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ALWAYS READY: THE COAST GUARD’S RESPONSE

TO HURRICANE KATRINA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 9, 2005

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

DAVID T. FLANAGAN, General Counsel 

KATHLEEN L. KRANINGER, Professional Staff Member 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

ROBERT F. MUSE, Minority General Counsel 

JASON M. YANUSSI, Minority Professional Staff Member 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

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

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

Senator Dayton ................................................................................................. 5

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 19

Prepared statement: 

Senator Lautenberg .......................................................................................... 35

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2005

Rear Admiral Robert F. Duncan, Commander, Eighth Coast Guard District, 

U.S. Coast Guard ................................................................................................. 6

Captain Frank M. Paskewich, Commander, Coast Guard Sector New Orleans, 

U.S. Coast Guard ................................................................................................. 7

Captain Bruce C. Jones, Commanding Officer, Coast Guard Air Station New 

Orleans, U.S. Coast Guard .................................................................................. 9

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Duncan, Rear Admiral Robert F.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42

Jones, Captain Bruce C.: 

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

Paskewich, Captain Frank M.: 

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

APPENDIX

Photographs submitted for the Record by Senator Collins .................................. 36

Responses to questions submitted for the Record from Rear Admiral Duncan .. 45

(1)

ALWAYS READY: THE COAST GUARD’S 

RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2005

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:37 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

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

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. The Committee will come to order. 

Today the Committee continues its investigation into the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina. Our focus this morning, at our sixth hearing, is on the performance of the U.S. Coast 

Guard before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of this disaster. 

Amidst a sea of failures across all levels of government, the 

Coast Guard stands out as a shining example of a mission accomplished through careful planning and outstanding execution. We 

must learn from the failures that this investigation has revealed, 

but we must also learn from its successes. 

The Coast Guard’s extraordinary performance provides models 

for other agencies at all levels of government to emulate. In advance of this powerful storm, the Coast Guard anticipated the potential devastation and executed plans to relocate its personnel, 

aircraft, and vessels, including evacuating 18 small boat stations. 

Personnel and assets were moved to a predetermined inland military installation precisely so that they would not be trapped in 

flooded coastal stations and unable to respond. 

As a result of this foresight, the Coast Guard was able to launch 

extensive search and rescue operations even while Katrina continued to pound the Gulf Coast. Pollution response strike teams and 

teams to restore aids to navigation were readied, and they were deployed just as soon as conditions allowed. 

The result of this careful preparation is that, during the chaotic 

days and weeks immediately following the storm, the Coast Guard 

rescued or evacuated 33,544 people. In that same period, the Coast 

Guard responded to more than 1,100 pollution incidents with a 

total discharge of more than 7 million gallons of contaminants. And 

furthermore, the Coast Guard restored 39 critical aids to navigation and repaired, replaced, or repositioned over 900 navigational 

2

1The photographs displayed at the hearing by Senator Collins appear in the Appendix on 

pages 36 through 41. 

aids to reopen the vital waterways of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans, 

and the Mississippi River. 

Most of us can only imagine how overwhelming the search and 

rescue mission in the Gulf States must have appeared in the hours 

and days following the storm. The photograph now being displayed 

shows how sections of New Orleans filled with water rushing out 

of the 17th Street Canal on the day of the storm.1

The next series of photos show how the Coast Guard used every 

means available to rescue people trapped by the flood waters. The 

first two show the Coast Guard rescues by helicopters. 

During Senator Lieberman’s and my journey to the Gulf region, 

Coast Guard pilots described to us harrowing rescues amidst live 

power lines, whirling blades of other choppers, and frantic cries for 

help from attics and rooftops in the dark and stormy night. One of 

the pilots said to me, ‘‘Senator Collins, I was trained to rescue people from the open sea. Here I was, rescuing people in an urban setting from rooftops with live power lines all around me.’’

It showed to me the ability of the Coast Guard to innovate, to 

use its training to react to new and extreme circumstances. 

The next photograph shows how the Coast Guard went house to 

house in small boats, looking for people who were trapped and 

needed assistance. Another photo shows how the Coast Guard commissioned a barge to bring people trapped from St. Bernard’s Parish to safety. 

The Coast Guard’s resourceful, sometimes remarkable, performance is noteworthy in its own right. But what makes it all the more 

extraordinary to me is that it occurred while more than 70 percent 

of Coast Guard personnel and their families stationed in the Gulf 

region were themselves initially displaced by the storm. 

Moreover, the Coast Guard was hampered by damage to its own 

facilities. The photo now being displayed shows the Coast Guard 

Station in Gulfport, Mississippi, which was devastated by the 

storm. Nevertheless, despite coping with personal losses and a destroyed headquarters, the Coast Guard persevered and carried out 

its mission. 

The Coast Guard’s success story is one of both dedicated and courageous actions by front-line personnel and of effective leadership. 

Among the key questions I intend to explore today is how the Coast 

Guard’s operational and command structure allowed individual 

components within the Agency to act so quickly without having to 

wait for specific instructions or permissions from up the chain of 

command. 

The contrast between the Coast Guard’s situational awareness 

and the disconnect between the FEMA official on the ground and 

the Washington hierarchy for FEMA could not be a greater contrast. I think that is very instructive for us. 

I am also very interested to learn the extent to which the Coast 

Guard was able to act without having to wait until State and local 

officials asked for help. 

The three Coast Guard officials here today as witnesses occupy 

key positions in its operational and command structure. Their testiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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mony will provide insights on how the Coast Guard way, exhibited 

in its motto, ‘‘always ready,’’ can be translated to other agencies 

across all levels of government. 

Senator Lieberman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman, for 

convening the sixth in a series of hearings that this Committee is 

holding to examine the preparations for and response to Hurricane 

Katrina. 

Today I am happy to say we are going to examine the pre- and 

post-Katrina efforts of the U.S. Coast Guard. It strikes me that this 

is a good news story. Maybe looking around the room, I would 

reach the conclusion that good news does not draw a crowd. But 

it is important for us to focus on and to learn from and to certainly 

make this part of the public record. 

The fact is, in a local and regional experience, this Hurricane 

Katrina, which obviously was watched by the Nation and the 

world, the people of America had their confidence in their government’s ability to protect them in time of crisis shaken. And it is, 

in that sense, even more important that we point out to them that 

there were agencies of their government that performed remarkably well, with competence and courage. And the U.S. Coast Guard 

was at the head of that list. 

I only give part of the reason for that to the fact that the Coast 

Guard Academy is located in Connecticut, and I say that with 

pride. I know that two of the three people before us were trained 

at the Academy. 

I do want to give a special welcome to Captain Paskewich, who 

hails from New London and I gather, for the record, whose mother 

lives in Groton. I do not want to put the other two of you at a disadvantage, but I am proud to welcome all three of you here obviously, and thank you for a job well done. 

As you gentlemen know, the modern Coast Guard is a combination of several historic agencies, including one that was known 

originally as the Life-Saving Service. In the hours and days after 

Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, the Coast Guard more than 

lived up to its predecessor’s name. You really did save lives. 

The advance planning, quick decisionmaking, and round-theclock effort of the men and women under your command, gentlemen, led to the rescue, as has been said, of 33,000 people in a matter of days, eight times the number of search and rescue missions 

you generally perform in 1 year. That is a record that deserves our 

praise and our gratitude. 

So we will ask today why was the Coast Guard able to perform 

at such a high standard when others in the Federal, State, and 

local governments did not? 

One of the most important reasons, clearly, is that you were prepared. As we are going to hear from you today, the units operating 

under Admiral Duncan began preparing for Hurricane Katrina several days before landfall. The week before the hurricane struck—

and that was, of course, based on information that you were receiving from people who were charting the course of the hurricane—

the week before the hurricane struck, helicopters based at the New 

4

Orleans Air Station were inspected in anticipation of heavy workload after the storm, even though I probably could not have imagined how heavy the workload would have been. 

One of the helicopters, I was really interested to learn, needed 

major repair, discovered in the lead up to landfall. And that repair 

was done in advance of the storm so that helicopter was able to be 

used, literally, in saving lives. Unable, probably, to have done that 

if it had not been inspected in advance of the hurricane. 

Another reason for the success of the Coast Guard in Hurricane 

Katrina, in my opinion, clearly was that you had plans, that you 

had continuity of operations plans in effect, blueprints to follow, 

that assumed in most cases a worst-case scenario, and that the 

three of you therefore implemented those plans effectively, evacuating—as Senator Collins said—your respective staffs and critical 

assets the weekend before Katrina when we were all hearing on 

television the rising anxiety of the National Weather Service about 

the intensity of this storm and yet not seeing other branches of 

government getting ready for what we were all being told on the 

TV. 

You removed those assets and established those remote command centers. Admiral Duncan had the additional foresight to request backup helicopters, increased the number of aircrew personnel and additional ships. All of these steps were taken, I repeat, 

well before Katrina hit land on Monday, August 29. And I must 

say, based on the record we have compiled so far, well before the 

Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Chertoff formally 

declared a so-called incident of national significance on Tuesday, 

August 30. 

The Guard was not only prepared, not only had plans, but of 

course executed its mission with courage and precision. And in this 

case, the victims of the hurricane benefited tremendously from that 

fact. 

In addition to its successful search and rescue missions, the 

Coast Guard—I do want to restate and emphasize—ensured that 

the Mississippi River was navigable as soon after the storm hit as 

possible in order to maintain free-flow of commerce on the river, 

helped restore navigational aids that were damaged or destroyed 

on the river and around the Gulf Coast, and worked with the Army 

Corps of Engineers and NOAA to make channels navigable again. 

Here is the really impressive fact. By the Friday after the Monday Hurricane Katrina hit, traffic was already back on those key 

waterways. 

The Guard also assisted with environmental hazards, identifying 

eight oil spills around New Orleans and working with other agencies and private contractors to clean them up. So the Coast Guard 

really was the model in this case. 

But there are still lessons to learn, and I know that you gentlemen agree with that. We want to ask some questions about information sharing, about how reports from the scene made their way 

up to the decisionmakers in Washington. 

Our staff’s investigation finds that the Coast Guard sent its first 

written report that the levees in New Orleans had broken in the 

early morning hours of Tuesday, August 30. But we have also 

learned that Admiral Duncan had two phone conversations on 

5

Monday, August 29 with the Coast Guard Commandant in Washington. And we know that the Commandant had phone conversations with Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Jackson on Monday. 

So I am interested in learning about the contents of those conversations so we know whether the information flowed up. Because 

as was indicated here earlier in a hearing we held with Mr. Bahamonde of FEMA, Secretary Chertoff and Secretary Rumsfeld had 

indicated earlier that they did not know the levees had broken 

until Tuesday. 

Bottom line, the Coast Guard performed the way we wish all government agencies had performed, with speed, resourcefulness, efficiency, bravery, and effectiveness. You really set a model for the 

rest of the government, and I thank you for that. 

I also want you to know that I have written to the Director of OMB, Josh Bolton, asking for an additional $500 million for the 

Coast Guard to cover the costs related to your work in Katrina. I 

know that many of your facilities were damaged and some were 

completely ruined as that picture indicates. Obviously you have expenses related to the evacuation and temporary housing of your 

staffs, and for unanticipated fuel costs. Apparently, OMB plans to include $270 million for the Coast 

Guard in a supplemental Katrina request that will be made soon. 

I do not believe that is enough, and I am going to again urge the 

Administration to rethink that supplemental budget. I will ask you 

today about your needs. 

But most of all, thank you. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Dayton, usually we do 

not have other Members make opening statements, but since you 

are the only other Member here today, if you would like to make 

some opening comments, feel free to do so. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON 

Senator DAYTON. I think the two of you said it very well, and I 

join with them in commending you. And I will not hold the Connecticut connection against you. If you would like to check out 

more suitable quarters in Minnesota at any time, just contact me. 

Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

I would now like to officially welcome the witnesses before us 

today. Our first witness, Coast Guard Rear Admiral Robert Duncan, assumed command of the Coast Guard’s Eighth District in 

May 2003. While the Eighth District is headquartered in New Orleans, Admiral Duncan’s area of responsibility covers 26 States, more 

than 1,200 miles of coastline, and 10,300 miles of inland waterways 

from Florida to Mexico and from Louisiana to Minnesota, as it happens. He has served in the Coast Guard for more than 30 years. 

Admiral Duncan is joined today by two of his commanding officers, Captain Frank Paskewich and Captain Bruce Jones. 

Just 11 days before Katrina’s landfall, Captain Paskewich took 

command of Sector New Orleans. The Captain arrived in New Orleans in July 2004 and has continued, since that time, to serve as 

the Captain of the Port, the Federal Maritime Security CoordiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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1The prepared statement of Admiral Duncan appears in the Appendix on page 42. 

nator, the Federal On-Scene Coordinator, and the Officer in Charge 

of Marine Inspection. 

Captain Bruce Jones is the Commander of Air Station New Orleans, where he has served since July 2004. In his 22 years in the 

Coast Guard, Captain Jones has been engaged in response efforts 

for a number of hurricanes, including Ivan, Dennis, and now 

Katrina and Rita. He has distinguished himself in the military 

aviation community and has received several awards for his flying 

skills. 

Gentlemen, I would like to ask you each to stand so that I can 

swear you in. 

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give to the 

Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth, so help you, God? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I do. 

Captain PASKEWICH. I do. 

Captain JONES. I do. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. You may be seated, and Admiral 

Duncan, we will begin with you. 

TESTIMONY OF REAR ADMIRAL ROBERT F. DUNCAN,1 COMMANDER, EIGHTH COAST GUARD DISTRICT, U.S. COAST 

GUARD 

Admiral DUNCAN. Madam Chairman, Senator Lieberman, Senator Dayton, thank you so much for those very kind words and the 

opportunity to discuss the Eighth Coast Guard District’s role in response to this incredible tragedy, Hurricane Katrina. 

I should note, in the picture that shows all of those people on the 

barge, every one of them has a personal flotation device, a life jacket. Some chose not to wear it, but they are all there. Just so you 

know that we follow that in all of our missions. 

And if my wife is to have her way, I think we are likely to find 

ourselves retired in some community where I will be shoveling 

snow 6 months of the year. So Mr. Dayton, I may give you a call, 

sir. 

My written statement covers our preparations for and approach 

to the unprecedented natural disaster. Essentially, plan seriously, 

test those plans, recognize it is a dynamic environment, and be 

open to modifying the plans to meet changing circumstances. 

Second, to establish a shared vision and a concept of operation 

in advance of the need. Make sure that that is well understood, anticipating that there will be lapses in communications in impacted 

areas. 

Survive the impact. Evacuate people, evacuate equipment, place 

them in places where they are safe. The balance here is moving 

them not too soon so that they are able to provide services up until 

it no longer makes sense. And then place them in positions where 

they will be able to respond immediately behind the storm, as we 

did in this case, and in Rita, and others. 

In the first few days, over 10 percent of the U.S. Coast Guard, 

about 40 percent of the Coast Guard helicopters, air crews from 

every Coast Guard Air Station, including Kodiak, Alaska, and BarVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
7

bers Point in Cape Cod, hundreds of boats, major cutters, and specialty teams, which include active duty, reservists, civilian employees, and America’s finest group of volunteers, the Coast Guard 

Auxiliary, from every part of this country converged on a devastated Gulf Coast. Together they saved, as you have indicated, 

33,544 people, and not a small number of dogs by the way, contained or remediated hundreds of oil spills, eight major spills, on 

the Mississippi from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico. In that 

area alone, the total amount of oil spilled was about two-thirds of 

the oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez. Any one of those would have 

been national news at other times. Restored major ports and waterways. 

You may recall a footnote in the discussions at the time about 

the grain harvest. The U.S. grain harvest needed to move to world 

markets, and it moves through the Mississippi River and past New 

Orleans. Captain Paskewich’s team was able to restore, as Senator 

Lieberman mentioned in some detail, the waterway to accommodate that grain shipment to international markets, itself a major 

accomplishment. 

The accomplishment I am most pleased to report to you today is 

that we did that with no injuries, aside from cuts and bruises to 

some very heroic rescue swimmers, to ourselves or anybody that we 

assisted. That is a record of which I am most proud. 

I am extremely proud of this team. I am most proud of the 582 

Coast Guard men and women and their families who lost their 

homes to Katrina, and another 69 a few weeks later who lost their 

homes to Rita, and who nonetheless continued to work full out to 

bring aid to others in the best tradition of our service. 

In doing this, we were part of a large team of Americans, and 

frankly some international sisters as well, who worked hard to 

bring relief to a vast devastated region. That need and that work 

continues today. 

The men and women of the Coast Guard deeply appreciate the 

kind words and the praise that has been offered today and at other 

times in reference to our work in this chamber. Our aspiration is, 

as always, to live up to our service’s motto across all of our missions and be Semper Paratus. 

I would be happy to answer your questions. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Captain, do you have any formal 

statement that you would like to present? 

Captain PASKEWICH. Yes ma’am. 

Chairman COLLINS. Please proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF CAPTAIN FRANK M. PASKEWICH, COMMANDER, COAST GUARD SECTOR NEW ORLEANS, U.S. COAST 

GUARD 

Captain PASKEWICH. Madam Chairman, Committee Members, 

thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today to discuss Sector New Orleans’ role in the response to Hurricane Katrina. 

As the Sector Commander overseeing more than 700 Coast 

Guard personnel, including 19 area subunits, I was responsible for 

ensuring we were prepared in advance to deal with five primary 

mission areas within the sector: Search and rescue, port and waterway safety, environmental protection, maritime salvage and debris 

8

removal from navigable waterways, and maritime homeland security. 

Our hurricane plan mission statement says it all, Sector New Orleans will provide search and rescue support, restore essential aids 

to navigation, respond to hazardous material spills, manage waterways including traffic and safety or security zones, provide transportation of victims, provide essential waterborne and airborne logistics support, deliver vital supplies and materials, provide access 

to storm damaged areas to key response personnel, and perform 

any and all acts necessary to rescue and aid persons and protect 

and save property. 

Our concept of operation is built around this mission statement. 

We took proactive measures in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina’s 

impact 3 days before the storm, advising the port community, the 

maritime industry, and the public to take necessary precautions. 

Due to the storm’s forecasted intensity, we established our alternate incident command post in Alexandria, Louisiana. Additionally, 

we evacuated our personnel from Venice, Grand Isle, Gulfport, and 

New Orleans, and prepositioned our patrol boats, river tenders, 

and our small boats and crews away from their exposed home 

ports. 

We dispersed these assets over a wide area to the north, east, 

and west of the intended track to ensure that we maintained the 

ability to surge back into the affected area. 

Additionally, we placed liaison officers at the Offices of Emergency Preparedness in New Orleans and Baton Rouge and coordinated with the maritime industry. By Sunday noon, we closed the 

Mississippi River to all vessel movements, ceased cargo operations, 

and sent out final advisories to the industry on necessary precautions to safeguard property. 

Within 2 hours of the storm’s passage on Monday, and when it 

became safe to do so, our forces began to mobilize back to the affected area. Under Captain Bruce Jones’ superb leadership as the 

on-scene commander for air search and rescue, air crews from Air 

Station New Orleans arrived on-scene to commence what became 

round-the-clock air rescues for a week-and-a-half straight. 

By Tuesday morning, our small boats, river tenders, and crews 

had remobilized back into the city to commence large-scale urban 

search and rescue. And within 2 days, a Coast Guard medium endurance cutter was on-scene providing command and control and 

security presence on the river. 

The ability to rapidly respond back into the affected areas, integrate with other agencies, and surge additional forces was critical 

to our success and resulted in more than 13,000 rescues and assists 

by small boats alone. 

In addition to the heroic efforts of Coast Guard personnel conducting search and rescue, we were well poised to effectively deal 

with our other Coast Guard missions, as well. Reopening the Mississippi River and Gulf Intercoastal Waterway became a national 

priority since this region is host to four of the Nation’s top 11 ports. 

Eighty percent of the aids to navigation below New Orleans were 

destroyed, and numerous sunken or grounded barges and ships 

threatened the waterway. 

9

Through long-standing relationships with the maritime industry, 

pilots associations, Army Corps of Engineers, and NOAA, we were 

able to rapidly assess the impact to 255 miles of the Mississippi 

River and more than 200 miles of Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. 

Within 1 day, we reopened portions of the river and Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. And by Friday, 4 days after the storm, oceangoing ships were entering port. Our Aids to Navigation Teams 

went above and beyond reestablishing critical aids under arduous 

working conditions. 

Sector New Orleans responded to hundreds of pollution response 

reports, 134 minor oil spills, and 10 significant oil spills, totaling 

more than 8 million gallons of produced crude oil discharged from 

storage tanks, refineries, pipelines, and marine facilities across 130 

miles of rivers, canals, bays, and adjacent sensitive wetlands. At 

the peak of the response, the Coast Guard coordinated the efforts 

of more than 750 pollution responders, deployed more than 30,000 

feet of boom, and recovered more than 3.3 million gallons of freefloating oil. 

Additionally, the Coast Guard supervised several controlled 

burns of marshland to consume any remaining oil. 

Furthermore, Sector New Orleans has engaged in long-term salvage recovery to remove hundreds of sunken and grounded vessels 

which pose serious hazards to navigation or the environment. 

Within our unified command, we successfully brought together a 

team of experts from the private and public sector, including the 

Navy Supervisor of Salvage and members of the American Salvage 

Association, to complete this task. 

The Coast Guard’s success in completing all of our assigned missions after one of the most devastating storms in the Nation’s history was a result of well-honed first responder skills, our ability to 

pre-plan, and our multi-mission nature. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I will 

be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Captain Jones. 

TESTIMONY OF CAPTAIN BRUCE C. JONES, COMMANDING OFFICER, COAST GUARD AIR STATION NEW ORLEANS, U.S. 

COAST GUARD 

Captain JONES. Yes, ma’am, good morning. Madam Chairman 

and Committee Members, thank you for allowing me to speak with 

you about how a relatively small Coast Guard aviation force was 

able to save more lives in 7 days than it typically does in several 

years. 

Like all of our Gulf Coast units, Air Station New Orleans exercises its hurricane plans several times each season. We prepared 

for and responded to five named storms this year prior to Katrina. 

Our response crews witnessed firsthand their devastating power. 

Consequently, we take hurricane planning very seriously and 

were well-prepared as Katrina approached. 

As Katrina cleared New Orleans on August 29, prepositioned 

Coast Guard aircraft from New Orleans, Houston, and Mobile responded rapidly and were confronted by scenes of utter devastation 

with entire communities flattened or submerged and survivors 

waving for help from rooftops in every direction. Every available 

10

helicopter immediately began hoisting survivors, beginning when 

my unit’s rescue swimmer, Laurence Nettles, was lowered from an 

H65 and threaded his way between tree limbs to reach a 4-month 

old infant, her mother, and grandmother stranded in deep flood 

waters in lower Plaquemines Parish at 2:50 that day. 

Coast Guard Air Stations around the country quickly dispatched 

aircraft and crews to join this historic rescue effort, and our Mobile 

and New Orleans units rapidly expanded to accommodate the influx of resources. 

Assisted by Department of Defense aircrews and coordinating our 

efforts with the Louisiana National Guard air operation, Coast 

Guard crews responded to distress in all Southeast Louisiana parishes, rural and urban communities, hospitals and schools, homes 

and floodwaters. 

Aircraft and crews were pushed to their limits, hoisting in obstacle-strewn environments, often on night vision goggles with unlit 

towers and other hazards, including power lines and trees. Our rescue swimmers struggled with steep slippery roofs, contaminated 

water, and debris. They hacked their way through roofs. They 

broke out windows to free survivors. 

And after the storm passed, sweltering 100-degree heat, high humidity, and no winds severely degraded our helicopters’ performance and challenged our pilots’ ability. 

Despite these many hazards and around-the-clock flight operations over 7 days, the Coast Guard using helicopters saved over 

7,000 lives and assisted many thousands more by delivering critical 

food, water, and other supplies. 

As the Admiral noted, Coast Guard aircrew suffered no significant injury to themselves or to their survivors and no major aircraft mishap, a testament to their professionalism and to the Coast 

Guard’s unsurpassed training, safety, maintenance, and standardization programs. 

Coast Guard personnel worked tirelessly and effectively without 

regard for their own needs, despite their facilities, and in many 

cases their own homes, being destroyed or severely damaged and 

with virtually all of our families dislocated and scattered around 

the country. 

Like the several hundred Coast Guard boat forces operating surface rescue missions, they had no power, no running water, or adequate rest. Yet they went back out again and again to save lives. 

A month later, our crews rushed in immediately behind another 

Category 5 hurricane, the strongest to have ever entered the Gulf 

of Mexico. The first helicopters to respond to Rita, Coast Guard air 

crews rescued 67 survivors from rooftops in 50 to 60 knot winds. 

And then they worked with local parish officials on the ground to 

ensure the victims were properly cared for. 

So many others deserve your attention and thanks. The men and 

women in our small boat crews working with local and State police, 

Fish and Wildlife, Red Cross, FEMA, out-of-state urban SAR 

teams, the National Guard, DOD, and others exhibited unnoticed 

courage and initiative day after day. 

Unheralded incident command post staff and liaison staff at numerous locations worked tirelessly to bring players from disparate 

11

organizations and agencies together, and they created teams which 

achieved results far exceeding the sum of their parts. 

Madam Chairman, the Coast Guard consistently achieves greater 

results than should reasonably be expected of any comparably sized 

and funded organization. We look forward to the opportunity to tell 

you how that is possible. 

As you seek solutions to improving national disaster response, I 

will leave you with this thought: What matters the most in a crisis 

is not the plan, it is leadership. It is not process, it is people. And 

it is not organizational charts, it is organizational culture. 

I thank you for the opportunity to answer any questions. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Captain. 

The final statements that you made are a perfect segue into my 

first question for the panel, and that is every agency had plans. 

Every agency had done exercises. Every agency knew that the hurricane was coming. Every agency had been warned that it was 

going to be a monster storm. 

What is it about the Coast Guard that enabled you to respond 

so much more effectively than many other agencies? 

I am not asking you to criticize other agencies, although frankly 

I would welcome hearing any criticisms, but what is it that is different about the Coast Guard? 

A disaster expert whom I met with earlier this week said that 

he felt that one of the problems with Louisiana and in New Orleans is that although there were plans, the plans were not followed. 

But what is it about the Coast Guard that allowed for an effective 

response? 

Admiral, we will start with you, and then I would like to just go 

down the panel. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Thank you. Madam Chairman. 

It is something I have thought about for some time now. I think 

our culture is one of service. We are attracted, as I think Senator 

Lieberman’s point was, to life-saving. That is always our top priority. It remains that in any context. 

Over the years, we have adapted to other missions that the government has seen fit to give us to execute, and we have tried to 

do that with skill. 

What has emerged is a multi-mission organization where I think 

every Coast Guardman sees a role for himself, a personal role, in 

the success of the organization, in delivering services along a whole 

series of missions, and is used to shifting priorities from say fisheries enforcement to life-saving in the middle of a flight or on a patrol. 

The idea that this is a full portfolio of missions that we are 

charged with executing and are trained to do those. I think we 

have an adaptive culture that says, right now September 11 has 

happened. We are not going to do fisheries enforcement. We are 

going to surge everything to find out what this terrorism thing is 

all about and try to provide whatever assets, whatever service we 

can, to the event that is unfolding. 

When it turns out to be a hurricane of monstrous proportion, I 

think everybody in the organization feels that ability to have their 

hand on the tiller, if you will, to control the outcome, to really 

bring personal benefit to the event. 

12

In our case, we are familiar with hurricanes. We exercise before 

hurricane season. We typically have about a third turnover in personnel at the beginning of each year. It is a good opportunity for 

us to bring people into the culture, to understand what the threats 

are in the Gulf Coast, how we would deal with that, make sure 

they have their own plans for their families, to talk about those 

things, and to exercise our Continuity of Operations Plan in the 

event that we do need to maintain command and control in a remote location. 

We came very close to pulling the trigger on that, I came close 

to that, last September during Ivan. It was a very close call frankly, but we have every year sent a team up to make sure that the 

command center that we have in St. Louis was connected, the computers were up, that the phones were working, that the phone 

numbers were right, that the berthing was ready to receive people 

and ready to move. 

We did that this time. We actually left the area. And we have 

modified the plan to deal with exigencies. The plan does not call 

for a forward command element. Due to the nature of the storm 

and the impacted area, the anticipation that there were going to 

be communications lapses, it appeared to me a good idea to have 

a forward command element where I would remain forward, not in 

St. Louis, but connected with my Chief of Staff who ran the dayto-day operations of the District but allowed me to have an executive eye’s view of unfolding events in the area that looked to be 

most challenged. I think that was helpful. 

I think the other speakers can talk about adaptations to the plan 

at their level, as well. 

But there was an understanding ahead of time what the priorities are. And it is written, we have a concept of operations. I called 

both sector commanders in advance of the storm, as is my practice, 

and I think every district commander got alignment verbally on 

what we were going to do, how we were going to survive the impact, stage our resources, come into the community afterwards. 

And if we never spoke or had difficulty speaking for several days, 

there was that understanding ahead of time. 

I also called each governor in advance of the storm and then as 

soon as the storm hit, and advised them of our preparations, what 

our intentions were. I made sure that we were in alignment with 

the governors’ expectations. And of course, there is no argument 

over life-saving and restoration of channels. That appears to be 

very much in line with the governors’ direction but it is appropriate 

to make that contact. 

I did that with Governor Blanco, I did that with Governor 

Barbour, and I did that with Governor Perry when Hurricane 

Katrina threatened Texas. 

So there is an active dialogue. I think individuals are used to 

taking responsibility or been given responsibility at a very early 

level in their career, are used to moving between missions and tooling up for whatever the requirements of the Nation are for the 

service. 

I think there is a real shared understanding of what needs to be 

done and an expectation they will be supported if they see something different that was not anticipated when they arrived, that 

13

they will be supported in carrying out the mission that they get 

when they get there. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, but my time on this round is almost expired. If I could get brief answers from the other two captains, thank you. 

Captain PASKEWICH. Yes, ma’am. 

I think it begins with a comment I made about well-honed first 

responders. These are missions that we do every single day, search 

and rescue, response to collisions, response to oil spills. 

I maintain a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week watch center. I am not sure 

I can recall in the last 2 years actually making it through a night 

without getting a phone call about responding to a particular incident. We are trained to do that, and I think that is our strength. 

We respond, and it is ingrained in our culture. 

With respect to hurricane planning, we certainly take all hurricanes seriously, do lessons learned, and then retool our plan appropriately. After a near brush with Hurricane Ivan, we put together 

a tiger team to take a comprehensive look at our plan and made 

changes appropriately, which helped us in this particular situation. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Captain. 

Captain JONES. Ma’am, the only thing I could add to what the 

Captain and the Admiral have said is probably the human factor. 

We place a great emphasis on interagency coordination and working well with others. 

You put a Coast Guard lieutenant into a room with representatives of 20 different Federal agencies where there is a lot of activity 

going on but maybe not a lot of cohesion, the Coast Guard lieutenant will pull those people together, get a meeting going, and come 

up with a plan. That is what happened numerous times during 

Katrina. 

That is what we do every day, day in and day out. That is what 

Captain Paskewich’s folks do in the maritime community, with 

maritime industry. We simply would not dream of not responding. 

If there is a possibility to use a Coast Guard asset or Coast Guard 

people to help out when people need assistance, we are going to 

find a way to do it. We are not going to wonder whether we have 

the authority to do it, we are just going to take action. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

I want to pick up on your questions. As I hear you answer, what 

I find very impressive is that you are obviously a hierarchical organization. And yet, consistent with the best of what we know of 

modern organizations, particularly the private sector, it seems to 

me you are very agile and, in some sense, not bureaucratic. You 

are problem oriented. And you have a willingness to break through 

to get the job done, which is the most important thing. 

And how we replicate that is an interesting challenge for us in 

other organizations. 

I just want to ask a few baseline questions about why you did 

so successfully. Admiral, let me just ask you quickly, under what 

authority was the Coast Guard acting in preparing for and responding to Hurricane Katrina? 

14

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir and I apologize for taking so much 

time the last time. I did not realize it was 10 minutes for everybody. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. No, go right ahead. 

Admiral DUNCAN. The succinct answer is 14 U.S. Code, specifically Section 88. Section 89 and 88, taken together, give us quite 

a number of authorities. And 88, which I have here, goes into a lot 

of detail about what we are authorized to do, and it is very expansive. 

We have the largest grant of law enforcement authority, I believe, in the Federal Government. We are, at the same time, a lawenforcement agency and an Armed Force. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. What does law enforcement mean in this 

case, briefly? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Law enforcement is less significant, I think, in 

this case but to give us the authority. This is the first time that 

I am aware of that we were very concerned about safety of our life 

savers. So we did bring in force protection elements that were able 

to control crowds at marshaling stations, that were able to provide 

convoy support where necessary, those sorts of things. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. But the Coast Guard does not share the 

concerns that the Department of Defense has about Posse Comitatus? 

Admiral DUNCAN. No, sir. Posse Comitatus, as you are aware sir, 

affects the DOD, specifically the Army and the Air Force and by 

policy the Navy. The Coast Guard, from its constitution, it is organic in statute. It is a law enforcement authority as well as an 

Armed Force. The restrictions on use of Armed Forces do not apply 

to the Coast Guard. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Got it. 

So as you began to get information about Hurricane Katrina, am 

I correct—let me just ask you—did you need to go to any other authority or person, I mean, within the government, to get authority 

to begin to implement and prepare as you did? In other words, do 

you need to get authority from the Secretary of Homeland Security 

or the President, as Commander-in-Chief? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I guess I am attracted to the line in the old 

movie ‘‘that we do not need no stinking badges.’’ It is a wonderful 

quote, and I guess it sort of underscores the culture. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. That is a good line. 

I want the record to show that was not your statement. That was 

a quote. 

Admiral DUNCAN. No, sir, I am making my statement under 

oath. I am aware that, sir. 

No, sir. Not to be glib, truly we have the authority and exercise 

it on a daily basis. The difference here was the scale, rather than 

the mission. As Captain Jones indicated, we do life-saving. That is 

our statutory authority. We enforce fisheries offshore. We interact 

with foreign vessels. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. This is my point and this is fascinating and 

very important. Not that I suppose you do not want every agency 

of the government to be able to do that, but you did not have to 

get a lot of check-offs. This is what you do. And when you had the 

indications that a hurricane was coming, you sprang into action. 

15

Admiral DUNCAN. To the contrary, sir, I think my job would be 

in jeopardy had I not taken those actions. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Am I correct that what was moving you to 

get ready was exactly what I referred to earlier, except maybe you 

were getting more detailed information. You were getting the 

weather reports that said that this hurricane was going to be a big 

one. 

Admiral DUNCAN. We had that view, sir, and we have had experience in the Gulf for quite some time now. We have worked with 

our partners in the community. We understand first, make sure 

that we remove potential targets. Captain Paskewich indicated 

that we interacted with those that could be targets, the commercial 

shipping community, button up the ports. Make sure that the ships 

at sea understand there is something coming. We broadcast——

Senator LIEBERMAN. So you were working on the days coming 

with the authorities that have to do with private shipping and the 

ports to make sure that——

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. And to be specific, those are the Captain of the Port authorities that someone in the Sector Commander’s position, as Captain Paskewich was, can use to prepare 

ports for a strike, and working with the pilots. There is 100-andsome-odd miles of river there that need a pilot. 

So working with those partners to control traffic. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. You have ongoing relations with them? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. How about other governmental agencies? 

Did you, in the days leading up to landfall of Katrina, have any 

interactions with FEMA? 

Admiral DUNCAN. At my level, I was aware in reviewing our 

plans, that we were providing support to FEMA, as we had in other 

contexts. Specifically, during Hurricane Ivan we had assisted 

FEMA in the Panhandle, the Florida Panhandle, for locating sites 

for their urban search and rescue teams, which are very effective 

units. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Sites them some to——

Admiral DUNCAN. Sites for them to stage out of, to understand 

where they would be effective, how they would move into the area, 

provide support to them. We had done that in the Florida Panhandle not too long before. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. How about in the days before Katrina? Was 

there interaction? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. The point I was hoping to make there 

was that we had a similar arrangement, and I put a check in the 

box in my mind that we had already contacted FEMA. FEMA had 

requested and we were going to be providing flights as soon as they 

were aviationally technically sound to get a FEMA representative 

in the air to do their survey for their purposes. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. In fact we know, from Mr. Bahamonde’s testimony, that he went up, I guess twice on that Monday, August 29, 

with the Coast Guard. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. I did not know his name but I did 

know that we were going to provide——

Senator LIEBERMAN. He went up with you, did he not, Captain 

Paskewich? 

16

Captain PASKEWICH. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Was there any interaction with the Department of Defense, National Guard, or active military leading up to 

Katrina? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I would not say any formal interaction, no, sir. 

The National Guard is more present in the community on a regular 

basis so we know the National Guard pretty well, and they are taking their preparations, as well. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. My time is gone, but I want to ask two 

quick questions. 

One is, did your plans for response to Hurricane Katrina assume 

that the levees would either be topped or broken? In other words, 

since most of what we saw was your rescue, was rescue because of 

flooding and not because of wind damage? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. The flooding was the difference in 

Katrina. 

We participated in the exercise Hurricane Pam the year before 

that did posit breaches in the levees. We were concerned about 

that. We were aware that New Orleans is largely under sea level. 

And that was part of our assessment, that we would be looking for 

those things. 

Now in my assessment flight on Monday, I was aware that there 

was substantial flooding throughout the city. But I am not sure 

that I could have made the connection that it was due to any particular injury to either overtopping or a breach in the levee system. 

The salient fact for me to use in my situational assessment was 

that we had massive flooding and needed to direct a response towards that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks. 

My time is past due, so I will come back and ask more questions 

in the second round. Thank you. That was very helpful. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Dayton. 

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Thank you again. It is even more extraordinary hearing you recount the heroism that was involved and the dedication. 

Did I understand you correctly when you said that the equivalent 

of two-thirds of the Valdez oil spill occurred at various sites? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. Taken in total, I understand 11 million gallons was discharged in the Exxon Valdez. And I believe the 

number we had was about 7.9 million gallons in this. 

Senator DAYTON. What caused those spills and what can be done 

in the future? Because as the Chairman said, there was forewarning of this. So is it possible to prevent something like that 

happening in the future? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Certainly, that is the sort of thing that we will 

be looking at to see—we are going to scrub every aspect of our response and others in the area to see how we make it a more hardened system and a more efficient responsive system. 

The short answer, if I can, is breaches in tanks, tanks, and disrupted pipelines. There was at least one occasion where a pickup 

truck was floating, and when the water went down it landed on a 

pipeline and ruptured the pipeline, sort of a secondary injury to the 

system. 

Captain Paskewich can go into great deal about all of those. 

17

Senator DAYTON. I will wait until you have made the assessment 

of what can be done because hindsight is 20/20 and in something 

of that magnitude there is going to be unforeseeable consequences. 

But it would be good to know what can be done and make sure 

somebody has the authority to do whatever is possibly necessary to 

prevent those kind of occurrences in the future. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. I can point you to the offshore environment and say that the thousands of platforms that are active 

in the Gulf of Mexico are shut in. They shut in their production to 

mitigate potential disruption out there. 

So those are the sorts of things I think they would be looking at. 

Senator DAYTON. Good. 

You also mentioned there were barges or other boats or whatever 

that were blocking part of the passageway down the Mississippi 

into the Gulf? Again, who has the authority to clear out, or is there 

necessary additional authority to clear out before a storm like this 

occurs, so that again the few cannot block the many subsequently? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Let me ask Captain Paskewich to answer that, 

sir. 

Captain PASKEWICH. Sir, as Commanding Officer of Sector New 

Orleans, two of the hats that I wear—as Federal On-Scene Coordinator and Captain of the Port—give me broad authority to basically 

take the appropriate actions along the river, along the navigable 

waterways. So there was certainly hundreds of barges which had 

gone aground and/or sank, ships which had pushed up on the levees. And there were oil spills, as well. 

We did not wait. Essentially, we went out and took the action 

that we needed to bring in the right contractors to exercise leverage against the owners of the vessels and have them do an immediate removal of that particular asset. 

Senator DAYTON. Did you get cooperation in the hours leading up 

to the storm, in terms of clearing as many of those kind of barges 

and others out of the possible path? 

Captain PASKEWICH. Pre-storm, we had a team in our Alexandria 

office made up of members from the American Salvage Association, 

the big operators, the ones with the heavy lift equipment, in advance, in anticipation that we could potentially have severe impact. 

It certainly panned out that that occurred. 

Senator DAYTON. So my question is do you, or somebody, have 

the authority 48 hours ahead or whatever it takes—I realize barges 

move quite slowly—to get them to clear out of the way in advance? 

Captain PASKEWICH. As part of our pre-port requirements, we 

have different port conditions. And I send out broadcasts. I commenced the first broadcast that Thursday, advising the industry 

that a potential storm was on its way. And as the storm crept closer and closer, I would start implementing our port conditions, 

Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu, depending on how close—the time 

within 72, 48, 24, and 12 hours. 

Each one of those tells them a condition that the hurricane is 

getting close. And within my broadcast I say you should either 

leave now or if you are going to stay, you should hunker down and 

double up the lines, move to a safe mooring, take extra precautions, 

and advise them that by Sunday we would probably be shutting everything down. 

18

Senator DAYTON. I have only got a minute left so I have one 

more question I want to ask. I have to leave because I have some 

Minnesotans testifying at another hearing. Thank you, I apologize. 

How do you contrast your response and the effectiveness of it 

with other agencies? You talked about leadership and people and 

culture. What did you see lacking in the response, efficiency of response of other agencies, Federal in particular? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I am going to dodge that question respectfully, 

sir. 

I feel comfortable talking about our culture and what we did. 

Honestly, I can say with true candor, everybody I met downrange 

was seriously concerned about the suffering and trying to provide 

relief. Some were more effective than others. But I do not think I 

saw anyone that I would nominate as a bad player, sir. 

Senator DAYTON. In terms of communications between Federal 

agencies, State and local, it seems that there is this almost tension 

that is irresolvable in the moment of crisis between who has the 

authority to do what. Is that a problem we need to address for the 

future or not? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I do not think so. We exercise regularly with 

others. We work with Fish and Wildlife, people who did a wonderful job by the way, Louisiana Fish and Wildlife folks worked very 

closely with our boat people, our boat forces. We have those kind 

of arrangements. 

I will offer just one observation. We were asked a couple of years 

ago to fly on Mardi Gras parades. The local police had asked to do 

that. Mardi Gras is a very large celebration, and it lasts for about 

2 weeks. There are many parades. And they asked us to fly the parade routes on the major routes. 

And I authorized that for a couple of reasons. One, because it 

gave us familiarity with the city. It gave us familiarity with the police organization. We took a police officer with us in Captain Jones’ 

helicopters. 

And in the event—and frankly, if we saw a Homeland Security 

event that was attracted by a large gathering of Americans for a 

celebration, we were on scene. We were there. We had people in 

the air. We had connectivity with the local folks who would be responding on the ground. 

As an aside, they told me that that cut street crime along the parade route by a substantial amount. So we have done that for several years now. 

I think that is a significant factor. Coast Guard air crews in New 

Orleans knew where Lee Circle was. They knew the Ninth Ward. 

They knew how to get from one place to another. They knew how 

to work with local police. 

So those types of relationships that are built up in advance of a 

desperate situation, I think stand us in good stead. And it is probably not the sort of thing that can be written into a plan. It is a 

kind of culture that says we are working with people that we may 

need to work very closely with in a very significant event. 

Senator DAYTON. Thank you again. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Carper. 

19

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Let me preface my questions by saying when I was a member of 

the U.S. House of Representatives for 10 years, I was privileged to 

serve on the Coast Guard Subcommittee of what was then the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. I entered my time on that 

Committee as an old Navy guy with a good deal of respect for the 

Coast Guard, and when I left 10 years later, I had an even greater 

respect. I have been a fan of the work that you and the folks that 

you serve with have done for a long time, probably never more 

than in the wake of Katrina. 

Let me say, we have had a whole series of hearings on Katrinarelated issues. I just came from a hearing a few minutes ago on the 

Environment and Public Works Committee. Sometimes I say it 

seems like Katrina all day, all night as we try to figure out what 

went right, what went wrong. 

Let me just start off by asking, what question or what issue—

what have we asked you to answer, as a Committee, and if you just 

sort of take it one at a time. Let me start with you, Admiral. What 

have we asked you to answer today? 

Admiral DUNCAN. What have you asked me——

Senator CARPER. What questions have you been asked? Usually 

when we have a hearing, we say, these are the questions we would 

like for you to address in your testimony. What have been those 

questions? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. My understanding is that the Committee’s focus was that many things went right, many things went 

wrong during Katrina, and the focus of this Committee is semper 

paratus, what did the Coast Guard do? How has their culture allowed them to achieve what success we were able to achieve and 

is it something that can be distilled and recognized—our interactions with others in the community, and generally, you get a better understanding of the details of the work, the rescue and the 

restoration that went on in our sector, the maritime sector, in this 

historic event. 

Senator CARPER. It would be helpful to me, just take a minute 

or two in your own words and just answer that question again. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. I think that in our case, as a cultural 

event, the culture is one of how can we do things rather than what 

is required of us? Where do we bring talents that can be best used 

to meet the challenge? We have a very broad charter in the statute. 

It gives us many responsibilities, and I think that allows us to look 

at things in different ways, saying more why not do that rather 

than why do that? If there is something happening in a community 

that looks like our capabilities or our authorities would be helpful 

in providing relief, I think our natural inclination is to say, why 

not? Why not do that? How can we do this? 

In this event, it comes to deciding to distribute water to people 

who were not moved on. Once we have moved them out of positions 

of imminent peril and put them in places of temporary refuge, we 

added life sustainment to that set and said, let us keep water and 

food moving until people can be moved to final, or at least intermediate, places of refuge. 

20

We have a culture that speaks both DOD and law enforcement. 

We understand J systems. We understand N codes. We understand 

ICS and NIMS, and in some cases, we are a translator between 

those systems. That is helpful. I think there is a whole host of 

things. We take it seriously that the motto is semper paratus. I 

think we really do want to be ready. We look at our plans. We 

make sure our plans are adaptive. We make sure that our people 

understand that they are empowered to act consistent with the 

guidelines that have been understood ahead of time, and where 

they see something as a first responder that is not quite exactly 

what we describe, to take the right action when they get there, consistent with the concept of operations, saving lives, sustaining 

lives, and evacuating. 

Senator CARPER. It is interesting. I say to my colleagues, every 

now and then, I visit the Amtrak shops back in Delaware where 

they work on the locomotives and repair the cars, and this one guy 

who works at one of the shops wears almost every day to work a 

T-shirt that says on the back, ‘‘Attitude is everything.’’ When I 

hear you talk about sort of the idea is not why can’t we do something, but why can we, it reminds me of in the Navy, we had what 

I call a ‘‘can do’’ spirit. Basically, we felt we could do just about 

anything, get just about anything done. That was our attitude to 

it, and it sounds like it is very much the kind of attitude that pervades the Coast Guard. 

When I was privileged to be Governor of Delaware, we would 

await—not really await, we prepared for emergencies, whether 

hurricanes or Noreasters or blizzards or ice storms, whatever it 

was. We would go through a drill. We would prepare for, we would 

practice the emergency with the relevant agencies, Federal and 

State and local. We would also do, literally, every several hours 

during the course of the day as the disaster, natural disaster was 

approaching, we would do what we called a bridge call. We would 

have all the relevant agencies on the phone. It could be Coast 

Guard—it probably was. It included the weather folks. It included 

all of our National Guardspeople, our DEMA people. 

Did they have that kind of operation in Louisiana and Mississippi? How did it work? 

Admiral DUNCAN. In a variation of that. I made contact with the 

Governor’s office in advance of the storm and then after the storm 

hit, I know that Captain Paskewich made contact at the local level. 

We had liaison officers in every place that we could think would 

be useful. Some places were not struck by the storm. We called 

those people back. Others were right at the center of things. We 

had Lieutenant Commander Sherry Banaesaw in the Mayor’s office 

in New Orleans. That was a vital connection that gave us situational awareness of what was going on, what the Mayor understood 

was happening in the city, and how we could interact with that. 

We had liaison officers in the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge as well as in Mississippi. Some of those liaisons 

became pivotal in our understanding of other players and being 

able to interact with those on a regular basis, and that was a pipeline of sharing information back and forth. 

Within our organization, we had daily conference calls at 0800 

and 2000, eight and eight, if you will, myself and my boss, Vice AdVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
21

miral Vivian Crea in Portsmouth, Virginia, and I had direct authority to call the Commandant at any time should I need to do 

that, and I did several times. So he had good situational awareness 

right to the very top of the organization, at least as I understood 

it. 

It was important, I thought, to remain forward in this event, to 

maintain situational awareness and be able to contact at that level 

so that when DOD moved into the community, the JTF, I was able 

to attend the Commander’s conferences on the Iwo Jima and make 

sure that if we were able to provide support in alignment with the 

JTF’s mission, we could do that, as well. 

So I think we looked for those opportunities for connectivity. 

There were regular, structured contacts. There were less formal 

contacts. And we held conference calls daily to make sure we had 

shared understanding of what was happening in each of these 

places. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. I think my time has expired. Thank 

you very much, Madam Chair, and again, to each of you, thanks. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Captain Jones, you referred in your testimony just briefly to the 

Coast Guard’s effort to transport food and water to evacuees. It is 

my understanding that you could shed some light on an incident 

that a FEMA witness, Marty Bahamonde, described to this Committee where FEMA trucks with water and food in them were 

locked and in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Are you familiar with that 

incident? 

Captain JONES. Yes, Senator. 

Chairman COLLINS. Could you explain the Coast Guard’s role? 

Captain JONES. On Wednesday, August 31, one of my officers, 

Lieutenant J.G. Williams, who was a liaison working with Task 

Force Eagle, the Louisiana National Guard Air Rescue Operation 

staged out of the Superdome, a parallel rescue operation to ours, 

linked up through this liaison officer. He had some face-to-face 

with a local FEMA official who let him know that the ten 18-wheelers, five with water, five with food, were at the Wal-Mart on Airline Highway, which had already been used as a staging area for 

small boat operations the day prior, on Tuesday, August 30, that 

those trucks had arrived there. They were locked up, but they 

weren’t yet being distributed. 

So Mr. Williams contacted my unit, and we tasked two H–53s 

from the Marine Corps from the U.S.S. Battan, which had offered 

their services to us, and we tasked those two Marine Corps H–53s 

to go land at that parking lot. They cut the locks on the trucks. 

They loaded up, again, ten 18-wheelers full of food and water, distributed them to the landing zones we had designated at the causeway, the cloverleaf, the Superdome, and they also brought food and 

water back to my air station for further redistribution by helicopter 

to individual groups of survivors. 

Chairman COLLINS. So even though these trucks were FEMA 

trucks, it was the Coast Guard, assisted by the Marines, that actually got into the trucks because they had been abandoned and were 

locked, and then distributed the food? 

Captain JONES. Ma’am, I can’t say how long those trucks had 

been there, but I can say it was a FEMA official who told our liaiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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son officer about them, so I would say that the FEMA, Coast 

Guard, and Marine Corps together coordinated the distribution of 

that food and water. 

At the same time, on the same morning, a Coast Guard C–130 

brought in the first shipments of water to arrive at New Orleans 

International Airport, water purchased by Coast Guard officers on 

Tuesday, August 30. And additionally, on Tuesday, August 30, my 

junior officers had the idea to break into the Navy exchange retail 

store, which they did with the permission of the Navy commanding 

officer, loaded food and water into my pilots’ pickup trucks, put it 

on Coast Guard H–60–Js, and flew it out to St. Bernard High 

School in St. Bernard Parish for distribution to 400 survivors who 

were stranded there in eight feet of water without food and water. 

Senator CARPER. Madam Chair, that sounds like a real Navy 

‘‘can do’’ spirit. [Laughter.] 

Chairman COLLINS. They needed the Coast Guard’s help, though, 

did you notice. [Laughter.] 

Admiral DUNCAN. The Navy are good people. 

Chairman COLLINS. They are, indeed. 

Captain Paskewich, I am curious why the Coast Guard pilots 

kept bringing people to the Superdome when the Superdome was 

becoming overwhelmed, short of water and food. The floodwaters 

were starting to encircle the Superdome. Why was the decision 

made to bring the rescued individuals to the Superdome? Or Captain Jones, if you know the answer to that. 

Captain JONES. Yes, Senator. The landing zones and staging 

areas in use is a very dynamic situation. Hour by hour, we would 

receive reports, the cloverleaf is closed. Don’t bring anyone else. 

The Superdome is closed. Don’t bring anyone else. The hospitals 

told us, don’t bring anyone else unless they are on death’s door. 

Then they told us, don’t bring anyone else if they are on death’s 

door. 

The problem was that all the staging areas, all the landing zones 

were full by the second day and not happy at all about receiving 

more people. They were short of food. They were short of water. 

They were short of medical supplies. So all of the staging areas 

were overwhelmed by certainly the second and third day after the 

hurricane. It was a question of there was no better alternative. If 

we took them to the cloverleaf after the Superdome turned us 

away, it would have been putting them down with 2,000 other of 

their friends and neighbors who also had no food and water and 

inadequate EMS personnel on scene to provide security. 

Chairman COLLINS. Did the Coast Guard express concerns to any 

Federal, State, or local officials that more shelters were needed and 

more places for sanctuary? 

Captain JONES. Yes, ma’am. I passed that concern up through 

my chain of command on a regular basis, and they passed that concern on through their contacts with the OEP in Baton Rouge. I also 

expressed that concern at the Superdome to the task force where 

they were staged there. 

Admiral DUNCAN. If I may add to that, ma’am——

Chairman COLLINS. Admiral Duncan. 

Admiral DUNCAN. I was also at the Superdome where we discussed that concern and the need for providing better, more permaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
23

nent relief. I also flew to Baton Rouge. I met with Mr. Brown to 

express personally my concern about us moving people to places of 

temporary refuge and them not being moved on to more permanent 

places. It led to our decision to equip every Coast Guard helicopter 

with a full suite of water, and we moved 60 to 90 pallets of water 

a day that we purchased to people who were in need of it in very 

difficult circumstances. 

Chairman COLLINS. What was Mr. Brown’s response when you 

raised this concern with him? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I began trying to contact Mr. Brown on 

Wednesday through my aide. He was initially unavailable, and we 

left messages through the day. A message was passed that if I 

could get to Baton Rouge, he would be happy to meet with me. I 

went to Baton Rouge and talked to him. He was about to do a presentation, and we had a short amount of time, 15 minutes or so, 

where I explained my observations from the theater, what I 

thought needed to be done next. I made reference to a Berlin airlift 

kind of an operation to get resources to people who needed it. He 

indicated interest and said, ‘‘Let us get together again.’’ He needed 

to do this press conference. ‘‘Let us get together at eight.’’

I showed up at 8:10. I had been detained before getting there. 

The meeting was over. Others were leaving the trailer he was in, 

and we were unable to really meet to pursue that. His chief of staff 

said that my concerns had been heard and that they were going to 

act on those in some way. But I was unable to meet with Mr. 

Brown at that time. He had moved on to other things. 

Chairman COLLINS. Did anything change, from your perspective 

on the ground, after you brought those concerns? 

Admiral DUNCAN. That was Thursday evening. It appears that 

Friday, things did change. We did get recognition that water and 

food was necessary. We did see the JTF move resources into place 

that provided some relief that was needed up until that point. 

Chairman COLLINS. Were alternative shelters established as a 

result of that conversation? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I can’t say that anything came as a direct result of that conversation. For all I know, some of these things were 

planned before I had a conversation with Mr. Brown. But the 

movement out of congested areas began, medical triaging at the 

International Airport, alternatively referred to as Moisant or Louis 

Armstrong, began. Water and food distribution was better supported. And it did appear at that point that we were starting to see 

a turn. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks. I want to go back to the questions 

of communications, which are very important, obviously critically 

important, in disaster response. Some of the most pathetic moments in watching what happened and reading afterward in New 

Orleans was the inability, for instance, of the Mayor to communicate with his personnel, etc. 

Captain Paskewich, you were on both Coast Guard flights with 

Mr. Bahamonde and have indicated that you, too, were clearly able 

to see significant flooding in New Orleans at the time. Admiral 

Duncan, you have indicated that you were aware of significant 

24

flooding from a damage assessment flight that you took about 5 

p.m. on that same Monday, the day of landfall, August 29. 

I wanted to ask you both how and when did you communicate 

that information to your superior officers in the Coast Guard, to 

the Louisiana Emergency Operations Center, or to any other Federal agencies or operations centers? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Do you want to take it? 

Captain PASKEWICH. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Captain, why don’t you start. 

Captain PASKEWICH. I was certainly on both flights with Mr. 

Bahamonde, and when I came in from Baton Rouge, or from Alexandria via Baton Rouge, and went down the river to survey, do a 

quick scan, and then headed across the city to the airport, at the 

Superdome to pick up Mr. Bahamonde, he wanted to go up on an 

overflight, do an assessment of the area just like I did. It was our 

first opportunity to get a nice, good, detailed survey or good look 

of the area. 

We flew up to the north. We were on an H–60. We went up toward where my station was, and you could see houses burning. You 

could see my station was intact, and I could see intense flooding 

in the Lakeview neighborhood area, up to the rooftops. At that 

point, you could also hear chatter on the radios that there was 

thousands of people on the rooftops that needed to be saved. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Where was that coming from? 

Captain PASKEWICH. That was coming from—to the 60 helicopter. 

I think that was general, other helicopters——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Other helicopters were flying, right. 

Captain PASKEWICH. Correct. There were multiple helicopters in 

the area. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Captain PASKEWICH. I counted four Coast Guard helicopters 

within my own visual, and then the H–60 pilot asked permission 

if he could bring us back because they are a big asset. They can 

rescue a lot of people. So our first flight was about 10 minutes. 

Then we went back to the Superdome and told him we would get 

him back up again——

Senator LIEBERMAN. You are talking about Mr. Bahamonde? 

Captain PASKEWICH. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. On that first flight, could you see that the 

levees had broken? 

Captain PASKEWICH. We went right over the area where the levees were broken, and I am pretty positive Mr. Bahamonde saw the 

levee breach. I was focused on the flooding in the neighborhoods——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Sure. 

Captain PASKEWICH [continuing]. And I was trying to get a visual as to how many assets we needed. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Captain PASKEWICH. The second flight we took with one of Captain Jones’ 65 crews. We went east, New Orleans East and Slidell. 

I believe we were the first ones to see the twin span drop, and then 

Slidell was under water. New Orleans East was very much under 

water, as well, Shalmet, you could see the Ninth Ward off in the 

25

distance. Intense flooding. So north of I–10, intense flooding, and 

then Shalmet, Ninth Ward south, intense flooding. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. So did you report what you saw to any superiors? 

Captain PASKEWICH. Yes, sir. When we landed at the Dome, we 

made—we called back three separate times——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Who did you call? 

Captain PASKEWICH. I called up our Incident Command Post in 

Alexandria, relayed information that there was intense flooding in 

the area and that we needed to marshal as many resources, both 

aircraft and small boats, as many as possible because this would 

be an extended, protracted search and rescue effort. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Admiral Duncan, I am interested in—I presume you were a recipient of some of that information that Captain 

Paskewich reported? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Then I am curious. I know you did speak to 

Deputy Secretary Jackson and apparently you were in conversations with, I am sorry, the Commandant and Secretary Jackson. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir, that is correct. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. You were in conversations with the Commandant and senior Coast Guard officials, so just help me with 

that chain of command——

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN [continuing]. To the best of your recollection, 

as to communication. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. I moved on Sunday to Houston to be 

in a position to come in immediately behind the storm. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Admiral DUNCAN. When the storm conditions were abating, I 

flew to Alexandria, took a brief from—this is the tie-in with Captain Paskewich. His information goes to this IMT in Alexandria. I 

went to see what was known across the entire theater. So I tried 

to find out what was happening in Sector Mobile, which covered 

the Mississippi Coast, and also what was happening in Louisiana——

Senator LIEBERMAN. So this is Monday evening? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Monday afternoon, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Monday afternoon, OK. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Two o’clock in the afternoon, I took off from 

Houston, arrived probably about, I think it says about three o’clock 

or so—three o’clock. I am sorry, 2:30. I received initial reports from 

whatever was known by our folks or any source that we could—

news, anything we could find——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Admiral DUNCAN [continuing]. Preparatory to my flight going 

into the area. My notes indicate that at that time, there was some 

reports of overtopping. I believe the Industrial Canal was mentioned. We were prepared for flooding. Myself and my chief of operations got on a flight with a petty officer, and we took a 60, a Falcon jet out down over Grand Isle, which is on the coast, out over 

Loop, which is a substantial oil production facility out in the Gulf, 

and then up the Mississippi River, over the City of New Orleans, 

26

and then to the east along the coast until we got to Bayou La 

Batre, Alabama, turned around and came back and landed. 

At that point, I had personally seen very substantial flooding, not 

really able to attribute, I think in my mind, what caused that flooding at this point——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right, but you saw the effect——

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. Absolutely. 

Chairman COLLINS. And you reported that to the Coast Guard 

Commandant? 

Admiral DUNCAN. That is correct. I contacted the—in fact, the 

time I have is—I took a brief from the sectors at nine o’clock, when 

I landed. Then I called the Commandant and the Area Commander, and the notes I have say it was at 10 o’clock, 2200, and 

I discussed with Admiral Crea and the Commandant my observations, supplemented by what I was able to gather from others who 

were doing other detailed assessments on the ground. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yourself, you did not speak to Secretary 

Jackson in DHS——

Admiral DUNCAN. I did not, no, sir. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. But do you have any idea what the Commandant reported to Secretary Jackson? 

Admiral DUNCAN. No, sir, I would——

Senator LIEBERMAN. We will have to talk to him directly. 

Admiral DUNCAN. If I could also add——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Please. 

Admiral DUNCAN [continuing]. Because there is another element 

to your question, if I might, sir——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Go ahead. 

Admiral DUNCAN [continuing]. How do we pass that information 

to others. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Admiral DUNCAN. That information, the normal tie-in at the 

State Emergency Operations Center to all the players, including 

the State, who has primacy in responding to incidents in the State, 

of course, is to pass that information up through the OEP, or the 

Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge. That information 

was passed through to them, and our sit-reps, our situation reports, which lag, of course, by an hour or two in typing it up and 

sending it along, try to capture the detail of these observations and 

any other source of information that might be available to us and 

send that up to others, as well, and those would have been developed and sent to the OEP, which is the Louisiana Emergency Operations Center. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. OK, I appreciate that. I want to just quickly 

ask one more question and go to you, Captain Jones; and Captain 

Paskewich, if you want to add. How were you and your personnel 

receiving information about—communicating with one another, but 

also receiving information about who on the ground needed help, 

or were you just doing observation when you saw people on the 

rooftops? 

Captain JONES. Senator——

Senator LIEBERMAN. I know that the Coast Guard itself had 

some communication difficulties under the circumstances. 

27

Captain JONES. Senator, regarding communications, communications between aircraft was not degraded in any way, other than the 

volume of radio calls being made, which simply made for a short 

wait in having to get a phone call in, or a radio call in. Radio communications between Coast Guard aircraft and Coast Guard 

ground stations were degraded because of the fact that the coastal 

antenna, the high sight antenna had been destroyed in many cases. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. There is a lesson right there. 

Captain JONES. Yes, sir. But I would add that I think we are always working to improve the technology. The technology is always 

susceptible in a catastrophic incident like this. The primary operational concept that we employ is that all of our forces in the aviation world should be ready to work without communications for extended periods of time. The briefing I give my crew prior to deployment in response to any hurricane, the briefing I gave all of my air 

crew on August 28 when we left New Orleans in evacuation to 

preposition for a response to Katrina, was that each air crew 

should be prepared to operate independently for up to 72 hours 

with no contact with me, no contact with the district, have to find 

our own food and water and shelter, have to find our own jet fuel. 

Now, I told them, I hope that is not the case, but you should all 

be prepared to do so, and they were prepared to do so. So if you 

have people that are extremely well trained, extremely well 

equipped, and understand the commander’s intent and what the 

mission objectives are, they can operate without communications 

without floundering about. 

In regards to mission tasking, there were two primary ways we 

tasked missions. There were literally hundreds each day, if not 

thousands, of specific mission requests that came in. Evacuate this 

many people——

Senator LIEBERMAN. In this particular area? 

Captain JONES. Yes, sir. Evacuate people from this hospital, from 

that hospital, this high school, this community center, this house. 

There were hundreds of phone calls coming in, to both the district 

INT, the sector INT, the Baton Rouge EOC, being funneled through 

our Coast Guard liaison officers in each of those places either to 

Eagle Base, to the Coast Guard liaison officer working with the National Guard to task National Guard and DOD helicopters, or to 

my air station, or to Coast Guard Aviation Training Center, Mobile, Alabama, which was also launching mass helicopter rescue operations. So there were many targeted specific distress calls coming 

in and everyone else was assigned to general areas where there 

were—for the first 4 days, Senator—were so many thousands of 

people that were readily apparent to be rescued, we didn’t need to 

assign them to specific homes or blocks. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Admiral Duncan, did you want to add anything? 

Admiral DUNCAN. If I may just elaborate, Senator, a parallel effort was going on at the State Office of Emergency Preparedness, 

so 911 calls were coming in through there, as well. Those were dispatched to appropriate liaison officers to have their agency respond. So if the call was for a State police response, the State police desk was given that ticket. If it looked like an aviation response was appropriate, then we would get that and pass that 

28

down. So these parallel systems, really quite a number of things 

coming. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Captain Jones, I just want to clarify and follow up on the discussion we had of the Coast Guard’s role in trying to get to the FEMA 

trucks at the Wal-Mart that contained vitally needed food and 

water and what FEMA knew and didn’t know about these trucks. 

Our staffs recently interviewed William Lokey. Are you familiar 

with Mr. Lokey? 

Admiral DUNCAN. No. 

Chairman COLLINS. He is the FEMA official who was designated 

as being the Federal coordinating officer, so the key person for logistics. We told him about the Coast Guard, and you have elaborated the help that you got from the Navy, also, in coming to the 

trucks, breaking the locks, getting the desperately needed food and 

water out of them, and airlifting them to the Superdome. 

My staff asked Mr. Lokey if he was aware of this. He said, ‘‘No, 

this is the first that I have heard of that.’’

The staff went on to say, ‘‘You don’t know anything about trucks 

being abandoned in the Wal-Mart parking lot?’’

He responded, ‘‘It doesn’t surprise me, but this is the first time 

I have heard of trucks abandoned in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and 

I am glad they cut the locks and helped get the food over there. 

They did the right thing.’’

Question, ‘‘Is it possible in your mind that these could have been 

trucks that were either contracted for by FEMA, either directly or 

from mission assignment?’’

‘‘I do not know. I didn’t think we had any mission-assigned 

trucks because most of our trucks and logistics people directly contracted with their contractor to provide, but I would be interested 

to know about this. Literally, it is the first time I have heard of 

having to go commandeer food in an abandoned parking lot.’’

I tell you about this because I think, once again, this shows the 

disconnect of FEMA not knowing what assets they had, where they 

were, and how they could be tapped. Obviously, Marty Bahamonde 

knew about these trucks, or had seen these trucks, but the individual at FEMA who should have been aware of this was not. Since 

I think your testimony created some doubt on that point, I just 

wanted to clarify that. 

Captain JONES. Yes, ma’am. I don’t know anything about the history of those trucks, how they came to be there, how long they had 

been there, or if they were truly abandoned or simply there was 

someone on the way to get the materials and our helicopters, our 

tasked helicopters got there first. I don’t know. I only know that 

a FEMA person who spoke face-to-face with one of my officers who 

worked with the Marine Corps to get a helicopter over there and 

distribute that desperately needed food and water. I really can’t 

speak as to whether it was truly abandoned and forgotten, or 

whether that was part of the process. The trucks may have just arrived there and FEMA worked with the right people, which is the 

Coast Guard, to get it distributed. 

Chairman COLLINS. Well, I think it is clear from—and I just read 

you an excerpt of the transcript, it is much longer—that the indiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
29

vidual who should have known did not, so that, in fact, those were 

trucks that were lost track of, which is very troubling in this situation. 

Admiral, as you know, this Committee is studying the mechanics 

of the National Response Plan and the National Incident Management System and its implementation in response to Hurricane 

Katrina. Senator Lieberman has often said that this was the first 

big test since September 11 and the system failed. 

It appears, based on our initial investigation, that there was considerable confusion over the various roles played by different individuals at all levels of government under the National Response 

Plan and that some individuals involved in the response efforts 

may not have been adequately trained to the National Incident 

Management System standards. What are your observations? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I think, in large part, there is truth in that observation. The National Response Plan was barely 8 months old 

when Katrina hit, so I think it is not surprising that we would find 

different levels of understanding in different agencies. It was not 

a huge shock to the Coast Guard. It operated under the Federal 

Response Plan previously and had helped with drafting elements of 

the National Response Plan for which we would be coordinating officials or coordinating agencies. We have significant experience in 

oil pollution, where we have learned how to deal with the National 

Incident Management System and ICS. We have since incorporated 

that for all hazards, all events. So there is a fairly high understanding of those concepts in the Coast Guard. 

One of the lessons learned I come away with for our organization 

is we want to push that down further. We want to make sure that 

petty officers at a lower level are more conversant with ICS and 

take less ramp-up time when they show up in an organization like 

that. So that is a lesson learned for us, to develop that expertise 

at a lower level. 

I guess I would say there is merit in the National Response Plan. 

I think elements of the Response Plan were more effective than 

others, but I do think it provided a good framework for, for instance, the ESF organization, mission assignments, the way that 

the government looks at a very large problem that cuts across the 

scope of all agencies that might bring something to it. I think it 

is a very good framework, and as we get more conversant in it, I 

think we will probably fine-tune it or maybe find that it is exactly 

what we need. 

But the National Response Plan, I think, is a good framework for 

starting. We did find different levels of understanding and, frankly, 

different levels of usage of it among some of the participants. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks. I want to follow up on the last series of questions asked about communications, and this is in the 

spirit of lessons learned. 

In terms of the antennas going down and inhibiting communication between your planes in the air and base operations or locations, what are the alternatives that we might pursue in the future 

there? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. One of the things that we did in advance of the storm was to take specialized communication equipVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
30

ment and place it in areas we thought would be necessary. That 

was part of the dialogue I had with my immediate supervisor, 

which is Vice Admiral Crea, the Area Commander. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Admiral DUNCAN. We took things called a TMAC and a TMIC—

they are specialized communication bands. We put them in Mobile, 

which was expected to be an impact area. We moved one to Alexandria. And we reestablished communications through those, not the 

kind of robust communications that we would have on an ordinary 

basis, but enough to move through an emergency until we could restore other things. We found that text messaging worked. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Interesting. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes. I was the Group Commander in Charleston, South Carolina, when Hurricane Hugo hit, and I thought the 

first thing that was going to go was my cell phone. As it turned 

out, the cell phone towers remained up, and we were able to communicate with what was then pretty new technology. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. But they didn’t here, did they? 

Admiral DUNCAN. They did not, no. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. No. 

Admiral DUNCAN. And we ended up—I am wearing a phone on 

my belt. This is the third phone I have had since August. It is an 

area code not affected by the storm, and I am able to communicate 

very nicely with that. It is in Northwestern Louisiana. The 504 

area code was greatly impacted. My wife’s phone, it was difficult 

to find out where she was. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Admiral DUNCAN. But that was a matter of trial and error to try 

and find something we could bring up as we experienced problems. 

Again, communications are always one of those things you wish 

were better, and I know that we have mobile communications van 

projects that are very near completion that we hope will provide 

that kind of——

Senator LIEBERMAN. I appreciate that. The staff just told me that 

they have learned that the helicopters were able to intermittently 

use your own C–130s or order Customs and Border P–3s as communications centers. Tell me a little about that. 

Admiral DUNCAN. I will address it broadly and ask Captain 

Jones, as the aviator among us, to do the details. 

The air traffic management package, again, with that many helicopters in the air, every time I flew in there, I was looking out the 

window to make sure there wasn’t a helicopter on the next roof 

over. That air traffic management piece was done by two aircraft, 

a Coast Guard C–130 and a Customs P–3 in an elliptical orbit over 

New Orleans, much like an AWACS kind of a thing. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Was this part of the plan, in other words, 

that you——

Admiral DUNCAN. It was perceived ahead of time and put into 

place. Those aircraft showed up as ordered before the storm. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. Unique to preparation for Katrina, or 

is that part of the continuing plan? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I think any time we expect a congested air 

space, we make an effort to make sure that that is there, and the 

31

Navy brought assets with them when they came, as well, that 

could take care of that. 

If I might throw that to Captain Jones to describe the details of 

that communications. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Sure. 

Captain JONES. The Navy provided an E–2–C Hawkeye, also, for 

that role, but primarily, they benefitted us by not only reeling information—if we had to send out a broadcast to all helicopters, we 

sent it to the overhead aircraft, and then they could talk to an onscene helicopter better than we could from my operations center. 

But also, they were able to do phone patches, so if I needed to talk 

to the District IMT in St. Louis, we could contact the overhead 

fixed-wing aircraft from 10,000 feet, and they could do a phone 

patch and actually get on a land line in St. Louis. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Let me ask a different question—Captain, 

did you want to say something? 

Captain PASKEWICH. Could I add just a couple more things on 

the communications, sir? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Please. 

Captain PASKEWICH. There were some novel approaches to overcoming some of the limitations. We did actually get a ham radio 

operator in, which turned out to be effective. We had our own——

Senator LIEBERMAN. This is after you saw how bad it was? 

Captain PASKEWICH. Yes, sir. They came in within the first couple days. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Captain PASKEWICH. And then we had a group of auxiliarists 

who actually went out to one of our towers to establish the link between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This key tower halfway in 

between, once it was up and running, we could have the communications leap-frogged through that site to our station, once we regained access to our station. And out-of-state cell phones actually 

worked quite well, if you had that ability. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Again, a real sign of resourcefulness. 

You know, the contrast, and I don’t want to ask you to talk about 

this, but—maybe I will ask you a different question, the contrast 

between how you responded and others did. 

Has there been any after-action work done within the Department of Homeland Security about, for instance—in preparation for 

the next, or even in implementation around Hurricane Rita, about 

you and FEMA, for instance, working more closely together? I 

mean, here you are in the same Department and, honestly, a night 

and day—that may be unfair because of different histories, etc.—

in the reaction of the two agencies, but what has happened since 

all this happened in Katrina? 

Admiral DUNCAN. I think we are capturing many lessons 

learned, pages and pages of things. Some are small, single points 

of failure or to be avoided, lots of things like that, the business 

about pushing training down to a lower level in ICS in our community. 

When Rita approached, we put the word out that we were going 

to treat this as an expeditionary event. We were not going to assume that anything would have survived the strike. There would 

be nothing to go back to. Bring everything you need with you. 

32

Bring communications, bring food, water, bring RVs. I think I am 

the largest owner of RVs in the government right now. We try to 

provide our ability to move into an area and sustain operations for 

a long period of time. 

Efforts to integrate with FEMA and others in DHS and others 

in the government, I think, are being looked at and probably 

smoother. We put liaison officers—I put a Coast Guard Admiral in 

the PFO organization before Admiral Allen was assigned to try to 

make that kind of connectivity during the event. Admiral Acton 

was assigned to be Mr. Brown’s assistant earlier on in that. 

We did the same thing with Hurricane Rita. We actually moved 

Admiral Acton over to Rita to be part of that PFO cell and to also 

make the connections with the Joint Task Force as DOD came in 

with their own capabilities and their own mission sets. So 

interconnectivity, interoperability are very big on our list of lessons 

learned. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Let me ask you this final question, maybe 

if each of you want to offer a quick answer. I think one of the reasons you are as good as you are is you probably don’t rest on your 

laurels and you are always asking, what could we have done better 

here? So I am going to give you an opportunity, each of you, to—

and maybe this time I will start with Captain Paskewich and go 

around the other way—what went wrong or what lessons did you 

learn for the next time? 

Captain PASKEWICH. I would say it is a strength, and at times 

we are pretty tough on ourselves. In fact, we are incredibly tough 

on ourselves, and we constantly reevaluate where we can improve, 

and we have captured lessons learned across a whole broad spectrum, not just communications. There are whole lessons learned 

within that whole communications segment, but organizationally, 

what do we need to do better? How can we set up? How can we 

connect the dots? I call it connecting the dots between all the agencies. It is very important to me. 

The liaison officers are key people, and what I take out of this 

is that that is one of the major bonds that has to take place and 

we have to do it even better——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Liaison——

Captain PASKEWICH. Liaison officers. For instance, we had assigned officers at the City Office of Emergency Preparedness. We 

had SAR controllers at the State level, trying to stay linked with 

those folks and linked with other key agencies who we overlap with 

and interact with. That is a key, and I think if I take anything 

away from that, I want to build upon that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Great. Captain Jones. 

Captain JONES. Honestly, Senator, I think Captain Paskewich hit 

it on the head when he said we beat ourselves up. We are perfectionists in the Coast Guard. After a miraculous rescue, a crew will 

sit around and agonize over what they should have done better. 

On the first day of Katrina response, I flew 9 hours and my rescue person was Dave Foreman, a young man who is incredibly heroic, hanging from gutters at 10 o’clock at night when I was hovering on night-vision goggles, smashing windows out of a secondstory building over by Lakeview to try to get an elderly woman out 

who we then had to abandon because he just couldn’t get her out. 

33

She was immobile, and it was just not physically possible to get her 

out that night in those conditions. 

This is the same young man who, 2 years ago, you may remember the Bow Mariner rescue mission, the 600-foot tanker that sank 

off Cape Henry at Chincoteague with highly-toxic chemicals 

aboard, and he went into that water in January in the Atlantic 

Ocean with highly toxic fumes that made the helicopter crew pass 

out and saved six lives, and he beat himself up after that. I 

couldn’t save anyone else. And we have to just slap ourselves sometimes and say, you just did the most successful rescue operation in 

American history, so don’t beat yourself up so much. 

Honestly, the factors that the Admiral and Captain Paskewich 

have pointed out, our ability to interact with other agencies, our 

ability to empower our people to make decisions on the fly, to look 

at what needs to be done and make those decisions, and we can 

empower them to do that because of the fact that they are so well 

trained and they are experienced and they are local first responders who are part of the local communities and know the local officials and know where the local geographic landmarks are. 

There were times after Katrina where we sat around and we 

were practically saying, gee, what could we have done more? Could 

we have plugged the levees ourselves? Could we have built the tent 

cities ourselves? My Command Master Chief had to slap me one 

time and say, ‘‘Captain, we did a hell of a job.’’

Senator LIEBERMAN. You did a hell of a job. Admiral Duncan. 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. It would make your hair hurt, honestly, to go through the details of lessons learned. We had a single 

point of failure in a server in one of our subordinate commands 

that provided the routing for our E-mail, and it either went underwater or ran out of fuel. Those pretty much are concurrent events 

at this point. And we said, man, that cost us a couple of hours in 

restoring, rerouting through St. Louis, where we put our COOP, 

our E-mail. So we are really hard on ourselves that our E-mail 

went down, which was a significant thing. We really wanted that 

to be up. 

So that is the level of things. Just briefly, we have broken these 

lessons learned down into people, training, equipment, supply, infrastructure, and information, and then there are subsets under all 

of those and a good part of this book are lessons learned. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. That is great. And I presume you are not 

only working that over internally, but you are sharing it with the 

rest of DHS? 

Admiral DUNCAN. Yes, sir. Captain Paskewich made a good 

point. One thing that we did this time was we took commanding 

officers out of command positions in a non-impacted area, the 

Texas coast, for instance, and moved them into those key liaison 

positions and let the executive officers fleet up and run the show 

in day-to-day operations. So we ensured that the quality of people 

we had interacting with other agencies were our top command-level 

people. That was a significant event. That is the best case that I 

think we are going to offer for Coast Guard-wide operations. 

Remain flexible. For instance, it has struck me as we are going 

through this that we probably want to think about putting a fluorescent mark on the top of roofs of houses that we had taken peoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:45 Aug 17, 2006 Jkt 024929 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\24929.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
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ple off of, and that looked like an adaptation in the plan. I looked 

just like you do now, sir. That is a good idea. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Admiral DUNCAN. It turns out not to be a good idea in practice. 

Now, you wouldn’t have known this, sir——

Senator LIEBERMAN. You tricked me there. [Laughter.] 

Admiral DUNCAN. Well, it was my idea, and sometimes the Admiral doesn’t have good ideas, but if he talks to people, he finds out 

that the rescue swimmers are going down, and they say, we have 

marked this house, but flying back, we saw new people on this 

house, people who just decided to come out now, or people who 

have moved up from other areas and found easy access to this roof. 

So what looked like a promising variant of that plan, in practice, 

we were quick enough to recognize it was putting people at risk if 

we went forward with that. There would be people there again. So 

we scratched that. 

So remaining agile, questioning fundamental assumptions, listening to the petty officer who is hanging from a wire rope and seeing 

what his experience is. Captain Jones can tell you that we put axes 

on his helicopters and then we got electric saws so that we could 

get into roofs of houses—not standard equipment on his helicopters, developed on the fly. 

So that is a lesson learned that we will probably put in and offer 

as a best practice for other air stations in other hurricane areas. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Fantastic. Thanks very much. Great job. We 

are very grateful to you. I was thinking, this is probably the ultimate expression of gratitude from American society these days, is 

that we should go from ‘‘NYPD’’ to a television series called 

‘‘USCG.’’ [Laughter.] 

Admiral DUNCAN. Captain Paskewich has already had enough 

press. [Laughter.] 

I have to talk to him through an agent. He has dark glasses. 

Please don’t make him harder to work with, sir. [Laughter.] 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I wasn’t thinking of him playing himself, 

however. [Laughter.] 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you very much for your testimony 

today. Admiral Duncan, I would ask that you share with the Committee the lessons learned document. That would be very helpful 

to us. 

Admiral DUNCAN. I would be happy to do that, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. And again, I want to join Senator Lieberman 

in commending the Coast Guard for a truly outstanding performance. I think that we can learn a lot from the experience with 

Katrina by looking at the Coast Guard’s preparedness and agile response. The constant innovation as you were going along is really 

impressive, and that is what we need to learn and adapt for other 

agencies. So we look forward to working with you further as we 

continue our investigation, and I thank you very much for your testimony today and your service to the country. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days, and this hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(35)

A P P E N D I X 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG 

Madam Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing and giving us an opportunity to examine one of the few bright spots in the Federal response to Hurricane 

Katrina. 

I have always admired the U.S. Coast Guard. Before coming to the Senate I 

served on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and I know what a vital 

role the Coast Guard plays in the shipping industry which is so important to our 

economy. 

The Coast Guard is responsible for ensuring that ships are seaworthy. Since 9/

11, they have been given additional responsibilities in the war on terror, but not 

commensurate resources. New port and maritime security duties increase the myriad activities which the Coast Guard performs. They have always protected the marine environment through enforcement of our laws and treaties, and guarded our 

marine resources. 

We have always looked to the Coast Guard in times of emergency, to protect the 

lives and safety of citizens. 

During Hurricane Katrina we witnessed some deplorable scenes. Many aspects of 

the Federal response were inexcusable. But we also saw heroism on the part of 

Coast Guard personnel. 

I especially want to note the efforts of two helicopter rescue crews from Atlantic 

City. I ask that their names be placed in the record for this hearing: 

CDR Daniel Taylor 

LT Kevin D’Eustachio 

AET2 Troy Maxwell 

AST3 Josh Rice 

LCDR Kurt Richter 

LT Eric Purdue 

AST1 Craig Miller 

AMT2 Clinton Wood 

AMT2 Adam Wolfe 

AMT3 Shane Sprague 

The first crew arrived in New Orleans starting the night the hurricane struck, 

and by the next day had rescued 24 people, including a pregnant woman who went 

into labor aboard their helicopter. Her baby was delivered safely. The same crew 

also evacuated a family with an infant. The second crew arrived shortly thereafter 

and commenced several days of relief and rescue operations, which resulted in the 

rescue of 50 people, 2 dogs, and the delivery of 150 pounds of food and water. 

These heroic acts were multiplied many times over. Coast guard rescue crews 

from across the nation saved orevacuated more than 33 thousand victims of Hurricane Katrina. 

This tragedy brought out the best in the United States Coast Guard. Unfortunately, the current Administration has failed to support providing the necessary resources for the Coast Guard, both for new equipment and for operations. 

A plan to upgrade and renew the Coast Guard’s long-range fleet was adopted several years ago, but it as not been fully funded. As a result, many Coast Guard vessels are outdated, affecting their ability to support operations in the Gulf as well 

as non-security operations. 

The Coast Guard was there when the victims of Hurricane Katrina needed it. If 

we expect it to be there during the next emergency, we need to be there for the 

Coast Guard. 

We must finish the job of upgrading and modernizing the Coast Guard fleet, and 

we must ensure the Coast Guard has adequate resources to conduct both their 

homeland security missions as well as their traditional missions. Thank you.

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