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STREAMLINING EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: 

IMPROVING PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE, 

AND CUTTING COSTS 

(112–56) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND 

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 13, 2011 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

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

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ANDY HARRIS, Maryland 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana 

STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

CHARLES J. ‘‘CHUCK’’ FLEISCHMANN, 

Tennessee 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY

MANAGEMENT

JEFF DENHAM, California, Chairman 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas, 

Vice Chair 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

CHARLES J. ‘‘CHUCK’’ FLEISCHMANN, 

Tennessee 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida (Ex Officio) 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

BOB FILNER, California 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

(Ex Officio) 

(II) 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

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

TESTIMONY 

PANEL ONE

Fugate, Hon. Craig, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency . 6 

Hunter, Dean, Deputy Director, Facilities, Security, and Contracting, U.S. 

Office of Personnel Management ........................................................................ 6 

Jadacki, Matthew A., Assistant Inspector General, Office of Emergency Management Oversight, Office of Inspector General, Department of Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 6 

PANEL TWO

Dayton, Mike, Acting Secretary, California Emergency Management Agency .. 30 

Metcalf, Chief William R., EFO, CFO, MIFireE, Second Vice President, International Association of Fire Chiefs ..................................................................... 30 

Stammer, Keith, Director, Joplin/Jasper County Emergency Management 

Agency ................................................................................................................... 30 

Wilson, Joe, President, Safety and Security Group, Industrial Systems Division, Federal Signal Corporation ........................................................................ 30 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Dayton, Mike ............................................................................................................ 39 

Fugate, Hon. Craig .................................................................................................. 46 

Hunter, Dean ........................................................................................................... 63 

Jadacki, Matthew A. ................................................................................................ 69 

Metcalf, Chief William R., EFO, CFO, MIFireE ................................................... 80 

Stammer, Keith ........................................................................................................ 86 

Wilson, Joe ............................................................................................................... 96 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Responses to questions from the Subcommittee on Economic Development, 

Public Buildings, and Emergency Management: 

Fugate, Hon. Craig, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management 

Agency ............................................................................................................ 53 

Hunter, Dean, Deputy Director, Facilities, Security, and Contracting, U.S. 

Office of Personnel Management ................................................................. 67 

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(1) 

STREAMLINING EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: 

IMPROVING PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE, 

AND CUTTING COSTS 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC

BUILDINGS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:34 a.m. in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Denham (Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. DENHAM. The subcommittee will come to order. First, let me 

welcome FEMA Administrator Fugate, Mr. Dayton, Secretary of 

California Emergency Management Agency, and all of the distinguished witnesses, and thank them for their testimony today. 

Today’s hearing is on streamlining emergency management, and 

how we can improve preparedness and response, while cutting 

costs. I believe reducing costs goes hand in hand with improving 

our emergency management system. Inefficiencies and red tape 

cost money and bog down our response system. And today we will 

examine how we can streamline and cut through that red tape. 

Last month Ranking Member Norton and I introduced the FEMA 

Reauthorization Act and the Integrated Public Alert and Warning 

System Modernization Act. As our committee reviews these important pieces of legislation, we must ensure we don’t just reauthorize 

the same old ways of doing things, but ensure we are learning from 

past disasters, and making reforms that are much needed. 

FEMA was originally created in 1979 by Executive order, and operated for nearly 30 years without explicit authorization and statute. FEMA was first authorized in statute in 2006 through the 

Post-Katrina Act, and that authorization expired last year. While 

FEMA can continue to operate without explicit authorization, authorizing FEMA in the law helps to provide congressional guidance 

in the operations of the agency. 

So far this year we have had 86 major disaster declarations and 

26 emergency declarations, exceeding the highest yearly total from 

prior years. And last month we had the very real possibility of the 

Disaster Relief Fund running out of money, going into question our 

ability to respond and provided needed resources following disasters. 

The reality is we can both cut costs and improve our responses 

to disasters. The very things that impede preparedness and drag 

2 

out response are the same things that usually result in higher 

costs. For example, the longer it takes to push disaster aide out the 

door, the longer it takes communities to recover, meaning we are 

spending more money in rebuilding and administrative costs. 

Cutting through unnecessary red tape and streamlining is critical in saving lives, restoring communities, and saving taxpayer 

dollars. We also must ensure resources are properly leveraged. Ensuring we are prepared at all levels from individuals to local communities and States will go a long way in saving lives and minimizing costs. 

The urban search and rescue system and the emergency management system compact reauthorized in our legislation both provide, 

with small investments, significant capacity at the State and local 

levels, for resources to be leveraged. Despite the chance to address 

some low-hanging fruit and improving our emergency management 

system and cutting costs, our subcommittee has had hearing after 

hearing since Hurricane Katrina, pushing for FEMA to look for 

ways to streamline its onerous and often outdated regulations and 

policies. 

Many of FEMA’s regulations and policies have created so many 

hurdles and so much red tape that communities devastated by disasters have often found it frustrating to navigate the process. 

Another example is in 2000 Congress enacted the Disaster Mitigation Act that included provisions requiring FEMA to implement 

cost-estimating to help communities rebuild faster. By all accounts, 

this one change could help streamline one of FEMA’s key disaster 

assistance programs. However, it is now 11 years later, and FEMA 

has yet to implement those provisions. 

I also understand FEMA is engaged in a bottom-up review of its 

Public Assistance Program. However, we have not yet seen results 

from this review. While I am pleased these steps are being taken, 

I am worried these actions have taken just too long. With high unemployment, budget deficits, and everyone having to tighten their 

belts, the red tape is just too expensive. That is why it will be important today to examine how we can improve our emergency management system, and what may be the best legislative solutions to 

achieve those efficiencies. 

I hope today we can hear from our witnesses on how our preparedness and response systems can be streamlined and improved. 

I look forward to working with Administrator Fugate, members of 

the committee, and other stakeholders on reauthorizing FEMA. I 

thank the witnesses for being here today to address these important issues. 

I would like to now recognize Ranking Member Norton from the 

District of Columbia for 5 minutes to make any opening statements 

she may have. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Chairman Denham, and 

thank you very much for calling this hearing. And I am pleased to 

welcome our witnesses to today’s hearing to discuss streamlining, 

cost-cutting, and improving preparedness and response to natural 

and terrorist events. 

Over the past several years, this subcommittee held numerous 

hearings to ensure that our Nation is prepared to respond to disasters using an all-hazards approach. As part of the Post-Katrina 

3 

Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, Congress directed 

FEMA to develop a national preparedness goal and system. Last 

month FEMA issued the goal, and has been directed by the President to issue the national preparedness system later this year. 

I believe that the Nation is generally pleased with improvements 

to emergency preparedness response and overall management of 

the—management of disasters, as the public responds to FEMA’s 

management of the many major disasters throughout the Nation 

this year shows. 

Last Congress, this subcommittee held a hearing on lessons 

learned from Hurricane Katrina, and discussed the need to streamline emergency management and improve FEMA’s use of existing 

authorities. 

Assistant Inspector General Matthew Jadacki will testify today 

that FEMA should take many of the same steps that were recommended last year to improve its programs and policies. One area 

that the inspector general focuses upon, and that was of particular 

concern to me when I chaired this subcommittee, was FEMA’s administration and implementation of the Public Assistance Program. 

While I commend FEMA for initiating a bottom-up review of the 

Public Assistance Program, I am concerned that the inspector general must again comment, for example, on instituting a cost estimating system for repair and reconstruction. 

The Congress executed—the Congress insisted upon a—that 

FEMA—I am sorry, there is a typo here—the Congress experienced 

a FEMA emergency of its own in August when the administration 

submitted a $500 million supplemental appropriations request to 

provide funding for FEMA through the end of the fiscal year. 

FEMA then instituted an immediate needs—instituted immediate needs funding, authoring payments only for certain categories 

of assistance. By mid-September, FEMA indicated that it had insufficient funds to make it through the end of the month. However, 

the last week of September, FEMA found that it had enough funds 

to make it through the end of the month. I am interested to know 

how and when FEMA discovered this money. 

I am particularly concerned about the Federal Government’s response to the August 23, 2011, earthquake in the National Capital 

region. In 2008, the national response framework required each 

Federal agency to plan for its role in a coordinated Federal response to an emergency. Have Federal agencies met this requirement? 

Most important, has OPM, or the Office of Personnel Management, consulted with FEMA on how to guide agencies concerning 

an all-hazard approach to disasters? If so, what explains the Federal Government’s response to the 5.8 magnitude earthquake in 

August. The earthquake occurred at 1:51 p.m., but agencies appeared to act haphazardly on their own concerning dismissal, ensuring a rush to the Metro, which no transportation system could 

have effectively handled. OPM did not send notice to officially dismiss Federal employees until 4:00 p.m. 

Ten years after 9/11, there appears to be no all-hazards site or 

communications vehicle widely known to the public and to Federal 

agencies. Instead, cell phones jammed because Federal employees 

4 

and others did not know to go to a site or to text for information, 

or where in the world that site was. 

If the point of preparedness is to prepare for the unexpected, 

such as an earthquake in this region—which was a perfect proxy 

for a terrorist attack—there is little evidence that the Federal Government is prepared for emergencies where there is no notice, and 

that requires disseminating information to the public, or is prepared for an unexpected evacuation from the District if evacuation 

is required at all. 

I understand the FEMA conducts post-disaster meetings to analyze lessons learned and to develop best practices. Did such—had 

such a post-disaster meeting occurred here with FEMA or the Department of Homeland Security and the region following the earthquake? Over the last few years, FEMA has made improvements, 

many because of lessons learned from prior disasters. What about 

a disaster where the Nation can least afford it, at the seat of government? 

I look forward to the testimony from all of today’s witnesses, and 

thank them all for their testimony today. And thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. DENHAM. I now call on Mr. Barletta for a brief opening statement. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Chairman. And I want to thank the 

panel for coming here. It is very timely for me, being a Member 

of—in a district in northeastern Pennsylvania that was—that saw 

the worst flood in its history. And, Mr. Fugate, nice to see you 

again. We met in Duryea, Pennsylvania, with the Vice President. 

First of all, I want to comment FEMA on their reaction time to 

this disaster. As I said, this was the worst disaster in northeastern 

Pennsylvania history. And we had boots—FEMA had boots on the 

ground very quickly, which was very good to see. 

I am just going to make a couple of comments of how—what I 

saw and my experience, how I think we could improve our reaction 

to some of these disasters. 

One of the problems that I see that has happened—and I am 

holding up one of the pictures—this has been community after community after community. I don’t know if the national media never 

really focused on how bad this disaster is, but some of these communities have been totally wiped out. You will go in an entire town 

where you can’t even see the homes, because everyone’s personal 

belongings literally lined every street, where you could not even get 

to the sidewalks. 

The problem here is that the public assistance portion comes too 

slow. And what is happening is the municipalities are not able to 

haul the debris away, because they are unsure whether or not they 

are going to be reimbursed, how much they are going to be reimbursed. Some of their costs are $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, and 

they just stopped hauling the personal belongings away. So I think 

we need to find a way to get the public assistance help to these 

communities, to these municipalities, so that they could start cleaning up the communities. 

I would also like to talk a little bit about the hazard mitigation, 

and the way it is calculated to get the money to the States. Because it is after the individual assistance, the public assistance, 

5 

then we get to the hazard mitigation. And what is happening there 

is many people are cleaning out homes that are clearly—they are 

never going to live in again. And it is sad to see senior citizens 

sweating, dragging out their belongings, when it is obvious they 

are not going to live there again. 

And it is a double cost to the municipality, as they are hauling 

this stuff away, and then we are going to come in there and most 

likely either buy these folks out or—you know, we need to tell them 

to stop. And I think if we had a better way to calculate the hazard 

mitigation, we might be able to save some money for the municipalities and for the Federal Government. 

I also think there is a disconnect. As quickly as FEMA comes 

into the disaster, what happens in a lot of these communities, most 

of the public officials are part-timers, part-time mayor, part-time 

supervisors. I was a full-time mayor. So we had a plan if there was 

a disaster. But what happens, FEMA was very quickly to come in 

and talk to the public officials, but many of the public officials then 

really didn’t know how do they connect to the residents when there 

is no power, people are displaced all over the place. And many of 

the public officials really didn’t know what to do or what the process is. 

And I actually closed my offices here, sent our people down, and 

we set up little stations in some of these communities to help the 

residents, because they were literally just coming into the municipal buildings with a million questions. So I think there needs to 

be more communication with FEMA and the public officials, educating them on what they should—how they get to the residents, 

how they get messages to them. 

And, you know, I think that the very early stages is where I 

think we need to reassure the people who are affected by these disasters that the Federal Government is here to help. 

So that is just some of the remarks I want to make. And I will 

be—again, during the public question portion, we will—I am sure 

we will have some more questions. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And I would like to welcome our witnesses here today. On our first panel we have the Honorable Craig 

Fugate, administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency; 

Mr. Matthew Jadacki, assistant inspector general, emergency management oversight, Department of Homeland Security; and Mr. 

Dean Hunter, deputy director, facilities, security, and contracting, 

U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 

I ask unanimous consent that our witnesses’ full statements be 

included in the record. 

[No response.] 

Mr. DENHAM. Without objection, so ordered. Since your written 

testimony has been part of the record, the subcommittee would request that you limit your oral testimony to 5 minutes. 

Administrator Fugate, welcome. You may proceed. 

6 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CRAIG FUGATE, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY; 

MATTHEW A. JADACKI, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL, 

OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT OVERSIGHT, OFFICE 

OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; AND DEAN HUNTER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FACILITIES, SECURITY, AND CONTRACTING, U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

Mr. FUGATE. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Norton. In talking about the disasters this year, the DRF, the complexity of providing assistance, both under individual assistance 

and public assistance, and looking at how we can be more cost effective, we are in agreement. It is getting there that is the challenge. 

One of the challenges we have faced is because of the magnitude 

of disasters as this administration came into. We have been working hard to, A, recover dollars from older disasters. That has been 

something that, in the last 2 years, has returned billions of dollars 

back into DRF from open disasters that had not been closed, from 

mission assignments that had not been closed out, from projects 

that had been completed by States but had balances that had never 

been closed out. To a large degree, that is why the DRF made it 

to the end of the fiscal year without hitting zero. 

But I would also like to point out that the disaster relief fund 

is not about the disasters we have had. It is also about the disasters that can occur with no warning. And, Mr. Chairman, you know 

we don’t get a forecast for earthquakes. And so, although—we were 

able to pull recoveries that we had planned for in fiscal year 2012 

forward, and were able to not shut down individual assistance. 

I am under no allusions that the DRF had sufficient funds, if we 

had had a catastrophic disaster occur in that timeframe. And so 

our efforts to ensure that during that process we did not stop individual assistance, which we felt was the highest priority in the 

open disasters, we pretty much shut down everything else we could 

to make that goal line, so that we could make it to the continuing 

resolution and start back up and begin funding all the prior permanent work we had stopped. 

But I need to emphasize that the disaster relief fund has to be 

in a position that, when the next disaster strikes with or without 

warning, we have the resources we need to begin that response. As 

was pointed out, in Pennsylvania, up and down the coast in Irene, 

we were moving teams ahead of the storm, we were moving teams 

and resources prior to request from the Governors for disaster declarations. This is part of the legacy of the Post-Katrina Emergency 

Management Reform Act. We learned the lesson that the Federal 

Government cannot wait until the disaster overwhelms States to 

begin moving teams and resources. But that requires that there are 

balances in the DRF to support that. 

The other issues that have been raised, having been a customer 

of FEMA as the State of Florida, I understand the complexity of 

public assistance, unfortunately, about as well as anybody. One of 

our goals at FEMA has been to look at the regulatory requirements, and what we can relieve. 

7 

As far as cost estimation and some of the work we are doing in 

the bottom-up review, we are looking at a two-stage process, particularly in permanent work that is—such as construction in buildings or large-scale public works projects. The current program is a 

reimbursement program where we have multiple steps of trying to 

manage a project by literally reimbursing construction over the period in the life of that event. That requires a high degree of administrative cost, oversight, and review that becomes very complex and 

very costly to administer those dollars. 

We are looking at a different way to approach that in breaking 

large projects into two parts. One is a design phase, pretty much 

what anybody else would do if they were going to build a big building. You just don’t go out and start building and pay a contractor 

until it is done. You go out and you have all your studies done, you 

get all your environmental impacts and historical reviews done. 

You make sure that everything about the project has been approved by those organizations that permit and have the other requirements. 

You then have the building approved by an architect or engineer 

that says, ‘‘This is what design-to-build costs will be.’’ That is phase 

one. The second phase, as we would see it, would be to actually 

make one payment at the beginning of the project, and we are 

done. That would alleviate a lot of the reimbursement oversight 

and the length it takes to sometimes close out public assistance. It 

is not quite to the point of being a cost estimate, but it would build 

a design phase to get the best accurate estimate, when it is sometimes difficult to do that across large, complex projects. 

We also looked to reduce the cost of administering how we do our 

business. When I got to FEMA, we rarely implemented something 

we called virtual joint field offices. We would oftentimes set up an 

office, bring in staff, have security, and all the other resources 

needed to run a joint field office to administer public assistance 

programs within the State. We have been very aggressively looking 

at how not to use those facilities when it is not warranted, in cooperation with the States. And by using virtual joint field offices 

where we don’t establish a permanent presence, use our regional 

offices and structures, and are able to administer the public assistance program to the satisfactory requirements of the Government 

and the State, we can significantly reduce that overhead. 

We now look at our joint field offices and develop spend plans, 

which we hadn’t done before, so we can actually see how much is 

it costing us to administer that disaster. These and other steps are 

ways that we are looking at how we can drive down the administrative cost of the programs, but at the same time looking at how 

we can streamline the process without the unintended consequences of fraud and waste that can result—and oftentimes has 

resulted—when shortcuts were taken without proper planning. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Administrator Fugate. 

Mr. Jadacki, you may proceed. 

Mr. JADACKI. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Norton, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss streamlining and cutting costs while improving 

8 

preparedness and response capabilities at the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency. 

I would like to first acknowledge the great amount of work that 

has been done by FEMA in the past 5 years. My office has conducted a significant amount of work assessing FEMA’s programs 

and policies, as well as conducting audits of disaster grants and 

subgrants. We have made important findings and recommendations 

in a number of areas, and I am pleased to say that FEMA is implementing many of our recommendations. 

With regard to streamlining, my testimony is focused on the Public Assistance Program just mentioned by Mr. Fugate here, and the 

disaster close-out process. I will also discuss several areas for potential cost savings, including debris removal and holding grantees 

and subgrantees accountable for ineligible and unsupported costs. 

And finally, I will touch on improving preparedness and response 

through tracking lessons learned and implementing corrective actions. 

Before I address these topics, I would like to take a moment to 

discuss the disaster relief fund, the increasing number of disaster 

declarations, and the Federal cost share for disasters. 

Recently, due to a number of ongoing disasters and a spate of 

declarations this year, the DRF was depleted to a point where only 

funding for immediate needs was authorized. Funding for longterm projects was put on hold. The disaster relief fund is not a bottomless pit. It needs periodic replenishments, either through the 

normal appropriations process, or through emergency supplemental 

legislation. 

One advantage of the DRF is that it is a no-year fund, meaning 

that unused DRF funding does not expire at the end of the year, 

as do most appropriations. Another benefit of no-year funding is 

that unused or unexpended funds identified through streamlining 

or cost-cutting efforts may be returned to the DRF for future expenditures. FEMA was able to extend the DRF through the end of 

the fiscal year by employing some of these measures. 

Two suggestions have been made by my office and others for reducing the Federal cost of disaster relief, including strengthening 

disaster declaration criteria to prevent marginal emergencies and 

disasters from being declared, and adjusting the cost share so that 

States are responsible for a larger portion of recovery funding. 

One of the reasons the number of disasters continues to increase 

is the way FEMA assesses whether to recommend to the President 

that a disaster be declared. FEMA relies on a combination of quantitative and qualitative factors when assessing a declaration request. 

But one of the quantitative factors is based on the per capita income in 1983, which was $12,583, and the other quantitative factor, the total amount of damage to the State, remains at the 

threshold set in 1999, which was $1 million. It is up to Congress 

and the President to decide what the threshold for disaster should 

be. But I would suggest you take the time to look at the criteria 

used to make the decision. 

It may also be time to reassess how much the Federal cost share 

should be under disaster declarations, and it is important that 

Congress reexamine the circumstances under which the Federal 

9 

cost share should be raised above 75 percent. I am not saying that 

the cost share should never be increased. But when it is, there 

should be time limits. While cost share adjustments can be a great 

help to State and local governments when economies have been 

devastated, they reduce the supplemental nature of the Stafford 

Act funding. And when the States’ cost share is reduced to zero, 

there is little incentive for State and local governments to save 

money, or to close out projects in a timely manner. 

At the request of this committee several years ago, we conducted 

an indepth review of the public assistance process. And we were 

asked by the committee to come up with recommendations and alternatives to help streamline the process. We issued a report about 

2 years ago and I testified on that, and we made several recommendations to FEMA, but we also provided alternatives that 

Congress can look at to change or help the disaster assistance program. 

Within FEMA, we wanted to get some sort of standards or performance measures, as far as appeals and some of the other factors 

that were resulting in some of the delays of funding. We also recommended that FEMA develop tracking systems to kind of keep 

track of these types of things, that when something goes into the 

process it is not lost in the process, that things are able to be unraveled or resolved in a timely manner. FEMA has done that. 

But more importantly, we made some recommendations—and 

Craig alluded to these a couple minutes ago—that we think may 

or may not require congressional action. One is negotiating settlements. Right now, the process that we are using with the project 

worksheet works fine for smaller garden-variety types of disasters. 

It is great if you are going to rebuild City Hall where City Hall was 

before. That is fine. 

But in catastrophic types of events, we don’t think that is the 

best way to do it. The use of the cost-estimating format might be 

one solution, where we get estimates upfront, where people agree 

to them, and then, instead of tracking every single actual cost, we 

come up with estimates of what the costs are going to be, and we 

agree to that and walk away. That would significantly reduce the 

administrative burden on both the Federal, the State, and local 

governments. 

It worked pretty well. There was a pilot study that was done a 

couple years ago on the debris removal pilot program, where estimates were used and the States were encouraged, and they received a higher incentive if they had a debris management plan in 

place. So we are looking at that. 

Finally, I just want to mention the lessons learned. One of the 

things—I think the most important thing—is what are we learning 

from disasters. I heard earlier about the fact that there were some 

problems in DC with the evacuation, and we are going to hear the 

person from OPM talk about that. But I think it is critical, as we 

go through these disasters, to ask what are the types of things that 

we did, how can we build on those types of things, and how can 

we look at some of the efforts that we have done, undertaken in 

the past, to help improve operations and streamline and cut costs. 

Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Thank you. 

10 

Mr. Hunter, you may proceed. 

Mr. HUNTER. Good morning, Chairman Denham, Ranking Member Norton, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Dean 

Hunter, and I am the deputy director for facilities, security, and 

contracting at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In that 

position I have primary responsibility for security and emergency 

actions at OPM. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss OPM’s role in determining the operating status of the Federal Government in the National Capital 

region and, in particular, our actions concerning the earthquake of 

August 23, 2011. 

By law, individual Federal agencies possess the authority to 

manage their workforces, and to determine the appropriate response during emergencies, including natural disasters. However, 

in order to facilitate a consistent and coordinated approach on a regionwide basis, Federal, State, and local authorities have traditionally looked to OPM to determine the operating status of the Federal Government across the DC area. 

As emergencies arise, our standard protocols include participation on conference calls hosted by the Metropolitan Washington 

Council of Governments, COG, in order to develop situational 

awareness, facilitate the exchange of information, and coordinate 

communications and response efforts among Federal, State, and 

local agencies, and other stakeholders. 

Our principal priorities are to ensure the safety and security of 

the Federal workforce and the public, and to maintain the continuity of Government operations. 

The afternoon of August 23rd was an unprecedented no-notice 

event. At OPM headquarters almost immediately following the 

tremors, the fire alarm was pulled by one or more of our employees, triggering an evacuation. This evacuation began before we 

were fully able to determine the nature of the threat, and to make 

a judgment as to whether evacuation or sheltering in place for our 

facility was the appropriate course of action. 

Within minutes, however, we were able to confirm with the U.S. 

Geological Survey that a 5.8 magnitude earthquake had occurred. 

Our initial concerns were for the safety and security of our personnel, and we took immediate steps to conduct an orderly evacuation of our facility, while building engineers conducted a damage 

assessment. 

While our building evacuation was underway, we began attempts 

to gain situational awareness in order to make an informed decision on the operating status of the Federal Government across the 

region. Our concerns, centered on whether facilities were structurally safe to reoccupy, the length of time necessary to conduct 

damage assessments, the impact of potential aftershocks, and the 

effect of the earthquake on transportation capabilities throughout 

the region. 

Our efforts to obtain such awareness through our traditional protocols, however, were hampered by communication challenges. Cell 

phone, landline, and email service was sporadic, at best. We developed awareness by monitoring radio traffic over the Washington 

area warning alert system, which became a forum for status reports on damage assessments and transportation capabilities, inVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:55 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\ED\2011\10-13-~1\70682.TXT JEAN
11 

cluding the operating status of bridges and roadways—Metro and 

Amtrak, among others. 

We were able to establish contact with the DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency and GSA officials, and 

these contacts were vital in our efforts to gain awareness of regional capabilities, and obtain feedback on potential courses of action. 

OPM’s announcement on the status of the Federal Government 

was broadcast at 3:47 p.m. Given the communication challenges 

noted, which prevented us from having a full understanding of 

local conditions, and after careful review, we concluded that it 

would not have been prudent for OPM to issue an announcement 

earlier. Further, this unique event called for special tailoring of the 

OPM standard messaging regarding early releases. 

The OPM announcement recognized that many Federal agencies 

had already made the determination to release their employees 

early, and further, recommended that individual agencies consider 

early dismissal, recognizing ongoing traffic and commuting conditions. Implicit in this message was the understanding that individual agencies were better positioned to make decisions on a 

building-by-building basis, giving the varied levels of damage anticipated, and ongoing structural assessments. We concluded that 

a blanket OPM regionwide determination was neither feasible nor 

appropriate. 

Prior to and since the earthquake, we have been working closely 

with our Federal, State, and local partners to amend the OPM decision framework to include a shelter in place option. Further, we are 

actively engaged with COG in an interagency effort to strengthen 

emergency management efforts throughout the region, with an eye 

towards enhancing communications capabilities in the future. 

Recognizing that getting the message into the hands of our Federal employees is paramount. We are maximizing the use of social 

media, including Twitter and Facebook, to reach personnel the fastest in an ongoing event. Further, we are strengthening our partnerships at the local level, including recent OPM participation in 

the District of Columbia’s functional emergency management exercise on September 28th. 

Additionally, we have reached out to our internal OPM community through a town hall forum to reiterate that sheltering in place 

is almost always the best option to follow until a full picture of the 

circumstances at hand can be obtained. 

In conclusion, our initial assessment is that our efforts were appropriate. However, as with any major undertaking, a full review 

with all of our partners is necessary to analyze lessons learned, 

and to bridge critical gaps. 

Thank you for this opportunity. I am happy to address any questions you might have. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Fugate, section 404 of the Stafford 

Act allows FEMA to delegate administration of the hazard mitigation program to States. This could lower costs for FEMA and 

streamline the process. Florida has requested a delegation of authority. However, FEMA has yet to issue the criteria to approve 

State applications. When do you expect the criteria will be completed? 

12 

Mr. FUGATE. Mr. Chairman, usually when it comes to the State 

of Florida, I was recused. So I don’t have that. I will have to get 

staff to respond back in writing. But one of the challenges that, as 

a State, we were trying to work through when I was there was to 

get the criteria to administer the program to the satisfactory requirement to ensure that the funds met the requirements of the 

program. That was a challenge. 

And so, I will have to have staff respond back. Because, in general, for the last 2 years I have recused myself under my ethics 

agreement for specifics. But I knew on the State side our challenge 

was trying to get the approval, based upon our history of administering Federal dollars, and some of the challenges we had had in 

previous events to satisfy FEMA that we could meet those requirements in administering the grant program. 

Mr. DENHAM. Well, I will look forward to getting that in writing. 

But on a national perspective, last month FEMA announced the 

disaster relief fund was close to running out of money, and then 

later somehow found $2 billion that was later identified. Can you 

explain what happened here, and where that money came from? 

Mr. FUGATE. There was no $2 billion found in the last week, sir. 

That was $2 billion that had been placed back in the DRF over the 

course of the year. We were tracking, and had began providing appropriation staff updates in early August on the daily balances as 

we went through the process of looking at the potential to implement immediate needs funding. 

With the onset of Hurricane Irene, we made a decision to implement immediate needs funding, which stopped all funding for all 

permanent work, and would only fund emergency protective measures and individual assistance programs on all open disasters. 

As the fund continued to go down, we were still doing recoveries 

from older disasters. The two things that were the variables that 

are hard to predict is what is going to be the demand rate in States 

such as Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, as 

people begin registering for individual assistance. Based upon the 

early registration rates, and based upon how much we had been 

able to recover, and what we thought we could recover, we saw balances that would either approach zero and would result in inability 

to continue individual assistance, or drop so low that we would 

have to take additional action such as shutting down all the field 

offices that weren’t tied to individual assistance. 

So, in those final weeks there wasn’t a $2 billion recovery. That 

had been over the year. But we were still getting periodic recoveries, including a last one for about $70 million, in the final week. 

Those allowed us to continue providing individual assistance. But 

again, it dropped the fund to such a low level that, in prompting 

the President’s request for a supplemental, he was looking not only 

for the funds that we would need going into fiscal year 2012 to do 

the rebuilding from all these disasters, but to ensure that we had 

sufficient funds to close out the year, but also be prepared to respond to the next disaster. 

Mr. DENHAM. So you knew the funds were out there. This wasn’t 

a surprise. 

Mr. FUGATE. Sir, we cannot just arbitrarily take money away 

from States. We have to work with the States. These were recovVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:55 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\ED\2011\10-13-~1\70682.TXT JEAN
13 

eries that we were making from previously obligated funds to a 

State for projects where, if they had closed out that project and 

didn’t tell us there was no further drawdowns, that they were allowing us to then recover those dollars back. 

That process was accelerated throughout most of August and 

September, to try to pull in as much as possible. In our budget 

spend plans, we project how much we were going to look at recovering each month. We were actually pulling against our fiscal year 

2012 recoveries, trying to get more money from the future recoveries into this year. 

But it is not something that is so predictable that I can give you 

an accurate count of how many dollars will come in on each day. 

It is literally, as we free up and get the States to concur projectby-project, that we are able to recover the funds. 

Mr. DENHAM. I understand. It sounds somewhat political to me. 

Obviously—— 

Mr. FUGATE. Mr. Chairman, to be honest with you, I am about 

as apolitical as they get, and I was doing my job, trying to make 

sure we could continue our mission. 

Mr. DENHAM. I understand. And I can tell you from the CR perspective, that there were some things that were challenging at the 

time, and this was one of those areas that was used as a political 

hot potato. 

Mr. FUGATE. Mr. Chairman, I was trying to do everything in my 

powers to make sure we did not have to stop individual assistance 

payments to people who, as you saw in that picture, were flooded 

out of their homes and needed rental assistance. 

I was prepared to have to look at being anti-deficient if a disaster 

happened. I did something I never thought I would be doing in this 

Government, which was writing shut-down plans for the DRF, and 

figuring out how we would respond to the next disaster without 

adequate funds. 

Mr. DENHAM. They expedited the $2 billion that was sitting out 

there that we were waiting to close from States. Did we not? 

Mr. FUGATE. Sir, that $2 billion was not closed out in the final 

weeks. We have been recovering that at a rate at anywhere from 

125 to 150, sometimes as high as $200 million a month, depending 

upon how we can close out open disasters. And these go back, as 

far back as hurricanes in the 2004, 2005 years that we have been 

recovering. That is over $4 billion that I am aware of, close to $7 

billion in the last couple years that we have been recovering as 

part of our budget in the DRF that is actually part of our spend 

plans. 

Mr. DENHAM. And I understand. But doesn’t that sound like an 

issue to you? ‘‘Well, we are trying to raise money on a monthly 

basis, yet we are not recovering money over the last decade’’? 

I mean we understand that there are emergencies out there that 

we need to close out that have sat for years and years. Could the 

system not be expedited? You obviously know where these funds 

are, and how much has been allocated to every State. Correct? 

Mr. FUGATE. Yes, sir. And we also know that until they complete 

the projects—because we work a reimbursement, many States are 

reluctant to close out those costs until they have all their final bills 

in and have reconciled those costs. 

14 

When I got here we had not been recovering a sufficient amount 

of monies. This is one of the areas that we have started in this administration, is to really look at how you recover and start closing 

out these disaster costs, and putting the money back in the DRF. 

You know, again, this was not something that we had seen a lot 

of when I got here. We have been putting a lot of effort in doing 

that. 

And again, the ones that we got that were the most straightforward were those that were mission assignments. FEMA had 

issues that the missions oftentimes for Federal agencies had been 

closed, but the balances had not been recovered. Last year that was 

over $2 billion we were able to close out from that. This year we 

are closing out State and local projects. It is a little bit more difficult, because it has to be when they agree that they should be 

closed for us to make the recoveries. 

Our next step will be going after those longer term payments, as 

the IG has been pointing out, that were improperly made, and 

begin those recoveries, and either looking at can they reimburse us, 

or whether we are going to refer those to Treasury. 

So, we have been doing our job to get the money back where we 

know it is at, as it can be released, and as we can verify it is no 

longer needed. But again, Mr. Chairman, this is something that we 

have been doing and working hard, and has been one of the reasons why the DRF has been able to do what it has been able to 

do in the last years, is those recoveries. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. I am out of time. I would just finish 

by saying we absolutely want to make sure that we have enough 

funding for all of our emergencies and doing the proper amount of 

planning. But the goal of this committee, the goal of this hearing, 

is to make sure that, as we create efficiencies, that we not only are 

able to fund quickly, but that we are actually able to close them 

out just as quick, so that we can move on and have better planning. 

So, thank you for testimony. I now move to Ranking Member 

Norton for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the elephant in the room is the unprecedented earthquake that this region experienced in August. It is a perfect proxy for a terrorist attack, because it was unexpected. And it needs to be analyzed. It 

was as unexpected as it could be. It was unexpected as any terrorist attack could be. It was as unexpected as 9/11, and needs to 

be analyzed thoroughly. 

Mr. Hunter, I was—you drew curious conclusions at page four of 

your testimony. You say, ‘‘Given the unique nature of the event, 

communication challenges, our own external’’—sorry, ‘‘internal 

evaluation, and the need to develop a robust understanding of the 

transportation capabilities of the region before the decision was 

made.’’ You cite those factors, and say, ‘‘On the whole, our initial 

assessment is that our efforts were successful, in light of these factors.’’ 

Mr. Hunter, if there was an aftershock within the last—I don’t 

know, it may have been 24 hours; it wasn’t here, it was elsewhere 

in the region—had it been here, what site would a Federal employee go to, to learn information of any kind, even if you had not 

15 

enough information to tell them what exactly had happened? What 

is that site? 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Congresswoman Norton. We have a variety of mechanisms that we reach out to the public and to Federal 

employees to provide that message. We have an OPM webpage 

which provides the status of the Federal Government, we have a 

call-in line that employees and the public can reach to determine 

the status—— 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, a lot of them tried to use a call-in line. 

Mr. Hunter, 10 years after 9/11, don’t you think that there ought 

to be a site as familiar to Federal employees as 911 when it comes 

to learning what to do next, so that cell phones are not jammed, 

as they were? Don’t you think that would be elementary at this 

point? You act as if the cell phones jammed and, wow, who could 

have foreseen that? Well, it seems to me that was entirely foreseeable. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, ma’am. Recognizing that there were communications devices which were put in place post-9/11, we had anticipated that those would be successful in use, including our Government emergency telecommunication systems and wireless priority 

service. What we learned during the actual event is that they 

weren’t as effective as we had hoped. 

OPM certainly is just a user of those equipment capabilities. And 

in after-action reports, as you had mentioned—and we will be 

working very proactively with those particular owners and other 

stakeholders to address how we might—— 

Ms. NORTON. Those owners? I am sorry, I don’t even know who 

we are talking about. I am talking about OPM. 

Mr. HUNTER. Sure. 

Ms. NORTON. I am talking about the largest employer in the city 

and the region. And I am talking about—I don’t know how many 

employees in this region, 200,000? But I am talking about whether 

or not—well, let me ask you directly. 

Mr. Hunter, will you go back to OPM and try to develop for 

OPM, for the Federal Government in this sector, a site that is easy 

to reach, is named in a way so that you don’t have to memorize 

a lot to know where it is? Do you think that is an appropriate thing 

to do after the earthquake? 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, ma’am. We have been actively engaged with 

the Council of Governments, including representation at the Federal, State, and local level about talking about how we can improve—— 

Ms. NORTON. Let me just say this, Mr. Hunter. I wish you would 

not speak about the Federal, State, and local levels and the Council 

of Governments. As important as they are as coordinating mechanisms, the responsibility for informing Federal employees who are 

located here and in this region what to do next doesn’t lie with any 

of the parties you have named, but with the Office of Personnel 

Management itself. 

So, whatever they tell you, the leadership, it seems to me, sir, 

is in OPM’s court. And I would ask you to report within 30 days 

what is the site that Federal employees can go to in time of emergency, so that they are not caught really red-handed, as they were, 

not knowing—literally, they literally didn’t know what to do. Speak 

16 

to any of them. Speak to people in their own agency. They had no 

idea what to do. 

Did FEMA and OPM coordinate before this particular disaster? 

For example, have the Federal agencies prepared the disaster 

plans required of each agency? 

Mr. HUNTER. I can tell you, ma’am, that we coordinate regularly 

with FEMA’s Office of National Capital Region Coordination. They 

are actively involved in, as we update our DC dismissal guide every 

year, we have an opportunity to meet with them and network, 

allow them to provide—— 

Ms. NORTON. Have the Federal agencies prepared—in 2008—let 

me be specific—the national response framework required each 

Federal agency to plan for its role in a coordinated Federal response to an emergency. I want to ask. Have the Federal agencies 

met this requirement, and has OPM integrated such plans, if they 

exist? 

Mr. DENHAM. And, Mr. Hunter, I would ask you to be brief. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes. I would have to defer that question to FEMA, 

actually, as they oversee the national response plan. 

Ms. NORTON. That is curious. 

Mr. DENHAM. And we will have a second round on this panel—— 

Ms. NORTON. Yes, but do you know if their plan—— 

Mr. FUGATE. Very quickly, the response plans to being able to 

carry out our functions, yes. As OPM is pointing out, the difficulty, 

what happens when you have a shut-down of your agencies and an 

agency having to make a decision about implementing their continuity of operation plans, as well as continue their emergency 

functions. 

Those are out there, and we are in the process of implementing 

ours, based upon the earthquake’s original impacts, and then we 

are able to go back and resume our operations, once we determined 

this was not a catastrophic impact, and we would be working 

through the States and local governments, what the resource request would be. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Mr. Crawford 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for 

Mr. Jadacki. 

You mentioned disaster close-outs is an area of concern. The 

longer it takes to close out a disaster, the higher the cost to the 

taxpayer. Can you elaborate on how disaster close-out times impact 

costs, and what solutions you might offer to correct the problem? 

Mr. JADACKI. Yes, this has been a problem for a number of years, 

and we have actually done several reviews on it. As of September, 

there were about 400 open disasters. And we have over 80 declarations this year. They just keep piling on. 

So, keeping an open disaster, there is an administrative cost involved in that. But in a lot of cases, it is really up to the States 

to complete the work. And that is a problem, giving States the incentives to close out the disasters. Once the disasters close out 

there are no opportunities for additional funding. 

And the States are impacted by multiple disasters that sort of 

add on to that. So if you have States with several disasters, closing 

one disaster or giving one disaster a priority is issue. 

17 

But keeping them open, going back to the field offices, you know, 

the cost of maintaining those disasters, there is funding out there 

that has to be reconciled, and possibly funding that can be de-obligated, projects that were approved for a certain amount that came 

in under that. There are opportunities for that. But the longer you 

wait to review those and close those out and get them reconciled, 

the longer it takes to get the funding back into the disaster relief 

fund. 

We have disasters open going back to 1994. The Northridge 

earthquake is still open—1994. There are a number of disasters 

that are more than 8 years old. I think there are over 30 or 40 disasters open over 8 years old. So the longer it takes to see what the 

actual costs are, to identify what funding isn’t needed, plus the cost 

of administrating these things, just keeps adding on to the amount 

of the disaster. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Is it possible you might implement—and once a 

disaster is declared, is there a window or a protocol that is prescribed period that, you know, States or other municipalities, localities, county governments, whatever, is there a window of opportunity there that you might prescribe, once a disaster is declared? 

Mr. JADACKI. Yes, according to the FEMA regulations it is 48 

months after the disaster is declared that the project should be 

closed out. What happens is that some of the longer term, more 

complex public assistance projects take longer to do that. And also, 

on the back end, the hazard mitigation grant program is traditionally sort of on the back end, too. And those projects tend to take 

a back seat, and they also extend the life of the projects. 

Some of the smaller garden-variety disasters—yes, you can close 

them out pretty quick. But some of the more complex ones—earthquakes, for example, may have hidden damages that do not become 

apparent until the work is actually done. They extend the life of 

those, too. 

There are regulations out there that do impose time limits, but 

they are often exceeded. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Any suggestions on how you might address that 

in the future? Under the current budget constraints, would that not 

be a priority issue? 

Mr. JADACKI. You know—and as Mr. Fugate mentioned—the 

funding is on a reimbursable basis. So we are really at the mercy 

of the States, depending on when they complete the project and get 

reimbursed. I think something that should be considered by Congress—and I think FEMA is considering right now—is actually 

using estimates, much like you would settle an insurance claim. 

You go out there and you agree on what the damage is. But, the 

insurance company is not going to sit there and make sure every 

nail is put in the right place, and all that stuff. They are going to 

give the insured a check, and they are going to rely on that. 

What FEMA does is based on reimbursement, getting actual 

costs back. They are scrutinizing those costs. And it just delays, 

and the oversight and administrative costs are just enormous. So 

I would think some sort of an estimate, maybe under the CEF, the 

cost estimating format, that was actually in legislation—the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000—would be a good alternative, or some 

variation thereof, using estimates. 

18 

Mr. CRAWFORD. OK, thank you. Yield back. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Ms. Norton? 

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask you, Mr. Hunter, to—when you return 

to OPM, to work on the notion of phased dismissal during a disaster? Of course I am sure lots of private employers didn’t know 

what to do either, and perhaps let their employees go. 

From all appearances, it looks as if each agency decided when 

dismissal would occur. Is that the case? 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, as an initial point of clarification, yes. They 

would have made that initial decision. Each agency has an occupant emergency plan which would address their protocols for shelter in place and evacuation. 

Ms. NORTON. As much—as important as it is to defer to the differences among the agencies, the fact is that the blame goes almost 

entirely to OPM and the Federal Government for overwhelming the 

Metro system. That is the one place where we could have thought 

in advance—and advance means we had 10 years to think about 

this—because the same thing has happened every time there has 

been a disaster of one kind or the other. You can understand it 

with 9/11, then we had the man—the tractor man. Same thing happened there. And it keeps happening. 

As long as each individual agency can decide this question, then 

we don’t have a Federal Government, and we don’t have a Federal 

Government plan. 

And it is totally unfair to Metro to say, ‘‘Just buck up and do 

what you can,’’ and it is unfair to Federal and private employers— 

employees, to have this rush to Metro to overwhelm Metro, which 

could cause another disaster, especially since there was, after all, 

an earthquake, something we had not experienced before. 

So, could I ask you, Mr. Hunter, to also submit to the chairman 

within 30 days an outline—at least an outline of a plan for phased 

dismissal in the District of Columbia, where you have more Federal 

employees, I believe, than you have in any single location in the 

region? 

I am interested in a process we spent a lot of time working on 

in past years. And what came out of it, I think, was the FEMA appeals arbitration panel, because we were vexed by impasses. And, 

in fact, I recall that there was more than $1 billion on the table 

after Katrina in the Gulf, simply because of impasse. 

So, the first thing I want to know is: Do we now have a system 

where, instead of the Federal Government—that is to say, FEMA— 

having an expert and then the local jurisdiction having an expert, 

that, in fact, both sides agree on an expert, so that you don’t set 

up an adversarial process on costs from the get-go without any requirement in the statute to do it that way? 

Mr. FUGATE. Ranking Member Norton, the arbitration panels, as 

you pointed out, was limited to certain disasters. But one of the 

things that came out of that in the hearings and we did the afteraction on is where we have licensed engineers who are certifying 

projects going up and testifying against FEMA project managers 

that are not licensed engineers, we lost every time. 

And it was the simple recognition that if the jurisdiction or the 

State does have an individual of record who is willing to attest 

their professional license to the accuracy of the information, we will 

19 

accept that, and not try to challenge that, unless we think there 

is something abnormal about what is being recommended. 

But in many cases, the cost estimates—when an engineer certifies that a building is not repairable, we are not going to look to 

challenge that, if that engineer certifies it and attests to it. So one 

of the things we did do is—— 

Ms. NORTON. So I understand now. Instead of—understand what 

we had before. The Federal Government actually paid for the 

State’s expert, and the Federal Government paid for its own expert. 

We don’t have that now. You recognize a single expert, both sides 

agree, and you go with that? 

Mr. FUGATE. In most cases, unless we think there is something 

that is very unusual. And usually we will consult with the IG and 

other folks if we think there is a concern there. 

But what we did do was go back to the basic principle that if you 

have an engineer of record, a licensed engineer, professional engineer who is going to attest, they have professional ethics and 

standards to make those certifications. We should be looking at 

those as the highest caliber of results, and we should use that in 

basing our decisions, versus merely disputing that and not having 

that similar level of expert and professional guidance. 

So, again, in most cases, yes. You got a professional engineer 

that says the building is destroyed, I am going to accept that, unless there is something really out of left field. But in general, we 

find that if you are going to do that, that is acceptable to us. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Barletta? 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could pick up on 

Mr. Denham’s comments, the CR debate here in Washington actually came right during the middle of this event. And we were told 

here that if we didn’t pass the CR, that FEMA was going to run 

out of money by September 25th. And I remember going home that 

weekend wondering what I was going to tell these people, how we 

would allow this to happen here in Washington. 

And I don’t know where the miscommunications came, but nobody is going to convince me that somewhere politics wasn’t being 

played here. And the people back in my district were the football. 

So, I am not pointing a finger at anyone, but wherever it happened here in Washington, I hope it never happens again, because 

I would recommend those that are playing that game go to the 

areas like this and tell these people that, you know, we are using 

this to try to pit one side against the other. And I didn’t appreciate 

it, and I don’t know where it happened, but it should never happen 

again. 

Some of the people that were flooded out here, again, were actually flooded out in 2006, and they signed papers to be bought out, 

and they still haven’t received any of the money. And as they were 

cleaning their homes out, again, they told me that they are not 

even going to contact FEMA, because they are afraid that if they 

get another check from FEMA, you know, they will have to give it 

back, they will spend it and they won’t have it again. 

And I am just wondering why it would take so long for folks from 

2006—and here we are, 2011 and another flood—why they haven’t 

received their buyout. 

20 

Mr. FUGATE. I would have to go back and look at those specifically. I know, from my experience in Florida, doing buyouts are a 

challenge. Generally it is a cost share. We do 75 percent. It requires that the State and local governments prioritize the funds for 

that. 

The 25 percent match is oftentimes a huge challenge for the individuals. Plus, there is other things that oftentimes factor in. There 

are going to be deed restrictions on a buyout that would prohibit 

any construction back in those areas, or any development back in 

those areas. So, from the standpoint of trying to get the match, trying to get through all the hurdles to actually do the buyout, and 

then do the buyout and demolition, is a complex process. 

What happened from 2006 forward, I am really going to have to 

go back and ask staff to respond back in writing. I just know my 

experience is it is a challenge. 

The other point you made about the mitigation dollars following 

after, part of that is based upon—hazard mitigation dollars are 

based upon the percentage of the assistance provided. And it is 

usually at 6 months that we get our first initial lock-ins that will 

tell us the approximate amount. 

But both in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other States, we have 

recognized the value of early buyouts. If we can get direction from 

the State, that will be the priority for their dollars. And if we have 

some inkling what those dollars look like, is begin that process in 

concert with the repair and clean-up. 

And again, it is a very challenging—but I think one of the huge 

hurdles that we run into oftentimes is the cost-share requirements 

or the 25 percent match, is the Government going to make that, 

is it going to come from the homeowner themselves? 

And then the other issue that also gets to be time-consuming is 

fair market value, and trying to determine that as we do the 

buyouts. 

Mr. BARLETTA. You know, I was in a community, Makenagua. 

And as I was standing there, they took me out to a telephone pole 

and showed me—the Susquehanna is one of the most flooded rivers 

in America—they showed me all the marks on the telephone pole 

for all the various floods. And we were hit twice, as you know. 

Tropical Storm Lee followed, so we were hit twice. And this actually was 2 feet higher than Hurricane Agnes. 

But it was just remarkable, how many pieces of—how much 

paint was on this telephone pole from how many floods. They 

might have had five, six, seven significant floods in this little community. At what point does it make sense that we come in and just 

move these people out? Isn’t it more costly over time to come in and 

constantly—because it is going to be flooded again. 

Mr. FUGATE. Absolutely. I think that if you look at some of the 

floods this year, we have actually had floods of record across this 

country, including what we saw in Pennsylvania, where it exceeded 

Agnes. Those floodings would have been much worse, had not previous buyouts occurred. 

And so, I think that, again, these are decisions local leaders and 

homeowners make. It is not something that we necessarily want to 

force. But I think where—we can provide the financial incentive 

and streamline the programs. As the IG will point out, I am—I 

21 

agree. Any time we go to 100 percent there is all kinds of issues 

unintended. But I think if you are going to adjust cost share up, 

it should be those things that do long-term savings, versus just the 

traditional repair and rebuild. 

So, mitigation programs, buyout programs, if you wanted to look 

at cost-share adjustments, where you could remove a hazard permanently from the U.S. taxpayer exposure, those would be areas 

where I would look to either reduce the requirements, or to increase cost share to more successfully complete those. 

But it does have economic impacts, because you are going to lose 

tax base. These have to be permanent changes. We just don’t buy 

out and let them rebuild 5 years later, when memories fade. And 

in many cases, there is also the emotional issue of people who grew 

up in these homes having to make the decision to sell and move 

out and see their neighborhood go away. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Ms. Norton? 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hunter, after the 

earthquake, I issued a release and my staff made phone calls in 

which I asked for a post-disaster meeting involving FEMA and the 

Department of Homeland Security with the Homeland Security regional directors. The purpose, of course, would be to do a post-disaster evaluation with everybody at the table. 

My staff could not get an answer, except it looked like some kind 

of meeting had been held, but it didn’t look like it was the kind 

of meeting that could be called a serious attempt to do a post-disaster evaluation. Could you or Mr. Fugate indicate to me at this 

time whether any such meeting has been held in this region with 

Homeland Security chiefs from the region to evaluate what happened and what to do next? 

Mr. HUNTER. Congresswoman Norton, I can tell you that, prior 

to the earthquakes, we were actively involved with FEMA and—— 

Ms. NORTON. And, Mr. Hunter, please answer my question. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes—— 

Ms. NORTON. I want a—I want to know whether there has been 

a post-earthquake meeting to analyze the response of all concerned, 

not just the Federal Government, following the earthquake. Not 

what happened before. Please respond to my specific question. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, ma’am. There has not been a meeting specifically arranged that I have been present for, for OPM to focus solely 

on that issue. 

We have been engaged in a committee which was in place prior 

to the earthquake, looking at our responses to snow events and 

how we could improve that. That standing working group, which 

included representation from FEMA, has continued to look at the 

earthquake and how that adds an additional flavor. And so we 

have been examining those efforts as a part of that continuing 

working group. 

Ms. NORTON. What has that working group—has it done a serious—first of all, does it include people from the region, or is it simply people from your staff? 

Mr. HUNTER. It does. It includes, again, the Federal, State, and 

local—— 

22 

Ms. NORTON. And you think it could do a post-disaster—serious 

post-disaster analysis? 

Mr. HUNTER. I think we could always use more eyes in looking 

at the issue and make sure that we are moving forward correctly—— 

Ms. NORTON. I am not talking about eyes or ears. I just want to 

know—perhaps Mr. Fugate can help me. 

Of course Mr. Hunter says he thinks they were quite successful. 

I think if you talk to Metro or to the average Federal employee, 

they just thank heavens that it wasn’t more serious, especially considering that it was an earthquake. But they will tell you about all 

kinds of communication flaws and inability to get information, and 

the rest. 

I don’t understand how the Federal Government, which is in 

charge of homeland security for the entire Nation wouldn’t be a 

leader in sitting down, since it had a kind of case in point from 

which to work, that would help the Federal Government and then 

help it with other disasters. 

Rather than continue this line of questioning, could I ask Mr. 

Hunter and Mr. Fugate to get together and decide what is the appropriate way to do, as formal as you believe necessary, a postearthquake analysis of what happened and what could be improved? Would both of you commit to doing that? 

Mr. FUGATE. Yes, ma’am. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. Now, my prior question 

about a single expert and about the appeals arbitration really 

comes down to how—to my aversion to, lawyer though I am, to adversarial processes where people can just sit down and reach an 

agreement, save money, and save time. 

So, I am interested in—I believe it is the inspector general who 

issued a report recommending that FEMA establish a mediation or 

arbitration process for appeals that have reached an impasse. Now, 

the one I spoke about was if the impasse involved a great deal of 

money. I want to know what happened to that. 

But Mr. Jadacki, were you referring to, in the normal course of 

business, the use of a mediation or arbitration process to just move 

along and get the issue resolved? And what kinds of circumstances 

did you have in mind? 

Mr. JADACKI. What we find is that second appeals, the appeals 

that go to FEMA headquarters, are the most problematic. They can 

appeal first, the grantee or subgrantee, to the FEMA region. FEMA 

can deny it or accept it. And if there is a second appeal, it would 

go to headquarters. That is where we found a lot of appeals that 

kind of got lost into the—you know, somewhere out there. Some of 

the appeals lasted years to get resolved. 

What we were recommending is that there is a tracking system, 

so that the Feds, the States, and the locals know every step of the 

process, where their appeals are, and what some of the concerns 

are, versus going into this abyss and not knowing about it. 

FEMA has developed a tracking system, and I understand that 

the number of appeals—the number of days that appeals are outstanding has been reduced significantly. But it needs to be transparent, too. So, as far as a formal mediation board, we know it is 

23 

out there for an arbitration panel. But we made recommendations 

that FEMA track these things and make them more transparent so 

that folks know what the delays are, why the cause in delays, who 

is responsible for the delays, and where they stand in getting these 

appeals resolved. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Fleischmann? 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Administrator 

Fugate, I wanted to say thank you, first and foremost. I represent 

the Third District of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Bradley County. Earlier this year, that area was ravaged with tornadoes. It was destruction the like I had never seen in my life. I viewed it from the 

air, I was on the ground. Your office—and you were kind enough 

to meet with me in Washington, DC—and the work that FEMA did 

on the ground was outstanding. It was quick, very responsive. And 

so, on behalf of my constituents, thank you very much. I am a 

freshman congressman, and I was very, very new to office when 

that hit. So, first and foremost, thank you, sir. 

I just have one question. It is my understanding that last Congress and at previous hearings you noted that FEMA’s policies and 

regulations—and, in effect, that perhaps they could be streamlined 

somewhat. Where are you in that process right now, sir, and when 

can we possibly see some of the results from those reviews, sir? 

Mr. FUGATE. Thank you, sir. And again, I will pass on to the 

team. It is a good partnership with the local officials there in the 

State of Tennessee, and that makes our job easier. 

As I stated earlier, we have been working on a bottom-up review. 

But I think a couple things. First of all, we did some things, not 

in your State, but in some of the areas where tornadoes hit, where 

we saw a big challenge with debris. And the debris was going to 

impact our ability to get people back in their homes quickly. This 

is in Tuscaloosa, and there were other areas hit with the tornadoes—and again, in Joplin. 

Without any changes to the Stafford Act, without any changes in 

regulations, we were able to go in there and expedite debris removal and move debris faster and in greater quantities. We are 

currently looking at that to see how that went. But it was a process 

which—the goal wasn’t necessarily get the debris picked up, it was 

to get housing back quickly. 

But we are also looking at—and I think this comes back to the 

chairman and the ranking member’s concern—when we get into big 

projects, and as the IG points out, there are so many issues in a 

reimbursement process that can hang you up and literally spend 

years rebuilding, that we want to break big projects into two 

phases: design phase, where, as the ranking member and the chairman points out, let’s get all the answers done, we know what it is 

going to cost us, we get that final estimate, we are not going to 

have the true accounting cost, but the cost of administering that 

will be far less than going ahead with that estimate; and then have 

an engineer or architect say, ‘‘It is going to cost us this much to 

go build this fire station, we are done, go build a fire station, we 

are out of it.’’ 

So, these are the things we are looking at as, again, not necessarily do we have to have changes in the Stafford Act—and, oftentimes, not even in the CFR—but what are our policies and proVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:55 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\ED\2011\10-13-~1\70682.TXT JEAN
24 

cedures that are impediments. And then, what do we have that 

would be statutory that we would come back to Congress and 

going, ‘‘We think this may be a better idea, but we are going to 

need Congress to give us guidance that may require a legislative 

change.’’ 

But again, we look at costs. How do we speed up the process, 

while minimizing waste, accountability, and fraud. But our history 

tells us that the current process is costing us far more than it 

should. And if we are going to make savings, rather than putting 

the savings on the back of the survivors in the communities that 

are trying to get assistance, we have got to reduce our cost of administering those dollars. 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Thank you, sir. And I wish you all of the best 

in your endeavors. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Carnahan? 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Norton, and to our panel here today. 

I wanted to touch on a number of things. Being from the State 

of Missouri, where we have had our fair share—probably more 

than our fair share—of natural disasters recently, our friends in 

Joplin being first among those, but there has been a dramatic increase in the number of disasters declared in my area and across 

the country. 

Do you feel that the criteria have been changed, or have there 

just been a greater number of large-scale disasters? And if there 

are more disasters, to what do we owe this change? Or is this just 

unpredictable weather patterns? How is that for a wide-open question, Mr. Fugate? 

Mr. FUGATE. Well, one of the things I have asked the IG to build 

into their work plan is to look at our declarations, and are we following our criteria. Again, some of it is based upon numerical factors. Some of it is subjective, particularly with individual assistance. 

I have asked and looked at our own percentages of what are we 

doing, as far as approvals and denials, because I think the total 

number of events is actually driven by how much weather and how 

many extreme events we have had. So I went back and looked at, 

well, what is our percentage of approvals versus denials, and how 

does that look against the average? 

And we are seeing it is within the range. It is a little bit higher, 

but we have had other years that were higher, as far as approval 

rates versus denials. But it is not something that stands out so 

much to say as we suddenly changed everything in the last couple 

of years. What we do know is we look at events over $500 million as being 

catastrophic. We have already had three of those this year. That 

is on pace to be a record. 

So again, Governors are making these requests, based upon their 

impacts. I am sure there is a lot of factors that go into driving 

those. But when you look at the number of extreme weather events 

that have been driving, principally, all of these disasters, whether 

it is droughts that are producing wildfires across the southwest 

and in Texas, heavy rain—record, you know, in your State, where 

25 

you were hit multiple times. I am pretty sure Governor Nixon was 

making those requests based upon he felt that those costs and impacts justified that request. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Jadacki? 

Mr. JADACKI. Mr. Fugate asked us a couple months ago to look 

at the growing number of disasters. I think we had more than 80 

declarations so far this year, which is a record. The normal was 

around 40 to 60, so the number has been growing. 

One of the things we are looking at is the declaration process 

itself, what are the factors that go into that. Some of it is qualitative, some is quantitative, some is very subjective. 

One of the early things we found—and, actually, GAO did a 

study about 10 years ago—was some of the economic numbers that 

were used, the per capita factors were outdated. Our results indicate that they could be outdated, so we are looking at that. 

What we also want to do is look at the PDA process, preliminary 

damage assessment process, to see how close they are several 

months later, maybe a year or two later, to the actual disaster cost. 

That has been a little bit more difficult, but there may be problems 

in the preliminary damage assessment, where those initial numbers come from, that are used as a basis for their recommendation. 

So, we should begin a report in the next several months, and we 

are going to look at that. And if there is a problem with estimating 

the damages upfront, does it take in all the factors. Those are the 

types of things we will be looking at. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. We certainly would like to see that report, and 

hopefully that is instructive for all of us. But thank you. And Mr. 

Hunter? 

Mr. HUNTER. From the OPM perspective, we did experience a 

year with many more decisions concerning the operating status of 

the Federal Government than we had seen in prior years. I believe 

we had 19 actual events where we made a decision concerning the 

release or a change in the status of the Federal Government. And, 

from our perspective, we will continue to be actively involved as a 

decisionmaker in these events. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. The other question I wanted to ask was, given 

the—you know, this sort of post—you know, this looking back, in 

terms of lessons learned, I wanted to specifically ask how does 

FEMA internalize these lessons learned, in terms of communicating those to staff, in terms of communicating that to first responders, to community leaders, to citizens. I mean that is—we all 

try to learn from these and how we can do them better, how can 

we prepare better. 

But talk to me about the process of how we are getting that out. 

Mr. FUGATE. Well, it is done through several things. One is the 

after-action review process. But we actually find that sometimes 

the formal process takes longer than we like. So we oftentimes will 

do quick looks and make immediate adjustments, based upon that. 

So we both internally look at that, but we also work with our 

partners. And I will have staff prepare for you the formal process 

and what we do. 

But as an example, in the last go-around with the hurricanes, we 

ended up deploying more of our Incident Management Assistance 

Teams than we normally do. We came back, there were some lesVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:55 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\ED\2011\10-13-~1\70682.TXT JEAN
26 

sons learned. So, rather than wait for a formal written process, we 

brought all those teams together, ran them through an exercise 

and evaluation, but also building upon the lessons learned and the 

response. We did that within about 4 weeks of the hurricane. So 

we have a formal process, but we also see something we want to 

address immediately, and we are doing that. 

And go back to one thing about earthquakes. Quite honestly, if 

you went to most State and local Web sites in this area, you 

couldn’t find one word about earthquakes. Pretty much now, they 

all tell you the same thing: You don’t evacuate, you get under 

something heavy, like a desk like this one, and you stay there 

through the shaking and then you leave. That is something everybody in California knows, but here on the East Coast it was a lesson learned. Many people didn’t realize the East Coast may also 

have earthquakes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And one last question, if I may, Mr. Chairman. 

We heard news reports after the earthquake in Washington about 

what animals at the zoo were doing. You know, 10 or 15 minutes 

before the earthquake. And our best scientists don’t appear to be 

able to predict when earthquakes are coming. 

But is there something that the—by observation of animals—and 

I asked this of our zoo director back home in St. Louis, but has 

there been any conversation about that? It is a little out of the scientific mainstream, perhaps, but is there something there worth 

looking at? 

Mr. FUGATE. I am going to defer that to the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. I thought you might try to answer that one. 

Mr. FUGATE. You know, again, I was tempted to put a webcam 

out there, just so we would know next time. But the reality is I 

think there is a lot of information comes out—and again, we defer 

back to the USGS as our science and experts when it comes to 

earthquake prediction science and where that is at, as a viable 

warning tool, sir. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And the—maybe on the higher-tech-level question, I did a tour recently of the GSA facility in St. Louis. They 

were showing us some of the technology they have, in terms of 

going beyond some of the disaster preparedness books they have 

done in the past, to really getting this down to PDAs and handheld 

devices in much faster real time. Is that technology getting out 

there in ways needed? Is there anything else we need to be doing? 

Mr. FUGATE. Just the short answer is I think with portable devices, tablets, and the ability to now reduce down binders into 

short pieces of information that you can access readily, we are moving rapidly from webpages and binders. 

I think we recognize at FEMA that our information has to be mobile, it has to be streamed and adapted to mobile devices. Tablets 

offer new opportunities. But again, we are finding that the traditional ways of getting information out in an increasingly mobile society hit a wall. 

One of the advantages of having downloaded information, if the 

wireless or, in this case cellular, is overloaded, you still have the 

information on your device. So even FEMA is getting into the app 

business. We have one for android, we are working on one for 

27 

iPhone, where the information is already on your phone, you don’t 

have to download it. But it would give you critical information in 

an emergency on the first steps you would take. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Great. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Fugate, in September 2009 numerous Federal agencies signed an MOU by which they committed to 

work in partnership with the State of California and stakeholders 

to address water challenges within the Sacramento and San 

Joachim delta. These challenges include disaster response due to 

impacts and earthquakes, flooding, environmental problems, water 

supply, and coordinated activities with California agencies. Do you 

know what FEMA’s current role is in that? 

Mr. FUGATE. Specifically, Mr. Chairman, no. I can get that back 

in writing. And I will ask Nancy Ward, who is our regional administrator who is based in Oakland, to provide a written update, and 

we will get that to you. But we—particularly in the issue with the 

levee systems and the potential for massive flooding in an earthquake, that is something I know that region nine has been working 

with the State on. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. I look forward to a response in that. 

And just in closing, I just want to address one last issue. Mr. 

Jadacki, you had talked about the Mitigation Act of 2000, if that 

were implemented today. 

I have the same question for each of you. We have 400 open disasters currently. And 10 percent of that are over a decade old. If 

we had this act in place today, would we not be estimating the 

costs, paying them out almost immediately, and then having a real 

number that we can actually deal with in the budget on FEMA? 

Mr. JADACKI. Yes, I think—and Mr. Fugate alluded to this, too— 

the way it works right now, with the reimbursable basis on an actual cost basis, it is just a prolonged, complex process. If we come 

to an agreement upfront with a certified engineer, somebody who 

meets the criteria, has no conflicts, and agree on a price upfront 

that we are going to estimate and will agree on, I think that would 

greatly expedite the projects themselves, and also reduce the administrative burden. 

So, I think the cost estimating format is probably something that 

we should consider. You know, 5 or 10 years down the line, if we 

are still doing project worksheets, there is something wrong with 

that process. 

I will tell you one of the drawbacks—and we did some work on 

this—that concerns some of the grantees and subgrantees, is that 

if the project amount comes in over the agreed amount, then there 

is a burden on the grantee, too. They are concerned about that. 

And I know, doing some work in the debris removal pilot program, 

that was one of the concerns with the agreement amount. If it 

comes in over, they have to make up the burden of the those additional costs. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Fugate, if that mitigation act was 

in place today, would that not streamline the process? 

Mr. FUGATE. Probably about 80, 90 percent, but it won’t be 100 

percent. 

Here are some of the challenges you are going to run into. What 

if the grantee is in a dispute and a lawsuit that goes to their State 

28 

supreme court over insurance payments, since we cannot duplicate 

benefits? 

The other issue, as the IG points out, is in some of the designto-build criteria we are looking at, where we provide the initial 

funds to go through all of the review, design, and build, what happens after we finalize, and the applicant now finds that there were 

hidden flaws or other things that were not apparent until construction began. 

The only way this works is if you limit the bites of the apple. 

And the problem is, if you provide appeal processes, we are right 

back where we started from in that nobody is going to want to close 

something until they are ensured that their costs are met. 

So, I think this is the challenge. If we are trying to do nonduplication of benefits, or we are trying to maintain such a small 

margin of error, there will be a longer process. If we are willing to 

accept greater risk—and I think most of the applicants I have 

talked to want that risk to be on the Federal side—they would 

much rather us pay them more than what it is going to cost them, 

than us pay them less than what it would cost. 

But it would reduce—and I think this is a tradeoff—our administrative costs at some point get so high that it may be more acceptable to take greater risk and not have the degree of precision we 

get by reimbursing on the actual cost, because it saves us administratively. But then you are going to have the other side of the 

equation. Is this waste? Are we paying too much? 

And so again, I have been on the other side, where in Hurricane 

Andrew one of our hold-ups was on a lawsuit with the insurance 

companies that went to the Florida supreme court. And, as you 

know, when you get there, that is years, if not decades, sometimes, 

to get answers. But we could not move forward on a project until 

we knew what the insurance coverage would be, because of nonduplication of benefits, before you could finish that project. 

So I think 85, 90 percent, even higher, yes. But they are going 

to be outliers that are going to be very complex. But it would definitely get a lot of this down to a more manageable number. 

Mr. DENHAM. So if you believe that it will streamline the process, 

knowing that there will be still be some challenges—85, 90 percent, 

I am willing to take that—it is the Mitigation Act of 2000 or 2011, 

going into 2012. If it is an improvement of the process, why has 

it taken over a decade to implement? 

Mr. FUGATE. Well, my 21⁄2 years have basically been a startup 

of trying to get there. And I think what we have come to, instead 

of—I think one of the concerns was trying to do it all at one time. 

And I think what we have come back with, which is, I think, a 

more adequate way to do it, is fund the design phase, give them 

the initial project worksheet on a complex project, like a charity 

hospital, and go, ‘‘Let’s do a design phase. Let’s get all the issues 

out front, let’s get all the costs out front, let’s get all the damage 

estimates out front, let’s do all the permitting, everything, including now, a design that we have agree upon, and a cost estimate.’’ 

And then, provide them the second amount, which is that 

amount, and we are done. No more reimbursements. We don’t wait 

until the project is built, we don’t do any more inspections. We do 

29 

the single audit act on those Government entities that get the 

funds. 

But once we do the design phase, which I think is where all the 

details have to be worked out, once we get to the construction 

phase, and they say, ‘‘Here is our estimated cost,’’ an architect/engineering firm has signed off, ‘‘This is what it is going to cost to build 

this building,’’ then we issue them a grant for that amount, and we 

are done. 

Now, the question will be what steps—and this is—again, we are 

getting this out—we are starting to share this with our States and 

others, as we get this out—what are their concerns about what 

they perceive as perceived issues. As a State, I will tell you I will 

never want to agree to something that is final, if I feel that it is 

going to put the State at greater exposure because we underestimated costs. 

So, again, we have gotten to the point now where we have 

enough of this to start reaching out to our partners at the State 

and local levels to start sharing some of these ideas. But I think 

if we break it into two pieces on complex projects—a design phase, 

we get everything done to where we say, ‘‘This is what we are 

doing,’’ and then, once we have that, we issue payment—I think 

that, for complex projects, would streamline the process. 

That design phase, quite honestly, sir, may take us several years. 

But once we are done, and we get the final payment requirements 

for construction, then we are not there through the life of the 

project. We are done. They are able to finish it. 

And again, the other approach, which is even more streamlined, 

but of greater risk, is to estimate what the value of the loss was, 

and treat it like an insurance payment, and then not deal with any 

additional oversight. But that would mean that we would have to 

release the applicants from a lot of the oversight we are required 

to have, through a variety of Federal programs, including historical, environmental, and other types of fiduciary requirements. 

But just like if your home burns down, you don’t have a mortgage, and your insurance pays you the check, they don’t tell you 

how to spend the money. We do. And that would be a much more 

radical approach that would definitely take the input of Congress, 

of how do we treat these, is this going to be an insurance payment, 

or is this going to be a reimbursement for actual cost, as close as 

we can make it an estimating process. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Thank you. I believe we have learned 

a lot this year. We look forward to working with you as we do the 

FEMA reauthorization, as well as streamlining this. But certainly 

we have learned that there are some great improvements that can 

be made. So thank you to each of you for your testimony today. 

Your comments have been very helpful. 

We will now recognize the second panel of witnesses: Mr. Mike 

Dayton, acting secretary, California Emergency Management Agency; Mr. Keith Stammer, director, Joplin/Jasper County Emergency 

Management Agency; Chief William Metcalf, second vice president, 

International Association of Fire Chiefs; and Mr. Joe Wilson, president of Federal Signal’s Safety and Security Group, Federal Signal 

Corporation. 

30 

I ask unanimous consent that our witnesses’ full statements be 

included in the record. 

[No response.] 

Mr. DENHAM. Without objection, so ordered. Since your testimony 

has been made part of the record, the subcommittee would request 

that you limit your oral testimony to 5 minutes. In fact, we would 

actually recommend less than 5 minutes, if possible, because votes 

have been called early today. 

Mr. Dayton, you may proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF MIKE DAYTON, ACTING SECRETARY, CALIFORNIA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY; KEITH STAMMER, DIRECTOR, JOPLIN/JASPER COUNTY EMERGENCY 

MANAGEMENT AGENCY; CHIEF WILLIAM R. METCALF, EFO, 

CFO, MIFIREE, SECOND VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL 

ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS; AND JOE WILSON, PRESIDENT, SAFETY AND SECURITY GROUP, INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS DIVISION, FEDERAL SIGNAL CORPORATION 

Mr. DAYTON. Well, great. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. It is 

great to see you, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. 

Since January of 2010, California has received four major disaster declarations. So more than 75 percent of California’s population is covered under at least one of these declarations. Together, 

these incidents caused nearly $280 million in damages. And this 

does not include the $50 million in damages we sustained during 

the March storm event. Unfortunately, FEMA denied our request 

for Federal assistance for this incident. 

During this same period of time, California has received 10 fire management assistance grants to help offset the $43 million it cost 

to suppress these fires. As significant as these numbers are and 

sound, they pale in comparison to what we anticipate when—not 

if—a major earthquake occurs in the Bay Area or Southern California. 

You know, the greatest lesson we learned from the Japan earthquake and tsunami was to not underestimate the hazard. We have 

taken this lesson to heart, and are preparing for the most catastrophic scenarios. 

Our catastrophic plans for the Bay Area and Southern California 

assume a greater than 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which would result in more than 500 separate fires, more than 3,000 casualties, 

and over 600,000 families needing shelter. Major disruptions to the 

lifelines will occur. Transportation routes will be down. Gas supply, 

water supply, electrical systems, communications will be a challenge. Mass care and sheltering needs for tens of thousands. A catastrophic earthquake will present unprecedented logistical challenges for California and the Nation. 

In addition to these grim realities, a great quake along the Hayward Fault could compromise the integrity of the delta levee system, which, as you know, provides the irrigation supply for Central 

Valley farmers, and also 20 million residents in Southern California. The prospect and inevitability of such a devastating calamity focuses our efforts on preparing for such an event through our 

protection, mitigation, response, and recovery efforts. 

31 

And very briefly, I would like to highlight our efforts in these 

mission areas, and recognize FEMA’s contributions, and also suggest ways in which FEMA and Congress could make these investments more efficient and more effective. 

With respect to protection and mitigation, we have made great 

strides in hardening critical infrastructure sites using the Buffer 

Zone Protection Program. We have also made great progress in 

seismically retrofitting public buildings like schools, hospitals, and 

other public infrastructure, such as roads. But much more needs to 

be done to provide incentives to individual homeowners, especially 

multifamily soft-story structures that are in known liquefaction 

zones in the Bay Area. 

And it is absolutely imperative that FEMA streamline and consolidate requirements for environmental, historic, and benefit cost 

reviews. As the panel before us spoke about, unfortunately mitigation projects can languish in red tape for years, as is the case with 

the East Bay Hills mitigation project, which California received— 

initially applied for grants in 2005 and 2006, and the same trees, 

the eucalyptus and Monterey pines that had grown up and were 

the source of California’s most devastating fire have grown back. 

But the mitigation effort is still tied up in environmental review. 

On the positive side, FEMA has been an invaluable partner in 

developing catastrophic plans for the Bay Area and Southern California. Work is also being done on a catastrophic plan for the 

Cascadia subduction zone in the Central Valley and the delta levees. 

First and foremost, in the response mission area, it is critical to 

maintain the investment in the 28 USAR teams. These are absolutely essentially for large-scale incidents. 

Secondly, given the frequency and intensity of California’s fires 

in the wildland/urban interface, I must urge you to fundamentally 

change the direction and focus of the assistance to fire fighters 

grant program. The current process is ineffective, inefficient, it 

lacks strategy, and it runs counter to any attempt to regionalize 

these investments. A much, much better approach would be to 

block grant these funds to States, and let us build regional capabilities that, in turn, will be national assets. 

With respect to recovery, I must first commend FEMA for the 

quick and efficient process they use to process the fire management 

assistance grants. Decisions are made at the regional level, and 

there is clear guidance. Unfortunately, I cannot offer the same observation for the process of applying for a major disaster declaration. It is unduly cumbersome, bureaucratic, even pedantic. FEMA 

should have clear guidelines and have a greater consideration for 

the cumulative effects of multiple disasters on a region or a State. 

There are a lot of unknowns in disasters. Whether or not FEMA 

will provide financial assistance shouldn’t be one of them. Thank 

you. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Dayton. 

Mr. Stammer? 

Mr. STAMMER. Good morning, Subcommittee Chairman Denham 

and Ranking Member Norton, and to the members of the subcommittee as well. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss improving emergency management, especially in these areas that 

32 

have been discussed. This discussion will, of necessity, focus on the 

EFI tornado, which struck Joplin and Jasper County on May 22, 

2011, as well as the emergency management response, as represented by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and how 

the local agencies view that response. 

Let me begin by stating that I have been in the business of emergency management for 19 years. I have been through several natural and manmade disasters during those years, none of which 

compared to the Joplin Tornado, as it has become known. I have 

worked with State emergency management agencies from two 

States, as well as FEMA, and have become familiar with their mission and methods of operations. I have had extensive hands-on experience in managing disaster scenes, as well as being an instructor in the National Incident Management System, as well as the 

Incident Command System, both standards of the industry for disaster management. 

I, therefore, feel qualified to state that, without a doubt, the 

FEMA of today is not the FEMA of yesteryear. In times past they 

have been accused of being slow to respond, distant when on scene, 

and hard to work with. This was not the case this time. I can truly 

say that FEMA’s response to the Joplin Tornado was a positive experience. 

The Joplin Tornado struck at approximately 1730 hours on Sunday evening, May 22. I was in the emergency operations center, so 

I put out the call for aid to our local partners, then to the Missouri 

State Emergency Management Agency, both calls being standard 

operating procedure per our local emergency operations plan. 

When I asked the State of Missouri about FEMA, I was informed 

that they were already en route. FEMA personnel began to arrive 

within hours of the tornado, with initial response personnel on 

scene no later than early that next morning. We were most pleased 

to see them in the emergency operations center, as we understand 

the crucial role FEMA plays in partnering with State and local entities to ensure a quick and adequate response to the current and 

ongoing needs of our citizens. 

FEMA personnel immediately met with our local officials, administrative personnel, and response agencies to get an overall view of 

what had happened, and what their role might be. We found them 

to be neither invasive nor authoritative, but rather, supportive and 

collaborative. This, indeed, was a breath of fresh air to all of us. 

Some excellent examples of what FEMA was able to do for us at 

the local level include: GIS mapping; Federal Coordinating Officer 

on scene; FEMA liaison assigned to our city manager; and, of 

course, the successful story of the mobile housing units. 

That said, there are always ways to improve response and recovery efforts, especially on incidents of this scale. The real enemy in 

such situations as the Joplin Tornado is time. Once the myriad efforts required to effect a successful immediate response are complete comes the question: What next? For us, the immediate answer was debris removal. We were given an Expedited Debris Removal completion date of August 7, which we completed by August 

6. Needless to say, time was of the essence. 

While hardly unique to our situation, an overriding problem we 

faced was the realization that there were three separate entities on 

33 

scene, each trying to work the problem at hand. These three were: 

local government, State government, and FEMA. Trying to communicate among these three was a continual chore, especially when 

the human element was factored in. State and Federal people were 

constantly changing out, resulting in some confusion as to who occupies what roles. Beyond the fact that new introductions needed 

to be made all the way around, each new person seemed to have 

a somewhat different understanding of the rules and program, resulting in more time needed to integrate them into the current effort. 

May I suggest three observations which I feel would decrease the 

amount of time required to facilitate the response and recovery efforts? I realize that these are neither far-reaching nor national in 

scope, but I assure you they are of concern to we who find ourselves at the tip of the spear during such an incident as the Joplin 

Tornado. These three are: a current roster of all FEMA personnel 

on scene; a menu of services provided by FEMA; and, finally, finetuning the Expedited Debris Removal program. 

In summary, I was most impressed and pleased with the role 

FEMA played and continues to play in our response and recovery 

efforts. We are thankful for the effort of our Federal Government 

and our elected officials in facilitating a response and recovery that 

can only be described, in our world, as successful. 

Thank you for this opportunity. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Chief Metcalf? 

Chief METCALF. Good morning, Chairman Denham, Ranking 

Member Norton, and members of the subcommittee. I am Chief 

William Metcalf, of the North County Fire Protection District located in the San Diego suburb of Fallbrook, California, and I am 

the second vice president of the International Association of Fire 

Chiefs. I thank the committee for the opportunity today to represent the views of local first responders. 

My testimony today is based on my personal experience with 

some of the major disasters this Nation has faced over the past 

decade. During the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, I was 

in Baton Rouge, coordinating assistance to fire departments 

throughout the area impacted by that storm. And in 2007, I commanded the mutual aid response to the California wildland fires in 

my home of San Diego County, where thousands of homes were 

lost, 250 in my own community. From these experiences, I firmly 

believe that an effective national mutual aid system is the key to 

an efficient emergency response. 

Emergency response is primarily a local responsibility. However, 

this year’s numerous natural disasters have demonstrated that 

local jurisdictions can be overwhelmed. And when that happens, 

they must rely on local, State, and national mutual aid systems. An 

effective mutual aid response that saves lives and limits damage 

also will cut the cost to the American taxpayer. 

My written testimony describes 10 components required for an 

effective mutual aid system. And today I would like to highlight 

some of these important concepts. 

The first is scalability, and scalability is a major component of 

an effective mutual aid system. Local jurisdictions are the first reVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:55 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\ED\2011\10-13-~1\70682.TXT JEAN
34 

sponders to any type of disaster. If it is a major event, we recognize 

that there should be no expectation of Federal assistance for the 

first 24 to 72 hours. So, there must be a system in place to help 

those overwhelmed local responders in the meantime. 

Today most local neighboring communities have mutual aid 

agreements that we use every day to respond to incidents. And, as 

fire and EMS budgets are decreased in these economic times, we, 

as chiefs, rely even more on our neighbors to help protect our communities. When our local communities are overwhelmed, the region 

activates its regional or statewide mutual aid system. 

Working with FEMA, the IAFC has developed the intrastate mutual aid system program. Using the examples of California, Ohio, 

Illinois, and Florida, the IAFC has worked with 30 States to develop statewide mutual aid systems that are capable of mobilizing 

resources without assistance. Another eight States have completed 

exercises and are in the process of being able to attain this goal. 

Then, when a State requires interstate assistance, it uses the 

Emergency Management Assistance Compact, or EMAC. And 

EMAC is composed of all 50 States, and was ratified by Congress 

in 1996. 

An effective mutual aid system also requires the timely reimbursement of the resources. In the past, local fire and EMS departments have had to wait up to 2 or 3 years for reimbursement after 

a nationwide mobilization. That cannot happen in today’s fiscal environment. We recommend the creation of a transparent system to 

allow local public safety agencies to track their reimbursement requests through the interstate and Federal processes. A transparent 

reimbursement system will assure accountability. 

Interoperable communications are another vital component to an 

effective mutual aid system. During 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and 

the recent tornado in Joplin, Missouri, emergency responders faced 

problems with communications interoperability. Congress has an 

opportunity to resolve this problem this year. 

The IAFC, other organizations representing the leadership of 

public safety and State and local governments, and the chairmen 

of the 9/11 Commission all support bipartisan legislation to establish a nationwide, wireless public safety broadband network. This 

legislation also must allocate the D-Block in 700 megahertz band 

to public safety. Once this network is built, any local fire department could plug in and communicate with other fire, EMS, and law 

enforcement agencies during a major disaster. 

In addition, there must be a nationwide credentialing process, so 

that incident commanders know the qualifications of responders on 

scene. FEMA has recently released credentialing guidance documentation, and the IAFC supports FEMA’s efforts in this area. 

However, we recommend that FEMA be mindful of the cost of compliance with the FIPS–201 standard, and ask the agency to work 

with State and local stakeholders to develop less expensive and 

more user-friendly methods of compliance. 

And finally, I would like to mention the importance of Federal 

grant funding to an efficient emergency response system. In a 

major earthquake, hurricane, or terrorist attack, there are few Federal civilian fire or EMS resources, especially early in the event. 

So, local first responders from around the Nation initially will be 

35 

engaged. However, the cuts to local public safety budgets today are 

reducing the Nation’s capability to respond to these major disasters. 

The DHS and FEMA grant programs build this capability, while 

not supplanting local funds. In addition, the grants provide incentives for localities and regions to plan, train, and exercise together 

to better respond to future disasters, both natural and humanmade. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to address this subcommittee. 

Response to a disaster is primarily a local responsibility. However, it can quickly escalate to a State or national response, depending on the magnitude of the incident. Effective and wellresourced State and local mutual aid systems will reduce the dependency on Federal resources and reduce the overall cost of disaster response and recovery. 

On behalf of America’s fire and EMS chiefs, I would like to thank 

you for holding this hearing, and look forward to answering your 

questions. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Chief Metcalf. 

Mr. Wilson? 

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Norton, members 

of the subcommittee, thank you for allowing me to appear before 

you today to provide testimony on important matters of public safety and emergency management. I am Joe Wilson, president of the 

industrial systems division, Safety and Security Group for Federal 

Signal Corporation. 

Federal Signal is a longstanding supplier to the emergency management industry. We design, manufacture, install, and integrate 

mass notification systems. Our systems are used for tsunami warning, community warning, military, campus alerting, and in and 

around nuclear power plants and industrial facilities. 

On any given day, news headlines highlight disasters or other 

emergencies across the United States and cause Americans to 

evaluate their own levels of safety. Whether looking back 10 years 

to the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks, or remembering the high levels 

of natural disasters 2011 has wrought, we are constantly reminded 

of the imperative to be fully prepared for the unexpected. 

It is during these times of economic challenge when local communities rely most upon FEMA to acquire public warning and notification systems. In fact, Federal Signal’s 2011 public safety survey 

conducted by Zogby International recently found that half of Americans feel they are less safe today than they were prior to 9/11. And 

almost 4 out of 10 consider their community to be either slightly 

or completely unprepared in the event of an emergency. 

FEMA has an important role to play in establishing standards 

and promoting best practices throughout the Nation. But local community needs differ widely. National or even State priorities are 

not always in synch with the demand of local communities. For 

that reason, decisions about how local communities utilize national 

grant dollars should be made at the local level. 

It was not long ago that those Government agencies charged with 

the responsibility for issuing warnings to the general public depended almost exclusively on outdoor sirens and radio and teleVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:55 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\ED\2011\10-13-~1\70682.TXT JEAN
36 

vision broadcasts. But now interoperability is also a key concern for 

public safety officials, who must consider a much broader spectrum 

of communication technologies. This includes everything from 

landline and cell phones, pagers, radios, text messaging, and public 

address systems, to a variety of IP-based technologies, including 

email, Instant Messaging, smartphones, and even social networking technologies such as Twitter and Facebook. 

Fortunately, there are multiple ways to achieve national objectives. Most current funding is focused on the development of completely new technology. But these costly systems are not the only 

way to achieve interoperable communications. Many local communities could achieve this goal through IP-based software solutions 

that leverage existing communications infrastructure at a significant saving over a widescale replacement. 

Today’s grant funding often works against the leveraging of existing infrastructure, thus costing communities and the National 

Government more to solve interoperable communication challenges. 

Allowing States to make decisions about how they use interoperable grant funds would foster continued advancement of new technologies designed to bridge analog and digital radio worlds with IP 

communications and public communications networks. 

The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System has largely 

been considered a solution for effective public warning. The Nation’s commitment to IPAWS brings significant value to the community. Although the system was designed to reach all U.S. citizens, FEMA recognizes that most alerts are issued at a State and 

local level. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to 

mass notification. Most locally based solutions require a customized 

approach. 

It is also important to consider how people prefer to communicate 

during an emergency. Our survey revealed that one in four Americans would prefer to be notified about an emergency by a telephone 

call or by television. Eighteen percent say they would like to be notified by text message, and 15 percent would like to be notified via 

outdoor loudspeakers. 

While advanced technology and messaging formats enable more 

effective emergency warning systems, a host of human factors, such 

as age, physical disabilities, and cultural differences, must be considered in the overall emergency plan. 

Though today’s technology has certainly expanded our communication options, it should be evident that these technical advancements have also placed a whole new set of concerns on the table. 

In conclusion, FEMA plays an important role in establishing 

standards and fostering the adoption of best practices. Its leadership in facilitating and leveraging of new technology and establishing a framework for the sharing of technology is a necessary job 

that only an agency such as FEMA can perform. Establishing effective processes which provide opportunities for both industry leaders 

and local emergency managers to participate in the development of 

these systems can help ensure widescale support of its programs. 

This is a critically important step in raising Americans’ confidence 

that public safety is truly a priority. 

Thank you, and thanks for this opportunity to speak today. 

37 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. Mr. Dayton, as part of the FloodSAFE 

California initiative, the California Department of Water Resources 

is involved with the delta flood emergency preparedness response 

and recovery program. The stated goal of this program is to promote effective multi-agency emergency response. Can you tell me 

what Cal EMA’s involvement is with the State program? 

Mr. DAYTON. Yes, sir. We are a great partner with the Department of Water Resources. We just completed a large-scale exercise, 

Golden Guardian, that I think you are aware of that, that exercised 

our capability to respond to an event. And then we are also working with them to identify additional funding sources to shore up 

those levees. 

Mr. DENHAM. And are you aware of the Federal MOU regarding 

the challenges that the delta faces? 

Mr. DAYTON. Yes. Yes, sir, I am. 

Mr. DENHAM. And do you believe having FEMA’s involvement in 

these efforts is important for the success of the program? 

Mr. DAYTON. It absolutely is. Nancy Ward has been a great partner in region nine, the administrator for FEMA. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Mr. DAYTON. Thank you. 

Mr. DENHAM. And Mr. Stammer, as we saw in the charts here 

earlier from Mr. Barletta’s district, debris removal is a critical first 

step in recovering from a disaster. You comment on FEMA’s new 

Expedited Debris Removal program. What improvements do you 

believe need to be made to the debris removal program to make it 

more efficient? 

Mr. STAMMER. We understood from the get-go, sir, that the debris removal program is fairly new. I believe it has only been used 

about three times before on the level that we had done. One of the 

things that we have recommended is that there be a combination 

not only of the Expedited Debris Removal program, but also afterwards, in terms of such things as foundations and such. They were 

separated, and we have asked that those be considered to be put 

together as one program, so that we don’t have to go in and come 

out and then go in and come out. 

The other thing would be that such things as the right of entry 

forms and such would be more put together and made whole prior 

to the actual incident. Again, I think that was a factor of the—this 

has not been done very often. Once we worked through that entire 

process, we found that it worked very smoothly. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And Chief Metcalf, can you talk about 

your experience, dealing with the wildland fires? And what improvements do you believe should be made in FEMA’s response to 

such disasters? 

Chief METCALF. We believe that FEMA already is proving a valuable partner when it comes to response to wildland fires. And probably the most recent specific example of the results of their work 

is the development of mutual aid systems that I spoke about in my 

testimony. 

Both Texas—Texas is a State that, prior to the implementation 

of the intrastate mutual aid system program that we worked on 

with FEMA—Texas was not able to really effectively mobilize resources on a mutual aid basis. They were one of the earliest States 

38 

that participated in that process. They were one of the earliest 

States to build a State plan, to exercise that plan and test that 

plan, and we all got to watch the much-improved ability of the 

State of Texas to mobilize fire resources in response to the recent 

wildland fires this season in that State. 

So, from that perspective of building capacity at the local level, 

of providing training and helping to put in place systems at the 

local level to respond to these incidents, FEMA has already accomplished good things. And we believe that continued efforts along 

that way will improve the wildland fire response. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And Mr. Wilson, the Integrated Public 

Alert and Warning System Modernization Act, which would establish a framework and timetables for the development of IPAWS, 

specifically would ensure FEMA consults with and gets input from 

key stakeholders as this system is developed. How important do 

you believe input from State and local officials in the private sector 

is to developing an effective system? 

Mr. WILSON. We think it is very important, especially—again, as 

most events are local in nature, when there is a case when a national broadcast has to be made, there has to be a means to do 

that. And that is what IPAWS is part of. 

But I think having the local folks be able to contribute their 

ideas is critical, because each State has unique needs, as we can 

see from the variety of natural disasters that we have spoken about 

today. And so, I think it is very critical. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. And I, as well as this committee, have 

a bill that is moving forward on this issue. So we will have a number of other questions for you. And I actually have a number of 

other questions for each of you. But in the sake of time with early 

votes now being called, I do apologize, but we are going to present 

those to you in writing, as well. 

I would ask unanimous consent that the record of today’s hearing 

remain open until such time as our witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to them in writing, 

and unanimous consent that the record remain open for 15 days for 

any additional comments and information submitted by Members 

or witnesses to be included in the record of today’s hearing. 

[No response.] 

Mr. DENHAM. Without objection, so ordered. I would like to thank 

our witnesses again for their testimony today. And if there are no 

other Members having anything to add today, the subcommittee 

stands adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 10:31 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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