Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee Issues Testimony From FEMA Administrator
"Good morning, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member McCaskill, and Members of the Committee. My name is
"I have been in office for just over nine months, and I am proud to be part of an agency that, every day, is helping communities reduce the risks associated with future disasters, as well as assisting disaster survivors all across the country. Shortly after I was sworn in, Hurricane Harvey struck
"My team at
2017 Hurricane Season Review
"Last year's historic hurricane season was a true test of the Nation's ability to respond to and recover from multiple concurrent disasters. Three major hurricanes -- Harvey, Irma, and Maria -- made landfall along the
"In order to deliver disaster assistance to such a large and dispersed number of survivors,
"In disaster response operations,
"At
Lessons Learned
Federally Supported, State Managed, Locally Executed
"Some lessons we learn are not new to us, but an affirmation of lessons learned in the past. As we've discussed in our past visit, the optimal disaster response is federally supported, state managed, and locally executed. This concept is well known throughout the emergency management community, but this season provided a good case study in why this is important.
"All disasters are local, and local governments respond to an untold number of disasters every year. When the resources required to respond to a disaster exceed local capacity, the local government will call upon neighboring jurisdictions to bring in the additional resources needed. Local governments can, and periodically do, turn to county or state governments for additional resources.
"When a governor or tribal leader turns to the President requesting federal assistance, and the President agrees to activate federal resources to support a disaster-stricken state, tribe, or territory, the governor or tribal leader continues to support the local governments impacted by the disaster.
"
"In order for
"In
"While these communications challenges were the result of a major hurricane, we need to plan for what survivable communications look like in the context of the potential for a Cascadia or New Madrid earthquake scenario, or other catastrophic events. We, as a Nation, have more work to do in this area.
Disaster Sheltering and Housing
"The aftermath of the 2017 hurricane season leaves no doubt that survivor housing is a major challenge. Regardless of the readiness of a state, territorial, tribal or local government, when dealing with the displacement of tens of thousands of survivors from their homes, there is no easy or one-size-fits-all solution.
"There are many community-based and national non-profit organizations that do outstanding work in providing temporary sheltering options for survivors, in order to help survivors have a safe place to stay while they catch their breath and consider next steps in the recovery process. Additionally,
"We have other programs and authorities that assist with temporary housing: rental assistance, multi-family lease program, mobile housing units, and others. Additionally, we provide survivors assistance with repairing a damaged home including financial assistance for repair, and direct assistance for temporary repairs that help return survivors to their homes.
"With all of these options, we partner with our SLTT stakeholder to identify the sheltering and housing solutions that make most sense for each state, each event, each community, and each survivor. The
Strategic Priorities
"Throughout this challenging hurricane and wildfire season, I have seen many practices, programs, and ideas put to test that no intra-agency brainstorming session could accomplish. These experiences have informed my Strategic Plan moving forward, to: 1) Build a Culture of Preparedness; 2) Ready the Nation for Catastrophic Disasters; and 3) Reduce the Complexity of
Build a Culture of Preparedness
"
"Do they know how to shut off water and gas? Do they check on their neighbors? Do they know CPR? Are they financially prepared to deal with the impacts of disasters in their communities, including having the right insurance for the disasters they face - be they flood, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc.? Do they have some modest level of savings to allow them to miss a few days of work without ending up in financial ruin?
"Developing resilient communities ahead of an incident reduces loss of life and economic disruption. When communities are impacted, they should ensure that they rebuild infrastructure better, tougher, and stronger to protect taxpayer investment and promote economic stability.
"
"While we'll never be able to eliminate risk, we must mitigate risk.
Ready the Nation for Catastrophic Disasters
"We can't just continue to plan, train and exercise for what's easy. We need to prepare for catastrophic events that stress our logistics, supply chain, continuity of operations, communications and staffing capacities - just to name a few.
"Meanwhile, communities must increase their capacity to respond to smaller-scale disasters - locally. We will continue to work with our state, territorial, tribal, and local partners to increase their capacities to respond and recover from smaller-scale disasters so
"I am placing members of the
Reduce the Complexity of
"
"I have charged my staff with reducing administrative and bureaucratic burdens, so that survivors and communities receive assistance more quickly. Throughout the federal government, there are a number of programs that offer assistance to survivors. We are working with our partners to streamline and consolidate some of these activities to ensure survivors can better navigate our various programs.
"
"These are my priorities, and this is my vision. As we examine and develop these priorities, we will find that some can be accomplished by existing authorities
Next Steps
"As we continue with recovery operations resulting from recent disasters,
"NLE 2018 consists of four overarching exercise objectives: pre-landfall protective actions; sustained response in parallel with recovery planning; continuity in a natural disaster; and power outages and critical interdependencies.
"As we do before every hurricane season, we are reviewing our hurricane response plans and procedures, updating our high priority national level contracts, and enhancing our disaster response capabilities (for example,
"Also, thanks to action taken by
"For example, in
"Recognizing the importance of mitigation,
Conclusion
"This last year's hurricane and wildfire season was and is historic, and is shaping the future of
"Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to any questions you may have."
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