his brother for what has 

happened, but the fact of the matter is, due to the soil subsidence, 

due to the loss of our wetlands, we knew in this business that this 

was coming. We tried to say the words, this is coming, time and 

again. 

One of the documents I wanted to show you today was this one, 

dated 1994. It gives you the exact scenario of the worst case scenario that could happen. It was never a case of if, it was a case 

of when. This document from the Government Accounting Office 

tells you what is going to happen. 

But the fact of the matter is that due to the Pam exercise, we 

really got a little bit better about getting some people out of harm’s 

way. I would hate to think what would have happened had it not 

been. Maybe the fatality counts, as I said, would have been greater. 

Dr. Bob Sheets, former Director of the National Hurricane Center, gave this warning. I also happen to have this on video. New 

Orleans is the worst case scenario in the continental United States, 

surrounded by water, at or below sea level, 1.6 million people, with 

lack of infrastructure to evacuate in a timely manner. I submit to 

you that is not my only concern for hurricanes, something that we 

may have 2 or 3 days to see and to prepare for and respond to or 

evacuate from. My concern is what happens if we have some other 

type of event that doesn’t have that much notice, maybe a chemical 

spill that we may have to evacuate people in the short term. 

These are the considerations, and let me say one other thing further. Let us suppose Miami, Houston, Washington, DC. We are 

talking about the Hurricane Pam exercise that was supposed to 

raise the awareness level of a major catastrophic event happening 

in any major city, not just New Orleans. 

Folks, we were lucky. There are some things that I am going to 

recommend, some of which is, if it is not broken, don’t fix it. My 

fellow directors from the State of Louisiana have always said, 

FEMA used to be a good organization, but somebody decided we 

were going to put it under Homeland Security, for whatever reason. 

Personally, I feel that the Federal Coordinating Officer, and the 

Defense Coordinating Officer, the State Coordinating Officer, working together, can resolve most of the problems. I remember some 

of our response that we did for the Andrew situation—I had been 

there a few years—and I thought they were very good because you 

had the right people, the communications, and the coordination. 

But the fact of the matter is, when you build top-down approach, 

you have got people in cubicles at the top giving directives to very 

few at the bottom. Nothing happens. If you get people who don’t 

listen to the warnings that we are trying to say and they go 

unheeded, then nothing happens. 

15

1The prepared statement of Ms. Beriwal appears in the Appendix on page 58. 

So I believe in us being more proactive than reactive. I believe 

in us doing what needs to be done, and if you want to find out, ask 

the people who were involved. I think this is why I admire your 

tenacity in searching and seeking the people who should know 

what this is all about. 

Let me assure you of one thing. We will recover and this will 

happen again. Will we be prepared? I submit we need to lead, follow, or get out of the way, and I submit that for a simple reason. 

The loss of life this time was just a wake-up call. As sad and tragic 

as it is, this was not a direct hit. This was a glancing blow. If the 

eye wall of the hurricane had been 12 miles further west, I would 

not be here giving this testimony and a lot of other people wouldn’t 

be on the face of the earth. The fact of the matter is, this glancing 

blow did cause some overtopping and some levee failures, but the 

City of New Orleans would look like the lower part of Plaquemines 

Parish, where nothing would exist, had it crossed over the City of 

New Orleans. 

The gallant response, the efforts that were made were hindered 

by the lack of communication, the lack of coordination and damage 

assessment. No one ever anticipated that 100 percent of the communications that we had—if you can’t communicate what your 

problems are, if you can’t reach out, then your response is hindered. I had people 3 weeks after the storm that were amazed to 

find out that I was still alive because I couldn’t communicate. 

When we finally had satellite phones delivered to us by the State, 

they were of no use because they wouldn’t work. 

I think the President has acknowledged that communications 

interoperability has got to be the most important essence of our response and recovery and preparation. I happen to agree with that. 

When you don’t have anything, and two tin cans and a string 

doesn’t cut it and carrier pigeons, as the former director used to 

say, don’t want to fly in bad weather. It is tough to cry, I need 

help, when no one hears you. 

Again, I want to wish you luck and continuance on your endeavor to try to reach a conclusion, and I just hope someone will listen 

to what is being said here. This is an opportunity to go forward and 

to make sure that the next time it happens, as it will, we will be 

better prepared. I thank you for this opportunity. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Ms. Beriwal. 

TESTIMONY OF MADHU BERIWAL,1 PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, INNOVATIVE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, INC., BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA 

Ms. BERIWAL. Madam Chairman, Senator Lieberman, Members 

of the Committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify in front of you on catastrophic planning for Southeast Louisiana, called Hurricane Pam. 

A lot of the points that I was going to make, the previous witnesses have already mentioned those, so I won’t belabor you with 

those issues. I want to start by making, first of all, a distinction 

between what Hurricane Pam was and was not. There has been a 

16

lot of confusion and chaos about what Hurricane Pam was and 

wasn’t. 

First of all, if you go back to traditional emergency planning, in 

traditional emergency management, you have essentially a quality 

cycle that starts with planning. You prepare a plan. Those plans 

are generally prepared by either one person or a small committee 

of five or six people. It takes 6 to 12 months to prepare a plan. And 

then you take that training, and all of the people with primary responsibility for execution of the plan go through a training cycle. 

That might take another 12 months or so to do. And then you have 

an exercise. Planning for the exercise generally takes 6 to 12 

months to execute. You have an exercise for a few days, and then 

your report might come out as soon as 2 or 3 months after the exercise or sometimes as long as a year after the exercise. This whole 

quality cycle takes somewhere between 21⁄2 and 41⁄2 years, depending on the complexity of the topic and the complexity of the region 

that is involved. 

This is not what Hurricane Pam was. Even though Pam was 

called an exercise, it was not a traditional exercise in the sense 

that there was a plan in place and that we were going to exercise 

the plan. I don’t mean to imply that there were no plans in place. 

The 13 Southeast Louisiana parishes that participated in Hurricane Pam all had emergency operations plans. Several of them had 

hurricane plans. The State of Louisiana had plans. There were 20 

State agencies involved. Many of them had emergency operations 

plans in place. And, of course, the National Government had the 

Federal Response Plan when we started and the National Response 

Plan further on into the process. So everybody had legally constituted plans. 

The effort for Hurricane Pam was to create a bridging document 

between all of these local plans, the State plans, and the National 

Response Plan. This is a term that was used widely during Hurricane Pam in the many workshops we conducted, is to create a 

bridging document that will be addressing just catastrophic events. 

Most plans deal with a gamut of hazards, everything from chemical spills, radiological events, hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. 

The intent of Hurricane Pam was to create a plan for a catastrophic event, a specific event. As some of the previous witnesses 

have testified, the intent was to create a sense of reality. When we 

were working with this project, we were trying to describe a worst 

case but plausible event. That is the slogan that we had. It has to 

be plausible because it was very important that the exercise not degenerate into questioning the data on the basis of which of the 

plans would be developed. 

We started on May 24, 2004, when we were awarded the contract. Actually, we had verbal notice to proceed from FEMA earlier 

than that, and we met with the FEMA Region VI and LOHSEP in 

Denton, Texas, to plan out this exercise. We had 53 days to put an 

event together of considerable complexity and magnitude. We understood that, but we were dedicated to making the Hurricane Pam 

workshop a success. 

It was an 8-day exercise, and in the 53 days prior to the event, 

we cascaded from the slow-moving Category 3 storm that you, 

Madam Chairman, mentioned and that was briefed by the National 

17

Weather Service. We took the data from the National Weather 

Service and their slosh model and predicted a series of consequences. I would like to tell you some of these consequences and 

compare them to Katrina. I know that there has been a lot of discussion about how similar these consequences were. 

We added 20 inches of rain into Hurricane Pam prior to the 

event to create catastrophic conditions both from storm surge and 

from rain. As you might know, nine of 10 deaths that occur in hurricanes are due to storm surge and due to drowning from rain and 

storm surge. So we wanted to create 10 to 20 feet of water in the 

City of New Orleans, which would constitute a catastrophic scenario for Southeast Louisiana. 

We overtopped the levees. We did not breach them. We also 

looked at the Louisiana offshore oil port, and as you know, Senators, the significance of that oil port is that it handles 12 percent 

of the crude oil of the United States, and that LOOP port would 

close prior to the storm and would come back 2 or 3 days after the 

storm. 

To give you comparable data for these consequences, in Hurricane Katrina, there was actually 18 inches of rain. The levees were 

overtopped as well as breached in places. Louisiana Offshore Oil 

Port (LOOP) did close for 5 days before and after the storm. 

We predicted that nine refineries would shut down during the 

storm. Actually, seven refineries shut down. We predicted that 57 

chemical plants would be flooded and shut down. Over 50 plants 

were flooded and shut down. 

We predicted that 1.1 million people would be made homeless 

from the storm. The actual number is about 1 million. 

We expected that Leeville Bridge on Louisiana Highway 1 to the 

west of the city would collapse, since we had the track of the hurricane on the west of the city putting the northeast quadrant, which 

is the most damaging part of the storm, directly over the City of 

New Orleans. In fact, the New Orleans Twin Span bridge collapsed 

to the east of the city since the storm track of Katrina was to the 

east. 

We expected that 786,359 people would lose electricity at the initial impact; 881,400 people actually lost electricity after impact. 

We predicted that there would be 12.5 million tons of debris that 

would be generated. The estimates right now are that there are 22 

million tons of debris, 12 million tons just in the City of New Orleans itself. 

We predicted that there would be extensive coastal marsh erosion. The initial indications are that Louisiana lost a year’s worth 

of coastal marsh erosion in the one day of Katrina’s impact. Just 

so that you understand what the significance of that is, in the 33 

minutes since the start of this briefing, an area the size of the 

greater Washington, DC, area disappeared in Louisiana, and it is 

continuing to disappear at the rate of 25 square miles a year. 

We also said the sewage treatment facilities would not work in 

the metropolitan area, which is exactly what happened in Katrina 

since they are powered and the power would be lost. 

We expected that 233,986 buildings would collapse and 250,000 

homes are considered to be destroyed from Katrina. 

18

We expected that 15 percent of the 13 parish hospital supply 

would be affected and some of it would be completely destroyed. At 

present, there is no medical system available in the City of New 

Orleans for those that are not insured. 

We expected that there would be $40 billion in damages to commercial and residential structures in Louisiana, and the Insurance 

Institute has estimated that the damage to commercial and residential structures is between $20 and $65 billion. 

We expected that there would be 61,290 deaths. Fortunately, we 

were wide off the mark on that one. At present, we have 1,100 people known to have died in Louisiana. Another 3,000 to 4,000 are 

still missing and not presumed dead as yet. 

I would like to move away from the consequences, but just in 

closing on that particular topic mention that developing these consequences was very important. We wanted to create a sense of urgency. We wanted to create a sense of realism in the exercise which 

generally does not inform a planning process when you are dealing 

with emergency planning. Because we are all mortal beings, we 

don’t like to look at the face of death and disaster, and most planning tends to look at the event that you can manage, not the 

events that you can’t manage. The Hurricane Pam exercise was designed with detailed consequences down to the parish level for each 

of these data elements. We actually had data on how many people 

would be affected by parish so that each of the individual parishes 

and the State and FEMA would have tactile information at their 

fingertips that they could use in planning. 

How much of that got used? I know there has been a lot of confusion on this topic, too. It seems from some of the reports that Hurricane Pam did not have any effect. I would beg to differ. We did 

have a lot of effect, and I will further on talk a little bit about what 

I think we could have done better. 

Talking about the things that got used in Katrina, first of all is 

the response rate. In Hurricane Pam, we projected that 36 percent 

of the 1.9 million people, that is 1.7 million residents of Louisiana 

and 200,000 tourists, would actually evacuate. That is 36 percent 

of 1.9 million people. That would have left a considerable number 

of people in the 13-parish area. Why did we project such a low 

number? Because history has indicated from Hurricane Georges in 

1998, Hurricane Ivan in 2004, as well as prior storms, that not 

enough people leave in the face of a storm. 

In Hurricane Katrina, now I am going to give you information 

that is not scientifically validated as yet, but at least indications 

are that 80 to 90 percent of the people in the 13-parish area left 

that region. That is equivalent to ringing the bell in emergency 

management in terms of evacuation for a large metropolitan region. It has not occurred before. The most validated information on 

prior storms where there has been a high rate of evacuation was 

Hurricane Hugo, where 81 percent of the people evacuated in the 

face of that storm. 

I think most of the credit for that goes to the National Weather 

Service, Dr. Mayfield at the National Hurricane Center, and the 

media for publicizing the impending storm. But I think that we can 

take a small measure of comfort in the fact that some of the actions 

of the State, Federal, and local officials were motivated by the high 

19

casualty count of Hurricane Pam and the consequences projected in 

this particular planning exercise. 

We also developed a search and rescue process called the lily-pad 

operation where people would essentially be plucked from the flooded areas, brought to the land-water interface, and from there they 

would be taken by another set of people to the shelters or to medical facilities where they would be treated or taken care of. And 

when I say ‘‘we,’’ I mean the participants of Hurricane Pam and 

IEM. We did not see a division between the company and the customers that we serve. So this was brought up by the participants. 

They developed this concept. You saw that on CNN and FOX News 

during Hurricane Katrina operating to save lives. 

In the data that they are gathering right now post-Hurricane 

Katrina to compare Hurricane Pam and Hurricane Katrina consequences, we think that somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 

people went through the search and rescue method where they 

were rescued from rooftops and from flooded buildings and brought 

using the lily-pad method. 

Another issue that I wanted to mention is the TMOSA, which is 

the Temporary Medical Operations Staging Area. Those were effectively used in Katrina. We had predicted that there would be three 

needed. Three of them were operational, two real ones at LSU and 

Nicholls and then the other one was actually the New Orleans Airport, which effectively became a TMOSA. 

Let me close quickly and mention to you a few things that I 

think need to be done better. I have worked in emergency management and homeland security for 26 years now, and I think that we 

really need to look very carefully at how we do emergency management and homeland security. We are spending about $1 million a 

minute in homeland security and emergency management in this 

country. I think we need to demand better results. 

The first thing that I would mention is that we need to have an 

outcome-based emergency management homeland security process, 

something where elected officials can say, this is what I expect the 

outcome to be, and then emergency management and homeland security are tasked with delivering those outcomes. This is no different from the Government Performance and Results Act or the 

President’s Management Agenda, which has been mentioned in the 

last several administrations. We need to apply the lessons of that 

management philosophy to emergency management. 

Second, I think that we need in emergency management a way 

to measure protection. We came up with a lot of innovations in 

Hurricane Pam. A number of them were used at a non-scientific 

count, but about 75 percent of those things got used in Katrina, yet 

the results were deemed unacceptable by the President, by the 

media, and by the American public. We need a way to calculate 

protection. I would not want to run my company without knowing 

what the profit and loss statement was. How can we run emergency management without knowing what level of protection we 

are providing? 

The third thing, we need a reliable and mature emergency management process, one that creates a professional discipline out of 

this field. 

20

And fourth, we need a way to do sustainable development in our 

community so that we do not have problems like coastal erosion 

and other such factors that affect the vulnerability of the region to 

natural as well as unnatural disasters. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. Fairley, I would like to start my questioning with you. Committee investigators were told by a former colleague of yours, Mark 

Wallace, who also worked on designing Hurricane Pam, that the 

effectiveness of the project was greatly diminished by the poor attendance of key decisionmakers, and I would contrast that to an 

exercise that Senator Lieberman and I observed last year called the 

TOPOFF exercise where the Governors of New Jersey and Connecticut and the Secretary of Homeland Security were directly involved in a scenario simulating a terrorist attack. 

Mr. Wallace told the Committee that had the Director of FEMA, 

the Governor of Louisiana, and the Mayor of New Orleans participated in the scenario, that binding agreements could have been 

reached, that there would have been a better understanding of the 

responsibilities of the entities and the plans they were to follow. 

Were efforts made to bring the high-level key decisionmakers like 

the FEMA Director, the Governor, and the Mayor into this process? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. I can only speak from the FEMA perspective. I will 

then let my colleagues answer for the State and local. When we put 

the, what we call the leadership committee or leadership group together, we extended an invitation for FEMA headquarters involvement. Naturally, we requested the highest level that we could get. 

I am not aware of what decisions were made as to who would attend. We did receive people from headquarters who were in lines 

that could make decisions and could make recommendations. 

I would never argue with anyone, the higher the person you have 

at your meeting, the less meetings you would probably need to 

have or the more decisions you could have made on the spot, but 

we felt comfortable with the leadership that came. I think, naturally, you would always like to have more, but we felt comfortable 

that the people there could relay back what they found, what they 

saw, and assist us in getting decisions made. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Fontenot, in your testimony, you discussed talking about the need to improve planning in Louisiana 

way back in 1998. And during the next nearly 6 years, until the 

Hurricane Pam exercise was actually funded and took place, there 

was a lot of communication back and forth between the State and 

FEMA, and I have looked at the documents which present a very 

compelling case for the need for this kind of catastrophic planning. 

Could you give the Committee a better understanding of what 

happened during that 6-year period? Why did it take so long from 

when you first identified a very real and compelling need and the 

time that the exercise was actually held? 

Mr. FONTENOT. First, I think that it is important to recognize 

and important to state that we weren’t just sitting on our hands 

in that 6 years. I mean, we were actually doing planning on our 

own and with the local governments and with our State counterparts, trying to figure out some of the aspects that we knew that 

we could handle on our own. 

21

Second, I think that in my written testimony, and in my verbal 

testimony earlier, I talked about the different conference calls we 

had and the different meetings we had and some of the conversations that we had with FEMA, FEMA Region VI, and FEMA headquarters. It also needs to be pointed out that FEMA Region VI was 

always a very willing participant in anytime we went to FEMA 

headquarters to request funding for these exercises to take place 

and this planning event to take place. 

I know that on several occasions, my former Assistant Director 

of Emergency Preparedness came to Washington and met with Director James Lee Witt and then Mr. Allbaugh, requesting that we 

do this planning event. I know that the gentleman that had the position of Chief of Plans before I did, or Chief of Planning, Training, 

and Exercises, before I took over for him, I know that he spoke to 

Mr. Allbaugh about this planning cycle and the importance of it. 

I know that a lot of things that went on, I wasn’t always at every 

meeting that was conducted and discussions of this, so I really 

can’t answer what took so long other than we pushed as much as 

we could and pushed as much as we thought that we had the capital to push without really upsetting people for pushing too hard. 

Chairman COLLINS. Let me talk to you about the question that 

I asked Mr. Fairley. Do you think Hurricane Pam’s effectiveness 

would have been improved if the Director of FEMA, the Governor 

of Louisiana, and the Mayor of New Orleans had directly participated in some of the simulation? 

Mr. FONTENOT. Well, I think Wayne answered quite adequately 

about the Director of FEMA, so I will concentrate on the Mayor of 

New Orleans and the Governor. I can tell you that there was at 

least one briefing to the Governor’s office prior to Hurricane Pam 

where the Director of Emergency Management for the State of Louisiana, which is the Adjutant General, was briefed and then he 

briefed the Governor’s office. Unfortunately, there was a couple layers of management above me, so I really never—I never had any 

direct dealings with the Governor or her office, so I don’t know exactly what the conversations were and what happened between 

them, the Adjutant General, and the Governor’s office as far as inviting the Governor or her staff to the exercise. They were more 

than welcome to come, but I don’t know what those dealings were. 

You would have to ask him. 

As far as the Mayor of New Orleans is concerned, we did invite 

the parish emergency managers from all 13 parishes in the Southeast Louisiana Task Force, and we invited them to bring whoever 

they wanted to bring with them. It was up to the emergency manager on who they chose to bring with them and who they chose not 

to bring with them. However, there was financial constraints, as 

well, and we had over 300 participants at this exercise. It needs 

to be pointed out that we were pretty much pushing the envelope 

of how many people we could have handled without going to an offsite place to hold the exercise, which we could have done, it just 

would have cost us some more money. So that is my answer. 

Chairman COLLINS. Ms. Beriwal, you testified that not enough 

people evacuate prior to a storm hitting an area, despite public officials urging it, despite even mandatory evacuations. Your scenario 

predicted that hundreds of thousands of individuals would not 

22

evacuate. Did it concern you, then, that pre-storm evacuation was 

excluded from the Hurricane Pam exercise, given that, as you said 

today, not everybody or not as many people as should evacuate do 

so? 

Ms. BERIWAL. Pre-storm evacuation is actually a big problem. In 

a nutshell, the issue is that about 24 hours prior to landfall, there 

is a 50–50 chance that the storm is actually going to strike the region to which it is destined, and people make their own determinations. I would like to say that under carefully controlled circumstances, people do damn well as they please, and so each individual family and each individual person in an area decides whether they are going to evacuate or not evacuate. 

However, about 50 to 60 years of emergency management literature tends to indicate that people leave if they are told by credible local officials to leave. Since I have worked off and on with the 

City of New Orleans since the 1980s, they have never ordered a 

mandatory evacuation for the City of New Orleans until Hurricane 

Katrina. So you cannot have a high percentage of people leave unless you have a mandatory evacuation ordered by people that others recognize and who essentially stand up and say, ‘‘I am the 

mayor or the parish president, and I order a mandatory evacuation 

of this area.’’

Chairman COLLINS. But if you could answer my question more 

directly, did you express concern when the State decided to exclude 

pre-storm evacuation from the exercise? 

Ms. BERIWAL. No, I did not because for the longest time, at least 

in my knowledge, for the last 20 to 25 years, every exercise for hurricanes in Southeast Louisiana has focused only on the evacuation 

question, and Hurricane Pam was expected to be the first poststorm exercise to look at response post-storm. So the fact that 3 

days of the 8-day event were devoted to pre-landfall and 5 days to 

post-storm seemed like an appropriate thing to do. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks to the 

four of you. Your testimony has been very helpful, very troubling, 

I guess, insofar as you were all involved in an effort to get ready 

for what came in Katrina, and to some extent, I hear you saying 

it helped, but to a lot of other extent, it didn’t put all those in government in a position to diminish even further the consequences of 

what happened. 

I think I will pick up, just so I understand exactly, where Senator Collins left off, which was this fact that—I will start with you, 

Mr. Fairley—while FEMA agreed to propose this exercise Pam in 

2001, it doesn’t get underway until 2004. In that time period, can 

you tell us, to the best of your knowledge, the reason for the delay? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Senator, the only logical reason I can give you is 

that there were not funds available. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Not being part of the budgeting process in Washington, I am not familiar with all the little nuances. However, I 

know that if we propose a project and it is late in the fiscal year, 

the agency’s budget generally has already been set and has worked 

its way through all the committees. So this request for project and 

23

project funding goes into the next budget cycle. So that could account for up to 2 years sometimes. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Mr. Fontenot, in your opening statement, 

you mentioned, and the question, I just want to get it clear, that 

a White House representative attended a meeting in New Orleans 

in November 2003 and ‘‘was astonished that as of that date, we 

had not completed this type of plan, and promised to do what he 

could to help us get funding for this planning process.’’ I didn’t get 

that clear, was that Joe Allbaugh or was that somebody else, or do 

you not recall? 

Mr. FONTENOT. No. I was at the meeting. Actually, it was Retired 

General John Gordon, and he was on the advisory council, Homeland Security Advisory Council. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. So——

Mr. FONTENOT. He was the gentleman that we were briefing. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. And you have some reason to believe 

that he went back and helped to facilitate the funding that resulted 

in Pam? 

Mr. FONTENOT. That was my understanding, yes. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. Let me now go to the question of prestorm evacuation. As Senator Collins said, as we have seen it in 

the records, the Committee has obtained early proposals that became Pam sought funding to study the problems of pre-storm evacuation. Later, this was removed from the planning exercise. Mr. 

Fairley, do you know why that happened? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, sir, in general. When we came together in the 

various meetings to discuss items that would result in planning 

topics, one of the things that we all experienced was for every question we asked, instead of coming up with an answer, we came up 

with five more questions. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. FAIRLEY. And we realized very quickly that if you look at 

putting a catastrophic plan together starting with pre-landfall, 

then response, and into recovery, that we could not finish it in one 

session. We may not be able to finish it in one year or several 

years. So we met with the State and said that we needed to look 

at something that we could handle in a short time frame or shorter 

time frame, and it was decided among everyone that response to 

the hurricane would probably be more appropriate than to worry 

about long-term recovery issues, which the response would probably dictate. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. FAIRLEY. So we went into the phase of eliminating items that 

were not considered response. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Looking back, and I know hindsight is always clearer than foresight, do you wish that you had included in 

Pam some element regarding pre-storm evacuation, which was obviously a big problem in Katrina? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, sir. Hindsight says that evacuation was a very 

important element. We went on the basis that local and State law 

requires local and State evacuations, and we would support that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Understood. Mr. St. Amant, can you tell us 

whether the Federal agencies in the Hurricane Pam exercises were 

advised that the City of New Orleans and surrounding areas had 

24

no effective way to evacuate people without personal transportation 

or were lead agencies advised in Pam of the city’s efforts to prepare 

long-term for pre-storm evacuation? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Absolutely, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. They were? What was your understanding, 

if you had one at that point, of any possible Federal role in prestorm evacuation of a catastrophic hurricane? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. There is no question that no area with 1.6 million people, with the lack of intermodal infrastructure, can move in 

a very fast or efficient manner on its own——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. ST. AMANT [continuing]. Specifically, not any poor States and 

poor areas such as Southeast Louisiana. To give you an idea, in my 

jurisdiction, I am divided by the Mississippi River. I have one road 

on each side to get out and get in. That is it. I have to get through 

two other jurisdictions to get my people safely out of the risk area. 

The bottom line, at the end of the day, there is no way that New 

Orleans, Jefferson, or anybody in that region is going to be able to 

meet this challenge on its own. 

We made specific knowledge known to them that as of the 1990 

census, the numbers of people in the region who are dependent 

upon regional transportation because they don’t have their own 

automobiles. This effort and the surrounding challenges of the lack 

of intermodal transportation resources caused me great concern, 

not because of the hurricane that may give you 2 or 3 days to 

move, but short-term notice of evacuation, regarding the resources 

necessary, sir. 

So I will tell you this. Yes, I was there, and by the way, yes, my 

parish president did attend some of these sessions. He didn’t have 

to be there. That is what he hires me to do, to advise him, to make 

sure. I answer directly to one man, not a committee, and that is 

why we tried to practice what we preach. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Mr. Fairley, from the FEMA point of view 

and insofar as you know from the Department of Homeland Security point of view generally, what, if any, changes occurred in response to the Hurricane Pam exercise, including the sense that we 

get to some extent—Mr. St. Amant just testified to it—it certainly 

comes through the Pam report and plan that in the event of a catastrophic hurricane, State and local first responders were going to 

be overwhelmed? Were there any changes in Region VI, the one 

that covered New Orleans, in terms of FEMA preparedness or 

plans to respond? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, sir. In the frame of mind, there was great 

changes. I think a lot of us as a result of these sessions walked 

away seeing holes and gaps and fearing that we would not have 

things ready in time. As Jesse said, it was not a matter of if but 

a matter of when. I think we all were hoping that we could buy 

one more year. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, sir, we did try to speed things up. We tried 

to change directions. Not everything, of course, was available. At 

the time of the very first session, we were not sure that there 

would be a second session, so we were looking at trying to get 

things done on, I hate to say a fast pace, but a faster pace than 

25

normal. As it turned out, we did get a few extra sessions. So, yes, 

there were some changes of philosophy. When we worked with the 

locals and some of the State agencies, we realized that what we 

had always thought to be standard practices or were plans that 

were solid were, in fact, there were gaps in them, and it was 

through that cooperation that we discovered that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. With respect to you, and this is really a 

question to be asked of those higher up in FEMA who we will have 

before us, in response to the Hurricane Pam exercise, which was, 

as I said earlier, actually eerily predictive, what was necessary was 

more than a change of frame of mind. In other words, ideally, there 

would have been more action put into effect. I guess the ultimate 

question is why was FEMA and the rest of the Federal Government so slow, certainly appearing to me, in responding to both the 

clear oncoming of Katrina and then in responding once it hit? 

You know what, I don’t even need to have you answer that question. That is what I am going to ask. But the point is, on the 

record, we don’t see enough of a response certainly in the days before and immediately after Katrina hit landfall to exactly the lessons of the Hurricane Pam exercise and the plan itself, a very impressive, extensive, and detailed document. 

I want to come back on my second round and ask some more 

about what happened to the plan. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Levin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and to you and 

Senator Lieberman, all of our thanks for your extraordinary and 

typical tenacity in digging into this issue and all of its ramifications. The Nation is again truly in both of your debt for what you 

are doing here, and hopefully, it is going to help us deal with future catastrophic situations. 

I am a little uncertain on the question of what happened immediately prior to Katrina. Given the previous level of planning, given 

the previous studies that have been done, is it clear who was responsible primarily for the evacuation both pre-Katrina and postKatrina, that rested in State and local governments rather than 

FEMA in terms of primary responsibility for evacuation? Mr. 

Fairley. 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Senator, in my mind, yes, it was. The State of Louisiana law requires that Louisiana and its parishes prepare for 

evacuation from events. Our role is to support that as requested or 

as directed. 

Senator LEVIN. And Mr. Fontenot, is that your understanding? 

Mr. FONTENOT. Yes, Senator, that is my opinion. I would also 

add that I think that New Orleans also knew that was the case because before I left State Government there was a meeting to discuss how the State could help them with that role, and——

Senator LEVIN. OK. And Mr. St. Amant, is that your understanding, as well? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. The Louisiana Disaster Act clearly delineates the 

responsibilities of the emergency managers and parish presidents, 

etc. Yes, sir. 

26

1 Exhibit H appears in the Appendix on page 100. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Now, Exhibit H,1 you all have exhibit 

books, it is called the ‘‘New Orleans Hurricane Shelter,’’ and on the 

first page it says, ‘‘Even under the best conditions, evacuation will 

leave at least 150,000 people in harm’s way.’’ I think it is the 

fourth page has something which is a document headed, ‘‘Louisiana 

Superdome: Refuge of Last Resort.’’ Do you see those documents, 

or that document, Exhibit H? Whose document is that? Is that a 

FEMA document or a parish document, a State document, what is 

that, does anyone know? 

Mr. FONTENOT. If I may, I think this is a New Orleans Parish 

document. It is not a State document, and I am pretty sure it is 

not a Federal document, but I will let Wayne talk to that. 

Mr. FAIRLEY. No, sir, it is not a FEMA document. 

Senator LEVIN. It states here that not all citizens may be able 

to evacuate due to medical infirmity or dependency. It makes the 

statement that more than 57,000 households in New Orleans do 

not have access to an automobile and have not made adequate arrangements for evacuation. This is a life and death situation, that 

the Superdome may be mobilized as a refuge of last resort. So that 

was clearly known to whoever prepared that document, and I think 

in general is it fair to say that it was anticipated that a catastrophe of this scope could occur in New Orleans? Is that a fair 

statement, that all of you agree that it was anticipated that a catastrophe or a hurricane of this size and this impact could and 

probably or perhaps would occur in New Orleans? Is that a fair 

statement? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Absolutely. It was our worst case nightmare. 

Senator LEVIN. All right, but I want to just go quickly along. Mr. 

Fairley, is that a fair statement? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. And Mr. Fontenot. 

Mr. FONTENOT. Yes, sir. We always said it was not a matter of 

if, but when. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Ms. Beriwal. 

Ms. BERIWAL. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Now, after the catastrophe, we have Secretary 

Chertoff saying that this catastrophe exceeded the foresight of the 

planners and maybe anybody’s foresight. How could he make that 

statement? Mr. Fontenot, I will start with you. 

Mr. FONTENOT. I have no idea. You will have to ask Mr. Chertoff 

why he made that statement. I think that we have shown for years, 

we have been yelling about this potential disaster. 

Senator LEVIN. Mr. Fairley, have you talked to Mr. Chertoff 

about this, or——

Mr. FAIRLEY. No, sir, I have not. 

Senator LEVIN. FEMA is in his Department, as I understand it, 

or still there. Mr. St. Amant. 

Mr. ST. AMANT. July 22, 2005, quoted in the Associated Press

where I stated when they released the study on the evacuation, behavioral study by UNO-New Orleans, that the results would be beyond comprehension. Anybody who has seen this, as most of you 

have, know what I am talking about. It is beyond comprehension. 

27

1 Exhibit F appears in the Appendix on page 95. 

2 Exhibit K appears in the Appendix on page 104. 

Senator LEVIN. It also was anticipated, was it not? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Absolutely, but it still wasn’t the worst case. If 

you think this is bad, no, it is not. 

Senator LEVIN. But nonetheless, a catastrophe of this scope at 

least was anticipated. 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Should have been. 

Senator LEVIN. Ms. Beriwal. 

Ms. BERIWAL. Senator, I cannot comment on what Mr. Chertoff 

may or may not have known. I have no knowledge of it. 

Senator LEVIN. But from your perspective, a catastrophe of this 

scope was clearly anticipated, was it not? 

Ms. BERIWAL. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Now, immediately prior to the storm, on Saturday, if you look at Exhibit F,1 I guess this goes to you, Mr. Fairley. 

The FEMA staff at headquarters gave a briefing using a five-page 

Power Point, which is Exhibit F, and what that exhibit said, and 

this is the Saturday prior to landfall, that the Pam exercise projection is exceeded by Hurricane Katrina real-life impacts. Storm 

surge could greatly overtop levees and protective systems. Potential 

fatalities, 60,000. Incredible search and rescue needs of over 60,000 

persons. Displacement of a million-plus population. Do you know, 

Mr. Fairley, who gave this briefing? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. No, sir, unfortunately, I do not. On Saturday, August 27, at around 12 noon, I was packing a suitcase, trying to get 

a plane to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, so I was not privy to this. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Fair enough. So you wouldn’t know 

who was briefed? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. No, sir. I would assume that this was a briefing in 

the FEMA NRCC. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Excuse me, I’m sorry about using the initials, the 

NRCC, which is the National Response Coordination Center. But 

I’m not sure which official was making it. 

Senator LEVIN. Do any of you know who gave the briefing and 

who was briefed? 

Mr. FONTENOT. No, sir. I have no clue. 

Ms. BERIWAL. No, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. Now, the next day, or the same day, 

Exhibit K,2 there was a computer simulation run at the National 

Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center. Is that NISAC, 

does that sound correct? 

Ms. BERIWAL. NISAC. 

Senator LEVIN. OK, at NISAC. This is part of the Department of 

Homeland Security, and it was performed on August 27, this computer simulation, and it is Exhibit K, and there was an update performed on August 28, and this was delivered to the White House 

Situation Room at 1:47 on Monday morning, August 29. This 

NISAC report stated that the potential for severe storm surge to 

overwhelm Lake Pontchartrain levees is the greatest concern for 

New Orleans according to the NISAC report. So Homeland Security 

knew prior to the breach of the levees, at least a number of hours 

28

before the breach of the levees, that this was the greatest concern 

for New Orleans. Do you know where the NISAC folks got that terminology, Mr. Fairley? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. No, sir, I do not. 

Senator LEVIN. But is it fair to say that in terms of the impact 

of a severe, catastrophic storm that it was known that the breach 

of the levees could be one of the impacts? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, sir, I think in all of the planning scenarios and 

past disasters that we always knew that a breaching or an overtopping of the levee could lead to——

Senator LEVIN. Either one? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Either one. 

Senator LEVIN. And do you know who got that report at the 

White House? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. No, sir, I do not. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. Does anyone here know? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. No, but I wish they would have shared it with 

us. That might have been nice. 

Senator LEVIN. Are you familiar with this? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Not at all. 

Senator LEVIN. Is anyone familiar with Exhibit K? 

Ms. BERIWAL. No, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Mr. Fontenot. 

Mr. FONTENOT. No, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. If you look at page 37 of that exhibit—by the 

way, we also have the statement of the President that he says he 

doesn’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees. Now, I 

don’t know how he can say that given the fact that everybody anticipated the breach of the levees according to you folks, but I guess 

that is something the White House is going to have to respond to. 

He said that on Thursday, September 1, on Good Morning America.

‘‘I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,’’ when 

it is obvious that everybody anticipated that was a realistic possibility. But go to page 37. 

Mr. FONTENOT. Sir, we don’t have a page 37. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. Do they have this exhibit? I am out of 

time anyway. I will have to get to that in my second round. Thank 

you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Our thanks to each 

of our witnesses. We are delighted that you are here. We appreciate very much your testimony and putting some light on these 

issues that we wrestle with. 

I think I would like to start off with a question for each of you, 

if I may, and then I have a couple of individual questions. We 

learned a number of lessons about the gaps in planning during the 

Hurricane Pam exercise, but there are still quite a few questions 

that we know we need to follow up on. I guess my question for all 

of you would be this. If you had to do it all over again, how would 

you ensure that the lessons learned during this exercise were better translated into your particular agency or entity’s emergency 

plan? 

29

Mr. FAIRLEY. That is a very good question, sir, and very difficult 

to answer. From the lessons learned, to go back and do it again, 

to repeat the process, I think this time we would look at existing 

laws, regulations, policies, and procedures to see where they did 

not meet the level of what happened, the reality. We would work 

closer with the State and the locals in sharing responsibility, not 

to assume their responsibility, not to force ourselves, but to share 

in implementing those shortfalls that we saw come to light as the 

real shortfalls. 

As an individual, if I was running the situation, I would take 

these lessons learned and put them into some form of usable, 

implementable activity that would address—we were building a 

partnership where we were beginning to lose the yours, mine, and 

ours syndrome—to me, that would be very necessary to make this 

part of the lessons learned, is that everybody has a stake in it. Everybody is a taxpayer. We need to work together and try to come 

to, this is not yours, this is not mine, it is ours and move forward. 

So that is the biggest thing that I have learned in this whole disaster, is that we need to work closer and stop the concept sometimes of local, State, and Federal Government, but to work more 

as one unit. I know that is theoretical sounding, but that is a true 

belief. 

Senator CARPER. OK, thank you. Mr. Fontenot. 

Mr. FONTENOT. I agree——

Senator CARPER. Again, the question is, looking back at what 

was learned, how would you ensure that the lessons learned during 

this exercise were better translated into your particular agency’s 

emergency plan? 

Mr. FONTENOT. I agree with what Wayne is saying about the 

yours, mine, ours concept, and I think that is something that needs 

to be pushed further, and we tried to do that from day one with 

the exercise with the contractors. This is a team. This is not an us 

versus you type of thing. 

What would I have done differently? Given the same circumstances that I had back then, I don’t know if I could have done 

anything differently. Rather than getting on the roof and start 

shouting and then people thought I was crazy and sent me to an 

asylum, I don’t know what else I could have done. 

Mr. ST. AMANT. I would listen. My turn? 

Senator CARPER. Please. You pronounce your last name St. 

Amant? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Yes, sir. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Please call me Jesse. 

Senator CARPER. St. Jesse? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. That is fine. [Laughter.] 

What we did——‘‘Louisiana Citizens’ Awareness and Evacuation 

Guide.’’ Plaquemines Parish went out and spent some money, and 

they had every one of these delivered to a person’s residential address before the storm hit, about a month before the storm hit. 

This was produced with Homeland Security funds. It tells people 

what to do when they have to evacuate. That is one of the results 

of Hurricane Pam. Public health impacts——

30

Senator CARPER. We get a lot of things at our home in the mail, 

and I am sure others do, as well. How do you know whether people, 

one, read it; two, internalized it, studied it; and three, did anything 

differently as a result? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. That is of no consequence because when we do 

mandatory evacuation, we put our volunteers and our sheriff’s office on the street and the bullhorns, and we tell them, you are 

under—we don’t assume that someone is going to hear the news in 

an area. We will make it happen. You can never do that in emergency management. 

The reason—and let me clear something up, if I may. This agency who put out this dire report or whatever, if it came out at 9 

a.m., it is because the sheriff, the parish president, and I were on 

television telling people to get out of Dodge. BOOT, Be Out Of 

Town. I don’t need somebody from Washington to tell me, as Emergency Preparedness Director, when to advise the parish president 

or the sheriff what we need to do. They are consummate professionals. They expect me to be one. I expect the government officials, when I advise them to do something, to follow my lead. 

The bottom line, sir, or I think the point I am trying to make 

here, you asked the question, what did we learn? I went back and 

I took a look at my hurricane plans again——

Senator CARPER. That wasn’t my question. 

Mr. ST. AMANT. I made some adjustments——

Senator CARPER. No, let me repeat my question again. How 

would you ensure that the lessons learned during this exercise 

were better translated into your agency’s particular emergency 

plan? That is my question. 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Because I know the vulnerability assessment, we 

know to get out. Pam, I was there as a subject matter expert as 

well as the other directors, worked to tell them what they were 

going to inherit. If you have to tell me what I am faced in a Category 2, 3, or 4 hurricane, they have got the wrong guy for the job. 

It is my responsibility to prepare that parish to do what is necessary to get out. It was my responsibility under the Pam scenario 

to advise IEM and the FEMA people what they are going to have 

to deal with to better prepare them, and to that end, I strongly 

suggest that they scrap the Stafford Act, which is still governing 

this emergency instead of a National Disaster Response. But anyway, that is one of the terms that we asked that we learned from 

Pam. 

The other thing was, have a pre-landfall declaration because it 

gives us the authority and gives us the support necessary to evacuate pre-landfall. Up until this such time, I have to tell you, and 

this is what was done for Katrina, and it was necessary. Was it 

done soon enough? History will judge us. 

But the fact of the matter is, it is one of the few times in history 

it is being done. And let me add, if it wasn’t for some of my fellow 

directors and I trying to beg and almost demand that we do a Pam 

exercise, it wouldn’t have happened. It would have gone away. So 

I just hope someone listens to what is being said, that is all. Sorry 

for my frustration, sir. It has been a long couple of months, too. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Ms. Beriwal. The question is probably not entirely appropriate for you because I don’t believe you are 

31

here representing any particular agency, but would you comment 

on it nonetheless? 

Ms. BERIWAL. I would like to, Senator. Thank you very much. I 

think that there are certain things that we are taking as lessons 

learned from this as we go about the country and internationally 

helping our customers with emergency preparedness. 

First of all, I think what we learned is that a scenario-based 

planning exercise process like Hurricane Pam can be quite effective. Perhaps that is not where your question was going, but I 

think this is a finding that we have discovered, particularly having 

the planners and the operational people in the same room so that 

the operational people have the real-life operational concerns there, 

and the planners can look at this issue from a wider time scale and 

a wider geographic scale. It is very effective to have those two 

groups together. 

I think that integrating science and technology like we did into 

the consequence assessment was very vital. It was very important. 

It gave a sense of reality to the participants which they carried forward and probably used in Katrina itself. So I think that was a 

very important lesson learned from that, that we need to integrate 

our scientific and technological knowledge in this country, which 

we have a vast amount of, and pour it into these kinds of events. 

The third thing, I think, that I would say is that leadership does 

need to be present, and that is what I would say their role is——

Senator CARPER. I am sorry, what needs to be present? 

Ms. BERIWAL. The leadership does need to be present for the different layers of government, and one of their primary roles is in deriving what the outcomes are that they would like to see. I would 

say that in Hurricane Pam, we worked with all the 13 parishes and 

we projected 61,290 dead. That was known in Pam. Well, 1,100 

dead in Katrina is deemed unacceptable, so we have to define what 

is acceptable, and that is a role for the elected officials—to decide 

what is acceptable. 

I do think, also, that we need to have emergency management 

where we can actually take our plans, our doctrines, our training, 

our exercises, and our equipment and be able to pour that into a 

single modeling and simulation capability that basically gives us, 

well, how much protection this is providing because you don’t know 

when you are dealing with hundreds of variables, all of which could 

have very many different values. Where we are at that point is not 

known unless you pull this together and are able to quantify protection in some measurable manner. 

And third, I would say that our exercises need to be a lot more 

outcome-based so that when we actually do test a plan, we should 

be able to see how many people did we save, how many people 

died, how many people were injured, and could we have done better. It has been one of my maxims since right after September 11—

I was actually on the Defense Science Board that looked at intelligence gathering for terrorism, so it hit home closer to me when 

the events of 9/11 occurred. My maxim to my people was, if we can 

find a way to save one more person, had we found one person in 

the Twin Towers that we would have rescued and brought out, we 

would all as a Nation have been happy. So we would like to find 

that one additional person that we can save from trauma or death 

32

2 Exhibit B appears in the Appendix on page 80. 

in these kind of events, and we can’t do that until we actually have 

an outcome-based emergency management system. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you for a very helpful response. 

Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator. 

The end product from the Hurricane Pam exercise was the 

Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Plan, and that plan 

includes an appendix that is entitled, ‘‘Transportation, Staging, and 

Distribution Execution Time Line.’’ The appendix can be found in 

your exhibit book after Tab B,1 and I would ask that each of you 

take a look at it. 

On page two, this document indicates that 50 hours before landfall, the plan calls for pre-staging 600 buses and 1,200 drivers. I 

am going to start with you, Mr. Fairley, and then go across. Was 

it clear to you whose responsibility it was to stage those buses? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, ma’am, at the time. Working off our normal 

way of business, local has first-line responsibility, followed by the 

State, supplemented by the Federal. We came up with an estimated need of around 600 buses. From that, to get to the Federal 

part, we would have subtracted what the locals would have, followed by what the State would do, and then we would pre-stage 

or try to pre-stage the remaining. So, yes, ma’am, for me, it was 

clear based on our normal business activities. 

Chairman COLLINS. So the responsibility was first at the local 

level, then at the State, and then Federal, if requested? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, ma’am, that is the normal procedure. We 

never tell the Governor what they do or do not need. They will request us to provide those assets. 

Chairman COLLINS. And was this plan followed? 

Mr. FAIRLEY. Yes, ma’am, it was, but it was not successful. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Fontenot, same question for you. Do you 

think it is clear whose responsibility it was to stage those buses 

and those drivers? 

Mr. FONTENOT. Senator, first, let me say that this happened, this 

session happened after I left the State of Louisiana. 

Chairman COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. FONTENOT. I left May 31. This happened in July. But with 

not being there, yes, it was very clear in my mind whose responsibility evacuations was and whose responsibility that evacuating 

their citizens was, and it first starts with the local level. Then it 

goes to the State level, and it is whatever the local level cannot 

handle, they come to the State and ask for help with, and we try 

to help them as much as we can. Then whatever we can’t help 

with, we go to the Federal Government to ask for help. It also 

needs to be pointed out, though, that this is 50 hours pre-landfall——

Chairman COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. FONTENOT [continuing]. According to this plan. The Federal 

Government under the rules that it is under wouldn’t come in 50 

hours to pre-stage buses for us to have access to at hour 50. They 

may be pre-staging some assets for later use, but at this point in 

time, the declaration wouldn’t have been made and the Federal 

33

1 Exhibit D appears in the Appendix on page 90. 

Government wouldn’t have the authority to turn those buses over 

to us. However, in my mind, then yes, it was—it is clear by reading 

this plan. But again, I wasn’t there for the discussions so I don’t 

know exactly what discussion went around developing this time 

line. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. St. Amant, you are a very experienced 

emergency management official. Was it clear to you and to the 

other parishes and to the City of New Orleans who was responsible 

for staging those buses 50 hours prior to Katrina hitting? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. You referenced this booklet, ma’am, and to answer your question, just if you want to read my exact quotation, 

Exhibit D,1 the last paragraph, if you don’t mind me reading it, 

and I will answer the question. Jesse, it says, ‘‘One message to get 

to FEMA headquarters is a pre-landfall declaration in a catastrophic situation is very much needed and should be a requirement. There are a lot of people without personal transportation. 

Therefore, if we don’t move people out of New Orleans in an appropriate time, there will be mass casualties. The city at this moment 

does not have the resources or capability to evacuate these people. 

Therefore, a pre-landfall declaration is a necessity and a requirement for life and safety.’’

The issue that I was trying to raise, it was a discussion of all 

that, not only evacuation resources, etc. We were under the impression that is exactly why we were there, to try to bring out these 

points of the mass infrastructure lack of capability and the necessary logistics support that would be necessary to move that many 

people outside of the risk area. 

Chairman COLLINS. But there is also a document that is in Exhibit D which contains the notes from what appears to be the final 

briefing of the Unified Command on July 29, 2005, and it includes 

a section on transportation. You are listed as a participant in that 

briefing. And comments that are attributed to Don Day note, ‘‘We 

need to pre-identify the sources for these buses and have them 

lined up and ready. There are plans to evacuate buses and operators out before the storm, but we are at less than 10 percent done 

with this transportation planning when you consider the buses and 

the people.’’

I am trying to get a sense, given that this plan pretty clearly outlines what needs to be done, why it didn’t succeed, and I am wondering if it is because Katrina hit too soon and the planning wasn’t 

completed, or whether there was confusion over who was responsible for what, or whether the State and local entities were simply 

overwhelmed by a catastrophe of this magnitude. But keep in 

mind, this is pre-storm, so that is why I am trying to get an understanding. Could you help me better understand this? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. Lack of planning, lack of coordination, lack of 

funding, lack of staff, we can pick any multitude of reasons, excuses why it didn’t happen. I remember having the situation where 

I had three busloads of people ready to get out of a nursing home. 

This was when I was with the State as an emergency transportation coordinator. I was working at the State Emergency Office. 

I get a phone call, we have got three busloads of nursing home peoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:06 Dec 01, 2006 Jkt 026749 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\26749.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
34

ple, St. Michael’s, and two of the bus drivers got on the plane and 

went to Atlanta. We had to provide emergency resources to get 

them out right before we had to close the Interstate down. 

People panic, and in this case, when you are looking at the worst 

nightmare come true, I can understand. It doesn’t excuse the fact 

that we need to be prepared for this, that you need to have plans 

in place. This is what Pam was trying to accomplish. The fact of 

the matter is, the lessons learned by these things that we were actually discussing was going to visit us sooner than we anticipated. 

The purpose for which it was intended was to teach us how and 

what we needed to do collectively. We recognized the shortcomings. 

The fact that they were not put in place is only because the lessons 

learned from Pam were not disseminated down and got to the pubic 

officials to which it was supposed to serve. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Ms. Beriwal, my time has expired, so if you could just give me 

a very brief comment in response to this plan and your assessment 

of responsibility and whether that was clearly understood. 

Ms. BERIWAL. It is my perception that the local authorities were 

responsible for evacuation of the public and that they would ask for 

resources and the State would provide resources if necessary, and 

if States felt that they could not provide those resources, that they 

would request it from the Federal Government, and that was mostly the discussion. 

I would like to clarify one thing, which is that phase one of Hurricane Pam, the four workshops that were held (workshops 1, 1A, 

1B), they were all phase one of the planning process where we were 

going to create the Incident Action Plans. Phase two of Hurricane 

Pam was expected to be a consolidated plan for the whole area 

where we would look at the resources and see if those things that 

we identified in the Incident Action Plan could be implemented. 

That phase has not started. It is not done, and we are sitting 127 

days before the start of the next hurricane season for Southeast 

Louisiana. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Let me just pick up there with you, Ms. Beriwal. Just so I make 

sure I understand, the document you—first off, you presented a 

scenario based on a lot of, I think, very impressive scientific, meteorological data about what the impact of a catastrophic storm in 

New Orleans might be, and am I correct that in the dramatic and 

all-too-accurate predictions you made of flooding, of damage to 

property, of the impact on housing and education, hospitals, health 

care, etc., that you were assuming the status quo in terms of the 

government response, in other words, that it inherently showed 

that something more had to be done because obviously you had a 

report suggesting that 60,000 people might be killed in such a 

storm, so no one in government reading that could have said, well, 

that is OK. Am I understanding what the goal of the Pam exercise 

was? 

Ms. BERIWAL. Let me clarify this by giving an example, Senator. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Ms. BERIWAL. The 61,290 deaths were based on the 36 percent 

evacuation rate from the area, and to come up with the 36 percent 

35

evacuation, first, we went through the scientific literature like 

Jesse mentioned—the UNO study and the Corps of Engineers 

study on public behavior after storms in Louisiana as well as public 

opinion surveys——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Can I interrupt a second? 

Ms. BERIWAL. Certainly. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Did that estimate also include your evaluation of the existing capacity of State and local agencies to assist in 

the evacuation? 

Ms. BERIWAL. Senator, that is exactly where I was going. Taking 

those numbers, we went back to the 13 parishes and shared with 

them our initial numbers for the expected response rate for each 

parish. We worked with Jesse. We worked with the folks from the 

other 12 parishes and said, ‘‘these are the numbers for your parish. 

Do you think this is credible or do you have a mechanism to raise 

this number? Would you like the number to be higher or lower?’’ 

because we wanted to make it plausible. So we took our scientific 

data and then we went back to the parish experts and said, ‘‘let 

us adjust these numbers based on what you think is credible for 

your parish.’’ 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Credible meaning what more you are able 

to do, or what you are able to do with what you have now? 

Ms. BERIWAL. What you are able to do now. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. 

Ms. BERIWAL. It was really the expectation of your current plan, 

your current procedures, your current policies, how much evacuation would be expected in your parish. And then we rolled up the 

numbers based on the feedback from the emergency management 

directors for the 13 parishes to come up with the 36 percent number. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. And then in the plan, which is quite extensive and detailed, what you describe is what the responsibilities 

of the various agencies, Federal, State, and local, would be to reduce the impact of a catastrophic hurricane, correct? 

Ms. BERIWAL. Right. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Now my question is, what happened then? 

Maybe your contract was over at that point. I don’t mean literally 

over, but what was supposed to happen with the plan because you 

have now presented a rather dramatic and disastrous set of 

events—property damage, life lost, over 60,000 people dead as a result of Hurricane Pam projection based on the status quo of what 

the government was able to do at that time. Then what did—well, 

what did you expect to happen? Was there any mechanism to implement changes in government so they could achieve better results? 

Ms. BERIWAL. Is the question for me, Senator? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Just as a starter, yes. 

Ms. BERIWAL. If the State of Louisiana did not have the ability 

to impact the system, we certainly had a lesser ability as a contractor. So we were tasked to do Hurricane Pam. We did the draft, 

and then they came forward and asked us to do the subsequent follow-on workshops. We did those, and we were waiting for further 

direction on where the government wanted us to go. 

36

Senator LIEBERMAN. Were the follow-on workshops, they were 

after the plan was published? In other words, by my dating, the 

plan was published in January 2005. The workshops were a little 

bit later. Were those supposed to focus on what changes the Federal, State, and local governments should enact to try to diminish 

the impact of this catastrophic hurricane? 

Ms. BERIWAL. Actually, the first workshop was in July 2004, and 

by January 5, 2005, we had done five versions of the planning documents. The second workshop was in November and December 

2004. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK, I have got you. So nothing followed the 

plan. So I guess I would ask Mr. Fontenot or Mr. St. Amant, what 

happened with the plan at the State and local government level, 

and Mr. Fairley to the extent you know what happened at the Federal Government level, because from what we saw, a lot of heroic 

individual effort by governmental employees at each level of government but also a lot that wasn’t done which could have diminished the impact of the storm. Mr. St. Amant, do you want to start? 

What happened to the plan because obviously there wasn’t enough 

there to mitigate on the status quo the impact of a catastrophic 

hurricane, which came. 

Mr. ST. AMANT. There were certain portions of the plan, in our 

discussion as a result of our participation, that I was able to bring 

back and to adjust some of what we did in my jurisdiction of 

Plaquemines Parish. You have to understand, I was present at all 

of these planning meetings that I was invited to. My parish president was at one, and he decided that is why I am going to have 

to go to them, so I can keep him informed——

Senator LIEBERMAN. And is it fair to say that there—I have some 

sense of you that you were not shy about saying to everyone there 

that the parish and the City of New Orleans, as far as you could 

tell, was just not up to dealing with a storm of Katrina-size consequences? 

Mr. ST. AMANT. I know these two gentleman quite well and have 

worked closely. I think you will find that they will verify that, sir. 

I am just glad that they still invite me to these meetings. I have 

been known to be just a little bit outspoken because of my passion 

and concerns for the risk that we have. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. My time actually is up, but if you can—Mr. 

Fontenot or Mr. Fairley, if you would respond to the question. 

What happened, if anything, to close the gap between the responsibilities the plan gave the State and Federal Government and the 

reality? 

Mr. FONTENOT. I will speak about what happened at the State 

level up until May 31, 2005, when I left the State. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. FONTENOT. Since I was the Chief of Plans, it was my responsibility to try to do something with the plans that came out of Hurricane Pam. One of the things that we recognized right away was 

that we need to get our State plan in line with the Federal plan, 

or now the National Response Plan. So I went to my boss at the 

time, recommended that we—we were at the end of a 4-year planning cycle anyway. We needed to update our State plan anyway. 

So in the middle of this, why don’t we go ahead and just go ahead 

37

and do a major revision to the plan to make it more compatible 

with the National Response Plan, and that was step A. 

I concentrated the resources that I had at the time with the 

State to do that. I thought that was the most important step in the 

process. That occurred, and as I was leaving State Government, 

that plan was being implemented in the State. It was being signed 

off on. It had already been signed off on by all the signatory agencies that had actions in the plan or responsibilities in the plan, and 

it was being sent to the Governor to be signed off by her, and then 

I left. 

One of my goals that did not get implemented before I left was 

to then pull the responsible agencies for certain sections of the Pam 

work and also with the State plan and get them together and talk 

about and try to do more planning and get them to figure out 

where the holes were and how to fix the holes. However, since I 

left, I did not get a chance to do that, but that was one of my personal goals. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I presume, based on what we saw, that between the time you left in May and the hurricane hit in August 

that not much of what was recommended was accomplished. 

Mr. FONTENOT. Sir, I left government. I can’t really talk about 

what they did after I left. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK. Mr. Fairley, actually, in some ways, I 

asked you this question last time around. I don’t know if you want 

to add anything. 

Mr. FAIRLEY. No, sir. I can add just a little bit. One of the things 

we were doing in the region was taking what we had developed in 

these scenarios and taking a very hard look at it and comparing 

it to what we had in existence as far as our hurricane response 

checklist and any other plan we had, especially as it went back to 

the National Response Plan, to make sure that there were no holes, 

gaps, or bumps in the road that we thought would cause us. That 

was in formulation. We were also working on requests for additional sessions to go beyond the funding cycle. 

What several of us got out of it, Senator, was the enormity of 

what we had gone through and where we needed to go and that 

it didn’t need to stop. It needed to be permeated out to all Federal 

agencies, all State agencies, and all local agencies. A lot of Federal 

agencies have participation and some type of ownership of a lot of 

things in that area, and we wanted to not necessarily just have a 

pretty plan, but we wanted to see other agencies be funded to do 

things and provide offshoot activities. So that is where we were beginning to formulate. Then, unfortunately, the hurricane hit. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I presume that you, Mr. Fairley, Mr. 

Fontenot, and Mr. St. Amant, all concluded after the Hurricane 

Pam exercise that your particular level of government, Federal, 

State, or local, was not adequately prepared to respond to a catastrophic hurricane like Pam or the real Katrina, correct? I am way 

over my time. 

Mr. ST. AMANT. You are absolutely correct, sir. It is our opinion 

that Federal, State, or local government is not prepared to deal 

with a catastrophic response. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Correct, Mr. Fontenot? 

Mr. FONTENOT. Correct. 

38

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you, and thanks, Mr. Fairley. 

Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, and that last answer is why we 

are here. It is very troubling with the start of the hurricane season 

only a few months away, I wonder if we have learned the lessons 

of Katrina much less the lessons of Pam. 

I strongly believe that planning and simulations such as Hurricane Pam can greatly strengthen our preparedness and response, 

and I can’t help but think that if Pam had been funded back in the 

late 1990s or early in 2000, when it was first discussed, and if 

there had been more of a sense of urgency, more clarity as to who 

was responsible for what, and better implementation of the plan, 

that the response to Katrina would have been better. Katrina 

would have been a natural disaster that was overwhelming and 

taxed all levels of government regardless, but I can’t help but think 

that evacuation would have gone more smoothly if the plans outlined here had gone into effect, and if there had been a better understanding of the roles of the various entities, and that is why we 

wanted to learn from you today and get your insights and perspectives. 

I very much appreciate your sharing your testimony with us and 

working with the staff in preparation for this hearing. I hope that 

we can learn from your experience and that next time we will, in 

fact, be better prepared. But as each of you has reminded us today, 

we still have a very long ways to go. 

Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. I couldn’t agree 

with you more, and in some senses, you go back through this painful history, you see the predictions, the awareness, particularly by 

people in the region and in the city that this is coming and we are 

not ready for it. And yet there is some way in which the problem 

over the horizon doesn’t seem quite as real as what you are dealing 

with today. I guess people just hope and pray that the disaster that 

everyone says will come one day doesn’t come. 

But here it came, and we were just there last week, Senator Collins and I and four or five other Members of the Senate, and I must 

tell you, 4 months after we had been there the first time, a couple 

weeks after Katrina hit landfall, it was stunning and horrific, really. I have been to areas after natural disasters. I have been to war 

zones. I was in Kuwait after 1991. I was in Bosnia and Kosovo, and 

I have just been to Baghdad. I have never seen such extensive 

damage as I saw in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast generally. 

We are motivated by that painful reality and the suffering that 

people endured because we live in an age when you just have to 

say, we can’t kid ourselves, that there are going to be more natural 

disasters and, God forbid, there are going to be some unnatural disasters because of the enemies we face in the world today. That is 

the focus of these investigations. 

You have set a foundation in what you did in Hurricane Pam. 

We are going to try to put it to work so that next time the governments at all levels are more prepared and respond more aggressively to the disaster and the harm will be less, we hope and pray. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

39

This hearing is now adjourned. The hearing record will remain 

open for 15 days for the submission of additional materials. Thank 

you very much for your cooperation. 

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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