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68–016 PDF 2012

S. Hrg. 112–449 

2011 SPRING STORMS: PICKING UP THE 

PIECES AND BUILDING BACK STRONGER 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY 

AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JULY 19, 2011 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

JOYCE WARD Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY AND 

INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas, Chairman 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

JON TESTER, Montana 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

AMANDA FOX, Majority Professional Staff 

DAN LIPS, Minority Staff Director 

KELSEY STROUD, Chief Clerk 

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(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statement: Page 

Senator Pryor .................................................................................................... 1 

Senator Paul ..................................................................................................... 2 

Prepared statement: 

Senator Pryor .................................................................................................... 33 

Senator Landrieu .............................................................................................. 35 

Senator Blunt .................................................................................................... 37 

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2011 

Hon. Richard Serino, Deputy Administrator, Federal Emergency Management 

Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security .............................................. 4 

Hon. Christopher Masingill, Federal Co-Chairman, Delta Regional Authority . 5 

David Maxwell, Director, Arkansas Department of Emergency Management ... 8 

Thomas M. ‘‘Mike′′ Womack, Director, Mississippi Emergency Management 

Agency ................................................................................................................... 9 

Brian ‘Rob’’ O’Brian III, President, Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce, Missouri ....................................................................................................................... 11

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Masingill, Hon. Christopher: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 48 

Maxwell, David: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53 

O’Brian, Brian III: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 63 

Serino, Hon. Richard: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39 

Womack, Thomas M.: 

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

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

APPENDIX 

Questions and responses for the Record from: 

Mr. Serino ......................................................................................................... 77 

Mr. Masingill .................................................................................................... 85 

Mr. Maxwell ...................................................................................................... 89 

Mr. Womack ...................................................................................................... 93 

Statement submitted by Build Strong Coalition ................................................... 98 

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(1) 

2011 SPRING STORMS: PICKING UP THE 

PIECES AND BUILDING BACK STRONGER 

TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2011 

U.S. SENATE, AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY

AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m., in Room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mark L. Pryor, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Pryor, McCaskill, and Paul. 

Also present: Senators Cochran, Blunt and Boozman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR 

Senator PRYOR. I am going to call our Subcommittee to order. I 

want to thank my colleagues who are either here or who are on the 

way. We are just finishing the various caucus lunches, and it 

sounds like we have several people heading over here. 

What I would like to do is thank all of you for being here today. 

I know that this is a very busy time for everyone and I really appreciate you coming here and spending your day with us. 

We are here to assess the progress being made in recovering 

from this spring’s devastating tornados, storms, and floods. We will 

also discuss how to pick up the pieces from these recent disasters 

and build back better. 

The panelists we have convened here today represent some of the 

States and communities that were the hardest hit by these events. 

I would like to start by thanking them for taking time to be here. 

You have had your hands full, and have had a lot of tough work 

back home to do. We appreciate your public service, your expertise, 

and all the things that you are doing for your home States and also 

for the Nation. 

Today’s witnesses will provide us with a better understanding of 

the disasters’ impact on communities and economies. We hope to 

get a better understanding of the collaboration and communication 

across all levels of government and the private sector, and get insights into how individuals and businesses are picking themselves 

back up and restoring their communities. 

This was an especially tough spring for my State of Arkansas, as 

it has been for many others, and the fight is not over yet. There 

are currently in our State two active disasters with 60 of the 

State’s 75 counties eligible for Federal assistance. Beginning in 

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2 

April, historic flooding affected over 1,000 homes and completely 

destroyed 130. Nineteen people were killed and many are still 

homeless. 

Before my constituents got the chance to assess the full scope of 

the damage, a series of devastating tornados tore through two Arkansas counties, killing eight people, damaging and destroying 

nearly 400 homes, and causing an estimated $4 million in damages. 

Unfortunately, the situation I have described is not unique to Arkansas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and 

the President have declared 53 major disasters this year, and each 

one represents the same emotionally devastating loss of life and 

property, expensive damages to small businesses and critical infrastructure and costly disruptions to an already fragile State and 

local economies. 

Recovering from a major disaster is expensive. In these challenging economic times, the impact of repetitive disasters threatens 

the fiscal health of State and local governments. We cannot rely on 

the Federal Government to fill the gaps left by insufficient State 

and Federal funds. We are all facing tight budgets and difficult 

spending decisions, and FEMA is not immune to this reality. 

In addition to a tighter budget for its day-to-day operations, the 

scope and frequency of major disasters has led to the projected $3 

billion shortfall in FEMA’s disaster relief fund. In light of these 

economic realities, we must ask ourselves how we can do more with 

less and how we can improve the efficiency of our response and recovery efforts in the wake of these disasters. Moreover, how can we 

build back smarter, stronger, more resistant and resilient to future 

storms, tornados, and flooding? 

We are all familiar with the facts about mitigation. For every one 

dollar invested in mitigation, four dollars is saved. Mitigation creates safer communities by reducing the loss of life and property, 

while also lessening the financial impact on Federal, State, and 

local governments. Effective mitigation projects such as tornado 

shelters and safe rooms can also improve evacuations when a community is struck by disaster. 

Again, I want to thank all of my colleagues for being here today 

and I would like to turn it over to Senator Paul for an opening 

statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL 

Senator PAUL. Thank you. Good afternoon. I would like to thank 

all of you for coming today and thank Chairman Pryor for having 

these hearings. I have great sympathy and condolences for those 

from Joplin for the horrible disaster there. Our State has also been 

hit by storms, not to such a great extent, but we have had storms 

recently and flooding in Kentucky and have had declaration of a 

disaster area. 

In today’s hearings, I think it is important for us to learn a lesson from these recent storms. One of the lessons, I think, may be 

that we get involved in so many routine storms that maybe we do 

not have enough money when we have truly catastrophic storms. 

I think that may be one of the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. 

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Like Senator Pryor, I think there have been increasing numbers 

of declarations of disaster, and it is kind of hard to be against declaring disaster, so we always declare disaster. And I think not 

every disaster is created equally. 

There are catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina or like what happened in Joplin, and then there are some other disasters that people need help with, but the question is, can the Federal Government keep doing it? Does the Federal Government have enough 

money to keep supplying endless amounts of money through 

FEMA? 

The President has requested large increases in the budget and the President has requested $46 trillion worth of spending over the 

next 10 years. Unfortunately, we do not have $46 trillion. That will 

add $11 trillion to our debt. So we do have to make difficult 

choices, and even in things where people are in need, we have to 

decide, can we take care of every natural occurrence that goes on, 

or should we be reserving, the Federal Government’s involvement 

for the catastrophic times when entire communities are wiped out 

and need help like Hurricane Katrina or in Joplin’s case. 

But I welcome these hearings and I look forward to learning 

more from the panel. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Senator Paul. I was planning on 

going to the panelists and letting them give their opening statements. I would like each one of these witnesses to just take 5 minutes, or hopefully less, on your opening statement. 

Again, I want to thank all of you all for being here. I am going 

to do a very brief introduction. We have one panelist, Mr. O’Brian, 

who needs to catch a flight before the hearing ends, so we will try 

to direct our early questions to you, if that is possible. 

But what I would like to do is go ahead and introduce all five 

together, and then we will start with you, Mr. Serino. The Honorable Richard Serino is Deputy Administrator at FEMA. He will discuss FEMA’s role in assisting State and local governments in their 

recovery efforts. 

Next is the Honorable Chris Masingill. He is the Federal CoChairman of the Delta Regional Authority (DRA), which operates 

in the area that we are going to talk about today. Next is David 

Maxwell. He is the Director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management (ADEM). You have been here many times before. We thank you again for being back. 

Next is Mike Womack. He is the Director of the Mississippi 

Emergency Management Agency (MSEMA). You have had your 

hands full so thank you for being here. Our fifth witness is Mr. Rob 

O’Brian. He is the President of the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce (JACC). We certainly have been pulling for you and your 

community very strongly. 

We have a timing system. If you could keep an eye on that, and 

if you could keep your opening statements to 5 minutes each, that 

would be great. Mr. Serino. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Serino appears in the appendix in page 39. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. RICHARD SERINO,1 DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. SERINO. Thank you, Chairman Pryor, Senator Paul, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. It is a pleasure to be here 

today representing FEMA, and also to discuss our response and our 

recovery efforts during the recent severe storms. 

As I have mentioned, I had the opportunity to be in many of 

these disaster areas shortly after they happened, sometimes within 

hours. In Georgia, when the tornados went through, the next day 

in Mississippi, spent some time with Mike looking at the areas, 

back in D.C., then in Alabama for awhile, both in rural as well as 

in Tuscaloosa, and then unfortunately, just a few weeks later, on 

the ground in Joplin within literally hours after the tornado went 

through Joplin. And most recently, about a couple of weeks ago, up 

in Minot, North Dakota with the floods that are happening there. 

Through that period of time, one of the things that I have been 

able to see is not only FEMA’s response, but also really the whole 

community response that we have seen throughout the areas. The 

work that has been done by the people on the ground, both Dave 

and Mike and the people that they work for, as well as the Governors and the mayors and the first responders, the police officers, 

the firefighters, the emergency medical technicians (EMTs), have 

saved lives. 

And I think that is probably one of the most important things, 

is the work that they have done on the ground has saved lives. And 

some of the mitigation efforts, especially an example is in Minot, 

North Dakota, is the levees and the temporary levees and the flood 

fight that they put up with 5,000 structures literally under water 

and 4,000 homes under water, no lives were lost. I think that is 

important to note, that the work that people did, in this example, 

no lives were lost through mitigation efforts. 

The whole community, as Administrator Fugate says time and 

time again, is not just the government, not just FEMA, not just the 

Federal Government, the State government, the local government, 

the tribes, but it is also bringing together the non-profit organizations. It is bringing together the faith-based community. I will have 

some examples of that I will touch on a little bit later. 

Also, the great work that the private sector has done during 

some of these disasters that have struck. And probably the most 

important part of the team is the public and what they have been 

able to do. This is not something that FEMA is the lead on. 

Somebody asked me a question, I think in Joplin, How is FEMA 

going to be able to respond to all this? And if it was just FEMA, 

we would not be able to. It is really about bringing the whole team 

together, the folks that I mentioned. There are examples after examples. 

In Joplin, for example, looking at what the faith-based community was able to do, the Southern Baptists were cooking food to be 

distributed in a Red Cross shelter, delivered by Red Cross people 

in a Red Cross shelter, as well as Salvation Army shelters, to help 

thousands and thousands of people. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Masingill appears in the appendix on page 48. 

Things that, as the government is working together as part of 

the team, is very important to bring together all members of that 

team. I look forward to answering any questions as we go forward, 

and in the interest of time, I will stop there. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. I see that we have been joined by 

Senator Boozman. We would like to ask Senator Boozman to come 

and have a seat up here if you would like to. Thank you very much 

for joining us, Senator Boozman. Mr. Masingill. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. CHRISTOPHER MASINGILL,1 FEDERAL 

CO-CHAIRMAN, DELTA REGIONAL AUTHORITY 

Mr. MASINGILL. Thank you, Senator Pryor. Thank you, Members 

of the Subcommittee, my fellow panelists. Senator, again, thank 

you for the opportunity to be with you today and share a different 

perspective with my role as the Federal Co-Chair of the Delta Regional Authority, which comprises 8 States, 252 counties and parishes, and approximately 10 million people in our region. 

During the month of April, the Mississippi River Basin received 

600 percent of its annual rainfall in a 3-week period. This unprecedented amount of rain would lead to a flood of historic proportions 

along the Mississippi River and tested a levee system that protected millions of families in the Delta as never before. 

In late April and early May, the Governors of the States along 

the river declared states of emergency to prepare for the impending 

flood and Deltans began making preparations to protect their lives, 

homes, and properties as best they could. 

Over the next 2 weeks, the Mississippi River rose to levels unseen since the 1927 flood, and in many locations, surpassing those 

levels by several feet. The high water forced the Army Corps of Engineers to make the difficult decision to breach the New Madrid 

levee system at Birds Point, Missouri, and later opening the 

Morganza spillway in Louisiana. 

Throughout the ordeal, the Corps of Engineers and local level 

districts worked tirelessly to inspect, maintain, and repair any 

levee issues that arose. Throughout their diligence and hard work, 

the levee systems as designed and no failures of main line levies 

occurred. Unfortunately, the levies along many of the tributaries of 

the Mississippi did not fair as well. 

Due to the massive quantities of water flowing down the main 

river channel, as well as the significant rainfall across the region, 

many of the numerous rivers, lakes, and streams that feed into the 

main river channel were unable to drain and left their banks to 

overtop or break the levies that were designed to contain them. 

The backwater flooding that resulted was the cause of the majority of the flood damage to many of the DRA States. While a number of our member States were struck by devastating tornados for 

which the DRA offered its support and assistance, the majority of 

the damage in the DRA territory caused by these storms manifested itself in this flooding that I just mentioned. So my statements will primarily, Senator, focus on that event. 

Throughout the disaster, DRA attempted to maintain two-way 

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est extent possible. We saw great work from our Federal partners 

and local partners, and in the course of trying to maintain these 

communications, did develop and hear and collect some unique 

challenges and feedback that I would like to share. 

The significant loss in our agriculture production is a serious 

challenge facing our region. Agriculture is one of the leading industries in the Mississippi Delta and as a result of the flooding of a 

large percentage of that farmland, producers and others in an Agriculture-related industry are facing significant economic burdens. 

Additionally, the efficiency of the response, the public outreach 

and information sessions that were held across the region by 

FEMA and the Small Business Administration (SBA) were very 

well attended and received. There were numerous avenues used to 

access those who had been flooded to ensure that there was signup for appropriate programs and aware of the assistance for which 

they were qualified. 

FEMA and SBA representatives are still manning stations at 

home, improvement and hardware stores across the region assisting with disaster filing processes. The Corps of Engineers also received high praise from numerous entities across the region. 

However, overall local opinion seemed to feel that the Federal response was well-managed, but there are areas of concerns and a 

few things, complaints, that I would like to stress. One, the first 

touch on government contracting process. With so many displaced 

workers in the region, residents were displaced and displeased to 

see contracts being awarded by FEMA to companies located outside 

of the disaster-affected State. 

While it is understood that the urgency of the response necessitates FEMA having pre-negotiated contracts, we would like to see 

the recovery phase of long events allow for more local participation, 

particularly like through our local planning and development districts. 

Second, the DRA has heard suggestions that groups assisting 

with recovery might adopt additional processes and plans to set up 

response tents by need, not necessarily by agency. When families 

in Poplar Bluff or Sikeston or New Madrid had questions about 

housing, the answers were often sufficient, but somewhat incomplete, and that answer might be determined by which government 

agency, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), RD, or 

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) like the Red Cross, an 

applicant visited first. 

Comprehensive coordination between the government and relief 

organizations during a relatively quiet time might allow each of us 

to do a better job on this front. DRA would be willing to help with 

that. 

Third, States have noticed that the rapid pace with which individual assistance was granted was not matched by the equal, rapid 

public assistance response. We all recognize that while housing 

needs addressed throughout individual assistance are important, 

public assistance programs designed to help counties, States, and 

non-profits repair their public infrastructure are particularly important to the Mississippi Delta region. 

Finally, the DRA heard information concerning the mitigation activities undertaken by private residents and businesses. Under 

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FEMA and SBA guidelines, residents and businesses that were 

flooded are eligible for assistance either through grant or loan mitigation funding to prevent damage from adverse weather events. 

States have noticed numerous citizens and businesses spent their 

own money to build levies around their property, new equipment 

and furniture, relocate livestock, et cetera. Despite the fact that 

these precautions prevented more claims for Federal disaster aid, 

these mitigation activities are not eligible for any type of Federal 

assistance in the form of a grant or a loan. 

Alternating this regulation could have the added benefit of saving the Federal Government money without burdening property 

owners with significant costs for protecting their property. 

A couple of quick recommendations. Communications between 

agencies, State government, and locals can always be improved 

upon during and after our after-action. Instituting a task force approach to communication between all involved parties allows everyone to be on the same page, have the same information, and a clear 

understanding of the mission at hand. 

One particular note. In dealing with long-term recovery, the DRA 

strongly emphasizes my Federal partners to look at the work with 

small businesses and the business and industries as a whole for 

whom a disaster could mean a loss of income, job reduction, elimination, and even foreclosure. 

Although the SBA did a great job publicizing its disaster loans 

to the public, we feel that a stronger emphasis on spreading that 

information on their Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) as a 

life support for many of our small businesses. 

At that same token, finally, in keeping with the small business 

theme, in disaster situation, it is important that we as government 

think about how best to coordinate responses and stronger ways for 

our businesses and industries to get them up and running again 

as quickly as possible. 

As a model, I would suggest us all to study the Louisiana Business Emergency Operations Center (LA BEOC), a joint partnership 

between the Louisiana Economic Development, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the National Institute Management System and Advanced Technology Institute, and the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute. 

This program works with businesses to improve their disaster 

preparedness, improve communication with business and industries 

before, during, and after disaster events; rapidly develops sound 

economic impact estimates—which is an issue that we are dealing 

with now in this disaster—to support decisions making a request 

for business assistance; help coordinate response effort; help coordinate post-disaster economic recovery. 

During this recent round of spring storms, the Mississippi Delta 

small business owners would certainly have, I think, benefited with 

a coordinated system of this nature to help them to get back to 

where they are. 

In conclusion, I applaud my Federal partners for the work and 

the local partners for the diligence in dealing with these storms, 

and we particularly stand ready to assist them in any way possible. 

Again, thank you, Senators and Chairman, for the opportunity. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Mr. Maxwell. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Maxwell appears in the appendix on page 53. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID MAXWELL,1 DIRECTOR, ARKANSAS 

DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

Mr. MAXWELL. Thank you, Chairman Pryor, and distinguished 

Members of the Subcommittee for this opportunity to testify today. 

Arkansas has experienced numerous challenges over the past few 

years, including 11 Presidentially declared disasters since 2008. We 

continue to share the vision of Governor Mike Beebe, which is to 

coordinate resources, expertise, and leadership for mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery while protecting lives, environment, and property of the people of Arkansas. 

Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with several of my 

counterparts, with the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium, and 

all of those States—Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and Alabama—had all experienced disasters this 

spring. And we noticed a common thing that I thought was very 

important to bring out. 

Outside of commodities and a few other items, none of the States 

had requested resources from FEMA, and I think that is a big deal 

and I think we can attribute that to, one, the Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) which has helped that preparedness efforts at local level so that it starts there at the local level 

and can continue to be there. 

We have several examples of the State—Homeland Security 

Grant Program, equipment purchases, that assisted both with 

search and rescue, certainly in Arkansas within Interoperable 

Communications, none of which would have been available to us 

without those grants. 

Continuing to utilize the Emergency Management Assistance 

Compact (EMAC), has assisted the States to bring in other States 

and local entities to assist with our equipment and other resources, 

rather than asking FEMA to provide those. So I think those are 

three very important programs that are out there. 

Of course, today we are trying to look at mitigation as much as 

possible. A few examples from Arkansas. Safe rooms. We found, in 

our tornados, that a number of citizens had safe rooms that we 

know save lives. Arkansas puts $1.25 million every year, State 

money, into offsetting the cost of safe rooms, $1,000, or half the 

cost of the safe room, whichever is least, and within 10 days after 

the start of the State fiscal year, we had already expended all of 

that money. So we know people are building safe rooms. 

The Vilonia School District was awarded a FEMA mitigation 

grant for a million dollars to build a safe room for their high school. 

Very important. And the other part is West Memphis, Arkansas, 

several years ago had bought out 18 repetitive loss structures. 

Those are structures that did not flood this year because they no 

longer exist. West Memphis is talking to us about continuing that 

program and buying out additional properties. 

While I have just another minute, I will say that from our standpoint, our relationships with FEMA and the other parts of the Federal family, the Corps, certainly was very seamless in these disasters. Region VI, FEMA Region VI, had a liaison in our Emergency 

Operations Center (EOC) from almost day one, and we had JFO up 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Womack appears in the appendix on page 58. 

and running very quickly, and money out on the streets very quickly. 

In the last disaster, although it took quite awhile to get the declaration, we got it on a Friday evening and by Monday, we already 

had individual assistance money out on the street. So I think that 

is important to note. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to take any questions 

at the proper time. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF THOMAS M. ‘‘MIKE’’ WOMACK,1 DIRECTOR, 

MISSISSIPPI EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY 

Mr. WOMACK. Good afternoon, Chairman Pryor, and Senator 

Paul, and the distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I have 

been a senior employee of the Mississippi Emergency Management 

Agency since 2002 and have observed the progression of my State’s 

ability to respond to large-scale events, as well as the development 

of the Federal Government’s response capability. 

As you are aware, the State of Mississippi was greatly impacted 

by tornados, severe storms, and flooding that occurred in April, and 

Mississippi River flooding that occurred in May. Mississippi received two Federal disaster declarations and an emergency declaration for those events. Nearly 11,500 households requested assistance from FEMA. More than 2,750 families received housing assistance grants, and more than 300 homes were deemed destroyed by 

FEMA Individual Assistance Inspections. 

Individual Assistance grants for both disasters totaled more than 

$19 million. I will briefly summarize the response to these events, 

and primarily my focus will be on how Mississippi has and continues to reduce property damage and reduce the risk to the life 

of our citizens. 

First, I totally agree with Mr. Maxwell that the Homeland Security Grant Program and the Emergency Management Performance 

Grant Program over the past 10 years has made the Nation a much 

stronger and safer place. I echo exactly what he said. The response 

was handled by State and local, a lot of mutual aid on the State 

level, some on the intrastate level, but we have very capable first 

responders and they were trained and exercised and equipped, 

somewhat, by these Homeland Security and Emergency Management grant funds. 

As we get into a discussion about what the Nation can afford, I 

would simply say that in my opinion, the money we spent over the 

last 10 years has been effectively used, for the most part. 

The second thing I would like to focus on is the work of FEMA 

during the recent response. I thought it was exceptional. Due to the 

devastation in the State of Alabama and ongoing disasters in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, FEMA Region X from the Pacific 

Northwest led the group and strong leadership was provided by 

Terry Charles, the Federal Coordinating Officer from Region IV, 

our region here in the Southeast. 

The coordination between key Federal agencies, FEMA, U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), National Weather Service 

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(NWS), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was also outstanding. 

As far as the recovery is concerned, overall it was very good. I 

do feel there are some areas that need improvement. The Individual Assistance Preliminary Damage Assessment process was 

swift and efficient and showed great flexibility by the FEMA staff. 

The Home Inspection and Individual Assistance grant disbursement process for the vast majority of the disaster survivors was excellent as well. 

However, an area that can be improved is coordination between 

individual assistance, the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program 

(HMGP), and the National Flood Insurance Program’s Substantial 

Estimation Program. I have addressed these concerns to senior 

FEMA leadership and they are very receptive to the concerns that 

I have, and that other States have, and I will followup with those 

with the leadership. 

In the last 10 years, Mississippi has received 21 Federal disaster 

declarations, including Hurricane Katrina. Thanks to the leadership of both Governor Barbour and great local elected officials, we 

have truly rebuilt devastated areas both better and safer. We in 

Mississippi have learned the importance of using Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds to help prepare our residents for the potential impact that future storms and disasters may have on their 

lives. 

After Hurricane Katrina, Governor Barbour established the following priorities and funding levels for Hazard Mitigation projects 

resulting from that disaster. Funding levels fluctuated as jurisdictions established the critical needs and submitted applications 

based on those needs. 

Hazard mitigation planning, retrofit of critical facilities, acquisition of flood-damaged structures, upgrades of codes and standards, 

group and individual shelters to include safe rooms, generators for 

critical facilities, and then the coastal wind retrofit for residential 

structures. 

All of these programs have been tremendously effective in the 

State of Mississippi. We have examples of how the safe room program has actually saved lives, not just in this set of severe storms 

and tornados, but others. I have specific examples in my written 

testimony that speak to this success. 

While the use of HMGP funds were a major source of the State’s 

mitigation efforts, allocation of other Federal grant funds tied to 

stronger standards as well has increased adoption of codes, have 

also made Mississippi safer and more resilient. Many jurisdictions 

have adopted international building code standards, some because 

it was tied to Federal funding, some because they knew it was the 

right thing to do. 

As I have previously stated, Mississippi has seen many disasters 

in the last decade, some catastrophic on the local level and one catastrophic to the State, region, and nation. We Mississippians are 

proud to say that we have used our resources and those provided 

to us by the Nation to rebuild by using proven mitigation and 

stringent code standard measures to build a much safer and more 

resilient State. Thank you. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Mr. O’Brian. 

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11 

1The prepared statement of Mr. O’Brian appears in the appendix on page 63. 

TESTIMONY OF BRIAN ‘‘ROB’’ O’BRIAN III,1 PRESIDENT, 

JOPLIN AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, MISSOURI 

Mr. O’BRIAN. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Pryor, 

Ranking Member Paul, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank 

you for the opportunity to be with you this afternoon and to talk 

about the May 22 tornado, its impact, and our response, particularly regarding the business sector. 

Regardless of the level of devastation that you may have seen on 

the news, the reality is, frankly, much worse. The tornado to date 

has claimed 159 lives. That makes it the worst tornado, in terms 

of fatalities, in more than six decades, and the eighth worse in 

United States history. 

The storm, which had winds close to 300 miles per hour in some 

locations, carved a path nearly 8 miles long and averaging threequarters of a mile wide through Joplin and the adjoining village of 

Duquesne. More than 4,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged beyond repair; 9,000 people as a consequence are displaced for 

the long term. 

Also, hundreds of businesses were in its path. More than 450 

businesses in the direct path were destroyed or damaged beyond 

repair. That is approximately 20 percent of all businesses in our 

two communities. 

One of the largest employers, St. John’s Medical Center, along 

with several big box retailers and hundreds of mom and pop operations were destroyed. Collectively, around 5,000 people worked at 

those firms. While it is a blow to our residents, we also know it is 

important to make sure that our businesses are back in place and 

providing jobs as quickly as possible. 

As a bit of background, our Chamber of Commerce is the leading 

economic development entity for the Joplin region. As part of our 

development efforts, we also operate a Business Innovation Center 

in an adjoining building which became an important asset in our 

response. 

By the end of the day on Monday, following the tornado, we had 

arranged for additional volunteer staff to answer the hundreds of 

calls and walk-ins that we were getting. That allowed our employed 

staff to be in the devastated area checking on all businesses. Without landmarks or street signs, our team used GIS maps and often 

just memory to find business locations. 

Often, at those locations we found the owners or senior management in the debris. While there, we could help assess their situation, and as we learned more about these businesses, we continually updated information to hand back to them to make sure they 

were most current on the resources available to them. 

In addition to the team on the streets, we also had staff calling 

or texting business owners not found onsite. Of the 450 firms, our 

staff had personally communicated with 420 of them by the end of 

the third week. By the end of week four, we had also talked with 

our other 800 Chamber members, a total of more than 1,2000 contacts in that first month. 

Also, on the Monday after the tornado, we were contacted by the 

SBA Business Recovery Team. We had already arranged for counH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

12 

selors from the Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC) at Missouri Southern State University to be at our Innovation Center to assist businesses, and then we invited the SBA 

team to locate there as well. 

By Thursday, the Business Recovery Center was in full operation. We understand the SBA Business Recovery Team does not 

often co-locate with Chamber or with SBTDCs. However, this approach has worked very well for us and for our businesses, and we 

highly recommend that others implement this strategy. 

We were also contacted immediately by FEMA’s Private Sector 

Support Group. We understand that this is a relatively new approach, since it does not have direct funding for businesses. FEMA, 

instead, has partnerships with regional and national firms that 

provide resources. Through one of those connections, we are receiving laptops for small businesses and for the school’s technology program, which provides training for students and company employees. 

As their time permitted, members of both the SBA and the 

FEMA Private Sector Teams joined our staff members to go to devastated areas and meet with businesses onsite. They have also 

been present at a number of Chamber events to reach out to companies. Our ability to provide quality assistance to the business 

sector is greatly enhanced by having this collaboration. 

As of today, if more than 200 of the 450 businesses are back in 

operation, even it is a temporary location. Companies have gone to 

extraordinary lengths to retain their employees. We estimate nearly 3,500 of the 5,000 employees impacted are still on the payroll. 

Joplin will recover, stronger than ever. We appreciate your interest and look forward to your questions. Thank you. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. And I want to thank all the panelists 

for being here and for sharing their great testimony. I am going to 

exercise the prerogative of the Chair here and change our order a 

little bit. I am going to defer my questions to the end. What I 

would like to do is to start with one round of 5 minutes each. I will 

turn to Senator Paul first, who is our Ranking Member, and then 

go in the order in which Senators arrived, which is Blunt, Cochran, 

Boozman, and McCaskill. 

Then, we will do a second round, if folks want to stick around. 

I want the panel to know that we have four Senators here today 

who are not actually Members of this Subcommittee, and three are 

not even members of the full Committee, but they wanted to come 

and hear your testimony and ask questions. So, Senator Paul, why 

don’t you lead off? 

Senator PAUL. Thank you. Mr. Serino, when you give out FEMA 

payments, do any payments go to people who have private insurance to cover their damage, or how does that work? 

Mr. SERINO. For people—what we do is we actually look and see 

what the needs of the individual are, and depending on what they 

have, if they have private insurance, we do not cover for what is 

covered by private insurance. If there are some other needs that 

they may have, some short-term housing needs that are not covered by insurance, obviously we will take care of that. But if they 

have insurance, we do not cover that. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

13 

Senator PAUL. So if their building is covered, you would not cover 

to rebuild their building, basically? 

Mr. SERINO. Correct. 

Senator PAUL. And is there a mechanism for checking whether 

they get government assistance from another plan, like if you have 

flooding and you have agricultural assistance versus FEMA? 

Mr. SERINO. Right. What we do is we actually aggregate the information that comes in through our National Processing Service 

Centers, when people go through that, and look and see what other 

things that they have. But on the flip side of that, also see what 

else they may qualify for if they do not have that, if they do not 

qualify for any FEMA grants, and to make sure they are not getting from somewhere else, double-dipping, if you will, but also to 

make sure that there are other things that may be available. 

Senator PAUL. The GAO reported in 2006 that there was a billion 

dollars worth of improper payments. Has that been addressed? 

Who were those given to? I remember reading about prisoners in 

Baton Rouge getting paid for being displaced to prison. That was 

probably one of the most egregious ones I heard. But what where 

were most of these payments for and what has been done to make 

that better? 

Mr. SERINO. Over the last 9 or 10 years, what we have done is 

put a lot of controls in place after the GAO report and actually determine our error rate. It was then 10 percent, but we have been 

able to do lower it. With a lot of the controls that we have put in 

place through our National Processing Service Centers and working 

with a number of folks within and outside of FEMA, we have actually gotten our error rate down to .3 percent. 

Senator PAUL. Some people have reported that part of our problem is that we have a shortage of money, and we have a lot more 

FEMA disasters declared than before. I think under Reagan there 

were 28. Under the first Bush Administration, 44. It went up to 

about 130 under his second term, and now we are up to 140. We 

are already at 137 this year and we have not hit hurricane season 

yet. 

I guess some of the concern is that we are declaring everything 

a disaster and that some of this should be maybe taken care of at 

the State level. We should not turn these events as catastrophic, 

but rather save our resources for things like Hurricanes Katrina 

and Rita and Joplin and Tuscaloosa. I mean, those were definitely 

disasters. 

But it is hard. It is hard to say no, and so I think everybody 

keeps saying yes. Is there any direction toward trying to control 

the numbers? Are we going to have 200 disasters? I think the 

President’s plan takes us from $11 billion to $30 billion over the 

next 10 years. We just do not have the money to keep doubling and 

tripling programs. Is there any kind of plan in place to limit and 

direct our resources better? 

Mr. SERINO. Currently, a number of things that we are doing are 

in place. First off, we have had some record-setting weather in this 

calendar year. For example, tornados have reached their highest 

number and the Mississippi and Missouri River are at record high 

flood stages. So, we are seeing a higher number of disasters because of the shifts in weather patterns; and also seeing what we 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

14 

have been able to—what we have seen for disasters over the past— 

within certainly the past year. 

We have been very busy, but at the same time, we have also 

been going back and looking at some of our previous disasters and 

seeing how we can reallocate money and de-obligate ourselves from 

financing previous disasters. If we are able to free up some dollars 

we will be able to meet and take care of some of the issues now 

with current disasters. 

As we continue to move forward, we certainly do look at disasters. We actually follow what our regulations state and what the 

law states, and in the Stafford what we can and when we cannot 

declare certain disasters. 

Senator PAUL. And I have one final quick question. In Kentucky, 

the complaint I have heard is that it seems that the money has 

been dispensed. To my understanding, it gets dispensed and goes 

to the States, then the States dispense it again or make further decisions. Some seem to think that the money is locked up in our 

State capital somehow. I do not know. 

Do you keep tabs on the money once it gets to the States, or are 

you then pretty much done with the process? 

Mr. SERINO. Usually when it goes to the States, the State is the 

responsible party, but we also work with the States and we work 

with the locals as well to try and ensure that the money goes 

through to continue on to where it is distributed. 

Senator PAUL. Thank you. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Senator Blunt. 

Senator BLUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding 

this hearing. Senator McCaskill and I are both here. We have probably had as many disasters in Missouri this year as in any year 

that anybody recalls. We had the spring flood of the Mississippi 

that Mr. Masingill mentioned and still there are challenges because 

of that. The Black River at Poplar Bluff flooded. 

The Missouri River looks like it will be in flood stage through the 

entire State, from the Iowa border to St. Louis for all of August. 

And then a number of tornados, including one that hit the St. 

Louis Airport and the area around that, and the tornado that Mr. 

O’Brian described so well. So, we have had lots of FEMA experience. 

And flooding in Branson, the Taneycomo with the lake there, created lots of problems. I think that we have tried to deal with those 

in the best way I could, but, Rob, I know you have to leave. Mr. 

O’Brian, you have to leave at 3:30 or so. I am going—4pm, good. 

We have a time for second round of questions then, and I am glad 

to have that. 

Just to start with Mr. O’Brian, you have been in the middle of 

this every day now since late May. Do you have any recommendations that FEMA and the private sector could do individually or 

collectively, how could they improve what we do to respond to these 

disasters? 

Mr. O’BRIAN. Well, we have dealt most specifically with the private sector side of FEMA, as mentioned, working on business recovery, and FEMA does not have dollars for businesses, but they 

do have resources. What I would say, Senator, is while they have 

been great partners in this, there is perhaps an issue of speed in 

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15 

response. I noted one which I think is a very good example of them 

working with a national partner. 

As we sat down and talked, we talked about laptops for small 

businesses. They brought that national partner in early in the second week and then said, We can expand this to the schools as well, 

which is terrific. The issue in that is probably in those first 2 

weeks is when we had a number of businesses who really needed 

laptops because their computer systems were in the wreckage at 

some point in time. 

So here we are coming up on the 2-month mark and these 

laptops are just beginning to arrive. So I think some of that could 

be addressed, and I know every disaster is different, every situation is different, but I think on the private sector side of FEMA, 

if they could work with those national and regional partners and 

define, up front, what the resources are, or at least basic resources 

are, and make those available in a much more rapid fashion, it 

would benefit the business sector tremendously. 

Senator BLUNT. Of the businesses you talked about that are 

damaged or out of business that are trying to recover, is there any 

private sector—I am not sure what the response is to like the florist shop that almost exclusively dealt with the hospital that is now 

essentially not there. Is there a disruption of business? Is there 

really any way that a business can plan for this kind of thing? 

Have you got some stories of businesses that have faced challenges 

that are different than you would expect? 

Mr. O’BRIAN. Well, I think there would be certainly all kinds of 

stories out there, Senator, in terms of how businesses have responded. I think a key, just in general that we have found, many 

businesses were not adequately prepared for was the loss of information. We are so computer driven in this age that unless the 

records are adequately backed up, preferably offsite, we had businesses that lost their records. 

Then in looking to the SBA for a loan, they had to retrieve some 

of those records, and then they found out that their accountant was 

done, and oftentimes it was difficult to retrieve those records. Now, 

we did have good support from the Small Business and Technology 

Development Center counselors and from the Secretary of State’s 

Office, and others, to help retrieve those records, but that was 

probably one of the unifying things with many of the businesses. 

Senator BLUNT. And just as an aside to that point, the hospital, 

the 2,500-employee hospital that really is, I think, going to have to 

be totally rebuilt and maybe we will even choose to relocate somewhere else in the community, they had just backed up all of their 

health records at the end of the preceding month. So they were 22 

days away from having completed the project so that everybody 

who had health records at that hospital still has them, but they 

were that close to not having them. 

And it is an interesting point, that people lose records, their accountants lost the records as well. As a matter of fact, maybe even 

if you have not lost your business, your accountant may have lost. 

So backing up and access. Thank you, Chairman. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Senator Blunt. Senator Cochran, we 

are thrilled to have you here today. Thank you for being with us. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

16 

Senator COCHRAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for inviting us to join you and participate in this hearing. Appreciate the 

opportunity of working with you in the Senate. I look forward to 

joining forces with you in trying to help make sure we do everything we can here from the Federal level to help restore these communities that have been so heavily damaged, and to continue plans 

for protecting this region that is so important, economically in 

terms of people who reside in the region, from disasters such as we 

have seen recently. 

It is good to see Mike Womack again. Of course, every time I look 

up, I know we have had an accident or something bad has happened. He is there. I do not know what we would do without him. 

Hailey Roberts relies on him very closely and calls on him very regularly for his leadership and management skills. I am glad you are 

here to provide some insight. 

This recent flooding was something that confirmed the fact that 

the Mississippi River is huge and we have invested a lot of money 

in protecting the adjoining landowners and people who live in the 

region from flooding of the Mississippi River. And I do not want 

this to sound like a joke, but it looks like we may have overdone 

it in that all the water now in this recent flood basically stayed in 

the Mississippi River. 

The damages that were caused were backwater flooding, small 

streams, tributaries that lead into the Mississippi River, but the 

prevention of main stem flooding kept the water within its banks 

of this historic, huge, terrible flood. 

Do you have any comments to make about that, and whether or 

not we ought to go back to the drawing board and see what else 

we need to do now? 

Mr. WOMACK. Senator, I do not think the system is broken, but 

it certainly needs a few modifications. There are flood control structures on the Yazoo Basin, but they do not protect all of the basin. 

There are no pumps that pump the water out that collects behind 

those flood control structures. 

And it is not just Mississippi that has this problem. Other States 

have it as well. Dave Maxwell and I were talking about that much 

of their flooding was where the Mississippi backed up other rivers. 

So I think we do need to continue to look at what we could do to 

further protect those smaller streams such as the Yazoo River and 

the tributaries, because you are right. A lot of the flooding did not 

occur on the mainline Mississippi, but on these smaller rivers that 

do have some limited flood control structures, but not enough to 

fully protect the citizens. 

Senator COCHRAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having the 

hearing and inviting us to participate. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you for your questions and thank you for 

being here. Senator McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you all 

for being here. As Senator Blunt said, we have had a rough year 

in Missouri. I know he and I share the opinion we are both blessed 

to be from a State we love, but man oh man, has it been a rough 

year. 

I am interested to find out from you, Mr. O’Brian, whether you 

think that what FEMA provided in terms of really hooking you up, 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

17 

since there are no direct dollars through FEMA for businesses, but 

hooking you up with other resources that FEMA was aware of. Did 

it feel more like a scavenger hunt, or was there a menu of available 

resources that you could draw upon immediately in the days after 

the disaster? 

Mr. O’BRIAN. Senator, thank you, and that, as a follow-on to my 

response to Senator Blunt, we believe that there are a number of 

resources out there in the FEMA private sector side. Part of the 

problem for business and for us as advocates for business is that 

we really do not know what those are. 

I think the best example of that is, when you think about our 

community, when you think about the residents of the community 

and the businesses and business owners in the community, there 

is a period of time in there when everyone is essentially in shock. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Mr. O’BRIAN. Everyone is working very hard to recover, but it is 

so overwhelming and there is so much information overload that 

goes on, that when we go to a business—we found very early on. 

When we would go to a business and say, What do you need, they 

would just—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Shrug. 

Mr. O’BRIAN. Yes, shrug. They did not know. They did not know 

exactly what they needed, or they would say, I do not need anything, go help someone else, which is very typical in our community. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Mr. O’BRIAN. But once you could put something forward and say, 

Well, here are some examples of resources we have available, then 

that started the thought process for them. And even if they did not 

need those resources, at least they were able to tell us more definitively what it was that they felt they needed at that point in time. 

I think this is some of the issues, again, we have with the private 

sector support with FEMA, is that we know that they have wonderful resources there, and their team keeps asking us, What do you 

need, and we are in much the same position. We are not sure what 

our businesses need. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So you are saying, What have you got? 

Mr. O’BRIAN. So we say, What do you—yes, what have you got, 

what do you have? Let us see a list. Even again if it is very basic, 

and I think one of the things that they have tried to do is be in 

a position to be creative, again, because every disaster is different. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Mr. O’BRIAN. And be able to bring some different resources to the 

table. But I think there is also commonalities, and even a basic 

shopping list, if you will, of resources, even if they do not necessarily, for confidentiality sake, at the first pass want to divulge 

who their regional and national partners are, if they can say, We 

can get you laptops, we can get you a structural engineer to come 

look at your building, we can get you—and just have a list of examples, that begins a process then, I think, for us and our businesses 

to respond. 

Senator MCCASKILL. It is one of those which comes first, the 

chicken or the egg, because I am sure from FEMA’s perspective, if 

you go out and you put on a list, We have free laptops, a lot of peoH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

18 

ple are going to ask for laptops that may not need laptops. On the 

other hand, they want to make sure and get laptops to businesses 

that do actually need them. 

So I think that there is probably—but I think you are right, that 

there is a way that maybe we could work on a list like, Do you 

need business equipment, do you need engineering consulting, do 

you need somebody—legal help, whatever. 

Because I know one of the problems we had is a great problem 

to have, but candidly, when I was down there right afterwards and 

then when I was down there the next time, there were so many 

people wanting to help that, I was offered like 14 bottles of water 

within 5 minutes of when I arrived in Joplin because people were 

just stopping on the streets and wanting to do something. 

And I think a lot of the money and resources that flow in—and 

that is one of the questions I have for you. I know that you have 

started the Business Recovery Fund and the Joplin Tomorrow 

Fund, and we just got a grant that Senator Blunt and I were able 

to announce, from Commerce that is going to help fund a regional 

and local coordinator for the business recovery effort. 

But I am a little worried about all the money flowing in to help 

and is it getting to the right place and is it accessible by the business community, or are there charities that have popped up saying, 

We are taking assistance for Joplin that maybe is not getting to 

Joplin? Do you see a problem there that we need to be aware of 

that we could help with? 

Mr. O’BRIAN. Well, first, thank you both, Senators, for your support on those grants. We appreciate that. Senator, I would say that 

whether it is Joplin or Cape Girardeau or Smithville, Mississippi, 

or any place, there is always concern about the response, especially 

with dollars, and are the dollars going to the right place. 

And we know there are some very strong national organizations 

that provide immediate response such as Red Cross that can be 

very beneficial. What we did in our community, and actually it was 

a group that was working with the schools on a Web site to encourage connection between the faith-based community, social services, 

and the business community to support the schools, was reroute 

that Web site with dialogue, and really it was a dialogue amongst 

these entities, said, For the long term, there are about six funds 

that we can all get behind. 

And as people would call, we really tried to direct them to those 

six funds. It is on a Web site called rebuildjoplin.org, along with 

a whole list of what people need and what people have to give as 

a way of coordinating that effort. 

But I think it is, to your question, very important, probably early 

in the process, to make sure that communities think about the long 

term and think about the entities that they have or that they may 

need to create, such as these foundations, in order to bring dollars 

in and essentially have them in the bank for the future, because 

people talk about returning to the status quo. SBA, FEMA, insurance, my bank will get me to the status quo. The reality is, there 

is no longer a status quo. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. Well, I think it is terrific. I am very 

proud of the Joplin community because of the way you did this, and 

as always, the best solutions are solutions that are done on a coH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

19 

ordinated basis at the local level, rather than from Washington. 

Certainly I do not think anybody in Joplin would argue that FEMA 

was very, very important to the Joplin community, and the Federal 

agencies and the State agencies that came in to help. 

But for the long haul, I am glad the solutions are being crafted 

at the local level, and thank you for being here. Hopefully I will 

have time for some other questions. I would love to get into Birds 

Point. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Let me go ahead and ask just one 

question this round and then I will start the second round. Before 

I do, I want to say that one of the things that made me proud of 

my State was seeing lots of folks from the corridor of Fort Smith, 

Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville, Bella Vista, and other 

parts of the that whole corridor that went right up Joplin to try 

to help. 

They were probably the folks handing you water because they 

just wanted to do something to help a neighbor in need. Sometimes 

it was organized by churches, sometimes it was just spontaneous, 

just folks going on their own, but they went up there to help and 

reciprocate because you have helped us many times when we have 

had our troubles. I know that Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Masingill can 

testify to that. 

Mr. Serino, let me ask you a question, if I can take a little bit 

broader view here. I hear stories and read articles in the paper 

that the Disaster Relief Fund may be running out of money. I am 

curious to know if this is true, what you anticipate for the rest of 

this fiscal year, and what we are going to do in the event that it 

does run out of money. 

Mr. SERINO. Sure. Currently, the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), we 

have $1.24 billion in the DRF currently, and we have been able to 

actually keep that somewhat stabilized over the last few weeks, 

few months actually, through, as I was talking a little bit earlier, 

how we are able to go back and look at de-obligating a number of 

previous disasters. By doing that, we have been able to keep it 

somewhat level. 

It is going down a little bit, obviously, with the disasters that we 

have been talking about across the country. Right now we are on 

pace. We look to when we may or may not get below a billion dollars, I would say, where we are projecting is sometime between 

now and possibly sometime early August, is where we are going. 

Senator PRYOR. And so what do you do come early August? What 

arrangements do you have to make? Do you have to come back to 

the Congress? 

Mr. SERINO. If necessary, we could, but right now we look at 

what we do. We had something in the past called immediate needs 

funding, which we did last year, that I am sure both Dave and 

Mike are familiar with. 

If necessary, we could do that, and that leaves the money in 

place for life-safety, life-saving issues, that if something were to 

happen, we will have the money to do that, and we will put actually on hold funding some of the other long-term projects that may 

be in place, construction of some public buildings longer-term, some 

roads that are longer-term down the line. 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

20 

We may actually put a hold on that until a new budget comes 

through. So that is sort of—we have done that in the past. We had 

to do that last year. If necessary, we may go to that again this 

year. 

Senator PRYOR. We had a situation recently in Arkansas where 

we had two counties that we thought should easily have qualified 

for disaster assistance, but they were rejected and we had to go 

through an appeal process. That appeal process took a couple of 

weeks, and I got asked a few times about whether FEMA’s decision 

making process was impacted by the fear that they might run out 

of money with all of these other disasters. Is that a factor in your 

consideration? 

Mr. SERINO. Not at all. That does not enter into it at all as to 

how much money is currently in the DRF fund, as to whether a 

State or a county gets qualified. That does not enter into the equation for us at all. 

Senator PRYOR. OK, great. Now, we will go to our second round. 

Senator Blunt. 

Senator BLUNT. Thanks, Senator. It happens that both Joplin 

and St. Louis are both served by for-profit utility companies. Mr. 

Womack, I do not know if you were in this position during Hurricane Katrina or not, but we waived a provision for Mississippi, at 

least, in Hurricane Katrina so that any utility company that had 

replacement costs because of the disaster qualified for the same 

level of FEMA assistance. 

And my point on this always is, which as Governor Barbour wellexplained it at the time, everybody who is served by this particular 

company pays taxes just like the person pays Federal taxes that 

has a municipal utility or an associated electric co-opportunity utility who automatically qualified for reimbursement. 

But like the city of Joplin, Mr. O’Brian, is all served by Empire 

Electric. I do not know if you have had discussions about this or 

not. I suspect you have. What do you see as the long-term impact 

on utilities in a community that their utility provider does not 

automatically—is not allowed, frankly—we would have to change 

the law to allow it—is not allowed to participate in the cost-share 

for disaster recovery? 

Mr. O’BRIAN. Well, Senator, I think you raise a good point with 

that in the Mississippi experience. Our electric utility is Empire 

District Electric. It is locally headquartered. It serves approximately 10,000 square miles in four States, most of that in southwest Missouri. And certainly, year in and year out they do anticipate that there will be some level of damaging storms. 

What they do not necessarily anticipate is an Efficient-5 tornado 

that cuts through 14 miles of their service area, including some of 

the most densely populated part of that. And their estimate in 

terms of the damage done is, today, somewhere around $25 million. 

It could go higher as they continue on that. 

What that means for our community and, frankly, for our surrounding neighbors who are served by Empire is since they do not 

fit into the qualification, Stafford Act, is that eventually there will 

have to be a rate increase on that. And that is the only means that 

they have to recover those dollars. 

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And I think the element of that, when we think about the long 

term, is that when you have a community like Joplin, or any other 

community that is served by investor-owned utilities that have had 

catastrophic disasters, you want them to recover. You want them 

to recover as quickly as they can. 

And if you placed utilities in a position, just because they are investor-owned utilities, where they eventually have to raise their 

rates to recoup that, essentially what you are doing is making it 

harder for the residents, and you are making it harder for the businesses that are still in operation, and you make it more difficult 

to attract new business investment in the community. 

And so, instead of incenting recovery, you have disincented recovery by now allowing them to take part in that funding. 

Senator BLUNT. Mr. Womack, do you remember this situation 

when it came up in Mississippi? 

Mr. WOMACK. I do, but it was not managed through my agency. 

It was not Stafford Act funding. 

Senator BLUNT. Right. 

Mr. WOMACK. As you said, it required a special act to allow the 

tax dollars to be able to help the for-profit utilities. So I do not 

have the details on it, but I do know that it was in an effort to try 

to make sure that the rates for the two big providers in Mississippi, Entergy and Mississippi Power, and of course, Entergy 

was heavily invested in Louisiana as well. 

But I do not know the details on it, but I do know that it hurt. 

Senator BLUNT. Mr. Maxwell, have you had any experience with 

this kind of thing? 

Mr. MAXWELL. We have not. 

Senator BLUNT. All right. Mr. Serino, I would just say, I am 

going to continue to work on this. And, Chairman, I would love to 

talk to you about it. Senator McCaskill and I have been talking 

about it. If this community would have happened to have had a 

municipal provider, let us say they would pay 10 percent under the 

Stafford Act, they would be passing along $2.5 million to the ratepayers instead of $25 million. Or if they have a 75–25 share, they would be passing along $6 million to the ratepayers instead of $25 million. Those ratepayers 

pay Federal taxes in exactly the same way that the neighboring 

community of Carthage, that has a municipal utility, pays Federal 

taxes. We have had, frankly, a little more experience with this, 

with devastating ice storms. 

We would have miles and miles of poles broken off, and the mileage that is in the electric co-opportunity, Federal taxpayers come 

in and say, We are going to help you keep your future rates low, 

or if it is a municipal utility, they say, We are going to help you 

keep your future rates low. 

But if it happens to be in a for-profit we say, You are going to 

go to the PSC, or whatever you call the commission in any State, 

and you are going to ask them and they are going to tell you, Yes, 

we may not give you exactly the timeframe, but I think inevitably, 

they let you pass this cost along to the taxpayer, the ratepayer, 

who just happens to be served by a different kind of utility. 

I think it is one of the great inequities in the way we look at this 

particular problem, and I just hope you will think about it with me, 

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too. I know it is not something you can do right now, but I do think 

it is an area in the Stafford Act where we really could bring greater 

equity to people, neighbors, who suffer the same kind of calamity. 

One of them, at the end of the day, winds up, when their business—maybe in their business or their home—with a much higher 

utility rate than the other one did just because of who provides 

their utility to them. 

It is not that the for-profit absorbs that loss. The for-profit goes 

to the public service entity, whatever it is, and they inevitably say, 

Sure, you can pass those costs along to, as Mr. O’Brian pointed out, 

all of your—everybody who happens to be served by your utility. 

In this case Joplin is a big part of what that utility does as a provider. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Senator Cochran, before you begin 

with questions, I want to thank you and Senator Landrieu for signing onto my FEMA Recoupment Bill. Thank you and it is your turn 

if you would like to ask. 

Senator COCHRAN. I have no other questions, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Senator McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, and I want to second Senator 

Blunt’s conversation about the utilities. What is particularly worrisome to me, and I know it is to you, Mr. O’Brian, is that if Empire 

goes to the PSC and the PSC says, Yes, you can pass those along 

to your ratepayers, what does that do for your business recovery? 

If somebody is making up their mind whether they want to come 

to Joplin or stay in Joplin and looking at a huge investment, if they 

know at the end of that investment, to rebuild in Joplin or to come 

to Joplin, I do not think a lot of people realize that Joplin is a 

Mecca for that entire region, even though the population of Joplin, 

people who lay their head down at night, may be around 50,000 

people. 

There are over 200,000 people that travel to Joplin for school and 

for work and for shopping. And what would that do to that Mecca 

status if your utility rates were two or three times higher than surrounding communities, which you could envision happening with 

this. So we will continue to work on this and hopefully make some 

progress on it. 

I want to ask about housing. I know that we have 1,500 people 

that are still on the list for housing in Joplin, and I know that you 

all have done so much in Missouri after the disasters. Can you update the Subcommittee on the efforts for the 1,500 that are still on 

the waiting list for housing, and what are the hang-ups? Two 

months is a long time and what do we need to do to make sure we 

clear that waiting list? 

Mr. SERINO. One of the things that we are doing is we are working as a State-led housing task force, because one thing we do not 

want to do is come in and, say, FEMA to tell Joplin, This is the 

housing needs that you need. We are working with the community 

and with the State to see what their needs are and then what we 

can provide. 

We do not want to come in and say, You need X, Y, and Z. We 

want to make sure that we are meeting their needs. And one of the 

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first things we do is look for rental assistance, look for renters, 

what is available for people to rent throughout the area. 

Unfortunately, as you just said, Joplin is sort of the hub and 

there is not a lot of rental assistance or even homes to buy in the 

area, even prior to this happening. So I think that is one of the 

challenges, and then on top of that, just seeing what is available 

throughout the area. 

One of the things that we looked at was the expedited debris removal that we have been doing, and I think that has helped us. Actually one of the first things we do, aside from rental housing for 

the short-term, is also look at trying to put people on their own 

property, where they are at, and looking to do that. Getting the expedited debris removal has actually helped us to look at that. 

Also, working with the leaders in Joplin and in the State is also 

looking to see what else they need in the area. We have had our 

Federal coordinating officer down in Joplin working with them to 

determine what is the best way and working with the people to 

look at some of the best options that kind of suit them, and we 

have been working through a lot of those now. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, what is the prospect for the 1,500 people? I know the rumor was that the Chairman had a lot of trailers 

in Arkansas, and Joplin is not that far away. 

Mr. SERINO. I will get the exact numbers of the housing units 

that we actually have in Joplin now. In Mississippi, there is already—there is 117 temporary housing units there now. Looking to 

actually bring some more to the area as necessary, but we are 

bringing them in at the request of the State and the request of the 

cities. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So should I talk to the State about this? 

Mr. SERINO. We have been working together. It is the task force 

that has been working together to get through these solutions that 

we want to get together. We do not want to come in and say, We 

are going to bring in 1,500 trailers when that is not what they 

want. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. I just want to make sure that we take 

care of the 1,500. 

Mr. SERINO. Right. And we have been working on that. 

Mr. MAXWELL. Senator, I might add, we have plenty of rental 

property down in Benton County. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Now, be careful. We do not want to turn 

any of these people into Sooie Pig fans. We want them to stay up 

on our side of the line, so we have to be a little careful about having them come down to Arkansas. 

Let me ask you, Mr. Masingill, about the Delta Regional Authority and Birds Point. We are working hard. The entire delegation 

has been really united on all of these issues, and we are particularly united about getting Birds Point rebuilt. 

What are you hearing from where you sit about the rebuilding 

of the Birds Point levee, is there anything that you want to share 

with the Subcommittee about that situation, what the Corps is telling you, and how quickly can those farmers expect to be able to get 

back in production with the levee that is replaced? 

Mr. MASINGILL. Senator, thank you for that question. The estimates continue to change. In fact, I would be leery to tell you, but 

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I have heard estimates as big as $10 billion for a total impact as 

it relates to our flooding, Senator Cochran, along the Mississippi, 

to anywhere to the $2.2 billion in your neck of the woods as it related to the New Madrid. 

One thing to keep in perspective is that 44 percent of all the 

American water that flows, flows through the Mississippi, and 31 

States are touched by the Mighty Mississippi in the course of this. 

And it has a huge economic impact and it is an economic engine. 

It is a highway for commerce and business impact in the country. 

In fact, if I may touch a little bit on that business perspective 

that we talked about a little bit earlier by Mr. O’Brian, the key 

thing for us as an independent Federal agency that tries to do community and economic development in this part of the region, this 

is a real opportunity for us, as Federal Government and stakeholders at the local and State levels, to take some lessons learned 

from what we are seeing in Joplin and that coordination and that 

planning. 

In the midst of this terrible tragedy, we have a real opportunity 

to change the model. Our national framework for response is effective, and our counterparts are working hard every day to make 

sure these programs are in place and that we are utilizing the programs in a very efficient and effective manner. 

But this is a real opportunity to change the model, because the 

one thing, from what we see from our perspective, the one real gap 

is that focus on business and industry in a time of a natural disaster. This co-locating is an awesome idea. These business recovery 

teams that are on the ground, there are no mechanisms in place 

to really elevate that focus, to really put an attention on creating 

mechanisms and resources, not new money, but existing money to 

put an emphasis on how do we respond and how do we deal with 

it. 

One quick example. In small, little, southwest Arkansas, which 

is part of our region, the Southwest Arkansas Planning and Development District, is using current technologies, GIS, to map every 

business in a multi-county fashion so we have an inventory of 

every business in that part of the State, Senator Pryor, that we 

know in the course of a natural disaster we have that information. 

Can you imagine what it would have been like if Joplin had that 

inventory where we could coordinate both at the Federal, local, and 

State levels so we can make these kind of decisions to really put 

an emphasis on sharing this information? 

SBA does a good job and our system works well for individual 

and public assistance, but the one area that we need to think about 

ways, not necessarily new money, but with the existing structure, 

particularly with our Small Business Disaster Loans. Those are 

good, but what we are doing is that we are putting an emphasis 

and we are advocating for certain programs over another depending on what the situation is or disaster is. 

What the DRA is advocating or trying to get attention to, additional public awareness, is how do we take something like the Louisiana Business Emergency Operations Center and expand it in a 

way that FEMA can use that same type of structure, same information to coordinate and integrate with the Small Business Administration. 

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Or when a disaster happens in the DRA region, they can come 

in and say, Hey, DRA, we know that you have 45 local development 

districts or COGs or PDDs or whatever they may be called, that 

has the ability to touch 3,000 elected officials, with a delivery system that has already been proven to make sure that we are utilizing all the local and State and Federal resources in a coordinated 

fashion as it relates to supporting, rebuilding, and making sure 

that our businesses and industries that are impacted. 

Individual assistance is effective. It is there. It works for the 

most part. So does the public assistance for our local counties and 

cities But the one thing that needs additional attention is the system in place to help address our small businesses. We have seen 

that in this disaster as it relates to the flooding. 

Senator PRYOR. Let me ask a few questions, if I may. Let me say 

that Senator McCaskill is correct in that we did have a few mobile 

homes and trailers in Hope, Arkansas. We had about 15,500, according to my staff. So it was not FEMA’s finest hour when they 

did that. 

But nonetheless, I think that FEMA, under Administrator 

Fugate, has been doing a good job. What I have seen from my vantage point here is an agency that has been trying very, very hard 

to get it right. I am not saying FEMA gets it right 100 percent of 

the time, but I think they get it right many more times than they 

get it wrong. We appreciate FEMA and the difficult jobs you have. 

Now let me ask a question of the rest of our panel about the disaster declaration process. I know we had an experience in Dumas, 

Arkansas 4 or 5 years ago. David, you would have to tell me. It had 

a really bad tornado and I do not think we ever got FEMA to grant 

a disaster declaration there. We tried and tried and tried. 

It was frustrating because we could never get a real handle on 

the criteria. Who was saying no, their reasons, and why it was difficult. So I am curious to hear the perspectives of the other four 

panelists on the disaster declaration process. Can we streamline it? 

Can we make it more transparent or more navigable in some way? 

Mr. Masingill, I do not know if you have a lot of first-hand experience with it. Why don’t we start with you and go on down the line. 

Mr. MASINGILL. OK. Thank you, Senator Pryor. It is interesting 

that you actually mentioned the Dumas scenario. At the time, I 

was still working for Governor Beebe, but I sat on the board of the 

Delta Regional Authority on behalf of him with the other Governors in the region. 

One of the things that we recognized during that process is that 

although we never received the declaration for several reasons, and 

we tried to mitigate that as much as possible. David was leading 

the way doing it and still does that today, and a great job, I might 

add. Mr. Maxwell, thank you for your leadership on that. 

But one of the things that we were able to do, because the response framework that we have did not necessarily have structures 

in place or programs in place to be as responsive to business and 

industry, we had the one plant that makes pet food that served almost 200 or 300 employees that was going to relocate. 

But we were able to cobble State resources together and also 

DRA resources together to help them in that rebuild above and beyond what they already had the insurance for. But there was not 

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a Federal mechanism in our response structure to say, Hey, look, 

this is an operation that employs almost 300 people that we have 

already made investments in when they were an economic development project, trying to be recruited many, many years ago. 

So we already have an investment in it. But the system in place 

did not allow for it to fit into the current structure. So you took 

a round—a square peg in this case, trying to fit it into a round hole 

in terms of our current system that is in place to deal with business and industry. 

So from our perspective, luckily we had DRA resources and we 

were able to use some State resources with Governor Beebe’s leadership, and we invested back into that industry to keep that up. 

And the process currently does not allow for that kind of flexibility. 

Senator PRYOR. Mr. Maxwell. 

Mr. MAXWELL. Yes, sir, thank you. I wish Senator Paul was here 

for this discussion, because I think we are going to talk a little bit 

about the number of disasters and some of the implications there. 

Arkansas really does not ask for disaster declarations from the 

President unless we think we have them. Arkansas has our own individual assistance programs, our own public assistance programs 

for those that we feel are under the threshold or the criteria for 

Presidential disaster declarations. 

We want to take care of our own people as much as possible. I 

was surprised this year when we received the denial on the one request, and I, frankly, will take some of the blame for that. I think 

in our zeal to get the assistance out to the people quickly, we may 

have gotten out too quickly to do the preliminary damage assessment and did not show all of the damage, did not see all the damage. 

There was some communication problem. I should have known 

that they did not see all the damage or we would not have asked 

at that time. But anyway, we eventually got it and we are very appreciative of the efforts that you, Senator Boozman, and the entire 

Arkansas delegation put in on that. 

It is the President’s prerogative and I really do not want to meddle in his business, but any—and we have had, actually, when Administrator Fugate was State Director, he worked on a task force 

from NEMA’s standpoint with FEMA looking at individual assistance criteria, and we thought we had an agreement just about 

ready and it fell apart. 

But I think that is one of the things. If we had some idea, especially if we have an idea on public assistance, we had that same 

sort of idea on individual assistance, we could manage the expectations of the citizens a little better. 

Senator PRYOR. Mr. Womack. 

Mr. WOMACK. As Mr. Maxwell stated, under public assistance, 

there is a specific set of numeric indicators. We do not use the term 

thresholds because they are not hard and fast. But generally 

speaking, if you do not meet the State numeric indicators, or a 

local government does not meet those dollar amounts, then it is 

very difficult to get a public assistance declaration. 

By the same token, if you just meet those thresholds and there 

was not an overall heavy impact to the State, you may still not get 

the declaration. But the fact that there is a monetary amount that 

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is tied to each county and tied to the State, it gives us a better 

method of determining whether or not we have a reasonable chance 

of getting a declaration. 

Under individual assistance, Dave and I have been involved in 

this for 5 years or more talking about, Do we want standards based 

on the community’s population, based on the community’s income? 

Do we want a specific standard that says, If you have this level of 

damage in a county and if a State has this level of damage, then 

you should reasonably expect to receive a declaration. 

Or do we really want it where the President has the flexibility 

to make the decision based on a number of factors? And that is currently what the Stafford Act says. It talks in terms of number of 

homes destroyed or major damage, but it also talks about all these 

other factors. 

I would tell you that I would like to see more structure to it, but 

I would not like to see the structure be quite as defined as public 

assistance, and I hope that helps. 

Senator PRYOR. Mr. O’Brian, do you want to comment on that? 

Mr. O’BRIAN. I think our only comment would be that we obviously had a disaster of great magnitude and there was already an 

existing disaster declaration in the State of Missouri for the flooding. So it was the decision to tag us on to that so assistance could 

begin immediately, which we greatly appreciated. 

That put us about 2 weeks short of the typical window and it did 

take a little time to put those other 2 weeks on there, but we did 

receive immediate aid because of that ability to link us into the existing declaration. 

Mr. MAXWELL. Senator, could I add to that? In our first disaster 

this year, we have ended up with over 10,000 applicants for individual assistance. That process went—on larger disasters, the process goes very smoothly, very quickly. FEMA is working outside the 

box with us a lot on flying over flooded areas to get estimates of 

the damage, those kind of things. 

We had people going out in boats to do damage assessments. We 

tried a lot of alternatives there and it worked well. But when we 

get to the smaller disasters, those that we feel are above, especially 

after experiencing a really large disaster, I think the thresholds or 

the indicators have to go down some because the State and local 

governments have lost a lot of capability after fighting a really 

large disaster. 

Mr. WOMACK. And you could literally have one small community, 

Smithville is the town that got hit the hardest in Mississippi. Eight 

hundred citizens lived in Smithville. Probably two-thirds, threefourths of the homes were totally wiped off their slabs. It would be 

difficult to tell that one community, you do not qualify for Federal 

disaster assistance because the rest of the State was not hit very 

hard. 

So this is probably the most difficult thing, is what should be the 

criteria for individual assistance declarations. 

Senator PRYOR. That is very helpful. Let me ask one last question then. If my colleagues have any other questions, we will take 

those. I want to talk about the Emergency Management Assistance 

Compact (EMAC). I would like to hear from Mr. Womack and Mr. 

Maxwell about how that has been working. I am actually getting 

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ready to introduce the legislation to re-authorize the program. I am 

interested in your experiences with it and how that works. So, Mr. 

Womack, do you want to go first? 

Mr. WOMACK. Well, as I tried to state in my testimony, because 

of a great system of mutual aid, both in the State of Mississippi 

and with other States under EMAC, we do not have to rely on Federal resources. In fact, I had a conversation with Craig Fugate and 

he said that if they had to deploy Federal urban search and rescue 

teams to maybe Tuscaloosa or to Joplin, they may not have been 

available for other types of incidences. 

And so, I think it works tremendously effectively. In Mississippi, 

our reimbursement to other States for Hurricane Katrina for 

EMAC-related costs—police, fire, emergency medical, commodities, 

equipment costs—was $80 million, $80 million for EMAC services. 

And it was tremendously, tremendously effective. 

That is another great success story over the last 10 years since 

September 11, 2001, is the fact that we have built great capability 

at the State and local level and we can deploy that throughout the 

Nation. So it is a tremendous system; it needs to be continued. 

Senator PRYOR. Good. Mr. Maxwell. 

Mr. MAXWELL. We have been more of a supplier of assistance 

than a requestor of assistance. We have, I think, back in the ice 

storm of 2000, we got some generators from Missouri and Louisiana. In the ice storm of 2004, I believe, or whenever the last ice 

storm was, I have lost track, we got some water tankers from Louisiana. 

But we have sent National Guard soldiers to Mississippi and 

Louisiana in Hurricane Katrina. This year we sent a search and 

rescue team from northwest Arkansas to Joplin almost immediately, followed up with the paperwork. So it does get those needed equipment, needed people out there quickly. 

And the important thing with your bill and the steady stream of 

funding is that we keep improving it. It gets better every year. 

The current Chair of the NEMA EMAC Subcommittee is from 

Kentucky, and is a techno whiz, and he is looking at ways to—our 

counterpart in Kentucky—is really looking at ways to improve how 

we identify where resources are so if there is a disaster, you can 

draw a ring and immediately know what kind of resources that you 

need are within that ring so you can get them closest, quickest, 

fastest. 

Senator PRYOR. Great. Now, Senator Blunt, did you have other 

questions? 

Senator BLUNT. I just had two more questions, if you do not 

mind. 

Senator PRYOR. Go ahead. 

Senator BLUNT. Chairman, thanks again for putting this hearing 

together and thanks to the panel for sticking with us for all the 

time we had scheduled, and that does not happen sometimes. 

But, Mr. Masingill, I am going to ask you about crop insurance 

and other things that relate to how the Agriculture Committee responds to these disasters. And while you are thinking about that, 

Mr. Serino, what about the funding for the safe rooms? And is that 

available to public facilities principally? 

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Mr. SERINO. Yes. It is available to public facilities. There are actually some good stories. We were funded for—in Oklahoma we 

funded safe rooms in a school that cost $144,000. The Federal 

share was about $110,000 of that. And with that, when the tornados came through earlier this spring, that not only did the school 

department folks went in there, but firefighters went in there, public safety. Citizens were able to go in there. Two hundred people 

were able to go into that safe room that directly saved their lives 

for a cost of about $144,000. Of the Federal share, we picked up 

about $110,000 of that. 

Senator BLUNT. We are rebuilding lots of public facilities in Joplin, Missouri, and obviously had people that had nowhere to go and 

lots of stories about thinking they were going to a safe place that 

turned out not to be a safe place. And how about the funding for 

that? 

Mr. SERINO. Specifically in Joplin, for example, we are actually 

working with them through that. There will be safe rooms, for example, in the schools that meet code, and that is one thing that is 

important, that these are going to meet the code, the regulations 

that are set forth to make sure that they are, in fact, safe rooms. 

And not only are we going to be doing that in the buildings permanently, but for the temporaries. Some of the schools were lost 

in Joplin and with some of the temporary schools that we are putting up, we are going to make sure that there are safe rooms in 

the temporary schools—— 

Senator BLUNT. Really? 

Mr. SERINO [continuing]. Even for the short term to make sure 

that people will have somewhere to go that is safe in the short 

term that they will be safe, but also, I think, it is going to be important for the community to know that there will be somewhere 

safe for the children while they are in schools, psychologically as 

well. 

Senator BLUNT. Mr. Maxwell. 

Mr. MAXWELL. More than that, more than just that the kids are 

safe, those school safe rooms can be equipped with either an electronic keypad or a keybox that the law enforcement or fire have access to. They can open it up in the evening times for the community to then go to. 

Senator BLUNT. Right. Good point. Mr. Masingill, talk to me a 

little bit about the government agriculture programs and how they 

have worked during crop loss and other ag disasters that you have 

seen this year. 

Mr. MASINGILL. It seems from our perspective, or at least the information that we get back, is that the key point. More information 

the better. I think there was an initial point where if USDA was 

going to, in this particular case, the farmers that were going to be 

impacted, because the government decided to make the decision to 

blow the levee, and I know there was a great deal of conversations 

and contention with that. 

I think that the final verdict, which we need to get confirmation 

on, is that they are going to be included. 

Senator BLUNT. It was. The Birds Point verdict, for instance, 

since that was technically man-made—— 

Mr. MASINGILL. Right. 

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Senator BLUNT [continuing]. And Senator McCaskill and I both 

worked with the Secretary and he made that determination, actually at Birds Point, before they blew the levee, that even when they 

blew the levee, that the crop—but what if you did not? Did enough 

people have it? I mean, in the Delta, you have such a low water 

table that some of the upper plains, for instance, and other places 

in our State where you would normally get crop insurance, you 

may not have it in the Delta. Is it too late? What did you see happen there? 

Mr. MASINGILL. Well, you are right on point. In fact, some of the 

information that has been given to us is that it is projected that 

the crop loss in Missouri alone will be over $42.6 million. That is 

after insurance payments from this one piece of information. The 

domino effect that it is having, the Secretary might have made that 

decision, but from the information that we got back, it was not 

until a good separation of time before people at the local level knew 

that was the case. The rumor mill was an issue for us, that we 

kept on trying to get information, what was the right information, 

how do we disseminate that? And then at this point, too, how do 

we repair those crop lands? Because now we are seeing from the 

river water the damage that we will have on the crop lands for a 

long time. What mechanisms can we put in place to help do that? 

So that coordination of information was key, and I think there are 

still questions about that information now. 

Senator BLUNT. Well, there is a lot of discussion right now about 

all these ag programs. Do you want to say anything about direct 

payments or crop insurance, either one, while you are talking about 

it? 

Mr. MASINGILL. I am not sure I am qualified to address that, 

Senator, but other than obviously agricultural economy in the Mississippi Delta Region is important. It is still a major economic driver for our region. The other thing that we have not mentioned and 

that is the impact, again, to our inland waterway ports. 

The Seymour Port and others had significant damage to the dolphins. Those are investments that we have even made in previous 

cycles before. So now we have to take a look, it is like, Well, what 

do we do now? That waterway channel is a major economic driver 

and that infrastructure investment and protection of that is just as 

important. 

Senator PRYOR. Senator McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I just want to thank everyone for being here 

and thank you for all your hard work. They always say, there is 

a little tiny silver lining in every cloud, and if you were on the 

ground in Joplin in the days and weeks following that disaster, you 

saw the silver lining. It was glowing and that was the sense of 

community and the way everyone was working together, including 

the Federal agencies and all the municipalities that showed up. 

So thank you all for being here and thanks for all of your work. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding the Subcommittee hearing. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. I want to thank both of our Senators 

from Missouri for being here, and all of our Senators who participated today. I especially want to thank the panel. We are going to 

leave the record open for 15 days, until August 3, it is likely that 

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some Senators will submit either followup questions. I know Senator Landrieu was trying to come, but she had a couple conflicts 

she could not get out of she may have questions for the panel. 

We will leave the record open and all of you will probably get 

some additional questions. Thank you all for being here. This has 

really been an informative and helpful hearing. With that, we will 

adjourn it. Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 4:09 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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