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85–022 PDF 2014

FEMA REAUTHORIZATION: ENSURING THE NATION 

IS PREPARED 

(113–37) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 2, 2013 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ 

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, 

Vice Chair 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

STEVE DAINES, Montana 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas 

TREY RADEL, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

JANICE HAHN, California 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas, Vice Chair 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex Officio) 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 

(Ex Officio) 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... iv 

TESTIMONY 

Bob Khan, Fire Chief, City of Phoenix, Arizona, Fire Department, and Central 

Region Sponsoring Agency Chief, FEMA Urban Search and Rescue System . 8 

Barry Fisher, General Manager, WFMZ–TV, Allentown, PA, on behalf of 

the National Association of Broadcasters .......................................................... 8 

Christopher Guttman-McCabe, Executive Vice President, CTIA—The Wireless 

Association ............................................................................................................ 8 

Bobby A. Courtney, M.P.H., J.D., Chief Programming Officer, MESH Coalition ........................................................................................................................ 8 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Damon Penn, Assistant Administrator, National Continuity Programs, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Fred Endrikat, Urban Search 

and Rescue Branch Chief, Federal Emergency Management Agency, joint 

statement † ............................................................................................................ 33 

Bob Khan .................................................................................................................. 43 

Barry Fisher ............................................................................................................. 47 

Christopher Guttman-McCabe ................................................................................ 63 

Bobby A. Courtney ................................................................................................... 69 

SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD 

Association of State Floodplain Managers, Inc., testimony for the record ......... 77 

† Representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were invited 

to attend the hearing as witnesses. However, they were furloughed as 

a result of the Government shutdown of October 1 through October 16, 

2013, and were unable to attend. Their written statement was submitted 

for the record. 

iv 


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SUMMARY OF SUBJECT MATTER 

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TO: Members. Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings. and 

Emergency Management 

FROM: Staff. Subcommittee on Economic Development. Public Buildings. and 

Emergency Management 

SUBJECT: Subcommittee Hearing on "FEMA Reauthorization: Ensuring the Nation is 

PURPOSE 

The Subcommittee on Economic Development. Public Buildings and Emergency 

Management will hold a hearing on Wednesday, October 2.2013. at 10:00 a.m., in 2167 

Rayburn House Office Building to receive testimony from the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency (FEMA). a Central Region Representative of the National Urban Search and Rescue 

System (USAR), representatives of the wireless and broadcasting industries, and a local 

emergency alert user. The purpose of the hearing is to examine FEMA's Integrated Public Alert 

and Warning System (IP A WS) and USAR System to evaluate the need for reform legislation in 

the context of a proposed reauthorization of FEMA. 

BACKGROUND 

Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IP AWS) 

Purpose and Need 

Pursuant to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act 

(Stafford Act), FEMA is charged with ensuring an emergency presidential message can be 

effectively disseminated to the Nation and, as part of that system, providing for the ability of 

state. tribal. and local governments to issue public alerts and warnings in the event of impending 

or imminent disasters or emergencies. In the 1960s, the foundation of such a system was 

established through the creation of the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS). which used 

television and radio to alert the public to emergencies. In recent years, that system, now called 

the Emergency Alert System (EAS), has been modernized and updated to digital technology. 
v 


Insert offset folio 2 here 85022.002

Because of the advances in technology and the increase in the methods by which the 

public can receive information and be alerted (e.g., cell phones, satellite radio, and television), in 

2006 former President Bush issued Executive Order 13407, stating the U.S. policy is "'to have an 

effective, reliable, integrated, flexible and comprehensive system to alert and warn the American 

people." Executive Order 13407 directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to 

develop the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (lPAWS) as a "system of systems." It 

was intended to eventually integrate existing and new alert systems into one unified system. 

Currently, IPA WS includes EAS, Wireless Emergency Alerts (mobile devices), and 

National Weather Service alerts. Future methods of alerting could include computer gaming 

systems, digital signs, siren systems, internet search engines, social sharing websites, and instant 

messaging. [PAWS creates an integrated system that allows one "message" or data package to be 

transmitted through as many mediums and methods as possible to reach the greatest number of 

people who may be impacted by a disaster or emergency. The move to digital signals, for 

example, creates opportunity for the message to incorporate audio, video, or other data in 

addition to a text-based message to provide the public as much critical information as may be 

needed. The need to increase the mediums and forms of alerts also increases options for the 

effective alerting of people with disabilities and people with limited English proficiency. 

The development ofIPA WS also involves the increase in the number of what are known 

as Primary Entry Point (PEP) broadcast stations. PEP stations are private or commercial radio 

broadcast stations that work with FEMA to provide emergency alert and warning information to 

the public. The FEMA PEP stations also serve as the primary source of initial broadcast for a 

Presidential emergency alert. PEP stations are "hardened" stations that are equipped with 

additional back up communications equipment and power generators designed to ensure they can 

continue broadcasting information to the public during and after a disaster. Before FEMA began 

expanding the number of PEP stations, there were significant parts of the Nation that did not 

receive alerts directly from one of these stations. The alerts were typically relayed from station to 

station to reach as many people as possible - a process called the "daisy chain." The danger with 

the daisy chain process is that if stations downstream from the PEP station go off the air because 

of a disaster, many people would be left without any way of receiving alerts. As a result, FEMA 

has been working to expand the number of PEP stations to ensure as much of the Nation can 

receive signals directly from them as possible. Direct coverage of the Nation's population will 

expand from approximately 67 percent in 2009 to over 90 percent in 2015. 

Wireless Emergency Alerts 

Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) comprises one of the components oflPA WS. The 

Warning, Alert and Response Network Act (WARN Act), as signed into law as Title VI ofP.L. 

109-347, the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of2006 (The SAFE Port Act), 

required the establishment of a Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee by the 

FCC to facilitate the development of the wireless portion oflPA WS. WEA allows for the 

alerting of the public through wireless devices. Instead of thousands of separate text messages 

being sent (as used in some localities), one message is broadcasted to wireless devices in the 

affected geographical area, minimizing the chance of clogging the cell towers and wireless 

networks. Currently, the wireless system has been used or will be used for extreme weather and 

other threatening emergencies in a given geographical area, AMBER Alerts, and Presidential 

alerts during a national emergency. 

2 
vi 


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IPA WS Challenges and Problems 

Nationwide Test 

Even though an alerting system has been in place dating back to the old Emergency 

Broadcast System in the I 960s, until two years ago, there had never been a nationwide test of the 

alerting system raising serious questions as to whether or not the system would work, should the 

President ever need to send a nationwide emergency message. On November 9, 2011, the first 

nationwide test ofEAS was conducted. The test only involved the legacy TV and radio system 

and not the wireless system. 

A number of problems were identified during the test. The test was originally planned to 

last for three minutes; however, a decision was later made to reduce the test time to 30 seconds. 

As a result, the length of the test impacted the results. For example, the shortness of the test 

impacted the ability of some stations to receive the alert in full. In addition, 3 of the 63 PEP 

stations at that time failed to rebroadcast the message, resulting in some members of the public 

not receiving a message and reports of poor or no audio or the playing of music in lieu of the 

message. 

Broadcasters were required to report on the results of the test by the end of2012. 

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), as of January, 2013, 61 percent of 

broadcasters and cable operators had submitted the required report. Of those, 82 percent reported 

receiving the nationwide test alert, and 61 percent reported successfully retransmitting the alert 

to other stations, as required. Broadcasters' and cable operators' reception of the alert varied by 

state, from 6 percent in Oregon to 100 percent in Delaware. 

Subcommittee Investi gations 

During the development ofIPA WS, the Subcommittee conducted extensive oversight. 

The GAO issued reports in 2009 and 2013. The Subcommittee's oversight coupled with GAO's 

reports supported the need for legislation to ensure consultation and coordination with key 

stakeholders, strategic planning, and the timely roll out of the new system. The 2009 1 GAO 

report highlighted that without a clear vision and strategic plan, FEMA conducted pilot programs 

that "have ended inconclusively, with few documented lessons learned.,,2 In addition, the 

subcommittee found that FEMA failed to consult with key stakeholders, such as states, local 

officials, broadcasters, and the wireless industry to ensure that IPA WS would be developed in 

such a way as to be compatible with existing technologies and usable by the primary users ofthe 

system. While the 2013 GAO report indicated progress in addressing some of the previous 

concerns, it identified continued concerns related to coordination with state and local officials 

and problems identified in the nationwide test. 3 

'Emergency Preparedness: Improved Planning and Coordination Necessary for Modernization and Integration of 

Public Alert and Warning System, GAO-09-834, September 2009. 

'Id. alp. 18. 

'Emergency Alerting: Capabilities Have Improved, but Additional Guidance and Testing Are Needed, GAO-13-375, 

April 24, 2013. 

3 
vii 


Insert offset folio 4 here 85022.004

Legislation 

Legislation was introduced in the 110'\ Illth, and 11th Congresses to address problems 

identified in the development of IPA WS. The Committee is considering the inclusion of similar 

legislation as part ofFEMA reauthorization legislation this Congress. That legislation would 

establish a clear framework for the development of IP A WS and ensure that stakeholder input is 

incorporated in the development ofIPA WS. The legislation would achieve this by codifying the 

purpose and framework for the IPA WS consistent with Executive Order 13407 to ensure there is 

clear statutory direction. It would also ensure that the various federal agencies that have a part in 

the governance of the IPA WS are conducting an ongoing dialogue with industry, state, tribal, 

and local stakeholders. 

Urban Search and Rescue System (USAR) 

Currently, there are 28 USAR FEMA task forces located in 19 states throughout the 

continental United States. The task forces were created and are used by FEMA under the 

authority of the Stafford Act4 to rescue victims from structural collapses during disasters such as 

earthquakes and hurricanes. These task forces, in their standard configuration, consist of 70 

person teams comprised of state and local first responders and include firefighters, rescue 

specialists, medical professionals, structural engineers, emergency managers, and canine search 

specialists. A task force is a partnership between state fire departments, law enforcement 

agencies, federal and local governmental agencies, and private companies. In some cases, task 

forces consist of participating agencies from more than one state. 

USAR is an all-hazards disaster program. Regardless of what causes the structural 

collapse (e.g., earthquake, hurricane, gas explosion, bomb, or structural failure), the essential 

elements of the USAR operation remain the same. The capabilities of the USAR task forces 

include: 

• Conduct physical search and rescue in collapsed buildings; 

• Provide reconnaissance to assess damage and needs; 

• Render emergency medical care to trapped victims; 

• Canine search-and-rescue; 

• Assess and control of hazardous materials, electrical services, and gas leaks; 

• Provide structural evaluations of buildings; and 

• Evaluate and stabilize damaged structures. 

The task forces are trained and partially funded and equipped by FEMA. In return, if a 

disaster event warrants national USAR support, FEMA will deploy the three closest task forces 

within six hours of notification, and additional teams as necessary. State and local governments 

can use the task forces and their expertise in events in their communities and state and in 

neighboring states and communities regardless of whether the President declares a major disaster 

or an emergency for that event. 

442 U.S.c. 5121-5207. 

4 
viii 


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Legislation 

Legislation was introduced in previous Congresses to clarify liability issues related to the 

USAR team members. Because USAR teams are composed of state, local, and private-sector 

employees, there remains a lack of clarity in terms oftheir status when they are essentially 

"federalized" and deployed under the direction of FEMA to a federal disaster area outside of 

their normal jurisdiction. Many of these first responders deploy to other areas of the country and 

even internationally without knowing how they are protected in terms of licensing, liability, and 

injury. The legislation would codify the USAR system in statute and clarify liability and 

compensation issues in a way similar to the protections of personnel called up as part of the 

Public Health Service or the National Guard. 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Damon Penn 

Assistant Administrator for National Continuity Programs 

Federal Emergency Management Agency 

Mr. Fred Endrikat 

Branch Chief 

Urban Search and Rescue System 

Federal Emergency Management Agency 

Mr. Bob Khan 

Fire Chief 

City of Phoenix, AZ 

Sponsoring Agency Chief 

Central Region Representative 

Urban Search and Rescue System 

Mr. Barry Fisher 

General Manager 

WFMZ-TV 

Allentown, PA 

National Association of Broadcasters 

Mr. Christopher Guttman-McCabe 

Executive Vice President 

CTIA - The Wireless Association 

Mr. Bobby A. Courtney, M.P.H., J.D. 

Director of Policy and Planning 

MESH Coalition 

5 
(1) 

FEMA REAUTHORIZATION: ENSURING THE 

NATION IS PREPARED 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lou Barletta (Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. BARLETTA. The committee will come to order. 

Today’s hearing is the second in a series of hearings to examine 

reforms to improve our Nation’s emergency management capability. 

Last month we received testimony on recovering quicker and 

smarter following a disaster. We examined the implementation of 

reforms enacted earlier this year as part of the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act and what additional reforms may be needed to 

streamline the process. 

Today we will hear from local officials in the private sector on 

two critical components of our preparedness and response system: 

the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, or IPAWS; the 

Urban Search and Rescue System, or US&R. 

Many people in the public may ask, why are these programs important to me? Some may not recognize the acronym IPAWS, but 

I am sure they would be familiar with the Emergency Alert System 

or the National Weather Service alerts that appear on their televisions or radios when a tornado or flood is approaching, and many 

people may have already received weather or AMBER Alerts on 

their cell phones. All of these components are pieces of IPAWS, a 

system of systems intended to integrate and streamline alerts 

through as many devices as possible. 

It sounds pretty straightforward in this age of technology that we 

should be able to alert people through TV, radio, cell phone and 

Internet, social media, and the list goes on and on. But as I am 

sure the witnesses before us will attest, it has not been easy to develop this system. While the Nation’s alert system dates back to 

the old Emergency Broadcast System in the 1960s, it was not until 

2006, when former President Bush issued an Executive order directing the development of IPAWS, that there was a focused effort 

to modernize the old system. In fact, it was not until 2011 that 

there was a nationwide test to make sure it would even work in 

the event of a Presidential alert. 

2 

While the Executive order provided direction for IPAWS in 2009, 

the GAO raised a number of concerns about how it was being implemented and how effectively FEMA was working with key stakeholders, such as the broadcasters and wireless industries. In recent 

years, however, I am pleased to say, we have seen noticeable 

progress. The program office for IPAWS at FEMA has taken GAO’s 

findings seriously and has taken steps to try and address key problems identified. 

I know FEMA has worked closely with this committee to address 

concerns and ensure we can conduct effective oversight of the program. In fact, in a more recent review completed earlier this year, 

the GAO found improvements in how the program is currently 

being implemented. 

While there has been progress, there are still issues that must 

be addressed as IPAWS continues to expand and integrate additional capabilities. The national test, for example, was a good first 

step. However, there were clear gaps identified in our alert system 

that still need to be fixed. Reform legislation can help ensure the 

development of IPAWS stays on track and minimizes waste. 

Another area we will examine today is the Urban Search and 

Rescue System. US&R has been a model of what a Federal, State, 

local, and private sector partnership can look like. There are 28 

US&R teams across the Nation, including in my home State of 

Pennsylvania. In fact, along with Fire Chief Khan, a number of the 

other US&R team members are also present today, including Special Operations Chief of Philadelphia Fire Department Craig Murphy. 

Each team has up to 70 personnel that are cross-trained in areas 

such as search, rescue, medical, hazardous materials, and logistics. 

The teams include physicians, structural engineers, and first responders. They are trained and equipped with help from FEMA 

and are called up by FEMA when needed to respond following a 

disaster. 

While the members of these teams are not Federal, they do not 

hesitate to respond to disasters in other States and even internationally, such as following the earthquake in Haiti. These teams 

have been deployed over the years to many disasters, including the 

9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and 

more recently Hurricane Sandy and the Colorado floods and 

storms. 

The problem has been that these team members, when Federalized, do not have clarity on liability and compensation issues. It is 

amazing that we ask men and women to go into collapsed structures searching for trapped survivors without providing them clarity on their legal status when it comes to liability issues and injuries. 

We want to explore today how US&R works, how US&R teams 

have responded to recent disasters, and what reforms may be needed to protect team members. 

I thank all of the witnesses for being here today, and I also 

would like to acknowledge and welcome Mr. Fisher, general manager of a broadcast station in my home State of Pennsylvania. 

Thank you all for being here today. 

3 

I now call on the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Carson, for a brief opening statement. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, Chairman Barletta. 

Good morning and welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses; also to Chairman Shuster who is here. 

I want to note at the outset that while the issues before us this 

morning are important, I believe that—as a former law enforcement officer this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart— 

but I personally believe that we are really doing a disservice to the 

American people. The shutdown has real-life impacts, and holding 

a hearing on a topic unrelated to the reopening of our Government, 

no matter how critical, is really counterproductive. 

We all know by now that the last shutdown, in the 1990s, cost over $1 billion, waste we can expect under this shutdown as well. 

This is money that emergency management programs like these 

could put to better use. Moreover, FEMA, a very relevant, critically 

important witness to the issues before us today, cannot attend because of the shutdown. Yes, we have their written testimony, but 

that is not the same as having a representative testify and respond 

to questioning. There is no urgent reason to hold this hearing today 

and it should have been postponed, quite frankly. 

But since the hearing is moving forward, I am very pleased that 

Hoosiers are well represented by Mr. Bobby Courtney with the 

Medical Emergency Services For Health Coalition. The MESH Coalition, which is located in my district, is one of only three entities 

of its kind nationwide. MESH supports healthcare emergency management, and this includes using emergency alerts to coordinate 

hospital preparedness, as well as working with emergency managers to provide real-time hospital capacity information. 

Today’s hearing addresses very essential disaster preparedness 

and response functions, and I am happy to be here today, Mr. 

Chairman. And as Mr. Courtney can attest, modern technologies 

like IPAWS are a critical part of disaster response preparation. 

Several times a year the emergency response personnel like these 

leave behind their families to help those in need, and when they 

do Congress has a responsibility to make sure that they are supported. We must provide them with assurances that they and their 

families will be taken care of if they are hurt in the line of duty. 

This is something we can always do better, and so I am glad that 

it is a part of today’s discussion. 

I welcome the testimony from today’s witnesses as we consider 

priorities and provisions for this committee’s upcoming FEMA reauthorization legislation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Ranking Member Carson. 

At this time I would like to recognize the chairman of the full 

committee, Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Chairman Barletta. Thank you for 

holding this hearing today. The ranking member is correct that 

this shutdown is affecting all Americans, and we urge that the Senate and the President come to the table so we can dispense with 

this shutdown and get back on with business. 

I also want to just point out to make sure that everybody understands that FEMA provided us with testimony before the shutdown 

4 

occurred, so we have their written testimony, and I am sure in the 

coming days when we solve this shutdown we will be talking with 

the folks at FEMA concerning these issues we are talking about 

today. 

But it is affecting all Americans. In fact, it is affecting this committee. We have furloughs beginning this week in our committee 

staff and our personal offices. So, again, we all want to get back 

to work and make sure that the Government is functioning for the 

American people. 

But, again, I want to thank Chairman Barletta for holding this 

hearing on FEMA reauthorization, ensuring that America is prepared for the next incident, and I think we all know there will be 

another incident, it is just when and where. 

I also want to welcome Mr. Fisher also from my home State of 

Pennsylvania. Thanks for making the trip down here. 

Last month the subcommittee held a hearing focusing on recover 

and rebuilding following disasters and reforms we enacted as part 

of the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013. Today we are focusing on those key programs that are critical to our Nation’s preparedness and response capabilities, the IPAWS and the Urban 

Search and Rescue System. In previous Congresses this committee 

has proposed and passed reforms to improve capabilities, and we 

continue exploring similar reforms in the FEMA reauthorization, 

this bill, as I said, that continued examination of legislation clarifying those protections. 

I also want to thank our stakeholders for being here. I think it 

is extremely important that as we develop legislation, reforms, that 

the folks that are out in the real world that have to deal with them 

are testifying before us. You provide us with great insight, and I 

hope that we are going to make this a model for the committee, 

what Mr. Barletta is doing here today, and we have done that on 

water resources development and other bills that we are moving 

forward to make sure that stakeholders are at the table and get 

their say because we learn so much from your real world experiences. So, again, thank all of you for being here today. 

With that I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to recognize Congresswoman Norton, if she has any 

opening comments she would like to make. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am very 

pleased to see this bill. This bill came forward in the last Congress. 

It is a bill of some specific urgency as we have seen more events 

evolve beyond the original 9/11 events where communication is everything. I understand, of course, that there were some outstanding 

issues, and we agreed that we would work those through. So I am 

very pleased that we are looking specifically at the issues that had 

remained outstanding and believe and hope that, with them 

cleared up, this FEMA reauthorization can finally make it through. 

And I thank you very much for bringing this forward. It is an 

urgent and important piece of legislation. And I am pleased to be 

here with the new ranking member as well, who I see is settled in 

quite comfortably and quite well. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. 

5 

I would like to recognize Mr. Mullin for a brief opening statement. 

Mr. MULLIN. I don’t know if you can call it a statement, more it 

is a gripe. I hear my colleague on the other side that is going to 

complain about us holding a hearing. Well, what are we supposed 

to do? Supposed to go back to our office and sit there, watch movies, play cards? We are here to work. 

The gentlemen that are sitting in front of us, they don’t have a 

choice. If called, they are going to go to work. Until we can figure 

out how we are going to work together, how we are going to move 

forward, what do we propose? We have to work. 

Party politics is causing this gridlock to begin with, and unfortunately we are playing with real people’s lives. We have a situation 

that is in front of us that we have got to take care of. We are talking about responding in the most critical times, and my colleague 

from the other side is going to complain because we are having a 

hearing? That is absurd. We have got to continue moving forward 

regardless. 

I am glad I am here. I am glad I am still not just sitting in my 

office. I am glad I am ready to go to work. And we are still going 

to be one day moving this ball forward. This gridlock isn’t going to 

last forever. Why have a backlog here? Let’s be ready to act immediately. And that is what we are trying to do in this committee, is 

we are trying to make sure that we are ready to move forward. We 

have done that in this committee over and over and over again. We 

have had bipartisan approaches over and over and over again and 

our chairman has shown that. And to sit here and get slammed because we are having a committee hearing is ridiculous. 

So thank you for being here. I am going to listen to everything 

you have to say. And I hope—I hope—that we get this right, because so far we are getting it wrong up here in DC. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Mullin. 

I would like to recognize Mr. Walz for opening comments. 

Mr. WALZ. Well, thank you, Chairman, and thank the ranking 

member. 

I, too, would like to thank you for traveling here and coming. 

I would respond to that, to the gentleman. We are high and dry 

up here, receiving a paycheck. FEMA representatives and FEMA V 

in Chicago are not today. I think that the ranking member’s position was clear. I don’t know if we are writing for Jon Stewart now 

or not. The title of the hearing is ‘‘FEMA Reauthorization: Ensuring the Nation is Prepared.’’ 

FEMA is not there, and they are not there because they are furloughed. That is where the anger lies. Of course we should be here 

working. This is about partnerships. Every one of these gentleman 

is going to testify that it is about building a partnership. What 

they do is critically important. What FEMA does is critically important. They are not here because of us. That is the point. So let’s 

fix that part first so FEMA can come here and do their job. 

Nobody is disagreeing that we want to do what is right by our 

people, but it is not sitting here at a dry dais. FEMA is the one 

who walked through the crap in Rushford when we had the flooding and the sewers backed up. 

6 

Mr. MULLIN. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. WALZ. Not at this time. I came here, too, to do my job. I 

came here, too, to talk to that. I want to talk to FEMA. They are 

not here because they can’t be, and the frustration lies in do you 

want to pretend like everything is fine, you want to pretend and 

write a hearing that is ensuring the Nation is prepared. They are 

not prepared today. That is where the frustration lies. Not a question of whether we are going to posture who is working harder, not 

who is coming to do here, not that we are going through this. The 

frustration lies in fix first problems first. We fix the shutdown, 

FEMA can show up. We fix it where FEMA is showing here, we 

can fix this communication issue. 

I have stood on the top of garages in Rushford, Minnesota, because we had no communication. I have talked to a sheriff who left 

his vehicle to jump over a hot power line to pull somebody out of 

an oncoming tornado in Albert Lea and had no communication 

back. His people lost where he was at. 

This issue of being able to communicate, this issue of preparedness, this issue of interoperability, Federal, State, National Guard, 

local law enforcement, first responders, and all that is critically important. But when we break that chain and one of our critical partners is not here—the chairman is right, they provided their testimony ahead of time. Did they provide sandbags ahead of time in 

case we need them if they are there? 

This is about getting it right. So the posturing again and the 

frustration, the gentleman is a friend of mine. I trust his judgment. 

I know he is working. I know you want to be here. I don’t question 

your work ethic. I question what the chairman was saying on this 

is let’s go take up that business first. We can end this today. 

And, yes, I understand the chairman has a different point on 

how we can get to that, but if I am the American people looking 

on here and we are holding a hearing on ensuring the Nation is 

prepared, FEMA is not here because of layoff, I call Region V and 

ask where they are at. You have dedicated public servants here 

who want to get this right and they are looking at saying, what is 

this nonsense? 

Mr. MULLIN. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. WALZ. Yes, I will yield to my friend. 

Mr. MULLIN. The first responders isn’t FEMA, the first responders are the men and women back home like our volunteer fire department, our volunteer police department, which I am a volunteer. 

And we are the first responders. I understand FEMA is not here, 

but FEMA is just a little bit of the niche. 

Mr. WALZ. A little bit of the niche? 

Mr. MULLIN. They are not the first ones to walk in. We are the 

first ones to walk in. And as far as the paycheck, I am giving mine 

back to the Treasury. 

Mr. WALZ. So am I, and I reclaim my time. That is not the posturing we need. 

Mr. MULLIN. OK, but—— 

Mr. WALZ. No, I reclaim my time. 

Mr. MULLIN. OK. 

Mr. WALZ. I reclaim my time. 

7 

The point about this is, so now we are going to elevate one group 

over another. I respect the first responders who are there, but my 

people will tell you this: Without FEMA being there and without 

that you are never made whole again. So if we are ensuring the 

Nation is prepared, we are going to pick the winners and losers 

and put it here and denigrate the Federal employee at FEMA who 

is not here to defend themselves and the work they have done. No 

one is criticizing or trying to pick who does a better job. We are 

all in it together. And so my frustration lies is, is that, yeah—well, 

I am here to hear the witnesses. I yield back. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. 

I would like to recognize Mr. Meadows for opening comments. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I just want to say thank you, gentlemen, for being 

here. Thank you for your service. I enjoy great support from the 

men and women who respond, who truly miss anniversaries and 

birthdays and special events to make sure that they serve the people. And I just want to say a very heartfelt thank you for the job 

that all of you do to make sure. Because the only time, the only 

time that you ever get recognized or highlighted is when you don’t 

do your job well, and that is a sad commentary. 

And so today I want to go on record to say thank you for doing 

your job well, thank you for answering a call, because indeed it is 

a call to serve our Nation, to serve our communities, to serve families and friends. You answer that call. Day in, day out you stand 

on ready, for when the alarm goes off and we have a need you are 

there. I just want to say thank you on behalf of a grateful Nation, 

on behalf of a grateful community. And I am committed to work 

around the clock in a bipartisan fashion to make sure that not only 

we address these issues, but also that we are better prepared going 

forward. 

I was able to participate in a FEMA drill for natural disasters, 

saw it firsthand, saw the unbelievable coordination, setting up cities at an event where we can truly make sure that every single detail is taken care of, rehearse over and over and over again, so that 

nobody comes in harm’s way. And so I want to say thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARLETTA. I recognize Mr. Nolan for some opening comments. 

Mr. NOLAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I, too, would like to express my thanks and gratitude to the local, 

State and Federal FEMA officials who are, if not first, why, they 

are right behind the first responders, and I know in many cases 

they are first to help people during these tragic times. 

But I would like to, if I might, at the risk of sounding Pollyannic 

here, associate myself with the remarks of both our good friend 

Representative Mullin and my very dear and beloved friend Representative Walz and ask that we all give serious consideration to 

the solution to this Government shutdown and crisis that precludes 

Federal FEMA officials from being here, that we all give serious 

consideration to the solution that all of the observers of the process 

in this town know what the solution and the answer is, and that 

is to go to our Speaker and to convince him to allow us a simple 

vote on a continuing resolution to fund the Government at the current levels. 

8 

And I don’t mind telling my colleagues that many of us on this 

side of the aisle, myself included, were prepared to vote against the 

continuing resolution which funds the Government at 2008 levels 

and maintains sequesters, both of which most of us on this side of 

the aisle oppose. But we are prepared to vote for that and to make 

that compromise. And we are not talking about putting that in 

stone, you know, ad infinitum into the future. Just give us a vote 

and join us in pleading with the Speaker to give us a simple vote 

on a clean resolution to fund the Government at these levels for the 

next 4, 5, 6 weeks, and then we can carry on and have this debate 

about all the important and great issues of our time, not only the 

Affordable Care Act, but the future of FEMA and tax reform and 

immigration and trade and all the great issues. 

So forgive me for getting a little off track here, because I know 

we are here to talk about FEMA. But the way to get FEMA here 

is for all of us to join in allowing a vote on a simple, clean CR, and 

then we can all get back to the business, Markwayne, that you so 

eloquently have articulated the need for us to do. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. 

And let me just say that I certainly appreciate my colleagues’ 

strong feelings, and they are all warranted, and I certainly understand where they are coming from. But just for clarity for the public to make it clear that FEMA is still responding to disasters. They 

are still available to respond. They are limited in the activities to 

only protecting life and property, and that is why they are not here 

today. The Disaster Relief Fund is fully appropriated, and that is 

why they can continue to respond to disasters. 

So our panel today, and again we would like to thank you all for 

being here, Mr. Bob Khan, fire chief, city of Phoenix, Arizona, and 

central region sponsoring agency chief, FEMA Urban Search and 

Rescue System. Mr. Barry Fisher, general manager, WFMZ–TV, 

Allentown, Pennsylvania, on behalf of the National Association of 

Broadcasters. Mr. Christopher Guttman-McCabe, executive vice 

president, CTIA—The Wireless Association. And Bobby Courtney, 

chief programming officer, the MESH Coalition. 

I ask unanimous consent that our witnesses’ full statements be 

included in the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Since your written testimony has been made a part of the record, 

the subcommittee would request that you limit your oral testimony 

to 5 minutes. 

Fire Chief Khan, you may proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF BOB KHAN, FIRE CHIEF, CITY OF PHOENIX, 

ARIZONA, FIRE DEPARTMENT, AND CENTRAL REGION SPONSORING AGENCY CHIEF, FEMA URBAN SEARCH AND RESCUE 

SYSTEM; BARRY FISHER, GENERAL MANAGER, WFMZ–TV, ALLENTOWN, PA, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION 

OF BROADCASTERS; CHRISTOPHER GUTTMAN-MCCABE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CTIA—THE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION; AND BOBBY A. COURTNEY, M.P.H., J.D., CHIEF PROGRAMMING OFFICER, MESH COALITION 

Chief KHAN. Thank you, Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member 

Carson, and distinguished members of the committee. This is a 

9 

great opportunity to appear before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, 

and Emergency Management. 

My name is Bob Khan. I am a 31-year member of the Phoenix 

Fire Department. In that role I serve as the task force leader for 

Arizona Task Force 1, one of 28 Urban Search and Rescue teams 

in the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I have been asked 

to serve the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Program as one of 

three sponsoring agency chief representatives representing the 10 

central region teams. 

I appear before you today as a sponsoring agency chief. I want 

you to know how proud I am of this program. The men and women 

that serve the Nation through the US&R program are competent 

and committed professionals that care deeply for the program and 

for the citizens that we serve. 

Each and every team member is a professional provider in his or 

her town or village. Whether a firefighter or medical doctor or 

trained search dog handler, these personnel respond to natural disasters with the same skill sets that they apply every day in their 

hometowns. The concept is fairly simple: utilization of an all-hazards approach to incident mitigation using special training, special 

equipment, and very special people. 

The US&R system is part of a tiered approach to disaster management. The system has the capability to augment local and State 

resources with federally sponsored teams that can readily plug into 

operations at the local level following the National Incident Management System model. These US&R teams are made up of local 

providers that are on their own local payrolls until activated. They 

are far less expensive to maintain than a resource that may be 

fully funded by the Federal Government. 

The 28 US&R teams and their localities benefit from training, 

equipment, and experience that come from being part of this great 

program. Just as the system members apply the skills learned at 

home to national disasters, they apply the lessons learned while on 

Federal missions to emergency or planning needs of their local jurisdictions. 

The same search and rescue methods that were utilized and refined during responses to September 11th, Hurricanes Katrina, 

Sandy, and tornado responses in Oklahoma, are performed daily 

throughout your hometowns in America by our members. Many of 

the planning methods learned by the team members in this system 

were applied just 2 weeks ago while responding to the Colorado 

floods. 

All five of the task forces deployed to the recent flooding in Colorado were from the central region. Our training and equipment 

worked and saved lives. These deployed teams knew each other 

and operated from a common operating platform grounded in training, similar equipment, and common policies. Many of the areas in 

Colorado, because of the flooding, were only accessible by aircraft 

or boats. Fortunately for the victims in Colorado, all 28 task forces 

were able to increase their water operation capabilities by adding 

needed watercraft to their equipment cache during this past fiscal 

year, which allowed us more effectively to respond to the vast 

needs that resulted from this catastrophic flooding. 

10 

Several of the remaining 28 US&R teams were on standby at 

their points of departure waiting to be deployed as either augmentation or relief of the first teams that had been deployed. The 

US&R program office worked diligently to coordinate the deployment of the teams and to ensure the practices applied to any domestic response would also be consistently applied here in Colorado. As the central region sponsoring agency chief of the deployed 

teams, it was gratifying to know that the Federal support was 

there and the activation orders were spelled out. 

In the aftermath of the tornado-caused destruction in Oklahoma, 

capabilities brought to the theater of operation included structural 

evaluation of buildings by structural engineers, including stabilization of damaged structures, including shoring, cribbing of walls, 

roofs, and flooring, along with critical expertise needed to determine the structural integrity of a building prior to inserting teams 

with search and rescue efforts of any possible victims. In comparison to a typical local first responder, a US&R task force is able to 

conduct physical search and heavy rescue operations in collapsed 

reinforced concrete buildings. 

From a sponsoring agency chief’s perspective there are legal and 

financial liabilities that we are concerned of. We want to send the 

best trained teams to assist other teams while assuring our localities are not left vulnerable and exposed. In this economic climate, 

expenses that have been borne by sponsoring agencies in the past 

are being more closely scrutinized by our localities. Many of the 

sponsoring agencies are suffering cuts that have not been seen in 

30 years. We feel it is important for this program to have consistent funding in order to support training and exercises, acquisition and maintenance of equipment, and medical monitoring for responders. 

Workman’s compensation and liability protection for our civilian 

personnel are also of critical importance. There is a very real risk 

of injury and death to our task force members when they are deployed. God forbid anything awful happen here. 

These are things that we have to think about to ensure the proper liability protections, coverage, and compensation, and making 

sure they are in place for their family members. Additionally, we 

want to assure our deployed members’ jobs remain safe until they 

return home. These assurances protect civilians from the US&R 

program from employment discrimination and retaliation as a result of engaging in Federal activities. 

In conclusion, I am thankful to the committee for this opportunity to discuss the US&R program and how it benefits our communities. We look forward to working with the committee on the 

FEMA reauthorization and stand by to make any assistance proven 

to make the system better for the future. Thank you. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you for your testimony, Chief Khan. 

Mr. Fisher, you may proceed. 

Mr. FISHER. Good morning, Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member 

Carson, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Barry 

Fisher. I am the president and general manager of WFMZ–TV, Allentown, Pennsylvania. We are a community-oriented local broadcaster with 83 live newscasts each week and a 24-hour digital 

weather channel. I am here today representing the National AssoVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:19 Apr 10, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\ED\2013\10-2-1~1\85022.TXT JEAN
11 

ciation of Broadcasters. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to 

you today about emergency communications and the valuable asset 

of often lifesaving services that local broadcasters provide during 

emergencies. 

When the power goes out, when phone service is limited, when 

the Internet goes down, broadcasters are always there and always 

on the air. Broadcasters are first informers. We are the go-to 

source for vital information before, during, and after an emergency. 

I would like to show you a brief video clip that underscores the critical services broadcasters provide. 

[Video shown.] 

Mr. FISHER. During Hurricane Sandy, WFMZ provided aroundthe-clock coverage to our viewers to keep them informed. We knew 

there would be widespread power and communication outages, so 

we began alerting the public about what areas would be hit, what 

essentials were needed, and how to stay safe. We also encouraged 

our viewers to buy battery-operated televisions in case they lost 

power. In one of our counties in the viewing area, an estimated 67 

percent of the county was without power, but we stayed on the air, 

keeping viewers abreast of what was happening. We worked closely 

with local radio stations to simulcast our news to reach people 

without battery-operated televisions. 

This type of cooperation among broadcasters is common during 

emergencies. I am proud of our station’s performance during Hurricane Sandy, as well as all broadcasters in the storm zone. 

We are also proud to be the backbone of the emergency communication system. The EAS is a national public warning network 

that connects public safety authorities to the public through overthe-air broadcast stations with the simple push of the button. We 

consider the delivery of timely alerts and warnings to be the most 

important use of our spectrum and an indispensable service to the 

public. 

The EAS is also used for AMBER Alerts, which was created by 

broadcasters and local law enforcement in 1996. To date, AMBER 

Alerts have aided in the successful recovery of over 656 abducted 

children across the United States. 

Broadcasters have made investments in their Internet and social 

media sites, some of the most viewed content on the Web. When 

the public receives an email, text, alerts, or social messages from 

local broadcasters, they know it is accurate and from an authoritative source. In fact, even wireless alerts received on your mobile 

phone direct you to local media for more information. 

In November 2011, FEMA and the FCC conducted the first ever 

EAS test where broadcasters participated across the United States. 

The test served its purpose to diagnose problems in the system that 

are now being addressed. This is precisely why NAB fully supports 

EAS testing on a regular basis. 

The continued success of EAS depends on a few factors. First, 

State and local safety officials should receive ongoing training in 

the proper use and to protect the integrity of the EAS system. 

Broadcasters stand ready to deliver the message, but we first need 

someone to deliver it to us. We strongly urge the committee to incorporate training into any legislation that is considered. 

12 

Second, we ask the committee to create a national advisory committee on emergency alerting. The committee would bring all 

stakeholders together to ensure continual improvements to the system. 

I am grateful for this opportunity to share my views on this indispensable role that broadcasters play in communicating emergency information to the public. We look forward to working with 

you toward our shared goal of keeping the American people safe 

through timely alerts and warnings. Thank you very much for your 

time. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Fisher. 

Mr. Guttman-McCabe, you may proceed. 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. Thank you and good morning, Chairman 

Barletta and Ranking Member Carson and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this 

morning’s hearing. 

My name is Chris Guttman-McCabe and I serve as the association’s executive vice president. In this role I have been involved in 

the wireless industry’s efforts to implement the Commercial Mobile 

Alert Service, and I am pleased to be here today to update you on 

the wireless industry’s efforts to deliver a state-of-the-art alerting 

system to America’s wireless consumers. 

The Commercial Mobile Alert Service, which has been renamed 

Wireless Emergency Alerts by the FCC, grew out of the Warning, 

Alert and Response Network Act, which became law as part of the 

SAFE Ports Act in late 2006. The WARN Act was intended to harness the creativity of the wireless ecosystem and take advantage of 

the ubiquity of the mobile platform to augment the existing emergency alerting system, all without imposing new substantial costs 

or technology mandates on the wireless ecosystem. This approach 

was consistent with and built upon previous public-private partnerships that led to the successful creation of the Wireless Priority 

Service and the AMBER Alert programs. 

In the WARN Act, Congress developed an innovative procedure 

to address the problem of emergency alerting by securing the participation of interested nongovernmental parties in the development and deployment of what has become a 90-character, 

geotargeted alerting capability that lets consumers carrying a wireless device know that there is an imminent threat to health or safety. 

The Wireless Emergency Alert system went live in April 2012 

and since then carriers serving 98 percent of U.S. wireless consumers have opted to participate in the program. Over the last 

year alone, more than 8,600 Wireless Emergency Alerts have been 

issued and many have played a key role in protecting the public. 

These include AMBER Alerts that have helped to directly recover 

abducted children, including an 8-month-old in the State of Minnesota, and 8- and 6-year-old children in Pennsylvania. The alerts 

also have directed the public to take shelter, evacuate, or engage 

in some other action in the face of impending danger, often from 

weather events. 

As the examples highlighted in my written testimony demonstrate, the Wireless Emergency Alert program is working, offering a valuable mobile augmentation to the Emergency Alert BroadVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:19 Apr 10, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\ED\2013\10-2-1~1\85022.TXT JEAN
13 

cast System we all grew up with while giving emergency managers 

a, quote/unquote, ‘‘game changer’’ that helps them to inform and 

protect members of the public who may not be within reach of traditional television or radio alerts. 

While industry is working hard to make the Wireless Emergency 

Alert program an ongoing success test, the effectiveness of the effort also depends on how well the public understands and uses the 

system. While carriers and others in the industry can and do provide important assistance in the area of education, FEMA and 

other Government agencies have an important role to play to promote uniform and comprehensive education across all parts of the 

country and all affected sectors of the emergency response community. 

We applaud FEMA on its recent rollout of a public service announcement on Wireless Emergency Alerts, and we agree that this 

should remain a focus for FEMA and its IPAWS office. Moreover, 

it is incumbent on alerting authorities to similarly educate their 

constituents about the alerts they may send, as only they have the 

knowledge to answer specific questions about incidents and alerts 

in their area. 

The wireless industry is committed to working with FEMA and 

the FCC to ensure that subsequent generations of the alert system 

support additional functionality and granularity. With this in 

mind, we do not believe that wireless carriers that participate in 

the Wireless Emergency Alerting system should be subject to any 

new requirements that emanate from the implementation of 

IPAWS. While IPAWS may help to modernize the distribution of 

alerts on other communications platforms, the WARN Act framework remains the proper path to deliver and modernize emergency 

alerts provided over wireless networks. CTIA urges you to keep 

this in mind as you consider legislative efforts to modernize IPAWS 

and reauthorize FEMA. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in today’s 

hearing. CTIA looks forward to working with the subcommittee, 

FEMA, and others in the public safety community to ensure that 

the Wireless Emergency Alert program continues to offer a unique 

and useful way to help protect the American public. I look forward 

to your questions. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. GuttmanMcCabe. 

Mr. Courtney, you may proceed. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Barletta, 

Ranking Member Carson, and members of the subcommittee. On 

behalf of the MESH Coalition, I appreciate the opportunity to describe our efforts to ensure that central Indiana communities are 

prepared to respond to emergency events, and I applaud your commitment to these important issues. 

I am pleased to report at the outset of my testimony that as a 

result of cooperative efforts of central Indiana healthcare, public 

health, emergency management, and public safety partners 

through the MESH Coalition, that the healthcare infrastructure in 

central Indiana is well positioned to respond to a wide range of 

emergency events. 

14 

The MESH Coalition is a nonprofit public-partnership that enables healthcare providers to effectively respond to emergency 

events and remain viable through a recovery. Our programs increase capacity in healthcare providers to respond to emergency 

events, protect our healthcare safety net, and promote integration 

and coordination between the Government and private sector. 

Today I would like to briefly share three points with you. First, 

through a comprehensive portfolio of programs, the MESH Coalition is continuously improving central Indiana’s ability to mitigate 

against, prepare for, respond to, and recover from both small and 

large-scale emergency events. Second, the MESH Coalition is one 

of the most progressive models of healthcare emergency management, and we believe it can and should be replicated throughout 

the United States. Third, we believe that in order to promote the 

adoption of healthcare coalitions, we must find creative and costeffective ways of providing sustainable support to these efforts 

while maintaining appropriate stewardship of public resources. 

With respect to MESH Coalition programs, in order for 

healthcare providers to prepare for emergency events they must 

understand threats to the healthcare system and know how to mitigate against them. Analysts in our healthcare intelligence program 

conduct real-time monitoring of public and private data and disseminate information on potential threats in order to develop a 

common operating picture every day. 

Our community-based planning program involves the whole community in preparing for potential threats, as well as large-scale anticipated events. Our staff facilitate a number of working groups 

helping participants develop plans and programs that we implement throughout the year. Our policy program provides objective 

analyses of policy issues designed to assist coalition partners with 

planning for long-term sustainability following an emergency event. 

We know that the difference that makes a difference between 

healthcare organizations that respond effectively to emergency 

events and those that don’t is clinicians that make good decisions 

under tough conditions. As such, our training and education programs focus on clinical decisionmaking that is hands on, practical, 

and uses high-fidelity simulation to prepare providers to respond to 

all hazard scenarios. 

In addition, we are committed to training the future of the 

healthcare emergency management workforce, as evidenced by our 

multidisciplinary internships and fellowships that include physicians, nurses, public health graduate students, law students, and 

librarians. 

Under the authority of the Marion County Public Health Department director and in cooperation with the Indianapolis Department 

of Public Safety, we also serve as the Marion County Multi-Agency 

Coordination Center, or MedMACC. The MedMACC is staffed 24 

hours a day, 365 days a year, to provide a critical operational link 

between central Indiana healthcare facilities, the Marion County 

Public Health Department, and the governments of the city of Indianapolis and the State of Indiana. As you can see, our programs 

are ambitious and address the entire emergency management process. 

15 

The second point I would like to share is that the MESH Coalition is one of the most progressive models of healthcare emergency 

management in the United States, and we believe it can and 

should be replicated throughout the Nation. The U.S. Department 

of Health and Human Services has identified the strength of the 

coalition model and is working to encourage its adoption through 

two emergency management grant programs. 

We are also helping to promote coalition building through the 

National Healthcare Coalition Resource Center, a partnership between MESH, the Northwest Health Care Response Network in 

King and Pierce Counties, Washington, and the Northern Virginia 

Hospital Alliance. 

The MESH Coalition is also sustainable, as we pair grant funding with private subscription fees and fee-for-service funding. Nearly 55 percent of our 2013 budget came from private funds, and we 

expect this to grow in 2014. This does not mean that Federal funding is unnecessary. Indeed, our coalition was started with HHS 

funding and has been maintained in part by funding from the Department of Homeland Security’s MMRS and UASI programs. 

Finally, we believe that in order to promote the adoption of 

healthcare coalitions, we must find creative and cost-effective ways 

of providing sustainable support to these efforts while maintaining 

appropriate stewardship of resources. While grant funding alone is 

not a sustainable solution to protecting and preserving public 

health and safety, private sector health care should not be solely 

responsible for responding to emergencies of national significance. 

This is why FEMA’s role in supporting citizens and first responders 

is so critical. Hospitals cannot and should not be expected to bear 

this burden alone. 

Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member Carson, and members of 

the subcommittee, on behalf the MESH Coalition, I thank you for 

your leadership and for the opportunity to describe our efforts to 

ensure that central Indiana communities are prepared to respond 

to emergency events. We hope that our experience will provide insight for other communities across the country. Happy to respond 

to any questions you may have. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Courtney. 

I will now begin the first round of questions, limited to 5 minutes 

for each Member. If there are additional questions following the 

first round we will have additional rounds of questions as needed. 

Mr. Khan and Mr. Fisher, can each of you briefly talk about why 

each of these two systems, US&R and IPAWS, are so critical to ensuring we are prepared as a Nation? Mr. Khan, do you want to go 

first, Chief Khan? 

Chief KHAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question. If you 

look at the local resources that respond to an emergency, to be 

blunt, no matter how large they are, even New York City, they 

soon become overwhelmed with a significant event. These 28 teams 

can deploy, the first three closest teams can deploy immediately, 

and then followed by a box deployment that we have in place. And 

they are 72-hour, self-sustained teams with the ability to do search 

and rescue, different operations for emergency services, under the 

all-hazards umbrella. 

16 

As those local resources get deplenished from the emergency 

itself, we can come in as a fresh set of hands all working on the 

same page with the same equipment and provide rescue, search, 

and treatment to a lot of the people that are out there who need 

help. We did it in Katrina, we did at the World Trade Center, we 

did it most recently in New York where we were doing humanitarian efforts. That ability enables the local jurisdictions to do the 

work they would normally do and not be overwhelmed simply with 

the number of victims that we have seen with either manmade or 

natural disasters. 

Mr. FISHER. IPAWS is important because we all have to be 

speaking the same language and communicating as clearly as possible so that when an emergency occurs, the information that is important gets to the people that are affected, and is delivered quickly, efficiently, and clearly. 

And when you are speaking on a national level, when we have 

only first done our test in 2011 on a national level, it becomes even 

more important that should communication systems be interrupted, 

that there is some way to get messages through to the public, multiple ways to get it through, but IPAWS is a good start for getting 

everyone speaking on the same page so that the message is received and that platforms across the universe—television, radio, 

wireless communications, billboards along the roads, whatever 

method it is—can take this information and immediately put it out. 

And IPAWS is the beginning of that, it is the framework, and it 

is important to continue pursuing cooperation between everyone in 

developing IPAWS so that it is fulfilled in a way that is universal. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. 

Chief Khan, as you point out in your testimony, because US&R 

teams are composed of local and private sector personnel, there 

have been serious concerns about liability and workers’ comp 

issues. Yet in similar situations, as with the National Guard or the 

Public Health Service, many of these issues have been addressed 

in statute. 

Can you give us some examples as to why clarifying these issues 

for the US&R team members is important? 

Chief KHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I can. 

The bottom line is that, when we put these teams together, if you 

have first responders, firefighters, paramedics, even police officers 

that come onboard, they typically are under that first responder 

umbrella. But for the technical rescues that we do, for the medical 

evaluations and procedures that we need, or for using the animals, 

the dogs, we need private citizens to join our teams. Many times 

they are not covered by the statutes. 

And so to provide the best talent and to have some sort of fallback in case they are injured in the line of duty, we feel that it is 

our obligation to provide them some sort of coverage. Right now it 

is unclear as to how we get them covered, and it makes applying 

and being participants in such a great program very limited to a 

lot of these people that are physicians and engineers and dog handlers. 

Mr. BARLETTA. And, Mr. Khan, even with the uncertainties regarding liability and compensation protections, US&R team members still respond when they are called to do so. What would hapVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:19 Apr 10, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\ED\2013\10-2-1~1\85022.TXT JEAN
17 

pen, however, if any team members determined they cannot go because of these risks? Will the rest of the team deploy anyway? 

Chief KHAN. We do operational ready evaluations. The rest of the 

team would deploy, but then again you are not going with critical 

components. Hopefully we would have some fallback staffing that 

we could rely on. But that is a gray area, sir, at best. 

I think the opportunity to shore that up lies within this subcommittee and the ability to fund those individuals that are taking 

a sacrifice away from their families, taking a chance and responding to the theaters that we go to. There are unsound, unsafe theaters that we respond to and there is liability associated with that, 

not to mention in addition, too, job security. We had one member 

who decided to respond regardless of his secure job as a civilian 

and lost employment because of his response with Arizona Task 

Force 1 to Katrina. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. 

The Chair recognizes Ranking Member Carson for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Barletta. 

Mr. Khan, you testified about the need for workers’ compensation 

and liability protections for US&R team members. Would you 

please explain in more detail the type of situations where this is 

needed and how the lack of such protections impacts the ability of 

US&R teams to respond? 

Chief KHAN. Thank you, Ranking Member Carson. The bottom 

line is if you go into—and I can best describe a scenario where you 

are going into a situation like Haiti or the World Trade Center 

where you have structural collapse, you actually are putting people 

into voids where other victims are in order to treat and rescue 

those victims. And you are asking these civilians to take the same 

risk and the same chances that you have trained firefighters or 

paramedics doing that are specially trained in rescue. 

They are covered under the local municipality’s workman’s comp 

insurance coverage. The civilians don’t have that. If they get injured, many times they will be on their own. That makes it hard 

for us to recruit the best of the best to go on deployments with 

these teams so that we are not in need of those resources when we 

respond as a task force. And that goes across the Nation. Especially 

for the jurisdictions that don’t have any or as many physicians or 

engineers to draw from, it becomes even more challenging, sir. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. Courtney, do you believe, sir, that the grant guidance for the 

Metropolitan Medical Response System is responsive to the growing need for our metropolitan areas to develop the capacity for 

mass casualties? 

Mr. COURTNEY. Yes. We have relied on—I shouldn’t say relied 

on—we have utilized MMRS funds through the MESH Coalition in 

a number of ways, largely to develop our programs. Our MCI protocol, our mass casualty incident protocol that has been redeveloped over the past year has really developed better communications 

between first responders and the hospitals. During a mass casualty 

incident our 24-hour duty officer is paged out, like a piece of fire 

or EMS apparatus. They directly communicate with hospitals to determine emergency department capacity. We provide that to onscene commanders, and they are better able to make appropriate 

18 

transport decisions, really with the ultimate goal of not overwhelming a single hospital facility. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. Fisher, you mentioned the emerging use and capabilities of 

mobile DTV-capable devices. Are emergency alerts to mobile DTV 

devices able to target by geography and region? 

Mr. FISHER. Well, I can speak to the mobile DTV platform that 

is being created right now. It was very useful in Japan. It is widespread in Japan. And when they had their tsunami and nuclear 

crisis, people were hanging on everything that was coming across 

mobile DTV. As for is it addressable for a specific location, I would 

have to get back to you on that. I don’t have a specific answer. It 

is not part of what I am fully aware of at this point. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. McCabe, I know that the broadcasters are working with cell 

phone companies, and I think most cell phones now have radio capabilities. There is a new arrangement now between Sprint and 

broadcasters, but I understand that other mobile phone operators 

may be reluctant to include an activated FM chip in mobile phone 

plans for alerts. Please explain the reluctance by these cell phone 

providers to the FM chips. 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. Sure, Ranking Member. First of all, I 

think it is—we have taken to calling the industry an ecosystem 

over the last 5 or 6 years because it has changed so dramatically. 

I have been CTIA for 13 years, and it is—you know, 5, 51⁄2 years 

ago, you didn’t have an iPhone; you didn’t have tablets. You can— 

what you see now didn’t exist. 

The reality is our manufacturers, our handset manufacturers, 

manufacture devices for, you know, a wide range of carriers and 

countries, and they try to fit in a range of products, a range of services into the devices, so not—you know, obviously, with 32 handset 

manufacturers, they are competing with one another. And when we 

look at the issue of FM chip sets or issues like that, a DTV, a mobile DTV, whether there is a satellite chip in it, as you look at the 

range of capabilities or possibilities that can go into a phone, the 

reality is that choice is made both by the handset manufacturers, 

and to the extent that carriers are going to subsidize handsets, by 

the carriers looking at what is going to sell and what consumers 

are going to want. And so they offer a broad range of solutions, and 

the reality—or broad range of options. The reality is those change 

monthly because consumers’ desires change monthly. I mean, 

things like, you know, facilitating Twitter or Facebook or the different photo sharing sites. 

And as we look at handsets, a great test case for FM chip sets 

is going to be Sprint’s efforts with regard to putting in FM chip set. 

And if that sells and is successful, I have a sense that you will see 

it in many, many more phones. And if it doesn’t, you will see it in 

less, and that is how the market works from—from this perspective. 

When we look at 32 different handset manufacturers that put 

hundreds and hundreds of handsets into the market at any one 

point in time, the reality is that diversity is king, and the ecosystem tries to chase or, if it can do it well, get ahead of consumers’ 

tastes, and that is why you see an evolution, constantly evolving 

19 

handsets. I mean, we have phones and tablets, and now we have 

phablets, sort of that split between a phone and a tablet that 

maybe can almost fit in your pocket. And what we see at our trade 

show shows us that what is coming is going to, you know, really 

boggle the mind. Handsets that fit on your watch, the ability to use 

a watch and not have to have a handset attached to it anymore. 

And so when we address issues like FM chip sets, we leave it up 

to that ecosystem, and the carriers will compete against each other 

as well as the handset manufacturers. 

Mr. CARSON. All right. Thank you, sir. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Ranking Member Carson. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Mullin for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MULLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Fisher, obviously, there is no doubt the great work the local 

broadcasters have done. Just in Oklahoma, we know it saved many 

lives during the May tornados. And the question I have is to what 

extent or any did—did you experience or expect IPAWS to help in 

this? How is it helping? What cost did—did your company incur to 

put this in or did it—did it cost you anything? 

Mr. FISHER. Well, in Pennsylvania, we have a little bit of a 

unique situation. We have incorporated a statewide system that is 

based on EMnet, which we began about 10 years ago. EMnet ties 

basically every television station and every radio station in the 

State together through a common source, so we can receive alerts 

from local municipalities, State agencies, FEMA—PEMA, I should 

say, directly via satellite to each of our stations and it is addressable. 

Because we had that network in place, it was a rather simple 

case of interfacing IPAWS into our existing system, so stations in 

Pennsylvania did not have to invest—most stations did not have to 

invest in any additional equipment. 

If you would like more detail on that, I have the manager of our 

EAS system, EMnet system, here with us, and he could comment 

further if you would like. 

Mr. MULLIN. Was there funding available if, say, stations, smaller stations that maybe didn’t have the system already in place, was 

there funding available from the Federal Government to comply 

with this? 

Mr. FISHER. I am told no. 

Mr. MULLIN. Do you know what the average cost would have 

been? Once again, I know I am kind of putting you in a situation, 

but what I am trying to get to is the fact that—— 

Mr. FISHER. It cost $2,000 per station. 

Mr. MULLIN. Per station? 

Mr. FISHER. Per station. 

Mr. MULLIN. The fact that what I am trying to get to, is there 

is no question, and I don’t think anybody is arguing, that we need 

to communicate together—— 

Mr. FISHER. Yes. 

Mr. MULLIN [continuing]. But we have a system going on and 

problems right now. I represent rural Oklahoma, and we have 

fire—fire stations that are all volunteer, we have police stations 

that are truly all volunteer. We have very small radio stations, and 

20 

we are asking them all to spend money in one area and not providing them funding. And unfunded mandates that are coming out 

of this city is killing smaller areas. And I agree, we all need to be 

there, but what we really need to be looking to, if we are going to 

require this and we want this to happen, then we are going to have 

to find funding for it. I know that is a lot of conversations we are 

having up here today, obviously, but is it—do you see this being 

a problem down the road even with—— 

Mr. FISHER. No. 

Mr. MULLIN. How are you budgeting for this, or do you just kind 

of take on the chin when it comes in? 

Mr. FISHER. I would have to say that you are touching on a topic 

that is important to broadcasters. Essentially many things are 

passed that cost us a lot of money without much warning, so funding is an important issue. It is very difficult for small radio stations 

especially to have a regulation passed and then have to spend 

$2,000 that they weren’t thinking of. So it should always be a consideration. 

The beauty of IPAWS would be that eventually, we wouldn’t 

have to be changing on a regular basis to some other format. It is 

important to get to a format and then maintain it. And the importance of getting to that format, you need to hit it right on the 

money so that whatever is decided upon is universal and can last 

10 or 15, 20 years’ worth of time. We don’t want to go out and buy 

the equipment and reinvent this 5, 10 years from now. It doesn’t 

benefit anybody, and it creates a lot of issues. 

Mr. MULLIN. I mean, we know technology is changing constantly, 

though. And so I appreciate your service, I mean, truly, getting it 

to the public and willing to invest and really out of your own pocket to make sure that the public is informed, because it is vitally 

important to us, especially in rural areas. 

Real quick before I run out of time, Mr. Guttman-McCabe. 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MULLIN. Hope I said that right. 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. You did. 

Mr. MULLIN. Kind of used to two names. My first name is 

Markwayne. 

So, currently, the wireless alerts include 90 characters. Is that 

right? 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. Yes. 

Mr. MULLIN. Can you—can the capabilities be expanded to other 

forms of data, such as audio or visual information, if needed? 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. So, Congressman, the way the product 

was launched, it was sort of ‘‘let’s walk before we run,’’ but one of 

the things we considered as part of the Alert Advisory Committee 

that put this together were, you know, what are the next steps, 

how can we evolve this system? There are several issues in front 

of the FCC’s, let’s see, the Communications Security Reliability 

Interoperability Council, it is a mouthful, but the CSRIC is looking 

at evolving and addressing sort of the next step of the service. 

Right now the way the broadcast system works within the wireless alert is a single 90-character message is broadcast out to everyone who is in an area. We wanted to make sure the technology 

21 

was utilized in a way that, since our customers are mobile, that 

those that came into the area would get it. 

Mr. MULLIN. So it is possible, we are just—this is just a first 

step. We are looking to go further with it. 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. Correct. We are looking at evolving it to 

other areas. 

Mr. MULLIN. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Mullin. 

Mr. Walz, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for bringing your expertise. It is incredibly helpful, 

and each of you articulated very well. Mr. Fisher, you talked about, 

and I have witnesses before, the integration, all of you have, of 

things going together, and you mentioned, I think it is one of the 

outdoor advertisers, seems like maybe one of the oldest advertising, 

the billboard, but with the advent of electronic billboards, we have 

seen in Minnesota alerts go up and have successes within the hour 

because of that. And we all know, and that is an important thing. 

And the issue for me, and I think for many of my colleagues that 

is the challenge, and it has been the challenge whether it was rural 

electrification or getting roads, is economy of scale makes it very 

difficult for rural areas. And our fellow citizens who happen to live 

in incredibly small or unincorporated areas, Mr. Guttman-McCabe 

did an excellent job of how the market works on the FM chip sets. 

If there is going to be a need, they will do that. And one of the 

things is the market mentality does not support building cell phone 

towers for some of these areas or reaching them. And that is a reality that everyone up here gets that. So that is where there is the 

gap. That is where that fill in gap. 

And this is challenging to me. I know the primary entry points, 

the goal was to be to 90 percent coverage, which it will feel to me 

like all 10 percent is in my district that is not covered in 2015, but 

the fact of the matter is, for that one person, the 90 percent is irrelevant if they are not getting it. 

So I guess my question to you, and this is a very challenging one, 

goes back, again, to the beginning of, how do you serve rural areas 

when it comes to things that are no longer luxuries, electricity, 

paved roads, now being alerted to these situations? How do we do 

that? What is the model, and do you have some suggestion? Because we have talked in the funding issue, we have talked the market. How do we do it, if you can, if just—your expertise? 

Mr. FISHER. So if you are asking, from a broadcast perspective, 

I believe we do cover the areas quite effectively throughout the 

United States, because we are rather ubiquitous. There are probably very few places in the United States you can go that you can’t 

pick up a radio station or a television station, and we carry those 

emergency messages in a very timely fashion. So I think from a 

broadcast standpoint, we are meeting that challenge and doing it 

very well. 

With the addition of mobile TV, the beauty of that will be that 

while you can watch television stationary now, and the mobile TV 

will be something that, as the marketplace evolves, will allow it to 

22 

be on your iPhone or on your mobile device. And this is where 

things work together very well. When the wireless industry delivers a 90-character message that says something terrible is happening, tune to your local station, and you are in the middle of one 

of your rural areas, if they don’t have a television or a radio with 

them at that moment, having that mobile DTV built into their 

smartphones will allow them to immediately tune without any connection to the Internet. Assuming the Internet has gone down, assuming the wireless went down now because something drastic 

happened, they still have that connection to the local broadcast station, either with mobile TV or with an FM chip, that allows them 

to continue to receive that information. After we have told them 

that there is something major going on, broadcasters are there to 

fill in the gaps: What do I have to do? Where do I have to go? What 

do I do for safety, because alerting them is just the first step? 

Mr. WALZ. Your mobile TV, where is the cost point on that right 

now? Because this is the issue for mine, that they do get it; it is 

in Minnesota, but they get it out of South Dakota, Sioux Falls. 

They don’t have cell phone coverage yet in many of these areas. 

Mr. FISHER. Right. 

Mr. WALZ. What is the cost? 

Mr. FISHER. Well, mobile TV is in the process, stations are rolling it out. And there are some companies that are making—I believe it is Samsung has a unit now that will receive mobile DT signals in their wireless device, and some will receive terrestrial signals as well, so that even without mobile TV, you could receive 

DTV in your community, if you have a station that is on the air 

with just regular broadcast, some of the mobile devices could actually receive that. But the FM chip experiment that Sprint is now 

launching is also a great way for broadcast radio stations to reach 

that device, because everybody’s attached to that device now. I 

mean, you can’t leave home without it. The industry has done a 

great job with it. And if you had that extra utility of a broadcast 

TV and radio chip, just like you have the flashlight built into it 

that works when you need a flashlight, it is great, it is there. You 

don’t usually carry a flashlight, but now you always have one when 

you need it. Broadcast television—broadcast radio is like that utility. I need it right now. Something major is happening; I am in a 

rural area. The cell tower is down, whatever; a broadcast television 

or radio chip will keep you in touch. 

Mr. WALZ. Well, I can tell you, and those members up here who 

have received that alert, and maybe it is the new novelty of it 

where you can tone out the hard tone on the TV and turn—you 

know, turn it down or whatever, the first time you get an alert on 

heavy weather with tornado warning, you pay attention to it. So, 

I mean, it is about habituating the public to that new. 

So I thank you all, and I appreciate you still continuing to push 

this forward for folks to get it right. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Walz. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Meadows for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would agree with my colleague opposite, the first time I got the 

alert, you know, I started looking over my shoulder and—and tryVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:19 Apr 10, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\ED\2013\10-2-1~1\85022.TXT JEAN
23 

ing to figure out, well, how in the world did they know that it is 

coming at me? And so I would—I concur. 

And I represent a rural district, so, you know, when we look at— 

I represent the mountains of western North Carolina. And, you 

know, a lot of people, they look at population centers, and they say, 

well, that is what it is all about, but candidly, when you have a 

disaster in those rural areas, it becomes even more problematic 

with logistics on just how to serve it, how to reach out. 

But before I ask my question of Mr. Khan, I am going to come 

to you first, I want to thank the chairman. You know, when we 

deal with issues like this, nobody sees it as an important thing. It 

is not a high priority. It is not in—until there is a disaster, and 

then it comes back on the chairman and say, Mr. Chairman, why 

didn’t you—you know, why weren’t you proactive? So I want to say 

thank you for being proactive in doing this. 

And, Mr. Khan, I want to focus to the US&R teams. Are they 

funded exclusively by the Federal Government, or is there a cost 

sharing with—with local jurisdictions on that? 

Chief KHAN. Sir, there is a cost sharing. Some of it is tangible, 

some of it is not tangible. I can use my jurisdiction for example. 

As a metropolitan department, we share—it is almost an even 

split, without the deployment aspect of it, just maintaining the 

Type 1 team of about 70 members. To staff that, we have a little 

over 200 members in our system. The bottom line is, is it costs us 

just roughly what it costs the Federal Government to keep them 

up and running. What is not tangible would be the chief officers—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Chief KHAN [continuing]. The training, the backfill welder training, things of that nature, which we get the reward, as I said in 

my testimony, of the experience for the training, the deployments 

themselves and some of the physical resources that we get. So we 

feel that that is a pretty even split in Phoenix, and just the experience of being part of a national response team. 

So for us to go back to our elected officials and our policymakers 

in Phoenix, we can justify our participation in the program. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So let me—I know US&R teams have been deployed to many disaster areas, including the World Trade Center, 

you know, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy. Can you explain 

to me how these teams are chosen, because, you know, we have got 

uniquely defined groups, and then how are they called up and deployed? 

Chief KHAN. Well, the process is actually managed out of—out of 

home office, the program office on C Street, through FEMA. There 

is a branch chief that coordinates it, and it is done through Mr. 

Farmer, Mr. Fenton, and Chief Endrikat. And then there are three 

regional sponsoring agency chiefs, one in the west is Ray Jones. He 

is soon to be retired. The central region is myself. And the eastern 

region is Chief Steve Cover. 

As those orders come in, we will respond to the three closest 

teams. So if something happens in Florida, you are going to get the 

Florida teams to respond, unless somehow they are out of service 

because of the storm itself. Typically, we will send the three closest 

teams, and then we have a box formula that is a rotation, and 

24 

those members in the box formula as it rotates will be basically a 

numeric number that you have that you will rotate out, based on 

the number of teams you need. For Colorado, for example, you have 

got the surrounding teams—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Chief KHAN [continuing]. Then you went to the box response. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So you have, it sounds like, a pretty 

good system for calling up and deployment. One of my concerns 

really has to do with the evaluation of the effectiveness of that response. And I am not asking you today in today’s testimony to 

point out good and bad response teams, but I would be—if you 

could get back to the committee with some recommendations on 

where you can see how we evaluate that better, because, obviously, 

when the command center makes a deployment, there are some 

who are extremely good and there are some that have perhaps 

logistical challenges. And I would love for you to, if you want to 

comment, you can, and if not, come up with some recommendations 

for the committee on how we can address that. 

Chief KHAN. I can give you a half answer. 

Mr. MEADOWS. OK. A half answer is better than no answer. 

Chief KHAN. We do an operational ready evaluation, which allows us to know if the teams are ready to be deployed. That is an 

ongoing process that we work on through home office here in 

Washington, DC, and through the strategic committee, which oversees the overall operation. Those give us an indication whether 

teams are ready to respond or not. 

The other half of your question, I will defer to home office here 

and have them get back to you, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the Chair’s indulgence. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Meadows. 

The Chair recognizes Ms. Edwards for 5 minutes. 

Ms. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to our ranking 

member for holding this hearing. I want to thank our witnesses for 

being here, but I have to tell you, I have been searching for the 

right word this morning to figure out how I am feeling about this, 

and I think the right word is flummoxed as to why we are here this 

morning on such an important subject of emergency alert that 

doesn’t have a Democrat or Republican behind it, but what we 

don’t have sitting at this table is a representative from FEMA. And 

the reason that we don’t and the reason that you could only give 

a half answer, and with all due—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Will—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. No, I will not yield. With all due respect to my 

colleague, a half answer is not acceptable when it comes to emergency alert. 

And the reason that there is not a—there is only a half answer 

and that our witnesses are here sort of challenged to explain how 

it is that FEMA works in these circumstances is because FEMA is 

not at the table because the Government is shut down. And the 

Government is shut down because we have a handful of renegade 

colleagues who are determined, bound and determined to take this 

country down, to shut down this Government, and we ought to 

have FEMA—— 

25 

Mr. BARLETTA. Ms.—— 

Ms. EDWARDS [continuing]. Have—I have my—— 

Mr. BARLETTA. Please—— 

Ms. EDWARDS [continuing]. My 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Would you please keep our comments—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. I have my—— 

Mr. BARLETTA [continuing]. To the hearing, please. 

Ms. EDWARDS. With all due respect, I will reclaim my additional 

5 seconds to finish my statement as a Member of this House of 

Representatives. 

And I will tell you, I want to know, because I have gotten one 

of those alerts. I have been around our beltway and gotten an alert 

for a hurricane—a tornado that was in fact coming right at me. I 

have gotten an alert that came at the same time on my—on my car 

device; I don’t even know how it works. And so I want to answer 

those questions, because I think it is important for the American 

people, but I have to tell you this: It is unacceptable in this country 

for almost a million workers to be out of jobs today because the 

Government is shut down. It is unacceptable that veterans, seniors, 

people who are—actually have claims in to FEMA for disaster response and don’t—can’t have those claims moved because the Government is shut down. This is completely unacceptable. 

And it is my colleagues on the other side of the aisle trying to 

have a pretense of a hearing in the face of a Government shutdown; this is not right for the American people. And I have to tell 

you, everybody on that side and on this side knows that we could 

have FEMA at this table today if we put a clean continuing resolution on the floor that fully funds FEMA and all of our Government 

agencies, that takes care of services for our veterans, our seniors 

and children who are going hungry today because of a Government 

shutdown. It is unacceptable in this country that we have a handful of renegades who are running this country—— 

Mr. BARLETTA. Ms. Edwards—— 

Ms. EDWARDS [continuing]. Running this—— 

Mr. BARLETTA [continuing]. Please keep your comments—— 

Ms. EDWARDS [continuing]. Running this Congress—— 

Mr. BARLETTA. Please keep—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. Renegade is a word. Renegade is a word, and that 

is what they are doing. They are running this country, they are 

running this Congress, and they are running us in the ground, and 

it—and the American people find this completely unacceptable. 

And as a Member of Congress who represents a lot of Federal employees—and I represent FEMA employees in my district who are 

sitting at home today; they are at home today. They can’t come to 

work and do the job of the American people and serve the American people, and the reason that they cannot come is because some 

small band of people have decided that they are going to shut everything down because they want to deny health care to the American people? This is completely unacceptable. So I want to feed our 

young children and our women, infants and children. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Ms. Edwards—— 

Ms. EDWARDS. I want to feed our women, infants and children, 

who deserve to have—— 

26 

Mr. BARLETTA. Please—direct your questions to our witnesses, 

please. 

Ms. EDWARDS. I want to make certain—I have a right to use my 

time the way that I want, Mr. Chairman—who would—who should 

have the ability to get services in this country; our veterans, who 

should have the ability to make sure that they have educational 

and avocational counseling and mental health services; to make 

sure that our emergency responders are able to respond appropriately should there be an emergency. 

And my district is a home to the—to NOAA and to the weather 

center. And what if there is an emergency? Sure, we can monitor 

satellites, but do we have all hands on deck? We do not have all 

hands on deck. And I have to tell you, it is really disturbing. 

And I respect the witnesses who are here today. I have work 

closely with CTIA. I think I am one of your award winners, as a 

matter of fact. I believe in what our broadcasters are doing in 

terms of public service and meeting their public responsibilities. 

And, you know, to you, Mr. Chief, I appreciate what you are 

doing to make sure that our emergency response system works, but 

not to have FEMA at the table because of a Government shutdown 

is unacceptable. 

And I yield my time. And I would love to have you back so that 

we really can ask you questions that are important for the American people. Thank you very much. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Ms. Edwards. 

We will begin our second round of questions, and I will begin. 

Mr. Courtney, timely and accurate alerts are critical in responding to a disaster. For example, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a 

proper alert to deploy a river gauge on the Susquehanna River was 

not issued in Tropical Storm Lee. This resulted in significant flooding. 

As a user of alerts and other information in the context of mass 

and medical care, how critical is it for you to receive accurate and 

timely alerts and information? 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you for that question, Chairman Barletta. 

It is absolutely critical that we receive timely information. We are 

not only consumers of the emergency alert system, of IPAWS, but 

we also constantly disseminate information to medical providers, to 

hospitals, to first responders, oftentimes proactive in advance of severe weather coming, things like that. 

I think there is an opportunity to further develop more targeted 

messaging through the public alert system. We operate a number 

of programs that are looking at, you know, how do we pre-warn 

vulnerable populations who may be, you know, dependent on electricity due to medical devices that they have in their homes, you 

know, the opportunity to be able to target messaging to them, to, 

you know, get to power safe locations, to, you know, ensure that 

they have backup battery power for, say, home ventilators, things 

like that; it is critical that that information be sent out and targeted if we can. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. 

Mr. Fisher and Mr. Guttman-McCabe, this question will go to 

you. How important do you think public alert—public alerts are to 

saving lives? Do you think a modernized and integrated public 

27 

alert system will be able to save even more lives than the current 

system we have? 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. I guess, I will go first, Mr. Chairman. 

The way we look at the system is we look at it as a range of complements; the IPAWS system to offset sort of the central point that 

pushes messages out to a significant range of different options for 

consumers to gather that information. So we think it is unbelievably valuable. Our industry actually signed on and committed to 

doing it voluntarily before we even knew what ‘‘it’’ was. The deadline for committing to deliver emergency alerts came before the 

committee finished determining what was going to be delivered, 

what it was going to cost, what impact it would have, and we took 

that as part of our sort of social responsibility and are happy we 

did. 

We look at the systems—or at the different ways of delivering 

the technology as real true complements to one another. And as I 

was talking to our CEOs, when we were sort of pitching the idea 

of supporting legislation, it was around the time of the tsunami in 

south Asia. And one of the stories that I read talked about that if 

the people had been 400 yards off the beach, over 90 percent of 

them would have survived. And so, for us, it was just a matter of 

you just need a little bell ringer at times. You don’t need full information; you just need to know—and, of course, on that beach, no 

one had a—people don’t have radios. They don’t have their television. They don’t have their SSTRS system, but many have their 

mobile phones. And we looked at wireless as being a complement 

to that system and have embraced it and think that, you know, 

modernizing IPAWS on the IPAWS side of it and then working in 

coordination with the WARN Act portion on the wireless side is a 

sensible way to move forward. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Fisher? 

Mr. FISHER. Yes. I would say it is obvious that as we continue 

to get more platforms included in EAS and with IPAWS that more 

lives will be saved, because we are communicating in every possible 

way at any possible time we can. But as we are progressing forward, we always have to remember that we need redundancy in 

whatever system we are developing, because nothing’s 100 percent, 

and in an emergency, you can count on things failing. I am sure 

that Mr. Khan can definitely attest to that. 

And in communications, while wireless is very good, and Internet 

is good, a lot is happening on that pipeline now. We have to remember there are other means we have to continue to support as 

backups that get around that, because we are getting so reliant as 

a Nation on data, that we think we plug things into that Internet 

connection, and it is always going to make it from point A to point 

B. And if something substantial happens, wire cut, fiber cut, international espionage, terrorism, whatever, disrupts that data, we 

can’t have our communications. Our emergency communication is 

disrupted. 

In Pennsylvania, we are still waiting for a PEP station, a Primary Entry Point, which is one of those means of a backup. A PEP 

station is a broadcast station that is hardened and ready for that 

eventuality. It is fed by both IPAWS and also by a dedicated phone 

line to an undisclosed location for security reasons, so that in the 

28 

event everything fails, the PEP station will still be out there to 

communicate and broadcast emergency messages that other stations can pick up in a daisy chain fashion and get across the State. 

But in Pennsylvania, we are without that right now. And we are 

hoping that as FEMA expands the PEP network of stations, which 

I believe there are probably 70 at this point in the country, that 

at least we get one station, especially in central western Pennsylvania, areas that would be without communications in the event all 

these other systems that we are working on fail. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Ranking Member Carson for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. Courtney, in your opinion, do you think that the WEA system should be used to alert the public to potential epidemics of infectious diseases or pandemics? 

Mr. COURTNEY. Certainly, as long as—and I think Mr. GuttmanMcCabe pointed this out, you know, as long as that information can 

be actionable, as long as folks know how to respond and what they 

should do as a result of those—those messages that are pushed out, 

most certainly, you know, awareness in creating that common operating picture, like I talked about earlier, that we do every day is 

really critical for, not only the public, but for emergency responders, first responders to be able to respond effectively to an emergency event. 

Mr. CARSON. Mr. McCabe, given the success of the rollout of 

WEA, how do you balance the need to alert the public about an 

emergency without overwhelming the public with so many messages that they begin to ignore those alerts? 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. Sure. And thank you, Ranking Member. 

I think Mr. Courtney said it perfectly, that the buzz word being 

‘‘actionable.’’ You want to make sure that they are alerts that actually have a direct impact and people can respond to. I remember 

as I was testifying years ago on the WARN Act, I collected a binder 

full of alerts that came from two local areas—I won’t say, because 

one we are in, and one I live in—but I remember getting alert 

about a rapid dog. I think they meant rabid dog, but they—so I got 

an alert about a rapid dog. Now, to make matters worse, I actually 

found out that the alert was 3 days old. 

And so you hit sort of what we call really a threshold issue, 

which is, make sure we don’t go down the path of the car alarm 

syndrome, right. You know, no one pays attention to car alarms 

anymore. If you hear a car alarm going off, you just keep walking 

past. We want to make sure that there is a balance. And we think 

Congress struck that balance: It was a Presidential alert, imminent 

threat to health or life, and AMBER Alert, and those were the only 

three categories. And as long as you can fit into that center category, which is where the overwhelming majority of alerts fit, I 

think then that is sensible. 

I would—we actually got one out of a local county that said it 

was flu season. I don’t think that is one you want to send, because 

you are diminishing the value of the actual alert. And we want people when they get those alerts in the middle of the night, and they 

are awakened for the first time, yeah, you can be angry that you 

are awakened, but you can realize that you were awakened for a 

29 

reasonable—a reasonable—or a good reason. And we look at the 

AMBER Alerts. We have had some people complain about being 

awakened at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning because of an AMBER 

Alert. We just had a child that was recovered at 4:00 a.m. with an 

AMBER Alert that went out at 2:00 a.m. 

And so for us, there is a balance. You have to—the alert originators have to strike and recognize that balance. And you want to 

make sure, as Mr. Courtney said, it is actionable. I think that is 

key. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. Fisher, Pennsylvania has developed a hub-and-spoke system 

for distributing emergency alerts in addition to daisy chain—a 

daisy chain system used through the PEP stations. How do you 

avoid redundancy and mixed messages when both systems are effectively used simultaneously? 

Mr. FISHER. I am sorry. Would you ask—would you ask the last 

part of that question again. 

Mr. CARSON. How do you avoid redundancy and mixed messages 

when both systems are used simultaneously? 

Mr. FISHER. I would like to ask Matt Lightner, who is actually 

our engineer—— 

Mr. CARSON. OK. 

Mr. FISHER [continuing]. PEMA and broadcasters employ. He 

works directly with PEMA and knows every detail about—— 

Mr. CARSON. Sure. 

Mr. FISHER [continuing]. That system, and can answer this question. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, Mr. Fisher. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Could you please state your name for the record? 

Mr. LIGHTNER. Sure. My name is Matt Lightner. I am the chairman of the State Emergency Communications Commission in 

Pennsylvania. 

Our EMnet system we deployed in 2003. It actually was a model 

for the Nation when we deployed it. It is a satellite-based system, 

it is in all 67 of our county emergency operation centers and our 

State emergency operations center. It allows any of our emergency 

operations centers to instantly gain access to all of our broadcasters, via satellite and via Internet. So if the Internet is down, 

the system would work over satellite directly to the broadcasters. 

All the messages are time stamped; so when a message is sent 

out, if it has arrived via multiple different means, the device on the 

other ends says I have already received this message from EMnet. 

Now I am getting it from IPAWS as well. I am going to ignore this 

message; it was already sent to the public. 

Another great thing with the EMnet system is the reporting capability. Sending a normal emergency message, the emergency 

manager doesn’t really know if the message went out over the airwaves. The EMnet system gives us response back immediately saying, this station carried your message, and it went out over the air, 

and the public was notified. So it is a great system that we have 

deployed in our State. 

Mr. FISHER. I would like to follow up on the comment Mr. 

McCabe made about not overusing the system. One of my comVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:19 Apr 10, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\ED\2013\10-2-1~1\85022.TXT JEAN
30 

ments in my testimony was training is essential. It is something 

we have learned in Pennsylvania. 

When you give so much capability and so much ease to use the 

system, it is easy for someone who is not trained to alert you that 

there is a rabid dog or it is flu season, and that is a frustration 

to the entire process. People tune it out. People won’t pay attention 

anymore. And as he said, it becomes a distraction. So the education 

and the communication on how to use this, when to use it, what 

is appropriate, what is not, restrains the inappropriate use so that 

when it goes off, you pay attention, is very critical. 

Mr. CARSON. Possibly different tones and different buzzes for different messages or different alerts? 

Mr. FISHER. Well, a low-priority message, like the rabid dog or 

flu season, is a nonpriority, that could be a text, a tweet, it could 

be broadcast just as an informational thing on radio without activating the EAS system. 

EMnet actually has a second channel that we have just for that 

purpose, so if a county wants to tell a station something that is not 

on the level of an emergency alert, but they want to communicate 

with us that this area is having this issue right now, please ask 

people to stay out of it, we actually have a secondary path that 

they can communicate with a station and let us know that information so a disc jockey can just say, oh, by the way or something can 

be done at a lower level. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, gentlemen. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Ranking Member Carson. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Mullin for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MULLIN. I really don’t have anything. I am just listening. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BARLETTA. OK. Thank you, Mr. Mullin. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Walz for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALZ. I follow Mr. Mullin. 

Mr. BARLETTA. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. Fisher, last Congress, the National Association of Broadcasters supported IPAWS reform, and you mentioned in your testimony the importance of having a national working group for 

IPAWS, as proposed in the reform legislation. Such a working 

group would be composed of FEMA and other Federal, State, local 

and private sector stakeholders to ensure IPAWS continues to be 

developed in a way that makes sense. Why is this important? 

Mr. FISHER. Well, personal experience, I have been in broadcasting for 37 years. I have watched the evolution of EAS. Fortunately, I was after CONELRAD, so I can’t tell you anything about 

that. I am not that old. But I have watched it evolve through to 

where we are now with EAS. I have been involved with multiple 

committees, and I have watched what happens when you get stakeholders together in a room who can exchange experiences. And we 

meet once a year, occasionally twice a year, at the PEMA headquarters; that is Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency in 

Harrisburg, to bring all the stakeholders together, the State police, 

fire officials, National Weather Service in our area, broadcaster 

representatives. And they are just representatives. It is a room 

with maybe 10 or 15 people. And the communication that goes on 

31 

there helps us to evaluate what worked last time when we had to 

use the system, what needs to be changed, and also talks about 

who else do we have to include into the system to make it more 

robust, including at one point, we discussed how to get wireless onboard. How can we get the billboards onboard? Because we are trying as a group to work out how do we reach the American people. 

We get along pretty well. We have developed relationships, and it 

goes back and forth. And it has helped make a system, I think, in 

Pennsylvania, not to toot our horn too loud, a very robust, solid 

system that broadcasters can get messages out and emergency officials can get messages out in a very efficient way. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Guttman-McCabe, one of the key advantages 

of a modern digital alert system would be the potential to geo target alerts to only those people in the immediate danger area and 

avoid over-alerting people that are not directly affected. 

Why do you think—what do you think about that concept, and 

what are some of the technical issues involved with geo targeting 

alerts to smaller locations? 

Mr. GUTTMAN-MCCABE. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of 

the things—so I happen to benefit from being part of the Alert Advisory Committee that Congress established when we put the original rules together, and one of the things we debated or discussed, 

I guess—not debated but discussed in great detail was geo targeting. And what we ultimately came down to was to begin—it goes 

back to the ‘‘walk, don’t run’’ thought I mentioned before—was let’s 

begin at the county level. There is nothing magical about a county, 

but we decided to pick a county level, and that was the area that 

we were going to originally direct alerts to. 

Already a number of the carriers even further geo target their 

alerts, and the CSRIC is actually looking at maybe sort of formalizing that, but in our world, you have to realize that because 

of the nature of our devices, our constituents are mobile, and so if 

you want to alert, you know, an area in the northeast of DC, the 

reality is you can’t only send that alert to the northeast, because 

by the time the alert goes out, 20 percent of the population has 

moved into the northeast and 20 percent of the population has 

moved out. 

So what we have found over time is that even with the capability 

to more—to have a more granular geo-targeted alert, we found that 

States or counties over—you know, take an area where they think 

the event might be happening and then pick the half dozen counties around it. And when we saw—I think all of us watched on TV 

that young woman who was kidnapped, a lot of the alerts went out 

from State—as they were realizing she was being moved to different States, alerts were going out statewide, because no one was 

sure which county she was in. 

So I think having the capability to geo target more granularly 

makes sense, and I think in practice, it probably won’t be used as 

often as we might think, because the constituents, because the 

users are mobile. And you certainly, you know, if you look at what 

just happened in—around the world with the attack on the mall, 

you don’t want to just alert people at the mall; you want to alert 

everyone who might be driving to the mall. And so, you know, you 

want to make sure that, in essence, at times you over-alert because 

32 

of the mobile nature of the consumers, but having the capability 

makes sense. We are investigating it. We are looking at how you 

would, you know, operationalize that. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. 

The Chair recognizes Ranking Member Carson if he has further 

questions. 

Mr. CARSON. No. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. I would like to thank all of you for 

your testimony here today. Your comments have been helpful to today’s discussion. 

If there are no further questions, I would ask unanimous consent 

that the record of today’s hearing remain open until such time as 

our witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may be 

submitted to them in writing, and unanimous consent that the 

record remain open for 15 days for any additional comments and 

information submitted by Members or witnesses to be included in 

the record of today’s hearing. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

I would like to thank our witnesses again for their testimony 

today. If no other Members have anything to add, this subcommittee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

33 


Insert offset folio 6 here 85022.006

STATEMENT 

OF 

DAMON PENN 

ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR 

NATIONAL CONTINUITY PROGRAMS 

AND 

FRED ENDRIKAT 

URBAN SEARCH AND RESCUE BRANCH CHIEF 

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

BEFORE 

THE 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFASTRUCTURE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENA TIVES 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

"FEMA REAUTHORIZATION: ENSURING THE NATION IS PREPARED" 

Submitted 

By 

Federal Emergency Management Agency 

500 C Street, S.W. 

Washington, D.C. 20472 

OCTOBER 2,2013 
34 


Insert offset folio 7 here 85022.007

Introduction 

Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member Carson and Members of the Subcommittee, this testimony 

is submitted jointly by Damon Penn, the Assistant Administrator of the National Continuity 

Programs (NCP) and Fred Endrikat, Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Branch Chieffor the 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency 

(FEMA). 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these important programs, which are valuable tools that 

help us achieve our mission to support our citizens and first responders across an all hazards 

environment 

First, we will discuss FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPA WS) and how 

we are working with stakeholders, including federal, state, local, tribal and territorial authorities, 

as well as the private sector, advocacy and non-profit organizations, to continue to improve on 

our efforts to ensure we reach the American public with critical messages that can save lives and 

property. Second, we will discuss National Urban Search and Rescue task forces and how they 

are being deployed throughout America to rescue survivors. 

IPA WS Overview 

FEMA's IPA WS enables state, local, tribal, and territorial alerting authorities to send emergency 

alerts to citizens in their jurisdiction using multiple alerting channels simultaneously. The 

alerting channels available through IP A WS today are: 

• Televisions and radios as part ofthe Emergency Alert System (EAS); 

• Mobile phones and cellular devices through the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) 

interface; 

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) All-Hazards Weather 

Radios; 

• Internet websites and applications that monitor the IP A WS Public Alerts Feed; and 

• Local siren systems, road signs, and other local systems that local communities choose to 

connect with IPA WS. 

FEMA has worked over the past four years with emergency managers and public safety officials 

at all levels of government, the private sector, NOAA, and the Federal Communications 

Commission (FCC) to develop and deploy the IPA WS capabilities that are being used across the 

nation today to send citizens alerts and warnings quickly. This tool allows communities to make 

choices to ensure the safety of their citizens. 

Any public safety official, coordinated through their state, local, tribal or territorial government, 

can become an IP A WS user or alerting authority. The IP A WS Program Management Office 

2 
35 


Insert offset folio 8 here 85022.008

(PMO) assists all applicants with the process of becoming alerting authorities. All public safety 

officials using IPAWS to send public alerts must complete FEMA-sponsored training and have 

their own tool to interoperate with IPA WS and generate alerts. As of September 12,2013,33 

states, two territories, and 163 local agencies have become IPA WS Alerting Authorities, and 11 

states and 160 local agencies are presently in the application process. Since June 2012, the 

National Weather Service (NWS) has been using IPA WS to send WEA alerts for: tornadoes, 

flash floods, hurricanes, extreme wind, blizzards and ice storms, tsunamis and dust storms, and 

also began posting weather alerts to the IPA WS Public Alerts Feed this summer. The National 

Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and America's Missing Broadcast 

Emergency Response (AMBER) coordinators in each state and territory have also been using 

IPAWS to send WEA AMBER alerts since December 2012. 

Alert Channels Available Through IPA WS 

Each of the IPA WS alerting channels offer a different avenue for public safety officials to send 

alerts that can save lives and reduce property losses. The integrated access to and use of multiple 

channels to send emergency alerts to the public provides for a higher likelihood that citizens in 

danger will receive the alert and further, if an individual receives the same alert from more than 

one communications channel, increases the likelihood that they will respond to the alert message. 

IP A WS is the core system that serves as the foundation for several other systems, alerts and 

warnings. 

EAS is the back bone of public communications provided by the broadcast, cable, and satellite 

radio and television providers across the nation. Known as "EAS Participants", broadcasters, 

cable television systems, wireless cable systems, satellite digital audio radio service (SOARS) 

providers, and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers have supported the capability for 

officials to address emergency alerts and information to the public for over four decades. EAS is 

used by authorities in a region in accordance with a state EAS Plan as well as NWS to deliver 

emergency alerts and information about emergency events to local populations. EAS is a 

component of the IPA WS but also maintains a traditional resilient broadcast method for 

communicating alerts between stations and to the public even when other communications 

channels fail. 

FEMA, with assistance and partnership from the FCC and NOAA, is responsible for 

implementation, maintenance and operations ofEAS at the federal level. 

NOAA's All Hazards Weather Radio system has been accessible through IPA WS for approved 

authorities to send alerts about non-weather emergencies since 2010. Alerting authorities using 

IPAWS, who have been approved by the National Weather Service, may broadcast emergency 

alerts directly from NOAA Weather Radio transmitters via a system interface maintained 

between IPAWS and NOAA. 

3 
36 


Insert offset folio 9 here 85022.009

Wireless Emergency Alerts are the newest alerting channel that has been successfully used over 

the past year by local officials in New York City and Boston and widely by the National Weather 

Service and State AMBER coordinators through the NCMEC. WEAs can be sent from alerting 

authorities through FEMA's IPAWS directly to WEA-capable cell phones and other mobile 

devices in an affected area. WEAs are short messages that can appear like typical text messages, 

but unlike typical texts, these messages are broadcast to all capable phones within range of 

designated cell towers. WEA messages automatically "pop-up" on the home screen and include a 

unique attention tone and vibration cadence when received by a capable cell phone and include 

brief information about the type of warning, the duration of the warning, and who is sending the 

alert. 

Internet web services and application developers may also choose to monitor IPA WS for display 

or delivery of alerts relevant to their users. Examples in development include smart phone apps, 

news and situational awareness webpages, and Facebook. Although no products have been 

deployed as yet, IPA WS is looking to leverage private sector innovation to explore new ways of 

alerting Internet users and other internet connected communications channels. 

Most alerting authorities already have a range of unique tools, systems and technologies to alert 

and warn the public in their jurisdiction. These systems, which often include emergency 

telephone networks, siren systems, digital road signs, and email or text message subscription 

services, can be upgraded to interoperate with IPA WS. In fact, most local IPA WS users choose 

to use a local existing system to interoperate with IPA WS so that they can use a familiar system 

to generate local alerts and also utilize the IP A WS alerting channels. 

IPA WS WEA Success Stories 

The National Weather Service has been using IPA WS to effectively increase the distribution of 

severe weather alerts since June 2012 and has collected feedback from citizens about how the 

additional WEA alerting channel helped to save lives and property. Most notable was the 

account from a summer camp in Connecticut in July 2013. A camp staff member received a 

tornado warning via a WEA message and was able to evacuate 34 campers and staff from a 

domed athletic field just minutes before the winds from an EF-I category tornado ripped the roof 

from the dome spreading debris across the athletic field. Due to the manager's quick and 

correct response to the received WEA alert, no one at the summer camp was injured. 

The Department of Justice's AMBER Alert Program, through the NCMEC, is relaying AMBER 

Alerts from law enforcement officials in accordance with state AMBER plans to send AMBER 

Wireless Emergency Alerts through IPA WS, and attributes the recovery of four children directly 

to this WEA message alert channel. 

For example, on August 30, 2013, in High Point, North Carolina a student who received a WEA 

AMBER Alert describing a vehicle that was stolen from a grocery store on a Thursday night saw 

that vehicle on Friday morning while walking to her apartment. The University of North 

4 
37 


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Carolina at Greensboro student heard a baby crying inside of the vehicle and immediately called 

police. Because of the alert and because of the student's actions, the 17-month-old baby inside 

was saved. NCMEC recently acknowledged FEMA's contribution to these rescues, presenting 

Administrator Craig Fugate with an award on September 10, 2013 in recognition of the 

tremendous impact FEMA's IPA WS system has had in saving the lives of numerous children. 

During Hurricane Sandy, New York City (NYC) officials used an IPAWS WEA to issue an 

evacuation order to citizens in specific evacuation zones. Later as the storm moved into the city, 

the NYC officials used an IPA WS WEA to instruct remaining citizens to take shelter, stay off 

the streets and only use 9-1-1 for emergencies. During the police activity that led to the capture 

of the Boston marathon bombing suspects, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency 

also used an IPA WS WEA in coordination with local media coverage to alert the public that the 

shelter in place order was being amended late in the day to allow people at work to go home. 

Building Partnerships and Reaching Out 

Partnerships are critical for the success ofIPA WS to date and to ensuring the collective success 

ofIPA WS going forward - not just in terms of ensuring that emergency messages are delivered 

to citizens on a variety of channels, but to educate, assist, and learn from stakeholders across the 

nation. 

The IPA WS PMO collaborates with recognized government, industry leaders, and technical 

experts to ensure that IPA WS is practical for public safety officials at all levels of government, 

supports the private sector communications providers who enable the delivery alert and warning 

information directly to citizens, incorporates the latest technology, and is as effective as practical 

at alerting all Americans. Additionally, the IPA WS PMO identifies venues and opportunities to 

reach key audiences from all partner groups, continually gauges results, and when needed, 

develops methods for improving communications. 

Strategic Outreach Plan 

While much progress has been made, there is still more to do. 

The IPA WS PMO recently released a Strategic Outreach Plan, which serves as a road map to 

increase the awareness and understanding of IPA WS, promote adoption and usage of the 

technology, strengthen existing partner relations and develop new partnerships and interests. 

The IPA WS PMO's strategic direction addresses the U.S. Government Accountability Office 

(GAO) recommendations for "increased coordination and consultation with partners" and the 

IPA WS Strategic Outreach Plan helps the program continue to focus on these partnerships, 

acknowledging that they are a critical component to ensure that timely alerts and warnings are 

delivered to the American people. 

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In particular, the IPA WS PMO's 2013-2014 strategic outreach goals include: 

1. Increasing the awareness and understanding ofIPA WS by all partners and the public, 

including ensuring the public understand how to respond to alerts; 

2. Increasing the adoption and use of IPA WS by all partners, including to provide resources 

to make collaboration easier, to secure partner commitment and to provide partners with 

feedback mechanisms; and 

3. Strengthening existing partner relationships and develop new partnerships and interests, 

including with Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and local authorities, as well as the private 

sector, advocacy and non-profit organizations. 

This past year, to move forward on the first goal, FEMA developed Public Service 

Announcements (PSAs) for radio and TV, a 15-minute online course titled "IPAWS and the 

American People" and incorporated IPAWS and WEA information on Ready.gov. The PSA's 

were created to draw the public's attention and awareness to WEAs as a new and important 

lifesaving tool and directs viewers to learn more about lifesaving alerts on the new webpage at 

www.Readv.gov/alerts. The "IPAWS and the American People" course was designed to educate 

the public about the variety of alert and warning tools and technologies public safety officials 

can use to send them life-saving alerts and included a section focused on how the public should 

respond when they receive an alert. 

The IP A WS PMO develops and provides informational resources for public safety officials, and 

works with all public safety officials who are interested in incorporating these and other products 

into local efforts to educate the public about emergency alerts. 

To accomplish the second goal and increase adoption and use of IPA WS by all partners, FEMA 

frequently demonstrates a wide range ofIPA WS capabilities while integrating alert origination 

tools, alert aggregation functions and alert dissemination technologies. During these 

demonstrations, IPA WS collaborates with numerous public and private sector partners to show 

alerts generated by multiple interoperable tools and systems as used by local and state agencies 

(0 activation and display of the alerts across all the IPA WS alerting channels in order to increase 

the impact of the demonstrations. 

Additionally, the IPA WS PMO hosts regular webinars to speak about alerting system best 

practices, IPA WS specifics, and to inform about IPA WS compatible systems and technologies. 

These webinars are widely viewed and are tailored to respond to public safety officials and 

private sector feedback and requests for more information. The most recent webinar series 

addressed a request from alerting authorities for more information about alert origination 

software and tools that were interoperable with IPA WS. The next webinar series in development 

plans to address emergency alert redistribution systems. 

Recognizing that well-trained users will make the best use ofIPA WS, the IPA WS PMO assists 

public safety officials with all phases of the application process. Access to IPA WS is free; 

6 
39 


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however to send a message using IPA WS, authorized alerting officials must first select an 

IPA WS compatible alert originating tool, apply for a memorandum of agreement with FEMA, 

apply for public alerting permissions and complete FEMA's Emergency Management Institute 

(EMI) Independent Study course 1S-247a "Integrated Public Alert and Warning System." 

To achieve our third goal, FEMA is working to standardize and expand the discipline of public 

alerting and promoting best practices. FEMA is working with alerting authorities to update 

public alert and warning plans, working with the scientific community to explore development of 

consistent alerting codes and symbology that could be used to replace text in alerts and warnings, 

and partnering with various access and functional needs representative groups to better 

understand alert and warning gaps. 

The IPA WS PMO released the "IP A WS Toolkit for Alerting Authorities," which provides a 

collection of information for public safety officials related to why and how to become an IPA WS 

user. The toolkit contains information on IPA WS capabilities, alerting best practices, governance 

structures, technology requirements, operation and usage of IPA WS, testing and exercises, 

training, qualifying to be an authorized IPA WS alerting authority, building and strengthening 

relationships with private sector and other alerting partners and educating the American people 

about alerts and warnings. The IPA WS PMO actively promotes the toolkit and ensures it is 

available to all public safety officials. 

The IPA WS PMO, in partnership with FEMA's Office of Disability Integration and 

Coordination, hosts semi-annual roundtables for federal partners, private sector, and non-profit 

and advocacy organizations. The IP A WS PMO invites expert panelists to present at these 

roundtables, and the themes for past roundtables have included private sector and universities 

developing emergency communication technologies and products for Americans with 

Disabilities and access and functional needs. Looking forward, the IPA WS PMO has identified 

symbology for alerts and warnings as the theme for the next roundtable and will be facilitating 

working groups to advance this initiative. 

Additionally, the IPAWS PMO published a white paper "Alerting the Whole Community: 

Removing Barriers to Alerting Accessibility" and continues to work with and train alerting 

authorities to communicate the benefits of IPA WS to the whole community within their 

jurisdiction, including Americans with disabilities and others with access and functional needs. 

For non-English speaking populations, the IPA WS PMO is participating on industry technical 

and standards working groups addressing multi-lingual alerting dissemination technologies and 

tools. 

Since January 2010, the IPA WS PMO has participated in more than 300 events and activities 

that have engaged Americans across all IPA WS partner groups. Moving forward, IPA WS will 

continue to engage partners through conferences, webinars, roundtables, technical 

demonstrations, working groups and other events. 

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Following the IPA WS PMO strategic plan, and in response to the most recent GAO Report 

"Emergency Alerting: Capabilities Have Improved, but Additional Guidance and Testing Are 

Needed," the IPA WS PMO looks forward to collaborating with the FCC in using the 2011 

national-level EAS test plan as a foundation to develop and implement a strategy for regular 

future national-level alert and warning tests. 

This national-level test assessed the readiness and effectiveness of the system for the President to 

address the public during times of extreme national emergency. Radio and television 

broadcasters, cable, satellite, and wireline providers across the country participated in the test. 

FEMA originated an Emergency Action Notification simultaneously to 61 Primary Entry Point 

stations that serve as national-level relay points. These PEP stations rebroadcasted the message 

in their coverage area to local primary stations and other monitoring stations. 

The IPA WS PMO will continue to work to assist Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and local 

alerting authorities to implement local alert and warning tests and exercises utilizing IPA WS. 

IPA WS Goals and a Path Forward 

The ultimate goal of IPA WS is to enable timely alert and warning to the public to ensure the 

preservation of life and property. Effective alert and warning provided to citizens in harm's way 

enables them to prepare for and protect against impending disasters thereby lessening the impact 

of and recovery time from natural disasters and other threats. FEMA understands that disasters 

are local and that local government has the primary responsibility to look after the welfare of its 

citizens, including the issuing of alerts and warnings. But FEMA also understands that consistent 

and effective alert and warning nationwide contributes to a stronger national preparedness 

posture, helping to mitigate, respond to, and recover from threats and assisting local and state 

authorities plan for, implement, and use effective alert and warning systems. FEMA takes that 

responsibility very seriously and is constantly working to make our collective public alert and 

warning system as effective, reliable, integrated, flexible and comprehensive as it can be and 

accessible to alerting authorities at all levels of government. 

To ensure that the American people are educated and informed, FEMA is working toward further 

developing partnerships and outreach efforts with other Federal agencies and the private sector to 

make the most effective use of available resources. 

The IPA WS PMO, in partnership with Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and local alerting 

authorities, public and private sector partners, Federal partners, and non-profit and advocacy 

organizations, will use every opportunity and available venue, to provide educational and 

actionable information to the American people. 

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41 


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National Urban Search & Rescue (US&R) 

To achieve its mission of supporting citizens and first responders, FEMA uses tools including 

IPA WS alerts and warnings, and National Urban Search & Rescue (US&R) task force teams to 

achieve that mission. 

FEMA has 28 mission-ready, National US&R task forces - complete with the necessary tools, 

equipment, skills and techniques - available for deployment to assist state, local, tribal, and 

territorial governments in rescuing survivors of structural collapse incidents or to assist in other 

search and rescue missions. 

These task forces are loeated throughout the continental United States. Any task force can be 

activated and deployed by FEMA to a disaster area to provide assistance in structural collapse 

rescue, or they may be pre-positioned when a major disaster threatens a community. When 

activated by FEMA, the Task Forces become a Federal response resource that can be deployed 

anywhere in the Nation in response to a request for assistance by State, local, tribal, and 

territorial governments. 

In response to the September flooding in Colorado, four federal US&R task forces were 

deployed (in addition to Colorado Task Force One that was utilized as a State resource) and 

assisted state and local authorities in rescuing survivors. 

National US&R Response System Task Forces 

Each National US&R Type I task force is made up of70 multi-faceted, cross-trained personnel 

who serve in six major functional areas, including search, rescue, medical, hazardous materials, 

logistics and planning and who also include technical specialists such as physicians, structural 

engineers, and canine search teams. A task force is able to conduct physical search and heavy 

rescue operations in damaged or collapsed reinforced concrete buildings. It can also be divided 

into two 35-member teams to provide 24-hour search and rescue operations. Self-sufficient for 

an initial 72 hours, the task forces are equipped with convoy vehicles to support ground 

deployments and ean be configured into Type III task forces to support events such as 

hurricanes, tornadoes, and other similar incidents. 

US&R Task Force Capabilities 

• Conduct physical search and rescue operations in damaged/collapsed structures; 

• Provide reconnaissance to assess damage and needs, and to report results to appropriate 

officials; 

• Render emergency medical care for trapped survivors, US&R personnel and search 

canines; 

• Survey and evaluate hazardous materials threats; 

• Assess and shut off utilities to homes and other buildings; 

• Operate in a known or suspected weapons-of-mass-destruction environment; 

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• Provide structural and hazard evaluations of buildings; and 

• Stabilize damaged structures, including shoring and cribbing. 

As of2008, the scope of Federal search and rescue operations under the National Response 

Framework (NRF) was expanded to address three main operational environments: structural 

collapse (urban) search and rescue; maritime/coastal/waterborne search and rescue; and land 

search and rescue. The NRF names four primary Federal partners who support such search and 

rescue operations: FEMA, the U.S. Coast Guard; the Department of the InteriorlNational Park 

Service; and the Department of Defense. 

The Importance ofUS&R Teams 

These US&R task forces are national assets that can be deployed by FEMA to assist state, local 

and tribal governments in rescuing survivors of structural collapse incidents or to assist in other 

search and rescue missions. They are a critical component ofFEMNs response system, helping 

to achieve FEMA's mission of supporting our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a 

nation we work together to build, sustain and improve our capability to prepare for, protect 

against, respond to, recover from and mitigate all hazards. 

Conclusion 

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss these important 

programs, which are valuable tools that help us achieve our mission to support our citizens and 

first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain and improve our 

capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate all hazards. 

We are happy to answer any questions you may have. 

10 
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Testimony before the United States House of Representatives 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management 

Regarding 

FEMA Reauthorization: Ensuring the Nation is Prepared 

Bob Khan 

Fire Chief, City of Phoenix Fire Department 

and 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Urban Search & Rescue (US&R) 

Program 

Central Region Sponsoring Agency Chief 

October 2, 2013 
44 


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Introduction: 

Thank you, Chairman Barletta, Vice-Chair Farenthold, Ranking-member Carson and 

distinguished committee members for the opportunity to appear today before the U.S. House of 

Representatives Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency 

Management. 

My name is Bob Khan. I am a 3 I-year member of the City of Phoenix, Arizona Fire Department, 

currently serving the residents, business owners and visitors of the greater Phoenix area as their 

Fire Chief. As such, I am the Sponsoring Agency Chief for Arizona Task Force 1, one of the 28 

Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Teams in the -Federal Emergency Management Agency 

(FEMA) Urban Search and Rescue National Response System. I have been asked to serve the 

FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Program as one of three Sponsoring Agency Chief 

Representatives, representing the ten Central Region teams. 

I appear before you today as a Sponsoring Agency Chief. I want you to know how proud I am of 

this program. The men and women that serve our nation through the US&R program are 

competent and committed professionals that care deeply for the program and for the citizens that 

we serve. Each and every team member is a professional provider in his or her locale. Whether a 

firefighter or a medical doctor or a trained search-dog handler, these personnel respond to 

national disasters with the same skill sets that they apply every day in their hometowns. The 

concept is fairly simple: utilization of an all-hazards approach to incident mitigation utilizing 

special training, special equipment and special people. 

The US&R system is part of a tiered approach to disaster management. The system has the 

capability to augment local and state resources with federally sponsored teams that can readily 

plug into operations at the local level following the National Incident Management System. 

These US&R teams, made up of local providers that are on their local payrolls nntil activated, 

are far less expensive to maintain than a resource that may otherwise be fully funded by the 

federal government. The 28 US&R teams and their localities benefit from the training, 

equipment and experience that come from being part of the program. Just as the system 

members apply the skills learned at home to national disasters, they apply the lessons learned 

while on federal missions to the emergency or planning needs of their local jurisdictions. The 

same search and rescue methods that were utilized and refined during the responses to the 

September II th attacks, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and the tornado response in Oklahoma 

are performed daily throughout your hometowns in America by our members. Many of the 

planning methods learned by the team members in this system were applied just two weeks ago 

while responding to the Colorado floods. 

All five of the task forces deployed to the recent flooding in Colorado were from the Central 

Region. Our training, equipment and processes worked and lives were certainly saved as a result. 

These deployed teams knew each other and operated from a common operating platform 

grounded in training, similar equipment and common policies. Many of the areas in Colorado, 

because of the flooding, were only accessible by aircraft or boats. Fortunately for the victims in 
45 


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Colorado, all 28 task forces were able to increase their water operations capabilities by adding 

needed watercraft to their equipment cache during this past fiscal year, which allowed us to more 

effectively respond to the vast and complex needs that resulted from this catastrophic flooding. 

Several of the remaining 28 US&R teams were on standby at their points of departure, waiting to 

deploy as either augmentation or in relief of the first teams that had been deployed. The US&R 

Program Office also worked diligently to coordinate the deployment of the teams and to ensure 

the practices applied to any domestic response would also be consistently applied here. As the 

Central Region Sponsoring Agency Chief representative of the deployed teams, it was gratifying 

to know that federal support was there and that the activation orders were spelled out. 

In the aftermath of the tornado-caused destruction in Oklahoma, capabilities brought to the 

theater of operation included structural evaluation of buildings by structural engineers including 

stabilization of damaged structures, i.e., shoring and cribbing of walls, roofs, and flooring, along 

with the critical expertise needed to determine the structural integrity of a building prior to 

inserting teams to assist with search and rescue efforts of any possible victims. In comparison to 

a typical local first responder, a US&R task force is able to conduct physical search and heavy 

rescue operations in collapsed, re-enforced concrete buildings with all the equipment and 

supplies necessary for the task force to be self sufficient for up to 72 hours without impacting the 

strained local resources needed by local authorities. 

A prime example of how FEMA US&R task forces bring the ability to be a "force multiplier" 

was demonstrated by the eight US&R task forces that arrived in New York following the landfall 

of Hurricane Sandy. After search and rescue efforts were completed, all eight task forces were 

held in theater to assist local authorities with recovery efforts. Because of the support of all the 

sponsoring agency chiefs of each of the task forces, a multi-agency team took part in the 

humanity efforts needed in the heavily populated areas of New York City and on Long Island. 

Because they were also trained firefighters and paramedics, the task forces went door to door in 

high-rise buildings. Others went into the neighborhoods at the request of the New York City 

Office of Emergency Management. The task forces provided welfare checks and delivered 

desperately needed supplies to residents who were without both mnning water and electricity. 

Using their expertise in logistics, the task forces provided additional assistance in the following 

three days by setting up supply stations for those New York residents in need of food, water, 

toiletries and diapers. 

Within 12 hours of tornados touching down in Oklahoma this past spring, FEMA US&R task 

forces were on the ground and in theater providing search and rescue efforts. An additional 

capability that each task force brought included human remains canine assets, along with civilian 

structural engineers that deployed with each task force. This asset assisted local authorities with 

the ability to quickly clear affected structures and neighborhoods. 

With every deployment, we discover opportunities for improvement and we feel confident that 

after-action issues will be addressed by the US&R teams as well as the program office. I would 

like to thank Mr. Nimmich, Mr. Fenton, Mr. Framer and the entire US&R program staff for their 

efforts and support. Mr. Nimmich has clearly made every effort to make himself and his staff 

available to the Sponsoring Agency Chiefs representatives and the Task Force Leaders' 

representatives. This increased spirit of cooperation will go a long way toward making the 
46 


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program even better. This will ensnre onr teams are mobilized and transported to the disaster site 

within the window of opportunity necessary for successful search and rescue operations, whether 

in a domestic or foreign theater. 

US&RNeeds 

From a Sponsoring Agency Chiefs perspective, there are legal and financial liabilities that are of 

concern. We want to send the best trained teams to assist others while assuring onr localities are 

not left vulnerable and exposed. In this economic climate, expenses that have been borne by 

sponsoring agencies in the past are being more closely scrutinized by our localities. Many of the 

sponsoring agencies are facing staffing cuts that have not been seen in thirty years. -We are 

continually being asked to do more with less in onr municipalities. It is increasingly difficult to 

place a fire company out of service for mandatory US&R training or equipment maintenance 

when we do not have enough resonrces to protect onr community at the levels we have in the 

past. 

We feel it important for this program to have consistent funding in order to support training and 

exercises, acquisition and maintenance of equipment and medical monitoring for the responders. 

Workers compensation and liability protection for our civilian personnel are also of critical 

importance. There is a very real risk of injury and death to onr task force members when they 

are deployed. God forbid anything awful were to happen to them in an already dire situation, but 

these are things that we have to think about and we want to ensure the proper liability 

protections, coverage and compensation are in place for that member and their family. 

Additionally, we want to ensnre onr deployed members' jobs remain secnre until they safely 

return home. These assnrances protect civilian members of the US&R system (non-uniformed 

personnel such as physicians, structnral engineers and canine handlers) from employment 

discrimination and retaliation as a result of engaging in federal US&R activities. For example, 

we faced this situation when one of onr heavy riggers, Don Childress, faced termination from his 

civilian employer ifhe chose to respond with us to New Orleans. Fortunately for us and for the 

residents of New Orleans, Don came, but sadly, he did lose his job. 

Conclusion 

I am thankful to the Committee for this opportunity to discuss the US&R program and how it 

benefits our communities. We look forward to working with the Committee on the FEMA 

reauthorization and stand ready to assist in making this proven system better today and into the 

futnre. 
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NAB 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS 

Hearing on 

"FEMA Reauthorization: Ensuring the Nation is Prepared" 

United States House of Representatives 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public 

Buildings, and Emergency Management 

October 2,2013 

Statement of Barry Fisher 

On behalf of the 

National Association of Broadcasters 
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Good morning, Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member Carson, and Members of the 

Subcommittee. My name is Barry Fisher. I am the General Manager of WFMZ-TV in 

Allentown, Pennsylvania, with service area coverage of the Lehigh Valley and Berks 

County. WFMZ is a community-oriented. independent television station. with 83 news 

broadcasts each week, and we also operate a 24-hour digital weather channel. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My testimony will address the 

valuable, often life-saving services that all broadcasters -- both television and radio 

stations -- provide during natural disasters and other crises. In particular, I will discuss 

broadcasters' indispensable role as the backbone of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) 

and our interest in the continued roll-out of the Integrated Public Alert Warning System 

(IPAWS). I am pleased to share with you my views on how to improve our nation's 

emergency communications system in the digital age, and how reauthorization of FEMA 

may advance that goal. 

I. Broadcasting Is the Most Important Source for Critical, Life-Saving 

Emergency Information for All Americans 

Broadcasters' commitment to public service is never more apparent than during times of 

crisis. During an emergency -- particularly one that arises with little notice -- no other 

industry can match the ability of full power broadcasting to deliver comprehensive, upto-date warnings and information to affected citizens.' Local television broadcasters 

reach 96.4% of the approximate 120.2 million households in the U.S} while local radio 

reaches an audience of more than 242.5 million Americans, or 92% of the population 

(ages 12+), on a weekly basis.3 The wide signal coverage of broadcasters ensures that 

anyone in a car, at home or even walking around with a mobile device can receive up1 "Broadcast radio receivers are ubiquitous ... In the aftermath of a national, catastrophic event. 

alerting authorities can leverage operational area capabilities to transmit crucial information to 

the public through as many methods as possible. However, broadcast radio may be the most 

effective method since it is possible that terrestrial Internet Protocol (IP) networks and other 

pathways could be inoperable .... " An Emergency Alert System Best Practices GuideVersion 1.0, Federal Emergency Management Agency. Integrated Public Alert and Warning 

System. at 3, available at 

http://www.fema.govlpdf/emergencY/ipaws/eas best practices guide. pdf. 

2 Nielsen. Universe Estimates, as of August 26,2013. 

3 Arbitron Radar, June 2013, http://arbitron.mediaroom.comlindex.php?s=43&item=885. 
49 


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to-the-minute alerts when disaster strikes. As a ubiquitous medium, broadcasters 

understand and appreciate their unique role in disseminating emergency information. 

Radio and television broadcasters are first informers during an emergency, and 

Americans know to tum to their local broadcasters first for in-depth coverage. 

Radio and television stations are also our nation's most reliable network for distributing 

emergency information. Even if the electricity is out, causing the Internet and cable 

television to go down, and phone service is lost because networks are clogged or cell 

towers or phone lines are down, over-the-air broadcasters can remain on the air and 

received by battery-operated radios and televisions. For example, during Hurricane 

Sandy, approximately 25 percent of cell phone towers in the New York-New Jersey area 

failed, while virtually all radio and television stations were able to provide uninterrupted 

service. 

Local radio and television stations have dedicated news and weather personnel who 

use their familiarity with the people and geography of their local communities to provide 

the most useful, informative news to their audiences, whether that includes information 

on where to shelter-in-place, which streets will serve as evacuation routes, or where 

local businesses may find fuel or generators. 

Indeed, even with the recent, welcomed introduction of Wireless Emergency Alerts 

0NEA) by the cellular industry, local radio and television stations remain the primary 

source for news and information regarding emergency situations. As a text-based 

message, WEA's are limited to no more than 90 characters. As a result, WEAs typically 

provide only the most rudimentary, bell-ringing data. Given that limitation, although 

WEAs are a welcomed development, this new EAS outlet only underscores the 

importance of broadcasters during times of emergency, as virtually all WEAs instruct 

citizens to "check local media" for further information regarding an emergency,4 such as 

4 Broadcasters are also rolling-out Mobile EAS (M-EAS), which is a next-generation approach to 

public warnings that leverages the backbone of Mobile Digital TV transmissions. M-EAS utilizes 

terrestrial broadcasting rather than cellular network connectivity, which allows highly reliable 

message dissemination, even when cellular networks are down. M-EAS also enables rich 

2 
50 


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the path of a storm, shelter-in-place instructions, or where to locate assistance. 

Broadcasters are pleased to serve as the chief source for essential emergency 

information for all Americans, including wireless telephone subscribers. 

Broadcasters deliver emergency information with passion, during times of crisis both 

large and small. For instance, WFMZ's coverage area includes several rivers that have 

experienced dangerous flooding in recent years. Viewers who live on the banks of 

these rivers rely on our news coverage to know if and when to evacuate. WFMZ also 

operates the 69 News AccuWeather Channel on digital channel 69.2, which provides 

continuous weather information, including up-to-the-minute updates on river flood 

stages. WFMZ routinely receives feedback from viewers about the comfort they enjoy 

in knowing that WFMZ is monitoring and reporting on the status of these rivers. 

On a larger scale, broadcasters' commitment to emergency information was never more 

apparent than during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Overall, 147 fatalities were 

attributed to Sandy, with losses in the United States ranging from $50 billion to $71 

billion. Fortunately, as the storm approached, radio and teleVision stations in the path, 

including WFMZ, mobilized their staff and facilities, or the damage could have been 

even worse. 

WFMZ provided round-the-clock coverage to keep our viewers informed on what to 

expect from the storm. Specifically, given the experience and expertise of our 

meteorologists and other local news reporters, we anticipated widespread power and 

communications outages. We repeatedly reminded viewers ahead of the storm of the 

many ways they can receive news about the storm, including a battery-operated 

television. This guidance was particularly appreciated by viewers in the counties we 

cover where an estimated 67 percent of residents lost power. 

multimedia alerts (e.g., video, audio, text, and graphics) to mobile DTV-equipped cellphones, 

tablets, laptops, netbooks, and in-car navigation systems. M-EAS is compliant with Common 

Alerting Protocol (CAP) and designed for full incorporation into the Integrated Public Alert and 

Waming System (IPAWS). See http://mobileeas.org/. 

3 
51 


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We also took advance precautions to ensure our ability to provide continuous service 

during the storm. For example, WFMZ pre-positioned news crews throughout the 

region so they could provide live, on-the-scene news without excessive travel, which 

was extremely dangerous and cumbersome during the storm. We also made sure that 

station personnel were equipped to deal with any possible obstacles that might limit 

access to our facilities. In fact, some staff even had to use chain saws to remove debris 

to clear a path to WFMZ's studio. Station management also ensured that we had an 

ample fuel supply to run our station on generator power for several days. The station, in 

fact, ran on our emergency generator for five days after losing power just hours into the 

storm. To maintain the flow of information to our local citizens, we partnered with local 

radio stations to simulcast our news coverage to reach people without battery-operated 

televisions, and streamed our newscast coverage online via Syncbak, which is an app 

for smartphones that allowed the few people who maintained wireless service to watch 

our news coverage in addition to web-based streaming. 

Similar life-saving steps were also undertaken by other local broadcasters in the region. 

At the FCC's field hearing on Hurricane Sandy in February 2013, Dave Davis of New 

York City-based WABC-TV described his station's efforts: 

As our news department worked to gather the latest information ... our 

engineering department made sure our own infrastructure was prepared ... 

testing and tuning up all the generators, topping off fuel tanks, inspecting 

and securing rooftop and tower antenna installations, installing additional 

receive systems at the station, and testing backup transmission paths. 

We knew our life-saving information would not save lives unless we 

stayed on the air. 5 

These kinds of measures were typical of broadcasters, and proved extremely important 

as the storm knocked out other means of communication in parts of the tri-state area for 

5 Statement of Dave Davis, President and General Manager, WABC-TV, New York, & Vice 

Chairman, New York State Broadcasters Association, Inc., FCC, Field Hearing on Super Storm 

Sandy (Feb. 3, 2013), at 1-2. 

4 
52 


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almost a full week, including one-quarter of the cell phone towers in the storm zone.6 

As a result, all television stations and virtually all radio stations were able to remain on 

the air during the storm? Even FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate recognized the critical 

importance of broadcasters, urging the 50 million people in the storm area to get a 

battery-powered or hand cranked radio before the storm to ensure reliable access to 

local news and weather updates in the event of power, Internet and cell tower outages.8 

During and after the storm, many local broadcasters provided round-the-clock coverage, 

including WTNH in New Haven, Connecticut, which stayed on the air for over 40 hours 

with live, on-the-scene coverage in a 54-hour period, including one stretch of 28 ~ 

hours straight. WTNH reminded citizens to stock their homes with batteries and other 

essentials, and made sure to inform viewers that the station would live-stream all of its 

coverage during the storm. Similarly, WPRI in Providence, Rhode Island, provided 

critical information regarding evacuations, Red Cross and United Way and other 

information both on the air and on a dedicated web page it specifically created for 

Hurricane Sandy. 

Many other radio and television stations along the northeast coast stayed on the air 

continuously for several days, providing life-saving information and a megaphone for 

public safety officials to announce evacuation, shelter-in-place, and other instructions.9 

Local broadcasters also formed partnerships with other outlets to reach as many 

citizens as possible, including music and sports radio stations that simulcast storm 

6 Brian X. Chen, Gellphone Users Steaming at Hit-or-Miss Service, New York Times (Nov. 2, 

2012), available at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/technology/celiphone-users-steamingat-hit-or-miss-service.html? r=0. 

7 "Batteries are drained, Internet connections long-gone. For the nearly 5 million households 

muddling through a fourth day without power in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, there's really only 

one medium that matters, and that's radio." Michael Learmonth, Sandy Brings Back Prime Time 

for Original Wireless Network: Radio, Ad Age (Nov. 2, 2012), available at 

http://adage.com/article/media/hurricane-sandy-brings-prime-time-radio/238114/. 

8 CBS Morning News (Oct. 29, 2012). 

9 New Jersey stations WSUS and WNNJ aired an interview with New Jersey Assemblyman 

Gary Chiusano in which the state govemment announced its plan for rationing gasoline. 

Statement of John Hogan, Chairman and CEO, Media and Entertainment, Clear Channel 

Communications, Inc., FCC Hearing on Hurricane Sandy (Feb. 5, 2013) at 9. 

5 
53 


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coverage provided by news-oriented radio stations, and television stations that 

simulcast their news over radio. Local broadcasters are competitors, but when disaster 

strikes, we work together to remain on the air and expand coverage. During times of 

crisis, it is a routine matter for broadcast engineers to help competing stations stay on 

the air. 

Although the Intemet was down for many in the storm zone, local broadcasters also 

leveraged digital outlets and social media to expand their reach to those who were able 

to maintain Intemet access, such as WFMZ's arrangement with the online television 

service Syncbak. WFMZ, like most stations, also transmitted storm coverage 2417 on 

their websites and social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Page views of radio and 

television stations' websites were up by a factor of two to three times during the storm, 

presumably by many viewers outside the storm zone. Unlike other communications 

outlets, local broadcasters invest in joumalism and employ experienced reporters. 

Citizens know that their local radio or television station is the best place to tum for 

reliable, accurate information during emergencies. 

Following the storm, local broadcasters also took a leading role in helping to rebuild the 

impacted areas, from major telethons like the 12-12-12 (A Concert for Sandy Relief) that 

was carried nationwide on Clear Channel radio stations, to programs like "Operation 

Brotherly Love: Sandy's Aftermath," a joint effort of CBS Television's Philadelphia 

stations which raised substantial funds for the Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Response 

Fund. Radio and television stations are uniquely positioned to organize and publicize 

fund raising relief efforts, and they take pride in their ability to do so. 

Local stations also offer hyper local weather alerts and information on multicast 

channels, such as WFMZ's 69 News Accuweather Channel on digital channel 69.2, 

which provides continuous coverage of local, regional and national weather conditions. 

TV stations are also in the process of rolling out innovative mobile DTV services, which 

will enable viewers to receive live, local broadcast television programming-including 

local news, weather, sports, emergency information, and entertainment programming6 
54 


Insert offset folio 27 here 85022.027

on an "on the go" basis on mobile-DTV capable devices such as smart phones, laptop 

computers and tablets. Hundreds of stations around the country have commenced 

offering mobile DTV service, and hundreds of other stations have announced plans to 

continue the nationwide roll-out of mobile DTV in the near-term. Mobile DTV is a 

reliable and spectrally efficient (one-to-an-unlimited-number) means of disseminating 

emergency information to viewers. Following the devastating earthquake and tsunami 

in Japan, residents reported that the country's mobile television service was a lifeline 

source of information, particularly in the wake of cellular network and power outages.10 

In times of local crisis such as these, broadcasters provide outstanding service to their 

communities. Beyond anecdotal evidence, the importance of broadcasters during the 

storm is also borne out by statistics. For example, according to Arbitron, radio listening 

jumped 70 percent in New York City, 245 percent in Nassau/Suffolk, and 42 percent in 

Staten Island, during Hurricane Sandy. Similarly, following tornadoes that struck in 

Alabama in April 2011, Raycom Media conducted a survey of residents who were 

impacted. According to the survey results, a vast majority - 71 % of adults - said they 

were warned about the storm by watching television. 11 An additional 10% of those 

surveyed learned of the tornadoes via radio. A mere 6% of respondents learned of the 

tornadoes through Internet, smartphones, or Twitter/Facebook.12 This occurred despite 

the fact that 75% of those interviewed were at home during the tornadoes, presumably 

with access to the Internet and other sources of information.13 This reliance on radio 

and television for dependable, up-to-the-minute information was true even for young 

citizens ages 18 to 24. We might expect this demographic to rely more on the Internet 

10 See, e.g., Michael Plugh, "What I Left Behind In Japan," Salon. com (March 22, 2011), 

available at http://www.salon.comllife/feature/2011/03/22/japan_Ueft_behindlindex.html. See 

also Live Blog: Japan Earthquake, The Wall Street Joumal (March 11, 2011, 8:06 a.m. posting 

of Chester Dawson) ("Unable to use cell phones, many used their smartphones to tune into 

television broadcasts and find out what had happened. 'It's very convenient being able to watch 

live TV when the phones are down,' said Minori Naito, an employee of Royal Bank of Scotland 

in Tokyo. 'Otherwise, we'd have no idea what is going on."'). 

11 Alabama Tornado Survey, Billy McDowell, VP of Media Research, RAYCOM Media (May 

2011). 

121d. 

131d. 

7 
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Insert offset folio 28 here 85022.028

and social media for information, but fully 77% of them reported that they tracked the 

storms via radio or TV. 

II. Local Broadcast Stations Are the Backbone of the Nation's Emergency 

Alert System 

In addition to the ongoing, comprehensive coverage that broadcasters provide during 

emergencies, we are also the backbone of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). EAS is 

a largely wireless network that connects over-the-air radio, television and cable 

television systems. The in-place infrastructure of EAS allows the prompt dissemination 

of alerts to the widest possible audience, or to target alerts to specific areas, as 

appropriate. EAS is intended for use during sudden, unpredictable or unforeseen 

events that pose an immediate threat to public health or safety, the nature of which 

precludes any advance notification or warning. 

EAS was put into place on January 1, 1997, when it superseded the Emergency 

Broadcast System, which itself superseded the Control of Electromagnetic Radiation 

System (CONELRAD). In addition to alerting the public of local weather emergencies 

such as tornadoes and flash floods, EAS is designed to allow the President to speak to 

the United States within 10 minutes, although the nationwide federal EAS has never 

been intentionally activated, aside from the November 9, 2011, nationwide test 

discussed below. The EAS regulations are governed by the Federal Communications 

Commission (FCC), and EAS is jOintly coordinated by the FCC, the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency (FEMA), and the National Weather Service (NOAAlNWS). 

EAS is used via radio, television, and cable television. Sirius XM has been required to 

participate in EAS since 2006, and satellite television providers have been required to 

participate since 2007. 

Messages in EAS are composed of four parts: a digitally encoded Specific Area 

Messaging Encoding (SAME) header, an attention signal, an audio announcement, and 

an end-of-message signal. The SAME header contains information such as who 

originated the alert, a brief description of the event, the areas affected, the expected 

duration of the event, and the date and time it was issued. 

8 
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Insert offset folio 29 here 85022.029

FEMA has designated and hardened certain radio stations as Primary Entry Point (PEP) 

stations, which are responsible for distributing presidential messages to other broadcast 

stations and cable systems. FEMA is in the process of modernizing and expanding the 

PEP system to include approximately 77 stations. This has been an arduous, long-term 

task, and broadcasters support FEMA's persistence to accomplishing this tremendous 

goal. We would encourage reauthorization and continued funding of FEMA to enable it 

to complete this project. 

All EAS Participants, including broadcasters, are required to maintain FCC-certified 

encoder/decoder EAS equipment points that continuously monitor the signals of at least 

two nearby broadcast stations for EAS messages, one of which must be deSignated a 

local primary station, which is the first link to EAS message originators. Broadcasters 

typically work in partnership with state, county and local emergency managers and 

public safety officials on how best to deploy EAS in each state. 

Although EAS can be triggered by the President, and state or local authorities under 

certain conditions, the majority of alerts are originated by local emergency managers 

and the NWS. 

The specific content of EAS messages can vary depending on the nature of the 

emergency, but may include information on the timing and path of storms, evacuation 

plans and routes, shelter-in-place instructions, and America's Missing: Broadcasting 

Emergency Response Alerts, or Child Abduction AMBER Alerts, which help expand the 

eyes and ears of local law enforcement when a child is abducted. Nationwide, since the 

inception of AMBER in 1996, AMBER alerts have helped safely recover more than 656 

abducted children.'4 In fact, the Amber Plan was originally created by broadcasters with 

the assistance of law enforcement agencies in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. 

EAS participation is an important component of broadcasters' public service. All EAS 

equipment is purchased by broadcasters at their own expense. All stations must test 

14 See http://www.amberaiert.gov/statistics.htm (last visited Sep. 27, 2013). 

9 
57 


Insert offset folio 30 here 85022.030

their EAS systems on both a weekly and monthly basis. We have all seen or heard the 

familiar announcement: "The following is a test of the Emergency Alert System. This is 

only a test." 

The FCC and FEMA conducted the first nationwide test of the EAS system on 

November 9, 2011. The broadcast industry fully supported this endeavor and lent our 

resources to the project. We worked closely with our federal and local partners to 

ensure that the national test was useful and informative. Broadcasters prepared for the 

national exercise by reviewing their internal EAS equipment and processes, and if 

appropriate, upgrading software or hardware in advance of the national test. 

Broadcasters also conducted an extensive nationwide awareness campaign in the days 

leading up to the test, to ensure that Americans understood that it was "only a test." 

The test was discussed on numerous high-profile newscasts and morning shows and 

repeatedly covered on radio talk shows. The broadcasting industry also created and 

distributed a variety of English and foreign language Public Service Announcements 

(PSAs) that were aired thousands of times as the test approached. 

The goal of the test was to diagnose the efficiency and reliability of a nationwide EAS 

alert, and identify areas in need of potential improvement. In my view, the test was a 

success. It was the first time an official "live-code" national alert message was 

purposely deployed end-to-end throughout the system, under conditions simulating an 

actual emergency situation. Almost all broadcasters, including my station and virtually 

all broadcasters in Pennsylvania, were able to successfully rebroadcast the EAS test 

message they monitored and received, despite certain technical problems with the 

origination of the message which have now been addressed, including the need to 

improve the audio quality.15 

15 These problems included: (1) a "loop-back" of the digital message header codes emanating 

from one of the PEP stations that caused the test message initiating codes to repeat about 

every six seconds, which led some EAS equipment to seize upon receiving the second set of 

header tones; (2) FEMA's originating equipment had a clock error which caused some 

eqUipment to delay pass-through of the message by three minutes; and (3) a few scattered 

problems with reception of the test message through the PEP network of radio stations. 

10 
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Broadcasters also support the FCC's ongoing review of the lessons learned during the 

nationwide EAS test. The FCC recently issued a Public Notice seeking comment from 

the public on issues that arose during the test, with a presumed eye towards launching 

a rulemaking proceeding in the near term.16 Broadcasters appreciate the Commission's 

intent to further examine certain testing areas, and look forward to future nationwide 

testing that will help ensure the reliability of EAS. EAS is tested weekly by each radio 

and TV station and monthly within each state. Such tests allow message disseminators 

to confirm that their equipment is working properly, or to diagnose and fix any problems. 

We believe that there should be regular testing of the federal government's ability to 

send an alert message throughout the nation. 

Although a success, the nationwide test highlighted the need for a redundant 

transmission architecture that does not rely solely on the PEP network. To some 

degree, this is being addressed with the recent transition to the new digital-based CAP 

and FEMA's use ofthe Internet as the backbone of IPAWS. 

In June 2006, President Bush issued Executive Order 13407, entitled Public Alert and 

Warning System, which states: 

It is the policy of the United States to have an effective, reliable, 

integrated, flexible, and comprehensive system to alert and warn the 

American people ... establish or adopt, as appropriate, common alerting 

and warning protocols, standards, terminology, and operating procedures 

for the public alert and warning system to enable interoperability and the 

secure delivery of coordinated messages to the American people through 

as many communication pathways as practicable ... administer the 

Emergency Alert System (EAS) as a critical component...ensure that 

under all conditions the President of the United States can alert and warn 

the American people. 

In response, FEMA has developed the IPAWS Program that is designed to improve 

public safety through the rapid dissemination of emergency messages to as many 

people as possible over as many communications devices as possible. 

16 Public Notice, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Seek Comment Regarding 

Equipment and Operational Issues Identified Following the First Nationwide Test of the 

Emergency Alert System, DA 13-1969 (reI. Sep. 23, 2013). 

11 
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The transition to the digital CAP system has also raised the specter of cyber hacking 

that could disrupt EAS. For example, on February 12, 2013, a hacker was able to 

access the EAS equipment of a handful of stations in Montana and elsewhere, causing 

those stations to issue a false EAS alert concerning an attack by zombies. It is my 

understanding that the hacking was limited to a few isolated instances where individual 

stations neglected to reset the factory-set, default passwords on their new CAPcompliant EAS equipment and did not have adequate firewall protections on their 

networks. The breach did not occur at the message origination level, so there was no 

danger of a widespread false message. Broadcasters take cyber security very 

seriously, and this hacking situation was an excellent reminder for all EAS participants 

to double-check the security of their EAS equipment and their IT networks. The 

National Association of Broadcasters regularly reminds its members of best practices 

for security for the EAS and all station functions. 

In my view, the continued success of EAS will largely turn on the expertise and ability of 

local authorities to fully deploy EAS and act as a "civil authority" with full access to the 

system. In the past, some of the isolated instances where EAS could have been used 

more judiciously directly resulted from a lack of awareness or expertise on the part of 

local officials concerning EAS. In this day and age, it is unacceptable that some local 

emergency managers remain unaware of the benefits of EAS, or how and when to 

trigger an EAS alert. Broadcasters would encourage the Committee to support FEMA's 

ongoing efforts to train state and local authorities on the proper use of EAS as it 

considers reauthorization of FEMA. 

In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters (PAB), in conjunction 

with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA), has addressed this 

need via our use of The Emergency Management Network (EM net). EMnet is a closedloop system in which radio and TV stations have a dedicated terminal that delivers EAS 

warnings to stations and allows two-way communications between stations and PEMA 

officials. PEMA also provided EMnet terminals to local county Emergency Management 

12 
60 


Insert offset folio 33 here 85022.033

Agencies along with the necessary training to properly use the system. EMnet is a 

robust method of disseminating EAS information directly to stations in a "Hub and 

Spoke" approach in addition to the legacy "Daisy Chain" system. The two-way 

communications feature can help stations clarify important emergency information in a 

very timely fashion if required. 

In the same vein, as mentioned above, FEMA is in the midst of implementing a next 

generation of EAS, although this effort is largely complete concerning broadcasters. 

This new system will modernize the technology used to deliver EAS messages from 

public safety officials to EAS Participants. Under the Commission's existing rules, 

broadcasters and other EAS Participants are required to process an EAS message that 

is formatted in this new "language," known CAP.17 

Pursuant to FCC rules, EAS Participants have installed equipment capable of receiving 

a CAP-formatted message, at their own expense.18 This was a substantial burden for 

many broadcasters. It is critical that our effort be matched by a commensurate 

investment of state and local jurisdictions, to ensure that their EAS equipment is able to 

both receive and transmit a CAP-formatted message. 19 This will ensure that the public 

will benefit from the next-generation of public alerting. 

Third, authority for EAS is spread across multiple federal agencies with differing 

priorities, while the primary use of the system is by state and local officials. At present, 

there is no mechanism for the users of the system and the distributors of the messages 

to come together to discuss issues and work out problems. I respectfully request the 

17 CAP is a messaging structure that allows emergency managers to provide in a digital format 

(protocol) detailed descriptions of an emergency event. It is an open, interoperable standard. 

See Second Report and Order, 22 FCC Rcd. 132851)1)22-25 (2007). CAP is also backwardscompatible to work with EAS and the NWS' SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) protocol. 

Id. at 1)5. 

18 See, In the Matter of Review of the Emergency Alert System; Independent Spanish 

Broadcasters Association, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Inc., and 

the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, Petition for Immediate Relief, Notice of 

Proposed Rulemaking, EB Docket No. 04-296, reI. May 26, 2011. 

13 
61 


Insert offset folio 34 here 85022.034

Committee to consider adopting language creating a national EAS working group or 

advisory committee, and direct it to meet on a regular basis and report back to this and 

other committees of jurisdiction, to ensure that the lines of communication remain open 

and that ideas for continuous improvement of the system have a forum in which they 

can be heard. 

One other critical improvement can be achieved without expenditure of any funds. 

Specifically, broadcasters need credentialing from state and local authorities to allow 

them to access their facilities, such as studios and transmitter sites, during times of 

emergency. This will enable radio and television stations to repair or maintain their 

equipment and fully leverage their resources, local knowledge and training to keep the 

public informed during emergencies. While certain states accommodate broadcasters 

who need to access their facilities, such cooperation is not universal. Congressional 

action in this area could greatly enhance our ability to maintain operations and deliver 

vital information to our audiences. 

A properly working EAS is a fundamental and essential component of our nation's 

Homeland Security, and is crucially needed in our state of Pennsylvania to respond to 

the myriad of potential man-made and weather-related threats facing our region. As 

mentioned, for example, my station's coverage area includes several rivers that 

sometimes cause dangerous flooding. Pennsylvania is also home to multiple nuclear 

power plants, defense contractors and military installations, shipping ports, busy 

railways, and numerous major trucking routes. As a large state, Pennsylvania also 

experiences a variety of dangerous weather conditions, including tornados, hazardous 

snow storms, and other emergencies. 

I am grateful to Chairman Barletta and this Committee for hosting this hearing and for 

your interest in improving our communications to prevent the loss of life and property in 

the future. Disasters are bound to happen, despite our best intentions and preparation. 

We must take care not to overlook this opportunity to improve public warning and 

emergency communications in advance of the next event, instead of during its 

14 
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aftermath. We should be planning for the next emergency, not preparing for the last 

one. 

Thank you. 

15 
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Testimony of 

Chris Guttman-McCabe 

Executive Vice President 

CTIA - The Wireless Association® 

on 

"FEMA Reauthorization: Ensuring the Nation Is Prepared" 

before the 

House Transportation & Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management 

October 2, 2013 

CTJA 

The Wireless Association'" 
64 


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Testimony of Chris Guttman-McCabe 

Before the House Transportation & Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management 

October 2, 2013 

Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member Carson, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 

affording CTIAl the opportunity to participate in today's hearing. My name is Chris GuttmanMcCabe, and I serve as the Association's Executive Vice President. In this role, and mainly my 

previous role as CTIA's Vice President for Regulatory Affairs, I have been involved in the 

wireless industry's efforts to implement the Commercial Mobile Alert Service called for by the 

WARN Act, and I am pleased to update you today on the wireless industry's efforts to deliver a 

state-of-the-art alerting system to America's wireless consumers. 

The Commercial Mobile Alert Service, which has since been renamed Wireless Emergency 

Alerts (WEA) by the Federal Communications Commission, grew out of the Warning, Alert and 

Response Network (or WARN) Act, which became law as Title VI of the SAFE Ports Ace in 

October 2006. CTIA supported enactment of the legislation, which was intended to harness the 

creativity of the wireless ecosystem and take advantage of the ubiquity of the mobile platform 

to augment the existing emergency alerting system without imposing new cost or technology 

mandates on the wireless industry. This approach was consistent with, and built upon, previous 

public-private partnerships that led to the successful creation of Wireless Priority Service (a 

collaborative effort between the National Communications System and the wireless industry) 

J CTIA - The Wireless Association® is a nonprofit membership organization that has represented the 

wireless communications industry since 1984. Membership in the association includes wireless carriers 

and their suppliers, as well as providers and manufacturers of wireless data services and products. 

Additional information about CTIA may be found at http:Uwww.ctia.org/aboutCTIA!. 

2 P.L. 109-347. 

1 
65 


Insert offset folio 38 here 85022.038

Testimony of Chris Guttman-McCabe 

Before the House Transportation & Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management 

October 2, 2013 

and the AMBER Alert program (a joint effort involving the Department of Justice, the National 

Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the wireless industry). 

In the WARN Act, Congress developed an innovative procedure to address the problem of 

emergency alerting by securing the participation of interested non-governmental parties in the 

development and deployment of what has become a 90-character, geo-targeted, succinct 

alerting capability that would let consumers carrying a wireless device know that there is an 

imminent threat to health or safety. I am pleased to report, nearly seven years later, that what 

Congress envisioned in the WARN Act is working as designed to deliver AMBER alerts, imminent 

threat alerts, and, if necessary, Presidential alerts. 

WEA went live in April 2012 and carriers serving 98 percent of U.s. wireless consumers have 

opted to participate in the program. Since going live, thousands of WEA alerts have been issued 

and many have played a key role in protecting the public. 

For example, the first time an Amber Alert was sent out through the WEA system was in 

February 2013 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when an 8-month-old was abducted by a family 

acquaintance. Within minutes of the alert going out, a teenager who received the alert on her 

device called 911 leading police to the red Kia Sportage described and the missing child.3 This 

success was replicated in Pennsylvania in August of this year, when Hostyn Perez-Corza 

abducted 6 and 8 year old sisters after holding their mother hostage at gunpoint. An Amber 

Alert was issued to Berks, Chester, Lebanon, Lehigh, Montgomery and Schuylkill counties. After 

3 http://www.twincities.com/ci 22642126/minnesota-cellphone-amber-alert-located-child-and-was. 

2 
66 


Insert offset folio 39 here 85022.039

Testimony of Chris Guttman-McCabe 

Before the House Transportation & Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management 

October 2, 2013 

receiving the Amber Alert, a hotel patron spotted the vehicle outside a hotel in the area. The 

girls were safely recovered and Perez-Corza was arrested.4 later in August, an Amber Alert 

issued over the WEA system led to the recovery of a 17-month old child abducted during an 

auto theft in High Point, North Carolina.s 

WEA also has been used extensively to warn the public about impending weather situations 

that pose an imminent threat to public safety. last fall, WEA alerts were used "widely and 

successfully" in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy.6 Given the breadth and scope of Sandy, 

these alerts included blizzard warnings, flash-flood warnings, mandatory evacuation warnings, 

and shelter-in-place directives. The varying subjects of these alerts and the significant 

geographic scope over which they were distributed - from West Virginia to Maine 

demonstrate the utility of the WEA service. 

More recently, in July 2013, a WEA alert in East Windsor, Connecticut notified a camp counselor 

in a sports dome of an approaching tornado, something that is highly unusual in that part of the 

country. The counselor moved the 29 children and five counselors in her care to a shelter, as 

moments later the tornado ripped through destroying the dome. 7 

4 http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=505366. 

5 http:Uwww.newsobserver.com!2013!08!30!3151730!late-night-amber-alert-helps-find.html 

6 http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/alerts/CMASWEA-Used-Extensively-for103112.http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/13/us/flooding-colorado/index.htmlhtml 

7 http://articles.courant.com!2013-07-02/news/hc-tornado-warning-0702-20130701 1 windsor-Iocksdome-national-weather-service-confirms 

3 
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Insert offset folio 40 here 85022.040

Testimony of Chris Guttman-McCabe 

Before the House Transportation & Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management 

October 2, 2013 

As these examples demonstrate, WEA is working, offering a valuable, mobile augmentation to 

the Emergency Broadcast System we all grew up with as it gives emergency managers a "game 

changer"s to inform and protect the pUblic. And we're already working to make the system 

better through participation in the FCC's Communications Security, Reliability and 

Interoperability Council (CSRIC) Working Group 2, which is addressing issues raised during 

WEA's implementation for post roll-out study. Specifically, the Working Group will review the 

WEA and develop appropriate recommendations for action, after examining (1) experiences 

with WEA since its April 2012 deployment; (2) any technological advances since the original 

WEA technical recommendations were submitted, and (3) any other relevant issues, as 

appropriate. 

While industry is working hard to make WEA an on-going success, WEA's effectiveness also 

depends on how well the public understands and uses the system. While carriers and others in 

the industry can and do provide important assistance in the area of education, FEMA and other 

government agencies have an important role to play to promote uniform and comprehensive 

education across all parts of the country and all affected sectors of the emergency response 

community. We applaud FEMA on its recent roll-out of a Public Service Announcement on WEA 

and we agree that this should remain a focus for FEMA and the IPAWS office. Moreover, it is 

incumbent on alerting authorities to similarly educate their constituents about the alerts they 

may send, as only they have the knowledge to answer specific questions about incidents and 

B http://fox6now.com!2013!07!02!cell-phone-users-unaware-of-new-emergency-alert-svstem! 

4 
68 


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Testimony of Chris Guttman-McCabe 

Before the House Transportation & Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management 

October 2, 2013 

alerts in their areas. A wireless provider's customer service rep lacks visibility into specific 

alerts sent and will not be in a position to answer a subscriber's questions about those alerts. 

The wireless industry is committed to working with FEMA and the FCC to ensure that 

subsequent generations of the system support additional functionality and granularity. With 

this in mind, we do not believe that wireless carriers that participate in the wireless emergency 

alerting system should be subject to any new requirements that emanate from the 

implementation of IPAWS. While IPAWS may help to modernize the distribution of alerts on 

other communications platforms, the WARN Act framework remains the proper path to deliver 

and modernize emergency alerts provided over wireless networks. CTIA urges you to keep this 

in mind as you consider legislative efforts to modernize IPAWS or reauthorize FEMA. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in today's hearing. CTIA looks forward to 

working with the Subcommittee, FEMA, and others in the public safety community to ensure 

that WEA continues to offer a unique and useful way to help protect the American public. 

5 
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TESTIMONY OF BOBBY A. COURTNEY 

CHIEF PROGRAMMING OFFICER 

THE MESH COALITION 

The MESH Coalition 

3930 Georgetown Road 

Indianapolis, IN 

45254 

Before the U.S. House Committee ou Trausportatiou and Infrastructure 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management 

October 2,2013, Hearing 

FEMA Reauthorization: Ensuring the Nation iy Prepared 

Good morning Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member Carson, and Members of the Subcommittee. 

On behalf of the MESH Coalition, I appreciate the opportunity to describe our efforts to ensure 

that Central Indiana communities are prepared to respond to emergency events, and I applaud 

your commitment to these important issues. 

I am pleased to report at the outset of my testimony that as a result of the cooperative efforts of 

Central Indiana healthcarc, public health, emergency management and public safety partners 

through the MESH Coalition, the healthcarc infrastructure in Central Indiana is well positioned 

to mitigate against, prepare for, rcspond to, and recover from a wide range of emergency events. 

While it would be hubris to guarantee a successful response to any incident, especially those that 

would almost certainly overwhelm any region's ability to respond, such as a direct nuclear or 

widesprcad biological attack, Central Indiana is a national leader in healthcare infrastructure 

resilience and we believe our systems and processes are some of the most robust and 

sophisticated in the nation. 

I would like to address how we have developed this resilience, in part, through closely 

coordinated cooperation among the public and private sectors through the MESH Coalition. The 

MESH Coalition is a nationally recognized, nonprofit, public-private partnership that enables 

healthcare providers to effectively respond to emergency events and remain viable through 

recovery. We provide healthcare intelligence, community-bascd planning, policy analysis, and 

clinical education and training to our healthcare, public safety, public health, and emergency 

management colleagues. Our programs increase capacity in healthcare providers to respond to 

emergency events, protect our critical health care safety net, and promote integration and 

coordination between the govcrnment and private sector. 

Today, I would like to share three points with the Committee: 

1. The public-private partnership coalition model that our partners have developed here in 

Central Indiana is one of the most progressive models of health care emergency management 

in the United States, and we believe that this model can, and should, be replicated throughout 

the United States. 
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Insert offset folio 43 here 85022.043

2. Through a comprehensive portfolio of programs, the MESH Coalition is continuously 

improving Central Indiana's ability to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to, and recover 

from both small and large-scale emergency events. 

3. We believe that in order to promote the spread and adoption of health care coalitions like 

ours, we must work together to find creative and cost-effective means of providing 

sustainable, ongoing support to these efforts, while maintaining appropriate stewardship of 

public resources. 

THE MESH COALITION MODEL 

The MESH Coalition enables healthcare providers to effectively respond to emergency events 

and remain viable through recovery. Through the MESH Coalition, health care providers, public 

health practitioners, emergency medical service providcrs, emergency managers, law 

enforcement agencies, fire departments, and private businesses are working together to plan, 

train, share information, and shape policies that protect the health care system and facilitate a 

more effective emergency response. OUf public-private partnerships increase capacity in the 

health care system to respond to emergency events, protect our critical health care safety net, and 

promote integration and coordination between the government and private sectors. 

This unique partnership was founded as a grant project of the Indiana University School of 

Medicine and Wishard Health Services with a $5M award from the United States Department of 

Health and Human Services Emergency Care Partnership Grant Program. The MESH Coalition 

was one of five organizations funded through this Program to develop innovative models for 

healtheare emergency management, and was the only nonprofit successfully formed because of 

the award. 

Our Board of Directors is comprised of hospital chief cxecutives and clinical leadership, as well 

as community partners. These entities include: The Indiana University Schools of Medicine and 

Nursing, Thc Marion County Public Health Department, Richard Roudebush Veterans Affairs 

Medical Center, Community Hospitals ofIndiana, Inc., Franciscan St. Francis Health, Wishard 

Health Services, Indiana University Health, and St. Vincent Hospital & Health Care Center, Inc. 

One of the unique aspects of the MESH Coalition that helps us be successful is our funding 

model, which pairs public grant funding with private fee-for-service and subscription fundsmeaning that our coalition partners have all put "skin in the gamc," creating powerful incentives 

for executive and system engagement in critical emergency management activities. While 

historically we have received federal grant funding from the Emergency Care Partnership 

Program, the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) program, and the Metropolitan Medical 

Response System (MMRS), subscription fees from partnering healthcare organizations are nearly 

45% of our total revenues. In addition, our fee-for-service programs continue to minimize the 

gap between private and public funding steams. This is of particular importance given that there 

have been significant reductions in federal grant programs, and we anticipate further cuts in the 

future. 

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CENTRAL INDIANA PREPAREDNESS 

Central Indiana communities are as prepared as any other across the country to respond to an 

emergency event. However, we believe that an effeetive response is a necessary, but not 

sufficient, condition to safeguard the healthcare infrastructure during emergency events. It is 

critical that we improve the overall resilience of our healthcare system to respond to a range of 

threats, then quickly return to baseline operations in order to provide effective care to our 

community. The MESH Coalition helps build resilience through four core services: (1) 

healthcare intelligence services; (2) community-based planning; (3) policy analysis; and (4) 

clinical education and training. I would like to take a moment to describe how each of these 

services better prepares Central Indiana to respond to a mass casualty event. 

Healthcare Intelligence Services 

In order for health care providers to effectively manage significant increases in patient volume 

during major mass casualty incidents, they must operate from a Common Operating Picture. To 

build this Common Operating Picture every day, the MESH Coalition conducts real-time 

monitoring of disparate data streams for potential threats to the healthcare sector. Thcse data 

streams include open source sites such as news media and weather, restricted sources such as 

homeland security and other access-controlled portals, and radio communication sites such as 

those streaming aircraft and public safety radio traffic. In addition, we monitor and utilize social 

media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, both of which have become de facto means of 

communications during emergency events. 

The threats we detect are distributed to our partners via email, social and news media, public 

safety information channels, and the MESH Daily Situational Awareness Brief. The Briefis an 

email we send daily to healthcare providers, emergency managers, and public health 

professionals throughout Central Indiana, and it provides specific, actionable information on 

threats to the healthcare sector, from severe storms to emerging infectious diseases and 

everything in between. What makes the Brief unique is the inclusion of specific action steps that 

allow recipients to immediately improve their preparedness for potential emergency events. The 

Brie{is frequently used in hospital team meetings and bed huddles as an intelligcnce source and 

discussion initiator. 

At the direction of the Marion County Public Health Director, and in cooperation with the 

Indianapolis Division of Homeland Security, we also serve as the Marion County Medical MultiAgency Coordination Center (MedMACC). The MedMACC is staffed and opcrational 24 hours 

a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to provide a critical link between Marion County 

healtheare facilities, the Marion County Public Health Department, the City ofIndianapolis, and 

the Indianapolis Division of Homeland Security. The MedMACC is activated to support mass 

casualty incidents like a recent bus accident on the northeast side ofIndianapolis, to supporting 

emergency responders during large-scale events like the Indianapolis 500, to coordinating 

healthcare response during disasters like the stage rigging collapse at the Indiana State Fair in 

August 2011. In 2012 alone, the MedMACC was activated seventeen times. 

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During an activation, the MedMACC manages hospital surge by assisting with the distribution of 

patients. For example, during a mass casualty incident, the McdMACC is dispatched and 

completes just-in-time hospital emergency department polling. We relay this information to 

field command units via public safety radio systems to facilitate better patient transport decisionmaking and to avoid overwhelming any onc facility. During large-scale emergency events, the 

MedMACC provides direction through an executive-level Policy Group consisting of individuals 

from various healthcare entities throughout Marion County, many of whom serve on our Board 

of Directors. The MedMACC also has the capability to identifY and secure resources for 

healthcare providers and organizations, to assist public health authorities in providing care to 

vulnerable populations, and to provide just-in-time subject matter expertise on Chemical, 

Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and high-yield Explosives (CBRNE) threats, as well as 

emergency medical, legal, and policy issues. In the event of a regional mass casualty incident, 

we can also deploy critical resources such as core medical supplies, and up to four Multi-Agency 

Support Tactical Facilities, which are equipped to function as mobile field hospitals. 

Community-Based Planning 

Healthcare in Central Indiana is, to say the least, a highly competitive enterprise. In many 

communities, intense health care competition has made it challenging or impossible to bring 

providers together to prepare for disaster and crisis events. We are fortunate in Central Indiana, 

as our healthcarc organizations fully understand that coming together to plan for emergency 

events saves lives and is in the best interest of everyone. In fact, our healthcare partners have 

made a commitment to not compete on emergency management issues, and the MESH Coalition 

is the result of that commitment. 

Traditionally, healthcare emergency planning has focused on preparing hospitals to be "floating 

islands" capable of withstanding emergency events and remaining open to provide patient carc. 

This approach has resulted in redundant spending on equipment and supplies in hospitals across 

the country. Working in silos is not an effective approach to emergency preparedness. Through 

the MESH Coalition, Central Indiana hospitals team up to share resources and engage in joint 

emergency planning. Each month, Hospital Preparedness Officers throughout Indianapolis work 

together in MESH Coalition working groups to collaborate on policy, training, and exercises. 

Using this community-based approach, we include stakeholders such as hospitals, first 

responders, and other local officials to coordinate and prepare for potential threats, as well as 

large-scale anticipated events such as the Indy 500 and the NCAA Final Four. This enables staff 

to develop effective plans and programs while generating new knowledge about healthcare 

emergency management. 

One example of this innovative approach to healthcare emergency planning is highlighted by our 

community'S preparation for Super Bowl XL VI, where we created the Super Care Clinic®. As 

part of the Super Bowl Village, and in partnership with the Super Bowl Host Committee, the 

Super Care Clinic® represents an innovation in how volunteers and attendees are treated at 

large-scale events. Located inside Indianapolis' Union Station, this fan-facing forward medical 

station served as a clinic for fans, but was intentionally designed as a surge management strategy 

in the event of a mass casualty incident. In an extraordinary gesture, caregivers from 

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Community Health Network, Franciscan Alliance, Indiana University Medical Group, St. 

Vincent Medical Group, Wishard Health Services, and Indiana University Health volunteered 

their time to work at the clinic during the entire week of Super Bowl activities. This was the first 

clinic of its kind to be created in the United States and serves as a model for providing healthcare 

services during other mass gathering events. 

The MESH Coalition has also established a host of professional working groups to address 

emergency preparedness issues for vulnerable populations. The Sexual Assault and Domestic 

Violence Working Group, for example, works to ensure that healthcare organizations are able to 

detect and respond to domestic violence during emergency events, and that residential and nonresidential Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence providers are able to continue perform 

essential functions during an emergency event. Similarly, the Maternal/Child Health Working 

Group works to ensure the needs of new and expcctant mothers and their children are considered 

in the disaster plauning process. This group, in partnership with the Indiana State Department of 

Health and providers from Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health and Peyton 

Manning Children's hospital at St.Vineent, is currently overseeing the development of a registry 

of Central Indiana home ventilator dependent children, with the ultimate goal being to providc 

early warning during emergency events. This registry is the first of its kind in Indiana and is 

designed to engage paticnts and families in strategies that increase community resiliency by 

protecting access to electricity during natural weather events. Weather-related power outages are 

common in Indiana and loss of electricity can be catastrophic to these patients and their families. 

Beyond facilitating regular working groups, we also recognize that the heaIthcare response in 

Central Indiana is critical to both Regional and Statewide response. By working together with 

the Marion County Public Health Department and the Indiana State Department of Health to plan 

for seasonal flu outbreaks and emerging threats such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome 

Coronavirus (MERS CoV) and the Avian Influenza A virus, we have helped the Central Indiana 

health care community maintain necessary readiness to respond to all types of biological hazards, 

whether they are naturally occurring or an act of terrorism. 

We havc also taken a leadership role in wider community-planning efforts. For example, in 

2011 we designcd, coordinated, and executed the first full-scale exercise between the City of 

Indianapolis and the Central Indiana healthcare community, which focused on testing portions of 

the downtown Indianapolis Evacuation Plan, and have also worked with local, state, and federal 

partners to plan for terrorist incidents by participating in the Joint Counterterrorism Awareness 

Workshop Series. In partnership with the Indiana State Department of Health and hcalthcare 

providers throughout the state, we arc currently developing a statewide plan for responding to 

bum mass casualty incidents. 

Policy Analysis 

Healthcare systems are in the business of taking care of patients and saving lives, not necessarily 

responding to disasters. Moreover, they generally do not have the resources to address the 

policy, legal, and regulatory issues associated with emergency events. The MESH Coalition is a 

resource for our partners because we can provide objective analyses of the most pressing 

disaster-related policy issues facing Coalition partners. This analytical work supports our 

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mission to enable healthcare providers to respond effectively to emergency events and, 

importantly, remain viable through recovery. In other words, we help our coalition partners to 

think not only about responding to disasters, but also to plan for long-term sustainability 

following an emergency event. 

Revenue cycle protection is a considerable factor in ensuring the availability of health care during 

and after an emergency event. In a large-scale emcrgency, care may be administered at Alternate 

Care Sites-substitute locations that serve to expand the capacity of a hospital or community to 

accommodate or care for patients. Given the scope of Federal Emergency Management Agency 

public assistance grants, reimbursement through Federal Healthcare Programs such as Medicare 

and Medicaid is critical to a hospital's financial viability when care is provided in an alternate 

location. However, depending on state licensure rules, these Alternate Care Sites may operate 

outside of the scope of the hospital's existing license, creating compliance issues, which may 

jeopardize reimbursement. 

Several states have developed solutions that allow hospitals to establish an Alternate Care Site 

without jeopardizing reimbursement. For example, the Arizona Department of Health Services 

permits hospitals to provide off-site services without a separate license during a public health 

emergency declared by the Governor. In North Carolina, at the request of the State Emergency 

Management Agency the Division of Health Service Regulation can waive rules for hospitals 

providing temporary services during a declared emergency. In Texas, the law exempts 

temporary emergency clinics in disaster areas from licensure requirements. 

In addition to these statutory solutions, many state departments of health are granted broad 

waiver authority during emergencies. For example, the New Jersey Department of Health has 

the authority to waive hospital-licensing rules upon determining that compliance would create a 

hardship for the hospital and that the exception would not adversely affect patients. We in 

Indiana, on the other hand, have no mechanism for waiving hospital licensure requirements. As 

such, the MESH Coalition is actively working with the Indiana State Department of Health to 

ensure that safe and effective healthcare can be provided in an Alternate Care Site, while at the 

same time enabling hospitals to receive reimbursement for their services and thereby protecting 

the long-term viability of our healthcare infrastructure following a large-scale emergency event. 

It is also important that clinicians and policymakcrs understand the nuances of what the Institute 

of Medicine has come to refer to as "crisis standards of care," or the optimal level of care that 

can be delivered during a disaster. Clearly, this complex issue has far reaching implications in 

terms of one's ethical responsibility and legal liability. During an emergency event, victims are 

entitled to expect reasonable care under the circumstances. The Indiana State Department of 

Health has taken a leadership role on this issue by providing guidance for providers on how to 

develop consistent procedures for allocation of scarce resources in the event of an officially 

declared public health emergency, in addition to recommending an ethical framcwork and 

clinical algorithms. MESH Coalition staff have also sought to protect individuals' rights to 

reasonable care, and support effective healthcare response, by effectively explaining this issue to 

health care providers both locally and nationally. 

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Clinical Education and Training 

Locally, one of the MESH Coalition's most important contributions to Central Indiana is the 

clinical education and training we provide to a wide array of stakeholders. While traditional 

health care emergency management education and training programs have focused on emergency 

management core-knowledge such as the Incident Command System (ICS), evidence from mass 

casualty and disaster events demonstrates that effective healthcare response requires-first and 

foremost-well-trained providers who are able to make good decisions under tough conditions. 

As a result, we have developed and implemented courses in emergency response and clinical 

decision making that are hands-on, practical, and utilize high-fidelity simulation to prepare 

providers to respond to all-hazards scenarios. To date we have trained thousands of responders, 

including physicians, nurses, EMTs, paramedics, police officers, firemen, and members of the 

public. 

The benefit of courses being developed and conducted by the MESH Coalition is that we are 

capable of reaching a wider range of participants than any single organization, and we arc able to 

provide centralized resources, thereby lowering per unit costs. Group offerings such as Simple 

Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) training, mass casualty exercises, limited-resource 

emergency care courses, and operational hazardous materials training also give participants from 

different healthcare organizations the experience oflearning together. This method creates 

consistency between and among providers, which in tum leads to a uniformity of response 

during an emergency event. In addition, we offer regular Continuity of Operations planning 

workshops, Emergency Operations Planning workshops, and crisis communications workshops 

to partner organizations in order to further build our community's response capacity. 

To facilitate learning opportunities from around the world, we also coordinate an annual Grand 

Rounds series that brings national and international experts in healthcare emergency response to 

Indianapolis to present cutting-edge ideas and programs. These events are free, open to the 

public and, through our partners at the Indiana University School of Medicine, eligible for 

Continuing Medical Education and Continuing Education Units at no cost to attendees. The 

2012-2013 Grand Rounds series included presentations on Continuity of Operations Planning by 

Dr. Paul Kim, M.D., who is the Director ofIncident Management Integration for the National 

Security Staff in the White House, and on Denver's mass casualty emergency response to the 

Aurora Colorado theater shootings by Christopher Colwell, M.D., who is the Chief of 

Emergcncy Medicine at Denver Health. 

In addition to our group trainings and Grand Rounds, we have a strong commitment (0 clinical 

education, as evidenced by our multi-disciplinary internships and fellowships. Each year we 

provide opportunities for physicians, nursing students, public health graduate students, law 

students, and librarians to learn from a team of dedicated professionals and gain valuable 

experience in healthcare emergency management. In 2012, the MESH Coalition collaborated 

with the Indiana University School of Medicine to create a Disaster Medicine Fellowship. The 

fellowship recently welcomed its first fellow, who will spend time this year travelling with our 

executive staff to Monrovia, Liberia, wherc they will hclp that community's largest hospital 

redesign its emergency department and help build the hospital's emergency management plan. 

Concurrently, we will have an opportunity to learn from hospital and community leaders about 

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how they have maintained healthcare resilience through significant social crises. This 

experience will no doubt provide valuable strategies that can be implemented in our own 

community and further enable us to bettcr respond in situations where resources arc limited. 

THE PATH FORWARD 

As previously noted, we are extremely proud of the vision our Central Indiana partners have had 

in the development the MESH Coalition. We are also convinced that the future of health care 

emergency preparedness is directly tied to the development of public-private healthcarc 

coalitions such as ours. Thc U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has also 

acknowledged this future by requiring Hospital Preparedness Program and Public Health 

Emergency Preparedness grant program grantees to form strong and resilient coalitions. 

We are helping to promote "coalition building" through our partnership with the Northwest 

Healthcare Response Network in Seattle and the Northern Virginia Hospital Alliance in the 

Capital Region and Virginia. This partnership, the National Healthcare Coalition Resource 

Center (NHCRC), is sponsoring an annual National Healthcare Coalition Preparedness 

Conference, and is available to provide technical assistance and training opportunities to assist 

communities in meeting their grant deliverablcs to develop functional healthcare coalitions. 

However, there are challenges associated with the current funding mechanism and, as stewards 

of public resources, we must be creative about incentivizing the development of health care 

coalitions. This does not mean that there is no role for federal support. While grant funding 

alone is not a sustainable solution to protecting and preserving public health and safety, private 

sector healthcare should not be solely responsible for preparing and responding to issues of 

national significance. This is why the Federal Emergency Management Agency's role in 

supporting citizens and first responders to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to, and recover 

from all hazards is so critical. Hospitals cannot, and should not, be expected to shoulder this 

burden alone. Hospitals deserve a predicable way to manage the expense of providing care 

during an emergency event. Indeed, the coalition model must continue to be a strong publicprivate partnership, and not become a private-private partnership. 

CONCLUSION 

Chairman Barletta, Ranking Member Carson, and Members of the Subcommittee, on behalf of 

the MESH Coalition, I thank you for the opportunity to describe our efforts to ensure that Central 

Indiana communities are prepared to respond to emergency events. Weare thrilled to be included 

today, and we hope that our experiences will provide insight for other communities across the 

country. Thank you again for your leadership on this important topic. I am happy to respond to 

any questions my might have. 

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Association of State Floodplain Managers, Inc. 

Testimony for the Record 

Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management 

House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

Hearing on 

FEMA Reauthorization: Ensuring the Nation is Prepared 

October 2, 2013 

Chairman Barletta and Ranking Member Carson, 

Thank you for developing legislation to reauthorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency 

and several of its important programs related to preparedness, response and recovery. We 

appreciate the focus on the importance of collaboration with state and local partners for the 

success of these programs. The Association of State Floodplain Managers would like to focus 

as well on the importance of hazard mitigation in assuring that the nation takes necessary 

steps to reduce loss of life and property due to natural disasters. 

Since your Subcommittee has jurisdiction over the most important programs addressing hazard 

mitigation, we would like to stress the increasing importance of these efforts as we expect to 

confront more frequent and more severe natural disasters. The costs to the nation in lives, 

property and taxpayer funds continue to increase, so investment in reduction of those costs must 

increase as well. 

The Association of State Floodplain Managers, Inc. (ASFPM) and its 35 Chapters represent over 

15,000 state and local officials and other professionals who are engaged in all aspects of floodplain 

management and hazard mitigation, including management, mapping, engineering, planning, 

community development, hydrology, forecastin& emergency response, water resources, and 

insurance for flood risk. All ASFPM members are concerned with working to reduce our Nation's 

flood-related losses. Our state and local officials are the federal government's partners in 

implementing nood mitigation programs and working to achieve effectiveness in meeting our 

shared objectives. Many of our state members are deSignated by their governors to coordinate 

and implement the National Flood Insurance Program which includes flood risk identification and 

mitigation, and many others arc involved in the administration and implementation of FEMA's 

other mitigation programs. For more information on the Association, our website is: 

http:((www.f1oods.org. 

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HMGPand PDM 

The Hazard Mitigation Grant program and the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program are 

complementary and comprise both pre-disaster and post-disaster support for actions to reduce 

future damage from all forms of disasters. 

The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) uses funds from the Disaster Relief Fund to support 

re-building smarter after a disaster when property owners are particularly open to consideration 

of future loss reduction options. While there have been some administrative and even statutory 

impediments to efficient use of HMGP funds, ASFPM is very appreciative of legislation promoted 

by this Subcommittee to make significant improvements: the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act 

(SRIA). For example, the Advanced Assistance provisions under SRIA provide much needed 

clarification and expedited relief to ensure that mitigation projects are identified, developed and 

ultimately implemented in a timely manner. 

The Pre-Disaster Mitigation program (PDM) is an essential means of encouraging mitigation 

actions in areas where there is no current declared disaster. 

Through its per-state allocations of a portion of its funds, PDM is often a critical component in 

assisting states to maintain an on-going mitigation support capability. 

Many parts of the nation may not have frequent disaster declarations, but do periodically suffer 

severe damage. Actions supported by PDM in such areas have resulted in diminished losses, as 

was the case in Vermont, for example, following Hurricane Irene. With implementation 

underway of legislative changes to the National Flood Insurance Program, resulting in some 

dramatic increases in flood insurance premiums, interest has grown in hazard mitigation actions 

to reduce risk and "buy down" premiums. The removal of built-in subsidies or discounts makes 

the true risk more apparent. 

The cost of disasters in the nation continues to escalate. ASFPM suggests that a GAO report to 

the Congress on the costs to taxpayers of natural disasters would be helpful in framing 

discussion offuture investment in hazard loss reduction. We appreciate this Subcommittee's 

interest in and support for wise steps to reduce losses and we also suggest that some indication 

ofthe importance of the Pre-Disaster Mitigation program would he an important and useful 

observation in the Committee's report on this bill._ We make this suggestion in particular 

because funding for this essential program has not been included in the past two Administration 

budget requests. Fortunately, both House and Senate Homeland Security Appropriations 

Subcommittees have noted the value of the program and have included some funding. 

Hazard Mitigation Plans 

The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 did not specifically provide for inclusion in Hazard Mitigation 

Plans of information about levees in the area of jurisdiction. FEMA allows for consideration of 

levee related information in the plans, but has not moved to require these data in mitigation plans 

without guidance from the Congress. The National Committee on Levee Safety, a Congressionally 

established entity, recommended inclusion of levee information in hazard mitigation plans in its 

report to Congress in January, 2009. This would ensure that levee risks are identified and 

It)'fPM Testimony: FE:HA Reaufhori=afiol1 October 2. 2013 Page 2 
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considered in community and state hazard mitigation plans. We would suggest that the 

Committee report direct FEMA to require inclusion of levee presence and associated risks 

in hazard mitigation plans. 

The members of the Association of State Floodplain Managers appreciate this opportunity to share 

our views and suggestions with you. Please contact ASFPM Executive Director Chad Berginnis 

with any questions. He can be reached at (608) 828-3000 or cberginnis@!1oods.org. 

4SFPA1 Testimony: FEA/A Reauthori::ation October 2, 20 J 3 Page 3