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45–365 PDF 2008

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

AGENCY’S RESPONSE TO THE 2008 

HURRICANE SEASON AND THE NATIONAL HOUSING STRATEGY 

(110–172) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 23, 2008 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of Columbia, Chairwoman 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania, 

Vice Chair 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

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

TESTIMONY 

Becker, Joseph, Senior Vice President of Preparedness and Response, American Red Cross ...................................................................................................... 38 

Fagnoni, Cynthia, Managing Director of Education, Workforce, and Income 

Security Issues, Government Accountability Office .......................................... 38 

Johnson, Admiral Harvey, Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer, 

Federal Emergency Management Agency .......................................................... 20 

Nagin, Hon. C. Ray, Mayor, City of New Orleans, Louisiana .............................. 4 

PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Graves, Hon. Sam, of Missouri ............................................................................... 52 

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, of the District of Columbia ................................. 60 

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 62 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Becker, Joseph ......................................................................................................... 64 

Fagnoni, Cynthia ..................................................................................................... 69 

Johnson, Admiral Harvey ....................................................................................... 139 

Nagin, Hon. C. Ray .................................................................................................. 158 

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(1) 

HEARING ON FEMA’S RESPONSE TO THE 2008 

HURRICANE SEASON AND THE NATIONAL 

HOUSING STRATEGY 

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:07 p.m., in Room 

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

[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Ms. NORTON. We are pleased to welcome all of you today to our 

hearing, especially our witnesses, on FEMA’s response to the 2008 

season and on the National Disaster Housing Strategy. 

This year’s hurricane season has been unusually active and once 

again has had dramatic impact on America’s Gulf Coast region. 

The President has declared 13 disasters or emergencies under the 

Stafford Act hurricanes and tropical storms in the 2008 season, 

however, including Tropical Storms Edouard and Fay, and Hurricanes Bertha, Dolly, Gustav and Ike. More than 2 million people 

were evacuated in the wake of Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. American people must be assured in the midst of yet another powerful 

hurricane season that the country is prepared for seasonal and terrorist events alike and that FEMA has developed a coherent housing strategy for addressing the inevitable aftermath of large scale 

disasters. 

We can make no final judgment until all the evidence is in, but 

the Federal, State and local authorities appear to have done a credible job in evacuating citizens away from hurricane danger. 

At the same time, despite improvements from 3 years ago, a 

number of problems may remain, such as emerging complaints that 

New Orleans’ poorest residents were transported on buses with no 

announced destination and warehousing and crowded and substandard conditions. If so, we fear that the next time many residents may choose to remain in place as they did during Hurricane 

Katrina. 

I spoke with FEMA Administrator David Paulison as the evacuation was beginning. His assurance concerning complete evacuation 

materialized, but he also spoke of specific destinations and 

prepositioned supplies that complaints from Louisiana now call 

into question. 

2 

To address the issues of accountability that were on stark display 

during the Katrina response, Congress passed out Post-Katrina 

Emergency Reform Act 2006, which described directives that were 

necessary to prepare for the next disaster. Among the most important was a mandate to FEMA to submit a report to Congress describing the National Disaster Housing Strategy. 

In response FEMA drafted a housing strategy and requested 

public comment on July 24th, 2008. In anticipation of this hearing, 

which was previously postponed at FEMA’s request, I appreciate 

that FEMA extended the comment period on this important policy 

so that comments from today’s hearing could be included on the 

public record. 

The Post-Katrina Act requires the FEMA Administrator to ensure that a new National Disaster Housing Strategy provides a 

comprehensive approach to housing victims of a disaster for the immediate and for the long term as needed, consistent with the Administrator’s role as the principal emergency management adviser 

to the President. 

In reviewing and analyzing the National Disaster Housing Strategy, today’s hearing will help the Subcommittee understand the 

strategic strengths and weaknesses within the context of the PostKatrina Management Reform Act. The aftermath of Hurricanes 

Gustav and Ike also should help us gauge the effectiveness of the 

Post-Katrina Management Reform Act and of FEMA’s first significant test under the act. 

We especially appreciate testimony we will receive today from 

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans about the most recent responses 

after Gustav and Ike came ashore, the evacuation, the ability of 

FEMA, the city and State to provide the needed assistance and 

progress in New Orleans since Katrina. It will be important to hear 

of improvements that the City of New Orleans, the State of Louisiana and FEMA have made in responding to these hurricanes, 

but equally important is testimony concerning other important elements of preparation and response, including planning and consultation among the authorities that were involved, as well as the 

remaining challenges that they see. 

As we focus on the condition of citizens after the storm, this Subcommittee also is particularly concerned about the role and responsibilities of the American Red Cross, a congressionally chartered organization which has major assistance roles to play in recovery 

from disasters. 

A recent GAO report found that the Red Cross and other disaster 

relief charities such as the Salvation Army and the United Way of 

America are unprepared to meet mass casualty needs in the aftermath of a major disaster. We have called both GAO and the Red 

Cross to testify today in light of the GAO’s finding that a large 

scale disaster could overwhelm the Red Cross and other charities 

that have Federal responsibilities for assisting the government and 

providing assistance to victims of disasters. 

In the aftermath of the devastation of Katrina, we must look at 

issues differently and more broadly and take the required action. 

If the Red Cross is expected to play a role in recovery from major 

disasters, we must work with FEMA to define the function that the 

3 

Red Cross and other relief charities realistically can perform to 

supplement the Federal Government’s role. 

We look forward to hearing from today’s distinguished witnesses 

and thank them in advance for preparing testimony. 

I am pleased to ask the Ranking Member, Mr. Graves, if he has 

a statement at this time. 

Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Madam Chair. If it is all right, I would 

like to yield to Representative Mica, who is Ranking Member of the 

overall Committee. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you for conducting this hearing today. I 

won’t be able to stay for the entire hearing, but I use my opening 

statement to raise a number of issues. As you know, my area has 

been hit with hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, fires. I think we have 

had everything but locusts and we are working on a plan to possibly deal with that. 

So we have had a little bit of experience with FEMA and some 

of the FEMA witnesses I see here. These will be my questions. In 

fact I want some written responses from FEMA on a couple of 

these issues. 

One of the things we found dating back to our hurricanes is we 

have multiple FEMA officials coming in, I guess like in Katrina or 

all the different hurricanes that we had. We had three in my district. We had different officials come in and I think it was well intended, they came in and gave direction to local officials. Those 

preliminary officials were changed out with other officials who 

came in and made other decisions and interpretations of rules, regulations and all of the above. 

Then we had, as time progressed and the agency changed their 

personnel out, we had other people coming in and giving us other 

opinions, suggestions, recommendations and edicts, sometimes 

countermanding the previous two. In some instances we are now 

on our fourth set of officials, giving the fourth interpretation of 

whatever opinion we were seeking. So this is something we are 

going to have to work on to do better. 

The other thing is multiple audits. Congress created this as a result of Katrina, but—and we don’t want fraud, we don’t want 

waste, we don’t want abuse, but we have got audits upon audits 

and agency upon agency involved in this process. Somehow we 

need to get this straightened out. In fact, I have got auditors down 

in my district still auditing from other audits. So that is number 

2 and I would like a little response on that. 

Number 3, the debris removal problem related to public versus 

private land. In many instances you couldn’t get to public land unless you went across private land. Somehow we have got to figure 

out a better way for reimbursement and better definition of who 

gets reimbursed in what situations, because now we are running 

around in circles chasing our tails on reimbursement, public versus 

private land. 

Travel trailer loans and transfers, that requires some Stafford 

Act amendments, still a disaster. We will even take them with the 

formaldehyde. Just what people need in a disaster. I have had six 

attorneys on the phone during a crises trying to get 150 trailers on 

an emergency basis while FEMA is paying rent on them down the 

4 

street in a lot and couldn’t—it just makes absolutely still no sense, 

but that oneis under Congress, so chalk that one up. 

Finally, the grant approval time frames need expediting, and 

that I guess is somewhat in our corner, too. 

Madam Chairwoman, I just wanted to add my two cents to this 

and hopefully at least on the first three we can get some response 

from FEMA in writing after this hearing or verbally transmitted to 

the Committee. Thank you for the hearing, and I yield back. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Mica. Mr. Graves, do you 

have anything to say at this point? 

Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I will just submit 

my entire statement for the record. But I would like to asked Admiral Johnson, if you would, please convey to Chief Paulison and 

all the folks at FEMA how much we appreciate your dedication and 

hard work. We know this is a work in progress, the post-Katrina 

reforms. We have got a lot of ground to cover yet before we get 

there, but I would appreciate you doing that. 

Madam Chair, I will submit my entire statement for the record 

so we can move on with the hearing. 

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask Mr. Arcuri if he has any statement. 

Mr. ARCURI. No questions. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. I would like to call our first 

witness. I am very pleased to welcome the Honorable Ray Nagin, 

the Mayor of New Orleans. The mayor knows we have been trying 

to get down there. We discovered the first time we tried that because Katrina decided to arrive as Labor Day approached, you 

couldn’t get anyone to go with you, and therefore every anniversary 

we are plagued with the same issue. And I am delighted to welcome you so we could get your progress report, this time apparently 

not only on Katrina and what has happened since then, but the 

fact that you have been subjected to yet other hurricanes since. So 

we pleased to have your testimony at this time. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. C. RAY NAGIN, MAYOR, CITY OF NEW 

ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 

Mr. NAGIN. Thank you to Chairwoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, 

to Ranking Member Sam Graves of the House Transportation and 

Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public 

Buildings and Emergency Management and to all distinguished 

Members of the Committee, panel and guests. I am C. Ray Nagin, 

Mayor of the City of New Orleans. 

Our great city is facing the challenge of rebuilding after 2005 

Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural and man-made disaster to 

occur in the United States of America. We also had the challenge 

of dealing with Hurricane Rita right behind that one. We were 

threatened and touched by two more devastating hurricanes this 

season that recently hit the Gulf Coast region. Those were Hurricane Gustav and recently Hurricane Ike. 

I have submitted my testimony to this Committee. I would like 

to briefly touch on a couple of different areas. First is to update you 

on 2008 and what happened this year as relates to FEMA: talk to 

you a little bit about our updated plans; our city assisted evacuation plan; and talk to you about a need for a national evacuation 

plan and sheltering proposal. I will touch on FEMA and supplies 

5 

and some issues that we saw this past season. I will touch on hurricane protection and some of the things we are working on: housing, trailers and a few Stafford Act revisions. Hopefully I will do 

that in a short period of time. 

Hurricane Gustav posed a serious threat to New Orleans as it 

approached the coast of Louisiana. We are fortunate that although 

parts of our city had damage and our electrical power infrastructure received a temporary crippling blow, the partially restored 

100-year flood and levee protection system in the city held and we 

were spared the widespread destruction that the other areas of our 

State experienced. 

America’s investment in the levee protection system in New Orleans seems to be paying off. We just need to pick up the pace and 

finish that great work and get to the 100-year flood protection. 

My prayers go out to the people of other parts of Louisiana and 

our neighboring State, Texas, who felt the brunt of two devastating 

storms, Gustav and Ike. I personally visited Terrebonne Parish and 

other parishes around our State and we have offered our assistance 

there. I have also spoken to the leadership in Houston and Galveston and have committed to doing anything that my city can do 

to help them in their response and recovery. 

It is my hope and prayer that they will not encounter difficulties 

that we experienced during the past 3 years in accessing assistance 

from Federal agencies charged with supporting response and recovery. However, based upon my preliminary conversations with leaders in this area, they are still having some of the same experiences 

even though things have gotten somewhat better. 

We appreciate all that Congress has done to support us, and we 

urge you to continue to work to implement changes that will be 

valuable to us and all communities preparing for emergencies and 

rebuilding their homes and lives. 

Let me briefly touch upon our city assisted plan that we have 

been practicing for 2-1/2 years. We have a plan that is called our 

City Assisted Evacuation Plan, a comprehensive plan to evacuate 

citizens who cannot leave on their own because of financial, medical or other reasons. This plan utilizes city buses to pick up residents from 17 designated pickup locations throughout the city and 

transfer them to a central location for processing, the Union Passenger Terminal. At the Union Passenger Terminal those residents 

are then transported by buses contracted by the State of Louisiana, 

Amtrak trains and airplanes contracted through the Department of 

Defense to shelters in northern Louisiana. And as the Chairlady 

mentioned earlier, there were significant problems with some of the 

shelters in northern Louisiana as far as where they were set up, 

how they were set up and what types of services were provided. We 

got many complaints. 

Fortunately, using this process we evacuated approximately 

18,000 of our residents who were our most vulnerable citizens to 

safety. Our capacity for this process is around 30,000 citizens that 

can be processed effectively. Combined with those who use their 

own means of transportation, every resident who heeded our warning was able to leave this time. 

The New Orleans Police Department did a great job, and their 

estimates are there were only 5,000 to 10,000 people remaining in 

6 

the City of New Orleans. That is an evacuation of 97.5 percent of 

all of our citizens. During Katrina we thought we had done a pretty 

good job, but we only got out 90 percent of our citizens. So we just 

about got everybody out of our city. We were part of a much larger 

evacuation of 1.9 million citizens. 

As we move forward there are many things that we can improve 

upon, but we have seen some improvements already. I would like 

to make a couple of points. First, I would suggest to this Committee that we need a national plan for regional evacuations that 

use assets such as Amtrak and airplanes for transportation. We 

found in this latest example with Gustav that that was the most 

efficient way that we could get people in and out of our city. And 

we did something that I didn’t think was possible: we emptied our 

city out and repopulated it in about 4 days. And if we had had 

power we probably could have done it a little bit more quickly on 

the back-end side. 

We also suggest to you that we need to have a Federal sheltering 

plan in place. Really the sheltering problem that we experienced 

with the State is one that could be solved if there was a Federal 

plan in place. This can be utilized both pre-event and post-event, 

because we saw after Gustav and Ike is that there is a need to 

house people even after a disaster has passed. We think the Federal Government can help to coordinate that. 

We did notice some challenges this time also with ice and MREs 

and tarps. We did have an immediate supply, but we think that 

that needs to be stepped up. There was a shortage of supplies and 

when Ike came down, Texas was also challenged. Tarps sometimes 

took 7 days to access. 

I would encourage this Committee to help us to finish the flood 

protection system, the 100-year flood protection. The Corps of Engineers is telling us that they won’t be finished until 2011. That is 

6 years after Katrina. We can no longer afford to play Russian roulette with these storms. We need that 100-year flood protection. 

On the housing front we still have many of our citizens who are 

in travel trailers. And Congressman Mica, if you want a few travel 

trailers we might be able to accommodate you. We have more than 

our fair share in our great city. And if you like formaldehyde we 

have plenty of those, too. We are working to get people into their 

homes. 

Part of the problem that we are having is with the Road Home 

Program, which handles the grants that citizens need to rebuild 

their lives. Only 69 percent of those applicants have received 

awards from the State. So many people are kind of stuck in these 

shelters, in these travel trailers. So we are hoping that we can 

move that expeditiously, those grants, so people can get out of 

those shelters. 

As far as FEMA and a comprehensive housing policy, we have 

not seen that yet. We are hoping that we can get to a better place 

other than just travel travelers, but we haven’t seen that yet. And 

we are concerned because the housing assistance program that 

FEMA does have is scheduled to expire March 1st. We still have 

people waiting on Road Home checks and still in trailers. So we 

hope that that program can be expedited. 

7 

Another issue is with the Stafford Act, and I am closing now. The 

Stafford Act has been modified somewhat, but we think there are 

still some significant areas for change for major catastrophes. 

FEMA seems to be able to handle a hurricane or minor flooding, 

but major catastrophes still cause problems. We think that a significant area to look at is having a catastrophic disaster category 

where there will be special rules associated with that, whether it 

be advances for municipalities that have been shut down or other 

things. 

We also think that there needs to be a third party dispute resolution process put in place. If you have a problem with FEMA right 

now on anything dealing with restoring a public facility, there is 

nowhere for you to go outside of the FEMA system. So a formal, 

public dispute resolution process would be great going forward. 

Madam Chair, I think I am going to pass on the rest of this because it is in my testimony. I want to thank this Committee once 

again for helping us throughout this Katrina experience and the 

2008 hurricane season. New Orleans and our region are critically 

important to this Country and we are significant in terms of our 

contributions to the Country’s energy supply, international trade, 

fishery industry and culture. But unfortunately hurricanes as a 

force of nature will continue and they are affecting many States, 

from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, et cetera. We must resolve to work collaboratively to make sure that we have a response 

that is appropriate for these type of disasters. 

Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mayor Nagin. I want to first 

ask you how you would characterize the status of recovery, leaving 

aside for a moment the visits of Ike and Gustav, how would you 

characterize the status of recovery in New Orleans for years later; 

for example, population return. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Return to schools, and businesses reopen and help 

from FEMA, et cetera, any way you would like. 

Mr. NAGIN. We are still a tale of two cities. We have about 72 

to 75 percent of our population back in the City of New Orleans. 

There are many people still waiting to get back into the city, but 

we have challenges still with affordable housing. We still have four 

of our major housing developments that are going through the 

HOPE VI transition but haven’t broken ground yet. Our school system is back up and operational; we are building new schools. We 

have about the same percentage of our students who are back, but 

the public education system in New Orleans is transitioning into 

a model of not only elected officials running the school district, but 

we have charter schools. You name it, we have it in the City of 

New Orleans. The jury it still out on that. 

As far as businesses are concerned, our hospitality industry is 

doing quite well. Major businesses, about 90 something percent of 

them came back after Hurricane Katrina and they are doing okay. 

Our health care sector is still fairly stressed. We are hopeful that 

a new VA hospital will be built in our city and it looks like that 

is going to happen. 

But if you go into areas like the Lower Ninth Ward, which has 

gotten a lot of profile from the press, you still will see devastation. 

8 

And there are lots of slabs from demolished homes in that area and 

throughout the city. We are still working back and forth with 

FEMA on whether the cost of removing those slabs will be a cost 

that is eligible for reimbursement. So we are a tale of two cities. 

Ms. NORTON. That sounds like there is progress. 

Mr. NAGIN. There is progress. 

Ms. NORTON. And New Orleans is rising again. 

Perhaps I should—because I know he can’t always stay—this 

hearing is of such importance that the Full Committee Chair, we 

have already had the Ranking Member of the Full Committee Mr. 

Mica come, the Full Committee Chair is here as well, Mr. Oberstar. 

Mr. NAGIN. Good to see you, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Madam Chair for the hearing. Mayor 

Nagin, we welcome you back to the Committee room, it is always 

good to see you. 

Mr. NAGIN. Good to see you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. We didn’t usually see you in a tie and shirt. We 

see you in some state of distress with your shirt sleeves rolled up. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Or short-sleeved shirts and a worried look on 

your face. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes, yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I would just repeat what I said at the first hearing 3 years ago. New Orleans taught America how to cook, how to 

eat, how to live, how to preserve culture. It was the Battle of New 

Orleans that united America, made us realize we were a nation, 

not just a collection. And we owe it to New Orleans to rebuild this 

city, we still owe it, and that job is not by any means done. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Ms. Norton has hosted 12 hearings on postKatrina issues and FEMA. She has been relentless in pursuit of 

the need for the Federal Government to do a better job in responding, supporting our citizens and responding to natural disasters. 

Those are calamities not of the city’s doing, not of the State or the 

Nation’s doing, they happen. 

While terrorist acts can be a long time in the plotting and we 

never know when they are going to come, we know every year 

there is going to be a hurricane. We know in the north there is 

going to be a snowstorm. We know there are going to be droughts 

in the West and floods in other parts of the Country, and we need 

to be prepared for those. 

So preparedness. There was an Office of Emergency Preparedness at one time, it was an Office of Civil Defense in its origins. 

There was a time in 1987 when the then Reagan administration 

proposed to effectively eliminate the Federal role in disaster response. It was a Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of 

this Full Committee, which I Chaired at the time, which mobilized 

the Nation. We held hearings bringing civil defense authorities 

from all over the Country. And out of those hearings we crafted the 

bill that created what we know today as FEMA. 

Now a little historical footnote, I gave that bill in draft form to 

the Republican Member of Congress from Pennsylvania who first 

brought the issue to our attention. And my Ranking Member at the 

time was Bill Clinger, a Republican of Pennsylvania. I told this 

9 

Member, I want you to introduce this bill. He said, but I am in the 

minority. I said yeah, but you had the courage to bring that issue 

to our attention. We have crafted the bill and you ought to introduce it, besides the Republican administration needs to you to lead 

the effort. We got the bill enacted. His name? Tom Ridge. 

When he became Secretary of Homeland Security he came up to 

see me. He said you started me on this course. Well, that journey 

is not finished and FEMA does not belong in Homeland Security, 

it belongs in the independent Office of the President or in a Cabinet level or sub-Cabinet level, an independent structure with a liaison, a linkage to Homeland Security, but not messed up in the Interior. 

What happened with FEMA when Homeland Security was created was exactly what I predicted would happen at the time the 

Homeland Security Department was created. That money would be 

siphoned off and personnel would be drained away from the agency. And in the first 6 months of Homeland Security 250 of the top 

personnel of FEMA were sent elsewhere in the Department and 

$500 million of the budget was siphoned off elsewhere. And when 

the Katrina disaster struck they didn’t have the key personnel in 

place to help you, to help the State and to help other States, Mississippi and Alabama, and east Texas, to respond. 

Now, we are going to take the lessons learned. We have already 

passed the bill last year to reform a good deal of FEMA. I would 

hope that, as we affectionately call them, the other body will move 

that legislation. There has been some action over there, and quite 

possibly Madam Chair will be able to conclude the action on the 

bill before the end of this session. It is still up in the air. It isn’t 

going to address all of the needs, but it will address a good many 

of them. 

But we are going to restart next year. We will need your contribution again, as you have done so willingly many times, and reshape top to bottom. We need a top to bottom review of FEMA and 

restructure it and recreate it. There already have been 13 hurricane events in this season. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. If you look at a chart going back into the 1980s, 

the cost of natural disasters just escalates extraordinarily, and the 

cost to the private insurance sector and to the public sector, both 

Federal and State and local. That is one thing we know is going 

to continue to happen with global climate change. So with what we 

have done in the Water Resources Development Act to rebuild the 

wetlands in Louisiana, to close out the Mississippi River Gulf outlet—— 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. —that caused the disaster that over topped St. 

Bernard Parish that nearly wiped out the Islenos culture, that 

should never have happened and didn’t happen when that wetland 

between Lake Borgne and St. Bernard was intact. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. But once the Mr. Go was developed, the salt 

water came in, the intrusion killed the wetland, the marsh grasses 

landed on top of the houses. I have never seen a situation where 

10 

whole homes were lifted up, floated away with their concrete pad 

intact and went as much as three blocks. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. One home I saw, Madam Chair, stopped only 

when it bumped into a house that didn’t move. And after 6 months 

the homeowner of the intact home sued the other guy for collision 

damage. I said, why did you do that? He said, what else are we 

going to do? The Corps isn’t helping us out, FEMA isn’t helping us 

out, no one can help us out. So we just thought for a little excitement we would have a lawsuit. That shows a lot of resiliency in 

the people, but it shows a failure of the public sector. 

You have experienced a great deal of dislocation and disruption. 

You have led the effort to rebuild your community. You have been 

a stalwart and we need to reward that effort with a much better 

Federal partnership and response. And under the leadership of Ms. 

Norton and Mr. Graves on the Republican side and a bipartisan effort, we are going to do that. I pledge that to you. 

Mr. NAGIN. Thank you, sir. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Graves, do you have any questions at this 

time? 

Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mayor, for 

coming in. We appreciate it very much. You were talking about 

some of your city recovering and some things. Population wise, how 

much population have you lost? 

Mr. NAGIN. About 75 percent is back, and around 100,000 people 

that still have not been able to come back. 

Mr. GRAVES. Do you think they are just never going to come back 

or they still don’t have their homes? 

Mr. NAGIN. I think a percentage have settled in where they are, 

but there is a significant percentage of those individuals that still 

would like to move back to New Orleans, but because of affordable 

housing issues and Road Home issues with their grants, many of 

our citizens struggled with their insurance companies, the whole 

wind versus flood debate, and there are some financial gaps, but 

we are trying to help them out as best we can. 

Mr. GRAVES. And how about in your local government changes, 

what changes has your city government made to get ready for hurricanes in the future or changes you made as a result of what happened in Hurricane Katrina? 

Mr. NAGIN. Right after Katrina, while we were starting the rebuilding process, we started immediately planning for the next 

major hurricane. We have evaluated just about every one of our 

processes. We went up to Emmitsburg, Maryland, I think it is, 

which is a FEMA training facility. I took my whole team through 

that. We practiced, had exercises throughout the year. We have adjusted our evacuation plans and re-entry plans, and we have put 

more resources in our disaster management group. And we performed pretty well during Gustav. 

Mr. GRAVES. I congratulate you on being able to remove—what 

did you say, 96 percent? 

Mr. NAGIN. No, it was about 97 percent of our citizens in 4 days, 

emptied and repopulated the city in 4 days. 

Mr. GRAVES. Big job. 

Mr. NAGIN. I don’t know of any other city that can do that. 

11 

Mr. GRAVES. Thanks, Madam Chair. 

Mr. NAGIN. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Arcuri? 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mayor, first of all, thank 

you very much for being here. I just want to thank you for what 

you did. You symbolized for the rest of the country the resiliency 

and fight in New Orleans. Thank you for what you have done. 

Mr. NAGIN. Thank you. 

Mr. ARCURI. Mayor, I am from upstate New York, and we have 

had a few 50-year floods, nothing to the degree that you have had, 

but we have had some serious damage. One of the things that we 

talk about is the importance of FEMA in doing some of the—the 

actions beforehand, buying up some of the homes in the flood 

plains in the areas. You are sort of in a unique place. You have 

seen what happens on the front end and then you have seen what 

happened this year, granted not to the same degree of Katrina, but 

when the right things are done the prevention that can take place. 

Can you share with us just some of your thoughts in terms of, you 

know, on how important it is to spend money on the front end so 

you can save money on the back end? 

Mr. NAGIN. Well, there are a couple aspects that I can refer you 

to. First is our hurricane protection system. I know Congress 

worked very hard, but the billions of dollars you put forward we 

didn’t have any catastrophes as it relates to that. We had to confiscate some land or help the Corps to confiscate some land from 

our citizens, but that allowed the Corps to build the protection systems that we desperately needed. 

The other thing I can point you to is that FEMA was able this 

time to preposition some assets, some MREs, some water, some ice. 

Even though we ran short of supplies, that saved us time and effort 

on the back end, if you will, once the storm hit. So those are two 

things that I think we could continue to work through. 

And I will tell you another thing that would help a lot. FEMA 

is starting to prioritize the types of repairs that you can do after 

an event, whether they be police stations, fire stations or what 

have you. I think they have taken some of the lessons they learned 

in New Orleans and are applying those to Texas and some other 

places. The reason why I bring that up is because it took us such 

a long time to get our criminal justice system back up and operational; we experienced damage, and we experienced crime that 

cost us and the Federal Government a lot of money. By prioritizing 

those efforts, I think that can be avoided in other places. 

Mr. ARCURI. After Katrina did FEMA buy some of the area or 

some of the land where houses were in dangerous areas or dangerous zones? 

Mr. NAGIN. The State did through the Road Home Program. So 

for example, if a citizen was in a low lying area that is repeatedly 

flooded, you can opt to either rebuild your home higher or safer or 

you could sell that property. And there were a significant number 

of people who took that option. 

Mr. ARCURI. Was it successful? 

Mr. NAGIN. We are still in the middle of it, but based upon the 

properties, a map of the properties, it looks as though some really 

low lying areas, just about everybody sold their properties, which 

12 

was smart because the marketplace made an intelligent decision. 

We kind of gave them the guidance, here is the levee protection 

system, here are the risks, here is what you face going forward, 

and people made intelligent decisions. 

Mr. ARCURI. I guess the big question is, is it worth it financially, 

do you save money on the front end by buying up those parcels as 

opposed to, you know, the back end after the damage already occurs? 

Mr. NAGIN. Well, normally I would have totally agreed with you. 

I think that still makes some sense. But these storms are different 

now. For the first time this year I have noticed with, let’s take 

Gustav and Ike, they came in so fast that normally storms run at 

about 5 to 8 miles an hour when they come in. These were coming 

in at 12 to 15 miles an hour. They had so much momentum that 

they went so deep inland. I mean, Ike had flooding that it caused 

in Ohio. So, I don’t know if you are going to be able to buy up 

enough property with the type of storms that we are seeing. The 

only thing I can see us doing is work on global warming and let’s 

get some coastal restoration. Then I think we are going to be okay. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you very much, Mayor, appreciate all of your 

work. 

Mr. NAGIN. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Arcuri. Mayor, I want to ask you 

about something in your plan and also some reports we have 

heard. I mean in your testimony you speak of some issues involving 

information between the city and the State. I ask this because I 

spoke with Mr. Paulison as the evacuation was occurring, I think 

it was Labor Day, I know everybody was home. I managed to get 

him. He gave me a very good and full report and assured me there 

would be evacuation, and there was a full evacuation. 

He told me as well that there were destinations. He gave me examples of destinations, a number of destinations all the way into 

Alabama. And he said that there were not only predesignated shelters, but there were predesignated supplies. 

First, I have to ask you about the predesignated shelters, because if there were predesignated shelters why did so many of 

them—the figure we received was as many as a thousand of the 

poorest people who were apparently transported by buses and apparently didn’t know where they were going—I don’t know why not 

tell them, they are going to come home—found themselves in something, shades of Katrina, in some huge warehouse, and there were 

no bathing facilities, they were crowded. It was apparently a very 

serious substandard state. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. They may have been there for a week. Did you 

know ahead of time that people would be going there? And do you 

have any idea how that happened? That is the only one we heard 

of. 

Mr. NAGIN. I will just give you what I know. The city’s responsibility is to get our citizens from their places, if they need it, to a 

central location, utilizing our transportation medium, and then get 

them to the point where we can hand them off to the State for 

transportation to the shelters, whether they be in State or out of 

State. That is our responsibility. FEMA—— 

13 

Ms. NORTON. Are you saying that you can’t take them even to 

a shelter in State if it is not in your jurisdiction? 

Mr. NAGIN. No. The State of Louisiana is responsible for that. 

Ms. NORTON. So they might have to get off something and get on 

something else or they just pick up the responsibility? 

Mr. NAGIN. Only one time. We get them to the Union Passenger 

Terminal, we register them, and then they get on either a bus, 

plane or train and they go somewhere that is basically out of our 

control. 

Now, it is my understanding that FEMA was coordinating out of 

State shelters with the State and those were pretty well determined. I think we had Alabama and Memphis. Tennessee and 

Texas were taken out of play because of the direction of the storm. 

But those were pretty well established and we knew about them. 

The problem was in State. There were buses that we would put our 

citizens on, but the State contractor didn’t know where they were 

going because the State locations had not been fully articulated. 

Ms. NORTON. But it was not on a bus to nowhere? 

Mr. NAGIN. Some were. And we had to direct some—because we 

were getting a backlog at the Union Passenger Terminal. We directed the buses just to start moving north. And we would communicate with them the exact location, which ended up working out. 

But it seems as though the State—— 

Ms. NORTON. Does that mean that the State was late in finding 

sheltering space and hadn’t preplanned for where people might go 

after in case they left New Orleans? 

Mr. NAGIN. It appeared as though everything that should have 

been prepositioned as it relates to shelters in the State was not 

completed until a very late time. 

Ms. NORTON. You suggest a need for planning in the future been 

the State. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes, either the State needs to let us know much earlier or FEMA can take responsibility for in State and out of State 

sheltering. I don’t know if that is something they would want to do, 

but there are three different levels of government that are dealing 

with these disasters and it just needs to be a little better coordinated on the sheltering side. That is if we have any trouble going 

forward. I worry about that aspect of what we did. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, you mention that there were shortage of some 

supplies like ice and so forth. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes, that happened from the standpoint of after a 

few days, I think we were able to set up what they call PODs, 

which are basically distribution centers for people to pick up ice, 

water and MRE’s. We were only able to man three PODs throughout the entire city, three locations. And then we ran out of supplies 

after 2 or 3 days. 

Ms. NORTON. Who was providing those supplies? 

Mr. NAGIN. That was through the Corps and through FEMA. 

Ms. NORTON. We will have to find out what happened there. 

We heard also of food stamps that had to be activated. Now I understand that there were—with all the overwhelming catastrophe 

of Katrina, you would expect somebody to take advantage of it. So 

there were some people who got food stamps who never should 

have gotten it. But there were complaints from some that you have 

14 

food stamps and then you can’t use it until it is activated. I can’t 

even tell how you get it activated or how you know when it has 

been activated. I mean does it buzz? 

Mr. NAGIN. There was a program, a benefit that people who normally do not qualify for food stamps can come in and get a card 

and, based upon your income level and how many people in your 

household, you can get up to $500 worth of value on that card. The 

problem was they forced everybody to come in and do a face-to-face 

process, which caused one problem. And then secondarily the system was overwhelmed. Their technology was overwhelmed where it 

took 72 hours before the card was activated. In some cases it was 

never activated. So it was kind of a mess. 

Ms. NORTON. So this was after they had done the face-to-face? 

Mr. NAGIN. This was after. It was a mess and I think somebody 

resigned at the State as a result of it. 

Ms. NORTON. In the State or at FEMA? 

Mr. NAGIN. State. 

Ms. NORTON. I see. So that activation of food stamps—— 

Mr. NAGIN. Was a State responsibility. 

Ms. NORTON. Was a State responsibility, not a FEMA responsibility? 

Mr. NAGIN. Not that I am aware. I am sure the Admiral will 

come up and correct me, but I think it was a State responsibility. 

Ms. NORTON. I can’t but help and ask you about the levees. We 

were all nervous about the levees, and please don’t do this to New 

Orleans again. What does that tell us? Does it tell us that the 

storm wasn’t so strong as to test the levees or does it tell us that 

the levees are truly stronger because of the work that you have 

done? 

Mr. NAGIN. I think it tells us that America’s investment is starting to pay off, but we are just not finished. It tells us that we can 

handle a Category 3 storm that dissipated once it got to shore. 

Ms. NORTON. Katrina was a Category? 

Mr. NAGIN. Was at least a 3. 

Ms. NORTON. So it has already done its damage there, and yet 

you can handle a 3 now? 

Mr. NAGIN. Yeah, we think we can handle a 3 coming in that direction. Katrina came in a different direction. So we didn’t test the 

system exactly. 

Ms. NORTON. It wasn’t the same levees that were being tested, 

was it? 

Mr. NAGIN. Yeah, but it was much more comprehensive. Gustav 

came more from south to north. Katrina came from the east going 

west over Lake Borgne and hit the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans east. Much, much stronger. The levees held. Now what was 

scary to some people is that the water levels got to the maximum 

levels that that particular levee could handle. 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, we saw water going over. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yeah, but it was wind. And I think we are going to 

have that even in the best of scenarios; we may have some over 

topping. As long as the levees do not fail and start crumbling, I 

think we will be okay. We have a pumping capacity once the water 

gets in the city and as long as those pumps are not under water 

we should be okay. 

15 

Ms. NORTON. Your folks have shown extraordinary courage coming back and building and coming back to maintain themselves. 

Can they get insurance on their homes? 

Mr. NAGIN. They can get it, but it is very expensive. One of the 

things that most of the coastal communities are experiencing is increased cost of insurance. At the time when the insurance companies are recording record profits, it is really kind of puzzling to me. 

Ms. NORTON. Really at some point we are going to have to do a 

hearing to see whether or not it is possible. I mean people coming 

back, I know some of them can’t afford insurance. They are taking 

their chances because of a love of New Orleans. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. We have to come to grips whether or not it is possible to rebuild whole areas if insurance is unavailable. Now there 

is flood insurance, there are some kinds of insurance that the Congress makes available. 

Mr. NAGIN. Now, Madam Chairperson, if I could get this Committee to understand one thing, even if you can get insurance in 

Louisiana your deductible is the problem—the rules were changed 

right after Katrina. There are no longer $500—and I don’t know if 

anybody else is experiencing this, whether they are experiencing it 

in Florida—there are no longer $500 to $1,000 deductibles. They 

are a percentage of the value of your home. My personal deductible 

at my home is probably $6,000. And I hear people tell me this 

story; it is like 3 percent or 2 percent of the value of your home. 

So even if you have insurance, unless you have a major catastrophe, normally you are self-insured. 

Ms. NORTON. You are self-insured. Are people building, are people rebuilding? What does that say about a business, are they selfinsured, too? 

Mr. NAGIN. No, businesses are handled a little differently. They 

have a higher deductible, but a business can only handle that kind 

of situation. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Graves, do you have a question for him? I have 

a series of questions. I want to make sure anybody else that has 

questions also get a chance that come from your own answers. 

I need to ask you, I remember you came to my office, you were 

very concerned that people were meeting a date where they had to 

get out of shelters and the city didn’t have the housing to accommodate these people. We have had a hearing because many of these 

needed continuing case management. As a result of that hearing, 

we asked FEMA to extend the case management for these residents. Many of them from Louisiana was extended until March 

2009. And we are prepared to asked again. We realize we are not 

dealing with people who have simply been displaced. We are often 

dealing with the elderly, with disabled people, and people who need 

very special help. Are those people still in trailers and are they 

formaldehyde trailers? Need I say formaldehyde infected trailers? 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. There are still a significant number of our citizens who are still in—— 

Ms. NORTON. What percentage of those displaced would you 

imagine or believe are still in trailers in particular? 

Mr. NAGIN. There are still about 3,000 trailers in the City of New 

Orleans. I think the last number I saw there was about 6,000 trailVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:56 Mar 31, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45365 JASON
16 

ers statewide. That is units. So there are two to three people living 

in each trailer. So the math is pretty easy. Those benefits are 

scheduled to expire, not only those but anyone in an apartment 

complex or in a hotel, in March of 2009. We still do not have the 

Road Home checks, as I mentioned in my testimony. There is still 

about 30 percent of our citizens who still have not received those 

benefits. So they are forced to live in a trailer or in temporary 

housing. Until the checks are processed and the trailers are removed, I would argue that the benefits should be extended at least 

until the end of 2009. 

Ms. NORTON. When you talk about people having not received 

their Road Home checks, you really raise this question that we 

need to understand, and that is that Congress has appropriated a 

great deal more money. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Than has been distributed. Now people are always 

afraid when you have that much money that has been authorized, 

and they want to make sure we are not in a situation where we 

have an unmanageable distribution and problems occur. What is 

your view of the pace of distribution of authorized funds to the 

city? Are you able to get the funds that are authorized? 

Mr. NAGIN. It is a painfully slow process. Whether it is Road 

Home checks or whether it is FEMA reimbursements, you name it, 

whether it is hazard—and we haven’t started to tackle hazard mitigation dollars in a real way. There is still $1.2 billion worth of hazard mitigation money that the State is trying to figure out how to 

spend. The regulations are complex and the money flows slowly. 

Just to give you an example, the difference between the amount 

of money we think we need to fix all the public facilities that were 

damaged during Katrina—that we feel as though we need—and 

what has been appropriated or authorized by the FEMA PW process is about 40 percent. And the number goes up but we still are 

nowhere there. 

Ms. NORTON. Forty percent. 

Mr. NAGIN. Forty percent of the value that we think we need to 

repair a lot of these public facilities. 

Ms. NORTON. So what kinds of public facilities are not up, for example? 

Mr. NAGIN. You name it, fire stations, police stations, community 

centers, playgrounds, parks. We got our criminal justice system—the main complex up, but we still have some work to do. So 

we are actually managing right now about 400 different projects 

that are at some various stages in the process of being reimbursed, 

and it is just complex. 

Ms. NORTON. I want you to know, Mr. Mayor, that this Subcommittee is experiencing some frustration because this Subcommittee processed through a bill which we proudly named the 

Katrina and Rita Recovery Facilitation Act of 2008. It was drawn 

after consultation with you, the then Governor. We had hearings 

here where Members, the entire delegation came to testify. The 

whole point was to try to find quick fixes for New Orleans and Mississippi in particular. These quick fixes would apply under the 

Stafford Act only to the Katrina ravaged areas. This became while 

we processed the bill—it was a leadership bill, it really began at 

17 

the top. So our Subcommittee, we put it through, it went through 

as one of the first bills. Then we put it to the repository of all bills 

that then go to sleep. Now this one didn’t go to sleep—and perhaps 

you know more than we know. This bill contains some of what we 

know the State needs. Perhaps the cardinal feature was the waiver 

of the Stateshare of much of the funding, 100 percent funding. So 

I have to ask you without that bill, are you managing to come up 

with a State share? 

Mr. NAGIN. The State has appropriated the money. They pledged, 

the Governor has pledged to present the match. But what we are 

hearing from the Corps of Engineers, if you are talking levee protection is that they need an appropriation at the Federal level to 

award the contracts because they are going to get a reimbursement 

from the State. And, because they don’t have that money appropriated they cannot move forward with some of the contracts to finish up the 100-year flood protection. 

So like I said, this is very complex and frustrating at times because a lot of the congressional intent—we come to you, you do 

great work and then there is some bureaucratic rule that slows 

things down or—— 

Ms. NORTON. The bureaucratic rule is called the Senate of the 

United States in this case. Now I know that my good friend and 

your Senator has been trying her best to get this bill out and she 

has more to gain than any other. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. But she deals with a body that has trouble passing 

bills because of its rules. Someone mentioned alternative dispute 

resolution. There is an alternative dispute resolution section there. 

There are all kinds of things that nobody else will be able to do 

under the Stafford Act, but that you could do because of this constant issue that comes before us about a hold up. And again I know 

that the bill has been reported out. I have before me the report. 

I cannot believe that the Senate will leave without getting that bill 

done. And I have every hope that they will. Sometimes in the very 

last days people see the kinds of things that they simply can’t leave 

town without doing. That is why we are working now on the collapse of Wall Street. 

I want to just ask you a couple more questions that we need to 

understand. The trailers bothered everybody. Not only do we have 

hearings in my other Committee, the Oversight Committee—which 

is basically an investigatory Committee—had hearings showing its 

shameful way in which the notion that there was even formaldehyde in the trailers finally got exposed. 

Now, you have for interim housing something that would be very 

important for the Nation if it works, Katrina cottages that were apparently initiated 2 years ago. I don’t know how much of the $450 

million has come down to allow the Katrina cottages. Tell us about 

the Katrina cottages, what is the difference between them and 

other housing and the temporary housing and how many cottages 

or whether those cottages are ongoing or are a viable way to put 

people in Louisiana at this time. 

Mr. NAGIN. Well, the Katrina cottage is a concept that I think 

the State of Louisiana and Mississippi both embraced. It is my unVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:56 Mar 31, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45365 JASON
18 

derstanding that Mississippi was able to move a little quicker in 

setting up their program than Louisiana. 

Ms. NORTON. So what is the difference? Tell us what a Katrina 

cottage is and what is the difference between it and other temporary housing? 

Mr. NAGIN. It is a small modular home, if you will, 600 to 800 

square feet, I think. It is something that can really be constructed 

very quickly and put up in a manner that would allow citizens to 

have a dwelling place other than a FEMA trailer. The State of Louisiana has struggled with that program. I don’t think we have any 

in the city of New Orleans that I am aware of. 

Ms. NORTON. So it has to come through the State, the funds have 

to come through the State? So there is not a single Katrina cottage 

in New Orleans? 

Mr. NAGIN. Not that I am aware of, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. I know you would know. 

Mr. NAGIN. A big part of the disaster that has been frustrating 

to me, and I understand why it is done, but the Federal flow of 

funds always goes through our State first. Then not only am I 

fighting with one bureaucracy, but I have to fight through two before I even get to my own bureaucracy, so that has been really 

tough to deal with. 

Ms. NORTON. Finally, let me ask you, because our concern is also 

about the very poorest people for whom permanent housing would 

be hardest to come by, and there was great controversy because 

some of the public housing was torn down. 

Mr. NAGIN. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. And I would like to know what alternative there is 

for people who might have found homes in public housing. Is there 

comparable housing? What about FEMA and HUD’s role in 

rehabbing public housing? 

Mr. NAGIN. As far as public housing is concerned we worked really hard with HUD and with Congress to make sure that there was 

a firm commitment that every one of the public housing residents 

that were there pre-Katrina, which was 5,200 units, there would be 

permanent support of vouchers that would accommodate them until 

their homes were rebuilt. We have four major housing units. 

Ms. NORTON. Until the public housing was rebuilt? 

Mr. NAGIN. Until the public housing is rebuilt. So they are supposed to have—and we have not gotten any contrary information 

that suggests anything otherwise—if they are in New Orleans they 

have supportive housing; and if they are in another location they 

have supportive housing. And that should stay in effect until the 

new units are constructed. 

Ms. NORTON. Are there going to be new units? I know the difficulties in public housing. We have had the same difficulties here, 

just as we had difficulties in our school. And I commend you on 

your charter schools. I think charter schools are the best thing 

since sliced bread because they are small schools, they are alternatives, they will keep people in the city, they do as well as the 

public schools usually. And because they are small, they are publicly funded, they are accountable in the same way, in order to 

keep from building public housing, as all cities,. 

19 

New Orleans was like every other city. They built the public 

housing where they could, large numbers of units in one place. You 

put a lot of poor people with no upward mobility, no way to get out, 

no jobs, and then you are surprised that there are problems there. 

Is there going to be public housing in New Orleans and how will 

you construct it? I mean, you have land now that was not available 

before. Do you believe you will be able to replace those units or 

come anywhere close to it with public housing units of some kind, 

perhaps spread and not bunched together? 

Mr. NAGIN. We are working with HUD, as we speak, to dedensify 

a lot of the public housing units and not have a concentration of 

poverty in any one particular section of the city. We are going forward with some Hope 6-like developments, which are mixed income. We have a plan in place to restore most but not all of the 

public housing units that we had pre-Katrina. But anyone who 

does not go into a unit is guaranteed to have a voucher. They will 

be able to go into the community and be involved in a mixed-income neighborhood in that respect also. That seems to be moving 

forward. 

Our challenge, though, is that HUD is making noises that the financial crisis that we are in is starting to strain those four developments. And they have asked us to help lobby for a couple of things. 

One is the 901 fundability issue where they have some vouchers 

that are not being utilized and they want to use those to fill some 

gaps in this construction. We have been talking to people about 

that. 

Ms. NORTON. Before you leave, we are going to have the Red 

Cross before us as well as GAO. And you know that the Red Cross 

in many ways has served the country heroically, very often with 

volunteers. Of course, they do have some staff. How would you 

evaluate the role of the Red Cross in this last hurricane, for example? 

Mr. NAGIN. Well, the Red Cross has been there all the time in 

all the disasters. If I had any complaints with the Red Cross, it is 

that during the disaster they tend to go up north to kind of get out 

of harm’s way, and I understand that. So getting back into the disaster area was a little bit of a challenge during Katrina. But for 

the most part I think they are a valuable organization. I think they 

are probably stretched to the limit right now and probably need 

some more support. And I think they come into a community right 

after a disaster and do really good work of feeding our citizens. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I want to thank you, Mayor Nagin. We have 

kept you longer than we might have had we had an opportunity 

to speak with you about the progress in Louisiana since then. And 

now we not only had to ask you about that, but we had to hear 

about these latest visitors. And it has been very valuable testimony, very helpful to us. And I thank you very much for coming 

today. 

Mr. NAGIN. I thank this Committee and I thank you, Chairlady 

Norton, for everything that you have done. New Orleans wouldn’t 

be back to the level it is, we are at about 75 percent there, if it 

wasn’t for this Committee and Members of Congress, so we are indebted to you all. Thank you. 

20 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, sir. Could I ask Admiral Harvey Johnson, the Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer of 

FEMA, if he would come forward and offer his testimony? Thank 

you Admiral Johnson, you may proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF ADMIRAL HARVEY JOHNSON, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, FEDERAL 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY 

Admiral JOHNSON. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Norton and 

Members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the National Disaster Housing Strategy and our response thus 

far to 2008 hurricane season. Fortuitously, as we are now in the 

recovery phase of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, these two topics 

have become intertwined as we also were able to employ many elements of the strategy in the ongoing response efforts. 

However, before I go any further I do want to thank you, Madam 

Chairwoman, for allowing us to delay the hearing that was scheduled for September 11. It was sort of to our benefit, and I hope to 

yours, to delay and combine the hearings today. 

I do believe that the draft National Disaster Housing Strategy is 

likely one of the most significant documents prepared by FEMA 

and released under the umbrella of the national response framework. The strategy describes how the Nation currently provides 

housing to those affected by disaster, and, more importantly, it 

charts a new direction for our disaster housing efforts must focus 

if we as a Nation are to be better able to understand and meet the 

emergent needs of disaster housing needs of victims and communities. 

The strategy captures lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina 

and subsequent disasters, embraces the larger issues of disaster 

victims beyond simply providing a structure, seeks innovative and 

creative housing options, elevates the issues of safety and security 

and access to those with disabilities, emphasizes again and again 

the value of planning, differentiates a catastrophe above all other 

disasters, and suggests that these issues merit full attention before 

and between disasters, not merely just in time short-term sporadic 

attention after a specific disaster. 

A national strategy is the first step in developing integrated disaster housing plans across the Nation that all support a common 

vision and goal. This strategy would be a common basis to synchronize disaster housing plans at the State, local and Federal 

level. 

Addressing the challenge of disaster housing should not be driven from the Federal level; rather, we must provide the leadership, 

set the pace, and actively encourage and gain commitment from individuals, communities, States, Federal partners, nongovernment 

organizations and the private sector. 

This strategy also embraces the need for immediate action by 

framing FEMA’s establishment of a National Disaster Housing 

Task Force, charts specifically to aggressively implement the strategy. In fact, since the release of the strategy for public comment, 

FEMA has now activated the National Disaster Housing Task 

Force. And though it is still in the embryonic stage of development 

it is deployed to Austin, Texas and to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to 

21 

work with the State-led housing task forces in responding to Gustav and to Ike. 

I would also like to comment on the combined activities of the 

Federal, State and local efforts in response to these two hurricanes. 

These two storms both projected at one time that a life span Category 3 or stronger storms at landfall both had the capacity to impose catastrophic damage simultaneously to multiple States along 

the Gulf Coast. Each posed a worst-nightmare scenario: one, a direct hit on New Orleans, and the other to communities in the core 

of our Nation’s energy sector in and around the complexes of Houston, Port Arthur, and Lake Charles. And each made landfall only 

12 days apart. 

These storms served as proctor to the most severe tests of the 

National, State and local individual preparedness since Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita. And where the 2005 storms exposed the Nation 

to a lack of preparedness, to indecision, and an absence of coordination across all levels of government and among individuals, the test 

of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike presented just the opposite. 

The response and, thus far, the recovery from these two 2008 

storms provides evidence of extensive levels of preparedness, decisiveness by elected and appointed officials at every level of government, as well as by citizens who elected to evacuate in record numbers at a level of engaged partnership among States with the Federal Government to put the right capability in the right place at 

the right time to save lives, to minimize damage, and to establish 

a much smoother road to recovery. When our combined efforts were 

not perfect, I believe that combined efforts at the Federal, State, 

and local levels made great strides to reinstill confidence in the 

American public that our system emergency management preparedness can and does work effectively. 

In my view, there are three keys to our combined response: preparedness, command and coordination, and strong partnerships. 

And the first, FEMA and our State and Federal partners worked 

purposefully together to coordinate, assess, plan, train, exercise 

and evaluate to ensure that we each had independently and interdependently the capabilities needed to succeed in disaster response 

and recovery. And second, there was solid coordination and command at the Federal, State and local level. The emergency management structures in the State of Texas and Louisiana were impressive. 

At the Federal level, and consistent with the national response 

framework, we were fully integrated into the unified command 

with a State. Together we were forward looking, we executed our 

checklist thoughtfully and methodically, we adapted with a change 

in route and intensity to the storms, and we provided the public 

with timely and consistent warnings and messages. We performed 

as we planned and trained and we did well by doing so. 

And I wish to note that Governors, parish presidents, mayors 

and other elected officials fulfilled their responsibilities visibly and 

decisively as commanders, coordinators, and communicators. Secretary Chertoff was deployed forward himself in both States prior 

to and immediately following hurricanes, as was Administrator 

Paulison. They encouraged evacuation, they provided assurance 

that all actions that could be taken were being taken, and they acVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:56 Mar 31, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45365 JASON
22 

tively got into the response and recovery, though a number of challenges and tried moments, forthrightly and with directness and 

without name-calling or finger-pointing. 

Thirdly, there was a strengthened partnership among the Federal agencies, and with States and with the local communities and 

among nongovernmental agencies from the Secretary to Governor 

to mayor, from Federal coordinating officer to State coordinating officer, and consistently through the field where there were individual team members who coordinated airbus to train evacuations, 

planned out delivery of commodities, registered evacuees, opened 

Federal medical shelters, opened medical stations and staffed 

deployable medical assistance teams. And they did so through the 

combined efforts and were impressive as they performed. 

Madam Chairwoman, I don’t want to view the response and recovery of these hurricanes through rose-colored glasses, but collectively we demonstrated a capability to respond effectively to disaster. At times these efforts were admittedly a bit rough. Not all 

evolutions were according to plan. And we learned many lessons. 

We were challenged to get all the commodities to the right place 

at the right time. We learned that evacuation, for all of its challenges, can sometimes be easier than measuring the reentry of 

evacuees back in the damaged and marginally safe communities 

and homesteads. 

And we know that we need to strengthen certain elements of our 

workforce and to find ways to make registration process more timely and efficient. But from where I sit, the public was well served 

and we made great strides in instilling confidence in the Federal, 

State and local emergency management system and showed that it 

can work together effectively. 

Thank you for your time. I will be glad to answer your questions. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you Mr. Johnson. And may I commend 

FEMA for the assistance you gave the State and the city in the 

evacuation, apparently evacuation also in Texas. And you had 

these events back to back or front to front. 

Could I ask how the decision to evacuate is made, who makes it, 

what parties are involved, using as an example Ike and Gustav 

that has just occurred. 

Admiral JOHNSON. I think certainly the one who makes the decision to evacuate are the local elected officials. And I think you had 

a good example of that in Mayor Nagin, where all were concerned 

that after 2 years of like hurricanes that people might take the 

next hurricane too likely. Mayor Nagin and others stood up in front 

of their constituents and talked about the dangers of Hurricane 

Gustav, that at the time was a Category 4 hurricane, and made it 

very real from the local elected officials that people must evacuate. 

And so it is to the credit of Mayor Nagin, of parish presidents 

across Louisiana, of county judges in Texas, and Hurricane Ike, to 

make those calls early for mandatory evacuation and for voluntary 

evacuation. And as the mayor reported in his testimony, 97 percent 

of New Orleans evacuated, and that is setting a record for what 

can be done when the system works as it should. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, most of those went on their own, didn’t they? 

Didn’t you have more people use their own transportation means 

than before, and, if so, why? 

23 

Admiral JOHNSON. There were. I think I have seen estimates 

that maybe 1.9 million people across southern Louisiana evacuated, 

mostly on their own, because they had the means to do so. And in 

some parishes, in some cities, there are a population that don’t 

have the means to do so. And they need assistance from the State 

and local government and from the Federal Government to evacuate safely. 

Ms. NORTON. You perhaps heard me ask Mayor Nagin about the 

people who were warehoused, and he indicates that the State was 

responsible for finding places beyond boundaries of the local jurisdiction. Does the State have any communication with FEMA? Does 

FEMA have any responsibility since you are reliant so much on the 

States, for example, in your State housing plan, to ascertain that 

the State has found suitable facilities? 

Admiral JOHNSON. No ma’am, FEMA doesn’t have responsibility. 

The responsibility lies with the State. But of course in hurricane 

planning we work with the State, we work with the Red Cross, to 

identify requirements and standards for shelters. And it is our expectation that as the State establishes State shelters, that they will 

do so following those recognized standards for service, for cleanliness, for security, for safety, for medical support, for food and 

water and those types of things. 

In Federal shelters, for example in the shelters that we establish 

with State out-of-state, we actually have a host State agreement 

where we lay out and identify what services we expect a host State 

to provide shelterees in order to be supported and reimbursed by 

FEMA. 

Ms. NORTON. That is the out-of-state host State. But what about 

the in-state, the State that is primarily involved? 

Admiral JOHNSON. In-state, it is the State’s responsibility. 

Ms. NORTON. Do you tell them what you expect as well? Why tell 

the people out-of-state without telling the people in the State who 

may be responsible for most of the citizens what to expect, at least 

what to expect? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I think, being fair to the State, they had a 

number of State shelters, and we have heard about a couple of 

them, so there were a number of State shelters. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I want to ask about one. I can’t imagine if 

there were a number of State shelters how 1,000 people wound up 

crowded in a warehouse in northern Louisiana, crowded in so tightly, with absolutely no way to bathe, feeling like herded animals. 

How did that happen if there were a number of State shelters? 

Were they crowded too? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, Madam Chairwoman, I think many people are asking that exact question: How did that happen? No one 

would have wanted it to happen. And it certainly does not comport 

with any requirements or guidelines. 

Ms. NORTON. So there are guidelines that the State should follow 

in designating shelters within State? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, the Red Cross has standards for their 

shelters, and we certainly encourage and adopt those standards. 

And we encourages States to use those as they establish shelters. 

24 

Ms. NORTON. So you would find that the warehouse of 4,000 people with no way to bathe, and cot against cot, did not meet the 

standards that FEMA recommends to States? 

Admiral JOHNSON. They would not meet our standards, and I 

think Governor Jindal will tell you that they do not meet his standards either. 

Ms. NORTON. I recognize the State has got to come to grips with 

that itself. But I am very concerned for FEMA in this regard. 

There were newspaper reports that were fairly chilling that, quote, 

many poor residents avowing never again, that never again were 

they going to get on a bus to be warehoused this way, they would 

rather ride it out. 

Now, that is the last thing we want to hear, because then it gets 

back to FEMA. That is why I am suggesting that you review your 

responsibility to advise the State. States may or may not be ready 

to shelter people because States aren’t in the same business FEMA 

is, which is knowing much more about this. And it does seem to 

me that if States that shelter people from other States have guidelines, there is no reason why States themselves shouldn’t have 

such guidelines. 

And we would ask that those responsibility of States not be recommendations. Of course it is—it could be, for that matter, an 

emergency where you could only do so much. 

There was warning of this hurricane. I talked with Mr. Paulison. 

He told me about out-of-state schools, places on military bases, he 

told me about places in community college facilities. And so I was 

stunned to hear that there was anybody who was housed in 

Katrina-like conditions. 

The one thing we are not going to tolerate is finger-pointing. We 

are really not going to tolerate, well, the State should have done 

that or the city should have done that. And the reason we are not 

going to is because if in fact these people don’t evacuate next time, 

then of course the whole job will fall to FEMA to do something 

about people left in place. The Federal Government will have to 

evacuate them in very costly ways, as we did with people left behind before. 

So I am very concerned that Louisiana didn’t meet its responsibilities and apparently didn’t feel that it had to do anything but 

this, had plenty of time to prepare. After Katrina, it should have 

had shelters all over the State nearby ready to receive people. 

So just in the planning process that FEMA supervises, I am at 

a loss to understand this, and very concerned about it not only because of the condition of those people, because it may mean that 

we are going to have another problem the next time. 

Could I ask you in particular about some of the mayor’s testimony? He indicated that FEMA would not pay, in his written testimony, for foundation demolition which could spur, of course, rebuilding and economic development. And he also said that you did 

not support panelized or modular construction for damaged properties. Would you explain why in both of those circumstances? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Certainly. In the demolition of a structure, 

FEMA has traditionally paid for the demolition of the structure 

itself but has not paid for the removal of the slab. That becomes 

25 

a cost that, in Louisiana, the State has paid for some of that out 

of their CDBG funds. 

Ms. NORTON. Removal of the slab; do you demolish it? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. And what is left of it, FEMA will not pay to remove? 

Admiral JOHNSON. That is correct. Our job is to remove the 

health and safety impact on the community, so in our view that is 

to demolish the structure itself. 

Ms. NORTON. I don’t know if that is one of the quick fixes that 

we put into the act that we are still waiting to come out of the Senate. But I have to say if we were willing to waive the State’s share, 

the notion of not paying to remove what you demolished does strike 

me as being a very frustrating way to proceed, and maybe that we 

have to do more if you believe that you are proscribed by statute. 

And I would say then you shouldn’t demolish unless there really 

is a danger, because you are making a mess. 

Now, I understand—what is this—FEMA resolutions do permit 

debris removal. This is not debris? You don’t characterize this as 

debris for economic recovery? One of the things we had with FEMA 

was that it was reading its regulations so narrowly that we had to 

pass a whole bill. And what I objected to was that we thought a 

fair reading of the bill often meant that you could have proceeded. 

And instead we had to enact a whole bill. 

Now we have passed resolutions to permit debris removal for economic recovery, and you are telling me that you believe that you 

have to leave those slabs there. That is frustrating. I need you to 

look again and have your counsel review whether or not, in light 

of the resolutions—we will give you the numbers—there may be 

some removal of those. 

Now, can you talk about the panelized and modular construction 

for damaged property? You don’t believe you can pay for that? 

Admiral JOHNSON. The Katrina cottage that you discussed with Mayor Nagin, as you recall, Congress gave $400 million 2 years ago 

to have an alternate housing pilot project among the States on the 

Gulf Coast. Mississippi, as the mayor indicated, got out ahead of 

the other States, and they have procured and installed these Mississippi cottages, now sometimes called Katrina cottages. They are 

a panelized house. They are in very good shape. 

Ms. NORTON. So they are done with modular construction and 

panelized houses. So you will pay for it? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, these are modular—it is a modular construction. It is an improvement on a mobile home. I don’t think I 

would call it panelized housing. It is a different style of housing. 

Panelized housing is much, much more expensive, and basically is 

sort of like a house in a box. But this cottage is transportable and 

it meets—again, it is an alternative to a mobile home or a travel 

trailer. The States of Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama also receive 

funding in this pilot project, but they have yet to produce a unit, 

and actually installed one for testing. 

Ms. NORTON. So what do you think is the hold-up in those 

States? 

Admiral JOHNSON. It has taken those States longer to organize 

their governance structure to identify what their contract would be 

26 

and how they would actually choose sites and install units. They 

have each had varying degrees of difficulty, but they are all about 

to come on line and soon will produce their units for testing. 

Ms. NORTON. We are very anxious to see how those units work, 

particularly the fun we had with trailers. 

I called it a resolution; I am sorry. I asked your counsel to look 

at debris removal regulation 44, CFR 206.224(b)(3). I believe you— 

based on this resolution, the staff tells me you do have the authority to remove these slabs. We are just trying to do what we can to 

move this thing along. So I would ask your reporters to report back 

to us within 30 days what your counsel’s view is. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Certainly. 

Ms. NORTON. I am going to ask the Ranking Member if he has 

any questions for you, Admiral Johnson. 

Mr. GRAVES. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks, Admiral, for 

coming in. I want to talk to you about, or have you talk to me 

about the transitional voucher program. 

During Hurricane Ike it has been reported that 4,000 people 

checked into hotels underneath that program, but there were 

107,000 that qualified for it, but there wasn’t any space available 

for them. I am curious how you are going to deal with that or what 

you are looking at to try to deal with that. 

Admiral JOHNSON. The transitional housing program, sheltering, 

that we put out basically does say that we need very minimum requirements; that a person can call and register with FEMA and 

they would be assigned an authentication code. They could go to a 

hotel or motel that is part of the program. And thousands are. I 

think there are 8,000 hotel and motels that participate. And based 

on them having a room, they will accept an applicant and FEMA 

pays the bill. 

But as you would imagine during a disaster, these hotels and 

motels are filled and they don’t have a whole lot of spaces available. We have heard reports that in some areas, because of prior 

bookings at hotels and reservations, that they didn’t have room. 

And so we have checked them to find out, to make sure that all 

those who comply with the program and participate actually fully 

participate. But we had a number of people—about every day 500 

or more people move in and move out. It is a transitory type of a 

thing. And I think it has been fairly successful. We had about 800 

or 900 at one time in Louisiana, and we have had up to 3,500 in 

Texas who have taken advantage of the program. 

Mr. GRAVES. And then one other question. The Red Cross has requested a $150 million bailout for its disaster operations, and I am 

just curious what the administration’s position is on this. 

Admiral JOHNSON. I am not sure what the administration’s position is, if they have actually offered the position. We have certainly—one of our strongest partners in preparedness, as well as in 

response to recovery, is the Red Cross. We have a great relationship with them. We have their staff members on our staff. We consult with the Red Cross. We establish our policies and do as many 

policies as we can in concert with the Red Cross. We were able to 

work with them during feeding kitchens, for example, in both Gustav and Ike. And so I am aware of the proposal and believe that 

there is support for that. 

27 

Mr. GRAVES. Thanks, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Graves. Mr. Arcuri. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, 

for being here. 

Mr. Johnson, the FEMA interim rule that eliminates administrative allowance in-state management administrative allowance, I 

want to ask you a couple of questions. They are utilized in New 

York to cover, as I imagine in many States, to cover direct and indirect costs. According to the National Emergency Management Association its costs States an average of 6.21 percent of their public 

assistance allocation to manage the administrative PA program, 

yet FEMA’s rule would cap the allowance at 3.34 percent and 

States will be forced to cover that gap of 2.87 percent. I mean, in 

New York we estimate that is going to cost about $33 million. 

Any thoughts on how the States are going to make that up or 

what we are going to do, or any rationale as to why FEMA has cut 

that out? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We had a rulemaking out—covering administrative costs is always a controversial subject. We want the States 

to administer as much of the response recovery as they can. We 

want to reimburse them fairly for the cost of that administration. 

And it becomes a debate between us sometimes as to exactly what 

are those costs and how do we reimburse the right amount. 

We put out a rulemaking some time ago that offered a construct 

that was a change in the way we did business. We felt there was 

a bit of misinformation about that. It wasn’t very well understood. 

And we have recently pulled back that rulemaking and are engaged now with NEMA and other representatives, again in the 

States, and talking about how we can fairly arrive at a formula 

that will reimburse the cost of the States. 

So it is still active discussion between us and the States to make 

sure we can identify what those costs are. Like anything else, I 

think that you have seen what are the numbers and what makes 

up those numbers. And we would be glad to meet with you or your 

staff and go through what our processes are and give you a sense 

of what our assumptions are and how we are engaged in discussions on the administrative cost. 

Mr. ARCURI. I would appreciate that. It just seems to me that 

with global warming, with the change in the environment, we are 

seeing more natural disasters. And this is not the time that we 

want to cut out programs that the States need but, rather, help the 

States more if we can. So I would greatly appreciate the opportunity for us to get together and chat about it. Thank you, sir. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ARCURI. [presiding.] We are beyond the midpoint of the 2008 

hurricane season. Do you think that we are in a position where we 

are going to be able to respond if there are any additional hurricanes that we encounter this year? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir. We certainly think that—we have 

gone through about 5 weeks now. And hurricanes, this should only 

happen on weekends. But we went through about 5 weeks between 

Hurricane Dolly, Fran, Gustav, Ike, and I think that we have been 

tested, all of us, on a Federal, State and local level in this hurricane season, and we have done very, very well. I think it affirmed 

28 

for us that we have invested a lot of time and resources over the 

last 2 years in fairly light hurricane seasons to focus on preparedness, on command and control, and on partnerships. And I think 

we have shown that that effort was worth its investment. And I 

think we have, again, reinstilled confidence that we can respond 

well to disasters. Part of our focus has been to put a stake in the 

heart of Katrina and put that behind us. And I hope that by the 

performance in Gustav and Ike so far that we are able to do that. 

Mr. ARCURI. Obviously it is a learning process. Did we learn anything so far in this hurricane season that you can tell us? We are 

always asking you about things. Are there things that we could do 

that could help FEMA in the future that we learned this year? 

Admiral JOHNSON. First of all, this Subcommittee is always intent on helping FEMA learn. And sometimes it is tough love, but 

we appreciate it. But I think from this hurricane season, maybe a 

couple of things to point out. First, as was indicated, commodities 

really point up—that is a problem we didn’t expect. 

Now, how that system typically works is FEMA provides commodities to the State’s staging area and the State manages commodities from there to distribution to PODs, to four points where 

they distribute PODs to commodities individuals. It didn’t work 

very well. What we found in a large storm, we could move hundreds of truckloads of supplies into a staging area, but we couldn’t 

get them out very efficiently. We actually sent our director of logistics, Eric Smith, down to Louisiana and sent him again to Houston 

to work through these issues about how do we really distribute 

commodities and get them out on time to the right place? And it 

is a very difficult, complex process and we eventually worked 

through it. 

So I think one of our focuses for next hurricane season is to work 

with the States on the full supply chain, end-to-end logistics, and 

to see how we can make sure we get the right supplies to the right 

place at the right time. 

I think a second area that we are working on is registration. And 

we have made huge improvements over Katrina. We have more 

than 1 million people who have registered between Gustav and Ike. 

At one point, at the same point in time, 12 days after the storm, 

we had 500,000 registered in Gustav and there were 350,000, same 

point in time, for Katrina. So they had huge improvements. And 

yet back-to-back storms really tested our system. 

What we have found is that we need to look more at new technology and to establish kiosk computer centers where people can 

register more on line. And so I think we need to look at new technologies to be more efficient in registrations. Those are two practical things that have caught us up a little bit in response and recovery that we are going to work on for the next hurricane season. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson, I appreciate it. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you Mr. Arcuri. 

Let me ask you, I suppose perhaps I don’t fully appreciate the 

difficulty of getting supplies out if there is planning. For example, 

if there are—if the State is required to say where the shelters will 

be in the event of a disaster it should not even be difficult to break 

that down in the event of a Category 2 disaster, 3 disaster: Where 

29 

will the shelters be? If the States are required to do that, then everything, it seems to me, should flow from that. 

If I know that the shelters, in the case of a Category 3 type, will 

be in northern Louisiana, then I have a geographical area and regional area that I know I have to get to. 

I don’t understand why preplanning won’t take care of most of 

the issue. You make it sound as if you bring supplies in and then 

decide, oh my God, how are we going to get it out there? Indeed, 

I heard Secretary Chertoff say on television or radio that he had 

18-ton trucks, or whatever, ready to go into Texas, but then they 

had to clear the roads. 

Well, Galveston, for example, was always going to be a complete 

disaster. Flooding was predicted to be the major issue. So I don’t 

even understand 18-wheelers. I mean are helicopters, for example, 

an alternative to get food in, if as much food has not been 

prepositioned as you anticipated? Indeed, most of it should have 

been prepositioned. So I guess once you know where the shelters 

will be in the event of Categories 2, 3, 4, 5, it does seem to me that 

you have something going for you. You might not know where it 

is going to strike, but if planning means anything, then once it 

hits, you know exactly what you have got to do and you have 

prepositioned transportation of the kind that will be necessary, 

supplies of the kind that be will be necessary. 

And I hate to use this analogy, but I am going to have to, and 

maybe we need to consult with them. I bet the military will know 

what to do. They have got to figure out in advance what to do when 

they have got people located in much more unpredictable conditions 

than a hurricane. 

So I think this raises questions of planning, planning with the 

State, and particularly since your housing strategy says that you 

are very reliant upon the State, establishing some closer nexus besides we-recommend-to-the-State and we-hope-we-will-do-it kinds 

of things, because it is going to be in your hands largely, normally, 

to get supplies to areas that the State will often lack the kinds of 

transportation means to accomplish. Witness what the Secretary 

was trying to do with 18-wheelers. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, Madam Chair, what sounds easy in this 

room, absent a disaster—— 

Ms. NORTON. It isn’t easy. It is planning. Planning is the hard 

part. 

Admiral JOHNSON. What sounds easy in this room is if we were 

to lay out a plan for PODs in your city, in Washington, D.C., and 

expect that that plan would work perfectly in a disaster, it would 

be easy and the plan would be good. But what happens in reality 

is that in D.C., in Houston, in New Orleans, in Shreveport, as local 

elected officials evaluate the impact in their city, on that very night 

they determine where do they want the PODs established to meet 

the needs of their citizens, looking at who has evacuated, who has 

not, what part of the city has restored and what has not. 

Ms. NORTON. And, of course, communication wasn’t down as it 

was in Katrina. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, what happens is that every night they 

reestablish where they want PODs. So the plan you had before the 

disaster becomes ineffective when it gets changed late at night, and 

30 

for good reasons. But once you have had a lot of PODs and you get 

a plan late in the evening it is hard to move inside—imagine the 

city of Washington streets. To move POD supplies, you need time 

to physically get it done. 

What happened in Gustav was that because of the reaction of the 

power outage and the change in the dynamics, the plan got put together too late in order to move all the trucks in time to open the 

PODs, when people were sitting there waiting. 

Ms. NORTON. How do you account for that? Why do you think the 

planning occurred later than it might have? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I think it was people trying to react to the latest information, to really anticipate the needs of their citizens. And 

perhaps they haven’t done it before. Everyone learned a lot of lessons. And by the third day, POD plans were put together at 4 

o’clock in the afternoon and gave everyone plenty of time to supply 

for the next day. So they started off okay, they got bad for a couple 

of days, and got fixed again in a few more days. So it eventually 

worked itself out, but it took a little bit of adjustments along the 

way. 

Ms. NORTON. How about activated or nonactivated food stamps, 

the frustrations of long lines and getting food stamps? It took some 

days to get them activated. Were you trying to avoid fraud and did 

it need to take so long? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I personally don’t have any knowledge of that. 

That is another program. We observed that happening in Louisiana, and perhaps it could happen in Texas, but that is beyond 

FEMA’s scope and I don’t have any details of that. 

Ms. NORTON. Was it beyond FEMA’s scope because the State provided the food stamp activation? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, the food stamp is with USDA. And the 

USDA worked with the State in trying to coordinate the efficient 

delivery. And I think there were just some logistics issues about 

times and locations, and it got backed up. But I don’t have any personal acknowledge of that program. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I am not going to ask FEMA to provide us 

with that, but those were among the loudest complaints that we 

heard. 

Now, I would like to quickly go through this housing, new housing strategy. And I recognize that you are still in comment, that 

is why we wanted to have the hearing before the comment period 

was ended. It would be helpful for us to know what the major elements of the strategy is, especially those that differ from FEMA’s 

Disaster Housing Strategy, previous Disaster Housing Strategy? 

How do you think—why do you think this is better? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, perhaps the most significant issue is it 

does delineate, again, what are the roles and responsibilities of the 

Federal Government and of the State. And during Katrina, where 

FEMA took over almost the entire management of the housing program, those roles and responsibilities became too blurred. 

And so, for example, in Texas today, Texas has identified today 

what their level of acceptable formaldehyde is. FEMA doesn’t have 

to do that. That is their responsibility. Today Texas requested, the 

government request, first, to provide a direct housing program in 

the city of Orange in Jefferson County. That is their job, ask for 

31 

direct housing. Texas will tell us what type of housing they want, 

which is their job. We provide options, they select the option, we 

implement. And then over the next several days now, we will implement that program to meet the objectives of the State. 

And so in this case, the State should make those decisions that 

FEMA should implement and help them achieve their objectives. 

That is a primary focus of the strategy. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, the States on whom you, of course, rely in 

your housing strategy, I think appropriately so, we then need to 

look at your relationship to the States. Now, according to your own 

people, only eight States have their own disaster housing programs. That is bothersome. I am not sure which States those are. 

But how can you rely upon the States if they are not required to 

have a disaster housing program by FEMA? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Part of what FEMA will do to implement the 

strategy, for example, when we put EMPG grants—and you are familiar with those grants, those are focused on emergency management—we will require States to devote some portion of those grant 

dollars towards disaster housing planning. We have not previously 

done that. 

In a disaster, for example, in Iowa, in Louisiana, and in Texas, 

we have asked the State to stand up a State-led housing task force. 

They each have complied and done that. So what we are finding 

is the States are receptive to the objectives of the strategy. And it 

has worked out very well thus far in Iowa, I think it will work out 

well in Texas, and work in Louisiana with Gustav implementation, 

and I believe it will work out there as well. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, we had a situation in Katrina we hope we 

will never have again. But because FEMA is best suited, in fact its 

mission is to help people to find short-term everything, everything 

is supposed to be short term. But after Katrina, as you now look 

at who is left, we find that 12 percent of those displaced were over 

the age of 65. 

Now, how does—your self-sufficiency approach, of course, is the 

correct approach—how does it take into account when we are dealing with people who can hardly be expected to start all over again 

in providing housing? Some of them are living in senior citizens 

housing, some of them live in their own homes and at their age will 

not rebuild, and therefore whatever the State’s responsibility, you 

are going to be left with these displaced victims. 

How do your present policies enable you to in fact account for 

these victims? Because you can keep setting dates when they have 

to find housing all you want to, but the fact is that given their vulnerable state, the Nation is going to look to you, considering the 

increasing number of elderly people. 

Consider the baby boom, for example. They are not there yet, but 

they will be there and they are living longer. What is needed? Is 

it new statutory authority? What are you going to do now about the 

thousands who are among those still without housing in trailers 

and otherwise not in permanent homes? How do you expect to deal 

with them in your new housing strategy? 

Admiral JOHNSON. In a disaster where there are elderly or other 

perhaps more challenged community groups, as in Katrina, what 

will end up happening, I believe, is that some of those people will 

32 

eventually filter into another existing government program. For example in HUD, HUD has a program for section 8 housing. HUD 

has a program for some of the elderly that have been exempted, by 

the way, for some of the payments on their rent. And eventually 

when it gets down to that smaller group, at this point in the disaster they will likely be placed by case management into some existing program. 

We are very focused, as are you, on looking and learning more 

about effective case management and how to identify these people 

earlier and to put them in the right program to meet their needs. 

Ms. NORTON. Long-term needs were really put on the map by 

housing needs by Katrina. And you did something that seemed to 

make sense. States were told that they could lease apartments for 

up to 12 months. But then you told the States to terminate those 

leases after 6 months. How will lease management be handled 

under the new housing strategy? 

Admiral JOHNSON. That did occur before. And what we have now, 

partially in response to Congressman Graves’ question, what we 

have now is our transitional assistance program that we just implemented here for Ike and for Gustav, where now we put people into 

hotels and motels and we pay that hotel and motel bill. It is 30 

days at the outset, and if we need to extend it we have the option 

to do that. And so we will try to manage that individually. We can 

also pay the hotel directly, as in this case. We may look at leasing 

portions of hotels so that we can move people in and out of a room 

that we are already paying for. 

So I think we have come up with some good lessons learned. We 

are implementing a more targeted program that allows us to manage the cost a lot closer. 

Ms. NORTON. We were concerned that the GAO’s 2007 report said 

they found certain kinds of shelters without feeding capabilities 

when they did a survey of selected States. Do you look at feeding 

capabilities in particular? I suspect that the warehouse in north 

Louisiana would have been such a place. Must a shelter that the 

State designates have the capacity to feed people—kitchen, some 

way to make sure that food can be stored and the like? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, I think perhaps Joe Becker or Red Cross 

can answer that question better than I can. We don’t require every 

shelter to have a kitchen, but we require shelters to be able to provide food and water and basic life sustaining support. 

Ms. NORTON. I don’t mean an actual kitchen, I mean the capacity 

to have running water, a makeshift kitchen. 

Admiral JOHNSON. And we require that. We also have worked 

with the Red Cross and with the nongovernment organizations on 

building feeding kitchens and feeding capabilities. For example, in 

Houston where we have shelters, we also now provide a separate 

feeding kitchen that provides—all through Texas I think—it is a 

phenomenal number of meals that are able to be prepared every 

single day. And so we now are taking a much more focused look 

at how we provide shelters and how we provide feeding capability. 

Ms. NORTON. You work with the State. I need to know within 30 

days what FEMA tells a State its shelters are expected to look like. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes ma’am. 

33 

Ms. NORTON. This question keeps coming up as I find out about 

the kitchens, the shelters and the feeding. So rather than ask that 

question over again, it would help me with this blanket question 

to say what is it that FEMA tells States that a shelter must provide; where shelters must be? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We can provide that for the record. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. Finally, I would like to ask you about 

the Red Cross. Our final witness is going to be the GAO and the 

Red Cross. We were very concerned to hear about the nonprofits 

on whom you rely. How much do you rely on them, and what is 

your view of their capacity to handle the mission you expect from 

them as these hurricanes and other disasters become more frequent? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We rely on the Red Cross and nongovernment 

organizations, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, we rely on them 

a lot. They are in the local area, they know the local people, they 

know the geography, they understand the culture. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, what did the GAO mean when they said they 

believe they are overwhelmed? Is that your view? Have you worked 

with them in Ike and Gustav? Did you find them able to manage 

the responsibilities as expected? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, I think as you saw in our comments, we 

don’t think very highly of that particular GAO report. We believe 

that the report—— 

Ms. NORTON. In what way do you differ from the report? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, I think the report, for example, I think 

it expected the Red Cross and nongovernment organizations be the 

primary provider of support to disaster victims. To my knowledge, 

the GAO did not interview the emergency managers in the State 

of New York, in Texas, or California or Florida. All of those States 

have magnificent well-organized local support programs. And the 

State is responsible for providing for that support. 

Ms. NORTON. So how did they get the impression that they 

couldn’t handle—that the Red Cross in particular, if they got the 

impression the Red Cross was responsible for the bulk of it, they 

most have gotten it from the Red Cross. They must have told them 

it was falling to them. 

Admiral JOHNSON. I am not sure how they got that idea. I am 

not sure if they had a visitor’s shelter before. They didn’t get that 

idea from us, and I don’t think they got it from talking to—— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I am not going to put the burden on you. I 

just thought you would like to give your opinion of the role of the 

Red Cross. Do you feel that they are doing an adequate job, in 

terms of their funding, in terms of the carrying out their mission 

and the like? 

Admiral JOHNSON. They have been phenomenal partners. They 

help us immeasurably, in measurable ways and immeasurable 

ways, in helping to organize the delivery of mass care services to 

disaster victims. They do a great job, in and of themselves, they do 

a great job to link with all the other NGOs and to coordinate them 

and help bring together disparate groups. 

Ms. NORTON. So you have no recommendations for improvement 

by Red Cross and other nonprofits who assist FEMA? 

34 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, I think our recommendation on improvements is we can always continue to work better today, communicate better, and to be better organized. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, you have had two recent hurricanes. 

Admiral JOHNSON. And they have done a great job. 

Ms. NORTON. All right. As far as you are concerned, you are perfect so we will pass on that. 

I have to ask you one question, since you talked about the States 

and prepositioning. You even mentioned the District of Columbia. 

There may be other big cities like the District of Columbia. They 

are located in a State that doesn’t have many big cities. We are not 

even located in a State. We treat it as a State for all purposes except to vote. But when you hear for the 50 States and the District 

of Columbia, that is us. 

If there were to be a disaster, and not more than 5 years ago we 

had a major flood here—but of course it was positioned in part of 

the city, not the rest—but if for some reason, it would likely be a 

terrorist attack where somebody set off something, and we had to 

be moved, it has crossed my mind more than once whether FEMA 

has determined where residents of the District of Columbia, not a 

State, very small area, less than 10 square miles, where would the 

residents of the District of Columbia go if they needed sheltering 

tomorrow? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We have a program called gap analysis, which 

we may have briefed you on before. And we work with the hurricane—18 hurricane impact States, the District of Columbia, Puerto 

Rico, Virgin Islands, and we assess them on how ready they are for 

a disaster. We work with the emergency manager in the District 

and have gone through sheltering, transportation, communications, 

medical services, have a sense of what their capabilities are. 

Ms. NORTON. Admiral, I asked where would we go. I am assuming that a certain percentage of the population had to leave town. 

Do you know where such residents would be directed from the Nation’s Capital to go? 

Admiral JOHNSON. There is an existing national capital regional 

evacuation plan that identifies routes in the city, and they would 

go to the suburbs and go to the neighboring States. I would be glad 

to have a staff come by and brief you completely on that. 

Ms. NORTON. I would like you in 30 days to tell me exactly what 

you say if you have got to go to a shelter out of state, that there 

is planning, prepositioning, where you go. And I realize some people live in Southeast, some people live in Northwest. In 30 days I 

would like to know where the residents of the District of Columbia—a fair number are Members of Congress, a fair number are 

Federal officials, and many are residents of the District of Columbia. I don’t want to know the routes, I know the routes. And about 

the last thing you want to do—in fact, we tell people stay in 

place—the last thing you would want to do is say they will go to, 

quote, the suburbs. The notion that the suburbs would say you all 

come is hard to believe. 

Admiral JOHNSON. We would be glad to review that shelter plan 

with you. 

35 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. We want places that have 

been designated. I am going to ask the Chair of the Full Committee 

if he has any comments or any questions for Admiral Johnson. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Admiral 

Johnson, for being here with us today. I think the Chair has covered a wide spectrum of issues that we anticipated to cover in this 

hearing. The question that may have been asked while I was attending to other Committee business is what research, development, testing, has FEMA accomplished on housing, that is mobile 

housing, that does not have the adverse health effects that have 

been associated with the FEMA trailers? 

Admiral JOHNSON. There are two things. 

First is that we have new contracts for mobile homes and park 

model units that require formaldehyde to be at the level of.016 

parts per billion of formaldehyde. There has never been a requirement that low before for construction. 

We worked with the manufacturers of mobile homes, changed out 

building materials, changed out manufacturing processes to ensure 

that they can actually produce units that are that virtually low in 

formaldehyde. 

We have already taken delivery on some of the units, and we will 

take delivery on additional units at the end of October. So our first 

effort has been to reduce the level of formaldehyde in these units. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Repeat that figure that you said a moment ago. 

I didn’t write it down. 

Admiral JOHNSON. It is .016. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. .016. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Second is that we have looked extensively for 

alternatives to mobile homes and park models. We recently put a 

contract out on the street asking for innovative ideas, and we are 

going to buy and test different concepts for how to replace a mobile 

home and a travel trailer. And I think we are going to find a number of alternatives that will give us more flexibility based on where 

we might need units, in dense, urban areas versus in colder climates or the gulf. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. What are your requirements for mobile housing, 

that is, standards or requirements for ability to move these units 

from one place to another? Do they have to be of a certain size, certain weight, dimension and readiness to be put into use? What are 

the standards that you have established for the housing? 

I ask the question because I get, and I am sure Chair Norton as 

well, visits from various organizations that say, well, we have 

something really hot for FEMA. And I haven’t sent any of them to 

you, because I don’t know what your standards are. What are those 

standards? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, first let me just correct: It is 

.016 parts per million. I said parts per billion. So, .016 parts per 

million. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thought that was—— 

Admiral JOHNSON. We will provide for the record. It is a onesheet requirements in our contracts for mobile homes. But it defines the length of the mobile home so it fits on the highways, the 

width of the mobile home, what the equipment is required inside 

36 

the mobile home. So we can provide that to you for the record, if 

you would like. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That would be very useful, Because there are 

many people who are interested in these issues. It receives such 

nationwide attention, it is hard to run into a constituent, let alone 

people from other parts of the country, who aren’t aware of FEMA 

trailer problem. It is one word, there is no hyphen, there isn’t even 

a space. It is a ′′FEMA trailer problem.′′ 

Admiral JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, don’t be bashful to send them 

on to FEMA. We have established a joint housing solutions group, 

and they are looking for new ideas. And they will meet with a vendor, and they will talk with them about our requirements. So if you 

want to forward them to us, we would be glad to talk to them 

about our program. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. In the interest of full disclosure, my wife is from 

New Orleans, born and raised there, still has family there. We visit 

there frequently. And we went into one of those trailers, closed for 

quite some time, and the aroma would knock you over. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yeah. We have learned a lot—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. This is not a figment of anyone’s imagination. I 

can’t imagine living in this thing. 

Admiral JOHNSON. It is not. We have learned a lot of lessons 

from the units that we bought for Katrina. And, again, I think you 

are seeing us reflect those lessons learned by finding alternatives 

and by requiring now a very, very, very low level of formaldehyde. 

And, by the way, we test these units to make sure that they meet 

our specification. They don’t pass the test, we don’t buy the unit. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Do you have energy consumption standards for 

those trailers as well? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I don’t believe we have energy consumption. 

There is a rating, depending on the climate that they are involved 

in, a level 1, 2 or 3 climate. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Okay. I welcome that information whenever you 

can provide it. 

What is the status of the Disaster Relief Fund for the balance 

of this year? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Dire. We just went below a billion dollars, 

which sounds like a lot of money but in disasters is not much. And 

so we are looking at the cost of—right now our projected cost for 

Gustav and Ike is both—let me say each, about $800 million each. 

And so these are catastrophes. 

When we project the life of the Disaster Relief Fund, we typically 

plan for a hurricane season absent a catastrophe. And now we have 

had the Midwest floods and Ike and Gustav. So we are concerned 

about the size of the Disaster Relief Fund. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Do you have data available in FEMA on the 

amount that the private insurance sector has paid out on the Iowa 

floods, Ike and Gustav and so on? 

Admiral JOHNSON. I don’t know that we do, but we will check. 

If we can get that, we will provide it to you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Our staff regularly tracks that information, at my 

direction, and have done over a period of years, and they have seen 

this very sharp escalation of private-sector insurance costs in 

37 

FEMA States’ local disaster assistance. We are running into the 

dozens of billions of dollars of cost. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. And it is a steady progression over the last 20 

years. I mean, this is parenthetical to the discussion at hand, but 

for anyone to say that we are not experiencing global climate 

change, they are not living on the same planet. Those figures are 

unavoidable. 

Will FEMA have to ask for supplemental funding, do you think? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Well, of course that is a judgment for the administration. But we are working with them to—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. But you say you are below a billion dollars, and 

we are still not finished with the hurricane season. There is another one brewing in the south Atlantic, I heard this morning on 

The Weather Channel. 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. We could be facing more. 

Admiral JOHNSON. It is true. You know, we are concerned about 

the balance, and we are working inside the administration to see 

if the President wants to propose a supplemental. I don’t believe 

a decision has been made on that yet. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. We had passed, with Chair Norton’s leadership 

and effort, a bipartisan bill from the House. The Senate, there are 

stirrings over there. You just never know what is going to happen. 

Every now and then, the water moves, like the Old Testament, 

water stirs, you jump in it so you will be saved. But every now and 

then, we see stirrings. And it may be that we will have a FEMA 

authorization bill. 

Is there any additional authority or expanded legislative authority you might need to address the recovery from Gustav and Ike? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We are looking at that to see whether we 

think we need more authority. 

One thing that we are doing, Mr. Chairman, and I think Madam 

Chairwoman mentioned as well, we think over the years our regulations and our policies have become increasingly restrictive. And 

so we are currently in a program to look at rewriting our regulations to give us more flexibility in changing policy to reflect lessons 

learned. And so that is our primary focus, is fix the regulations and 

policies. And Stafford, in itself, is still a pretty good piece of legislation, as you know personally. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. All right. I don’t need to pursue this any further. 

We have two more witnesses to accommodate. 

And, Madam Chair, thank you. 

Mr. Johnson, thank you. Admiral, thank you very much for being 

here. We look forward to receiving your response to those earlier 

questions. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

By the way, that was a blockbuster, that last thing you said, that 

during the review of your legislations, in light of present-day realities, to eliminate some of the rigidity. When do you expect that to 

be completed, please? 

Admiral JOHNSON. We are working right now on—we have 

looked at our individual assistance program, and we have identified three regulations in individual assistance, three regulations in 

38 

public assistance, and 10 policies that we are reviewing right now 

to, again, reflect lessons learned and provide more flexibility. 

We are working the reg packages as we speak and reviewing 

those policies, and we certainly hope to get those out within this 

calendar year. 

Ms. NORTON. Would those be out for comment? 

Admiral JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Yeah, well, we would be delighted to see you able 

to do that before this administration ends. 

Admiral JOHNSON. So would we. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for very 

helpful testimony, Admiral Johnson. 

And could I ask the final two witnesses if they would come forward? 

Thank you for your patience. 

They are: from the Government Accountability Office, Cynthia 

Fagnoni; and from the American Red Cross, Joseph Becker, who is 

the senior vice president for preparedness and response. 

We will go with Ms. Fagnoni first. 

TESTIMONY OF CYNTHIA FAGNONI, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF 

EDUCATION, WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, 

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; JOSEPH BECKER, 

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE, AMERICAN RED CROSS 

Ms. FAGNONI. Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee, 

I am very pleased to be here today to discuss our findings from a 

report we issued last week on voluntary organizations’ disaster response. 

This afternoon I will highlight what we found in four areas: the 

roles of voluntary organizations in providing mass care and other 

services in large-scale disasters; their efforts to improve since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; their current capabilities in four large 

cities; and the remaining challenges for these organizations. 

In doing our work, we focused on the Red Cross, the Salvation 

Army, the Southern Baptist Convention, Catholic Charities, and 

United Way. We also visited Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and 

the Washington, D.C., region. 

First, the five voluntary organizations we reviewed are highly diverse. The American Red Cross is the only one with a designated 

role as a support agency for mass care under the Government’s National Response Framework. Both FEMA and the Red Cross agree 

that the Red Cross will support FEMA with staff and expertise in 

responding to a catastrophic hurricane or earthquake. However, 

this agreement is not clearly documented in the Catastrophic Incident Supplement to the framework. In our report, we recommended 

that FEMA update and document its expectation for the Red Cross 

in a catastrophic disaster, and FEMA agreed. 

Second, our report also found that the voluntary organizations 

we reviewed have taken steps to strengthen their service delivery. 

For example, the Red Cross has initiated thousands of new partnerships with local community and faith-based organizations, particularly in rural areas with hard-to-reach populations. These organizations also are collaborating more on feeding and case manageVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:56 Mar 31, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45365 JASON
39 

ment and on improving their supply chain management and communication systems. 

Third, our report found that voluntary organizations have substantial sheltering and feeding resources both locally and nationally. However, without government and other assistance, a worstcase, large-scale disaster would likely overwhelm voluntary organizations’ current mass care capabilities. For example, a catastrophic 

earthquake striking Los Angeles could create the need to shelter 

more than 300,000 people, but the Red Cross can shelter 84,000 locally under the best conditions. And a nuclear terrorist attack in 

Washington, D.C., could require 300,000 more meals per day than 

the Red Cross can currently provide. 

Because such disasters call for a communal, all-hands-on-deck response, government employees in New York City and elsewhere are 

being trained to provide sheltering and feeding in a catastrophic 

disaster. FEMA has also developed some contracts with private-sector companies to provide resources as well. 

Our report found that FEMA’s initial assessment of mass care 

capabilities in selected States did not include the sheltering capabilities of all voluntary organizations and did not address feeding 

capabilities outside of shelters. Our report recommended that 

FEMA take steps to better incorporate voluntary organizations’ capabilities into its assessments of mass care capabilities. FEMA disagreed, saying that Federal, State and local government cannot 

command and control private-sector resources. 

However, FEMA is required, under the Post-Katrina Act, to establish a comprehensive system to assess the Nation’s overall preparedness. Such an assessment should account as fully as possibly 

for voluntary organizations’ capabilities. Taking steps to assess capabilities more fully does not require controlling these resources 

but, rather, cooperatively obtaining and sharing information. Without such an assessment, the Federal Government will have an incomplete picture of the mass care resources it could draw upon in 

large-scale disasters, as well as of the gaps that it must be prepared to fill. 

And finally, voluntary organizations continue to face challenges 

in preparing for large-scale disasters. Reliant on volunteers and donations, many organization struggle to raise private funds to help 

them better prepare for future disasters, especially potentially catastrophic ones. 

While FEMA told us some Federal emergency preparedness 

grants could help, its guidance did not clearly state that voluntary 

organizations could be considered among those as eligible subgrantees. In our report, we recommended that FEMA clarify States’ 

ability to consider voluntary organizations as among the potential 

recipients of Federal preparedness funds, and FEMA agreed. 

In conclusion, recent events bring home once again the critical 

role of the Red Cross and other voluntary organizations at such 

times, as well as the importance of preparing for large-scale disasters. As it stands now, the Nation is not yet as prepared as it needs 

to be to shelter and feed survivors of a catastrophic disaster. 

This condition includes my statement. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Ms. Fagnoni. 

40 

Mr. Becker, of the Red Cross. 

Mr. BECKER. Chairwoman Norton, good afternoon. My name is 

Joe Becker, and I lead the American Red Cross disaster relief efforts nationally. Thank you for your invitation to speak here today. 

I was asked to address two issues: the GAO report on mass care 

capabilities in catastrophic events and how the nonprofit sector organizes and responds to disasters. 

I will start with how the sector works. I think the best word to 

describe how the nonprofit sector works is ′′layers.′′ If today is an 

average day, the American Red Cross will respond to about 200 

disasters around the country, and most of these will be very small. 

It is an apartment fire, it is a transportation incident. We are 

called on the scene by a local fire department, and we respond. We 

don’t pick and choose which disasters we respond to; we always respond when called. 

The things we do in a very small disaster, say, an apartment 

fire, are the same things we do on large disasters. We provide a 

safe shelter for people, and we feed them in the shelter. We feed 

the community at large, driving through neighborhoods that are affected. We distribute supplies that are over and above what Admiral Johnson was referring to in points of distribution, or PODs. We 

provide mental health with volunteer psychiatrists, psychologists, 

mental health professionals. Our nurses provide first aid and minor 

health-care treatments. And we provide safe blood and blood products. 

I described the very small disaster that the Red Cross typically 

responds to alone. If something is a little bit bigger than that—you 

live here in the District; remember the recent flooding adjacent to 

here in Fairfax County—if a disaster is a little bit bigger, we will 

be joined by great partners that we work with very closely. They 

are typically faith-based groups. Catholic Charities, Southern Baptists and the Salvation Army would be the primary ones that typically join us on larger-scale relief efforts. 

Then, if something is quite large—the Midwest floods, Ike, Gustav—we are joined by a large number of organizations. On something that big, everyone wants to help, and no one more so than 

the faith communities. And you will remember in Katrina, that was 

one of the frustrations people had. A church or local group would 

want to open up a shelter or open up a kitchen, and, frankly, after 

2 or 3 days if they fatigued, if they turned to the American Red 

Cross for support, they got varying answers depending on where 

they were. Our biggest lesson—and you heard the GAO report address it—is, how do we bring community groups together to serve? 

And that is what we have been about post-Katrina. 

In a disaster, 90 to 95 percent of the people take care of themselves. They check into a motel, they go stay with mom, they stay 

with friends, they stay with family. It is the 10 percent, maybe 5 

percent, of people who can’t care for themselves or don’t have those 

options, that is who the American Red Cross cares for in disasters. 

They are older than the population at large. They are poorer than 

the population at large. And, typically, they are less healthy than 

the population at large. It is the frail elderly, in particular, with 

which we spend an awful lot of our time and service. 

41 

And what we have been about post-Katrina is bringing other organizations who can help with those people into the operations. Nationally, we have about 150 partnerships with organizations that 

don’t have a disaster mission but can help in time of disaster: examples like the Urban League, the NAACP. In fact, in Mayor 

Nagin’s city, the NAACP is who helped the Red Cross distribute 

meals post-Gustav. 

We have done a lot here. We have thousands of partnerships, 

particularly on shelters where we train a church, equip them, supply them, pay their bills after a disaster. That way, we make sure 

we are serving a very inclusive response; geographically and demographically, we are reaching everybody that we should. The best 

outcome is local people helping local people before the Red Cross 

brings large numbers of volunteers from all around the country in 

to respond. 

How is the sector coordinated or organized? The American Red 

Cross has a primary mission of disaster relief. There are eight 

other national nonprofits who don’t have a primary mission for disaster but who take a role and bring value in time of disaster. The 

new National Response Framework tasks the American Red Cross 

with integrating the efforts of the nine national nonprofits who deliver service and disaster relief, and we do that. We share information, and we plan service delivery. 

Locally, though, in over 3,000 counties, that organization is done 

in various ways. Sometimes the Red Cross coordinates other nonprofits. Sometimes the local emergency manager does. Sometimes 

another organization will. That is a local decision. And we receive 

great support from FEMA, who has people in each of its regions 

who help coordinate the voluntary sector as well. 

Addressing the GAO report, I would like to be very clear here. 

We have used the word in this hearing several times today: ‘‘overwhelmed.’’ What we are talking about is: are we ready—the Red 

Cross and our nonprofit partners—for a catastrophic event? That 

is not the California wildfires or Hurricanes Ike or Gustav or any 

of those disasters. I think we have demonstrated in those disasters 

our ability to respond and to respond well. 

Post-Katrina, the American Red Cross made significant efforts 

and investments to improve our capabilities. And part of that was 

to quantify our worst-case scenarios. Not necessarily disaster scenarios with large numbers of fatalities or casualties. Rather, we 

were looking at what scenarios would most stress our ability to 

feed, our ability to shelter, our ability to distribute supplies. And 

we picked six scenarios, as outlined in the report. 

So, for example, the most catastrophic thing that could hit New 

York was a hurricane, not in terms of number of fatalities or casualties, but in terms of demands on sheltering, demands on feeding. Another scenario was a terrorist attack here in the District, 

and we looked at other scenarios as well. We fed that information 

to FEMA as part of their gap analysis, but our internal data is 

what the GAO used in the report. 

For example, here in the District, you said we would need to 

shelter 300,000 people and we only have spaces for 13,000. I think 

what the report from the GAO might not recognize is, if something 

happens here in the District, the sheltering is not going to happen 

42 

here in the District. To your point, Madam Chairwoman, they are 

going to go to a multi-State area. And we have modeled this out. 

And we have 718,000 shelter spaces in the multi-State area around 

the District. And if we needed to add Pennsylvania, that would add 

another half-million shelter spaces. And, again, typically, we are 

only sheltering 5 to 10 percent of the people who evacuate. 

The bottom line: we obviously agree with the GAO assessment— 

it was our data that they used—that we are not ready for the worst 

things that we can imagine. We were trying to look at disasters 

that would make Hurricane Katrina look small, and those were the 

scenarios that we were working with. The Nation is not ready for 

disasters that would make Katrina look small, and the American 

Red Cross is not ready to deliver mass care on that type of scale. 

Our numbers show that we have a long way to go. 

But it is the nature of a catastrophic event that no one organization can handle it all and Government can’t handle it all, the Federal Government, nor the Red Cross, nor our partners. It is the collective capability of the country that we need to address and make 

sure is big enough for a catastrophic event. 

And, finally, Madam Chairwoman, my key issue, and it has been 

covered several times in this hearing: it is the money, where it 

comes from, and who pays for what in terms of nonprofit mass care 

service delivery. Our work is typically funded by people who give. 

And, typically, when Americans see a large-scale event, they are 

very generous in supporting nonprofit service delivery. Our recent 

experience has been different from that, however. We have had so 

many disasters, and in a tough economy we have been having trouble raising the cost of our relief effort. 

But it is one thing to ask a donor to pay for feeding and sheltering and caring of people. It is very different to ask Americans 

to pay for what it costs to be ready to respond to a disaster: for 

warehouses, for call centers, for recruiting volunteers, for training 

those volunteers. That is very, very hard. And the GAO report correctly states that nonprofits are an integral part of mass care. We 

are the service delivery. It is not a layer-on or a nice-to-have. We 

are who do that work. And if we falter, the Nation’s response will 

falter. 

The GAO report also correctly states that the Red Cross and its 

partners need to build greater capacity. We do, and we understand 

that. 

The GAO report, finally, correctly says that nonprofits are largely shut out of the grant process to build this capacity. While FEMA 

intends nonprofits to be eligible, we have to go through a county 

or State to receive grant money. And, frankly, they are the decision-makers as to whether we would be included in that grant process or not. 

A simple solution to this that I commend to your attention is to 

allow national nonprofits, particularly those with NRF responsibilities, to apply directly to FEMA for capacity-building grants. This 

is simple; this is relatively easy to do. It makes a lot of sense, and 

it would make a big difference. 

In closing, the Red Cross has built a lot of capacity in recent 

years, we have been repeatedly tested, and we have performed 

well. But there are catastrophes that we can imagine that will 

43 

make Ike and Gustav and all the recent events look very, very 

small. These will make Katrina look small by comparison. We can 

imagine these events, and we need to get ready. And, Chairwoman 

Norton, we appreciate your support. 

Thank you very much. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Becker. 

Let me start with Ms. Fagnoni. 

You indicate that the Red Cross and similar organizations would 

be overwhelmed, in the context of having to deliver services. Was 

the Red Cross overwhelmed in Katrina, for example, during 

Katrina? 

Ms. FAGNONI. We did issue reports after Hurricane Katrina that 

highlighted issues and problems that the nonprofit sector did encounter, including the Red Cross, and made some recommendations, both to the Red Cross as well as to FEMA, on how to make 

those improvements. 

I think the Red Cross would agree with me that Katrina really 

tested that sector and the Nation’s ability to respond to that kind 

of disaster in a way that they hadn’t really been tested before, in 

terms of the scale. 

Ms. NORTON. I know that the State was overwhelmed. I know 

that FEMA was overwhelmed. I am asking, in your view, was the 

Red Cross overwhelmed as well? 

Ms. FAGNONI. It definitely faced challenges, yes, and had difficulty—— 

Ms. NORTON. I am trying to find out what ′′overwhelmed′′ means 

in the context of service delivery. 

Ms. FAGNONI. What we were really looking at and what we were 

asked to look at by a number of the congressional requestors who 

asked us to do this work was to look at the catastrophic incident 

supplement; what would happen in a really major catastrophic 

event, Katrina or larger—— 

Ms. NORTON. And so, how do you define catastrophic incident? 

Ms. FAGNONI. For purposes of our report, we based it on the 

kinds of scenarios that had been developed by FEMA and by the 

Red Cross to look at a situation where there was widespread destruction, potentially large loss of life, significant communications 

destruction, really major—— 

Ms. NORTON. So would Katrina—— 

Ms. FAGNONI. Katrina or worse, yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Okay. We can’t even imagine worse. But I think 

Katrina gives you all you need to know to know about a catastrophic event. Although, Congress does not define—I guess that is 

left to the President. 

So I am trying to, given the scenarios you have looked at, to understand when would we know that the Red Cross was overwhelmed? When it didn’t have enough people to deliver the service, 

is that what you think is going to happen? I mean, after all, they 

only have the supplies that they have, and they usually come from 

the government. 

So I am trying to understand what makes you believe—whether 

there has been an event that made you understand that, based on 

their performance at that event, they were overwhelmed there, so 

they would certainly be overwhelmed in event of a catastrophic 

44 

event? Or whether you were looking at certain indicators to say, in 

the event of some scenario? 

Ms. FAGNONI. That is right; we were looking at the scenario 

planning. 

Ms. NORTON. As far as I am concerned, you have had the scenario. If Katrina wasn’t a scenario, then I don’t know what we are 

waiting for. Normally, we have to do these things by computers. 

There it was done for you. 

But go ahead. Was there a scenario that, for example, fed off of 

Katrina? 

Ms. FAGNONI. Yes, I believe there were scenarios that looked at 

hurricanes that were at least as large as Katrina. 

Ms. NORTON. Okay. So, in what way would they be overwhelmed? 

Ms. FAGNONI. We were looking specifically at the mass care 

pieces of the puzzle, which is where the voluntary sector really provides the services. And it was a combination of, in some cases, the 

capacity in terms of sheltering space, combined with the availability of trained—whether it is volunteers or staff—trained people 

to staff those facilities. 

For example, in New York City I believe, the Red Cross identified a lot of bed space, shelter space, something like 300,000. But 

what they also identified was a limited number of volunteers or 

staff who were trained to staff those shelters. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, who does the training? 

Ms. FAGNONI. The Red Cross does a lot of its training, and they 

also cross-train with other voluntary organizations. 

But what we also note in the report is that the local governments, in conjunction with the Red Cross, are planning and doing 

their own training. For example, New York City has plans to and 

is training its own city employees, so they can staff shelters in the 

event of, let’s say, a catastrophic occurrence. 

Ms. NORTON. That is unusual. So the training has to come from 

Red Cross or Red Cross volunteers. New York is a mega-city. 

Ms. FAGNONI. In Los Angeles, I understand that the Red Cross 

is helping train city employees there. 

Ms. NORTON. So do you believe that cities should be training city 

employees to assist the Red Cross so that it will not be overwhelmed? 

Ms. FAGNONI. I think the way New York City is approaching this 

is they have plans to staff up shelters initially, and then the plan 

is, in working with the Red Cross, that they could turn that capability over time to the Red Cross, but they would be able to step 

in to try to provide some surge capacity. 

Right now, for example, what you had in Katrina is there were 

a lot of entities that stepped up. There were places, as I think 

Mayor Nagin made reference to, where the Red Cross didn’t set up 

shelters and these, what were called, pop-up shelters emerged, 

where churches and other organizations would set up sheltering. 

But what we and others found is that the people who set those up 

were very well-intentioned but often didn’t really understand what 

they were getting into; didn’t have the training, didn’t understand 

all the things that go with trying to set up a shelter. 

45 

So I think people are learning from this and trying to understand. The voluntary sector, as important as it is, cannot do it 

alone and wouldn’t be expected to do it alone in a really large-scale 

disaster. So this kind of gap analysis and assessments that the Red 

Cross and FEMA have been doing we think are helpful in helping 

people understand what might be needed, and how these various 

entities that have responsibility can work together to provide the 

necessary capabilities—State, local, Federal, nonprofit, business 

sector, all of the different players. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Becker, how do you receive the suggestions 

that maybe city employees could be equipped to step in until Red 

Cross came or to assist the Red Cross in large cities, for example, 

or perhaps elsewhere? 

Mr. BECKER. Madam Chairwoman, we ask them to. That was our 

request of the city. 

I think what we have to be clear about is there are no-notice 

events, like earthquakes, where what we have there right then is 

all we have to respond with. And then, in the case of hurricanes, 

we can move thousands of people in before the storm hits, we can 

make sure we have all of our supplies. We were focused on the nonotice events, because I don’t want to take 3 days to get thousands 

of people brought into San Francisco after an earthquake. I want 

to have a lot right there. 

Ms. NORTON. So the city employees could be useful, is that what 

you are saying? 

Mr. BECKER. That is who we are training to help work with the 

Red Cross and shelters. 

Ms. NORTON. In how many cities is that happening? 

Mr. BECKER. I would have to get you that information. But we 

have gone to multiple States and asked them to pass legislation to 

free their workers up to become Red Cross workers. 

Ms. NORTON. I just think that is very important. When you talk 

about trouble in raising money and volunteers, I expect it to get 

worse, not better. You know what is on the Hill today and this 

week. So, as we think about where is the money, where are the 

people going to come from, I must say, Ms. Fagnoni’s notion, which 

you now say is something that you have been doing, has legs, as 

far as I am concerned. 

Now, you say that each State would have to, of course, indicate 

that its employees, while still employed I take it, could assist in the 

shelters. And so far, LA and New York—— 

Mr. BECKER. San Francisco. 

Ms. NORTON. —have done that. It does seem to me that that is 

an idea that the Federal Government should encourage, because I 

don’t know where more resources or more people are going to come 

from. 

Ms. Fagnoni, I am not sure what shelters you are talking about. 

You are talking about Red Cross shelters. Like, what is the Red 

Cross shelter in D.C.? 

Because, you know, there may be shelters that would not be, 

quote, ′′Red Cross shelters′′ that the city provides. So when you say 

the Red Cross doesn’t have the ability to shelter, I am not sure 

what sheltering you are specifically referring to. 

46 

Ms. FAGNONI. We used the available data we could get. And the 

data that were available—we used FEMA data for trying to estimate some of the need, and we used the Red Cross’s own internal 

data, as Mr. Becker mentioned—— 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Becker, in a place like D.C., I don’t know what 

she’s calling a Red Cross shelter. 

Mr. BECKER. Sure. Thank you for asking. We don’t own any 

buildings—— 

Ms. NORTON. That is right. So why is she assigning it to the Red 

Cross? Because there is a pre-existing agreement? 

Mr. BECKER. Correct. We have 50,000 buildings in this country 

that we have inspected and put into a database and know the capacity of that are ready to be shelters. And the issue here is who 

declares a shelter. The local emergency manager declares a shelter. 

I can’t take over a high school and say the gym is now a Red Cross 

shelter, but the local emergency manager can and does. 

So working within the county level or in the district level here, 

everyone knows what the buildings are that could be shelters. We 

have already identified them, we know where they are. Now, depending on the—— 

Ms. NORTON. And so, are there lots of people running shelters besides the Red Cross? 

Mr. BECKER. We are the primary shelter organization. Most communities turn sheltering over to the Red Cross. Most States turn 

sheltering over to the Red Cross. 

Ms. NORTON. Where would they be in D.C.? Do you know off the 

top of your head? Is it the Armory? 

Mr. BECKER. The Armory was one. That is where we put people 

during Katrina who came here. The Red Cross ran that shelter. 

Typically they are schools— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, if there was a catastrophic events—and she 

was addressing catastrophic events—many of these people might 

have need to go outside of the District. Perhaps you heard me give 

the Administrator 30 days to provide me with where residents in 

the District of Columbia, not part of a State, would go. 

Have you been involved with localities like the District, where 

people may not be able to be sheltered in the State, almost surely 

would not be sheltered within the State, and thus would find themselves on somebody else’s territory? How would that work? 

Mr. BECKER. We have modeled out, if we evacuated the District, 

where we think the people would go. Now, that is not a precise 

science, but we believe they would go to Maryland, Virginia, West 

Virginia and Delaware. 

Ms. NORTON. Does Maryland, West Virginia and Delaware know 

that? 

Mr. BECKER. I am sorry? 

Ms. NORTON. Do Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and Delaware know, ′′Here we come′′? 

Mr. BECKER. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. 

Ms. NORTON. And they are prepared with shelters to receive residents of the District of Columbia? 

Mr. BECKER. There are 1,821 shelters in those States that can 

handle 718,000 people. 

47 

Ms. NORTON. Now, they are prepared to receive out of State, and 

that is why, for example, Texas received people from Louisiana? 

Mr. BECKER. Sure. The American Red Cross’s job is to be on the 

receiving end and open up adequate shelters wherever the people 

evacuate to. So, during Gustav, we sheltered in 11 States. 

Ms. NORTON. So, wait a minute. The pre-existing agreement that 

this is a Red Cross-designated shelter goes not only for residents 

of that State, but whoever may need to come to use a shelter in 

that State? 

Mr. BECKER. One of the fundamental principals of the American 

Red Cross is that that shelter has to be open to anybody. 

Ms. NORTON. This is very important for the residents of the District of Columbia who know there is not enough room here to hear. 

Well, Ms. Fagnoni, don’t you think it was a little misleading to 

say that there are only 13,000 shelters available for the residents 

of the District of Columbia in a case of a mass casualty, since they 

would have been to evacuated almost surely to other States? 

Ms. FAGNONI. We were using the Red Cross’s data, and, actually, 

those data do include the surrounding counties. 

Ms. NORTON. 13,000? 

Ms. FAGNONI. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, wait a minute. Because have you Mr. Becker 

right here. Now, Ms. Fagnoni now says the 13,000 that could be 

sheltered includes not only the District of Columbia but the, quote, 

′′surrounding—— 

Mr. BECKER. Counties. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Counties, right. 

Ms. NORTON. Now, a mass shelter would mean perhaps as many 

as 150,000 people being evacuated. Where would they be sheltered? 

Mr. BECKER. I would suggest that if the District evacuated in a 

terrorist incident, they are not all going to go to Fairfax County 

and Montgomery County. It is not just a very close-in evacuation. 

Experience shows us that people disperse over a multi-State area. 

When Katrina hit, the American Red Cross sheltered in 26 States. 

That is where the people went. 

Ms. NORTON. So, Ms. Fagnoni, I understand why you looked at 

the—and I think a lot of people would head toward the nearest 

shelters. But I would hope—and that is what the Administrator is 

going to have to get me—that they would be directed, as they were 

in Katrina. Katrina didn’t take everybody to the closest shelter; 

they took people all the way to Arkansas and to D.C. 

Mr. BECKER. Right. 

Ms. NORTON. So they would apparently have to be directed. And 

if there was the kind of planning that I think is necessary, they 

would have to be directed to shelters where there are places to go, 

so that you wouldn’t crowd up on people who were closest here. 

I am just saying to GAO, you know, that could have raised 

alarms if we hear this, because the uninitiated think that that 

means there is no place else to go once you get past 13,000. 

You indicate, Mr. Becker, that there are capacity improvements. 

Ms. Fagnoni has noted that, since they were there, there have been 

some improvements. And you talk about—you, after all, are quite 

decentralized organizations; that is why you are so valuable. AgreeVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:56 Mar 31, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45365 JASON
48 

ments signed with 150 organizations at the local level. Is it the 

local level, the national level? 

Mr. BECKER. National level. 

Ms. NORTON. It is the national level. Okay. Since everything depends upon what is on the ground, who monitors these agreements 

to assure that the capacity levels are kept current? Because, as you 

say, there could be unexpected events, and a terrorist event would 

be just that. 

Mr. BECKER. Sure, it is one thing for us to have 150 national 

agreements. I would suggest the most important agreements we 

have are our local chapters with local organizations. And we have 

thousands of those, post-Katrina. 

The model here is we reach out to a church that might be in a 

difficult-to-serve part of the community or might speak a language 

we don’t speak or more better represent the community. And we 

ask them long before the disaster, can we train you, can we give 

you our cots, can we give you our blankets and supplies? And what 

really gets their attention is we say, can we pay your bills if you 

are willing to become part of this community’s disaster response? 

We don’t ask them to become part of the Red Cross; we ask them 

to become part of the community’s response. And those are the 

thousands of local arrangements that we have put in place. 

When Gustav hit Louisiana, we sheltered about 18,000 people in 

Louisiana on the second night, and a fourth of those shelters were 

those partner shelters. They weren’t all run by the American Red 

Cross. That was a good thing. We wanted—— 

Ms. NORTON. Do you think that shelter in northern Louisiana 

that a thousand poor people were shipped to was run by the Red 

Cross? 

Mr. BECKER. No, ma’am. That shelter was part of the evacuation 

strategy for the people who left New Orleans on buses, that, as the 

Admiral said, was controlled by the State. And the State chose to 

operate the shelters on the receiving end of the buses. So the 

State—— 

Ms. NORTON. Probably because there wasn’t any Red Cross shelter they could go to at that point? 

Mr. BECKER. I would suggest to you that if you look at the State 

of Louisiana, there are buildings that could handle 67,000 people. 

Ms. NORTON. That could handle 6,000 or 7,000 people? 

Mr. BECKER. In Louisiana, 67,000, almost 70,000. And we only 

had 18,000 people in our shelters the second night of Gustav. We 

had excess shelter capacity in Louisiana when Gustav hit, but part 

of the plan for the bus evacuation—the State was very concerned 

that they would know where the buses were going, and they wanted to be the ones on the receiving end to take care of them. And, 

frankly, Madam Chairwoman, made several attempts to offer our 

support for those shelters after the first night. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, wait a minute. You were on the receiving end. 

You are the service deliverer that Louisiana and everybody else is 

most accustomed to. Why did they decide to bypass the Red Cross 

shelters and go to a warehouse with a thousand people with no 

place to bathe and no privacy? Why would they have done that if 

you offered them shelters? 

49 

Mr. BECKER. There was a concern the storm was coming in on 

such a level—I mean, remember, it was a Category 4. 

Ms. NORTON. Were you too near the storm? 

Mr. BECKER. No. The issue was we all thought that we were 

going to fill our shelters up in Louisiana. That was a very distinct 

possibility. We did it during Katrina, and that we would be sheltering further away. And so the State made the decision to add 

shelters for the people who were bussed and that they would operate those shelters. 

Ms. NORTON. I see. So it was anticipated that you would have 

people coming to your shelters, and that did not occur. 

Mr. BECKER. Everybody who got in a car and evacuated themselves went to Red Cross shelters. What the State opened up were 

several buildings—— 

Ms. NORTON. But you were under capacity in the Red Cross shelter. If everybody went to the Red Cross shelter and you were under 

capacity, they thought that those shelters would be full? I see. 

Mr. BECKER. We were planning on the worst. You have to plan 

for the worst—— 

Ms. NORTON. I see. 

Mr. BECKER. —and we were all pleasantly surprised. 

Ms. NORTON. I see. 

Let me ask Ms. Fagnoni, we know that your report was in before 

Ike and Gustav, but if you look at Galveston, fairly catastrophic. 

We have seen problems with government, FEMA for example, getting supplies there. But when it came to distribution of supplies, 

the Red Cross is also involved in the point-of-delivery distribution 

with prepositioning of supplies. 

Is it your view that where the Red Cross has prepositioned supplies, I guess it is their responsibility to then get the supplies to 

their centers, that in a mass casualty they would have difficulty 

doing that? 

Ms. FAGNONI. You are right, we didn’t look specifically at Gustav 

for our report. But we do talk about some of the actions that the 

voluntary organizations have taken since Katrina to try to better 

deal with some of the logistical issues that came up. And, actually, 

I know the Red Cross and the Southern Baptist Convention tend 

to work together a lot, in terms of supply chains and 

prepositioning. And a number of these voluntary organizations 

have started prepositioning more supplies, putting global positioning systems in their equipment and things like that. So, in a 

general sense, they are trying to be responsive. 

But the scenario and to what extent the Red Cross is working 

in conjunction with others I think would depend on the specific scenario. They may or may not only be managing their own resources, 

they may also be working in conjunction with other voluntary organizations. 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, Mr. Becker, did you want to respond to that? 

Mr. BECKER. Thank you very much. 

The points of distribution that you heard the Admiral refer to 

and where we had some issues, those are different supplies. That 

is ice and water, which FEMA, through the Army Corps of Engineers, prepositions into a community to support people post-disaster. 

50 

We don’t typically receive our supplies from government. When 

we feed people, we buy that food or we get it donated. When we 

distribute rakes and shovels and clean-up kits and toiletry kits, we 

buy those or we get those donated. We don’t receive those from government. 

Sometimes on those PODs, or points of distribution, you will see 

Red Cross workers there, our volunteers, because there is just not 

enough people to hand things out, so we will give volunteers to 

local government. But those PODs are giving away ice and water 

and MREs from the military, frankly. That is a different supply 

chain than what we use to feed community, to shelter people, to 

distribute in communities. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I am sure Ms. Fagnoni would agree that the 

country regards the Red Cross as heroic in times of disaster. We 

don’t, by any means, assign to you all the mass care responsibility. 

After Katrina, we know that much of that responsibility would be 

beyond anybody, except the government, to help take care of. 

Indeed, Mr. Becker, you say that even with Gustav and Ike, Louisiana thought it would have to set up its own facility. And look 

what it did. It shows you that, when you are armatures at it, as 

the State clearly was if they put a thousand people in a warehouse 

with no bathing facilities, you are not likely to do it very well. 

So we are very, very concerned that the Red Cross continue to 

work closely. We understand the funding difficulty. You have heard 

me ask those questions. This is not an appropriation hearing. We 

are trying to find out how it works, following the GAO report. We 

recognize that the Red Cross is being put in an untenable position, 

but we think so is government. 

And one of the things we are going to have to figure out, as we 

become overwhelmed, is how to make sure the Red Cross, who has 

been doing it virtually by themselves as an agent of the government, but with volunteers, with donations, we are going to have to 

ask ourselves some tough questions, whether or not we can expect 

you to continue to do what you do. Yes, there is some Federal funding for certain kinds of missions, but we are going to have some 

tough questions to ask ourselves, particularly before any catastrophe strikes of the kind that is now unexpected. 

Your testimony, both the GAO report, has been helpful to us. I 

am sure it will be to Mr. Becker. 

And, certainly, Mr. Becker, the Red Cross is continuing activities 

essential to the United States of America. We want to thank you 

for it. We will continue to work with you. And your testimony has 

made us understand, as has the GAO report, how we as a Subcommittee have to proceed in order to make sure that FEMA works 

closely, even more closely, with the Red Cross to maximize its internal capacities and responsibilities. 

You have had your own problems. I am not going to ask you 

about your turnover and presidents and the like. Because it looks 

like when you get a problem, you try to then go to the next step 

and get a new manager. As long as you do that and you continue 

to do the kind of work you have been doing on the ground, all we 

can do is thank you. 

I thank both of you for very helpful testimony. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

51 

Mr. BECKER. Thank you. 

Ms. NORTON. And this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:00 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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