“Using Innovative Technology and Practices to Enhance the Culture of Preparedness.”
Introduction
Good morning Chairman Donovan, Ranking Member Payne, and members of the subcommittee. My name is
2017 Hurricane Season
The 2017 hurricane season was busy for many of us in the emergency management field. I was awaiting Congressional confirmation as I watched Hurricanes Harvey and Irma come ashore and was anxious to join
Administrator Long has testified before this Committee and others about the extreme nature of last year's disaster season, so I'd like to take this opportunity to focus on some of the key themes and lessons learned from these experiences.
Key Themes & Lessons Learned
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria caused a combined
The unprecedented scale, scope, and impacts of the complex combination of disasters, tested the improved capabilities that were developed and as a result of lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.
Following the 2017 hurricanes,
. Sustained Whole Community Logistics Operations: The scale and duration of life-saving and sustainment operations showed that
. Federally Supported, State Managed, Locally Executed:
. Staffing for Concurrent, Complex Incidents: When Hurricane Harvey made landfall in
.
. Responding during Long-Term Infrastructure Outages: Too often, we assume the loss of power, communications, and water infrastructure following disasters will be limited in duration. The condition of critical infrastructure in
. Land Use Planning: In Texas, we saw the importance of land use planning and local building codes. New development should be built away from high-hazard areas and existing structures should be relocated to safer areas when possible to minimize impacts from hazards. It's both how we build and where we build that affect local and regional risk. Land use regulations are a vital resilience tool for local governments and
. Disaster Sheltering and Housing: Providing housing for survivors following the 2017 hurricanes was a challenge, especially when a disaster devastates a community that already had limited affordable housing. Regardless of the readiness of an SLTT 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.
Any sheltering option is, by design, a temporary, short-term solution, designed to be a bridge to middle- and longer-term solutions. We have other programs and authorities that assist with housing, including rental assistance, repair assistance, multi-family lease and repair program, and manufactured housing units. With all of these options, we partner with our SLTT stakeholders to identify the sheltering and housing solutions that make the most sense for each state, each event, each community, and each survivor.
The
FEMA Strategic Plan
We used many of these lessons to inform the goals in our Strategic Plan, which includes: 1) Building a Culture of Preparedness; 2) Readying the Nation for Catastrophic Disasters; and 3) Reducing Complexity of FEMA Programs.
Build a Culture of Preparedness
First, we need to acknowledge that during a disaster, individuals in the impacted communities are the first responders. We need to empower individuals with lifesaving skills to help speed the response and recovery efforts. Do they know how to shut off their water and gas? Do they know to check on their neighbors? Do they know CPR? We also need to encourage individuals to be financially prepared for disasters.
Another key element to fostering a culture of preparedness is closing the insurance gap, which is the difference between what is currently insured and what is insurable. There is no more important or valuable disaster recovery tool than insurance, and we need to dramatically increase coverage to close the gap. This of course includes our country's National Flood Insurance Program.
As we approach the 2018 hurricane season, it is more important than ever that individuals protect themselves with flood insurance. Flood insurance - whether purchased from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) or through private carriers enables insured survivors to recover more quickly and more fully after flood events. It is one of the best ways for individuals to financially protect themselves from losses caused by floods. Without flood insurance, survivors must recover with loans and very limited federal assistance. For example, in
Following a series of short-term extensions - and two brief lapses in the program's ability to sell and renew policies -
But it's not just flood insurance. All types of insurance have a role to play in reducing financial risk for individuals, communities, and federal taxpayers. We aim to help transfer risks from individuals and governments to private insurance and reinsurance markets, through public education and innovative programs.
Those who are most vulnerable are also less likely to have insurance--making their disaster recovery even more challenging, and in some cases, nearly impossible.
We also need to build more resilient communities to reduce risks to people, property, and taxpayer dollars. Developing resilient communities ahead of an incident reduces loss of life and economic disruption. When communities are impacted, they should focus on rebuilding infrastructure smarter and more resilient to reduce risks of damages, protect taxpayer investments and promote economic stability.
Thus, as some are aptly calling our "moonshot,"
Reorganization
As you may surmise, many of these objectives under the Culture of Preparedness Goal are closely related and all aimed at making our nation more resilient. In order to ensure our Agency is aligned with this goal, the Administrator recently announced the formation of a new organization in
The new organization includes the
Ready the Nation for Catastrophic Disasters
Of course, if we are more resilient as a nation, we can focus more of our efforts on readiness for truly catastrophic disasters. As I mentioned earlier, the 2017 disasters challenged many of our planning assumptions 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.
Reduce Complexity of
Finally,
Innovation
The Strategic Plan provides us a framework through which we can develop and create innovative solutions to the challenges we faced - and lessons we learned - during the 2017 disasters.
Streamlining Inspection Process
One of the innovations we implemented real time during the 2017 hurricanes was in line with our third strategic priority, reducing the complexity of
A mitigation team was working in
Thus far, the pilot has been a huge success:
. It reduced damage inspections by 66 percent and already saved
. We inspected 29,000 structures damaged by Hurricane Harvey instead of 80,512.
. We reduced the total project completion time from 123 workdays to 51 workdays.
We are exploring ways to use technology to further streamline the inspection process.
Crowdsourcing
Coordination between
IMMERSED
Consistent with our first strategic goal, we are looking at ways to reduce risk through mitigation efforts. Flooding is the most common and costly natural disaster, which is why it's critical for community leaders to be equipped with the information, tools and skills needed to take mitigation action and build resiliency. To help educate community leaders about the value of being prepared for the worst,
Using technology to place users at the center of a flood crisis, IMMERSED allows them to assess damage in a community and see the benefits of mitigation first-hand. By working through simple tasks, users experience a major flood event in a realistic manner. After experiencing IMMERSED, users are encouraged to explore additional information about mitigation actions and are provided details on grants and other available programs to support communities.
Modernizing the HURREVAC Application
For years, the HURREVAC application, a storm tracking and decision support tool of the National Hurricane Program, supported emergency managers as they handled the challenge of developing detailed evacuation plans, preparing staff through training exercises, and evaluating real-time forecasts to determine if evacuations were necessary.
A new emergency management hurricane decision-support platform is being developed and will be tested during the 2018 Hurricane Season. This modernized application, called HV-X or HURREVAC-eXtended, will enable emergency managers to make timely and accurate evacuation related decisions.
Flood Apex Program
The Flood Apex program at the
Flood Apex is developing new lightweight, networked flood sensors through the
Future Innovations
We are also exploring the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (aka drones) for aerial imaging in remote, contaminated, hazardous, or dangerous areas that pose significant risks to aircraft crews or ground personnel; as well as tactical search and rescue or victim recovery operations that require dynamic, near-real-time observation systems.
We're looking to harness innovative solutions to advance our other strategic goals as well. For example,
Lastly, we recognize that good ideas for innovation can come from a diverse range of sources. Administrator Long hosted "Discovery Change Sessions" to engage stakeholders and inform the Strategic Plan.
Conclusion
Thank you for this opportunity to testify before this committee, and I welcome any questions you may have.
Read this original document at: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/HM/HM12/20180725/108605/HHRG-115-HM12-Wstate-KaniewskiD-20180725.pdf
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