[Senate Hearing 111-1009]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-1009
EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS:
WHAT THE UNITED STATES CAN LEARN FROM THE 2010 CHILEAN AND HAITIAN
EARTHQUAKES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, LOCAL,
AND PRIVATE SECTOR PREPAREDNESS
AND INTEGRATION
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
JON TESTER, Montana LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Joyce Ward, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE, LOCAL, AND PRIVATE SECTOR PREPAREDNESS
AND INTEGRATION
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
JON TESTER, Montana LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
Donny William, Staff Director
Ryan Tully, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey Stroud, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statement:
Page
Senator Pryor................................................ 1
WITNESSES
Thursday, September 30, 2010
William L. Carwile, III, Associate Administrator for Response and
Recovery, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of
Homeland Security.............................................. 3
Dirk W. Dijkerman, Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for
Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency
for International Development.................................. 5
Cristobal Lira, Director, Committee for Earthquake and Tsunami
Emergency (March-August, 2010), Reconstruction Committee (Since
August, 2010), Chilean Ministry of Interior.................... 7
James M. Wilkinson, Executive Director, Central United States
Earthquake Consortium.......................................... 16
Ellis M. Stanley, Sr., Vice President, Dewberry, and Director of
Western Emergency Management and Homeland Security Services.... 17
Reginald DesRoches, Ph.D., Professor and Associate Chair, Georgia
Institute of Technology, School of Civil and Environmental
Engineering.................................................... 19
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Carwile, William L. III:
Testimony.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 25
DesRoches, Reginald Ph.D.:
Testimony.................................................... 19
Prepared statement........................................... 87
Dijkerman, Dirk W.:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Lira, Cristobal:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement with attachment........................... 45
Stanley, Ellis M. Sr.:
Testimony.................................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 81
Wilkinson James M.:
Testimony.................................................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 73
APPENDIX
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Mr. Carwile.................................................. 93
Mr. Wilkinson................................................ 97
Maps submitted by Senator Pryor from U.S. Geological Survey and
FEMA........................................................... 99
Earthquake Comparison submitted by Mr. Wilkinson................. 104
Map submitted by Mr. Stanley..................................... 105
Additional document submitted for the record by Mr. Lira......... 106
EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS: WHAT
THE UNITED STATES CAN LEARN FROM THE 2010 CHILEAN AND HAITIAN
EARTHQUAKES
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and
Private Sector Preparedness and Integration,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mark L.
Pryor, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Pryor.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR
Senator Pryor. I want to go ahead and call our hearing to
order. I want to thank everyone for being here. I am sorry I
was a few minutes late. I got caught out in the hallway, but
want to welcome everyone to the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State,
Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration. We are
part of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs.
We have a very distinguished set of panelists and witnesses
today, to speak on an issue that is very important for our
nation's earthquake preparedness.
I want to start the hearing with a quote, and it says,
``The earthquakes cause the ground to rise and fall, bending
the trees until their branches intertwined and open deep cracks
in the ground. Deep seated landslides occurred along the
steeper bluffs and hillsides; large areas of land were uplifted
permanently; and still larger areas sank and were covered with
water that erupted through fissures or craterlets. Huge waves
on the Mississippi River overwhelmed many boats and washed
others high onto the shore. High banks caved and collapsed into
the river; sand bars and points of islands gave way; whole
islands disappeared.''
This sounds like something that might be out of the Book of
Revelation, but it is not. It is something that the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS) has on their website, and it is a
quote from the two series of New Madrid earthquake back in 1811
and 1812.
I think a lot of times people in my part of the country
feel like earthquakes are something you see on the west coast
or in other countries. But we have more fault zones than just
the ones in California and the other States in the west.
Earthquake preparedness is something that is very important and
we should make sure that the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) and others are on top of. We want to have this
hearing today to get a sense of how prepared the United States
is to handle an earthquake.
The witnesses here today have traveled from all around the
country, and in Mr. Lira's case, as far away as Chile, to
address the ability of the United States to respond to and
recover from a major earthquake. I appreciate all of you for
being here, especially you, Mr. Lira, for coming such a great
distance to help us.
I would like to also recognize the Chilean Ambassador who
is here, Ambassador Arturo--is it Fermandois?
Ambassador Fermandois. Fermandois.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Welcome to the Subcommittee. It
is great to have you here.
We have called this diverse group of witnesses because they
have taken part in the response to some of the more powerful
and catastrophic earthquakes in recent history, the January
12th earthquake in Haiti and the February 27th earthquake in
Chile. Both of these were similarly powerful earthquakes.
However, the outcomes of the two countries' response efforts
could not have been more disparate.
In Haiti, we saw the worst case scenario: A very poor
country with very primitive building codes and minimal response
capacity. Some 230,000 people died during this event, and
another 300,000 were injured. Over a million people remain
homeless. I want to note that we extended an invitation to the
Haitian government to send a representative here to testify
today, but they still have an all-hands-on-deck response going
on after January's catastrophe.
A month later an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the
coast of Chile. Seismologists estimate that the earthquake was
so powerful that it moved the earth's figure axis by 2.7
milliarcseconds.
Tsunami warnings were issued in 53 countries causing minor
damage in San Diego, California, and in Japan. Despite the
magnitude of this disaster, the death toll was only 521, most
killed by the tsunami. These events hold extremely valuable
lessons for U.S. Government officials working to develop plans
for responding to a severe earthquake on American soil. Our
goal is to make an American response look more like the results
of Chile, rather than the results in Haiti.
As we near the 100th anniversary of the 1811 and 1812 New
Madrid earthquakes, we are reminded how critical planning and
preparation are to mitigating against loss of life and
property. The effects of the New Madrid earthquakes were spread
over a vast area. Physical damage was reported as far away as
Charleston, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. In Boston,
Massachusetts, which is about 1,000 miles from the epicenter,
church bells rang due to the seismic vibration.
Consider this: A modern major earthquake along the New
Madrid fault, which covers seven States, Arkansas, Mississippi,
Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, could
impact up to 44 million Americans who live in that region,
including some 12 million Americans who live in the highest
impact zones. FEMA estimates over $70 billion in infrastructure
damage, while others predict a $500 billion response and
recovery effort.
The potential of loss of life, damage to public and private
structures, and disruption of interstate commerce is
staggering. With the recent international earthquakes, we can
learn valuable lessons. Our witnesses who are here today will
help this Subcommittee learn some of those lessons and document
those for the Committee's work and the Senate. I hope the
outcome of this hearing is that it will lead to a more
effective response and more effective preparation to these
tragic events when they do occur.
I will introduce each one of the four witnesses on this
panel. We will give everyone 5 minutes for their opening
statement and we will submit your written testimony for the
record. Do not feel obligated to read every single word of your
written testimony. You may paraphrase or skip sections, that is
up to you. But try to speak under 5 minutes and then we will
open the panel up for discussion and for questions.
Our first witness is Bill Carwile, Associate Administrator,
at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Our second witness
is Dirk Dijkerman, Acting Assistant Administrator of the Bureau
of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S.
Agency for International Development. And our next witness is
Carol Chan, who is the Director for the Office of U.S. Foreign
Disaster Assistance at USAID. And then our last witness will be
Mr. Lira.
So, Mr. Carwile, would you like to lead us off?
TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM L. CARWILE III,\1\ ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR
FOR RESPONSE AND RECOVERY, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY,
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Carwile. Good morning, Chairman Pryor. Thank you for
inviting me to appear before you today on behalf of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency. It is my privilege to discuss preparation
for a whole community response to and recovery from a
catastrophic earthquake. I am also prepared to discuss some of
the lessons we learned from our support to the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) and the Office of U.S.
Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) during the Haitian
earthquake response, as well as our reconnaissance work during
the earthquake in Chile.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Carwile appears in the appendix
on page 25.
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I am Bill Carwile, FEMA's Associate Administrator for
Response and Recovery. I am a retired U.S. Army Colonel and
former Defense Coordinating Officer (DCO) who also served as
Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO), other senior emergency
management positions, and I am well-aware of the immense
response and recovery challenges that face survivors of a major
incident like an earthquake.
Such an event will require an immediate, massive, and
sustained support from the whole community. The whole
community, that is the Federal, State, local governments, and
our many private sector and volunteer agency partners, as well
as the survivors themselves. The enormous destruction in a
catastrophic disaster environment requires us to focus on our
number one priority: Saving and sustaining lives within the
first 72 hours.
The whole community must be prepared to respond in ways
beyond our normal paradigms. We must seek atypical solutions
and adopt a planning process that incorporates such approaches.
Our planning assumptions for a catastrophic disaster are
based on worst case scenarios derived from modeling and
historical analysis. These are designed to challenge
preparedness at all levels and enforce innovative, non-
traditional solutions as part of the response strategy to such
events.
National earthquake planning currently includes developing
a Federal Interagency Operations Plan for earthquakes. This
plan is a response and short-term recovery-oriented document.
It ties national, regional, and state efforts together in a
capstone document that addresses how the Federal interagency
will prepare for and respond to a catastrophic earthquake
anywhere.
This plan is closely linked to the development of the
National Level Exercise (NLE) 2011, which has, as its scenario,
an earthquake along the New Madrid fault seismic zone. The four
FEMA regions and eight States that are in that zone are working
in partnership with Federal, State, and local agencies to
develop a coherent plan using our recently published Regional
Planning Guide (RPG).
Scenario and damage information to inform planning efforts
are provided by the U.S. Geological Survey and the academic
community. Regional planning and the development of operational
plans are completed or underway for several other geographic
areas that have high earthquake hazards, including the San
Francisco Bay area and Southern California.
Our Region VIII and the State of Utah are working together
to develop a joint region/state catastrophic earthquake plan
for the impact of an earthquake along the Wasatch fault. Region
II will lead an 18-month planning effort to develop joint
regional plans with Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to
address a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in the Caribbean.
FEMA Regions IX and X in the States of Washington, Oregon,
California, Alaska, Idaho, and British Columbia, Canada, will
work together to develop joint plans for an earthquake and
tsunami addressing the earthquake and resulting tsunami
occurring in the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the Pacific
Northwest of the United States and Canada.
All of our future planning efforts will incorporate the
lessons we learned from our deployment of the National Urban
Search and Rescue (US&R) teams to Haiti. These lessons include
being able to achieve flexibility in deploying these large
teams, how to effectively employ the dogs to find survivors,
and the need to use our teams as force multipliers by
organizing like teams made up of survivors or others.
Our 28 Urban Search and Rescue task forces will need to be
augmented in a major earthquake who are working with the
Department of Defense (DOD) to train and use the National Guard
as an organized force to serve as light urban search and rescue
teams.
Effectively and rapidly responding to and recovering from
the impact of a catastrophic earthquake is one of the greatest
challenges faced by the whole community. At FEMA we recognize
success depends on collective and collaborative efforts of all
dimensions of our society.
I look forward to working with the Members of this
Subcommittee and Members of Congress to address the
requirements of a catastrophic earthquake or other large
disaster. Sir, subject to your questions later, that concludes
my briefing.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Mr. Dijkerman.
TESTIMONY OF DIRK W. DIJKERMAN,\1\ ACTING ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN
ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Dijkerman. Can you hear me? Oh, great. Thank you,
Chairman Pryor. We really appreciate the invitation to come to
testify about earthquake preparedness and what the United
States can potentially learn from some of our experiences. I
appreciate that you will be putting the written testimony into
the record.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Dijkerman appears in the appendix
on page 39.
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As you commented, the earthquake in January in Haiti killed
230,000 people and displaced and disrupted the lives of another
three million. Right after that, one of the good steps was that
President Obama designated USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah as
the United States Disaster Coordinator, and he committed the
United States would provide a swift, aggressive, whole of U.S.
Government response.
And in that effort, USAID coordinated the efforts of a
number of U.S. Government agencies, including the Department of
State, Health and Human Services (HHS); Homeland Security; and,
of course, our colleagues here from FEMA.
I think you are probably aware that FEMA and USAID,
particularly the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, have
had a long relationship sharing lessons back and forth, and we
can give you some of the historical lessons as well. But I will
focus more on some of the more recent findings that we have
had.
But anyway, back to Haiti, to date we have delivered over
$1.14 billion. In the first 2 months of the Haiti earthquake,
we sent and delivered about $250 million quite quickly, and I
am going to come back to how we did that and why. But what is
also significant here is in Haiti, we had our colleagues from
Chile sending a search and rescue team, helping us out and
coordinating with other search and rescue teams from around the
world.
But about 2 months after the Haiti earthquake, as you
mentioned, the earthquake in Chile struck. I think it ranks up
there as one in a century-type earthquake, but there, as you
noted, the impact was very much different. USAID has had a long
relationship with the national office in Chile responsible for
preparedness, and because of that, we were able to take our
directions from the Chileans on what to do and they were able
to guide us and the international community.
I think it is a very strong lesson on the impact of
preparedness, not only in terms of the disaster response, but
also working it through the system where they came up with more
rigorous building codes, but then they also implemented it,
which is, perhaps, even more important than just defining the
improved codes. I will let my fellow panelists go into it in
much more detail.
So, first, what are some of the lessons that we talk about?
One, we have learned over and over again, and even in Haiti and
in Pakistan, is that we can have a very small footprint, but
still have a very huge and rapid impact by utilizing existing
in-country relationships as force multipliers.
As I said earlier, we delivered about $254 million within 2
weeks and we did that by sending out what we call our Disaster
Assistance Response Team (DART) that had about 34 members. But
we had tapped into our existing relationships with many non-
governmental organizations and United Nations agencies on the
ground, who in turn had reached back to the rest of their
organizations throughout the world to bring in what we needed.
This obviously, our number of 34 people for USAID, did not
include the 500-plus members that were brought in from search
and rescue and the 20,000 military folks that were also brought
in. But focusing on the resources we delivered and focusing on
the fact that we used these non-governmental organizations, it
gives us a couple of advantages.
One, as I said, force multiplier, but two, because they are
there, they immediately start helping us try to maximize the
extent to which we can make sure the assistance is locally
attuned to the cultural challenges and circumstances there. I
know the United States is not as diverse a difference between,
let us say, Haiti and the United States, but being culturally
attuned is always a challenge.
Now, the other point is that we, as USAID, again different
from FEMA, do not implement. We implement through people. But
we do keep ourselves on the ground right next to everybody
else, closely monitoring, making adjustments, and issuing new
grants as we go. And that is part of how we stay on top of it,
and, if you will, move a fair amount of resources.
This model that we use is very flexible. In Haiti, we had
34 people addressing, if you will, a caseload of up to three
million people affected. Right now in Pakistan, which is being
affected by a flood we have about 17 people on our DART
addressing and trying to address the caseload of between 16 and
20 million people. Again, we are using the same structure and I
think it has been fairly effective there to move almost $300
million in a fairly short period of time.
The second lesson I would want to mention is that we are
learning that the single chain of command, which we normally
use, is not good enough and we have to scale it up, and here,
we are actually learning from some of what FEMA has done and we
are trying to make the whole of U.S. Government response a bit
more comprehensive and work more on where the resources are
going to come from and how we can do this.
The last thing that I would point out is that we are
focusing on a lesson about the technical teams that we send
out. They have to be small, nimble, mobile. We need to get them
up to and familiar with international standards, and a benefit
like this will also help if they come in to help us in the
United States.
So let me stop there and thank you very much for inviting
us.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Ms. Chan, you are not going to
testify, as I understand it, but will be available for
questions and we appreciate that.
Mr. Lira, we again thank you for being here. I do not want
you to feel constrained by the 5-minute rule since you have a
presentation and since you have traveled such a great distance
to be here. Go ahead and give us your presentation.
TESTIMONY OF CHRISTOBAL LIRA,\1\ DIRECTOR, COMMITTEE FOR
EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI EMERGENCY (MARCH-AUGUST, 2010),
RECONSTRUCTION COMMITTEE (SINCE AUGUST, 2010), CHILEAN MINISTRY
OF INTERIOR
Mr. Lira. Good morning Mr. Chairman. It is an honor and a
privilege for me as the Director of the Reconstruction
Committee of Chile, to be here at the U.S. Senate for sharing
with you the Chilean experience on how we faced the devastating
February earthquake. Thank you for calling me to this hearing.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Lira appears in the appendix on
page 45.
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Committee of Chile, to be here at the U.S. Senate for
sharing with you the Chilean experience on how we faced the
devastating February earthquake. Thank you for calling me to
this hearing.
In this opportunity I would also like to thank the U.S.
Government, the U.S. Senate, and all the people in this country
that helped Chile during those difficult times.
In my presentation, I would like to talk about three main
topics, earthquake and tsunami impact, government reaction and
organization, initiatives in place and learning captured. First
of all, I will try to show you how big this emergency was and
the consequence it had for our people and our economy.
As you can see, this was the fifth strongest earthquake
registered until now. The total loss was 14.9 percent of the
gross domestic product (GDP), a huge loss for our economy.
Image can say a lot about what happened in our country. This
image shows the island of Juan Fernandez before and after the
tsunami. This image shows Talcahuano port in the south, one of
the most important ports in the country. Here you can see our
main highway in the city of Santiago and all the damage caused
by the earthquake.
A bridge, 200 kilometers south of Santiago, before and
after the earthquake. This is the town of Dichato before and
after the tsunami. The picture shows the Alto Rio building in
Concepcion after the earthquake. Here we can see the enormous
impact of the earthquake and tsunami, in all, 521 fatal losses,
56 disappeared, 370,000 destroyed houses, 73 destroyed
hospitals, 3,049 destroyed and damaged schools, 1,250,000
children out of school, 221 destroyed and damaged bridges, 900
towns. Here you have an open view of the damages by sector in
the economy. As I say before, it was 14.9 percent of the
country's GDP.
Now I am going to talk about the government reaction to
this emergency and how it organized to respond and deliver the
necessary solutions. The most important thing is that we
started simultaneously to attend the emergency and also
starting the reconstruction efforts.
As you can see here, two committees were created, the first
one to respond to the emergency and the second to start working
in the reconstruction. The emergency committee recruited around
10 people from the private sector to work temporarily in this
committee. These people continued to receive their wages from
the companies where they used to work. This help from the
private sector and an emergency law that made it easier to buy
and deliver help was fundamental for the success of the
emergency committee in a very short period.
We worked in coordination with the armed forces and the
Office of Emergency of the Interior Ministry (ONEMI). Also,
very coordinated with a new authority, especially the regional
governments.
The armed forces were very important in two stages of the
emergency, first, working to restore the public order that was
missing after the earthquake, and second, changing their guns
for tools to help to build emergency houses and remove debris
from the street. That is the first stage and then they changed
their guns to tools.
A fundamental aspect to have permanent knowledge of the
situation and deliver fast and adequate solutions was that the
government worked permanently in the field, distinguishing
their people with colorful red jackets so the people recognized
us and talked to us and cried with us.
Since the beginning of the government, we have worked
together with McKinsey Company trying to have a good diagnosis
of what worked well and what did not work during this
emergency. I would like to share with you these learnings and
how we are working to be better prepared when the next
emergency comes.
We have the seismological and telecommunication
infrastructure. Communications were down for more than 12
hours. Sensors took more than two hours to provide the
information. So we are working on investments in real time
monitoring process and robust telecommunication systems with
multiple backups.
Issuing alarms process. Process to issue an alarm involved
unclear communication protocols, multiple unnecessary decision
points, and no use of mass communication channels. We are
working on clear communication protocols, single responsibility
for decision, and use of mass communication channels.
Emergency task force. We do not have a force dedicated to
help in initial evaluation of damage, nor specialized in
emergency procedures. So we are developing an army emergency
task force specialized in emergency procedures.
Chain of command. No clear chain of command in place, too
many direct reports organized by institution instead of
functions, and leadership duplicity. We are working on no more
than eight direct reports organized by function and single
leadership.
The war room dynamics. Unrestricted access, everybody
sitting around the same table randomly, and press with direct
access to everything. We are working on restricted area access,
decision makers in one table separated from support staff in
separate tables grouped by functions.
Looting. Heavy looting began 18 hours after the earthquake.
Procedures to deploy armed forces to ensure safety in the first
hours of the emergency.
But we also learned from the good things we had in place.
You hear about the 600 people that died in Chile compared with
Haiti. The first thing was the population knowledge. Chile's
coastal population have a very good understanding of the need
to evacuate in the event of any big earthquake. The second
thing was the lack of fires. Chile's energy network shuts down
automatically in the event of any major earthquake. It is
difficult to be without light, but also without fire.
And the robust civil infrastructure. Chile construction
norm and developers being responsible for more than 10 years
provided a civil infrastructure that was able to protect
Chilean citizens overall.
So also, I would like to give you some materials. You will
have more information on the topics I have talked about before,
a copy of the Sustainable Reconstruction Plan of Constitucion
City, an example that we have there, so you can see how we have
been developing a reconstruction plan since the beginning of
the government. That plan takes about 1 year to develop and we
do it in 4 months.
Information about the Onemi, the Chilean Emergency Office,
and how they are working in the prevention, response, and
recovery for future emergencies. I will also give you a
presentation from the Minister of Finance where you can find
more information about the costs that this emergency implied
for our economy, and how the government is preparing to finance
these costs. And the final daily report from the Emergency
Committee where you can find details about the aid delivered in
the area affected by the earthquake and tsunami.
I am pleased. Feel free to ask anything, other information.
I would like to invite the Senators to visit us. It will be an
honor to show you personally all the details in the field.
Thank you very much, Senator Pryor.
Senator Pryor. Thank you for your statement and your
presentation.
Mr. Carwile, let me start with you, if I may. Just in
general terms, if you were going to grade the Federal
Government right now on our preparedness for a big earthquake,
wherever it may occur in our country--how would you grade us on
our preparedness?
Mr. Carwile. Mr. Chairman, I would probably give us a B. I
think we have made great progress in the last year and a half
or so with regard to building on regional and state plans. Sir,
we are kind of a bottoms-up constitutionally, so through
Congress's grant programs that we administered on our
preparedness side of the house, we have seen some significant
increases in state and local capacities for a major event.
I think on my side of the house, on response recovery, we
have done a lot more coherent planning with our regions and
States. It occurred to me when I came back to government about
18 months ago that there has been sort of a centralization here
in Washington of planning efforts, which was OK at the Federal
level, but when you really have to implement them, it is down
to a state and a regional level. So I think we are moving along
very well.
I do believe that the National Level Exercise 2011, which
will be on the year anniversary of the terrible New Madrid
earthquake you described, sir, will give us an opportunity to
grade that preparedness a lot better than we can right now.
Senator Pryor. Good. And let me ask the follow-up. You
mentioned State, local, and I will throw in private sector. How
would you grade the State, local, and private sector on their
preparedness?
Mr. Carwile. Let me start with the private sector. We have
been reaching out to the private sector, actually to some folks
in your home State, Bentonville, and some other folks around
the country. In many ways the private sector is ahead of the
government. I know that some of the large corporations have
incredibly robust continuity of operations plans for their
business model. But we have entered into partnerships with them
to a much greater degree than we ever.
Last Monday, for example, we had 60 members of both
associations and corporations at FEMA headquarters to discuss
not only what can the private sector do for us, where can we
buy from them for survivors, but what can we, as a government,
do to help them get back up and operational. So I think the
private sector pieces are working well.
We had included them, as well as our volunteer agency
partners, into several thunderbolt exercises. Those are
exercises that Administrator Fugate started when he came to
office. There is no notice. We brought in the private sector
and the volunteer agencies to a much greater degree.
We have also established a seat, and we went through some
issues with our legal folks, but we have a seat now at the
National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) for a member of
the private sector and is going to rotate. Right now Target has
that seat, but they will represent folks in Bentonville and all
the other private sector folks. So we have partnered with them
much better.
On the volunteer agency side, we have a tremendous
relationship with the National Volunteer Organization's Active
in Disasters (VOAD). They cover not only the big--the American
Red Cross, Salvation Army--but a lot of the smaller volunteer
agencies that are so critical to helping our survivors during
the time of disasters.
So that partnership between government and state and local
level, as well as here at the Federal level is extremely
strong. Some States have entered into relationships. Louisiana
has. Texas has. I know Dave Maxwell in Arkansas has entered
into--he has a very strong relationship with the private sector
there. They were part of a rehearsal of a drill they had
yesterday in North Little Rock. The private sector
participated. It has to do with New Madrid planning. The
feedback from that yesterday was great.
So I think we are in much better shape. That is why
Administrator Fugate has been pushing the idea of whole
community, not just the Federal Government or state and local
governments, but also our partners in the private and the
volunteer agency sectors, sir.
Senator Pryor. Good. And you witnessed the terrible
earthquake down in Chile and it seems to me that they did a lot
of things right before the earthquake happened that paid huge
dividends when it actually occurred.
Mr. Carwile. Yes. In looking at Senor Lira's slides, a lot
of the things they were doing well are things that we are
trying to do as far as a knowledge of the people, working with
our private sector partners in the energy field.
But also on the right side of the slide, some of the things
that we are trying to do, one of my colleagues in the rear
said, some of the organizational construct, which we have
adopted are the National Management System and the Command
System, to alleviate some of the duplication of efforts. I
think we do that pretty well now.
I happened to have been the Federal Coordinating Officer in
Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi with Governor Barber, and
there, with his team, the state team, we formed a unified
coordination group and worked with the state and local partners
down at about the county level to create division supervisors
under geographic branches. So we were able to set the
priorities based on Governor Barber's direction, of course, and
have some unity of effort.
So I saw a lot of things that we have been working on in
Senor Lira's slides.
Senator Pryor. One of the things in Mr. Lira's statement
that struck me is that the general population has a knowledge
level, about what to do and what not to do in the event of an
earthquake. How are we doing in that area?
Mr. Carwile. I think we have some work to do, sir.
Senator Pryor. My sense is, if you are living in
California, it is more something you live with every day.
Mr. Carwile. That is right. I was able to speak in Kobe,
Japan a couple of years ago on the anniversary of the Kobe
earthquake, and in Japan, they teach children in school--we
used to do it in the Cold War--a duck and cover and all that.
Children know, if they feel a shake, they go to high ground.
I think in California, where I have lived in the past,
there is a lot more cognizance of that. I do not think we do as
well in other parts of the country, and I know that Jim
Wilkinson from Central United States Earthquake Consortium
(CUSEC) is going to speak on the next panel, and Jim is doing a
great job through the Earthquake Consortium of the Central
United States to try to do that outreach work. I think he can
probably answer that question, how we are addressing the
central part of the country, a little bit better. But I think
California is probably leading the way, sir.
Senator Pryor. Mr. Lira, how does Chile let the general
public know what to do in the event of an earthquake, how to
prepare beforehand and how to handle things when the earthquake
actually happens? How has your country done that?
Mr. Lira. Well, we have some simulations that we do in the
cities. I gave you some examples of that in the information
that I sent you before. So there we work--the last one I
remember in Iquique, the city, it was about 100,000 people
moving in a simulation for an earthquake and tsunami.
So in that, you can see it in the news, in the television,
so all the people know so that after an earthquake, it is very
probable that you will have a tsunami. So at 3 a.m., the people
run away to the mountains, to the hills behind the cities. That
is why we have only about 600 people died.
Senator Pryor. Wow. Well, that education certainly has paid
off.
Mr. Carwile, I know that we have a large scale earthquake
exercise planned for 2011. What dates will that run in 2011?
Mr. Carwile. That is in May, sir. I will get back on the
exact dates.
Senator Pryor. OK. And I think a lot of times we make sure
that our first responders are involved and our hospitals know
what to do. We plan scenarios such as what if this bridge goes
out and all of that is good for local law enforcement. But will
part of the large scale exercise include educating the public
on what to do and will the public have more awareness about the
exercise?
Mr. Carwile. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman, and we are
providing, through our Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP),
some resources to the States to do that outreach, as well as
working with those four consortium that are doing outreach all
the time. But part of the exercise will be the education of
folks through a strategic communications part of the exercise.
Senator Pryor. Great. Mr. Lira, let me ask you follow-up
question on that. It sounds like your preparation went well,
but if you could go back and change one thing before the
earthquake, and do one thing differently, what would that one
thing be?
Mr. Lira. Probably the war room. We have to--we are working
on that war room again. We need less people working there
because if you have 40 people inside a war room, of course, it
is very difficult to make decisions.
Senator Pryor. Right.
Mr. Lira. That is why one of the things that I would like
to define very clear for a future earthquake is how has to be
this war room, what people must be there, how you organize the
other people, the function people in a separate room. That is
something that we have to work and pay strong--and also, the
first impression.
We need a team, a task force that goes with a helicopter
and immediately goes through all the affected area and so we
can know what is happening, real, because at 5 a.m., the
television was saying, ``No, we do not have any risk of
tsunami,'' when the tsunami was there. That is why nobody knows
in that night. So we need that task force that works only
looking, what is happening. That is both things that I think we
have to work on for the future.
Senator Pryor. Great. Well, that is helpful. Did you jot
that down, Mr. Carwile? I saw you writing notes. That is good.
I am glad.
Mr. Dijkerman, Ms. Chan, I have not forgotten about you
all, so let me ask a couple of questions. I know that, Mr.
Dijkerman, you work around the world and try to be there for
other countries when we provide assistance abroad. I know that
you work in a lot of poor areas around the globe. We have some
poor areas in this country as well.
What is your impression about areas in our country, whether
they be inner cities or rural areas or just places like Indian
reservations, etc? Do you think that they will be hit
disproportionately hard because of the poverty or do you think
that is much of an issue in this country?
Mr. Dijkerman. Well, one of the advantages of having spent
a lot of time overseas is, I think, I almost know that better
sometimes than the United States.
Senator Pryor. Right.
Mr. Dijkerman. So please recognize that limitation. But one
of the differences that we find, if people have lower incomes,
is that they have lower other resources and opportunities to
cushion themselves for unforeseen circumstances, whether it be
floods or earthquakes or droughts or you name it. And so,
because their cushion is much smaller, the impact is much more
devastating. So that is a reality that we look at.
And one of the things from that we focus on, not only in
focusing on saving lives, but we focus, first and foremost, on
the very elemental aspects of saving lives: Getting water,
getting essential medicine there, particularly for women and
children, because some of those groups are the first to start
suffering.
And then when we talk about shelter, our immediate response
efforts are very, very basic. Tents, things like that, or for
water, water bladders. So we try to accommodate the fact that
we have to respond all over the world with very basic
commodities that can immediately start saving lives. As Bill
mentioned, it is very important to start saving lives in the
first 72 hours.
Senator Pryor. As you work with other countries, do you try
to go in before disasters happen and help them prepare? Is that
part of your mission?
Mr. Dijkerman. Absolutely. That is an investment that we
have tried to carve out from our first responsibility of being
9-1-1. But we have, at times, been able to spend up to 20
percent of our budget, when we have been fortunate enough to
not have too many disasters, to try to divert towards what we
call conflict prevention and mitigation.
So, for example, in Latin America, we have trained over
30,000 first responders and government officials with us, not
only that we are training them, but that we work together so
that when something happens, there is already an established
familiarity between the groups. So in the case of Chile, the
people we sent down there already knew some of the officers in
the operation and we knew what they were capable of and we
could just stand on the sideline and wait for directions.
In other places, we do not have that depth of capacity and
we have to make some investments in potentially shoring that
up. But the investments that we have made just makes it simply
a lot easier for when something happens.
I recall, about a year ago, when we had the earthquake in
Guatemala, it hit, the Guatemalans activated their service, we
went there. They say, ``Hey, come on in.'' We were inside the
hard wall in the war room and they were just working away and
we said, ``Are you ready, do you need something?'' They said,
``No, I think we have it.'' We said, ``Great.''
But that familiarity in processes and procedures just makes
the response time less. So had there been a need for us, I
think we could have responded much more quickly.
Senator Pryor. That is great. And you or your team spent a
lot of time in Haiti as well?
Mr. Dijkerman. Yes.
Senator Pryor. I guess that would be an example of where
you see how poverty works as a big disadvantage to an area and
you get into things like building codes, etc, that they just
did not have; whereas, in Chile, they have had a long history
of enforcing seismic building codes.
One thing that I am a little bit concerned about and you
may not be able to comment on this is that building codes
differ so much from area to area in the United States.
My experience is that if you have an economically depressed
area, they may not pay as much attention to something like a
building code in order to try to get a business to locate
there, as compared to some places doing better economically and
that have the luxury of thinking about things like seismic
building codes. Do you have any impressions on the disparities
within the United States or is that just not your area?
Mr. Dijkerman. That is beyond my area of expertise, but I
will say the point I emphasized earlier, which is the one that
really matters, is what Chile demonstrated is not only putting
the building codes in place, but for me what is much more
important is implementing them.
What we often find in the first instances in working with
other countries is it is easy to put the plan together or it is
easy to identify what needs to be done. But the much more
difficult task is to do the education of the population, the
enforcement of the building codes. And even with doing that,
there are still going to be gaps and limitations. But the key
focus that we try to get at is execution of what you have
decided to try to do. That is almost more important and maybe
that is some of the issues that might be present here. I will
let my colleague from FEMA talk.
Senator Pryor. Did you have something to say about that?
Mr. Carwile. I would say that the mitigation efforts in
building codes and standards of both adopting and implementing,
as Dirk talked about, Mr. Chairman, are critical. We work very
closely through the National--we are part of the National
Earthquake Reduction Program (NERP) as well as the
international body that establishes codes, but it is a State by
State, in some States it is by county, and you are right.
In the poorer counties--I happened to be working in a
southern State in a large disaster and we started talking about
codes and standards and there were not any. But if you look at
the difference between--we just had a major earthquake in
Christchurch, New Zealand, in which no lives were lost, but
they adopted very stringent building codes and standards. I
think that probably contributed to saving a whole lot of lives.
But it is a very important issue in terms of earthquakes. I
cannot think of anything more in preparing for the population
is incredibly important, our ability to respond with the
government and private sectors as far as these building codes
are what really are going to save lives on the front end.
Senator Pryor. Right. And, Ms. Chan, I am not going to let
you off the hook here. I do want to ask you one question to see
if you can enlighten us on this. My understanding is, at last
count, there were nearly a million people displaced in Haiti.
My understanding is a lot of them are living in tent cities or
some sort of makeshift housing. Does USAID continue to have a
presence in Haiti? And at this point, given the scale of the
disaster, what is our mission there right now?
Ms. Chan. Yes. USAID has a very strong presence there, not
only with our team on the ground, our Disaster Assistance
Response Team, but working very closely with the USAID mission
and with the State Department. It is a whole government effort
working towards trying to build back livelihoods. There is a
focus on, again, trying to do reconstruction and getting people
out of the displacement camps.
The Department of State is working very closely also with
President Preval. So, I think, in essence, the overall vision
is to help people build back their lives at this point.
Senator Pryor. Good. I want to thank all of our witnesses
on the first panel. You all have been great. What we will do is
leave the record open for a couple of weeks. There are some
Senators who are not here today that have expressed an interest
in various aspects of earthquake preparedness. You may want to
expect to get a few questions from the Subcommittee over the
next few days, and we would love to get responses back. We will
also put your presentations in the record. Your comments have
been very helpful. I will go ahead and introduce our second
panel. Thank you very much.
Mr. Carwile. Thank you very much.
Ms. Chan. Thank you.
Mr. Lira. Mr. Chairman.
Senator Pryor. Yes, sir.
Mr. Lira. Only to say, again, thank you very much for
calling me to this hearing, and also, thank you again for all
the Americans that help us, especially some institutions like
the Army, the Air Force, FEMA that is here, and USAID, the
American Red Cross that was there, and all the Americans that
helped us----
Mr. Lira [continuing]. Like the government designator.
Thank you very much.
Senator Pryor. Well, thank you. You guys have always been a
good neighbor as well and we appreciate you being here because
you are helping us now by letting us see the results of your
planning and your operations in Chile and learn lessons from
you. So thank you very much for being here.
Mr. Lira. Thank you.
Senator Pryor. All right. I will go ahead and bring the
second panel up and our staff will swap out the name tags and
set up the microphones.
I will go ahead and introduce our second panel.
Our first witness will be Jim Wilkerson. He is the
Executive Director of the Central United States Earthquake
Consortium.
Our next witness is Ellis Stanley, Vice President and
Director of Western Emergency Management Services at Dewberry
and Dewberry brings a lot to the table. We look forward to
hearing from you, Mr. Stanley.
And then our last witness today will be Dr. Reginald
DesRoches, Professor and Associate Chair of the School of Civil
and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of
Technology. Thank you all for being here. I appreciate your
time, preparation, and effort to get here today.
Mr. Wilkinson, we will lead off with you.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES M. WILKINSON,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTRAL
UNITED STATES EARTHQUAKE CONSORTIUM
Mr. Wilkinson. Thank you, sir. First let me express my
sincere thanks for the invitation to come and join you today
and share my thoughts on the earthquake hazard and the risk in
central United States
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wilkinson appears in the appendix
on page 73.
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Earthquake hazard in the central United States has a couple
unique issues that elevate this hazard to a point that is
considered to be catastrophic if the right variables were to
align themselves. First, that the geology allows for a very
large area of influence. The seismic waves from earthquakes
carry for great distances before they dissipate. This is well-
documented, both historically and for current seismicity.
Rather than being constrained by one felt area, the effects
are commonly reported over a 10-, 15-, even 20-State area.
Damage from an April 18th 4.8 event of 2008 was recorded in
three States, thankfully not at a level to be significant. Had
this been a magnitude 5 or greater, the outcome would have been
most likely very different.
The other unique issues with earthquakes in the central
United States is the sequencing of large events like those of
1811 and 1812, meaning that rather than a single main shock
followed by some number of aftershocks, we experience several
main shocks spread over a period of time, each with their own
series of aftershocks. This has been documented to have
occurred in 1811, 1450, 900 A.D., as well as 2350 B.C., also
supporting the fact that the events of 1811 and 1812 were not a
one-time event.
These unique aspects, coupled with the fact that the United
States has not built with earthquakes in mind until most
recently, and the fact that we have a large percentage of old
and aging infrastructure has created a situation that would be
truly catastrophic. But it does not stop there.
There are cascading effects with the impact either from the
shaking or liquefaction or both that would also have additional
secondary losses to oil and gas pipelines that run through the
central United States; electrical grid, which also happens to
service a large portion of the north and eastern United States,
including the District of Columbia; as well as impact to
commerce, loss of highways, bridges, river systems,
agricultural farming, and ports.
I have described but a small sampling of the issues that
make the seismic hazard associated in central United States a
significant issue. With a hazard that presents such a daunting
picture, it is easy to see how addressing it would present
significant challenges. This is not your garden variety hazard.
The complexity for dealing with a hazard affecting multiple
States, Federal regions, make this an area that requires a
strong collaborative approach from all levels of government as
well as the private sector and citizens alike.
While there is nothing we can do about the hazard, there is
good news. The risk can be addressed, the steps can be taken to
reduce that level of exposure, but there has to be a
willingness to work towards that goal. A strong public
awareness and educational effort is key, in combination with an
aggressive mitigation program.
This does not mean we have to turn away from the
development of strong response and recovery plans. On the
contrary, we need to be working towards a balanced approach
that supports all program areas working together to make our
communities safer and more responsive to future seismic events.
In addition to day to day program efforts of the National
Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP), CUSEC has been
working in partnership with FEMA and a host of others for the
past 4 years on a focused effort to revise and, in many cases,
develop new earthquake response plans at the local, State,
regional, and national levels. We will test these plans in
April of next year in a multi-state, multi-regional national
level exercise in order to identify any gaps which have been
identified and improve on those.
The exercise is one of many planned bicentennial events in
observance of the 1811/1812 earthquakes. Other significant
events will include the Great U.S. Shakeout, which is an
earthquake drill, and various planned earthquake program
training and other outreach activities.
In closing, addressing earthquake risk in the central
United States is not a function of one organization or
governmental agency. The issue requires a comprehensive
approach involving citizens, community leaders, Non-govermental
organization (NGOs), as well as the private sector and many
others working with state and national levels of government.
Unless we improve on our abilities to work together, putting
aside our programmatic and organizational differences, we will
be faced with sporadic and marginal improvements and
ultimately, communities less prepared to address a major
earthquake.
As Executive Director of the Central United States
Earthquake Consortium, it has been my special honor for me to
have the opportunity to share with you my thoughts concerning
the earthquake threat in central United States
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Mr. Stanley.
TESTIMONY OF ELLIS M. STANLEY, SR.,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT,
DEWBERRY; DIRECTOR OF WESTERN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND HOMELAND
SECURITY SERVICES
Mr. Stanley. Chairman Pryor, thank you so much for having
us here to speak to you before this Subcommittee on Earthquake
Preparedness-What the United States Can Learn from the Chilean
and Haitian Earthquakes.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Stanley appears in the appendix
on page 81.
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How a government responds after a disaster usually captures
the headlines. But most often it is the role that government
plays in preparing for these types of events that can be the
single biggest factor in minimizing not only the event's
initial toll, but also the recovery time necessary to bring a
community back to a healthy functional State.
In this regard, an examination of how the government of
Chile responded during the immediate aftermath of the
earthquake and related tsunamis is appropriate. I will also
address how Southern California differs from a lot of these
incidents in their preparedness.
Our findings reinforced the importance of our pre-disaster
relationships with all of our governmental, non-governmental,
and community partners, including the private sector. Properly
done, these relationships require an organizational commitment
as well as a significant investment of time and personnel. The
number and complexity of these relationships will vary based on
local nuances. But as a general rule, it is vital to ensure
active participation in disaster policy and planning and
response and recovery activities at all levels.
It was no surprise to learn that the areas of Chile that
made the most effective use of resources were the very areas
where some level of interaction had been ongoing before the
earthquake. In the interest of time, I will just give some of
the overall findings and ask that the rest be submitted for the
record.
The previous panel talked about the people's knowledge. We
dub that culture of resilience. What we saw in Chile was people
had resilience that they did not even know they had. For
example, there were fewer lives lost in the tsunami area simply
because they had been taught that if the earthquake shakes
enough to knock you off your feet, move to higher ground. They
did not have to wait for the government or anyone to give them
signals.
We also learned that they have a compulsory military, and
even though they do not see that as emergency planning, it was
planning that helped them to be resilient. Volunteers in Chile
tend to be very resilient. They are able to work effectively
with little or no direction from the national headquarters.
This has been part of the reason that they were able to do so
well.
Some of the recommendations for improvement that we took
away is that emergency plans need to be flexible and include
alternative options in case primary plans are unable to be
executed. That sounds simple, but so often we do not do the
backup to the backup to the backup. All volunteer leadership at
all levels need to know the emergency plan. Exercises need to
be done on a regular basis with everybody participating.
Involve local officials in regional planning as well.
Perform a realistic assessment of life-essential systems such
as water or emergency medicine and supplies. Personnel should
be trained in the probability of core services not being
available and exercise that.
Personnel conducting comprehensive exercises including
joint government, private sector, NGO, emergency responder, and
community exercises before an incident is paramount to
surviving and thriving. Individual resilience and effective
networking with local partners are vital to the continued
success of the community after a disaster. Education,
education, education about what happens during the event is
important.
Emergency and earthquake professionals should work with
representatives of print and broadcast media before a disaster
to determine how best to serve. We are doing this in Southern
California with the Great ShakeOut in which 6.8-plus million
people are involved. Emergency plans need to be redundant. I
have said that twice because it needs to be redundant. We need
to keep doing that.
Recognize that competing personal and professional demands
will be made on an organization. And organizations need to plan
for non-structural damage and potential evacuation. We need to
recognize vulnerabilities in our communication systems and we
have been talking about that since September 11, 2001. We need
to explore mechanisms to encourage building owners to adhere to
rigorous building codes.
We need to collect all possible data for each disaster when
it happens. It took the 33 Long Beach earthquake to design
schools to a higher standard. It took the 71 San Fernando
earthquake to design hospitals to a higher standard. What will
it take to design tall, high occupancy buildings to a higher
standard? Those are some of the things that we need to look at.
We need to look at what are acceptable collapse rates for
new buildings and who determines what that will be. And we also
need to get the public involved in helping to make these
decisions. Thank you very much.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Dr. DesRoches.
TESTIMONY OF REGINALD DESROCHES, PH.D,\1\ PROFESSOR AND
ASSOCIATE CHAIR, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, SCHOOL OF
CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
Mr. DesRoches. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for the
opportunity to come here today to testify about earthquake
preparedness in the United States My testimony will highlight
the risks associated with a potential catastrophic earthquake
event in the United States and address the opportunities to
improve infrastructure resilience.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. DesRoches appears in the appendix
on page 87.
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My perspective is that of one who has studied earthquakes,
first as a student in California during both the 89 and 94
earthquakes, and subsequently as a professor at Georgia Tech
where I focus on the earthquakes in the central and
southeastern United States More recently, I have worked
extensively in Haiti since the January 12, 2010 earthquake,
having led a team of 28 engineers, scientists, and planners to
study the effects and survey building damage in Port-au-Prince.
I might add that I was born in Haiti and lost family during the
earthquake event and I am committed to seeing Haiti be more
resilient and moving forward.
The Haiti earthquake is likely the most catastrophic
natural disaster in modern times, particularly when viewed on a
per capita basis. The magnitude 7 earthquake resulted in over
250,000 deaths, 300,000 injured, over a million displaced,
250,000 homes destroyed, and critical infrastructure
particularly damaged. In contrast, the much larger 8.8 Chile
earthquake resulted in less than 600 deaths and much fewer
injured.
There are numerous reasons for the differences in the
outcomes. However, there is no doubt the advanced level of
seismic design and preparedness in Chile compared to Haiti is a
primary contributing factor to the significant differences
observed between the two earthquakes.
Chile has a long history of large and frequent earthquakes.
Because of this history of large and frequent earthquakes,
Chile has been diligent in ensuring its buildings and other
infrastructure are designed according to updated seismic design
codes. On the contrary, Haiti had not experienced a major
earthquake in over 200 years, and therefore, was not prepared
for the earthquake that struck on January 12.
There are several regions in the United States that have a
history of large, but infrequent earthquakes, and therefore are
not prepared in terms of appropriate building designs and
earthquake details. We have heard many people today talk about
the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ). In addition to that, the
Charleston region, Charleston, South Carolina, is also a region
of large, but infrequent earthquakes. On August 31st, 1886, a
large earthquake hit the Charleston region with an estimated
magnitude of 7.0 that was felt along the entire East Coast.
The primary risk of catastrophic earthquakes in the United
States is likely failure and damage of the built
infrastructure. Today the New Madrid Seismic Zone region is
highly populated and densely covered with homes, commercial
buildings, critical infrastructure such as bridges, pipelines,
power, telecommunication systems, dams, and levees.
Damage to these critical infrastructure systems would have
a disastrous consequence on the regional, national, and global
economies. It is expected that many of the bridges in the
region, including some crossing the Mississippi, would collapse
and be unuseable for weeks or longer. In addition, there would
be severe interruptions to oil and gas services due to severely
damaged pipelines.
Such a strong earthquake would rock the entire eastern half
of the country and prove devastating to a broad section of the
country. A recent study by the Mid-America Earthquake Center
last year estimates that nearly three-quarters of a million
buildings would be damaged, 3,000 bridges would potentially
collapse, 400,000 breaks and leaks to local pipelines, and $300
billion in damage, direct damage, and $600 billion in indirect
losses would occur. Similar numbers came out of a study on the
Charleston earthquake.
The recent studies on the possibilities of catastrophic
failures in the case of a large earthquake in the central and
southeastern United States demonstrates the scope of the
problem and reinforces the need to implement measures to reduce
seismic risk. We know that there are hundreds of thousands of
buildings and key critical infrastructure systems that remain
at risk of a large earthquake. We cannot prevent the build-up
of tectonic stress along fault lines, nor can we pinpoint the
exact moment when a disastrous earthquake will strike.
With the leadership of the NEHRP agencies, significant
progress has been made in our understanding of the earthquake
hazards in the various parts of the United States as well as
the vulnerabilities associated with different types of
structural systems. New design codes and guidelines have
incorporated lessons learned from recent earthquakes, as well
as new knowledge developed from researchers and practicing
engineers in cooperation with NEHRP agencies.
The transfer of scientific research successes from the
NEHRP efforts in building and design codes is one important
step towards preparedness in the United States. Still more
needs to be done. Small investments now can yield significant
savings later. The California Department of Transportation is a
good example of the return on investments from retrofitted
bridges. Following the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, California
Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) initiated a retrofit
program for bridges that was deemed vulnerable from
earthquakes. These same bridges, when subjected to the 1994 and
89 earthquakes, performed extremely well with little to no
damage.
My main message to this panel is that it is critical that
we continue to apply science and engineering knowledge to
develop innovative technologies and designs to increase our
earthquake preparedness. We also need to continue to enhance
building codes and establish priorities for mitigation
strategies that limit damage to buildings and critical
infrastructure. Prioritized mitigation strategies can assist in
identifying infrastructure systems that are most at risk of
damage and/or failure so that we can begin developing ways to
fortify them against future earthquakes. Thank you.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. By the way, my understanding is
they have been trying to earthquake-proof one of the bridges
over the Mississippi River at Memphis. Is it the I-40 bridge? I
cannot remember which one.
Mr. DesRoches. Yes, sir.
Senator Pryor. That is great. I am glad that they are doing
that.
Mr. Wilkinson, let me start with you. I am guessing that
your primary focus for your group is the New Madrid fault area.
Is that fair to say?
Mr. Wilkinson. Primarily. It is earthquakes anywhere in the
central United States, the Wabash, the East Tennessee, but New
Madrid is the primary focus.
Senator Pryor. And in your testimony, you gave some dates
in which New Madrid quakes have been documented. What are those
dates again?
Mr. Wilkinson. The dates are 1450, 900 A.D., and 2350 B.C.
Those were based off paleoseismic investigations of these large
sand blow, sand areas you see throughout the Boot Hill in
northern Arkansas.
Senator Pryor. Does that mean that is the only time that
they have happened?
Mr. Wilkinson. That scale. There are many other earthquakes
of smaller magnitude, but equivalent to the 1811 and 1812, that
is the documented ones.
Senator Pryor. Is there a projection or a general
scientific consensus on when to expect the next one?
Mr. Wilkinson. I am going out on a bit of a limb because I
am not a geologist, but about every 500 years they seem to be
having these larger seismic events, like 1811 and 1812. We are
at the 200th period from New Madrid, 1811, so we are getting
within the window that the numbers are going up.
Senator Pryor. I think we have something that the other
witnesses talked about as well. It is a magnitude versus
frequency concern, and that is, if you are in a area where
there are a lot of earthquakes, you are more sensitized to it.
The building codes are probably better and there are better
systems in place to handle an earthquake. But if you are in
another area that may not have nearly as many earthquakes but
has more severe quakes, you really may be asking for trouble.
Mr. Wilkinson, you mentioned the National Level Exercise in
your opening statement. I assume that you are participating in
that already since there has been a lot of prep work happening.
How is that going and do you think that will help our
preparedness?
Mr. Wilkinson. Absolutely. Ironically, we were here last
week, the eight States that make up CUSEC. Our Federal partners
were here working on what they call a mid-planning conference
for that exercise. So we are well underway in reaching an
agreement on the objectives we are going to test.
One of the unique things that we have coupled with that
exercise is a lead-up activity. It was referenced both in
Ellis' and mine presentation about the Great ShakeOut. We have
been working very closely with California to develop a ShakeOut
for the central United States That is an earthquake drill that
will take place on April 28 among our eight States.
Not to put any competition in it, but Missouri and your
folks to your north are a little ahead of us in registering for
that. But our goal is a million participants. We really want to
get people to understand that there are steps they can take to
protect themselves. So we have added that as part of the
exercise to bring greater awareness.
Senator Pryor. Good. And you heard Dr. DesRoches' statement
about the scenario of a New Madrid quake in terms of the number
of bridges that might collapse and damage the oil and gas
lines, etc. Did you want to add anything to the scenario that
he painted?
Mr. Wilkinson. Well, we worked very closely with the Mid-
America Earthquake Center (MAEC) in development of that
scenario, with our state geologists and U.S. Geological Survey,
to develop what we consider to be a credible scenario. Our
plans are actually built around that scenario so that again we
have justification to fall back on why we did this and the
expenditures we made.
But he is right. We have a very old infrastructure. The
modeling shows that. It shows the vulnerabilities of that.
Retrofitting or fixing existing infrastructure is very costly,
but building it right on the front-end, having proper building
codes in place, significantly reduces that cost, and that is
really what we push, to increase the building codes themselves.
Senator Pryor. This is really for any of you. If, say, New
Madrid has a major quake, what is the estimated loss of life?
Is there an estimate on what you can expect? Anybody want to
take a stab at that?
Mr. Wilkinson. Well, let me pull out my cheat sheet here.
Based on the estimations from the Mid-America Earthquake
Center, we are looking at about, for the eight-State area, of
82,000 injuries with about 3,500 to 4,000 fatalities. That is
from a magnitude 7.7 event. Now, the more probable event-we
talk a lot about 1811, 1812, but the more probable event is a
magnitude 6, 6.5, which is very likely in our lifetime, and it
would have a multi-state impact as well.
Senator Pryor. OK. But I assume that would be quite a bit
smaller impact.
Mr. Wilkinson. Smaller in intensity, but not as far as
damage. Again, looking at the age in infrastructure and the
geology of the area.
Senator Pryor. And there is something about the soil there
that liquefies and makes damages more likely? Do I understand
that right?
Mr. Wilkinson. Yes, sir. It increases the potential for
amplification of the seismic waves, so infrastructure, bridges,
pipelines, towers, whatever is on there, has the greater
capacity to lose the ability to stand. So that is the greatest
concern we have which is pretty much the entire Delta region.
Senator Pryor. Mr. Stanley, do you have a sense of how our
Federal Government is doing in terms of working with state and
local and private sector folks about earthquake preparedness
nationwide?
Mr. Stanley. Yes. I think the Federal Government is working
quite well. As I indicated, it is a partnership. It is a
partnership on the vertical axis with the local, State, and
Federal partners. It is a partnership on the horizontal axis
with the private sector, the NGOs, and the community
individuals themselves. So we are able to do some things
relative to strong mitigation plans, looking at what the
potential might be.
A noted seismologist and friend indicates that it is not
the earthquakes that kill people, it is the buildings and stuff
in your house that fall on you that injure you. So you have the
opportunity to harden your space. And when you are looking at
designing exercises, when you are looking at doing non-
structural education, non-structural retrofits to get people to
tie down things like water heaters, you are enhancing your
level of preparedness in your community.
We have long had a strong relationship with government,
post-September 11, 2001 especially, when we look at Urban Area
Security Initiative (UASI) funds. Earthquakes and hurricanes,
for example, is one of the things that communities can use
those funds to make sure that we keep those natural hazards in
front of the community.
Senator Pryor. Mr. DesRoches, do you want to comment on
that?
Mr. DesRoches. Yes, I can.
Senator Pryor. How is the Federal Government doing and
State, local, and private sectors?
Mr. DesRoches. I can particularly comment on some of the
Federal work in terms of some of the efforts NEHRP has made in
terms of understanding what is the vulnerability of the
earthquakes and the systems that work. I think the challenge we
have is getting some of the States and some of the
infrastructure owners to make decisions on something that
probably will not happen in their lifetime, and that is
something I have struggled with as an educator, is trying to
get them to understand that it likely will not happen in their
lifetime, but if it does, it is quite catastrophic.
Senator Pryor. I have a question for you, Dr. DesRoches,
about using new technology, even things like Google Earth, to
help you identify vulnerabilities and potential problems. Do
you want to comment on that?
Mr. DesRoches. Sure. We have come a long way as far as
understanding the vulnerability, both on the hazard side as
well as the infrastructure stock that we have. I think Jim
mentioned a little bit about the aging infrastructure in the
central United States
We can catalog. We have tools now where we can actually do
very sophisticated risk assessment where we can look on a
regional level, whether it is a city level or state level, even
multi-state level, and propagate an earthquake and really get a
sense of where the collapses will be, which roads are most
critical in terms of the ones that would be damaged, and which
ones we need to really prioritize.
And so, one of the messages I have today is we cannot go
about retrofitting all structures that are vulnerable in the
eastern United States. It would be too expensive. It would take
too long. But we do have the tools available that will tell us
which ones are the most priority, which ones will actually save
the most lives, which ones will result in the least disruption
following an earthquake. And I think those are the tools that
need to be put in the hands of those that can use them and that
is what we need for moving forward.
Senator Pryor. Good. I just want to say again, thank all of
you all for being here. I have some more questions, I am sure
my colleagues will have questions, so we are going to leave the
record open for a few days.
I really hope that this 2011 exercise really does bring
more public awareness and education about what the public
should do in the event of an earthquake and make sure that we
are connecting all the dots at all the various governmental
levels as well.
Like I said, we will leave the record open for 2 weeks and
you may get some questions from the Subcommittee. We would
appreciate quick responses on those. With that, I will adjourn
the hearing. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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