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ROUNDTABLE: ‘‘ANSWERING THE CALL: THE RESPONSE OF COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS TO THE 2005 GULF COAST HURRICANE’’

HEARING

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

EXAMINING THE RESPONSE OF COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS TO 

THE 2005 GULF COAST HURRICANES

MARCH 7, 2006

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming, Chairman 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

WILLIAM H. FRIST, Tennessee 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York

KATHERINE BRUNETT MCGUIRE, Staff Director 

J. MICHAEL MYERS, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS

TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 2006

Page

Enzi, Hon. Michael B., Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 

and Pensions, opening statement ....................................................................... 1

Wilkins, Kay, director, Southeast Louisiana Chapter for the American Red 

Cross ...................................................................................................................... 4

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5

Franklin, Almetra, executive director, St. Mary Community Action agency, 

Franklin, LA ......................................................................................................... 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 9

Bourg, Lorna, president and CEO, Southern Mutual Help Association, New 

Iberia, LA .............................................................................................................. 13

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14

Hazelwood, Tom, United Methodist Committee on Relief .................................... 16

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16

Gaddy, Rev. Dr. Welton, president, Interfaith Alliance ....................................... 18

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18

Nemitz, Craig, disaster services manager, America’s Second Harvest ............... 22

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 23

Wright, Jayne, director, Louisiana State Voluntary Organizations Active in 

Disaster and Head of the Food Bank of Central Louisiana ............................. 26

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27

Feltman, Heather, Lutheran Disaster Response .................................................. 29

Green, Thomas E. assistant director, Office of Community services, Little 

Rock, AR ............................................................................................................... 30

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31

Daroff, William, United Jewish Communities ...................................................... 32

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33

Harris, Tanya, lead organizer in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans 

for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now .................. 36

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 36

Hawks, Major Todd, national public affairs secretary and associate community relations secretary for the Salvation Army ................................................ 38

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38

Mahboob, Mostafa, Islamic Relief USA ................................................................. 41

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

Miller, Ande, executive director, National Voluntary Organizations Active 

in Disaster ............................................................................................................ 48

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 49

Fagnoni, Cynthia, director, Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues, 

Government Accountability Office (GAO) .......................................................... 64

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.: 

Response to question of the committee by Heather Feltman ....................... 30

Prepared statement of Senator Kennedy ........................................................ 74

National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) ................................................. 75

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ROUNDTABLE: ‘‘ANSWERING THE CALL: THE 

RESPONSE OF COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS TO THE 2005 GULF COAST HURRICANE’’

TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 2006

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, Washington, DC. 

The committee roundtable convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 

a.m., in room SD–430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Michael B. Enzi (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Enzi and Isakson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ENZI

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. 

I want to welcome all of you to the roundtable discussion on ‘‘Answering the Call: The Response of Community-Based Organizations 

to the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes.’’

I remember calls that Senator Kennedy and I were exchanging 

during the hurricanes, trying to figure out what would come under 

the responsibility of our committee and how we might be able to 

handle that, and we started with roundtables about 2 days after 

the hurricanes hit, and we had the education package together 

faster than any other committee had it together, and then we followed that quickly with the health package. But we watched in 

agony over the things that happened, and we have been following 

the progress, and in some cases lack of it, since that time and have 

been trying to figure out what we could do to make things better. 

I want to congratulate all of you and your organizations for the 

work and effort that you have put in. I want to particularly thank 

you for the testimonies that we received. I have been through it, 

and I appreciate the suggestions that were in there; they were very 

helpful and remind us of the work that you have ahead. 

Today the committee holds another in a series of hearings and 

roundtable discussions on the hurricanes that caused that devastation in the Gulf Coast region and our efforts to respond to the 

needs of those whose lives were forever changed by that catastrophe. 

Today’s roundtable will be taking a closer look at the role of community-based organizations in responding to the great needs of the 

region in the aftermath of these powerful storms. 

Today we are 6 months away from the destruction caused by the 

hurricane season and just a few months away from the next as the 

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committee continues to look back on the hurricanes and the destruction they caused. To ensure that we are better-prepared for 

the next challenge, we will be discussing the role of the communitybased organizations that came to the aid of the people of Louisiana, 

Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi. These organizations located in 

cities and towns all across the country took in many of the people 

who evacuated the region. 

In addition, millions of Americans donated their time and resources to these organizations so that those who were in need of 

assistance could receive it as soon as possible. 

I will never forget the trip that Senator Kennedy and I took with 

several of our colleagues to the New Orleans region the weekend 

after the storm had hit. The devastation that we saw there was unlike anything we had ever seen before. There is nothing to compare 

with the fury of Mother Nature. 

Fortunately, our community-based organizations were quick to 

act and an important part of the cure for what was wrong with the 

Gulf Coast region. All over the United States, people of every region wanted to know what they could do to help. More often than 

not, they turned to their community-based organizations to determine what could be done as a community to address so great a 

need. I know that people started sending things before things could 

even be received; everyone was eager to help. 

There are many accomplishments that these organizations have 

made that deserve our praise and appreciation for all they did to 

help so many. 

We will also look at what worked and did not work with regard 

to the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster. This is 

an organization with important responsibilities in the national response plan for facilitating communication among communitybased organizations and with the Government. 

As a former mayor and now, as a Senator from Wyoming, I have 

seen for myself the devastation that severe weather can bring a 

community. Last year, Wright, WY, a little town 38 miles south of 

Gillette, which is my home town, was hit by a tornado that did a 

lot of damage to the town. Plans to rebuild Wright have included 

support and cooperation on the local, State, and Federal level, 

much the same as will be required to continue to recover from the 

Gulf Coast tragedy. 

That is why we have brought together some of our Nation’s most 

experienced relief organizations. We are looking forward to hearing 

your suggestions as to what we should do next as we continue the 

reconstruction and recovery of the Gulf Coast region. We have no 

time to wait. Every minute is precious, as it brings us closer and 

closer to the 2006 hurricane season, which again is only a few 

months away. 

We could not have this roundtable without you, so let me thank 

all of you who took time from your schedules to be with us today. 

You will be the source of a lot of information; as I mentioned, you 

already have been with the statements that I have received. That 

will help to guide the committee’s efforts and provide a record of 

what happened during the hurricanes and since, as we begin work 

restoring and rebuilding what was lost. 

3

The committee will continue to follow events in the Gulf Coast 

region and work together to address the issues that demand our attention. 

I definitely want to thank the ranking member, Senator Kennedy, for his leadership and concern and active involvement in 

these issues and the early communication that he had with me and 

the cooperation that he always provides on all the issues. We have 

multiple hearings going on during the day, and of course, he has 

seniority on all of the committees that he is on, but he will be joining us later and will make an opening statement at that time. 

In the discussion, we have requested that participants confine 

their comments as briefly as possible, hopefully within 2 minutes. 

And you will not need to make an opening statement; your opening 

statement will be made a part of the record. 

I would also mention that if you don’t get a chance to express or 

rebut or whatever on any of the comments that are made, you can 

also submit comments afterward that will become a part of the 

record. We need your information, and that is why, instead of having a panel with three or four people on it and mercilessly raking 

them with questions, we invite in a lot of experts to get as many 

ideas as we possibly can. And we will keep the record open after 

the hearing is over so that additional comments can be made, and 

also so that Members of the Senate can ask additional questions 

after they and their staff have an opportunity to go over what you 

say today; and that helps us to clear up some of the other points 

so that we can get it as right as possible. Seldom is Federal legislation perfect, but I want you to know that we do our best. It is a 

difficult process. It is also a little frustrating—we usually know 

when we are going over a piece of legislation that there is somebody in the audience that knows a loophole to it, and they do not 

tell us about it until after they can take advantage of the loophole. 

So those who help us to cover loopholes, we really appreciate that. 

You have name tags in front of you. If anyone wishes to be recognized, stand it on end, and I have some people who will be helping 

me keep track of which ones go up and in what order. And again, 

I would appreciate it if you would limit your responses to 2 minutes so we can get as many responses as possible, and then you can 

expand on those in writing if you would like to. 

I will introduce the panel of participants, and people will be able 

to see what a wide variety of organizations we have. We are extremely fortunate today to have such a distinguished panel of 

peers. 

The participants are: William Daroff, from United Jewish Communities; Heather Feltman, from Lutheran Disaster Response; 

Tom Hazelwood, from the United Methodist Committee on Relief; 

Major Todd Hawks, the national public affairs secretary and associate community relations secretary for the Salvation Army; 

Mostafa Mahbood, from Islamic Relief USA; Andy Miller, executive 

director of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster; Craig Nemitz, disaster services manager to America’s Second 

Harvest; Kay Wilkins, director of the Southeast Louisiana Chapter 

of the American Red Cross; Jayne Wright, director of the Louisiana 

State Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster and head of the 

Food Bank of Central Louisiana. 

4

We also have with us Cynthia Fagnoni, director for education, 

workforce and income security issues at the Government Accountability Office. Ms. Fagnoni has been kind enough to bring her expertise to the roundtable and has agreed to serve as moderator 

should I be called away during the discussion—and we do have a 

vote that is coming up this morning, so I will have to be away for 

a few minutes. 

We also have Lorna Bourg, president and CEO of Southern Mutual Help Association in New Iberia, LA; Almetra Franklin, executive director of St. Mary Community Action Agency in Franklin, 

LA; Reverend Welton Gaddy, president of Interfaith Alliance; 

Thomas E. Green, assistant director of the Office of Community 

Services in Little Rock, AR; Tanya Harris, the lead organizer in the 

Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. 

To each and every one of you, welcome, and thank you for taking 

the time to be with us today. 

The question for the roundtable was outlined in the invitation 

letter you received. The question was: ‘‘What was the nature of 

your work in the areas affected by storms, and how did you coordinate that work with other charitable groups and local, State and 

Federal agencies, and how did it work?’’

What we are really looking for here is what were the solutions, 

what worked, what did not. Often, what did not work is of more 

help than what did work, because that is what needs to be worked 

on. 

Again, I would like to thank those of you who listed some specific 

changes. That was very helpful. And all of you will have a chance 

to add to what you said. Hopefully, this is almost a brainstorming 

session, so that ideas that other people have will help you to think 

of additional things that you can do. 

So, with the remaining time, I would like to open the floor to 

comments that you might have. 

Yes? 

KAY WILKINS, DIRECTOR, SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA CHAPTER 

FOR THE AMERICAN RED CROSS 

Ms. WILKINS. Thank you again for the opportunity to come and 

really tell our story. As you look around the table, you see a lot of 

faces and a lot of hands that actually helped with our Katrina response in Louisiana. 

On your question, what worked and what did not, I can tell you 

that what did not work actually helped us work a little bit better, 

and that was that once communications were down after Katrina, 

it was really important that we continue to rely on the networks 

and the connections that we had made before the hurricane season 

so that we could expect that help would be on the way. We knew 

the players. We knew what to expect from those players. 

We knew, for instance, that Second Harvest was going to be 

bringing us food; we knew that the VOAD agencies were going to 

be available once we could get through this. It was really just kind 

of keeping balls in the air, making sure for the American Red 

Cross that people were sheltered and fed until help could come. 

5

So those connections that we made pre-Katrina are what worked 

when the communication system failed. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wilkins follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KAY WILKINS

DEAR CHAIRMAN ENZI AND SENATOR KENNEDY: Thank you very much for the opportunity to meet with you in March as a participant in your roundtable discussions 

focusing on the community based organizations response to relief and reconstruction 

efforts in the Gulf Coast due to this past year’s hurricanes. I am looking forward 

to sharing lessons learned as well as gaining valuable information from my colleagues and your committee as together we plan and prepare for the 2006 hurricane 

season. I want to take this opportunity to also provide you with my personal statement. 

As Chief Executive Officer of the Southeast Louisiana Chapter of the American 

Red Cross for the past 6 years, and as its Emergency Services Director for 3 years 

prior to that, I have had the unique opportunity of being able to work with local, 

State and national partners during the past 9 years to develop and help implement 

preparedness measures in our chapter that helped lay the groundwork for the operations we began, and continue to support today, the American Red Cross’ response 

to Hurricane Katrina. 

About the American Red Cross 

For more than 124 years, the mission of the American Red Cross has been to help 

Americans prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. In 1905, Congress 

chartered the American Red Cross to provide a system of disaster response and to 

mitigate suffering caused by disaster. We continue to meet this mandate today. We 

have a long and proven track record of immediate response to major disasters, both 

natural and man made. In towns and cities across the United States, the more than 

800 chapters of the American Red Cross responded to more than 72,000 disasters 

in the past year, ranging from residential house fires to the devastating hurricanes 

that struck the Gulf Coast. 

Governed by volunteers and supported by community donations, the Red Cross is 

a network of more than 800 chapters, eight regional service areas, and 35 Blood 

Services regions dedicated to saving lives. The Red Cross provides a unique community-based network to support all-hazard preparedness in your districts, to your constituents, each and every day. As an integral member of the first response community with expertise in meeting the human needs associated with disasters, we are 

integrated into State and local government agency disaster planning exercises and 

response efforts. We partner with local, State, and Federal Government to provide 

emergency shelter, food, and health and mental health services as well as shortterm financial assistance to address basic human needs. 

While we are a single organization, I will limit my remarks following to my role 

as chief executive officer of one of these 800 chapters in our network, the Southeast 

Louisiana Chapter, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

My Experience Operating in the Gulf Coast 

As the winds of Hurricane Katrina were racing across Florida on Thursday, August 26, our chapter began preparations for the possibility of its landfall near the 

metropolitan New Orleans area. We staffed emergency operations centers (EOC) in 

the twelve parishes that comprise our chapter’s jurisdiction as they opened and 

began outlining our response with other community and governmental partners for 

the 1.2 million residents within this area. 

On Friday, August 27, the timbre of our conversations changed as the possibility 

that New Orleans could receive a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina was mentioned 

with increasing frequency. Our chapter began its rundown of checklist items—from 

making sure our disaster volunteers were both ready to help and aware of pre-set 

staging locations in the event of an evacuation, to making sure our own employees 

had prepared their homes and families for this threat. As the chief executive officer, 

I notified our board of directors of current plans. I also called our staff together on 

that Friday afternoon for what would be our last full staff meeting at our chapter 

headquarters, located on Canal Street in downtown New Orleans. During this meeting, I answered questions and advised our staff of the current situation with the 

storm, reminding each of us of our responsibility to open shelters pre-landfall and 

reviewing our Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP). (Our Southeast Louisiana 

Chapter’s COOP was developed to ensure that needed resources for business continuity were evacuated with our chapter when the likelihood of such an evacuation 

seemed imminent.) Once chapter staff had supplied our management team with 

6

weekend contact numbers, they were given the opportunity to leave early to prepare 

their homes and pack their bags. Each would be notified on Saturday should the 

hurricane’s path and threat dictate an activation of our COOP. 

On Saturday, August 28, after consultation with my Emergency Services director 

and my board chairman, I activated our chapter’s COOP. Hurricane Katrina was 

indeed heading toward our chapter area as a Category 5 storm, with winds of over 

150 miles per hour. Because the American Red Cross had long ago determined that 

no area below Interstate 12 in our chapter was safe from storm surge and flooding 

due to hurricanes, activating the COOP meant relocating our chapter to an area 

outside this ‘‘risk’’ zone. Our American Red Cross representatives at the EOCs in 

the ‘‘risk’’ areas met with their local emergency preparedness officials for the last 

time that Saturday morning and then traveled to our chapter’s staging site 35 miles 

north of New Orleans in Covington, Louisiana. I attended a press conference that 

afternoon with New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco 

as the recommended evacuation order was given to our citizens of the New Orleans 

area. At the end of the press conference, I spoke with both Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco and again reviewed our own evacuation plan for the northshore location. At 5:00 that afternoon, I turned off the lights to our building on Canal Street 

for the last time. 

Throughout the days during and following our Saturday evacuation to a safe site 

north of New Orleans, our chapter staff of 42 was called upon to perform what can 

only be described as Herculean tasks. We opened 26 shelters to persons seeking 

safety from the storm—shelters whose populations at times exceeded 5,000. Ever 

mindful that their own homes stood in the path of this deadly storm, my staff continued to man their stations, stretching resources to the max, knowing that each 

person who sought their hand in comfort was also lost in a shared fear of the unknown. Shelters originally designed to house 200 residents made room for 50–100 

more. While many of those who sought shelter with us before the storm hit came 

with supplies, hundreds more brought to us after the storm, arrived with nothing 

except that which could be hoisted on a rope into a boat or onto a helicopter from 

a rooftop. There were many ‘‘walking wounded’’ among our residents—and time and 

time again, that same Red Cross employee or volunteer who feared he or she had 

lost their own home in this storm, were the same individuals who offered a hand 

and a shoulder to someone less fortunate. 

For a short period of time, I was out of communication with my staff, only able 

to hear their stories from others’ accounts. This was perhaps the darkest time for 

me. Being responsible for the lives of 42 very dedicated persons who put their trust 

in my guidance—and not being able to reach out to touch them to make sure they 

were okay—was incredibly difficult. I worked night and day to ensure that resources 

were sent to each of our staff in the shelters they were operating, and I depended 

on the knowledge that our training and preparations which occurred before this 

storm would get us through the tough times. 

I was able to meet with our staff for the first time 5 days after Katrina. We all 

gathered under an old oak tree in northern Washington parish, about 70 miles from 

our chapter headquarters on Canal Street—but light-years away from our last staff 

meeting that fateful Friday afternoon. As I looked at the faces of the individuals 

who in my mind are the untold heroes of Katrina—those who held the hands of 

countless individuals whose own were shaking because of a storm with unheard of 

viciousness; those who provided comfort, shelter and security in a time when chaos 

ruled; and those who remained calm despite the uncertainties of their own homes 

and families—I looked into the very essence of what is good in our country, and I 

saw the untouchable spirit of the American Red Cross that drives someone to risk 

all they know and love to help their fellow man. I looked into a group of people who, 

for a brief moment in time, were able to give hope through the offer of hot food, 

shelter, an encouraging hand and an open heart. 

As I told our staff what I knew at that moment—of their homes flooded, of neighborhoods and communities they loved lost, of an era of innocence and safety we all 

knew vanquished—I also told them of my awe and respect for what each of them 

were able to accomplish in the face of unspeakable odds. I asked each of them to 

remember what happened here, and to never forget what we were able to overcome, 

as part of the American Red Cross . . . 

And then I told them help was on the way. 

Getting to that place was not accomplished alone—there were many partners, 

both governmental and community-based organizations who helped contribute to 

our success that day. And, as we mark the 6th month anniversary of a disaster 

called Katrina which has forever changed the path of our city, there are many other 

partners who continue to support our recovery and without whom we would be unable to take the significant steps toward becoming whole again. 

7

Allow me to highlight a few:

In late January 2004, our chapter convened a group of individuals who shared one 

common theme—an expressed need to find evacuation options for people with no 

transportation resources when an evacuation order was given due to an approaching 

hurricane. From an original group of about 40 to a nucleus of 10, we met weekly 

during this time until September 2004 to develop a grassroots plan that helped address that need. Named ‘‘Operation Brother’s Keeper’’ (OBK), the plan was simple. 

With the help of the faith communities, identify persons within the inner city faith 

congregations who had no transportation options during an evacuation; partner 

those same persons with congregation members who had space to offer for transportation out of the city; match this at-risk inner city congregation with a partner host 

congregation outside the risk area; train that host congregation to become a shelter 

for those in need; and, support that shelter as an American Red Cross shelter. A 

local foundation funded a grant for OBK and we officially began meeting with a defined set of expectations and outcomes in March 2005. While it is not the role of 

the American Red Cross to evacuate areas at risk, we had much to contribute. 

We were 5 months into the grant cycle and on target with defined expectations 

when Hurricane Katrina hit. While no concrete plans had been developed with individual congregations, we had been able to train community educators who would 

also help with congregational surveys and hurricane preparedness seminars. In addition, we had identified our first match of risk congregation and host congregation 

and were in the process of setting up shelter management training. 

In February 2005, our chapter met with the Louisiana State Police and the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security and Office of Emergency Preparedness to 

begin drafting a single map which could be used by all segments of the community 

and media for evacuation planning. Subsequent meetings involved our State’s Government relations chapter lead, the Louisiana Capital Area Chapter, and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LA DOTD). The result of 

this process was an all-hazards brochure that contained an evacuation map detailing the phased evacuation process for Louisiana’s coastal areas, including the 

contraflow system, which had been redesigned by LA DOTD and the State Police. 

The American Red Cross was able to contribute valuable preparedness information 

and provide a portion of the funding. An additional grant from the Department of 

Homeland Security and the LA DOTD allowed the printing of 1.5 million copies. 

During the months of July and August, prior to Hurricane Katrina, we were able 

to distribute nearly 1 million of these to residents of Southeast Louisiana. 

Many of these copies were distributed by our faith community to congregation 

members through Operation Brother’s Keeper. In addition, educational presentations were held in many venues to help our citizens understand the need to evacuate during a hurricane event and the critical need of preparedness. 

Being ready for any category hurricane or tropical storm is not something our 

chapter takes lightly. This past hurricane season was no exception. In the spring 

of 2005, we participated in the State’s Hurricane Pam exercise and used this participation as an opportunity to test our own volunteer and staff’s disaster readiness 

level. In June, we conducted our own disaster exercise, ‘‘Hurricane Mike,’’ a 12 parish simulated evacuation and disaster shelter response. Tropical Storm Cindy, 

which affected our area also in June, again tested our disaster volunteers and staff’s 

ability to respond quickly as we set up shelters in the affected portion of our chapter 

jurisdiction. Hurricane Dennis had our chapter once again packing our own evacuation boxes and preparing to evacuate from our downtown New Orleans location to 

a site 35 miles north of the city. By the time the evacuation order had been given 

for Hurricane Katrina, our chapter had experienced four evacuations since June. We 

felt prepared to meet the challenge. 

In hindsight, we did so exceedingly well. 

Coordinated Activities With Other Community-Based Organizations 

Disaster preparedness and response is not the sole responsibility of any one organization. It is the collective responsibility of the entire community and of each and 

every citizen. Hurricane Katrina brought that note home many times. In the months 

prior to Hurricane Katrina hitting our city, our chapter had met with many of our 

community partners to ensure a coordinated response during disasters. Collaborating with other organizations on response efforts is nothing new to our chapter. 

Before Hurricane Katrina changed the New Orleans area population, the Southeast 

Louisiana Chapter was the fourth busiest Red Cross disaster response chapter in 

the country—responding to a fire or other natural disaster every 8 hours. While our 

chapter was the only organization in the city to respond directly, we collaborated 

with other organizations active in disasters to help provide additional resources to 

those whose homes had been affected or destroyed. We had working memorandums 

8

of understanding (MOUs) with many of our social service providers to help provide 

additional resources of food, clothing, household furnishing and emotional support 

to those in need. With many of these community-based organizations, we were able 

to leverage our assessment of damage to help increase the services provided to one 

of our clients. 

In the days prior to Katrina hitting our area, our chapter met with the local agency that administers 2-1-1 to review our chapter’s disaster evacuation plans. We provided this agency with preparedness information so that those who called this help 

line would understand how to access evacuation information. In addition, we met 

with our local food bank, Second Harvesters, to review our current MOU and identify additional ways we could work jointly in the event of a large scale disaster. We 

spoke to other community partners—United Ways (of which five are located in our 

chapter area), Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, the Southern Baptists and, of important note, to our governmental leaders and partners—including the Mayor of 

New Orleans and Parish Presidents of many of the other 11 parishes our chapter 

is responsible for. In each of the conversations, we reiterated our own evacuation 

plan for our chapter and our commitment to the people of the communities we serve. 

In the days and weeks following Hurricane Katrina and subsequently Hurricane 

Rita, these conversations helped lay the basic foundations of our disaster response. 

We are still working with all of our community partners today as we continue to 

feed more than 7,000 hot meals each day in the Southeast Louisiana Chapter area 

and provide bulk distribution of clean-up and basic household items. We have been 

the recipient of many volunteers and donated goods from these organizations—all 

of us united by one common goal . . . to help our community recover. 

Preparing for the 2006 Hurricane Season 

Each week, our chapter plays host to a group of non-profit agency executive directors who meet to help define community needs and build collaboratives to address 

those needs. Each week, we take steps to prepare our agencies, our employees and 

constituencies, and our communities for this year’s hurricane season. 

This is a unique season—for many reasons. 

Many of those who have moved back into our area now live in a trailer and have 

given very little thought of evacuation planning. Our chapter is seeking to address 

that now by going into areas with a large number of trailers (either in villages or 

on the front lawns) and distributing informational brochures on hurricane safety. 

By creating ‘‘safe neighbor networks,’’ we hope to define steps families can take to 

be prepared for this hurricane season. 

With the condition of our levee system still very much in question, and the coastal 

erosion that occurred as a result of this past season’s hurricanes, it is critical that 

the residents in these vulnerable areas develop an evacuation plan and be ready to 

put that plan into action at an earlier stage than ever before. Tropical storms that 

used to send us into our homes for safe shelter will now send us seeking safety out 

of the area—from a physical well-being standpoint as well as an emotional stability 

standpoint. 

Our citizens’ sense of security has been shaken to its core by Mother Nature. 

When evidence of her ability to turn our world upside down once again is presented, 

nerves will be on edge. We continue to work with our mental health professionals 

to find ways to help our communities cope with the emotional traumas this year’s 

season may bring, engendering yet another opportunity for us to partner with newer 

community based organizations, such as Louisiana’s Spirit. 

It is critical to continue work in the community around Operation Brothers Keeper. We know this is a grassroots effort for evacuation planning that can work—and 

did to some extent during Hurricane Katrina. We have begun meeting with our 

OBK table of original partners and are inviting others to join us as we define the 

obstacles to evacuation planning for those with no transportation resources, utilizing 

community based solutions. The faith community performed exceptionally in response to Hurricane Katrina, and we are honored to partner with these individuals 

and congregations to attack a problem that has no easy answer. Bi-weekly meetings 

with this group continue. 

As we move into the hurricane season this year, our chapter continues to work 

with our national organization to identify lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina 

and implement changes that will improve our overall preparedness. These lessons 

are the ones taken from the stories of the families who lived through the nightmare 

of Katrina and from those who did not. 

9

Our responsibility to the American people is to make sure they are heard . . . 

and heeded. Again, thank you for your invitation. I look forward to meeting with 

you on March 7th. 

Sincerely, 

KAY W. WILKINS, 

Chief Executive Officer, 

Southeast Louisiana Chapter American Red Cross. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

ALMETRA FRANKLIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ST. MARY 

COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY, FRANKLIN, LA 

Ms. FRANKLIN. I just want to expand a little further on that. 

That was the same situation in our community, which is very 

rural. We had those partnerships in place already, and it really 

worked for us in that we established who would do what early on. 

As soon as the people started coming in, we met with local government, our mayor designated the CSBG unit, the Community Action 

Agency, as the first responder. So we were able to assign everybody 

their roles and responsibilities, and that way, things moved quickly 

for us and moved smoothly for us. 

But some of the kinks that we had—the organizations that we 

were looking to provide us with the resources were not there as 

early on as we had hoped, but because those partnerships were in 

place, we were able to move and assist our clients quickly. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Franklin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ALMETRA FRANKLIN

Organizational Information 

St. Mary Community Action Committee Association, Inc. is a 501(c) 3 tax-exempt, 

human service organization that has effectively served as a non-profit instrument 

for the delivery of quality human services to low-income residents of St. Mary since 

1967. In recent years, the agency has developed presences in Vermilion Parish via 

its Head Start program and Assumption Parish via its Louisiana Partners in Prevention program. Currently the agency employs 329 people in full- and part-time 

capacities. 

ST. MARY COMMUNITY ACTION COMMITTEE ASSOCIATION, INC. MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of St. Mary Community Action Agency is to alleviate poverty for 

low-income citizens through strategic planning and implementation of projects 

and services that will strengthen, promote quality, renew, and guide families 

into self-sufficiency.

St. Mary/Vermilion Community Action Agency/Head Start currently operates 52 

social service programs with funding from Federal, State, and local levels, as well 

as from philanthropic organizations. It is governed by a tri-part board of 21 members representing the public, private and target sectors of the community. St. Mary 

Community Action Agency has five departments: Administrative, Fiscal, Head Start, 

Housing, and Special Services. The Head Start department operates 16 centers; 14 

of which it owns. A sampling of programs and services offered by the agency include 

child development, literacy training, education, substance abuse prevention, violence 

prevention, employment training, transportation, housing counseling for renters, 

homeowners and prospective homeowners, homeless shelters, weatherization assistance, economic development (Revolving Loan program), emergency assistance, 

money-management assistance, USDA commodity distribution, elderly feedings, and 

utility assistance. 

The largest of the agency’s five departments, St. Mary/Vermilion Head Start 

serves two economically depressed parishes with a combined population of nearly 

110,000. The percentage of employment in St. Mary and Vermilion parishes is approximately 8 percent lower than the national average. See table below for further 

demographic data on St. Mary and Vermilion Parishes. 

10

3 2000 US Census. http://factfinder.census.gov. 

4On file in database at St. Mary Community Action Agency, 2005, Franklin, LA. Figure 3. 

Map of Coastal Louisiana. http//images.google.com.

ST. MARY COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• HUD—Best Practice for Developing a Multi-Family Unit (Sparrow Gardens); 

• National Head Start Association—Outstanding Grantee Award; 

• Faith Place—15 newly constructed single-family subdivision; 

• Certified Housing Counseling Agency; 

• Certified Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO); 

• Welfare to Work—trained and found employment for 629 residents of Iberia, St. 

Mary and lower St. Martin Parishes (60 percent are still employed!); 

• Only Robert Wood Johnson Free-To-Grow site in Louisiana; 

• 95 percent of Head Start teachers have acquired college degrees through our 

Staff Development Program; 

• Cars For A Cause transportation model successfully placed 45 households in 

cars. (All 45 households met program standards and now have clear vehicle titles.)

Figure 1. Map of St. Mary Parish, Highlighted. http://www.answers.com/topic/stmary-parish-louisiana. 

Figure 2. Map of Vermilion Parish, Highlighted. http://www.answers.com/topic/

vermilion-parish-louisiana.

Census Category St. Mary Parish 1 Vermilion Parish 2

Population ........................................................................................................................... 52,833 53,807

Under 5 years ...................................................................................................................... 3,965 3,830

Families Below Poverty Level .............................................................................................. 2,903 2,523

Median Household Income in 1999 (dollars) ..................................................................... $28,072 $29,500

Families Below Poverty Level With Related Children Under 5 Years of Age (1999) ......... 1,076 886

In Labor Force (population 16 years and over) [percentage] ............................................ 55.9% 56.1%

1 St. Mary Parish 2000 Census Information. http://factfinder.census.gov. 

2 Vermilion Parish 2000 Census Information. http://factfinder.census.gov. 

Problem 

St. Mary Parish was the first fully functioning parish on Highway 90 West from 

New Orleans. Therefore the parish experienced a great initial influx of evacuees immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina. Franklin, the city in which St. Mary 

Community Action Agency’s Central Office is located, had a pre-Katrina population 

of approximately 8,354.3 In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, St. Mary Community Action Agency staff processed disaster relief applications that accounted for 

3,100 people seeking shelter in St. Mary Parish.4 This influx of refugees caused a 

5.8 percent increase in the population of St. Mary Parish. 


26611-9.eps
11

Immediately after Hurricane Katrina struck, St. Mary Community Action Agency 

banned together with many organizations, businesses, churches and private citizens 

to help those refugees that have arrived in the communities of St. Mary and 

Vermilion Parishes. Every department in the agency has experienced a remarkable 

increase in its workload in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. St. Mary Community Action Agency response to this crisis included:

• Increasing the hours of operation. 

• Distributing items donated by Community Action Partnership members from 

over 30 States. 

• Acting as the point of entry for the St. Mary Parish relief system. 

• Processing disaster applications for the refugees and developing a database. 

• Referring clients to other partners in the St. Mary Parish relief system. 

• Providing clients with a city map; list of other relief venues, relief referral tickets. 

• Making counseling available to evacuees in the shelters. 

• Serving as a warehouse for disaster relief supplies (Central Office Site). 

• Assisting with the FEMA, Red Cross, and Food Stamp application processes. 

• Utilizing Tweety Bird and Goldilocks Head Start centers as shelters. 

• Providing Low Income Home Energy Assistance to hurricane-impacted clients. 

• Employing funds received from the National Head Start Association for costs 

associated with the evacuees’ temporary housing expenses. 

• Preparing and serving hot meals to evacuees. 

• Hosting a delegation of medical staff, counselors and spiritual advisors from 

California. 

• Hosting child behavioral specialist Charlie Jury and Michele Scalzo of CenClear Child Services, Inc. of Clearfield, Pennsylvania. 

• Sponsoring the Adopt-An-Evacuee program (23 families adopted). 

• Hiring displaced evacuees from the New Orleans area (several are still employed by the agency). 

• Accepting 105 Head Start age children into the classroom in both St. Mary and 

Vermilion Parishes. 

• Nearly 6 months after Hurricane Katrina, assisting those still displaced in St. 

Mary Parish with rent, fuel passes, medical prescriptions and other needs determined at the time of interview.


26611-10.eps
12

5Definition of metropolitan area. http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/

aboutmetro.html. Figure 6. Clients wait outside St. Mary Community Action Agency’s Central 

Office Site for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Assistance.

Figure 4. Caseworkers assist refugees at St. Mary Community Action Agency’s Central Office Site. 

Figure 5. Employees unload relief supplies sent by Community Action Organizations 

from Ohio.

Weeks after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita arrived, the refugees housed in St. 

Mary and Vermilion Parishes are attempting to negotiate new lives in these rural 

communities. Neither St. Mary Parish nor Vermilion Parish has any metropolitan 

areas—at least one urbanized area of 50,000 or more inhabitants.5 The communities 

in these two parishes, like many other rural communities that are hosting refugees, 

are finding it very difficult to absorb the population surge. 

A large percentage of the housing stock is either inhabited or substandard. Rural 

communities do not have parking garages. Street congestion is on the rise. Local 

grocery stores do not have the storage space to stock enough items that correspond 

to the population growth. Locals must drive to other communities to find grocery 

items. Households are bursting at the seams with relatives and friends from the affected areas. Like most gas stations in the region, rural gas stations in St. Mary 

and Vermilion Parishes exhaust their inventory more rapidly than normal. At the 

time of writing, the St. Mary Parish School Board has accepted 844 new students 

into the public school system. 


26611-11.eps 26611-12.eps
13

Some of the agency’s partners in the relief effort are:

• Local Churches; 

• St. Mary Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness; 

• St. Mary Parish Office of Family Support; 

• National Head Start Association Members; 

• City of Franklin; 

• Franklin Fire Department; 

• St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Department; 

• Bayou Teche Community Health Network; 

• St. Mary Parish Medicaid Office; 

• Acadiana Works; 

• Teche Action Clinic; 

• Fournet’s Pharmacy; 

• Discovery Daycare; 

• Chitimacha Fire Protection; 

• St. Mark’s Lodge #25; 

• Office of Dr. Donna Tesi; 

• The Banner-Tribune; 

• KBZE 105.9 FM; 

• Community Action Partnership Members; 

• Highland County Community Action Organization (Ohio); 

• Lima/Allen Council on Community Affairs, Inc. (Ohio); 

• Community Action Organization of Scioto County, Inc. (Ohio); 

• Relief on Wheels; 

• Columbian Chemicals Company; 

• Church of God in Christ (California); 

• St. Mary Parish Government; 

• Senator Butch Gautreaux; 

• Representative Karla Dartez; 

• Representative Jack Smith; 

• Senator Nick Gautreaux; 

• Boys & Girls Club; 

• London Grove Township, Pennsylvania. 

To date, St. Mary Community Action Agency has served over 5,000 victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita from over 50 communities from 

Franklin, Louisiana to Biloxi, Mississippi. 

The Future 

How can we respond more effectively during future hurricane seasons? Coordination is needed both within and between agencies. So many questions need to be answered. Learning from the crisis particular to New Orleans, we feel that chains of 

command need to be established and shared. Emergency coalitions need to be 

formed (building on and learning from) the coalition formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Phone trees need to be created and shared. The basis of what 

needs to be done revolves around establishing thorough plans of who needs 

to do what when and for every agency (including every employee) to know 

its own role in the wake of a disaster.

Once these plans have been created they need to be distributed to each agency, 

to the State, published in the newspaper and made available on the web. After a 

1 month disaster plan publication/training period, disaster drills need to occur every 

3 months. After each drill evaluations should be made and each entity scored on 

its effectiveness. 

These results should be made public. The code word for a disaster plan should 

be cohesiveness. Good deeds done by one person or agency will certainly help in the 

wake of a disaster. Cohesiveness at every level will help tremendously.

LORNA BOURG, PRESIDENT AND CEO, SOUTHERN MUTUAL 

HELP ASSOCIATION, NEW IBERIA, LA 

Ms. BOURG. I very much want to build on what you said initially, 

Kay, that the networks that existed before the disaster were critical. So what we need to spend as a Nation, making sure that the 

infrastructure of Community Development Corporations and their 

connection to philanthropy at its best are in place before disasters 

occur. 

14

In some of the statements that I submitted, Senator, there is discussion about several policies that would really be helpful. One is 

FEMA working through that network of banks, philanthropic, and 

Community Development Corporations that are on the ground and 

have the community capital, the knowledge, to know who is in the 

community and who needs help. 

In the rural areas, we are used to getting ‘‘least and last’’ of everything, and that is still happening. We are still arriving in rural 

communities in 11 parishes and counties and finding 80-year-old 

women sitting under a carport, trying to drag out moldy furniture, 

and no one there to help. 

So even today, there is just nothing there. If it had not been for 

philanthropy at its best, like the Heron Foundation, the MacArthur 

Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation—Oxfam America was fantastic, and so was Rural LISC, Local Initiative Support Corporation. They pulled experts together, people from the tsunami region, 

and brought them together to instruct me so that I could go back, 

and we created the Rural Recovery Response, and so far, we have 

done almost 200 homes with another 200 getting ready to be 

worked on—and that without a single dollar of government money. 

So it was philanthropy at its best and the networks between that 

philanthropy and the Community Development Corporations that 

was extraordinarily helpful. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bourg follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LORNA BOURG

Mr. Chairman, ranking member and members of the committee, thank you for 

your interest, leadership and commitment to community-based organizations and 

their role in recovery from the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. I want to tell you the 

untold story of Hurricane Rita and its devastating impact on rural Louisiana and 

how we can do better in our response as a Nation. 

As President and Executive Director of Southern Mutual Help Association, Inc. 

(SMHA, a 501(c) not-for-profit community development corporation), based in New 

Iberia, Louisiana, I had the opportunity and duty to SMHA’s mission of creating 

healthy, prosperous rural communities to see first hand what had happened to our 

beloved Louisiana. 

There are three important points I wish to make as a result: 

1. Outside of the levee breaks, most rural Louisiana residents could recover with 

some normal assistance from Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Rita, coming only weeks 

later caused devastation of biblical proportions. As a lifelong resident of Louisiana, 

having experienced many terrible hurricanes, nothing comes close to the scale and 

scope of Hurricane Rita’s devastation of rural Louisiana. 

After traveling extensively to Louisiana rural communities, villages, settlements, 

towns and cities, the SMHA team believes there are nearly 200,000 homes, facilities 

and businesses that are destroyed or inundated (not counting in New Orleans). The 

power of tsunami-like waves obliterated whole parishes (counties) leaving little evidence that structures existed. The marsh-mud liquid mixture inundated nearly 

every structure as well as agricultural lands all along coastal Louisiana. 

After 40 years in rural community development, I can tell you it’s difficult to find 

any words that convey the geographic scale and depth of trauma and turmoil Louisiana’s rural communities are experiencing. You must see for yourself. I invite you to 

do so. 

2. The failure of Federal policy, understanding, leadership and response even 

until this date is a gross negligence and, as one visiting film maker stated to me 

recently, ‘‘borders on criminality.’’

• As a Nation we must have the capacity to respond in a timely manner to enormous disasters within our borders. We do not now have such capacity. I’ll recommend how we can do better. 

• As a Nation we must be able to generate the resources for immediate and full 

recovery from such a level of devastation. We do not now generate such needed, expected and deserved resources. I’ll recommend how we can do better. 

15

• America must have a level of policy and leadership equal to the level of response required. We have not yet seen such policy or leadership. I’ll recommend how 

we can do better. 

Failure to understand, structure bold policy and lead Americans to a timely and 

full recovery in this natural disaster telegraphs to our enemies that we are unprepared to deal with a recovery from a man-made disaster. It is a huge crack in America’s homeland security. 

3. As a Nation we can and must do better. 

Southern Mutual Help Association recommends the following:

• First, pre-disaster preparation must be more strategic to achieve timely response in the face of such a national disaster. We need to use existing resources 

in local communities and in geographic regions. Federal dollars for relief, recovery 

and redevelopment must flow quickly to affected States. Pre-disaster selection, 

training, bonding and certification of local not-for-profit community development 

corporations (CDC’s), financial institutions, first responders and relief organizations 

can accomplish a more timely response. 

These entities have community social capital and intelligence to quickly determine 

who was impacted and to what extent. Recovery dollars could be quickly transferred 

electronically to banking institutions within States and disbursed to support first responders, relief organizations and CDC’s. This would minimize non-sensical and 

seemingly arbitrary cash assistance. FEMA temporary shelter units could be distributed with more community-based intelligence. (Currently in Iberia Parish large 

numbers of FEMA trailers sit idly at the airport while locally, hundreds of families 

are in desperate need of such shelter assistance on their own land.) 

A strategy of ‘‘down-to-the-closest-local-community’’ distribution of resources creates 

the national infrastructure to respond in a more timely manner. Having such predisaster strategy in each region in America allows needed resources closest to an affected area to be delivered most quickly. 

• Second, no new bureaucracies need be created to achieve a level of policy and 

leadership equal to such a national disaster. 

Americans have always responded with generosity to disasters. Just witness the 

volunteers from across our Nation who are in Louisiana to help us, the fundraisers 

and checks from adults, children, churches, foundations, colleges and corporations. 

Yet it is not nearly enough. 

I remember my grandmother telling me about the war bonds everyone bought in 

World War II. Some, in a sense of patriotism, never even cashed them, they were 

so proud to be a part of such a noble effort. 

Congress needs to establish a National Disaster Recovery Bond giving Americans a structured way to express their generosity beyond writing a check to the 

charity of their choice. 

The billions of dollars generated could be used to retire home mortgages and business debt for which collateral no longer exists. This preserves the integrity of our 

financial institutions, prevents defaults and credit debacle. The refinanced rebuilding spurs the local economy. Refinancing packages could carry a small monthly fee 

or premium to pay interest to bond-holders. It takes vision and leadership to use 

a national disaster to call on all Americans to invest in rebuilding better than before 

so America’s enemies will not perceive us as weak and ineffectual. A National Disaster Recovery Bond could be used for any natural or man-made disaster and 

would be part of America’s first line of defense and national security. 

• Third, both political parties and our President have voiced belief in America as 

an ownership society. Using the Gulf Zone area (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida) to model a true Homeownership Tax Credit would incentivize investment in the re-building of so many lost homes. Congress and the President need 

to seize this unique opportunity.

Finally, SMHA wants you to know that over 5 months later our organization is 

often the first and only responder helping rural Louisiana clean out, de-construct 

and begin reconstruction. Without the quick and un-bureaucratic help from national 

foundations such as W.K. Kellogg, F.B. Heron, Mary Reynolds Babcock, Jesse Smith 

Noyes, Fannie Mae, MacArthur, Needmore, Flora, Associated Black Charities, community trusts such as N.Y. Community Trust, partners such as Oxfam America, the 

Union for Reformed Judaism, Farm Aid and intermediaries such as Rural Local Initiatives Support Corporation and volunteers from colleges and universities such as 

Colgate, Berea, Warren Wilson, and church groups such as The Mennonite Disaster 

Service, The Amish, Unitarians, United Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholic congregations of religious women such as the Sisters of Providence, the Volunteers of 

America and the rural network of CDC’s especially that led by Jim Upchurch, and 

the many generous individuals across America who contributed—none of SMHA’s 

16

Rural Recovery Response would have been possible. With their help SMHA has 150 

homes and businesses repaired or in process of repair. There are tens of thousands 

of homes, facilities and businesses left to repair or rebuild. We count on your leadership and policy for a full recovery. 

To learn more about Southern Mutual Help and the Rural Recovery Response, 

please go to www.SouthernMutualHelp.org.

Ms. FRANKLIN. One of the things that I would like to say is that 

the faith-based organizations played a key role in the work that we 

were doing in that the churches act as shelters; we act as a clearinghouse making referrals to the churches. But all of the churches 

beyond denominations stepped up to the plate to make sure that 

the community-based groups and the churches worked together. All 

together in our community, we served 5,100 households that came 

through our network and through our databank. But through the 

CSBG Unit, and through the other community-based organizations, 

and through the faith-based groups, that is how we were able to 

successfully do the work that we did. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hazelwood. 

TOM HAZELWOOD, UNITED METHODIST COMMITTEE ON 

RELIEF 

Mr. HAZELWOOD. I want to say a word of thanks, I think, in some 

ways, for all of the criticism that has been out there toward FEMA 

and that seems to be very abundant. 

One thing I want to say is that the FEMA people that we work 

with on the ground, in the States, down in the areas where they 

are affected are most effective, and they do a wonderful job, particularly as the Voluntary Agency Liaisons who have spent years 

building these relationships, who knew each of us, have done a 

good job of helping us coordinate in our response. 

So I want to say that all is not negative that we hear about that. 

One of the other thing that I want to bring to your attention that 

I did not write in my statement was that as people were being 

sheltered—in particular I am thinking about in Texas, the Katrina 

victims that were in Houston and actually, all over the State of 

Texas—the Red Cross shelters were overwhelmed and many of the 

others, so that many of our churches opened their doors as shelters. And one of the things that happened for us as we opened shelters was that we found that we were housing persons with disabilities. I think there has been a woeful lack of preparedness in being 

able to handle persons with disabilities. As we have worked into 

the future on the response, we are working with the National Disabilities Rights Network to build those relationships. 

But I think that remembering persons with disabilities also 

needs to be thought about as we are thinking about sheltering and 

moving people. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hazelwood follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TOM HAZELWOOD

In the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina, UMCOR sent staff and consultants to Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Our purpose was to connect the national response agency to the local United Methodist response as well as Federal 

and State responses. Contacts were made with local disaster response coordinators, 

judicatory leaders, FEMA Voluntary Agency Liaisons, and local response agencies. 

Daily calls hosted by National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster 

(NVOAD) enabled UMCOR to know and coordinate ongoing activities with those of 

17

other response agencies. Separate calls hosted by Church World Service (CWS) enabled the faith-based organizations to coordinate their response. These calls were 

particularly helpful in the distribution of material resources. 

Within a few days, UMCOR placed persons in the FEMA Joint Field Offices (JFO) 

in MS and LA. These persons were engaged in the ongoing meetings and dialogue 

between Federal, State and local response organizations/agencies. 

In the MS JFO, UMCOR was also participating in meetings of the Joint Housing 

Command, where solutions for the many displaced families were being discussed. 

Because of UMCOR’s experience in setting up and running refugee camps internationally and providing case management leadership and training in the United 

States, we were asked by the FEMA staff in the JFO to write a proposal for work 

in MS. 

It has been evident from the earliest part of the response to Katrina and then 

Rita that while the FEMA staff on the ground are very well aware of the work of 

voluntary agencies and the tremendous resources they bring to response, the FEMA 

staff at the highest levels have no understanding or appreciation of the voluntary 

sector. 

It was at the urging of the long-time FEMA employees that UMCOR changed its 

proposal from only serving MS to one presented in conjunction with National VOAD 

for a consortium of case management agencies to be formed to work on a national 

scale. The lack of understanding at the highest levels was made evident by the repeated number of conference calls, answering questions, writing papers all to explain over and over what disaster case management is. 

The lack of awareness extended to other Government Agencies. The offices of faith 

based and community initiatives in the Departments of Health and Human Services 

and Housing and Urban Development and the Veterans Administration began dialogue with the White House’s Office of Faith Based Initiatives and developed a plan 

using refugee resettlement as its frame of reference. When members of the National 

VOAD tried to make these two entities aware of the already existing faith-based disaster programs, there was little to no willingness to even invite those disaster organizations to be in the conversation. I personally could not get an invitation to attend 

the meetings even after pointedly asking to attend. 

After UMCOR/National VOAD had been awarded a $66 million grant to provide 

long-term disaster case management for individuals and families affected by Hurricane Katrina, the leadership of FEMA continued to miscommunicate the intended 

result of the grant by sending notices that the grant would solve the Katrina hotel 

housing crises that FEMA was facing. 

I was in the FEMA offices in Washington, D.C. dozens of times in the weeks and 

months following Hurricane Katrina. Several times I either tried or made appointments to see FEMA Recovery Director David Garratt and FEMA Director David 

Paulison in order to discuss UMCOR’s long-term recovery case management plans 

specifically and the involvement of voluntary agencies generally. Each time I would 

either be shuffled off to someone else or brushed off due to ‘‘lack of time.’’

Finally after meeting with FEMA staff in the Recovery Division a meeting with 

Garratt and Paulison was scheduled for Feb. 9, 2006. When the National VOAD 

leadership arrived for the meeting, Dave Garratt met us with the apology that another meeting had come up and he would not be able to participate in our meeting. 

As we met with Paulison, he made clear his lack of knowledge of the voluntary 

agencies by repeatedly telling the group that they needed to ‘‘step up to the plate.’’

The lack of consideration by Garratt to attend and the utter lack of preparation 

or care by Paulison in the meeting with National VOAD leadership gives a clear 

indication of the disconnect between the leadership at FEMA and the people, and 

organizations on the ground that provide relief in disasters. 

An article published on Feb. 27, 2006 by The Washington Post reports that the 

voluntary sector has raised over $3.27 billion. Of that, over $2 billion has already 

been disbursed. It is clear that the voluntary sector has ‘‘stepped up to the plate.’’

Observations on What Can Be Done to Better Coordinate Relief and Reconstruction Efforts 

• Faith-based and voluntary organizations have expended a great deal of effort 

to build relationships with each other before disasters occur. Federal and State officials could learn from the voluntary sector that in the midst of a disaster is not the 

time to build relationships. 

• Better relationships between top levels at FEMA and FEMA on the ground 

would keep help voluntary agencies from bearing the brunt of this disconnect. A 

‘‘firewall’’ between the political appointees and the government employees who are 

charged with implementing the policies and programs would help keep continuity 

18

in disaster response rather than have response policies constantly fall prey to new 

political trends. 

• There must be some understanding with regard to disaster response between 

Government Agencies. So often two separate agencies will be attempting to solve the 

same problem while being isolated from each other. 

Preparation for 2006 Hurricane Season

• Meeting with judicatories affected by the 2005 hurricanes to evaluate lessons 

learned. 

• Ongoing training with coastal judicatories to prepare for disasters. (For example, we have training scheduled on April 24–26 for our Southeastern States.) 

• Restocking material resources. 

• Meeting with Volunteers in Mission leadership to refine deployment strategies 

for individual volunteers as well as response teams. 

• As a form of mitigation, United Methodist case managers working with Katrina/

Rita clients are addressing concerns related to the upcoming 2006 season on a caseby-case basis.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gaddy. 

REVEREND DR. WELTON GADDY, PRESIDENT, INTERFAITH 

ALLIANCE 

Mr. GADDY. Thank you, Senator Enzi. 

I want to affirm what Ms. Franklin said about the importance 

of faith-based organizations in the delivery of services in a region 

and explain a little bit why it could be that way. 

I think that faith-based organizations move with quickness and 

with flexibility and with spontaneity that enhance the delivery of 

services in a crisis like this. 

One caution I have about strict coordination relates to those 

strengths. I do not want us to add a layer of government coordination to faith-based organizations that in the end compromises the 

very strengths that allow faith-based organizations to do their 

work. 

We were talking beforehand—I find sometimes that the people 

strategizing about how to meet disaster needs do not really understand faith-based structures and the way they do business, and 

this impacts both the delivery of services and funding related to 

services. 

One reason that faith-based organizations are there on the 

ground is because they are not doing this because of the special 

moment—they are doing it because of an enduring compassion. 

This is what faith-based organizations do. You can count on them 

being there because it is a part of our makeup. So we are not there 

to be guided by what someone else wants done. We are there out 

of our own unique faith traditions that need to have the freedom 

to find expression, and that means that we need good communication, a minimal level of coordination, and a respect for the importance of sharing whatever our religious tradition is as we do the 

work of compassion. 

[The prepared statement of Rev. Dr. Gaddy follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REV. DR. C. WELTON GADDY

Chairman Enzi, Ranking Member Kennedy, Senators and staff of the committee, 

thank you for allowing The Interfaith Alliance this opportunity to share with you 

our experiences with regards to the role of faith based organizations in the wake 

of Hurricane Katrina. 

A mixture of anger, compassion, appreciation, and anxiety has motivated my daily 

actions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As the pastor of a church in Monroe, LouVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
19

isiana, I have been privileged to work alongside members of my congregation and 

other members of our community in a variety of relief efforts involving spiritual, 

logistical, and financial issues. The personal and religious compassion that I have 

witnessed have, at times, been overwhelming. Such has not been the case, as you 

know, with governmental responses to screaming needs. 

In response to the compassion of the religious community—and the failures of our 

Government—on October 21, 2005, The Interfaith Alliance led an unprecedented 

interfaith delegation of religious leaders to Baton Rouge. This delegation met with 

Katrina evacuees and the many religious leaders and community, local and State 

agencies providing relief efforts to all those adversely affected. 

We felt it of the utmost importance that this delegation spend its day listening 

to the evacuees and their caregivers. We needed to hear their heroic stories. We 

needed them to tell us what their needs were, be it spiritual, emotional, financial 

or all of the above. This delegation was less about who we are and what we do for 

a living, but rather more about our fellow brothers and sisters in need and our abilities to make a positive difference. 

Upon our return to Washington, The Interfaith Alliance compiled a written and 

video report of our trip. The report we wrote was not the report we anticipated. Because our organizational focus is on the protection of people’s religious and civil liberties, our lens with which to see Baton Rouge was focused in this direction. But 

what we saw and heard were the personal stories of the people from this region—

personal stories laced with important insights into the gross tardiness of governmental officials, the stark failure of Government Agencies, the repulsive ugliness of 

a rampant racism that knows no socio-economic boundaries and which, if left unresolved, in the long run, will prove more destructive than the onslaught of a cluster 

of Category 5 hurricanes. These stories also abound with references to heroic efforts 

on the part of people of faith, compassion, and goodwill who have demonstrated a 

level of generosity without which the region today would be devoid of most of the 

most helpful efforts of the past several months. 

This report is a collection of what The Interfaith Alliance saw, felt, heard, 

touched, and thought during its visit to Baton Rouge, 56 days after Hurricane 

Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast region. 

While thousands of people’s lives were impacted in the area, this report only deals 

with the current situation in Baton Rouge. 

If there is one visual that best describes in our minds what Baton Rouge ‘‘looks’’ 

like spiritually and emotionally, it would be one big mess. And without the selfless 

acts of community groups, local elected officials and especially the religious community, it is impossible to describe where the city and its new population of almost 

500,000 would be today. 

The Cause 

The Government clearly failed in its preparation and response to the devastating 

effects of Hurricane Katrina. In doing so, the weakest and poorest among us have 

suffered greatly. 

The Effects—What We Saw and Heard 

The Interfaith Alliance respects and praises the important role that religious 

groups have played in providing assistance to those in need. They responded—as 

they should—both compassionately and charitably to people in need and expected 

no Government money for support. Why? Because this is what they do. 

When the religious community reacted to the hurt inflicted not only by the hurricane, but by the Government, did they realize the full impact on themselves? Did 

they realize that they would cut their daycare programs and after school-programs 

just to make physical space for a food bank and clothing distribution center? Did 

they realize they would not be able to pay their light bill because they were too concerned with helping elderly evacuees pay for their diabetes medication? Did they realize they could be caring for and possibly housing evacuees for up to 3 years? Did 

houses of worship, which had never even been in the business of running a shelter, 

realize they would open up for business and take in 50 residents? 

In the months, days, hours and minutes following Hurricane Katrina, numerous 

and diverse religious communities rose to the occasion and offered help, ranging 

from serving up meals to tired rescue workers to offering solace to the elderly man 

who had just lost his wife to the raging waters of a levee break. But did they, or 

could they understand just how much undue responsibility they were assuming in 

acting on their compassion? Did they realize this would be a commitment of up to 

3 years? Would it have mattered? 

From what we saw and heard, the local religious community of Baton Rouge is 

stretched beyond its breaking point, both financially and spiritually. Houses of worVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
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ship and religious organizations are trained to minister to the sick, hungry and 

poor. But they are not trained, nor should they be, FEMA’s replacement. Because 

many Government leaders reacted so poorly, the religious community—among many 

other community groups—has been left holding an empty bag with no relief in sight. 

I speak only about what I have seen, felt, heard, touched, and thought. 

I hear the complaints of a man imprisoned by stereotypes—a gentleman in the 

first of the trailer cities to go online in Baton Rouge, a man who is crippled in efforts to find employment because of the outrageous assumption that anyone living 

in one of these—what the people of Louisiana are calling ‘‘FEMA ghettoes’’—must 

be impoverished, lazy, and incapable of meaningful work. 

I feel the nausea evoked by public officials in New Orleans speaking with disdain 

about the people of color whom they need to help and expressing in whispers their 

wish that they simply could eliminate these people from the scene. 

In the trailer village in Baker, LA, wading in dust as deep as snow after a major 

winter storm, I heard people talk of their difficulties with breathing and seeing. I 

am haunted by the outburst of a young woman reflecting on the question ‘‘What do 

you need?’’ ‘‘What do I need?’’ she asked rhetorically. ‘‘What do I need?’’ How about 

my toe nail clippers? How about my curling iron? Do you know what it is like to 

have nothing—nothing and no way to get anything? 

I saw Mayors stretched to their limits in efforts to help the new citizens of their 

cities who bring to their new homes only hurt, needs, and a desire for a new life. 

And, I hear these Mayors speak of no financial help from FEMA. 

I listen and watch basic State institutions in Louisiana making plans to close because of a lack of funding in the wake of the Federal Government’s refusal to provide adequate assistance for a State to function as a State. 

I watch with gratitude and amazement scores of religious communities that continue to provide shelters and programs for evacuees with little idea of where the 

money will come from to pay the costs involved and, because they have not been 

on the photo-ops tours of public officials, they are receiving no aid from even the 

Red Cross. 

But, let’s get this straight. Religious leaders and their congregations provide help 

in a time of crisis because that is what we do. We do not wait on the President or 

a Governor to call us to action. The compulsion comes from our convictions. The 

hurt is our call to service. 

Personally, I am offended as well as astounded by people, who under the guise 

of religion, now request Federal financial hand-outs—a request inspired by a President who has promised money to houses of worship that cannot be delivered—to 

cover the costs of budget deficits that were on their books long before there was 

even a tidal wave that started swirling its way into a hurricane. 

I am weary of listening to Government officials patronizing religious people with 

comments about the importance of our work in this disaster. It is time for these officials to get busy doing their work—providing for the public welfare, which is a 

moral responsibility of Government. 

I am worried as I watch the manipulation of catastrophic hurt in the interest of 

advancing legislative initiatives for which the Government has not been able to secure public affirmation or congressional approval in normal times. The policies at 

the center of my concern may provide a pittance of money immediately, but, ultimately, these policies will result in a diminished guarantee of civil rights and a compromise of religious liberty. We can do better! 

Were it not for the initiative and generosity of many social agencies and religious 

groups, the Gulf Coast region would be in even more terrible trouble than is presently the case. But let us not blame the Government. We are the Government. Let 

us blame those whom we have employed to do the essential work of Government 

that is not being done. Let us demand that they do better or get out of the way 

and allow someone else a chance to lead by helping people in need. 

Recommendations 

Religions in this Nation recognize that the Federal Government can be of immense help in relieving the suffering that they address every day and encourage 

Government officials to act to make this relief a reality. These recommendations 

lend themselves to the Government acting in a way the American people expect 

them to:

• We need tax incentives for charitable giving and tax relief for the poor in our 

land who are carrying a part of the burden created by tax relief for the wealthy. 

• We need a commitment to public education and funding for public education 

that assure every student quality preparation for exiting poverty through the doorway of meaningful employment. 

21

• We need an interest in welfare that does not adjust the welfare rolls to cut 

funding but provides people with the training and support they need to outgrow the 

welfare rolls. • Real compassion should be evident in every line item in the Federal budget, not 

just at those places intended to promote the Government’s funding of religion. • We need a partnership between religious institutions, the Federal Government 

and private philanthropy that draws upon their collective resources and protects the 

integrity of all. 

What Does ‘‘Better Coordination’’ Mean? 

Because so much attention has been given to the tremendous role that faith-based 

groups played during this crisis, a lot of talk has been around making permanent, 

the President’s White House Office of Community and Faith Based Initiatives. The 

Faith Based Initiative is an example of manipulation, not coordination. 

Neither in a time of crisis nor in normal times do we need a faith-based office 

in the White House. We have faith-based offices all over this Nation and they are 

where they belong—in synagogues and gurdwaras, in mosques and churches, in 

temples and store-front ministry centers. 

Religion should not be dictated from the White House or legislated from the halls 

of Congress; this is not where religion works. Religion thrives on freedom, not on 

imposition. Even the most avid evangelists know that religion can never be pushed 

down a person’s throat. The result is not authentic religion. 

The term ‘‘coordination’’ in and of itself is a legal term that connotes expectations 

as well as entanglement. Governmental leaders must communicate their programs 

and priorities with religious groups and other non-profit organizations in order to 

enhance the work of all. The religious community accepts the appreciation expressed 

by President Bush for the hard work in the aftermath of Katrina, but the greatest 

show of thanks would be for the Federal Government to now step up and do its job. 

Regular communications and mutual awareness is absolutely necessary. But at the 

end of the day, only the Federal Government can provide assistance to current and 

future evacuees on the scale and size of a problem as large as Hurricane Katrina. 

Katrina has taught us many lessons in the past 6 months. For The Interfaith Alliance, the lesson most amplified is that the Government must act like the Government and respond helpfully to the weakest and poorest among us. And the religious 

community will continue to act like the religious community in responding compassionately and charitably to people in need. 

A Report From the Field—Gautier, MS 

As The Interfaith Alliance’s delegation departed Baton Rouge 56 days after 

Katrina came ashore, a promise was made by the delegation that we would find 

ways in which to share the stories and experiences of those we met. Rabbi David 

Gelfand, a member of the delegation, shared his experiences with local religious 

leaders in East Hampton, NY. In return, one of the Rabbi’s colleagues went to Mississippi to offer his help and reported back to his congregation his experiences. We 

share this with the members of this committee because it is important to always 

keep in front of us what is most important:

Eleven of us from the East Hampton Church returned last night from a week’s 

stay in Gautier (pronounced Go-che ́), Mississippi. We were part of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance team which has been on the ground since September, helping people put their lives and homes back together. It was a remarkable experience for all of us on this team.

With a wide variety of skills (or in my case non skills) we were assigned varying 

ranges of tasks, from cooking, to office management, to roofing. Together, we 

shingled and insulated one home for a woman with disabilities who has been 

living in Memphis since the storm, and mucked out (taking the debris, wallboard, rugs—everything—out of the house); repaired poorly constructed boards, 

insulated and wall boarded another home. In the meantime, we erected the camp 

tent, did camp clean up duties, and purchased supplies for the work teams that 

would follow us. (There were three others in camp when we left yesterday.) We 

had a great sense of accomplishment as we saw tasks being completed.

But our work is such a small imprint on an overwhelming canvas. The devastation is beyond description and beyond belief. As we drove toward the coast from 

the Airport in Jackson, we began to point out trees that had fallen, neon signs 

that had been blown away in Hattiesburg, some 60 miles away. Throughout the 

week we would see little pockets of the damage; homes with blue tarped roofs, 

FEMA trailers on the front yards, and debris piled in near the curb. But as we 

left yesterday, we drove along Highway 90 along the coast in Biloxi and Gulfport, and we began to see the enormous task that lies ahead. Blocks and blocks 

22

are still waiting for the rubble to be removed. There are areas that look like they 

have been bombed. Businesses are gone—there is the foundation, but nothing 

else. These are most likely mom and pop variety of stores that populate beach 

communities, and there is little chance that they will come back. There is construction being done on the casinos in Biloxi—one is already open for business—

and some of the larger hotels and homes, but everything else is piecemeal. There 

is no economy outside of the service industries—the fast food chains are up and 

running and feeding the construction workers—and Lowes, Home Depot and 

WalMart were running at full-speed. Workers are hard to find for these establishments, they advertise $7.00 an hour wages, but there is no place for people 

to live.

The Presbyterian Disaster Assistance will be onsite for 2 to 3 years. Groups are 

strongly encouraged to plan work camps and mission trips; there is so much 

work to do. We are thankful for the nearly $5,000 that was raised in the East 

Hampton Community for this trip. We will be offering a report in worship on 

March 12, and at other opportunities as they develop.

One final word of encouragement. On Sunday we worshiped at the Gautier Presbyterian Church, a small church with about 70 members. The church sustained 

some damage as did many of its members. But we were all struck by the powerful spirit of hope that was present in worship that morning. There were several 

visiting groups to join the congregation in worship. Every seat was taken (and 

they were new, of course, since the old pews were found floating in a couple feet 

of water when the doors were opened after the storm.) They sang with enthusiasm along with the new piano, hymnal and bibles. In the service there was a 

service of ordination and installation of one elder, and when the call came out 

for all elders to come forward, there were people representing churches from 

South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, Ohio, New York and other 

States, forming again, an unbreakable bond of the Body of Christ.’’ Kent Winters-Hazelton, Interim Pastor, First Presbyterian Church East Hampton, NY.

Thank you for allowing The Interfaith Alliance this opportunity to address the 

U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Nemitz. 

CRAIG NEMITZ, DISASTER SERVICES MANAGER, AMERICA’S 

SECOND HARVEST 

Mr. NEMITZ. Thank you again for convening this roundtable. 

I want to echo a couple of things. The first is Mr. Hazelwood’s 

recognition of FEMA for the good work they did. I would also like 

to recognize the Public-Private Partnership Office of DHS, which 

also helped my organization, America’s Second Harvest, get a lot 

of work done that we could not have gotten done without their help 

and without FEMA’s help. 

The Voluntary Agency Liaisons that Mr. Hazelwood mentioned 

are vital, and in my written testimony, I would request, ask, beg, 

that they be permanent employees, that they not be left to every 

2 years having to reapply for their jobs. They are a great group of 

people who know disaster response from the ground up. 

Along those same lines, though, during the time of the disaster 

is not when we should be exchanging business cards with each 

other, be it faith-based, community-based, or otherwise. The Emergency Management Institute at Emmitsburg, MD needs to be better-funded. That was a training ground for many of us to cut our 

teeth on when we first got involved, and I think a lot of us would 

benefit from that facility having proper funding to allow small organizations, large organizations, new employees at the State and 

local levels of government, to go and get disaster management basics under their belts. 

A lot of what we did this year had to be built on the fly—and 

I speak only for my organization, because I am sure that everybody 

23

else’s plans worked perfectly. But a lot of what we had to do, we 

did with the best of intentions, with the best of support, and let 

us take away the lessons we learned from this to make sure that 

the mistakes we have made before are not made again. 

I see the clock is running. I came across a quote yesterday that 

I just had to share with this group. We are seeing all these final 

reports coming out from various organizations—the final report 

from the White House, the final report from lessons learned, information sharing. I did not realize there were so many final finals. 

But this quote is credited to Eleanor Roosevelt, who once said, 

‘‘Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; and 

small minds discuss people.’’ I hope we are going to be with the 

great minds as we put together our lessons learned from this. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nemitz follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CRAIG NEMITZ

Dear Chairman Enzi and Senator Kennedy, thank you very much for your invitation to participate in a roundtable discussion focusing on the contribution of community-based organizations to the relief and reconstruction effort on the Gulf Coast. 

I look forward to the opportunity to describe my experiences and offer my thoughts 

and suggestions. 

Background 

The destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, followed closely by Hurricane Rita, 

is unlike anything this country has seen. Amid the devastation, however, came an 

unprecedented outpouring of assistance from many levels. America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network, the Nation’s largest hunger-relief charity, 

was there to supply the basic necessities: food and water. With more than 200 food 

banks and food-rescue organizations serving all 50 States, the District of Columbia 

and Puerto Rico, which in turn serve more than 50,000 charitable agencies, the 

America’s Second Harvest Network provides emergency food assistance to approximately 25 million Americans each year. Because the America’s Second Harvest Network is so expansive and experienced, when disaster strikes, we are ready to respond quickly and efficiently. 

Our Disaster Experience 

America’s Second Harvest has been an active member of National VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) for many years. Our Vice-President of Programs (Christopher Rebstock) served as NVOAD’s President and I currently am a 

member of the board of directors. 

This involvement is not by happenstance; we long ago realized that the strength 

of one organization is complimented by the collective strength of many. America’s 

Second Harvest values our partnerships pre- and post-disaster as this is how our 

network of food banks function to lessen hunger in the United States everyday. 

America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network has a long standing 

Statement of Understanding with the American Red Cross and on August 9, 2005 

we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Emergency Management Agency/Department of Homeland Security; never anticipating that just 19 

days later the largest natural disaster in U.S. history would begin. These are two 

examples of formalized relationships we have but dozens more informally exist as 

a matter of course. I would be remiss, however, if I did not specifically mention the 

Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the USDA. Federal commodities are critical to 

food bank operations, whether in disaster mode or not. America’s Second Harvest 

is very fortunate to have an excellent relationship with USDA and that relationship 

allowed for a very smooth transition to an emergency mode of operations during the 

disaster. With the USDA’s commitment to meeting emergency needs during the hurricanes and their aftermath, commodity deliveries to food banks were quick and effective. While food banks in the affected areas did a tremendous job meeting immediate need, emergency food stamps issued by the USDA helped address more ongoing need. 

Our food banks in the Gulf States and nationwide work daily to distribute donated food and grocery items to local charities that serve people in need. These efforts doubled and redoubled after Katrina struck. Hundreds of local agencies ceased 

to exist post-storm and dozens of new agencies sprung into action to help people afVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
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fected by the destruction. Local groups that had a NVOAD or State VOAD connection were the easiest routes to channel disaster response products towards. Other 

groups needed to be quickly educated on the standards set by America’s Second 

Harvest before they could safely and efficiently access food from a local food bank. 

This procedure was time consuming but food bankers are flexible people that 

streamlined processes in order to expeditiously get food to the affected areas. 

Knowing that the hurricanes had significantly altered the landscape of the Network as well as the face of demand for food assistance, America’s Second Harvest 

has sought to quantify such changes. Last November, America’s Second Harvest devised a plan to interview clients in food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters to 

learn more about the circumstances that led them to seek emergency food assistance 

and better understand their needs, and to survey provider agencies and food bank 

representatives to assess how the hurricanes affected service delivery. The end result was an assessment of the impact of Katrina and Rita on charitable food assistance delivery that will enable the America’s Second Harvest Network to be even 

more effective in responding to future disasters. I would like to share some of the 

results of that study with you. 

Clients 

• Demands for food assistance overall in the Gulf Coast States are 50 percent 

above pre-Katrina levels. • 72 percent of clients seeking food assistance in the impacted States were first 

time clients, tripling the demands in the impacted States as a result of the hurricanes. • One in nine households representing 6.4 million people in the impacted States 

received food assistance. • Nearly 40 percent of the households requesting food assistance were AfricanAmerican. • 31 percent of households requesting food assistance had a child 12 years of age 

or younger. • Households seeking emergency food assistance had median incomes of $26,000 compared to $42,000 for the total area; 21 percent report having an income below 

$10,000—more than twice the percentage found throughout the area. • 28 percent of the people seeking emergency food assistance immediately after 

Katrina were already receiving food assistance before the hurricane hit. • 77 percent of the new food recipients no longer needed assistance following the 

‘‘peak’’ period in October. Of the people still requesting food assistance, 65 percent 

were already receiving food assistance prior to Katrina. 

Food Banks Respond 

• America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network provided an unprecedented response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma with more than 1,600 

truckloads carrying 62 million pounds of food providing approximately 48 million 

meals valued at an estimated $84 million. 

• 39 of 210 (13 percent) of America’s Second Harvest Members are located in the 

impacted States. 

• Two food banks in the primary markets reported a three-fold increase in food 

distribution since Katrina. The Bay Area Food Bank in Mobile, AL reported a tenfold increase at the peak of the relief effort, tapering off to 75 percent now. 

• Secondary markets reported an average of 60 percent increase in food distribution. 

Agency Infrastructure 

• 41 percent of the people receiving food assistance prior to Katrina report that 

the agency where they received assistance is no longer in operation. 

• The primary markets reported 86 percent of their agencies currently being 

served were temporary disaster-relief programs. 

• 80 percent of clients receiving food assistance prior to Katrina reported food 

availability being the same or better following Katrina. 

Issues to Consider 

Local Emergency Management and City Government officials would be wise to include the non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) and State VOAD members in 

ALL exercises, drills and planning meetings. The time to exchange business cards 

and decide who has what skills and abilities is not after a disaster strikes. NGO’s 

must be included in all pre-event planning and in the mitigation process in order 

to be effective. Government officials at all levels must broaden their definition of 

‘‘first responders’’ beyond police officers and fire fighters. NGO’s are first responders 

by design but are somewhat neglected in the emergency management cycle. 

25

On the State level, Emergency Operation Centers coast-to-coast must have a seat 

for their State VOAD representatives. This not only puts the collective abilities of 

the NGO’s at the Governor’s doorstep but it also opens up resources for the charities 

to access in order to get their jobs done. Each State needs to also include NGO’s 

at all stations of their planning. 

For the Federal side of this equation, the issues get much more convoluted. The 

single greatest asset that NGO’s have in the disaster arena is the FEMA VAL’s 

(Voluntary Agency Liaisons). This core of 12 seasoned FEMA employees and their 

liaison at FEMA’s Response and Recovery Directorate in Washington, D.C., gives a 

vital lifeline between the decisions made in Washington and the NGO’s actually 

doing the job on the ground. The VAL’s helped America’s Second Harvest access 

scarce fuel, permits and other resources in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama 

when no answers were forthcoming from State EOC offices. The VAL’s need to be 

made permanent, core positions in the FEMA structure. 

The Public Private Partnership Office of the Department of Homeland Security 

was an outstanding resource in countless ways during the response in the Gulf. This 

office helped America’s Second Harvest secure much needed warehouse space for 

disaster supplies in Louisiana and helped to secure lodging for food bank responders. The DHS oversight of FEMA adds a layer to the communications channels but 

fortunately my office knew who to call at the right time for the right answers. This 

was by design but occasionally good fortune smiled upon us. 

During the 2005 hurricane season there were occasions when State and Federal 

entities were competing with non-profit organizations for financial contributions. 

Governors were setting up relief funds and the Clinton-Bush Fund was also appealing for support. These admirable efforts take away desperately needed sources from 

community groups, faith based organizations, NGO’s and VOAD members. Time and 

effort then needs to be expended applying to the big funds so charities can continue 

their jobs. A corporate CEO is not going to say ‘‘no’’ when a former President of the 

United States knocks on his door or when the Governor calls, but that diminishes 

the timely support available to non-profits. There are only so many slices in the 

charitable pie. 

Another tidbit for the Federal issue is for FEMA/DHS to fully and eternally fund 

the Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg, MD. This world class facility 

was where all newcomers to disaster management went to cut their teeth on critical 

issues like donations management, incident command and unaffiliated volunteers. 

EMI gave everyone (Governmental and NGO’s) a common basis of knowledge and 

usable training to take into the field. The EMI VAL position was eliminated due 

to budget cuts and restructuring a few years ago; this critical position needs to be 

re-established and supported. 

Based on my experience, it is only the military that would have had the ability 

to handle the affects of hurricane Katrina alone. This brings to mind an area where 

your influence would be extremely valuable at the local, county and State levels. In 

Mississippi our food banks worked closely with the Mississippi National Guard—

this marriage of resources made perfect sense, we had the food they had the trucks 

and personnel to get into areas cut off from normal distribution channels. In Texas 

after hurricane Rita it was a completely different story. The Texas National Guard 

was ordered not to transport any relief supplies on their vehicles if those supplies 

came from a non-profit organization. 

Any assistance that you can offer to help NGO’s standardize relationships with 

National Guard Command from state to state would be greatly appreciated. 

Finally, I submit to you that NGO’s, VOAD members, faith-based organizations 

and community groups would be best served at all levels of Government if the playing field was level. For example; low interest disaster mitigation loans are available 

to for-profit small business owners to reinforce a roof or install a generator for back 

up power through the Small Business Administration. However, non-profit organizations like the 213 food banks in the America’s Second Harvest Network are not even 

allowed to apply for these types of urgently needed loans. This disparity becomes 

even more confusing because non-profits can apply to the SBA to rebuild after their 

facilities are destroyed. The logic is not bubbling to the surface here. 

Food banks, some houses of worship and other non-profit buildings are distributing relief supplies hours and often days before State and Federal resources can 

access hard hit communities after a disaster. Shouldn’t these valuable organizations 

at least have access to funds that can help them do better during the worst of 

times? 

In preparation for the upcoming 2006 hurricane season (as well as whatever else 

Mother Nature throws at us) America’s Second Harvest has recently conducted a 

Disaster Debrief Conference in Chicago for those food banks that were primarily affected and secondarily supported the relief efforts from Katrina & Rita & Wilma. 

26

We are collecting and deciphering our internal lessons learned in order to strengthen our ability to respond when a disaster strikes. Our Network and those agencies 

we worked with did a tremendous amount of good to alleviate suffering this past 

year—but we know that as local and State Emergency Management offices and DHS 

focuses and invests more on terrorism issues, the natural disaster response and long 

term recovery will fall more and more onto the shoulders of the community based 

organizations. 

Again I want to express my appreciation for your invitation to take part in this 

discussion and I hope that our meeting will be the first of many that will help us 

all learn where the shortcomings could have been avoided and to also celebrate the 

chance to duplicate the successes when things worked well. 

Respectfully submitted, 

CRAIG A NEMITZ, CEM, 

Disaster Services Manager, 

America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. BOURG. Well, in deference to my colleagues who made rather 

kind statements about FEMA, I seriously, strenuously, vociferously 

disagree. Our experience in rural Louisiana with FEMA has been 

a disaster, and no one has the authority to say or do anything, and 

they frequently and regularly contradict each other. I am not talking about the people who try to work hard and are out there, but 

the fact is there is something seriously wrong with the structure 

of FEMA, especially in regard to rural areas—at least, that is my 

experience in rural Louisiana. 

I do recommend in my comments the restructuring of FEMA and 

how to do that a little bit, and I guess I would like to pay a little 

more attention to something called the National Disaster Recovery 

Bond, which has kind of taken something from my own grandmother, who remembers World War II and how we won the war 

and rebuilt Europe, and Americans were looking for a way to be 

part of that victory. I think Americans would like to do more than, 

hopefully, write checks to the Red Cross. The National Disaster Recovery Bond could not only be used from Texas to Florida right 

now, but could be used in any national disaster anywhere, and people would buy those bonds. That would help retire the debt on 

mortgages and businesses, and when they refinance, a small premium could be paid in order to pay, let us say, 3 percent on the 

bond. I think Americans would put that as part of their investment 

portfolio. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Wright. 

JAYNE WRIGHT, DIRECTOR, LOUSIANA STATE VOLUNTARY 

ORGANIZATIONS ACTIVE IN DISASTER AND HEAD OF THE 

FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL LOUISIANA 

Ms. WRIGHT. I have a couple things to say. First of all, I want 

to echo the comments about what worked and about relationshipbuilding before a storm happens. The networks that we build in 

communities, in VOAD meetings, and knowing who is going to be 

on the other end of the phone when the call does actually go 

through are very important, and knowing what the other partner 

is going to do as far as the food is going to be there, the shelter 

is going to be there, the one phone call request are the best kind 

during the chaos; and knowing that in many cases, the way we 

27

work together, your word is your bond. And that is kind of old-fashioned these days, but that is the way this community works. 

Communication, of course, was a tremendous challenge from day 

one, and when all the systems went down, a lot of the communication eventually happened face-to-face, because people are having to 

drive in. I was in the stadium for months, and slept on a cot in 

the back, so I had the experience of sheltering as well—when I did 

sleep. 

I also want to echo some of the comments about FEMA and the 

State operations people. Those were my primary contacts in the initial days, and then the FEMA VALs, the Voluntary Agency Liaisons. They were very responsive to our requests. We requested 

equipment and help finding different resources during the storms, 

and they might tell me ‘‘No,’’ but when I came back, they had reconsidered, so they were very open to the discussion. 

A lot of the things that happened with FEMA from my perspective is that a lot of the rules kept changing with the people on the 

ground. That is one reason that there was a lot of confusion, because they started off operating under one set of parameters, but 

it changed during the whole thing, and it kept changing. That is 

the reason why a lot of times, you would get ‘‘Yes’’ one time and 

‘‘No’’ the next time—the ball kept moving. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wright follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAYNE WRIGHT

Senators Enzi and Kennedy, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this 

discussion about the response of the Voluntary Agencies to Hurricanes Katrina and 

Rita. It is difficult to capture everything in a few minutes. There are so many things 

that happened with this response, more good than bad. However, that is not the picture that many choose to paint. 

The majority of my time was spent in the State Emergency Operations Center 

(EOC), in Baton Rouge prior to the landfall of Katrina until mid-October. My responsibilities as the President/Chair of Louisiana Voluntary Organizations Active in 

Disaster (LAVOAD), were to represent the group in the EOC, (handling requests 

from the parish governments, other State agencies, State officials, voluntary organizations, assist in the implementation of the donation management plan, coordinate 

the flow of donated goods and volunteers until the donations coordination team was 

in place), and facilitate the weekly meetings of the LAVOAD groups. 

In addition, to the aforementioned duties, my volunteer job, I am also the Executive Director of the Food Bank of Central Louisiana, my day job. We are a member 

of America’s Second Harvest, the Nation’s Food Bank Network. I serve on the National Council of the group. 

My Food Bank is located in shelter sector A, the initial area for evacuees to be 

sheltered within the State. Our job is to supply the shelters during the time that 

they are open, whether they are part of the Red Cross system or not. During these 

storms, we supplied food to 49 groups that were not part of the Food Bank network 

or the Red Cross network. In addition, our team provided food to more than 12,000 

families that were staying in private homes or hotels/motels. 

During the height of the chaos, communication was difficult at best. The only system that did not go down was the blackberry and I did not have one, most volunteers did not. Eventually the land lines, e-mail and cell phones came back, but in 

those first couple of weeks we had to send volunteers out to areas where we could 

not reach the local Office of Emergency Preparedness. They reported back and we 

sent supplies accordingly. The parishes that were able to communicate sent requests 

as did State agencies at an unbelievable pace. We responded and sent volunteers 

and supplies all across the State. Fortunately, the food banks had a good stock on 

hand, the Southern Baptist travel with initial stock, so, we had access to food immediately. 

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service was on site within a few days to offer more 

food. Of course, the food in the schools is made available to those shelter operations, 

but so many shelters were located in places that had never served as shelters beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
28

fore. There was a much greater need for congregate feeding and household distribution. 

America’s Second Harvest, the Nation’s Food Bank Network (A2H), responded 

with unprecedented support from other food banks, food donors, and trained volunteers. Food and grocery products were flowing into staging warehouses and the local 

food banks very quickly. 

Adventist Community Services came in to operate the one of two multi-agency 

warehouses that we set up in New Iberia; A2H ran the other in Baker. Donated 

goods were shipped to these locations in addition to the four remaining food banks 

in Louisiana. Community based organizations, both VOAD and non VOAD, and 

local governments, including first responders, accessed the supplies from these 

points. 

An example of this type of situation was during Hurricane Rita, one rural parish 

OEP sent in a request for food for 6,000 people that had evacuated to Sabine Parish. 

We responded by forwarding the request to the nearest food bank and that team 

delivered food to them within a few hours. 

LAVOAD responded to requests for supplies and resources within our own network as well, coordinating shipments of supplies to warehouses and agencies as 

needed. We worked beside the American Red Cross team in the EOC and helped 

whenever they had a request for assistance. We were able to work with the American Red Cross to get services into parishes in Southwest Louisiana where there had 

been little service or communication with the Voluntary Agencies before. 

We also worked closely with the State Department of Social Services to provide 

supplies to the shelters that they were coordinating. Many baby products, toiletries, 

blankets, food and other supplies were delivered to their sites across the State. 

As the storms quieted, and the efforts to place people into transitional housing 

progressed, the LAVOAD team stepped forward to take donated goods and put ‘‘living kits’’ together. These kits contained basic household goods and linens that were 

placed in the trailers at the FEMA staging site in Baton Rouge. 

There are many more examples of team work between the Voluntary Organizations, local and State government, and community based organizations. We are not 

without challenges. Communication is probably the biggest, followed by education 

of the government agencies with regard to their responsibilities in the State plan, 

education of government at all levels with regard to VOAD and logistics. Logistics 

are always a challenge in this type of situation. 

Both the efforts of the LAVOAD team and the Food Bank are ongoing. The pace 

has shifted toward long-term recovery with 18 committees formed across the State 

to address unmet needs of their communities. We continue to support the parishes 

that are still in the stages of repopulation. 

Part of this support has come through a grant that we received from the Corporation for National Service to provide AmeriCorps*VISTAs to serve with the Long 

Term Recovery Committees. The grant is in the beginning stages, but will be an invaluable resource as the work of these groups moves forward. 

Many of the LAVOAD members have or are going through debrief conferences or 

after action reviews at this point. Our State organization will be holding its State 

conference later this month. It will include such an exercise to point out positives 

and negatives of our combined response and make recommendations on how we can 

grow and build upon our experiences of the last 6 months. 

Personally, this has been a life changing experience. I have seen things that I had 

never dreamed of and pushed myself beyond anything that I ever thought I could 

do. These storms have made me reevaluate myself and my life and what is truly 

important. My faith in God has given me the strength to honor my commitment to 

serve the people of my State and my organizations, the Food Bank and LAVOAD, 

when it felt as if everything was falling apart. 

There are some very special people that worked in the State EOC. I am not 

speaking of the brass or the elected officials, the people that were there all hours 

of the day and night finding a way to make things work for weeks and months. 

They are heroes in my book and have gotten more criticism than recognition. 

No one group can be the ‘‘end all, be all’’ solution to a disaster. It takes everyone, 

and it is imperative that we remember that everyone has something to offer and 

that as a responder you do not have all of the answers. Sometimes it is easy to get 

into a mentality of ‘‘We have always done it this way.’’ Being open to new ideas can 

be one of the most powerful resources we have. 

Education is a powerful tool as well. Many of the groups within government, on 

all levels, did not comprehend the role or the capabilities of Voluntary Organizations. Of course, this situation has rewritten all of the records for every group. We 

have all responded beyond what we thought we were capable of doing. More evacuees/survivors were sheltered, fed, clothed in this operation than ever before. 

29

One way to better structure the approach of government is to include the VOADs 

in their planning processes and to educate those employees that are involved in disaster response at each agency about Voluntary Organizations. Another approach 

would be to include the VOADs in training and exercises. 

Traditionally the activities of the VOADs have centered on the response to natural disasters. Oklahoma City and September 11th have certainly changed the 

arena in which we may be called to respond. Voluntary Agencies need more training 

with regard to man made disasters, biological and chemical weapons, etc. Pandemics 

are another area where training will be invaluable. 

Communication between the government entities and the Voluntary Agencies 

needs to be addressed. Clear channels need to be outlined. 

Again, thank you for including me in this conversation. I think it is imperative 

that these types of discussions happen as we go forward. 

Sincerely, 

JAYNE WRIGHT, 

Executive Director. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Feltman. 

HEATHER FELTMAN, LUTHERAN DISASTER RESPONSE 

Ms. FELTMAN. Thank you, Senator. 

I just want to reiterate that joint planning is essential and necessary as we move forward, and at the stage of these disasters that 

we have experienced over the last 24 months, it has stretched us 

all to continue to come up with new ways to respond effectively. 

Also, I think that coordinating creates an understanding of roles 

and functions and capabilities between the faith-based and community organizations in any structure of government. To me, that impacts the level of trust in relationships and what you can count on. 

I think that is key, because what we have experienced on the 

ground is sometimes transition of resources. If it is FEMA or Salvation Army or Red Cross, and they are living out their mandate, 

sometimes, as we come in behind with voluntary organizations, we 

could maybe really do some resource-sharing, and if these are kind 

of laid out prior to the time that we are living the disaster, it could 

be very beneficial and we might not have such a long, dragged out 

time, and be able to respond quicker. 

The last thing I want to say is that from what we have been 

doing, I am concerned about the medical situation. We have had 

several congregations acting as free clinics. Again, the impact on 

the infrastructure in the medical community in rural, no less, but 

also for the vulnerable populations, the disabled, the elderly, the 

mentally ill, the chronically ill, we have seen a huge necessity to 

look at the scale of that. Yes, FEMA and Red Cross could stop by 

and write prescriptions, but that was for 2 or 3 days of critical 

looking at where those prescriptions could be coming from, who 

was going to hold them, who could get over to write the prescription. We are under a state-of-emergency, which is very good, and 

it kind of allows us a guiding road map right now, but that will 

be transitioning before too long. And we are doing free clinics, but 

I am really concerned about the underinsured and uninsured and 

how doctors will be able to handle that. 

Thank you. 

[Response to question of the committee by Ms. Feltman:]

30

RESPONSE TO QUESTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND

PENSIONS BY HEATHER FELTMAN

Question. How can local, State or Federal Agencies better structure their approach 

to disaster relief to support the work of community-based organizations? 

Answer. Key for success in the future—communication and planning with community-based organizations and key disaster personnel.

• Joint planning necessary; 

• Community-based center within or adjacent to Disaster Recovery Center—onestop shop for services and referrals—track trends; 

• Assessment of key medical facilities—be able to establish temporary structures 

for the purpose of distribution and goods and resources if necessary; 

• Impact on Free Clinics—growing population of uninsured, unemployed, or underemployed who are displaced. The decrease in patients able to pay for health care 

impacts the physician and provider ability to cover overhead costs. Trend—M.D.’s 

moving from the area, bed closures in hospitals. Access to conventional and/or group 

insurance is limited; 

• Preparing for the next time—include the faith- and community-based organizations in discussions for future planning and response—most of the organizations 

have been recipients of information in a haphazard way—make organizations part 

of creating the solution and thus achieving success in the response efforts; 

• Coordinating response creates an understanding of the roles and capabilities of 

faith-based and community groups—trust is developed, not seen as an unknown entity; 

• Sharing of key resources (food)—support the value of skilled volunteerism.

Contact Information: Participant: Heather L. Feltman, Lutheran Disaster Response Executive Director, 8765 West Higgins Road, Chicago, Illinois 

60631,Telephone: 773–380–2719; Heather.Fetlman@elca.org.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Green. 

THOMAS E. GREEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF 

COMMUNITY SERVICES, LITTLE ROCK, AR 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Senator. 

One of the challenges for us, being a neighboring State, in Arkansas—we of course are fortunate in that the disasters come 

every year, and not in the scale of Katrina, but from ice storms, 

floods, and tornadoes. The good thing about our State is that we 

have somewhat developed a process. All the organizations at this 

table—most of the organizations, I should say—are part of that 

process. The Community Action Agencies, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, different church groups, all play a vital role in trying 

to address the needs. 

One of the key things that happened with the Katrina evacuees 

in Arkansas was that because of the inundated number of person, 

we had to open up Fort Chaffee. We had not done that since the 

Cuban evacuees came to Arkansas and the Vietnamese refugees 

came to Arkansas. Because of the number of people who came, we 

had to use that process. What it enabled us to do then was to look 

at our voluntary sources in the State. We were able to utilize our 

church camps to house people; we were able to use different programs, social agency office, which is a part of the Department of 

Health and Human Services within the State of Arkansas, provided 

the medical care—food stamps, all of those basic needs. 

But as someone indicated, the basic needs are temporary. Now 

we are talking about 1,000 people still in hotels within the State 

of Arkansas. We have to look at long-term opportunities, and the 

Community Action Agency Network is one of those vital resources 

that we utilize. They are providing those services and trying to 

31

make the difference, because for emergency needs, we all volunteered. My church gave housing, we gave clothes, we gave food—

but those were temporary. The permanent resources are important, 

and that is the thing that we have to look at. The Community Action Network is there and is going to be the long-term provider for 

a lot of those services. 

One thing that I think is vital that we need to keep in mind is 

that the communications need to be ongoing, the coordination 

needs to be ongoing. It is important that we do not stop the process, because at the local level, regardless of who is there, the community-based organizations are going to play a vital role in resolving the problems of those communities. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS E. GREEN

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement on behalf of the National 

Association for State Community Services Programs (NASCSP). My name is Thomas 

Green, and I am the Director of the Arkansas Office of Community Services. 

I am pleased to report to this committee that according to the data the National 

Association for State Community Services Programs collected at the request of the 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Community Services Block 

Grant (CSBG) Network, which is made up of nearly 1,100 local Community Action 

Agencies (CAAs) nationwide, was able to respond with speed and flexibility to the 

needs of over 355,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Our network has supported 

these Katrina evacuees by providing affordable housing, job training, reliable emergency services, and quality health care, among other critical recovery services. Unfortunately, our job is not yet done. 

Today, the State administered CSBG Network continues to play a pivotal role in 

the recovery of all of the States affected by Hurricane Katrina. State CSBG administrators are making a concerted effort to provide critical assistance across State Governments, and to closely coordinate statewide relief efforts by working through the 

extensive community action agency network. 

In my home State of Arkansas, the CSBG network assisted over 65,000 evacuees, 

and helped over 13,635 of these evacuees with CSBG discretionary grants totaling 

$69,000. Under the direction of the State, the 16 Arkansas community action agencies worked with their local communities to address the gaps in services that were 

already being provided, including: transportation services to local agencies to apply 

for assistance, food for food pantries, medicines, clothing, home furnishings, and deposits for housing. 

The State administered network of Community Action Agencies have also begun 

to provide the long-term assistance that evacuees need as they relocate and re-establish themselves through self-sufficiency and family development programs. These 

programs offer comprehensive approaches to selecting and offering supportive services that promote, empower and nurture individuals and families seeking economic 

self-sufficiency. At a minimum, these approaches include:

• An assessment of the issues facing the family and the resources they bring to 

address these issues; 

• A written plan for financial independence and self-sufficiency; 

• An individualized mix of services to help the participant implement the plan; 

• Professional staff who can establish trusting, long-term relationships with program participants; and 

• A formal method to track and evaluate progress and adjust the plan as needed.

The CSBG Network has remained true to its fundamental purpose: to organize 

and provide a range of necessary services related to the needs of low-income individuals, families, and communities. The CSBG network helps to promote these services, 

which in turn helps to empower families and individuals to become fully self sufficient. 

According to the most recent CSBG Statistical Report, in 2004 the CSBG Network 

served over 15 million people, or approximately 6 million low-income families. Also 

in 2004, more than 3.7 million children, 1.7 million seniors, and 1.1 million disabled 

individuals were served by the CSBG network. This Network is deeply committed 

to helping ensure the stability of all low-income individuals, families, communities, 

and States. 

32

I am proud of the assistance that the Arkansas Office of Community Services, and 

the National Association for State Community Services Programs, has provided to 

the Hurricane Katrina evacuees. The State administrators of the CSBG and the 

CSBG network have an impressive history of effective and efficient service provision. With Congress’ continued support, our network will continue to serve our Nation’s most vulnerable populations with swift and reliable expertise. Under the direction of the State and in partnership with other community-based and faith-based 

organizations, the CSBG network will continue its critical assistance to the Hurricane evacuees over the long-term as they relocate, re-establish themselves, and 

work toward total self-sufficiency. 

Thank you for your time.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Daroff. 

WILLIAM DAROFF, UNITED JEWISH COMMUNITIES 

Mr. DAROFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

On behalf of the United Jewish Communities, thank you and 

your staff for inviting all of us to participate. 

I would just like to follow up on what some of our colleagues 

have mentioned today, and that is that much of what we were able 

to accomplish, at least in the early stages, was due to happenstance—relationships that we had, phone numbers, knowing the 

mobile phone number to the Senator’s chief of staff in Mississippi, 

for instance, having relationships at the White House that could 

cut through some of the bureaucracy—and those relationships obviously were by happenstance and an ability to formalize that by 

forming disaster task forces with representatives from government 

and community-based organizations through the VOAD process 

and through others I think is an excellent way to move forward. 

Maintaining and opening ongoing dialogues throughout the disaster to establish priorities and needs and to eliminate duplication 

is important. Coordinating essential recovery services and assigning roles between government and community-based organizations 

should be a priority, as well as publicizing locations of mass feeding 

centers. 

A couple of my colleagues have mentioned the mental health 

issue, and having just come back from the region a couple weeks 

ago, there is a belief by many of the folks down there that there 

is a burgeoning mental health crisis that, as folks see that their 

last appeal to FEMA has been denied, that their last appeal to 

their insurance agency has been denied, and they see that this is 

the final amount of money that they are going to be getting, there 

will be a massive mental health crisis. And the infrastructure, as 

I’m sure you know, Senator, in much of the region was not great 

to begin with, and with the exodus of folks post-Katrina, it is a crisis that we all need to address. 

Similar to that, we had folks who came from neighboring States 

and from across the country—doctors, dentists, social workers—

who, because of State licensure restrictions, were not able to practice their professions in those States. We would advocate for there 

to be some sort of temporary relief that allows for the bending of 

these certification regulations. 

The other thing I want to mention is that, speaking about faithbased organizations, what we heard throughout the region was 

that faith-based organizations, churches, synagogues, the organizations around this table, really came in to save the day and to help 

33

where government was not able to help. We believe that the policy 

should be one that encourages our organizations and incentivizes 

us to care and help. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Daroff follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM C. DAROFF

Good morning. I am William Daroff, Vice President for Public Policy and Director 

of the Washington Office of United Jewish Communities (UJC). I want to thank the 

Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) for the kind 

invitation to participate in this hearing focusing on the contributions of communitybased organizations toward the post-Katrina and post-Rita relief and reconstruction 

efforts along our Nation’s Gulf Coast region. I commend the Senate HELP Committee for recognizing the value of community-based organizations and the important role they play in enhancing, serving, protecting, and rebuilding the places 

called ‘‘communities.’’

I have been asked in particular to comment on the activities undertaken by 

United Jewish Communities, in which we have effectively responded to the national 

disasters in the Gulf Coast region by working in partnership with other communitybased organizations, as well as with local, State, and Federal officials. It is an honor 

and a privilege to be here today and share the UJC story. I would like to start by 

describing exactly what UJC is and how it has partnered with others to address the 

needs of the citizens of the Gulf Coast region. I believe that the efforts put forth 

by UJC in the region can serve as an action framework for others to make a difference in how our Nation responds to national disasters. 

United Jewish Communities is the national organization that represents and 

serves 155 Jewish federations and 400 independent Jewish communities in more 

than 800 cities and towns across North America. UJC is the central planning and 

coordinating organization for an extensive network of Jewish health and social services. We provide a wide realm of services through thousands of affiliated hospitals, 

nursing homes and long-term care campuses, refugee resettlement organizations, 

children and family service agencies, job counseling centers and food banks, community centers and camps, and primary and secondary schools, as well as our interrelated national organizations. UJC is one of America’s largest and most effective 

networks of social service providers. This network provides support for more than 

1 million clients each year in the Jewish and general community who are vulnerable 

and in need of assistance: families, the elderly, new immigrants, and the sick or disabled. 

In addition, to unilateral activity, UJC is a national board member of the Emergency Food Shelter Board and has worked with United Way as part of a non-profit 

task force to discuss how the Nation’s largest nonprofits can cooperatively meet the 

social service needs of hurricane victims. UJC partners with other National Voluntary Agencies Active in Disaster (NVOAD) agencies including the American Red 

Cross, Catholic Charities, and Salvation Army to provide aid. We also serve on the 

National Advisory Committee for the Hurricane Fund for the Elderly of 

Grantmakers in Aging, which is a partnership with the Administration on Aging to 

direct philanthropic dollars and resources to organizations providing services to the 

most vulnerable older population in the Gulf Coast region. 

As an example of how UJC can quickly mobilize its vast network of federations 

and social services affiliates, I would like to share the following:

UJC operates a standing Emergency Relief Committee that can marshal its resources within 24 hours. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this committee was 

charged with identifying the emerging disaster relief needs that UJC could help 

meet. To meet these emerging needs, UJC and the federations of North America 

raised more than $28 million in cash through a ‘‘Katrina Relief Fund’’ and facilitated the contribution of millions of dollars more through in-kind donations. Before 

the landfall of Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, UJC federations and 

our Gulf Coast affiliates were promptly alerted and began immediately arranging 

emergency shelter and food centers for evacuees. UJC sent senior staff to Baton 

Rouge, Louisiana, to help develop and coordinate support among community-based 

organizations. Their mission was to reinforce the infrastructure of Baton Rouge to 

handle the incoming evacuating New Orleans residents. In addition, UJC sent staff 

to Houston, Texas, to help buttress our Houston and New Orleans affiliates in planning strategic and tactical responses. Shortly thereafter, UJC funding was allocated 

to local communities in the Gulf Coast region for emergency needs such as food and 

basic supplies, financial aid, mental-health counseling, temporary housing, and respite care for thousands of evacuees in the Jewish and general communities. 

34

In the initial aftermath of the storm, UJC facilitated temporary shelter for 

Katrina evacuees in Jewish communities across the Southwest and South, including 

Austin, Dallas and Houston, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; Baton Rouge and 

Shreveport, Louisiana; Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee; and Central Florida and 

as far south as Palm Beach, Florida. We also helped establish an e-mail and telephone communications network for evacuees through local host federations. 

Last month, senior officials from UJC and the federation system conducted a 

weeklong site visit to the region. The primary purpose of this site visit was to review the progress of the expenditures made from earlier UJC allocations, and to assess the more long-term social service needs of hurricane victims in the Jewish and 

general population. In addition, UJC wanted to express its strong commitment to 

aid the affected Gulf Coast communities in mapping recovery strategies. 

In Mississippi, UJC met with the Honorable Connie Rocko, President, of the Harrison County Board of Supervisors, General Joseph Spraggins, Director of the Harrison County Emergency Operations, Brian Sanderson, Deputy Director of the Governor’s Office of Recovery and Renewal, and Suzanne Case, Director of the Gulfport 

office for U.S. Senator Thad Cochran. We gave these local, State, and Federal representatives a report of our efforts such as allocating emergency financial assistance 

to the Jackson, Mississippi community; along with sending thousands of school 

books and hundreds of boxes of clothing and blankets to Biloxi, Mississippi; and coordinating emergency financial and social service aid for Hurricane Katrina victims 

with St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. We also 

asked the local, State, and Federal representatives how we could further support 

their government efforts to rebuild the Gulf Coast. The unanimous response was to 

continue ‘‘the UJC network efforts.’’

Moreover, UJC reached out to the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors 

Bureau through its Executive Director, Stephen Richer, to gather background information on the post-Katrina economic impact on the region’s primary revenue base 

and better assess how UJC could be resourceful. We also met with Virginia Newton, 

President of the Board of Trustees for the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning and Beverly Ward, from the U.S. Department of Education (now detailed to Mississippi). We discussed with these State and Federal officials the impact on the community’s education system and in particular how students of the Gulf Coast region 

were able to relocate and continue their studies. Earlier, UJC had coordinated a donation by a New York advertising agency of 15 computers and 2,500 backpacks containing school supplies from ‘‘Project Backpack’’ for a high school in Hattiesburg, 

Mississippi. 

In Houston and Dallas, Texas, UJC pooled its resources and partnered with the 

United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast. The mission was to assess immediate needs 

and identify local community-based organizations that regularly provide emergency 

and social service needs. Such organizations would now be tasked to double their 

workload with a burgeoning ‘‘new’’ population post Hurricane Katrina. In partnership with the Dallas Jewish Federation, UJC donated $250,000 to the Dallas Mayor’s Housing initiative to assist in providing housing for Katrina evacuees. 

UJC federations and affiliated groups interacted with many local, State, and Federal Government officials in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. A prime example 

of this kind of interaction in Baton Rouge involved local volunteer Richard Lipsey 

and the Baton Rouge Jewish Federation to coordinate efforts with the East Baton 

Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office so that off-duty officers and local volunteers were able 

to rescue individuals who were trapped in New Orleans. Friends and relatives called 

the New Orleans Federation, which was temporarily housed in Houston, with names 

and addresses of people who remained in New Orleans. The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s office along with Baton Rouge volunteers then went in and evacuated 

them as well as anyone else they came across. The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s office was also involved in the trip to rescue several Torah scrolls and other sacred objects from damaged synagogues in New Orleans. 

The Jewish Federation of Greater Houston participated in Texas Governor Rick 

Perry’s faith-based organization conference calls, which assisted with the coordination of hurricane relief efforts to maximize input and output. They also coordinated 

hurricane relief efforts with Texas State Senator Todd Staples. In addition, the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston funded a grant for approximately $75,000 to the 

Harris County Medical Reserve Corporation to support 2,000 doctors, nurses, and 

other medical professionals at Reliant Stadium and the George R. Brown Convention Center providing medical treatment to Hurricane Katrina victims being housed 

there. This grant was timely, since the program was close to exhausting its funds. 

The medical program also increased from 200 volunteers to 2,000 volunteers. 

UJC provided financial assistance to over 12 non-Jewish community based organizations such as the Ripley House, West Houston Assistance Ministries, and the SecVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
35

ond Mile Mission Center. These community-based organizations offered food pantries, soup kitchens, clothing centers, counseling, coordinated housing, job training, 

and job bank centers for Hurricane Katrina victims. During our recent site visit, we 

met with a number of Katrina victims who had relocated from New Orleans to The 

Ripley House. These former New Orleans residents were staffing the Ripley House’s 

new ‘‘stay connected’’ program that allows e-mail set-up and cellular telephone communication between victims and their families separated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 

Some of the funds raised by UJC have been designated to rebuild community infrastructure, including federation buildings, day schools, and synagogues severely 

damaged by the storm. Other funds will be used to rebuild Jewish life in the affected areas and re-attract those who were evacuated to places across the country. 

UJC is an organization with a long history in effectively forming public-private 

partnerships. A key to that partnership over the years has been an on-going dialogue with civic and community leaders about the issues that citizens deal with dayto-day and during a national disaster. In preparation for the weeklong site tour, 

UJC networked with the Congressional delegation and the Governor’s office of Mississippi, as well as the offices of the Mayors in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Houston. First, UJC invited representatives from Federal, State, and local government 

offices as well as community leaders and clergy to meet in Gulfport, Mississippi; 

Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; and New Orleans, Louisiana. The two 

main topics of discussion at these small forums were the current status of the Gulf 

Coast region devastated by Hurricane Katrina and in particular how to begin to restore the social fabric of the Gulf Coast communities. Secondly, the eight-member 

site team toured on foot and by bus towns and cities now in ruins with destroyed 

highways/streets, businesses, recreation/tourist areas, and suburbs/residential areas 

that form our Nations’ Gulf Coast communities. 

We also toured Gulf Coast-based FEMA facilities and a trailer park (a 

‘‘FEMAVille’’) where some hurricane victims and their families currently reside. In 

addition, the UJC site team met with hurricane victims who volunteered to share 

their personal stories of how they survived and had relocated to other towns, cities, 

and States. The hurricane victims also shared their views on whether they had 

plans to return to their respective communities and begin rebuilding their homes 

and lives. The hurricane victims gave first-hand accounts of the hours leading up 

to Hurricane Katrina making land fall along our Nation’s Gulf Coast region and the 

aftermath they personally confronted later once Hurricane Katrina dissipated. The 

stories—and there were AND continue to be many experienced by native Gulf Coast 

residents—reveal the initial horror and desperation in the wake of a national disaster. 

A more effective response can be achieved to ensure prompt relief in a major national disaster. We recommend that the following action steps be adopted, which can 

lead to a more effective partnership between local, State, and Federal Governments 

and community-based organizations:

• Form a ‘‘Disaster Task Force’’ with representatives from government and community-based organizations to assess needs, guide funding, identify gaps and solve 

problems; • Devise a match-up system for local, State, and Federal First Responders with 

community-based organizations as partners to aid relief efforts; • Maintain an open and ongoing dialogue throughout the disaster to establish priorities for needs and funding and eliminate duplication; • Coordinate essential recovery services and assign roles by dividing duties between government officials and community-based organizations; • Publicize guidelines with respect to publicly- and privately-available housing 

and set-up a registry of available housing; • Publicize locations of mass feeding centers; • Establish emergency toll-free hotlines for disaster victims and share the telephone numbers with community-based organizations to circulate; • Publicize information and referrals phone numbers for health and human services such as medical treatment/evaluation and counseling; • Expand licensure waivers for medical, dental, and counseling professionals, so 

that they are able to give aid in emergency situations in States where they are not 

licensed; 

• Expand guidelines for mortgage and utility payments for homeowners and leasing costs for renters; 

• Establish procedures whereby evacuees are able to bring their pets with them 

and/or establish sufficient facilities for sheltering pets; and, 

• Facilitate an organized distribution of in-kind donations by establishing a centralized location for food, clothing and other supplies.

36

There is a critical need to match generosity with distribution in a national disaster. Local, State, and Federal Governments working with community-based organizations can design an efficient system to meet basic needs and address disbursement in a national disaster. 

UJC has a strong interest in a more effective public-private partnership and 

would like to continue to work with local, State, and Federal Governments to aid 

a more effective response to a national disaster. I saw evidence of human kindness, 

compassion, acts of courage, and outreach between diverse communities. I was 

heartened, for the stories I heard and what I witnessed first-hand reflect the true 

character and spirit of our Nation’s communities. They are strong, they are resilient, 

and they can be greatly helped and strengthened by a structured partnership with 

regular and concise communication between local, State, and Federal Governments 

and community-based organizations. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present the UJC story.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Harris. 

TANYA HARRIS, LEAD ORGANIZER IN THE LOWER NINTH 

WARD OF NEW ORLEANS FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS FOR REFORM NOW 

Ms. HARRIS. Thank you. 

The experience that I had was as an evacuee going into shelters, 

going into a Red Cross shelter with 1,500 people and five telephones and, a month later, two computers. Everything that we did 

inside those shelters, any information that we came across, was 

word-of-mouth. 

So I think that a key part of this is making sure that information 

is available and properly disseminated amongst the evacuees or 

people who are victims of a disaster. 

What happened was that ACORN, as a matter of fact, I had to 

start organizing inside my own shelter in order to get information 

to people. And ACORN began doing this in other shelters around 

the Southeast region. The questions just kept arising about how do 

you get information, how do you get in touch with FEMA. These 

people were inside shelters, inside of Red Cross shelters, and did 

not have access to this information. So that is also a key component, having access to information, and also using our networks, of 

course, our own networks that were set up before Katrina, also 

using text messaging and things like that to get people information. But there needs to be some way to get people information 

more quickly and more efficiently. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Harris follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TANYA HARRIS

Good Afternoon, my name is Tanya Harris and I am a community organizer for 

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. I am also 

a Katrina Survivor; I was born and raised in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans. 

Luckily my family had the resources to leave when Katrina hit. Eventually we 

ended up staying in a shelter right outside of Baton Rouge in Gonzales, LA, there 

we reconnected with ACORN. There were also volunteers there from the Red Cross 

who didn’t seem ready to deal with a disaster this big. Even though we were in their 

shelter we had very little access to information, there was information on how to 

get out of Louisiana but if you were looking for services where we were you couldn’t 

find anything. There were about 1,500 people there and only five phones and two 

computers. The only way that we got to services was word of mouth. 

We have been active ACORN members for 20 years and ACORN was a piece of 

home for us when I didn’t know when we would be able to get back. So I started 

working with ACORN doing a different type of community organizing, not door to 

door, but bed to bed in shelters. And at the same time that my family found ACORN 

in Baton Rouge, ACORN offices in other cities started to reach out to Katrina surVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
37

vivors, and New Orleans ACORN Members were pointed to their nearest ACORN 

office through ACORN’s Web site and hotline in Houston, in Los Angeles, in San 

Antonio, in Dallas, in Arkansas, in Atlanta and even in New York. ACORN members all over were offering their homes and their assistance to their brothers and 

sisters who had been affected by the hurricane. 

And ACORN starting hearing back from survivors, there were many questions 

and concerns. And we searched for the answers. Some of them we found after hours 

and days and multiple calls to FEMA and other Government Agencies. Many of the 

answers we had to provide ourselves. 

That’s when the ACORN Housing Corporation started to send their housing counselors all over the country to work with displaced homeowners to contact their mortgage lenders. We found out that even though many large lenders had decided to 

stop foreclosures on homes, several smaller companies were still expecting people 

to pay their mortgages in full and on time. And if they didn’t homeowners were 

slapped with large fees and the threat of losing their homes. ACORN took on lenders like Ocwen Loan Services for continuing to charge prepayment fees and we won. 

Next after searching for help to get homes rebuilt in New Orleans, we decided 

to start our own program. We raised over a million dollars and hired crews to remove debris, rip out drywall, sanitize homes to get rid of the mold and of course 

tarping roofs to prevent any more water damage. So far the ACORN Home Clean 

Out Demonstration Program has cleaned out over 700 homes, and we plan to have 

1,000 done before the end of March. 

As Government assistance started to run out ACORN looked to work with our allies to ensure that Katrina Survivors got all of the financial assistance that they 

could, so last month we announced our partnership with the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation to do Earned Income Tax Credit outreach. As a partner in the EITC 

Program, ACORN’s Katrina Benefits Access Project will provide EITC screening and 

free tax preparation services to victims of Hurricane Katrina. 

There is a lot of work to be done in rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. 

And the work that has been completed would have been easier if only we had the 

leadership of the Federal Government to look to. ACORN helped start NOAH, New 

Opportunities for Advocacy and Hope. This coalition held a rally in support of Louisiana workers getting contracts and fair pay in the rebuilding process and won the 

reinstatement of Davis Bacon. We also attended meetings with members of VOAD, 

but not much has come of it. We need the Government to play a leading role. 

ACORN would like to be a part of a comprehensive disaster relief plan that is 

formulated, because we know New Orleans. The people who live there have been 

our members for decades, and we are dedicated to doing everything possible to assist people in the rebuilding process, to make sure that every voice is heard during 

decisionmaking, and to ensure the right of return for the many who are scattered 

throughout the country. 

We couldn’t wait for the Federal Government to rebuild our lives, but we would 

like to work with you to make sure that there is an overall disaster relief plan that 

includes every person in our city.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Franklin. 

Ms. FRANKLIN. I just wanted to address that a bit in that in the 

rural areas, we used our case managers from the CSBG unit, from 

the Community Action Agency, and the Head Start program to go 

into the shelters with their laptops, and they were able to get the 

evacuees their FEMA numbers and get in contact with the Red 

Cross and all the other services that they needed. 

But one of the things that I thought would be so critical and that 

we needed to think about was having a national disaster response 

policy that would include all of those pieces, and the roles of the 

faith-based organizations and the CSBG unit, and the other nonprofits, and the CDFIs—all of those pieces pulled together in one 

policy so that when disasters happen like Katrina and Rita, we will 

be able to go to that policy and be able to relax rules and relax regulations so that we would be able to help people and help them 

quickly. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Hawks. 

38

MAJOR TODD HAWKS, NATIONAL PUBLIC AFFAIRS SECRETARY AND ASSOCIATE COMMUNITY RELATIONS SECRETARY FOR THE SALVATION ARMY 

Mr. HAWKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You have some of our thoughts and observations as relates to our 

thoughts as to how the Federal Government could assist NGOs and 

faith-based organizations as relates to disaster services. 

It is interesting, following up on that thought, one of our recommendations—and it is actually materializing in part here 

today—is that we include NGOs as part of the process of revising 

the national response plan and making sure that NGOs have a big 

part, particularly in ESF-6 aspects of the national plan. 

One thing I want to note is that many of the folks around this 

table are generally at almost all disasters, and I think the thing 

that Katrina brought to bear was several hundred organizations 

and faith-based groups and individuals who perhaps had never 

been a part of the process before. And one of our recommendations—and the Federal Government can assist us with this, whether it is FEMA or whoever—is to incorporate NGOs in the exercises 

and training so that there is some interagency cross-training going 

on between the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, the faith-based organizations—everybody, from those who are very familiar with the 

systems to those who are least familiar with the systems—so that 

we all understand the different terms, the different acronyms, so 

that we know the assets and the experiences that the various 

groups bring to bear, and then they could be better utilized in the 

services. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hawks follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MAJOR TODD HAWKS

Good morning. The Salvation Army appreciates this opportunity to discuss our 

disaster relief services and to share our thoughts on how governments and NGOs 

can collaborate more effectively to provide food, water, supplies, and other needed 

services to disaster survivors. 

When this committee convened a similar roundtable discussion shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, my colleague Major Marilyn White participated in the conversation. As Major White indicated in her testimony, The Salvation 

Army’s response to disasters entails:

• Providing food and water to both survivors and first-responders; 

• Helping survivors clean up homes that weathered the storm; 

• Providing shelter to those who lost their homes; 

• Utilizing case management to assess the needs of families and harness the social services needed to help survivors put their lives back together again; and, 

• Offering emotional and spiritual comfort to disaster victims and emergency 

workers coping with the stress of the disaster.

Now, 6 months later, I can update you on our activities in the Gulf Coast area 

and hopefully shed some light on how coordination can be improved in the future. 

One might assume that the need for our initial response services in the Gulf 

Coast would be tapering off. To the contrary, we’re expanding our services and shifting the nature of our activities from immediate relief to recovery. We’ve doubled the 

number of caseworkers and opened another distribution center in New Gretna, Louisiana, to better serve the people of the New Orleans area. 

For a better sense of how an average family might benefit from these services, 

I’ll share with you some of the highlights of a recent report from our Southern Mississippi Recovery Command Center. We now have four Disaster Recovery Centers 

operating in the area, in Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport, and Pass Christian. Distributed at these centers are essential supplies required for returning home: boxes of 

food, cleanup kits, and other household items. For those who are unable to return 

home and are living in FEMA trailers, we’re providing dishes, silverware, and other 

39

household necessities. Our case managers in the Disaster Recovery Centers are also 

working with families to assess their needs, and it is through this process that we 

are beginning to distribute furniture and appliances. 

We are also involved in long-term recovery efforts, although we often act in partnership with other organizations when we do so. Again using southern Mississippi 

as an example, The Salvation Army has partnered with Project Teamwork to house 

volunteer groups that are working to repair homes and remove debris so that families can return to their homes. 

We do not have an exit plan for the Gulf Coast. Our best and brightest will be 

there, on the ground, in the region for at least 2 full years. 

The American people have supported all of these activities through donations, entrusting The Salvation Army to use their gifts efficiently and effectively. 

Each charitable organization uses contributions in a way that reflects their individual strengths. Different organizations have different strengths. Our use of contributions reflects these strengths in both the response and recovery phases. 

To date, the Army has received $336 million in donations. We’ve spent one-third 

of it—$122 million—largely on initial response services. Of the $122 million spent 

so far, 70 percent has gone towards direct financial assistance to survivors—including gift cards, accommodations assistance and utilities assistance. The remaining 30 

percent of the total spent has gone towards meal services, cleaning and personal hygiene supplies for survivors, equipment, and transportation and lodging for Salvation Army disaster personnel. 

The remaining donations will largely be spent on recovery projects, which typically require significant financial resources. 

That summarizes our activities and our distribution of donations to date. At this 

point, I’d like to share with you some of our thoughts and observations about the 

response to Hurricane Katrina. 

Mr. Chairman, The Salvation Army has over a century of experience in responding to disasters. Still, as an organization we’ve learned valuable lessons from the 

activities in the Gulf Coast—about how we can improve our own services and organizational structure to respond more efficiently and effectively when the next disaster strikes, and how NGOs and governments can better work together to achieve 

our common goals. 

Thoughts and Observations on Katrina Response 

Given the nature of our activities, our observations will apply almost exclusively 

to the mass care element of the government’s response. In the National Response 

Plan, those activities fall under Emergency Support Function #6, Mass Care, Housing, and Human Services. 

From our perspective, the types of services that were needed by Gulf Coast residents were no different than those provided to other victims of earlier hurricanes. 

The crucial differences between the response to Katrina and earlier hurricanes were 

the geographic scope of the disaster, the scale of the damage, and the multiple types 

of disasters triggered by a single event. 

If Congress is inclined to make changes in the Federal Government’s disaster response protocols, then The Salvation Army has identified four items that we would 

like you to consider. 

1. Include NGO Community When Revising the National Response Plan 

We have been heartened by calls to revise the National Response Plan and to better integrate charitable organizations into disaster response plans. The system as 

we know it doesn’t work as well as it could. If I was limited to making a single suggestion today, it would be that the NGO community—all of the key players within 

the NGO community—should have a seat at the table as the National Response 

Plan is revised. 

Why? For two reasons. First, many States and municipalities have used the National Response Plan as a template for crafting their own response plans. Consequently, any coordination problems in the Federal plan are frequently repeated 

at the State and local levels. 

Second, the National Response Plan makes a broad assumption about NGOs that 

I would challenge. The plan assumes that NGOs will always be able to respond and 

to fill in the service gaps. For a typical disaster, this would be a reasonable assumption. For a catastrophic event, however, this is a risky assumption. Simultaneous 

events would seriously degrade the NGO community’s ability to respond, as would 

a disaster zone that threatened the lives of volunteers. If the NGO community is 

consulted during the revision process, then this type of assumption can be properly 

addressed. 

40

2. Assign a Government Office as the Primary Agency Responsible for the 

National Response Plan’s ESF #6

In our view, the role of government is to lead and coordinate. The role of organizations such as The Salvation Army is to support those efforts. 

Yet under ESF #6, an NGO—rather than a Federal Agency—is charged with coordinating the mass care activities of other NGOs. The Salvation Army urges you 

to review this organizational structure carefully. 

It might be worth noting that many States have taken a decidedly different path 

in designing their mass care plans. These States have tasked a State government 

agency with the responsibility for providing mass care coordination. Governors have 

recognized that they cannot order an NGO to perform a particular task. Moreover, 

there is insufficient accountability if the NGO fails to perform as expected. Consequently many States have moved to ensure that the function is performed by 

tasking a State agency to do it. 

If you are wondering how the Federal Government could possibly coordinate the 

NGO community, I would point out that FEMA already has a position called a Voluntary Agency Liaison or VAL. That position could be empowered to manage and 

coordinate the NGO community, and those Federal employees could be held accountable for coordinating and for identifying existing or emerging gaps in services. 

Incorporate NGOs in Exercises and Training 

The single most effective vehicle for collaboration among government agencies and 

NGOs is on-going inter-agency cross-training. 

Standardized training is needed because all of the NGOs—especially the well-intentioned organizations and individuals who are new entrants in the disaster services field—must understand the government’s emergency management systems and 

the language of those systems. Terms must have the same meaning when used by 

any government agency or NGO. It may even be prudent to establish a shared code 

of conduct for NGOs, similar to the code of conduct guiding the actions of international humanitarian relief organizations. 

Congress could help this by conditioning the receipt of State and local training 

grants upon the inclusion of NGOs in planning and training. 

Educate the Public 

Just as there are roles for government and charitable organizations in disaster 

response, there is also a role for people who are moved to help in some way. 

All too frequently, people and corporations will send unwanted items to a disaster 

site. Their motivation is laudable, but the arrival of unsolicited in-kind contributions 

at a disaster site is problematic. Volunteers have to be diverted from feeding and 

directly assisting victims to sort through truckloads of miscellaneous clothes and 

other unneeded items. Further, storage space in a disaster is scarce and expensive. 

Likewise, the unexpected arrival of unsolicited and untrained volunteers is also 

problematic. As you can imagine, this situation taxes the ability of non-profits to 

effectively respond in the midst of a disaster. 

The unvarnished truth of the matter is that the best response is to send cash and 

stay out of the disaster zone, particularly when personal safety and health are at 

risk. 

The Federal Government should take the lead role in educating the American people about how to help disaster survivors. This could be achieved through public service announcements or by making prominent statements to that effect at the time 

of a disaster. 

Plans for 2006

As I mentioned, The Salvation Army has made improvements in our own procedures so that we are better prepared for the coming hurricane season or any other 

disaster.

• We’ve learned that we can’t do it all. No single organization can deliver all of 

the services needed by a distressed community or region. 

• Instead, we focus our efforts on what we do best—providing food service, distributing essential relief supplies, and offering emotional and spiritual care to those 

in need. 

• And we collaborate with other organizations to avoid duplication of resources 

and to expedite delivery of services, enhancing our collective ability to serve those 

in need. For example, The Southern Baptists frequently prepare the meals we serve 

from our canteens. The Volunteer housing mentioned previously is available for volunteer groups organized by other NGOs.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement, and I would be happy to answer any 

questions you might have.

41

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Mahboob. 

MOSTAFA MAHBOOB, ISLAMIC RELIEF USA 

Mr. MAHBOOB. Thank you, Senator, for inviting Islamic Relief. 

I think one of the main things that everybody has been saying 

is the importance of communication. For Islamic Relief, this is the 

biggest relief operation that we have undertaken in the U.S., and 

some of the experiences and the contacts that my colleagues here 

have had, we learned and acquired as we went along, and that was 

really helpful. I think that having this system of open communication lines and getting together ahead of a disaster and preparing 

for it will help all of us to better know each other and know what 

our strengths are and what our resources are to help each other 

out during a disaster. 

There are a couple of points I want to make and just some suggestions as well. In regard to government agencies or other agencies, for example, one of the best things our relief team in Louisiana has done is that since the beginning, they have been taking 

supplies from the warehouse that is provided in Baton Rouge and 

distributing those to areas that need it and do not have access to 

them. 

At the same time, I was in Mississippi for over 21⁄2 months, and 

there were, from my understanding, resources such as that available, or maybe because we do not get communication of everything 

that is going on, I was not aware of it, but in Jackson, MS, which 

is about 2 hours north of Biloxi, which is one of the most devastated areas in Mississippi, that is where I heard the warehouse 

was. 

So one of the major suggestions I would make is having the sites 

of distribution of resources or registration sites for FEMA and 

other things that victims need, having close proximity to the disaster sites as well as the people who were affected most. 

One of the other obstacles that we faced was a legal obstacle. In 

Biloxi, MS, there is a big need for mobile showers and laundromats 

and tents and so forth. One of the things that stopped us from acquiring those supplies was the issue of liability and insurance and 

so forth. Issues such as that could be addressed in future legislation that allows relief organizations to work a little faster and easier. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mahboob follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MOSTAFA MAHBOOB

Islamic Relief immediately responded to the needs of the victims of Hurricane 

Katrina—one of the greatest natural disasters in United States history. Islamic Relief committed $2 million for Katrina relief projects, which include working in the 

affected areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Houston and Dallas, Texas. 

Hurricane Katrina was the first major response to a domestic emergency in Islamic Reliefs history. As part of its emergency response, Islamic Relief has carried 

out many activities to help victims of the hurricane. Islamic Relief has distributed 

needed food and non-food goods, purchased a building to house a clinic, provided 

shelter and housing, helped establish a community coordination and relief center, 

distributed medicines, hygiene kits, and cleaning kits, helped clean out homes and 

provided funding to rebuild others, bring volunteers to assist victims, and many 

other activities to help in the Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts. 

Islamic Relief worked with many community-based, national, and governmental 

organizations in coordinating its relief efforts. A perfect example of such collaboVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
42

rative work is the establishment of the Coordination and Relief Center in Biloxi, 

Mississippi. Realizing the need to coordinate the efforts of the relief groups coming 

into the area and to better serve the victims in a timely and efficient manner, Islamic Relief worked with the local city councilman and Oxfam America, among 

many others, to make the center a reality. Other organizations that worked together 

to establish this center included: Urban League Ministries, Hands on USA, community groups and churches, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, FEMA, Presbyterian 

Disaster Assistance, International Relief and Development, and many others. 

The center held at least two or more meetings per week to gather all the organizations working in the area, share information on the needs of the community, what 

services the groups were providing, what resources they needed to continue their 

work, and the challenges they were encountering. The other major goal of the Coordination Center encouraged community members to register in one central location and fill out surveys that informed us of their situation and their immediate 

needs. Hurricane victims would also pick up supplies that were available at the center. This effort helped match organizations offering specific services to community 

members who needed those services. Priority was given to the elderly and those 

needing the services urgently. Working in such a coordinated fashion not only 

helped the relief groups to efficiently carry out their work, but more importantly 

helped serve the victims in a more organized and timely fashion. 

A key for improving future response efforts is setting up an organized and coordinated emergency response structure—with an open and consistent communication 

system—that includes the participation of government agencies, relief organizations, 

and community based groups. Such a system will better coordinate the efforts of all 

those involved in responding to emergencies. Without this open communication line 

and an organized system of aid distribution, relief efforts will be tremendously hindered. Groups participating in such a structure would meet regularly to organize 

the best system in responding to disasters. 

Another effective method of responding to disasters is making sure points of supply distributions and other services are located in the area of, or close to the population that is most affected. Due to closed roads, lack of access to transportation, 

high gas prices, or other hurdles, victims and aid agencies cannot be expected to 

travel long distances to obtain supplies or services. In affected areas where distribution warehouses or registration sites for obtaining aid were located nearby, the relief 

efforts were much better. Having such resources close to the area affected will dramatically cut the aid delivery time and help disaster victims obtain vital resources 

faster. 

An area where Government support can improve future efforts is access to statistical information. Any post-disaster data that is collected by agencies or old data 

that can help aid agencies know the statistical make-up of an affected area can be 

crucial to relief efforts. For example, when trying to clean hurricane damaged 

homes, the Coordination Center in Biloxi wanted to send the volunteer groups first 

to the vulnerable elderly and disabled citizens, but there was no access to such data 

at hand. To collect this information, surveys had to be conducted in the neighborhood, which consumed time and delayed the delivery of assistance. 

In preparation for future disasters, Islamic Relief is planning the creation of an 

Emergency Response Team that is pre-selected and properly trained to immediately 

respond to disasters. Learning from our wealth of experience in response to Katrina, 

our goal is to systemize aspects that worked well and improve in other areas. This 

team would be trained to respond to disasters and know how to help victims once 

on the ground. Another area of preparedness includes recruiting the proper number 

of volunteers, training them with at least the basics, and having a system for them 

once on the ground. Also, the relationships we have forged with the many other aid 

agencies will be tapped into to help us respond as a group and better serve the population in need. 

Islamic Relief looks forward to continue its emergency relief and development 

work as we have done in over 30 countries for more than 2 decades. It is essential 

for all groups involved in disaster response to work together in serving the needs 

of disaster victims. Islamic Relief would like to thank the Senate Committee on 

Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions for inviting us to be a part of this important 

discussion to better serve those in need when responding to future disasters.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. WILKINS. Thank you, sir. 

I do want to comment and just add to some of the comments that 

were made earlier about some of the resources that can be provided 

after the disaster. 

43

Ms. Feltman, you talked about the fact that there are resources 

within your own organization that could come in and help us meet 

a community need. As we are looking to rebuild the New Orleans 

social services structure, one of the things that I found was that 

seeking out some of those smaller agencies and utilizing those resources certainly is helping us rebuild and recovery. And I appreciate the agencies that have come in and are working with us. 

As we look at the shelter situation—what you were talking 

about, Ms. Harris—I really would love to be able to find ways for 

us to have better communication in the shelters. I think you have 

a captive population that truly lives and dies by rumor. If we could 

get some type of communication system in place in our shelters 

that gives real-time information and also has a caseworker ability 

that can be brought to bear with some of our population, I think 

it will do much to help ease some of the anxiety—maybe even getting FEMA coming into the shelter and talking the next time there 

is a big disaster. Maybe that is a way that we can help provide information. Information is power, and you feel very powerless when 

you have none of that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Bourg. 

Ms. BOURG. I want to speak a little further about the health conditions. We were so alarmed what we were seeing happening with 

the mold exposure and a lot of the heavy metals exposure in some 

of the waste matter in the homes. And by the way, I would just 

like to say also that were it not for the levee failures in New Orleans, which were certainly horrendous, we would mostly be talking 

about Hurricane Rita. So I just ask my colleagues, when we talk 

about Hurricane Katrina to either say ‘‘Katrina’’ or ‘‘Katrina-Rita.’’ 

Those of us in the rural areas who have been devastated by this 

hurricane would very much appreciate that. We feel left out so 

much already. 

The reentry kits, we had to issue ourselves with the help of 

Oxfam America, because we asked FEMA to try to do that, and 

FEMA went to the Centers for Disease Control, who said that only 

if there was an outbreak of cholera or some such extreme situation 

should FEMA do that. So FEMA did not do that, even after we had 

joint hearings in the legislature, in the House and the Senate, to 

try to urge that FEMA do that. So it was all done through private 

funds, and really, something needs to be relaxed where FEMA is 

concerned about the prevention of disease and not waiting until a 

major outbreak takes place to get these reentry kits and the kinds 

of things that you needed, like masks and so on. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. NEMITZ. Mr. Chairman, in my own experience, when we hear 

about communication during a disaster, it is not always a lack of 

communication. One of the issues that I think the technology age 

has given us now is almost, at times, too much communication, too 

much information. 

At one point, when I was in Jackson, MS, I had a member of my 

staff coordinate a series of either FEMA, State emergency management, local emergency management, or national VOAD calls for the 

day. There were 38 conference calls scheduled for 1 day. 

44

So it is not just a matter of no information—it is from whom are 

we getting it from, who is credible, and during time of crisis, where 

do you want to look for the most reliable sources of information. So 

it is not always the issue of no information; it is sometimes who 

is talking at the microphone. I think that is something where, at 

the Federal level, perhaps, there could be some assistance with 

working with the media, training the media, training other organizations on funneling how they are going to release information 

from various government agencies, too, because someone saying, 

‘‘Hey, we are on a phone call with Washington,’’ when you are out 

in the sticks, that does carry a lot of weight—but to whom am I 

talking, and do they have anything worth listening to. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. HAZELWOOD. In the conversations about Mississippi a few 

moments ago, I was reminded of another issue that came along for 

us, which is the ability to house volunteers. We have a wealth of 

volunteers who are able to lend assistance, but one of the greatest 

needs we have at times is the ways in which volunteers can be 

housed in the disaster zones. 

One of the things—and my colleagues and I approached FEMA—

there was a camp—Camp Vancleave, I think is the name of it—in 

Mississippi that was there that had been used to house families 

and had then been vacated. We as voluntary agencies approached 

FEMA and asked if we could use that facility. We would manage 

it, we would fund it. We just wanted them to leave the tents and 

leave the village there so we could use it, but we were not allowed 

to do that. 

If something as simple as that could be left there, we would have 

better access and could bring a lot more resources to the table 

through our people. But we just simply do not have places to put 

people. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Daroff. 

Mr. DAROFF. Similarly, as far as bringing in volunteers, we do 

have volunteers from throughout the Jewish communities of the 

country who would like to come in and help and volunteer. Our understanding from talking to folks down there is that there is obviously a need for it, but there is a critical need for places for these 

volunteers to say. I know there are issues with FEMA with the 

campground outside New Orleans in Baton Rouge, where the number of folks who are able to stay there is actually decreasing because of infrastructure problems. 

One thing that Ms. Bourg said that I wanted to follow up on is 

about liability issues with FEMA. We went down to one of the 

‘‘FEMA-villes’’ in Baton Rouge—I don’t know if you have been to 

one, Mr. Chairman—but the one that we went to is 1,000 trailers, 

lots of rocks, no grass, no greenery. We asked about what the kids 

do when they are not in school, and we were told that the New Orleans Saints had offered to donate $40,000 worth of playground 

equipment but that FEMA, for liability reasons, could not accept it. 

It is going to be a critical issue when school stops and summertime comes around as far as what these kinds are going to be 

doing, and it is just not a very pleasant environment. 

One last thing just to throw into the mix—in talking to General 

Joseph Spraggens, who is the Harrison County emergency operVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
45

ations coordinator, he said that one of the biggest problems that 

they have down there has to do with pets, people not leaving their 

homes or their homesteads because of their pets. And he could list 

a dozen folks that he knew just off the top of his head who either 

stayed behind in order to care for their pets or refused to evacuate 

because those who were evacuating them would not allow them to 

take their pets with them. That is obviously a critical need. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you. 

Ms. Harris. 

Ms. HARRIS. Just to piggyback on what Mr. Hazelwood and Mr. 

Daroff said about the volunteer situation, ACORN has been involved for the past few months in cleaning and stabilizing the 

homes in New Orleans. We have done almost 800 homes at this 

point, and we are heavily dependent on volunteer labor. We raised 

$1 million to start this program, and the volunteer effort is what 

has helped us to continue to do this. And we were informed just 

last week that there would be downsizing of the FEMA camp in Algiers from about 2,000 beds to 600 beds. Well, we are expecting 

over 1,600 volunteers over the next 2 months, and this kind of activity, this downsizing, is going to heavily impact the way that we 

are able to help the community in stabilizing the homes in New Orleans and the rebuild effort. 

Also, a point that I do not think anyone has brought up is mortgage information and actually aiding people in disaster situations 

with mortgage help. The Housing Corporation sent out housing 

counselors to the various shelters to help people with mortgage 

questions. That is something that comes up that you may not be 

able to communicate with anybody else, but a lot of people understand one thing—that their mortgage is still due, regardless of 

whether they have a job or the house still exists. 

So that is also a problem for people who have mortgages, who 

have questions about their mortgages during a time of disaster and 

what is going to happen. These fees are still accruing, and we actually had to engage ourselves in a fight with the loan services because they were charging repayment fees to people as they were 

going through a disaster situation. So that is also an issue that 

should be out at the forefront. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Bourg. 

Ms. BOURG. Senator, we have also had volunteers from 14 States 

and two counties, and I wonder if there is a national good samaritan law that protects folks who go in and work in a disaster area. 

It seems to me that that would be extremely helpful, that—unless 

there were intentional gross negligence or intentional harm—there 

ought to be some sort of national good samaritan law to protect 

those folks. 

Finally, I would just like to say a little bit on behalf of the Community Development Financial Institutions. I think that strengthening those in America, especially in rural communities, is very 

critical in getting some affordable capital out for the rebuilding and 

redevelopment effort. Those Community Development Financial Institutions that are chartered by the Treasury I think are very critical. 

46

The new markets tax credits that you have done in the Senate 

and in the Congress are very important, because that is going to 

help us rebuild those businesses all along the coast. So the setaside dollars for the Gulf Coast and the CDFI, Community Development Financial Institutions, money is really critical in a time of 

disaster. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Nemitz. 

Mr. NEMITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As I am sure you have seen and you have read and you have 

heard, many organizations around this table—houses of worship, 

foodbanks, shelters, various places—have become first responders. 

And I think one of the things we need to understand or to get others at various levels to understand is that ‘‘first responders’’ does 

not necessarily mean police and fire. It has to be all of us around 

this table, and it has to be all those who are involved with disaster 

response recovery and long-term recovery. 

Along that same line, though, there needs to be a level playing 

surface. When it comes to things like houses of worship, foodbanks, 

various buildings being allowed to apply to the SBA, the Small 

Business Administration, for disaster mitigation loans, nonprofit 

organizations are not allowed to apply. 

However, if a foodbank is damaged or a house of worship is damaged after a storm, you can apply for a low-interest loan to rebuild. 

There is a little problem there. The logic escapes me on why organizations that are expected or by mandate are helping during times 

of disaster cannot improve their infrastructure, either with a generator, repairing their roof, reinforcing their building, to be there for 

the long haul to help State, Federal and local government officials. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Senator. 

One of the concerns—and it has been stated already, but I want 

to emphasize it—is the need for waivers. As you probably know, in 

Arkansas, we have quite a few mobile homes that are still there 

that were designed to assist the evacuees to return home. A lot of 

the reason—and again, this goes to the communication issue—is 

that they cannot return because of different environmental concerns and code enforcement issues—and in some cases, even being 

on flood plains, the fact of replacing those mobile homes back on 

flood plains. 

So from my perspective, if we are talking about a once in a lifetime—I am hoping it is a once in a lifetime situation with the devastation that was caused in New Orleans—we need to take extraordinary measures to make sure that these mobile homes are there 

for the people, the volunteers, whomever, so that they can be working. 

The other concern that I have is that again, in some cases—because this is again a once in a lifetime situation—we are talking 

about people who are not going back home because, first of all, 

many of the persons who left, the evacuees, did not have resources 

or means to get out. Our hotels in Arkansas were filled, all the way 

from Little Rock to Fayetteville and portions of the communities 

bordering Louisiana. 

47

There were fewer persons who were able to get out. The persons 

who were last to get out were the ones who were on buses or in 

airplanes or what-have-you who came to Arkansas and other States 

in the Union. A lot of those people are not coming back. They are 

going to stay in those respective communities. Services are still 

needed for them, and this again is one of the concerns that I have 

in a situation like this, because for once in a lifetime, you do not 

just stop temporarily after a disaster is over. This is ongoing. And 

again, from that perspective, there needs to be consideration given 

to those persons who are going to remain in these communities, because those persons who are there in a lot of cases have no resources. 

What we have done in our State, again, is provided those resources through our processing, but we checked to make sure they 

needed medicine and what-have-you; that was done. But again, 

when those persons get into a community and reassociate themselves in our State—and we anticipate close to 4,000 or 5,000 people coming to Arkansas, saying in Arkansas—they have to have a 

way to maintain their livelihood and way to get back to providing 

for their families. 

So we are looking for the opportunity for our Community Action 

Agencies and other nonprofit organizations to provide a way in 

which this can be accomplished. So there will have to be some type 

of resources available to those organizations that are not necessarily in New Orleans or in other parts of Mississippi. Those organizations are also going to need resources to address this problem. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Franklin. 

Ms. FRANKLIN. I just want to piggyback on that just a little further, Mr. Chairman, to say that for those mobile homes that are 

in Arkansas—just to put a little pitch in so that nonprofits will 

have access to those units, because in Louisiana, there is lots of 

property that is not located in flood zones where those units could 

be used. We are talking about a housing crisis in the State of Louisiana. We talked about how we could get efficient housing quick 

and in a hurry for those persons who are in hotels or living multifamily where you have five or six families living in one unit together. That would be an ideal solution to the crisis, to remove restrictions and to have waivers where nonprofits and faith-based organizations who have the property and have the infrastructure can 

get those units and put them on the ground quickly. 

It is an excellent, innovative idea for a housing crisis. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

I am going to change the discussion slightly. This has been the 

best roundtable that I have attended. First of all, you have stayed 

below the time limits, and you have just been rapid-fire on ideas. 

I have a whole list, and I am going to have to go back through 

them, and I am sure we will have more questions regarding some 

of the poor notes that I took—not some of the things that you said. 

Fortunately, we have others taking notes, too. But I will say that 

this has been one of the best sessions for getting those things. 

48

I want to move the discussion just a little bit to the National Voluntary Organization Active in Disaster, which has an important 

role in the national plan. 

Do you have any comments on how VOAD can more effectively 

carry out its responsibilities. 

Yes. You have been very silent, so I will call on you first. 

ANDE MILLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL VOLUNTARY 

ORGANIZATIONS ACTIVE IN DISASTER 

Ms. MILLER. Thank you. 

I think that what you are addressing primarily is the role related 

to volunteer management, unaffiliated volunteers and unsolicited 

donations, because my members—Tom Hazelwood, Heather 

Feltman and Craig and others around here—addressed the piece in 

the plan regarding what services the voluntary organizations provide. 

In the case of unaffiliated volunteers and unsolicited donations, 

our support is as part of the annex to FEMA and to their activity 

related to that on a national scale. But having said that, the responsibility for donations and volunteers falls to the States—and if 

you read that through, you can see how that activity occurred. 

Now, we have all heard about the infrastructure in the affected 

States here, and to look at an expectation of a very quick ability 

to work with this massive amount of donations coming in would be 

a little short-sighted on our part. 

But having said that, we are already moving forward. We are already moving forward with the support of FEMA on a sophisticated 

system of both telephone and technology so that we can begin to 

grab those calls, and when they call Tom Hazelwood’s office and 

Heather Feltman’s office, and then they call me and they call 

Jayne, that one person, we now know, will have called all five people instead of counting them as five calls. 

So, will we be ready for this hurricane season? Craig Nemitz was 

talking about that last night. The fully-sophisticated set-up, no—

but in terms of knowing what we need to activate the moment the 

first newscast has begun is our story, for a national call center of 

some kind. 

The Points of Light Foundation, one of our members, has stepped 

forward and has significantly stepped forward to say that they too 

know that we need a national plan for dealing with incoming calls; 

that to put that on a State and on a local volunteer center in the 

early days of a catastrophic event or a significant event is unfair. 

So let us begin to hold onto those and use them appropriately. 

Right now, in terms of donations, a big thing that we had was 

offers made in the first 24 to 48 hours, not needed then but desperately needed now that the excitement is over, and people are 

back to work in their regular scheme of things. 

So, did we do what we wanted to do? No. Did we try? Yes. Do 

we know we can address this hurricane season much differently? 

Absolutely—faster and with much more forcefulness. 

In closing on this particular topic, one of our challenges has been 

messages coming out at varying levels of government that are inconsistent with what works—meaning that to encourage people to 

49

come on down, everyone, is not to ensure that organizations and 

places here have the people you need at the time you need them. 

I am a firm believer that every person with their truck, collecting 

things across the country, truly believes they are the only person 

doing that. But there is nothing on the other end to say are those 

things necessary now; the quilted vest is not needed in July, but 

where is it now that we are in February, and it is needed? 

So we are better, but those are all the things we still have to 

master. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Miller follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANDE MILLER

THE NATIONAL VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS ACTIVE IN DISASTER (NATIONAL VOAD) A

BRIEF HISTORY

In the wake of Hurricane Camille’s 1969 devastation of the Gulf Coast—it was 

obvious to voluntary organizations that they could better serve those affected by disaster through a more cooperative and coordinated approach. Seven of those organizations—7th-day Adventist Church, Southern Baptist Convention, Mennonite Disaster Service, St. Vincent De Paul Society, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, the National Disaster Relief Office of the Roman Catholic Church and the 

American Red Cross—met in the ARC headquarters to begin a movement of communication, cooperation, coordination and collaboration among disaster response and 

relief organizations. All of these organizations came to the organizing table with 

decades of disaster relief history. Since the first meeting in 1970—the organization 

now counts 40 members (25 faith based and 15 humanitarian, nonprofit and/or community-based—member list attached) A membership funded organization the National VOAD continued as a volunteer staffed organization until the mid-1990’s 

when a part-time executive secretary was appointed. A part-time Executive Director 

was appointed in September 2003 and became full-time in July 2005. Administrative support has been authorized and will be funded through the Points of Light 

Foundation, UPS/APCO Foundation and the United Methodist Committee on Relief. 

Hurricane Season 2005

In the summer of 2003 the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) secured a seat in their Emergency Support Team (EST) Operations Center for the National VOAD. This seat is adjacent to Emergency Support Function (ESF) 6—Mass 

Care, ESF-11-Food (USDA), Donations Management and Recovery’s Individual Assistance. We began staffing the EST during Hurricane Isabel, spent most of the late 

summer and fall in the EST for Hurricane Season 2004, participated in TOPOFF 

3 from what is now the National Resource Coordination Center (NRCC)—same 

chair—same pod mates and reported to the NRCC on August 28 in anticipation of 

Hurricane Katrina. As we did during Hurricane Season 2004—on August 29 the National VOAD members began daily conference calls to share information, identify 

challenges, propose and accept solutions and start all over the next day. I’ve looked 

through all my notes and these seem to be the most representative of the first 3 

months:

• CRWRC had no churches in the affected area and looked for a base church for 

their clean up and debris removal crews. 

• Southern Baptist Convention/North American Mission Board agreements with 

the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army were activated to support mass 

feeding efforts. At the same time SBC mobilized clean up and debris removal crews; 

deployed laundry and shower trailers as well as mobile kitchens. 

• Mercy Medical Airlift (the DHS HSEATS project and the disaster arm of Angel 

Flight) began moving disaster leadership and skilled workers for most of our members and other disaster groups. 

• Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) provided birds eye view of Gulf Coast damage from a Mercy Med over flight—MDS brought Bayou La Batre, AL to our attention on day 2. 

• United Jewish Communities provided updates on the UJF of New Orleans move 

to Houston as a result of significant damage to their offices, etc., and to support the 

New Orleans Jewish community that had relocated to the area. 

• World Vision focused on warehousing and social services in the Dallas area. 

50

• KatrinaHousing.org not only provided resources but also sought out the expertise of long time disaster providers to preclude some of the pitfalls of donated housing.

These are very few of the type of things we shared each day. Oftentimes the information sharing helped ‘‘fill in the map’’ to determine if affected areas were covered; 

sometimes a ‘‘new’’ group like Humanitarian International Services Group needed 

to be connected to the distribution systems in place through other voluntary organizations like America’s Second Harvest and local, State and Federal Government. 

As time passed our calls grew to a peak of nearly 200 organizations—some of 

whom have expressed a desire to seek membership in National VOAD or the State 

VOAD where they are located. 

All of our members responded in the affected States and in host States—now if 

I can just get them to share statistical information. 

The more I type the more I have to say—Hope Coalition America is linked to 

MDS, FEMA and others providing financial counseling. 

The Department of Labor—Workforce Investment Board—has been very forward 

moving in connecting with the voluntary organizations individually as appropriate 

and the Recovery Committees throughout the country. Jacqueline Halbig of the DOL 

office of faith based and community initiatives and Under Secretary Emily DiRocco 

have made themselves, their offices and staff available to organizations and committees to ensure that case managers are aware of the significant resources available. 

The Rural Development Authority (USDA) was very responsive and we actually 

saw housing made available and used by evacuees. 

As systems and structures and communication became more and more functioning 

in the affected states, our calls have been replaced with State VOAD meetings, Recovery Committees and other communication and cooperation activities. 

The future:

• At all levels of government, the faith-based and community initiatives offices 

should accept the invitation to meet the VOAD in their jurisdiction. • Government can support collaboration and coordination by inviting organizations to the planning and response table. • Recognize the individuality of the member organizations but acknowledge their 

greater influence and strength united. • Help ensure that the collaborations reflect the community population. • The VOAD is usually under funded—host the meeting—help them take a 

breath. 

National VOAD 

• The National VOAD Board of Directors has agreed to develop a cadre to staff 

the FEMA NRCC. • The National VOAD Board of Directors has developed a strategic plan for presentation to their members including inclusiveness, support to local and State VOAD 

development, and preparing for the threats in front of us—pandemic, etc. 

• The National VOAD Board of Directors has authorized administrative support 

and National VOAD is now housed in an office building. 

• May 9–12, 2006—14th Annual VOAD Conference, Raleigh, NC—committees 

will focus on Hurricane Season 2006—Mass Care, Emotional and Spiritual Care, Recovery, Communications, Public Policy, Volunteer Management, Donations Management. 

Members 

1. Adventist Community Services 

2. America’s Second Harvest 

3. American Baptist Churches USA 

4. American Disaster Reserve 

5. American Radio Relay League (ARRL, National Association for Amateur Radio) 

6. American Red Cross 

7. AMURT (Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team) 

8. Catholic Charities USA 

9. Christian Disaster Response International 

10. Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) 

11. Church of the Brethren—Emergency Response/Service Ministries 

12. Church World Service 

13. Convoy of Hope 

14. Disaster Psychiatry Outreach 

15. The Episcopal Church 

16. Friends Disaster Service, Inc. 

17. The Humane Society of the United States 

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18. International Aid 

19. International Critical Incident Stress Foundation 

20. International Relief Friendship Foundation 

21. Lutheran Disaster Response 

22. Mennonite Disaster Service 

23. Mercy Medical Airlift 

24. National Emergency Response Teams (NERT) 

25. National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) 

26. Nazarene Disaster Response 

27. Northwest Medical Teams International 

28. The Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors 

29. The Points of Light Foundation and Volunteer Center National Network 

30. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 

31. REACT International, Inc. 

32. The Salvation Army 

33. Society of St. Vincent de Paul 

34. Southern Baptist Convention—North American Mission Board 

35. United Jewish Communities 

36. United Church of Christ—Wider Church Ministries 

37. United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) 

38. United Way of America 

39. Volunteers of America 

40. World Vision 

Government Partners 

41. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS) 

42. Citizen Corp/Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 

Private Partners 

43. Center for International Disaster Information (formerly Volunteers in Technical Assistance

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The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Wright. 

Ms. WRIGHT. I just want to offer a hearty ‘‘Amen’’ on the messages coming out from various levels of government—and I have 

made the same comment to our State government as well in respect to calling for volunteers. 

The search and rescue operations that were going on in New Orleans, and our government’s calls for people with boats to come 

down—this is just an example—and then the people who were coordinating search and rescue on the State level consistently told 

me, ‘‘No, we do not want volunteers.’’ But our own government is 

calling for volunteers, and they are all calling me. 

It was a very difficult spot to be in, so a national call center for 

volunteers, I would echo that that would be a tremendous help to 

the person who is getting calls all night long, and people are very 

frustrated because they wanted to help and wanted to find a place 

to do that and were responding to the very calls from the government, but then, on my end, when I tried to get those folks linked 

up to those agencies and was being told ‘‘No,’’ it was a very bad 

situation. 

On donation coordination, again, the call center would be effective. We set up a call center, but it was days into it, and in the 

initial few days, we were just overwhelmed. The system, the technology, was overwhelmed, but then, from a people standpoint as 

well, we were just overwhelmed with calls. So that would be fantastic. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Nemitz. 


26611-8.eps
60

Mr. NEMITZ. Ande’s comments about the national VOAD and 

their roles and responsibilities as far as the national response plan 

is concerned—I would say that Ande in her capacity as executive 

director for national VOAD did a fantastic job during the KatrinaRita-Wilma nightmare that we all lived through. 

I think part of the problem, though, is that the national response 

plan is not necessarily understood at the State level, that we have 

people in emergency management who work for various governors’ 

offices who do not get it, and they think: ‘‘Oh, I need to start asking for donations.’’

Our task with national VOAD for many years has been to get the 

message out that we do not need truckloads of stuff—and that acronym is ‘‘Supplies that are useless to frantic folks’’—we do not 

need winter blankets coming down to New Orleans in August. Yes, 

we will need them in February or January, but we do not need 

them day one, item one, in August. 

We do not need the church groups—and I apologize for putting 

it in those terms—but I received phone calls from the church ladies 

in Spokane, WA who are knitting booties for rescue dogs. We do 

not really need to send a truckload of knitted booties down to New 

Orleans for the rescue dogs. 

There is example after example after example, and we work very 

hard to try to get the message out—cash is the best donation to 

voluntary organizations, be it faith-based groups, the Red Cross, 

America’s Second Harvest, the Salvation Army. The problem we 

run into, then, is that the governors’ offices also set up their own 

funds where they are competing with us for dollars. That does not 

help us complete our mission. 

And when you look at bigger things such as the Bush-Clinton 

Fund, no CEO in the world is going to turn down a former President knocking at his door, asking for a donation—but they are sure 

going to turn me away when I knock on the door. There are only 

so many pieces of the pie for voluntary organizations to take donations. 

So any help that you can give in getting governors to understand 

that there is a plan in place, let the plan work, would be helpful. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. I agree with the challenge that you have in a situation such as this. One of the things that happened in this situation 

was that there was no communication. The communication system 

was down. You heard all kinds of misinformation from relatives—

and I had friends who were there who called me, just like I am 

sure a lot of other people did, trying to get out. 

You look at the media, and the media is your only source of information—right or wrong, it is your source of information. You see 

people screaming, asking for help; no help is being provided. What 

are you going to do? As an individual, you are going to try to provide help. And that is what happened. People were trying to provide help. 

The challenge for us is communication. Now, whatever we say, 

people are going to respond one way or another. They are going to 

provide. We had folks from Arkansas who provided help for the 

animals. We still have animals in Arkansas without people; we do 

61

not know where they are. They are there. Their dogs and pits are 

there because people in Arkansas did not want those animals to be 

put to death. 

So you have all this need, and you have situation, and the challenge, again, is going to be how do you communicate this information. Do you have the networks coordinate their information 

through one central source? I do not think that is going to happen, 

but that would be a good idea. But the challenge again is for organizations at the local level, if you can do that, to try to coordinate. 

That is going to be the biggest challenge—trying to coordinate and 

get the communication that is needed. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Wilkins. 

Ms. WILKINS. I would like to comment on what Ms. Miller said 

about the VOAD and now, 6 months later, give you a perspective 

from New Orleans. 

We continue to feed hot meals 6 months after the disaster to people in the New Orleans area—Saint Bernard and the Plaquemines 

area—who were affected by Katrina. A year ago, we participated in 

an exercise called ‘‘Hurricane Pam,’’ in which we thought we had 

envisioned the worst-case scenario that could happen to New Orleans. We were wrong. Katrina certainly proved that. 

But I am thinking that maybe a suggestion going forward is that 

within the time line, we always think about a disaster as being a 

short-term response. Katrina’s response, Rita’s response, is certainly very long-term. Now there are certainly—if we were getting 

calls from people who wanted to donate food items or wanted to donate household goods, clean-up items, we would be most appreciative, because we are out in the communities now distributing 

those. And as Ande mentioned, the people who were offering during 

those first 3 weeks when they saw those TV spots—and the media 

was helping show the pictures of New Orleans—are not calling 

now. So maybe as we look forward in planning, we can also plan 

out some kind of project time line where we capture someone in 

those first 3 weeks, but we get back to them 3 months later to 

make sure that their donation and their offer of help can still be 

forthcoming. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

I would mention that they have called the vote now, and when 

we see a few more lights appear up there, Senator Isakson and I 

will have to leave and go vote. 

Before we do that, I do want to again express my appreciation 

to all of you who have participated in this. We have gotten just a 

tremendous number of messages from this. Some of the things, I 

hope we have already included in some of the legislation, but I will 

go back and check to make sure that we have—the medical licensure and perhaps some of the liability things. 

Somebody did suggest to me—we had a little incident in Wright, 

and they had the same problem; they had people shipping stuff 

there from all over the country, and they did not have anyplace to 

put it, hang it up, sort it, and get it out to the people who needed 

it. And somebody came up with the idea of having—well, another 

problem we found was registering people. They did not realize they 

had to register when there is a disaster so that they can be put 

in contact with people who can provide for their needs later, includVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
62

ing the Small Business Administration and others. So I do appreciate the community-based organizations that helped get the word 

out down there. We were constantly mentioning that people needed 

to register, because they were all over the country. That got done, 

but it led a person to give us an idea that we needed to have a Web 

site that would be by town and by individual that would work like 

a Christmas angel, where people could pick a family and fill some 

of their needs and remove them from the list and get some coordination that way. A couple of Wyoming towns adopted towns in the 

Katrina-Rita area, found out what their needs were, and then 

hauled the stuff down there. Of course, that was 2 to 4 weeks after 

the disaster, when there was some communication and people could 

know that sort of thing. 

So there are some ideas out there, and my thanks really goes out 

to you for the way that all of you pitched in and handled all of 

these problems which, because it was the biggest series of natural 

disasters that we have ever had in this country, I do not know that 

anybody could foresee that—of course, hindsight really helps, and 

that is what we are doing now is hindsight, so that it will be foresight for the next time. And your help and expertise is just really 

appreciated. 

We will, as I said, leave the record open so that you can continue 

to feed ideas to us as you have them or you are in contact with 

other people who have them, and we will make use of them—and 

if it does not come under the jurisdiction of our committee, we will 

share it with other committees. This is really helpful. 

Ms. Fagnoni, would you take over for me here and continue the 

discussion? And again I will apologize that we have a vote. The 

lights are up there, and that means we have just a couple of minutes to get over there and vote. 

My thanks to you for all of this help. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

As Senator Enzi said, all of your comments are being recorded, 

so please be assured that even though the Senators had to leave, 

the information going forward will be of great use to the committee 

and staff. 

OK, I have the order now. Ms. Feltman? 

Ms. FELTMAN. Thank you. 

I just wanted to add to the discussion of VOAD that I think as 

we move forward in addressing the large-scale response to these 

disasters, the membership of VOAD continues to grow in its expertise and its learning, and there is huge value in that, in the level 

of competency. 

In addition to that, I just want to go on the record that as we 

move into the long-term recovery, the State VOAD system is highly 

important for those other organizations, the community organizations, those that may not sit at the national table of VOAD but are 

huge community investors who really need to be at those tables, 

and they are of high value. So the more we can build that infrastructure of the State-level VOADs, or even county-level, or however we organize that, it is going to be crucial. So, thank you. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Ms. Bourg. 

Ms. BOURG. I guess I am a fiscal conservative, so I am really interested in prevention. You cannot stop hurricanes. Louisiana and 

63

Texas have the most hurricanes after Florida, which has the most 

hurricanes that hit. So I think we are going to be seeing, as I understand it, a lot more of these. 

I am concerned, really, about two things. One, along the coast of 

Louisiana, we have so much of our Nation’s energy infrastructure, 

and we really need to look at building up the coastal barrier islands all along the coast if we are going to not have to use the rest 

of my lifetime and many other people’s lives in responding to the 

disasters at such a level. With that first ounce of prevention there, 

we would see a lot less damage than we have seen particularly 

from Rita, with the surge. 

Second, I think we need to have infrastructure in place, so I really believe that our Nation needs to do more to incentivize philanthropy toward building the capacity of Community Development 

Corporations. We have that for our great universities and our museums and our hospitals, which are wonderful structures that we 

need in our civilized communities, but we need better capacity to 

respond to this in our Community Development Corporations in 

our communities. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Hawks. 

Mr. HAWKS. Thank you. 

I would like to make a comment that relates to VOAD and 

VOAD’s role and perhaps the government’s role as it relates to, 

again, exercises and training, as well as educating the public on inkind gifts. 

I think that with the influx of all of the different organizations 

that are trying to help during the Katrina-Rita effort, there are a 

lot of folks who came into the impacted areas who had very little 

experience. And you would try to take those undesignated or unaffiliated volunteers, and you would try to plug them in—and now we 

are talking about not having room for them to even stay as they 

want to come now, when they are desperately needed. 

I think that VOAD as well as the Government plays a very important role in the ongoing training of the organizations as well as 

the individuals. There are some courses in disaster training that 

some of the organizations around the table here do extremely well, 

and those are your strengths. I think that VOAD could come up 

with a cadre of training materials for the organizations, federally 

as well as statewide, and then push them down locally. 

I know that one of the lessons learned as it relates to the White 

House is that in the funding that is being pushed down to the 

State and local levels, the NGOs be included in the training and 

the exercises. 

The other thing is the education process. I do not know if the 

Federal Government could orchestrate some kind of PSA ad campaign that involves a number of the organizations that are involved 

during the course of a disaster, illustrating sometimes the piles of 

debris that are left there and unloaded when you cannot utilize 

them, just giving some visible illustrations and some education, not 

just in response to a disaster but prior to. This is year-around education that we need. 

Thank you. 

64

CYNTHIA FAGNONI, DIRECTOR FOR EDUCATION, WORKFORCE 

AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE (GAO) 

Ms. FAGNONI. Our team was lucky enough to be in Biloxi, talking 

to the Salvation Army representative down there, and it really hit 

home, talking directly to somebody, hearing about how the most 

difficult commodities to get are used clothing. I think all feel like 

we want to help, but listening and hearing about how problematic 

that can be was very helpful to hear. 

Thank you. 

Ms. Franklin. 

Ms. FRANKLIN. Thank you. 

I want to talk a bit about the volunteers and the call out for volunteers. When we sent an SOS out to the Community Services 

Block Grant, we were specific about what we needed in terms of 

food and clothing, down to baby clothes and what size Pampers we 

needed—because we did not want to have waste coming through 

our network. Our network responded in kind, and we got all the 

things that we needed, and they were all useful things. But I want 

to say that the California jurisdiction of the Church of God and 

Christ as an answer to that call came down with specialists, including doctors and psychologists and nurses. And the local hospital, 

Franklin Foundation Hospital, used the second floor of the hospital 

to house all those specialists. They fed them and took care of them, 

and they stayed with us for 3 weeks, going into the shelters, taking 

care of the people who needed that care. 

And I just want to say that that is the kind of thing that we are 

going to have to be looking at as we talk about volunteers and who 

comes into our local communities—not just having people come 

there just to be there. 

Also, we had people who had boats who volunteered to go into 

New Orleans to get people out, who were turned around. Many of 

those people wound up dying in houses or on rooftops because they 

were not able to get in to do that work. I just think that is something else that we need to look at as we start to develop these policies. 

Finally, I want to say that as we talk about long-term recovery, 

we look at the CDBG dollars and tax credits and home moneys 

going to community-based groups and to assist CDBG units and to 

the Community Action Agency and other nonprofits, especially 

faith-based organizations, to do this work that needs to be done to 

help these families become whole again. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Mahboob. 

Mr. MAHBOOB. I just wanted to emphasize the area of long-term 

development and assistance. What happens most of the time, I 

think we all see that this happens with donors and the population 

that sees the need on TV and want to help out, but unfortunately, 

relief organizations run into the same problem where, in the beginning, you get a lot of supplies and aid, but later on, it does not 

come when it is needed, when people need it most. 

I think that is an area that we need to emphasize. 

What also happens when you are down there giving aid to the 

local community is that they become dependent on you, and when 

65

you leave, they are just left out in the open. One way we need to 

deal with that is to, in our relief efforts, include the local population and empower them as well, so that by the time we leave, 

they know what is going on, and they can take charge of the operations we have started or they can help rebuild their communities 

and get back on their feet. 

Another way to deal with it—for example, our organization and 

every other organization has limits on its resources and the 

amount of time it can spend in a disaster area—is to help fund 

these other local organizations and NGOs, as has been mentioned, 

so they can carry on the work longer in the disaster-affected areas. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Gaddy. 

Mr. GADDY. Just one observation in response to two or three 

things I have heard this morning about disasters being a time to 

suspend policies to increase the flow of governmental money into 

various agencies, even into faith-based agencies. 

One of the points that I made in the first statement was that one 

reason we got enthusiastic and compassionate care from faithbased communities, particularly houses of worship, was because 

they were acting out of their compassion, out of their religious conviction. 

A disaster is not a time to violate the first amendment to the 

Constitution and have government supporting overt faith-based activities. That money there within houses of worship. We talked 

with houses of worship all over Baton Rouge and the area about 

that. I think it is time, before the crisis, to establish the policy that 

in the midst of a crisis, we will not give up on something that has 

served religion so well in this Nation since the first amendment to 

the Constitution. Rather, if we protect that, we will multiply over 

and over, in the most religiously pluralistic Nation in the world, 

more volunteers from more diverse religious communities that will 

do their work according to the dictates of their conscience and with 

the rhetoric of their own tradition. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Miller. 

Ms. MILLER. Thank you. 

I think it is important to note, and I think everyone around the 

table knows it, that VOAD is a philosophy, it is a principle. It is 

not a thing. It is a group of organizations that came together a 

long, long time ago, who had been doing disaster work for decades 

before that and said we can do that. Each major event, as Heather 

brought up earlier, looks at the membership, but the key to it is 

that it is a focus on bringing a great number of community- and 

faith-based groups together for one purpose, and that is the focus 

of disaster response, relief and recovery. And then, the difference 

that occur otherwise do fall away for the purpose of doing this, but 

the organization piece is that they all know what each other are 

doing. That is the start to how the response occurs in an organized 

manner, quickly. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Hazelwood. 

Mr. HAZELWOOD. I want to echo a little more of what Ande Miller 

said a few moments ago about the coordination, particularly of unVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
66

solicited volunteers. Many of our organizations deal with volunteers every day. My own particular organization puts 300,000 volunteers a year in the field, and other colleagues around the table 

have similar numbers. So, managing volunteers is not a new phenomenon to any of us. But when you have an event that is as large 

as Katrina, Rita, Wilma, and all those that hit us this year, the influx of new volunteers can be overwhelming. 

So the whole point of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster is for us to be able to coordinate all of that, all of 

the influx of volunteers, and we have had organizations like Points 

of Light who are members of the national VOAD say that they will 

begin to work with us and to organize in a way that helps channel 

those unsolicited volunteers. 

I think that where the frustration comes for many of us is at 

times from the government level, when the Government seems to 

think that we do not know how to manage the volunteers and want 

to offer their own solutions without ever talking to us first. Sometimes, we know how to do it, but we just lack the resource maybe 

to get it done, and what we need are some extra resources to be 

able to manage what we already know how to do. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Wilkins. 

Ms. WILKINS. Thank you. 

I did not want to leave here today without bringing up another 

crisis that I see in the making, and it was alluded to earlier in 

some of the first conversations we had. That is that we have a fragile population in New Orleans who are on an emotional rollercoaster. As we approach hurricane seasons, less than 90 days out, 

I wonder what is going to happen the first time a tropical storm 

is headed anywhere near the United States, whether it is toward 

Florida or, as you have pointed out, Louisiana or Texas. 

I am very concerned about our population. I think it is going to 

take resource not only at the local level, but it is going to take 

some State coordination and some Federal coordination to really 

look at what the emotional fallout could be and will be. 

You have talked about FEMA villages being very sterile environments. I have 15 staff members who lost their homes because of 

Katrina. I watch this being played out every day in some way with 

someone who is on that emotional roller-coaster, and I am very 

concerned, because support systems that were there for last year’s 

hurricane season are not there this year. 

So I think if we talk about VOAD, there are some other resources 

that we can bring in, and we probably should start looking at that 

right now, both at the national, State and local levels. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Actually, since I do not see anymore name tags up, 

I would like to cover the third piece that the committee is interested in. 

I am sorry, I did not see you. Go ahead, Mr. Daroff. 

Mr. DAROFF. I wanted to echo what Ms. Wilkins just said. One 

thing that struck us when we were down there is that everyone has 

a story—every rescuer, every doctor, every social worker, every 

evacuee. People who are there helping folks now deal with the crisis have their own crises that they are dealing with and have dealt 

with, and that infrastructure is tender, and it is really amazing to 

67

see these folks, the counselors, the psychiatrists, who are telling 

their patients their own problems while they are hearing the problems from their patients—because they too had to swim out of their 

houses or had to wear borrowed boxer shorts. 

One thing I also wanted to mention in reaction to Mr. Gaddy’s 

comments is that certainly, church-state considerations need to be 

paramount, and there needs to be a real consideration for the first 

amendment. But I think there is also a need for a common-sense 

approach when we are in the midst of a crisis. In New Orleans particularly, a massive percentage of kids in parochial schools were 

dispersed throughout the country in other parochial schools and 

Jewish day schools and other religious schools. And the Congress, 

in I think an enlightened sense, saw the need to approve the reimbursement of funds for kids who are in religious schools. I think 

that common-sense approaches like that, that help out even institutions that are pervasively religious are a worthwhile step. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

To the third question, which I know we have covered quite a bit, 

but I just want to give any of you, each of you, an opportunity to 

share any final insights—that is, thinking about how the different 

levels of government, in particular local/State/Federal, could better 

structure its approach to disaster relief to better enable community-based groups to do what they do best. 

Mr. Nemitz. 

Mr. NEMITZ. One of the points—and this is in my written submission, too—is that by virtue of how my network of foodbanks, 

America’s Second Harvest, we work not only state-to-state, we 

cover all 50 States, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. And 

my perspective, working at the national office in Chicago allows me 

to work with various States. I have been to Texas, I have been to 

Louisiana, I have been to Arkansas. In 2004, I was about 3 days 

short of being eligible to vote in Florida because I was down there 

so much. So you get to see what works and what does not. And one 

issue that I think could be very helpful to nonprofit organizations 

would be some semblance of sameness working with National 

Guard units. 

In the State of Mississippi, the foodbanks had wonderful support. 

It made sense. We had the food; they had the vehicles and the personnel to get into areas. Roads were closed, trees were down, and 

they got the food out there. It was a great idea. 

In the great State of Texas, though, the standing orders for the 

National Guard were that they could not transport any product 

that came from a nonprofit organization. So there are some things 

that can be done—and I realize the National Guard is a State entity, but there is a national office for the National Guard in D.C.—

if we could get some help working with the military end of the response for what resources they could bring to the table, I think 

that would be very helpful for a lot of us to get our work done. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. I may have actually said it first. I agree that the National Guard plays a prominent role. I was fortunate in that I happened to be at the Capital when the Governor put the call out for 

all of the State agencies to do what they were going to do. Our naVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
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tional parks looked at the parks available; looked at the hotels—

we had an existing web base for every person who was coming into 

the State. We looked at the situation where we were going to notify 

people about the available resources. Either the local county offices 

or the National Guard Armory was the site to be used. 

It is critical when you have situations like this that all players 

are involved, and it is important from the standpoint that the Governor’s office, the country judge’s office or parish jurisdiction—whoever—are involved, because all have an important role in trying to 

disseminate information and coordinate resources. 

As a State employee, I feel fortunate that we have a network 

that is recognized in our State that can provide those services at 

the local level. A lot of times, they are the lead agencies in the respective communities, and it is important that all these organizations—and the faith-based organizations are encouraged to be a 

part of that process. I think that is the key that you have to look 

at, is making sure that those processes are available. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Wright. 

Ms. WRIGHT. Thanks. 

With regard to how government can work better with voluntary 

agencies, I think the first key to that is that all levels of government, whether Federal, State or local, and all the components of 

that educate themselves first of all as to what the plan is. Knowing 

what your State plan is and knowing how things happen is critical 

during a time like this. 

In our situation, we had lots of folks who, as Craig said earlier, 

just simply did not get it and started other processes outside of 

where the plan already made provisions—donations coordination, 

call for volunteers—those things were already in place, yet they 

created additional avenues for that to happen, and it is confusing 

for the public when they want to help, and it is also confusing for 

people within the Government who are trying to work in the situation—do I work with the Governor’s office, or do I work with what 

the donations plan calls for? It is very difficult in the middle of 

such a chaotic situation already to have dual systems operating. So 

that would be the first thing. 

Then, for the entities, whether they are State, local, or Federal, 

to work with the voluntary agencies in the planning process and 

making sure they understand that the voluntary agencies are there 

to support them in a variety of the ESF functions. 

Thank you. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Franklin. 

Ms. FRANKLIN. I still think we need to look at developing a national disaster response plan and that that plan needs to be developed heavily around the community-based groups, around the 

CSBG groups, around the other community development organizations, and around the faith-based organizations. We do need to include government and Homeland Security, the Office of Emergency 

Preparedness. They should all come to the table, but the lead entities should be the people who are actually doing that work on the 

ground. 

69

The other thing is I think that whole plan needs to be driven by 

the three big C’s—communication, coordination, cooperation. 

Thank you. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Bourg. 

Ms. BOURG. Right after Hurricane Katrina, I spent about 10 

hours in a helicopter, landing in all the little rural villages and settlements and towns that I could. And one thing I noticed was a National Guard presence everywhere, guarding basically nothing, because there was nothing left to guard. Our hospitals and our clinics 

were gone. Our schools were gutted. 

So I guess I am just slow in understanding this, but if we have 

our National Guard rebuilding, thank goodness, parts of Iraq, with 

schools and roads and clinics, why can’t our National Guard not be 

back in Vermilion Parish and in New Cameron Parish, helping to 

rebuild our roads and our schools and our clinics? I do not get it 

in America. I just do not understand it. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Hawks. 

Mr. HAWKS. From my standpoint of working with the Salvation 

Army, I think the Federal Government—and we have talked about 

it, and again, this is a good step in the right direction today, including the NGO community in the revision of the national plan 

and in State plans and local plans; that at whatever level, NGOs 

be included; that perhaps the Government could take a closer look 

at the ESF-6 particularly and their role. What happens if there are 

a couple of catastrophic activities on the different sides of the country, and how do we respond as national organizations to events like 

that? 

As has already been mentioned, I think the Government has a 

real role in education, in the public as it relates to gifts-in-kind and 

the use of donations, and also in the training of NGOs. I was thinking in terms of the Incident Command Training Program, as an example, that all of us for the most part are in agreement that that 

is a good model for exercising leadership during a time of disaster; 

that perhaps the Government could assist with the Incident Command Training. 

Second, we talked about the VAL positions earlier. Perhaps that 

VAL position, if it were strengthened and empowered, could help 

link the Federal, the State, and the local governments, if it were 

given a little more latitude as it relates to coordinating the NGOs 

and the volunteer agencies—because from the Salvation Army’s 

standpoint, the VAL positions have been very, very helpful, and the 

idea of having them as permanent employees as opposed to rotating is also a good idea from a relational standpoint. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Mahboob. 

Mr. MAHBOOB. One thing we did in East Biloxi—there was only 

one local community clinic which was totally damaged in Katrina—

we bought a mobile home, and where the Government came in to 

help in that area was that the city basically expedited the donation 

of the land, and that is where we placed the mobile clinic—basically, it was a mobile home that was converted into a clinic—and 

that is still ongoing and operating in the local area consistently. 

70

That is one area where government can help, and as was mentioned, sometimes organizations could not get into areas because of 

security and the checkpoint set-up. Special access is required. So 

agencies that are predesignated to have that kind of permission to 

go into certain areas where they can help deliver aid faster, or even 

sometimes, for some agencies like ourselves, when we want to show 

pictures to our donors to really see what is going on on the ground, 

when they see the more dramatic pictures, they are more likely to 

donate more. Unfortunately, sometimes, that is what it takes. 

The last suggestion I would make is that if there are aid organizations on the ground that are really doing something well, and 

they have been doing it for a while, that instead of going in there 

and starting another operation, to just support those local agencies 

and provide the assistance that they need. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Wilkins. 

Ms. WILKINS. In Southeast Louisiana now, there are many longterm recovery committee meetings that are being held. They go by 

different names. It is sometimes called ‘‘long-term recovery,’’ sometimes it is called ‘‘unmet needs,’’ but all have a specific purpose, 

and that is looking at the community and helping to figure out the 

best way to help the people in that community recover and rebuild. 

One way that government can structure itself is to continue to 

be part of the conversation and continue to be at the table as we 

approach these building blocks of community recovery. My hope is 

that these long-term recovery committees evolve into a disaster response and relief committee that continues to carry on the conversation, continues to form partnerships with new communitybased organizations and new stakeholders. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. I was basically going to echo what Ms. Wilkins said. 

In regard to the gaps in services, it is critical that ongoing processes are in place to meet those needs. That is one of the challenges that you often run into, where everybody is running and 

doing everything they think is needed and not necessarily meeting 

the needs. So that is one of the important aspects, that you have 

those ongoing meetings. We talked about communications, and I 

too had my computer inundated with communications from everywhere, but it was important. I took the time to review and see 

what was necessary, and then, when we met with our network, we 

were able to provide those services that were not being provided. 

So it is critical that you have that process in place also and that 

the Government, the local communities, are there, being a part of 

that process. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Bourg. 

Ms. BOURG. I and my staff, both after Hurricane Andrew and 

also since the Katrina and Rita hurricanes, have attended several 

parish—that is what they call counties in Louisiana—meetings on 

unmet needs, and we found them to be close to useless. They are 

pretty dysfunctional. They have not helped one, single poor person 

do anything to recover. They are fairly argumentative and heavyhanded by those who want to put many structures in place sudVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:15 Jun 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\26611.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: DENISE
71

denly, much to the disgruntlement of those others that have been 

working in the community and may be in smaller organizations. 

It soaks up a lot of leadership time. I am not saying that we 

should not have them, but I have not seen them function well over 

15 years. So I do not know why they would suddenly in Louisiana 

start functioning better. 

They are very focused on services, talking about services, and not 

development. The one place that I saw after Hurricane Andrew in 

1992 was about 2 years later, when most of what had to be done 

was done. People would come together and find those folks who had 

kind of fallen through the cracks. That was about the best I have 

seen of the unmet needs committees. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. There are just a couple more people 

wanting to talk. 

Ms. Franklin. 

Ms. FRANKLIN. I want to echo what Lorna said. It is the same 

thing in my parish. We are seeing the very same thing. The meetings are tedious. They are held every Wednesday. I guess the thing 

that I looked at was that the people who are actually doing the 

work are the people who are not at these meetings, and the meetings are being facilitated by people who are not even from the 

State of Louisiana, who do not have a clue about what we need to 

be doing and feeling the voice of the people that we bring to the 

table. 

The Community Action Agencies, the other Community Services 

Block Grant units, the faith-based organizations, the other community-based groups—we have been doing this work for decades, so 

we are the voices and the eyes and the ears of the people in the 

community. 

It is just appalling to me that people would come into the community and start telling us how we need to do this work that we 

have been doing very successfully for years. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Wright. 

Ms. WRIGHT. I have a different take on long-term recovery committees. I will go back to a much smaller disaster that hit at 

Thanksgiving 2004. A very small community in Louisiana called 

Allen was hit by a tornado and was deemed by the folks at FEMA 

too small to qualify for individual assistance. 

So the people of that community formed a long-term recovery 

committee or unmet needs committee from scratch. We had to do 

everything from raising money to getting lumber donated and volunteer management—the whole nine yards. It involved business 

and community leaders from Central Louisiana. It was a long and 

arduous process. A long-term recovery committee is just that—it is 

hard. And it is creating a new organization from lots of groups that 

have been there since day one, slaving over details and logistics 

and being there when nobody else is there. It is very difficult to 

bring those groups together to where they are a functioning organization. 

So it is hard, it is tedious, but it does work. And the people who 

are there trying to help form those committees, yes, are from other 

parts of the country and the States, but they are there to help organize the group. 

72

One thing that is very hard—it is difficult to understand when 

people are not being helped immediately. If the ground rules are 

not established for how that group is going to work up front, then 

down the road, when cases are being worked and things are being 

managed and the system starts to work, it becomes very dysfunctional if those things are not agreed upon right away. So I definitely want to support the long-term committees. 

We have a grant through the Corporation for National Service 

that provides VISTA volunteers to help staff those committees, so 

we have people going out right now to try to recruit the committees 

to hire those people and get them in place to help be facilitators 

for the groups. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Hazelwood. 

Mr. HAZELWOOD. I just want to comment that I find it disappointing when you talk about the long-term recovery groups 

being made up of people who are actually not there to help, because that is not the way they are intended to be. 

I know that from our own experience—and I do not know how 

well-received this comment will be—but so often, when the longterm recovery committee’s sole existence is to form a 501(c)(3) and 

get a board, they spend all their time trying to create a reason for 

their existence, and that is not what they are designed for. They 

are designed to be there to bring resources to the table so that 

when a case is brought to the table, we can resolve the case. That 

is what they are designed for, and if anything other than that is 

what is going on there, that is disappointing to hear from my perspective, because as an organization whose primary goal is to do 

the case management and work with the clients to get their recovery plan completed to whatever their satisfaction is, that is what 

that table is for—to bring the resources to the table to help people. 

And if there are other agendas there, they really should not be 

there. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you, Mr. Hazelwood. 

Mr. Hawks. 

Mr. HAWKS. It is interesting, the mixed feelings about the unmet 

needs committees and whatever else they are called, because there 

is a variety of terms used. 

NGOs can be hampered by their own need to compete, and I 

think when we are focused on our own competitiveness rather than 

the needs of the people in those communities, they are probably not 

going to be very well-run, very helpful committees. And it may 

take, whether it is a VAL position or a State position or a local government position, somebody who is not in the competition to sit 

down and broker the process so that people’s needs are met. 

I guess all of us have had experiences where they have been very 

good and they have been very bad, and the competition that exists 

in the industry is part of the problem, I think. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Ms. Wilkins. 

Ms. WILKINS. To echo what you said, Katrina was a great equalizer for us. Many of our community-based organizations suffered 

the same losses, so the competitiveness has been thrown out the 

window. 

73

We have had experiences with unmet needs committees that 

were some of the ugliest ones I have seen. So one of the things that 

we did early on in the New Orleans area was to create some regional committee oversight, so that volunteer management—we 

have talked a lot about volunteers coming in and having particular 

needs—could be brought to that particular committee. In addition 

to the local parish unmet needs or long-term recovery committees 

in the New Orleans area, there is a regional committee that just 

deals with some of the issues and challenges and sees if there is 

any common ground that we can build on to help them meet those 

challenges. 

The same with donations management and client management. 

And we are also looking—again, I go back to the emotional support 

that is going to be needed down the line—we have established a 

mental health component to that. So I agree with what Tom said. 

It is disappointing to hear that there are people there with agendas 

that are not the same, but I can tell you when those agendas are 

the same, and the fences are down, and you look across the table 

and try to figure out whose resources can better be brought to bear 

on a particular issue, it works. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Mr. Daroff. 

Mr. DAROFF. Just one final comment along this threat, and that 

is that one thing we heard throughout Mississippi is that the recovery has been the best thing to happen to inter-religious, interfaith, 

interracial relations throughout the region; that, perhaps in some 

part due to government’s action or inaction, folks coming together 

themselves through groups like those represented around this table 

has really brought them together and helped to strengthen the 

bonds of the mosaic of that community. 

Ms. FAGNONI. Thank you. 

Are there any other comments, or will that be the final comment 

before we close out? I just want to give people one more chance for 

any final comments. 

[Pause.] 

Ms. FAGNONI. All right. Thank you very much again on behalf of 

the committee and staff. We very much appreciate the time you 

have spent. 

As Senator Enzi said, the record will remain open. 

Also, I understand that the Corporation for National and Community Service has made some materials available. If you would 

like any of the materials that the Corporation for National and 

Community Service has put together, please see Kathy in the back. 

Once again, thank you very much again for your time and your 

thoughts and ideas. 

[Additional material follows.]

74

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY

It’s a privilege to be part of the roundtable discussion today. Hurricane Katrina changed the lives of thousands of Americans in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, and we knew the enormity of the 

disaster would make the road to recovery long and difficult. You 

heard the call to action, and you responded with great skill and 

compassion. I commend you for all you’ve done so well and for all 

you continue to do each day. 

More than 1,000 people lost their lives in the hurricanes, and 

over 700,000 people were affected. Families suddenly found themselves homeless, with only the clothes on their back and little hope 

for transportation, food and water. Many evacuees were minorities 

and some faced language barriers. Many of us visited the region 

and were horrified at the devastation of lives and communities. 

Many of us hoped that if there was any ray of light, it was because the plight of the poor was so clear to all that it would shock 

the Nation into action and end the silent slavery of poverty. But 

in the weeks since then, that hope was not fulfilled. 

In a survey conducted by The Public Policy Research Lab in Louisiana, residents rated the response of religious and communitybased organizations as highly effective, but government’s response—at all levels—was rated much more negatively. 

Americans know they have a role to play in looking out for each 

other. Everyone here saw the need and heard the pleas of the victims and immediately went to their assistance. Your role was particularly inspiring, when you yourselves and your organizations 

were also affected by the storms. 

It’s a wonderful country when citizens themselves respond like 

that. But we also have to wonder, what kind of country is it that 

relies solely on the caring of its people, while the Government hides 

and fails to meet its own responsibility. 

Personal responsibility, community responsibility, and government responsibility go hand in hand. When one of them breaks 

down, as it did in preparing, responding, and recovering from this 

disaster, we have to fix it. 

The President’s disaster plan calls on the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster to play a major role in response and 

recovery efforts. I’m interested in learning more about the good 

work you have done and how your organizations have met the 

needs of the hurricane victims. 

We are also here to learn how your organizations worked together, and what Federal, State, and local government should have 

done as well. You saw devastation and you rushed to the front 

lines, not because you were asked to, but because it’s what you 

do—not just in times of emergency, but every day. 

You’re vital to the strength of the Gulf Coast communities you 

serve and you’re essential in making them whole again. 

Your experiences, recommendations, and guidance now can help 

us formulate more effective response to future crises, in which government meets its responsibility too. 

Thank you again for joining us today, and I look forward to hearing from each of you.

75

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL DISABILITY RIGHTS NETWORK (NDRN) 

In the past, too many communities have dismissed the needs of people with disabilities. With the recent disastrous hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, this dismissal 

often has proved deadly. If towns and cities viewed individuals with disabilities as 

valued members of the community, they would ensure that they were at the table 

when important decisions were being made—such as emergency preparedness. Thirty plus years after the integration of children with disabilities into public schools 

and 15 years after the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act and people 

with disabilities are still often forgotten. 

In every State and community, there are disability advocacy programs such as the 

Protection & Advocacy (P&A) network and the Independent Living Centers which 

have the capacity to address issues of emergency preparedness. There also are a 

wide variety of advocacy organizations that address the needs of people with disabilities—such as The Arc, Paralyzed Veterans of America, the National Mental Health 

Association, etc. As decisions are made, people with disabilities and representatives 

of disability organizations must be at the table. 

Individuals with disabilities make up well over 20 percent of the population in 

most of the areas on the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coasts hardest hit by 

Hurricane Katrina. Individuals with disabilities are also disproportionately represented among the poorest of the poor. The impact of the storms and their aftermath was disproportionately negative for them due to lack of community planning; 

lack of accessible transportation; and the failure of first responders, the Red Cross 

and other shelter providers to recognize their special needs and be willing to address them. In addition, individuals with disabilities were often:

• separated from family members and caregivers, mobility devices, assistive technology, service animals, and critically needed medications; 

• improperly referred to institutional settings in violation of every precept of disability policy; and 

• turned away from, or not provided, reasonable shelter, or segregated in so-called 

‘‘special needs’’ shelters.

In addition, organizations such as the federally mandated and funded Protection 

and Advocacy agencies in the affected States were improperly denied their legal access to shelters and/or individuals with disabilities. 

Throughout this entire ordeal, FEMA has been woefully uneducated as to the 

needs of individuals with disabilities and unprepared to address these needs. Six 

months after the disaster struck, the Advocacy Center—Louisiana’s federally mandated P&A for individuals with disabilities—Mississippi Center for Justice, the Welfare Law Center, Inc. and the Public Interest Law Project filed a class action suit 

in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana against FEMA. The suit 

challenges FEMA’s failure to provide accessible temporary housing—often in the 

form of trailers—that is usable by people with disabilities. 

The Congressional Charter and the Fundamental Principles of the International 

Red Cross Movement promise assistance without discrimination or partiality, but 

guided solely by the needs of those seeking assistance. Unfortunately, this was not 

the case in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as the needs of individuals with disabilities were too often overlooked or not properly met. As an organization with a Federal charter, the Red Cross must be better equipped to address the 

unique needs of individuals with disabilities and their families in a truly impartial 

manner. Indeed, natural disasters do not discriminate—neither should emergency 

responders. 

NDRN encourages public policymakers to ensure that the needs of people with 

disabilities are adequately addressed in all future emergency preparedness plans 

and at all levels—the needs of individuals with disabilities must not be ignored by 

those responsible for establishing State and local emergency preparedness plans.

[Whereupon, at 11:59 a.m., the roundtable was concluded.] 

Æ