[Senate Hearing 112-449]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-449
2011 SPRING STORMS: PICKING UP THE
PIECES AND BUILDING BACK STRONGER
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 19, 2011
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
68-016 PDF WASHINGTON : 2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
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 RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
JON TESTER, Montana RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARK BEGICH, Alaska JERRY MORAN, Kansas
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Nicholas A. Rossi, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Joyce Ward Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas, Chairman
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
JON TESTER, Montana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
Amanda Fox, Majority Professional Staff
Dan Lips, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey Stroud, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statement:
Page
Senator Pryor................................................ 1
Senator Paul................................................. 2
Prepared statement:
Senator Pryor................................................ 33
Senator Landrieu............................................. 35
Senator Blunt................................................ 37
WITNESSES
TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2011
Hon. Richard Serino, Deputy Administrator, Federal Emergency
Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security........ 4
Hon. Christopher Masingill, Federal Co-Chairman, Delta Regional
Authority...................................................... 5
David Maxwell, Director, Arkansas Department of Emergency
Management..................................................... 8
Thomas M. ``Mike" Womack, Director, Mississippi Emergency
Management Agency.............................................. 9
Brian `Rob'' O'Brian III, President, Joplin Area Chamber of
Commerce, Missouri............................................. 11
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Masingill, Hon. Christopher:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Maxwell, David:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 53
O'Brian, Brian III:
Testimony.................................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 63
Serino, Hon. Richard:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Womack, Thomas M.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 58
APPENDIX
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Mr. Serino................................................... 77
Mr. Masingill................................................ 85
Mr. Maxwell.................................................. 89
Mr. Womack................................................... 93
Statement submitted by Build Strong Coalition.................... 98
2011 SPRING STORMS: PICKING UP THE PIECES AND BUILDING BACK STRONGER
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2011
U.S. Senate,
Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery
and Intergovernmental Affairs,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m., in
Room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mark L.
Pryor, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Pryor, McCaskill, and Paul.
Also present: Senators Cochran, Blunt and Boozman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR
Senator Pryor. I am going to call our Subcommittee to
order. I want to thank my colleagues who are either here or who
are on the way. We are just finishing the various caucus
lunches, and it sounds like we have several people heading over
here.
What I would like to do is thank all of you for being here
today. I know that this is a very busy time for everyone and I
really appreciate you coming here and spending your day with
us.
We are here to assess the progress being made in recovering
from this spring's devastating tornados, storms, and floods. We
will also discuss how to pick up the pieces from these recent
disasters and build back better.
The panelists we have convened here today represent some of
the States and communities that were the hardest hit by these
events. I would like to start by thanking them for taking time
to be here. You have had your hands full, and have had a lot of
tough work back home to do. We appreciate your public service,
your expertise, and all the things that you are doing for your
home States and also for the Nation.
Today's witnesses will provide us with a better
understanding of the disasters' impact on communities and
economies. We hope to get a better understanding of the
collaboration and communication across all levels of government
and the private sector, and get insights into how individuals
and businesses are picking themselves back up and restoring
their communities.
This was an especially tough spring for my State of
Arkansas, as it has been for many others, and the fight is not
over yet. There are currently in our State two active disasters
with 60 of the State's 75 counties eligible for Federal
assistance. Beginning in April, historic flooding affected over
1,000 homes and completely destroyed 130. Nineteen people were
killed and many are still homeless.
Before my constituents got the chance to assess the full
scope of the damage, a series of devastating tornados tore
through two Arkansas counties, killing eight people, damaging
and destroying nearly 400 homes, and causing an estimated $4
million in damages.
Unfortunately, the situation I have described is not unique
to Arkansas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and
the President have declared 53 major disasters this year, and
each one represents the same emotionally devastating loss of
life and property, expensive damages to small businesses and
critical infrastructure and costly disruptions to an already
fragile State and local economies.
Recovering from a major disaster is expensive. In these
challenging economic times, the impact of repetitive disasters
threatens the fiscal health of State and local governments. We
cannot rely on the Federal Government to fill the gaps left by
insufficient State and Federal funds. We are all facing tight
budgets and difficult spending decisions, and FEMA is not
immune to this reality.
In addition to a tighter budget for its day-to-day
operations, the scope and frequency of major disasters has led
to the projected $3 billion shortfall in FEMA's disaster relief
fund. In light of these economic realities, we must ask
ourselves how we can do more with less and how we can improve
the efficiency of our response and recovery efforts in the wake
of these disasters. Moreover, how can we build back smarter,
stronger, more resistant and resilient to future storms,
tornados, and flooding?
We are all familiar with the facts about mitigation. For
every one dollar invested in mitigation, four dollars is saved.
Mitigation creates safer communities by reducing the loss of
life and property, while also lessening the financial impact on
Federal, State, and local governments. Effective mitigation
projects such as tornado shelters and safe rooms can also
improve evacuations when a community is struck by disaster.
Again, I want to thank all of my colleagues for being here
today and I would like to turn it over to Senator Paul for an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL
Senator Paul. Thank you. Good afternoon. I would like to
thank all of you for coming today and thank Chairman Pryor for
having these hearings. I have great sympathy and condolences
for those from Joplin for the horrible disaster there. Our
State has also been hit by storms, not to such a great extent,
but we have had storms recently and flooding in Kentucky and
have had declaration of a disaster area.
In today's hearings, I think it is important for us to
learn a lesson from these recent storms. One of the lessons, I
think, may be that we get involved in so many routine storms
that maybe we do not have enough money when we have truly
catastrophic storms. I think that may be one of the lessons of
Hurricane Katrina.
Like Senator Pryor, I think there have been increasing
numbers of declarations of disaster, and it is kind of hard to
be against declaring disaster, so we always declare disaster.
And I think not every disaster is created equally.
There are catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina or like what
happened in Joplin, and then there are some other disasters
that people need help with, but the question is, can the
Federal Government keep doing it? Does the Federal Government
have enough money to keep supplying endless amounts of money
through FEMA?
The President has requested large increases in the budget
and the President has requested $46 trillion worth of spending
over the next 10 years. Unfortunately, we do not have $46
trillion. That will add $11 trillion to our debt. So we do have
to make difficult choices, and even in things where people are
in need, we have to decide, can we take care of every natural
occurrence that goes on, or should we be reserving, the Federal
Government's involvement for the catastrophic times when entire
communities are wiped out and need help like Hurricane Katrina
or in Joplin's case.
But I welcome these hearings and I look forward to learning
more from the panel.
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Senator Paul. I was planning on
going to the panelists and letting them give their opening
statements. I would like each one of these witnesses to just
take 5 minutes, or hopefully less, on your opening statement.
Again, I want to thank all of you all for being here. I am
going to do a very brief introduction. We have one panelist,
Mr. O'Brian, who needs to catch a flight before the hearing
ends, so we will try to direct our early questions to you, if
that is possible.
But what I would like to do is go ahead and introduce all
five together, and then we will start with you, Mr. Serino. The
Honorable Richard Serino is Deputy Administrator at FEMA. He
will discuss FEMA's role in assisting State and local
governments in their recovery efforts.
Next is the Honorable Chris Masingill. He is the Federal
Co-Chairman of the Delta Regional Authority (DRA), which
operates in the area that we are going to talk about today.
Next is David Maxwell. He is the Director of the Arkansas
Department of Emergency Management (ADEM). You have been here
many times before. We thank you again for being back.
Next is Mike Womack. He is the Director of the Mississippi
Emergency Management Agency (MSEMA). You have had your hands
full so thank you for being here. Our fifth witness is Mr. Rob
O'Brian. He is the President of the Joplin Area Chamber of
Commerce (JACC). We certainly have been pulling for you and
your community very strongly.
We have a timing system. If you could keep an eye on that,
and if you could keep your opening statements to 5 minutes
each, that would be great. Mr. Serino.
TESTIMONY OF HON. RICHARD SERINO,\1\ DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR,
FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Serino. Thank you, Chairman Pryor, Senator Paul,
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. It is a pleasure to
be here today representing FEMA, and also to discuss our
response and our recovery efforts during the recent severe
storms.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Serino appears in the appendix in
page 39.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I have mentioned, I had the opportunity to be in many of
these disaster areas shortly after they happened, sometimes
within hours. In Georgia, when the tornados went through, the
next day in Mississippi, spent some time with Mike looking at
the areas, back in D.C., then in Alabama for awhile, both in
rural as well as in Tuscaloosa, and then unfortunately, just a
few weeks later, on the ground in Joplin within literally hours
after the tornado went through Joplin. And most recently, about
a couple of weeks ago, up in Minot, North Dakota with the
floods that are happening there.
Through that period of time, one of the things that I have
been able to see is not only FEMA's response, but also really
the whole community response that we have seen throughout the
areas. The work that has been done by the people on the ground,
both Dave and Mike and the people that they work for, as well
as the Governors and the mayors and the first responders, the
police officers, the firefighters, the emergency medical
technicians (EMTs), have saved lives.
And I think that is probably one of the most important
things, is the work that they have done on the ground has saved
lives. And some of the mitigation efforts, especially an
example is in Minot, North Dakota, is the levees and the
temporary levees and the flood fight that they put up with
5,000 structures literally under water and 4,000 homes under
water, no lives were lost. I think that is important to note,
that the work that people did, in this example, no lives were
lost through mitigation efforts.
The whole community, as Administrator Fugate says time and
time again, is not just the government, not just FEMA, not just
the Federal Government, the State government, the local
government, the tribes, but it is also bringing together the
non-profit organizations. It is bringing together the faith-
based community. I will have some examples of that I will touch
on a little bit later.
Also, the great work that the private sector has done
during some of these disasters that have struck. And probably
the most important part of the team is the public and what they
have been able to do. This is not something that FEMA is the
lead on.
Somebody asked me a question, I think in Joplin, How is
FEMA going to be able to respond to all this? And if it was
just FEMA, we would not be able to. It is really about bringing
the whole team together, the folks that I mentioned. There are
examples after examples.
In Joplin, for example, looking at what the faith-based
community was able to do, the Southern Baptists were cooking
food to be distributed in a Red Cross shelter, delivered by Red
Cross people in a Red Cross shelter, as well as Salvation Army
shelters, to help thousands and thousands of people.
Things that, as the government is working together as part
of the team, is very important to bring together all members of
that team. I look forward to answering any questions as we go
forward, and in the interest of time, I will stop there.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. I see that we have been joined by
Senator Boozman. We would like to ask Senator Boozman to come
and have a seat up here if you would like to. Thank you very
much for joining us, Senator Boozman. Mr. Masingill.
TESTIMONY OF HON. CHRISTOPHER MASINGILL,\1\ FEDERAL CO-
CHAIRMAN, DELTA REGIONAL AUTHORITY
Mr. Masingill. Thank you, Senator Pryor. Thank you, Members
of the Subcommittee, my fellow panelists. Senator, again, thank
you for the opportunity to be with you today and share a
different perspective with my role as the Federal Co-Chair of
the Delta Regional Authority, which comprises 8 States, 252
counties and parishes, and approximately 10 million people in
our region.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Masingill appears in the appendix
on page 48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the month of April, the Mississippi River Basin
received 600 percent of its annual rainfall in a 3-week period.
This unprecedented amount of rain would lead to a flood of
historic proportions along the Mississippi River and tested a
levee system that protected millions of families in the Delta
as never before.
In late April and early May, the Governors of the States
along the river declared states of emergency to prepare for the
impending flood and Deltans began making preparations to
protect their lives, homes, and properties as best they could.
Over the next 2 weeks, the Mississippi River rose to levels
unseen since the 1927 flood, and in many locations, surpassing
those levels by several feet. The high water forced the Army
Corps of Engineers to make the difficult decision to breach the
New Madrid levee system at Birds Point, Missouri, and later
opening the Morganza spillway in Louisiana.
Throughout the ordeal, the Corps of Engineers and local
level districts worked tirelessly to inspect, maintain, and
repair any levee issues that arose. Throughout their diligence
and hard work, the levee systems as designed and no failures of
main line levies occurred. Unfortunately, the levies along many
of the tributaries of the Mississippi did not fair as well.
Due to the massive quantities of water flowing down the
main river channel, as well as the significant rainfall across
the region, many of the numerous rivers, lakes, and streams
that feed into the main river channel were unable to drain and
left their banks to overtop or break the levies that were
designed to contain them.
The backwater flooding that resulted was the cause of the
majority of the flood damage to many of the DRA States. While a
number of our member States were struck by devastating tornados
for which the DRA offered its support and assistance, the
majority of the damage in the DRA territory caused by these
storms manifested itself in this flooding that I just
mentioned. So my statements will primarily, Senator, focus on
that event.
Throughout the disaster, DRA attempted to maintain two-way
communications with local, State, and Federal partners to the
fullest extent possible. We saw great work from our Federal
partners and local partners, and in the course of trying to
maintain these communications, did develop and hear and collect
some unique challenges and feedback that I would like to share.
The significant loss in our agriculture production is a
serious challenge facing our region. Agriculture is one of the
leading industries in the Mississippi Delta and as a result of
the flooding of a large percentage of that farmland, producers
and others in an Agriculture-related industry are facing
significant economic burdens.
Additionally, the efficiency of the response, the public
outreach and information sessions that were held across the
region by FEMA and the Small Business Administration (SBA) were
very well attended and received. There were numerous avenues
used to access those who had been flooded to ensure that there
was sign-up for appropriate programs and aware of the
assistance for which they were qualified.
FEMA and SBA representatives are still manning stations at
home, improvement and hardware stores across the region
assisting with disaster filing processes. The Corps of
Engineers also received high praise from numerous entities
across the region.
However, overall local opinion seemed to feel that the
Federal response was well-managed, but there are areas of
concerns and a few things, complaints, that I would like to
stress. One, the first touch on government contracting process.
With so many displaced workers in the region, residents were
displaced and displeased to see contracts being awarded by FEMA
to companies located outside of the disaster-affected State.
While it is understood that the urgency of the response
necessitates FEMA having pre-negotiated contracts, we would
like to see the recovery phase of long events allow for more
local participation, particularly like through our local
planning and development districts.
Second, the DRA has heard suggestions that groups assisting
with recovery might adopt additional processes and plans to set
up response tents by need, not necessarily by agency. When
families in Poplar Bluff or Sikeston or New Madrid had
questions about housing, the answers were often sufficient, but
somewhat incomplete, and that answer might be determined by
which government agency, like the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA), RD, or Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGO's) like the Red Cross, an applicant visited first.
Comprehensive coordination between the government and
relief organizations during a relatively quiet time might allow
each of us to do a better job on this front. DRA would be
willing to help with that.
Third, States have noticed that the rapid pace with which
individual assistance was granted was not matched by the equal,
rapid public assistance response. We all recognize that while
housing needs addressed throughout individual assistance are
important, public assistance programs designed to help
counties, States, and non-profits repair their public
infrastructure are particularly important to the Mississippi
Delta region.
Finally, the DRA heard information concerning the
mitigation activities undertaken by private residents and
businesses. Under FEMA and SBA guidelines, residents and
businesses that were flooded are eligible for assistance either
through grant or loan mitigation funding to prevent damage from
adverse weather events.
States have noticed numerous citizens and businesses spent
their own money to build levies around their property, new
equipment and furniture, relocate livestock, et cetera. Despite
the fact that these precautions prevented more claims for
Federal disaster aid, these mitigation activities are not
eligible for any type of Federal assistance in the form of a
grant or a loan.
Alternating this regulation could have the added benefit of
saving the Federal Government money without burdening property
owners with significant costs for protecting their property.
A couple of quick recommendations. Communications between
agencies, State government, and locals can always be improved
upon during and after our after-action. Instituting a task
force approach to communication between all involved parties
allows everyone to be on the same page, have the same
information, and a clear understanding of the mission at hand.
One particular note. In dealing with long-term recovery,
the DRA strongly emphasizes my Federal partners to look at the
work with small businesses and the business and industries as a
whole for whom a disaster could mean a loss of income, job
reduction, elimination, and even foreclosure.
Although the SBA did a great job publicizing its disaster
loans to the public, we feel that a stronger emphasis on
spreading that information on their Economic Injury Disaster
Loans (EIDL) as a life support for many of our small
businesses.
At that same token, finally, in keeping with the small
business theme, in disaster situation, it is important that we
as government think about how best to coordinate responses and
stronger ways for our businesses and industries to get them up
and running again as quickly as possible.
As a model, I would suggest us all to study the Louisiana
Business Emergency Operations Center (LA BEOC), a joint
partnership between the Louisiana Economic Development, the
Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency
Preparedness, the National Institute Management System and
Advanced Technology Institute, and the Stephenson Disaster
Management Institute.
This program works with businesses to improve their
disaster preparedness, improve communication with business and
industries before, during, and after disaster events; rapidly
develops sound economic impact estimates--which is an issue
that we are dealing with now in this disaster--to support
decisions making a request for business assistance; help
coordinate response effort; help coordinate post-disaster
economic recovery.
During this recent round of spring storms, the Mississippi
Delta small business owners would certainly have, I think,
benefited with a coordinated system of this nature to help them
to get back to where they are.
In conclusion, I applaud my Federal partners for the work
and the local partners for the diligence in dealing with these
storms, and we particularly stand ready to assist them in any
way possible. Again, thank you, Senators and Chairman, for the
opportunity.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Mr. Maxwell.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID MAXWELL,\1\ DIRECTOR, ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Mr. Maxwell. Thank you, Chairman Pryor, and distinguished
Members of the Subcommittee for this opportunity to testify
today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Maxwell appears in the appendix
on page 53.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arkansas has experienced numerous challenges over the past
few years, including 11 Presidentially declared disasters since
2008. We continue to share the vision of Governor Mike Beebe,
which is to coordinate resources, expertise, and leadership for
mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery while
protecting lives, environment, and property of the people of
Arkansas.
Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with several of
my counterparts, with the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium,
and all of those States--Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana,
Illinois, Tennessee, and Alabama--had all experienced disasters
this spring. And we noticed a common thing that I thought was
very important to bring out.
Outside of commodities and a few other items, none of the
States had requested resources from FEMA, and I think that is a
big deal and I think we can attribute that to, one, the
Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) which has helped
that preparedness efforts at local level so that it starts
there at the local level and can continue to be there.
We have several examples of the State--Homeland Security
Grant Program, equipment purchases, that assisted both with
search and rescue, certainly in Arkansas within Interoperable
Communications, none of which would have been available to us
without those grants.
Continuing to utilize the Emergency Management Assistance
Compact (EMAC), has assisted the States to bring in other
States and local entities to assist with our equipment and
other resources, rather than asking FEMA to provide those. So I
think those are three very important programs that are out
there.
Of course, today we are trying to look at mitigation as
much as possible. A few examples from Arkansas. Safe rooms. We
found, in our tornados, that a number of citizens had safe
rooms that we know save lives. Arkansas puts $1.25 million
every year, State money, into offsetting the cost of safe
rooms, $1,000, or half the cost of the safe room, whichever is
least, and within 10 days after the start of the State fiscal
year, we had already expended all of that money. So we know
people are building safe rooms.
The Vilonia School District was awarded a FEMA mitigation
grant for a million dollars to build a safe room for their high
school. Very important. And the other part is West Memphis,
Arkansas, several years ago had bought out 18 repetitive loss
structures. Those are structures that did not flood this year
because they no longer exist. West Memphis is talking to us
about continuing that program and buying out additional
properties.
While I have just another minute, I will say that from our
standpoint, our relationships with FEMA and the other parts of
the Federal family, the Corps, certainly was very seamless in
these disasters. Region VI, FEMA Region VI, had a liaison in
our Emergency Operations Center (EOC) from almost day one, and
we had JFO up and running very quickly, and money out on the
streets very quickly.
In the last disaster, although it took quite awhile to get
the declaration, we got it on a Friday evening and by Monday,
we already had individual assistance money out on the street.
So I think that is important to note.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to take any
questions at the proper time.
Senator Pryor. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF THOMAS M. ``MIKE'' WOMACK,\1\ DIRECTOR,
MISSISSIPPI EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Mr. Womack. Good afternoon, Chairman Pryor, and Senator
Paul, and the distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I have
been a senior employee of the Mississippi Emergency Management
Agency since 2002 and have observed the progression of my
State's ability to respond to large-scale events, as well as
the development of the Federal Government's response
capability.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Womack appears in the appendix on
page 58.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you are aware, the State of Mississippi was greatly
impacted by tornados, severe storms, and flooding that occurred
in April, and Mississippi River flooding that occurred in May.
Mississippi received two Federal disaster declarations and an
emergency declaration for those events. Nearly 11,500
households requested assistance from FEMA. More than 2,750
families received housing assistance grants, and more than 300
homes were deemed destroyed by FEMA Individual Assistance
Inspections.
Individual Assistance grants for both disasters totaled
more than $19 million. I will briefly summarize the response to
these events, and primarily my focus will be on how Mississippi
has and continues to reduce property damage and reduce the risk
to the life of our citizens.
First, I totally agree with Mr. Maxwell that the Homeland
Security Grant Program and the Emergency Management Performance
Grant Program over the past 10 years has made the Nation a much
stronger and safer place. I echo exactly what he said. The
response was handled by State and local, a lot of mutual aid on
the State level, some on the intrastate level, but we have very
capable first responders and they were trained and exercised
and equipped, somewhat, by these Homeland Security and
Emergency Management grant funds.
As we get into a discussion about what the Nation can
afford, I would simply say that in my opinion, the money we
spent over the last 10 years has been effectively used, for the
most part.
The second thing I would like to focus on is the work of
FEMA during the recent response. I thought it was exceptional.
Due to the devastation in the State of Alabama and ongoing
disasters in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, FEMA Region X
from the Pacific Northwest led the group and strong leadership
was provided by Terry Charles, the Federal Coordinating Officer
from Region IV, our region here in the Southeast.
The coordination between key Federal agencies, FEMA, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), National Weather Service
(NWS), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was also
outstanding.
As far as the recovery is concerned, overall it was very
good. I do feel there are some areas that need improvement. The
Individual Assistance Preliminary Damage Assessment process was
swift and efficient and showed great flexibility by the FEMA
staff. The Home Inspection and Individual Assistance grant
disbursement process for the vast majority of the disaster
survivors was excellent as well.
However, an area that can be improved is coordination
between individual assistance, the Hazard Mitigation Grant
Program (HMGP), and the National Flood Insurance Program's
Substantial Estimation Program. I have addressed these concerns
to senior FEMA leadership and they are very receptive to the
concerns that I have, and that other States have, and I will
followup with those with the leadership.
In the last 10 years, Mississippi has received 21 Federal
disaster declarations, including Hurricane Katrina. Thanks to
the leadership of both Governor Barbour and great local elected
officials, we have truly rebuilt devastated areas both better
and safer. We in Mississippi have learned the importance of
using Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds to help prepare our
residents for the potential impact that future storms and
disasters may have on their lives.
After Hurricane Katrina, Governor Barbour established the
following priorities and funding levels for Hazard Mitigation
projects resulting from that disaster. Funding levels
fluctuated as jurisdictions established the critical needs and
submitted applications based on those needs.
Hazard mitigation planning, retrofit of critical
facilities, acquisition of flood-damaged structures, upgrades
of codes and standards, group and individual shelters to
include safe rooms, generators for critical facilities, and
then the coastal wind retrofit for residential structures.
All of these programs have been tremendously effective in
the State of Mississippi. We have examples of how the safe room
program has actually saved lives, not just in this set of
severe storms and tornados, but others. I have specific
examples in my written testimony that speak to this success.
While the use of HMGP funds were a major source of the
State's mitigation efforts, allocation of other Federal grant
funds tied to stronger standards as well has increased adoption
of codes, have also made Mississippi safer and more resilient.
Many jurisdictions have adopted international building code
standards, some because it was tied to Federal funding, some
because they knew it was the right thing to do.
As I have previously stated, Mississippi has seen many
disasters in the last decade, some catastrophic on the local
level and one catastrophic to the State, region, and nation. We
Mississippians are proud to say that we have used our resources
and those provided to us by the Nation to rebuild by using
proven mitigation and stringent code standard measures to build
a much safer and more resilient State. Thank you.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Mr. O'Brian.
TESTIMONY OF BRIAN ``ROB'' O'BRIAN III,\1\ PRESIDENT, JOPLIN
AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, MISSOURI
Mr. O'Brian. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Pryor,
Ranking Member Paul, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you
for the opportunity to be with you this afternoon and to talk
about the May 22 tornado, its impact, and our response,
particularly regarding the business sector.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. O'Brian appears in the appendix
on page 63.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regardless of the level of devastation that you may have
seen on the news, the reality is, frankly, much worse. The
tornado to date has claimed 159 lives. That makes it the worst
tornado, in terms of fatalities, in more than six decades, and
the eighth worse in United States history.
The storm, which had winds close to 300 miles per hour in
some locations, carved a path nearly 8 miles long and averaging
three-quarters of a mile wide through Joplin and the adjoining
village of Duquesne. More than 4,000 housing units were
destroyed or damaged beyond repair; 9,000 people as a
consequence are displaced for the long term.
Also, hundreds of businesses were in its path. More than
450 businesses in the direct path were destroyed or damaged
beyond repair. That is approximately 20 percent of all
businesses in our two communities.
One of the largest employers, St. John's Medical Center,
along with several big box retailers and hundreds of mom and
pop operations were destroyed. Collectively, around 5,000
people worked at those firms. While it is a blow to our
residents, we also know it is important to make sure that our
businesses are back in place and providing jobs as quickly as
possible.
As a bit of background, our Chamber of Commerce is the
leading economic development entity for the Joplin region. As
part of our development efforts, we also operate a Business
Innovation Center in an adjoining building which became an
important asset in our response.
By the end of the day on Monday, following the tornado, we
had arranged for additional volunteer staff to answer the
hundreds of calls and walk-ins that we were getting. That
allowed our employed staff to be in the devastated area
checking on all businesses. Without landmarks or street signs,
our team used GIS maps and often just memory to find business
locations.
Often, at those locations we found the owners or senior
management in the debris. While there, we could help assess
their situation, and as we learned more about these businesses,
we continually updated information to hand back to them to make
sure they were most current on the resources available to them.
In addition to the team on the streets, we also had staff
calling or texting business owners not found onsite. Of the 450
firms, our staff had personally communicated with 420 of them
by the end of the third week. By the end of week four, we had
also talked with our other 800 Chamber members, a total of more
than 1,2000 contacts in that first month.
Also, on the Monday after the tornado, we were contacted by
the SBA Business Recovery Team. We had already arranged for
counselors from the Small Business and Technology Development
Center (SBTDC) at Missouri Southern State University to be at
our Innovation Center to assist businesses, and then we invited
the SBA team to locate there as well.
By Thursday, the Business Recovery Center was in full
operation. We understand the SBA Business Recovery Team does
not often co-locate with Chamber or with SBTDCs. However, this
approach has worked very well for us and for our businesses,
and we highly recommend that others implement this strategy.
We were also contacted immediately by FEMA's Private Sector
Support Group. We understand that this is a relatively new
approach, since it does not have direct funding for businesses.
FEMA, instead, has partnerships with regional and national
firms that provide resources. Through one of those connections,
we are receiving laptops for small businesses and for the
school's technology program, which provides training for
students and company employees.
As their time permitted, members of both the SBA and the
FEMA Private Sector Teams joined our staff members to go to
devastated areas and meet with businesses onsite. They have
also been present at a number of Chamber events to reach out to
companies. Our ability to provide quality assistance to the
business sector is greatly enhanced by having this
collaboration.
As of today, if more than 200 of the 450 businesses are
back in operation, even it is a temporary location. Companies
have gone to extraordinary lengths to retain their employees.
We estimate nearly 3,500 of the 5,000 employees impacted are
still on the payroll.
Joplin will recover, stronger than ever. We appreciate your
interest and look forward to your questions. Thank you.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. And I want to thank all the
panelists for being here and for sharing their great testimony.
I am going to exercise the prerogative of the Chair here and
change our order a little bit. I am going to defer my questions
to the end. What I would like to do is to start with one round
of 5 minutes each. I will turn to Senator Paul first, who is
our Ranking Member, and then go in the order in which Senators
arrived, which is Blunt, Cochran, Boozman, and McCaskill.
Then, we will do a second round, if folks want to stick
around. I want the panel to know that we have four Senators
here today who are not actually Members of this Subcommittee,
and three are not even members of the full Committee, but they
wanted to come and hear your testimony and ask questions. So,
Senator Paul, why don't you lead off?
Senator Paul. Thank you. Mr. Serino, when you give out FEMA
payments, do any payments go to people who have private
insurance to cover their damage, or how does that work?
Mr. Serino. For people--what we do is we actually look and
see what the needs of the individual are, and depending on what
they have, if they have private insurance, we do not cover for
what is covered by private insurance. If there are some other
needs that they may have, some short-term housing needs that
are not covered by insurance, obviously we will take care of
that. But if they have insurance, we do not cover that.
Senator Paul. So if their building is covered, you would
not cover to rebuild their building, basically?
Mr. Serino. Correct.
Senator Paul. And is there a mechanism for checking whether
they get government assistance from another plan, like if you
have flooding and you have agricultural assistance versus FEMA?
Mr. Serino. Right. What we do is we actually aggregate the
information that comes in through our National Processing
Service Centers, when people go through that, and look and see
what other things that they have. But on the flip side of that,
also see what else they may qualify for if they do not have
that, if they do not qualify for any FEMA grants, and to make
sure they are not getting from somewhere else, double-dipping,
if you will, but also to make sure that there are other things
that may be available.
Senator Paul. The GAO reported in 2006 that there was a
billion dollars worth of improper payments. Has that been
addressed? Who were those given to? I remember reading about
prisoners in Baton Rouge getting paid for being displaced to
prison. That was probably one of the most egregious ones I
heard. But what where were most of these payments for and what
has been done to make that better?
Mr. Serino. Over the last 9 or 10 years, what we have done
is put a lot of controls in place after the GAO report and
actually determine our error rate. It was then 10 percent, but
we have been able to do lower it. With a lot of the controls
that we have put in place through our National Processing
Service Centers and working with a number of folks within and
outside of FEMA, we have actually gotten our error rate down to
.3 percent.
Senator Paul. Some people have reported that part of our
problem is that we have a shortage of money, and we have a lot
more FEMA disasters declared than before. I think under Reagan
there were 28. Under the first Bush Administration, 44. It went
up to about 130 under his second term, and now we are up to
140. We are already at 137 this year and we have not hit
hurricane season yet.
I guess some of the concern is that we are declaring
everything a disaster and that some of this should be maybe
taken care of at the State level. We should not turn these
events as catastrophic, but rather save our resources for
things like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and Joplin and
Tuscaloosa. I mean, those were definitely disasters.
But it is hard. It is hard to say no, and so I think
everybody keeps saying yes. Is there any direction toward
trying to control the numbers? Are we going to have 200
disasters? I think the President's plan takes us from $11
billion to $30 billion over the next 10 years. We just do not
have the money to keep doubling and tripling programs. Is there
any kind of plan in place to limit and direct our resources
better?
Mr. Serino. Currently, a number of things that we are doing
are in place. First off, we have had some record-setting
weather in this calendar year. For example, tornados have
reached their highest number and the Mississippi and Missouri
River are at record high flood stages. So, we are seeing a
higher number of disasters because of the shifts in weather
patterns; and also seeing what we have been able to--what we
have seen for disasters over the past--within certainly the
past year.
We have been very busy, but at the same time, we have also
been going back and looking at some of our previous disasters
and seeing how we can reallocate money and de-obligate
ourselves from financing previous disasters. If we are able to
free up some dollars we will be able to meet and take care of
some of the issues now with current disasters.
As we continue to move forward, we certainly do look at
disasters. We actually follow what our regulations state and
what the law states, and in the Stafford what we can and when
we cannot declare certain disasters.
Senator Paul. And I have one final quick question. In
Kentucky, the complaint I have heard is that it seems that the
money has been dispensed. To my understanding, it gets
dispensed and goes to the States, then the States dispense it
again or make further decisions. Some seem to think that the
money is locked up in our State capital somehow. I do not know.
Do you keep tabs on the money once it gets to the States,
or are you then pretty much done with the process?
Mr. Serino. Usually when it goes to the States, the State
is the responsible party, but we also work with the States and
we work with the locals as well to try and ensure that the
money goes through to continue on to where it is distributed.
Senator Paul. Thank you.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Senator Blunt.
Senator Blunt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding
this hearing. Senator McCaskill and I are both here. We have
probably had as many disasters in Missouri this year as in any
year that anybody recalls. We had the spring flood of the
Mississippi that Mr. Masingill mentioned and still there are
challenges because of that. The Black River at Poplar Bluff
flooded.
The Missouri River looks like it will be in flood stage
through the entire State, from the Iowa border to St. Louis for
all of August. And then a number of tornados, including one
that hit the St. Louis Airport and the area around that, and
the tornado that Mr. O'Brian described so well. So, we have had
lots of FEMA experience.
And flooding in Branson, the Taneycomo with the lake there,
created lots of problems. I think that we have tried to deal
with those in the best way I could, but, Rob, I know you have
to leave. Mr. O'Brian, you have to leave at 3:30 or so. I am
going--4pm, good. We have a time for second round of questions
then, and I am glad to have that.
Just to start with Mr. O'Brian, you have been in the middle
of this every day now since late May. Do you have any
recommendations that FEMA and the private sector could do
individually or collectively, how could they improve what we do
to respond to these disasters?
Mr. O'Brian. Well, we have dealt most specifically with the
private sector side of FEMA, as mentioned, working on business
recovery, and FEMA does not have dollars for businesses, but
they do have resources. What I would say, Senator, is while
they have been great partners in this, there is perhaps an
issue of speed in response. I noted one which I think is a very
good example of them working with a national partner.
As we sat down and talked, we talked about laptops for
small businesses. They brought that national partner in early
in the second week and then said, We can expand this to the
schools as well, which is terrific. The issue in that is
probably in those first 2 weeks is when we had a number of
businesses who really needed laptops because their computer
systems were in the wreckage at some point in time.
So here we are coming up on the 2-month mark and these
laptops are just beginning to arrive. So I think some of that
could be addressed, and I know every disaster is different,
every situation is different, but I think on the private sector
side of FEMA, if they could work with those national and
regional partners and define, up front, what the resources are,
or at least basic resources are, and make those available in a
much more rapid fashion, it would benefit the business sector
tremendously.
Senator Blunt. Of the businesses you talked about that are
damaged or out of business that are trying to recover, is there
any private sector--I am not sure what the response is to like
the florist shop that almost exclusively dealt with the
hospital that is now essentially not there. Is there a
disruption of business? Is there really any way that a business
can plan for this kind of thing? Have you got some stories of
businesses that have faced challenges that are different than
you would expect?
Mr. O'Brian. Well, I think there would be certainly all
kinds of stories out there, Senator, in terms of how businesses
have responded. I think a key, just in general that we have
found, many businesses were not adequately prepared for was the
loss of information. We are so computer driven in this age that
unless the records are adequately backed up, preferably
offsite, we had businesses that lost their records.
Then in looking to the SBA for a loan, they had to retrieve
some of those records, and then they found out that their
accountant was done, and oftentimes it was difficult to
retrieve those records. Now, we did have good support from the
Small Business and Technology Development Center counselors and
from the Secretary of State's Office, and others, to help
retrieve those records, but that was probably one of the
unifying things with many of the businesses.
Senator Blunt. And just as an aside to that point, the
hospital, the 2,500-employee hospital that really is, I think,
going to have to be totally rebuilt and maybe we will even
choose to relocate somewhere else in the community, they had
just backed up all of their health records at the end of the
preceding month. So they were 22 days away from having
completed the project so that everybody who had health records
at that hospital still has them, but they were that close to
not having them.
And it is an interesting point, that people lose records,
their accountants lost the records as well. As a matter of
fact, maybe even if you have not lost your business, your
accountant may have lost. So backing up and access. Thank you,
Chairman.
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Senator Blunt. Senator Cochran,
we are thrilled to have you here today. Thank you for being
with us.
Senator Cochran. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for
inviting us to join you and participate in this hearing.
Appreciate the opportunity of working with you in the Senate. I
look forward to joining forces with you in trying to help make
sure we do everything we can here from the Federal level to
help restore these communities that have been so heavily
damaged, and to continue plans for protecting this region that
is so important, economically in terms of people who reside in
the region, from disasters such as we have seen recently.
It is good to see Mike Womack again. Of course, every time
I look up, I know we have had an accident or something bad has
happened. He is there. I do not know what we would do without
him. Hailey Roberts relies on him very closely and calls on him
very regularly for his leadership and management skills. I am
glad you are here to provide some insight.
This recent flooding was something that confirmed the fact
that the Mississippi River is huge and we have invested a lot
of money in protecting the adjoining landowners and people who
live in the region from flooding of the Mississippi River. And
I do not want this to sound like a joke, but it looks like we
may have overdone it in that all the water now in this recent
flood basically stayed in the Mississippi River.
The damages that were caused were backwater flooding, small
streams, tributaries that lead into the Mississippi River, but
the prevention of main stem flooding kept the water within its
banks of this historic, huge, terrible flood.
Do you have any comments to make about that, and whether or
not we ought to go back to the drawing board and see what else
we need to do now?
Mr. Womack. Senator, I do not think the system is broken,
but it certainly needs a few modifications. There are flood
control structures on the Yazoo Basin, but they do not protect
all of the basin. There are no pumps that pump the water out
that collects behind those flood control structures.
And it is not just Mississippi that has this problem. Other
States have it as well. Dave Maxwell and I were talking about
that much of their flooding was where the Mississippi backed up
other rivers. So I think we do need to continue to look at what
we could do to further protect those smaller streams such as
the Yazoo River and the tributaries, because you are right. A
lot of the flooding did not occur on the mainline Mississippi,
but on these smaller rivers that do have some limited flood
control structures, but not enough to fully protect the
citizens.
Senator Cochran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having the
hearing and inviting us to participate.
Senator Pryor. Thank you for your questions and thank you
for being here. Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you all
for being here. As Senator Blunt said, we have had a rough year
in Missouri. I know he and I share the opinion we are both
blessed to be from a State we love, but man oh man, has it been
a rough year.
I am interested to find out from you, Mr. O'Brian, whether
you think that what FEMA provided in terms of really hooking
you up, since there are no direct dollars through FEMA for
businesses, but hooking you up with other resources that FEMA
was aware of. Did it feel more like a scavenger hunt, or was
there a menu of available resources that you could draw upon
immediately in the days after the disaster?
Mr. O'Brian. Senator, thank you, and that, as a follow-on
to my response to Senator Blunt, we believe that there are a
number of resources out there in the FEMA private sector side.
Part of the problem for business and for us as advocates for
business is that we really do not know what those are.
I think the best example of that is, when you think about
our community, when you think about the residents of the
community and the businesses and business owners in the
community, there is a period of time in there when everyone is
essentially in shock.
Senator McCaskill. Right.
Mr. O'Brian. Everyone is working very hard to recover, but
it is so overwhelming and there is so much information overload
that goes on, that when we go to a business--we found very
early on. When we would go to a business and say, What do you
need, they would just----
Senator McCaskill. Shrug.
Mr. O'Brian. Yes, shrug. They did not know. They did not
know exactly what they needed, or they would say, I do not need
anything, go help someone else, which is very typical in our
community.
Senator McCaskill. Right.
Mr. O'Brian. But once you could put something forward and
say, Well, here are some examples of resources we have
available, then that started the thought process for them. And
even if they did not need those resources, at least they were
able to tell us more definitively what it was that they felt
they needed at that point in time.
I think this is some of the issues, again, we have with the
private sector support with FEMA, is that we know that they
have wonderful resources there, and their team keeps asking us,
What do you need, and we are in much the same position. We are
not sure what our businesses need.
Senator McCaskill. So you are saying, What have you got?
Mr. O'Brian. So we say, What do you--yes, what have you
got, what do you have? Let us see a list. Even again if it is
very basic, and I think one of the things that they have tried
to do is be in a position to be creative, again, because every
disaster is different.
Senator McCaskill. Right.
Mr. O'Brian. And be able to bring some different resources
to the table. But I think there is also commonalities, and even
a basic shopping list, if you will, of resources, even if they
do not necessarily, for confidentiality sake, at the first pass
want to divulge who their regional and national partners are,
if they can say, We can get you laptops, we can get you a
structural engineer to come look at your building, we can get
you--and just have a list of examples, that begins a process
then, I think, for us and our businesses to respond.
Senator McCaskill. It is one of those which comes first,
the chicken or the egg, because I am sure from FEMA's
perspective, if you go out and you put on a list, We have free
laptops, a lot of people are going to ask for laptops that may
not need laptops. On the other hand, they want to make sure and
get laptops to businesses that do actually need them.
So I think that there is probably--but I think you are
right, that there is a way that maybe we could work on a list
like, Do you need business equipment, do you need engineering
consulting, do you need somebody--legal help, whatever.
Because I know one of the problems we had is a great
problem to have, but candidly, when I was down there right
afterwards and then when I was down there the next time, there
were so many people wanting to help that, I was offered like 14
bottles of water within 5 minutes of when I arrived in Joplin
because people were just stopping on the streets and wanting to
do something.
And I think a lot of the money and resources that flow in--
and that is one of the questions I have for you. I know that
you have started the Business Recovery Fund and the Joplin
Tomorrow Fund, and we just got a grant that Senator Blunt and I
were able to announce, from Commerce that is going to help fund
a regional and local coordinator for the business recovery
effort.
But I am a little worried about all the money flowing in to
help and is it getting to the right place and is it accessible
by the business community, or are there charities that have
popped up saying, We are taking assistance for Joplin that
maybe is not getting to Joplin? Do you see a problem there that
we need to be aware of that we could help with?
Mr. O'Brian. Well, first, thank you both, Senators, for
your support on those grants. We appreciate that. Senator, I
would say that whether it is Joplin or Cape Girardeau or
Smithville, Mississippi, or any place, there is always concern
about the response, especially with dollars, and are the
dollars going to the right place.
And we know there are some very strong national
organizations that provide immediate response such as Red Cross
that can be very beneficial. What we did in our community, and
actually it was a group that was working with the schools on a
Web site to encourage connection between the faith-based
community, social services, and the business community to
support the schools, was reroute that Web site with dialogue,
and really it was a dialogue amongst these entities, said, For
the long term, there are about six funds that we can all get
behind.
And as people would call, we really tried to direct them to
those six funds. It is on a Web site called rebuildjoplin.org,
along with a whole list of what people need and what people
have to give as a way of coordinating that effort.
But I think it is, to your question, very important,
probably early in the process, to make sure that communities
think about the long term and think about the entities that
they have or that they may need to create, such as these
foundations, in order to bring dollars in and essentially have
them in the bank for the future, because people talk about
returning to the status quo. SBA, FEMA, insurance, my bank will
get me to the status quo. The reality is, there is no longer a
status quo.
Senator McCaskill. Right. Well, I think it is terrific. I
am very proud of the Joplin community because of the way you
did this, and as always, the best solutions are solutions that
are done on a coordinated basis at the local level, rather than
from Washington. Certainly I do not think anybody in Joplin
would argue that FEMA was very, very important to the Joplin
community, and the Federal agencies and the State agencies that
came in to help.
But for the long haul, I am glad the solutions are being
crafted at the local level, and thank you for being here.
Hopefully I will have time for some other questions. I would
love to get into Birds Point.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Let me go ahead and ask just one
question this round and then I will start the second round.
Before I do, I want to say that one of the things that made me
proud of my State was seeing lots of folks from the corridor of
Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville,
Bella Vista, and other parts of the that whole corridor that
went right up Joplin to try to help.
They were probably the folks handing you water because they
just wanted to do something to help a neighbor in need.
Sometimes it was organized by churches, sometimes it was just
spontaneous, just folks going on their own, but they went up
there to help and reciprocate because you have helped us many
times when we have had our troubles. I know that Mr. Maxwell
and Mr. Masingill can testify to that.
Mr. Serino, let me ask you a question, if I can take a
little bit broader view here. I hear stories and read articles
in the paper that the Disaster Relief Fund may be running out
of money. I am curious to know if this is true, what you
anticipate for the rest of this fiscal year, and what we are
going to do in the event that it does run out of money.
Mr. Serino. Sure. Currently, the Disaster Relief Fund
(DRF), we have $1.24 billion in the DRF currently, and we have
been able to actually keep that somewhat stabilized over the
last few weeks, few months actually, through, as I was talking
a little bit earlier, how we are able to go back and look at
de-obligating a number of previous disasters. By doing that, we
have been able to keep it somewhat level.
It is going down a little bit, obviously, with the
disasters that we have been talking about across the country.
Right now we are on pace. We look to when we may or may not get
below a billion dollars, I would say, where we are projecting
is sometime between now and possibly sometime early August, is
where we are going.
Senator Pryor. And so what do you do come early August?
What arrangements do you have to make? Do you have to come back
to the Congress?
Mr. Serino. If necessary, we could, but right now we look
at what we do. We had something in the past called immediate
needs funding, which we did last year, that I am sure both Dave
and Mike are familiar with.
If necessary, we could do that, and that leaves the money
in place for life-safety, life-saving issues, that if something
were to happen, we will have the money to do that, and we will
put actually on hold funding some of the other long-term
projects that may be in place, construction of some public
buildings longer-term, some roads that are longer-term down the
line.
We may actually put a hold on that until a new budget comes
through. So that is sort of--we have done that in the past. We
had to do that last year. If necessary, we may go to that again
this year.
Senator Pryor. We had a situation recently in Arkansas
where we had two counties that we thought should easily have
qualified for disaster assistance, but they were rejected and
we had to go through an appeal process. That appeal process
took a couple of weeks, and I got asked a few times about
whether FEMA's decision making process was impacted by the fear
that they might run out of money with all of these other
disasters. Is that a factor in your consideration?
Mr. Serino. Not at all. That does not enter into it at all
as to how much money is currently in the DRF fund, as to
whether a State or a county gets qualified. That does not enter
into the equation for us at all.
Senator Pryor. OK, great. Now, we will go to our second
round. Senator Blunt.
Senator Blunt. Thanks, Senator. It happens that both Joplin
and St. Louis are both served by for-profit utility companies.
Mr. Womack, I do not know if you were in this position during
Hurricane Katrina or not, but we waived a provision for
Mississippi, at least, in Hurricane Katrina so that any utility
company that had replacement costs because of the disaster
qualified for the same level of FEMA assistance.
And my point on this always is, which as Governor Barbour
well-explained it at the time, everybody who is served by this
particular company pays taxes just like the person pays Federal
taxes that has a municipal utility or an associated electric
co-opportunity utility who automatically qualified for
reimbursement.
But like the city of Joplin, Mr. O'Brian, is all served by
Empire Electric. I do not know if you have had discussions
about this or not. I suspect you have. What do you see as the
long-term impact on utilities in a community that their utility
provider does not automatically--is not allowed, frankly--we
would have to change the law to allow it--is not allowed to
participate in the cost-share for disaster recovery?
Mr. O'Brian. Well, Senator, I think you raise a good point
with that in the Mississippi experience. Our electric utility
is Empire District Electric. It is locally headquartered. It
serves approximately 10,000 square miles in four States, most
of that in southwest Missouri. And certainly, year in and year
out they do anticipate that there will be some level of
damaging storms.
What they do not necessarily anticipate is an Efficient-5
tornado that cuts through 14 miles of their service area,
including some of the most densely populated part of that. And
their estimate in terms of the damage done is, today, somewhere
around $25 million. It could go higher as they continue on
that.
What that means for our community and, frankly, for our
surrounding neighbors who are served by Empire is since they do
not fit into the qualification, Stafford Act, is that
eventually there will have to be a rate increase on that. And
that is the only means that they have to recover those dollars.
And I think the element of that, when we think about the
long term, is that when you have a community like Joplin, or
any other community that is served by investor-owned utilities
that have had catastrophic disasters, you want them to recover.
You want them to recover as quickly as they can.
And if you placed utilities in a position, just because
they are investor-owned utilities, where they eventually have
to raise their rates to recoup that, essentially what you are
doing is making it harder for the residents, and you are making
it harder for the businesses that are still in operation, and
you make it more difficult to attract new business investment
in the community.
And so, instead of incenting recovery, you have disincented
recovery by now allowing them to take part in that funding.
Senator Blunt. Mr. Womack, do you remember this situation
when it came up in Mississippi?
Mr. Womack. I do, but it was not managed through my agency.
It was not Stafford Act funding.
Senator Blunt. Right.
Mr. Womack. As you said, it required a special act to allow
the tax dollars to be able to help the for-profit utilities. So
I do not have the details on it, but I do know that it was in
an effort to try to make sure that the rates for the two big
providers in Mississippi, Entergy and Mississippi Power, and of
course, Entergy was heavily invested in Louisiana as well.
But I do not know the details on it, but I do know that it
hurt.
Senator Blunt. Mr. Maxwell, have you had any experience
with this kind of thing?
Mr. Maxwell. We have not.
Senator Blunt. All right. Mr. Serino, I would just say, I
am going to continue to work on this. And, Chairman, I would
love to talk to you about it. Senator McCaskill and I have been
talking about it. If this community would have happened to have
had a municipal provider, let us say they would pay 10 percent
under the Stafford Act, they would be passing along $2.5
million to the ratepayers instead of $25 million.
Or if they have a 75-25 share, they would be passing along
$6 million to the ratepayers instead of $25 million. Those
ratepayers pay Federal taxes in exactly the same way that the
neighboring community of Carthage, that has a municipal
utility, pays Federal taxes. We have had, frankly, a little
more experience with this, with devastating ice storms.
We would have miles and miles of poles broken off, and the
mileage that is in the electric co-opportunity, Federal
taxpayers come in and say, We are going to help you keep your
future rates low, or if it is a municipal utility, they say, We
are going to help you keep your future rates low.
But if it happens to be in a for-profit we say, You are
going to go to the PSC, or whatever you call the commission in
any State, and you are going to ask them and they are going to
tell you, Yes, we may not give you exactly the timeframe, but I
think inevitably, they let you pass this cost along to the
taxpayer, the ratepayer, who just happens to be served by a
different kind of utility.
I think it is one of the great inequities in the way we
look at this particular problem, and I just hope you will think
about it with me, too. I know it is not something you can do
right now, but I do think it is an area in the Stafford Act
where we really could bring greater equity to people,
neighbors, who suffer the same kind of calamity.
One of them, at the end of the day, winds up, when their
business--maybe in their business or their home--with a much
higher utility rate than the other one did just because of who
provides their utility to them.
It is not that the for-profit absorbs that loss. The for-
profit goes to the public service entity, whatever it is, and
they inevitably say, Sure, you can pass those costs along to,
as Mr. O'Brian pointed out, all of your--everybody who happens
to be served by your utility. In this case Joplin is a big part
of what that utility does as a provider.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Senator Cochran, before you begin
with questions, I want to thank you and Senator Landrieu for
signing onto my FEMA Recoupment Bill. Thank you and it is your
turn if you would like to ask.
Senator Cochran. I have no other questions, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, and I want to second Senator
Blunt's conversation about the utilities. What is particularly
worrisome to me, and I know it is to you, Mr. O'Brian, is that
if Empire goes to the PSC and the PSC says, Yes, you can pass
those along to your ratepayers, what does that do for your
business recovery?
If somebody is making up their mind whether they want to
come to Joplin or stay in Joplin and looking at a huge
investment, if they know at the end of that investment, to
rebuild in Joplin or to come to Joplin, I do not think a lot of
people realize that Joplin is a Mecca for that entire region,
even though the population of Joplin, people who lay their head
down at night, may be around 50,000 people.
There are over 200,000 people that travel to Joplin for
school and for work and for shopping. And what would that do to
that Mecca status if your utility rates were two or three times
higher than surrounding communities, which you could envision
happening with this. So we will continue to work on this and
hopefully make some progress on it.
I want to ask about housing. I know that we have 1,500
people that are still on the list for housing in Joplin, and I
know that you all have done so much in Missouri after the
disasters. Can you update the Subcommittee on the efforts for
the 1,500 that are still on the waiting list for housing, and
what are the hang-ups? Two months is a long time and what do we
need to do to make sure we clear that waiting list?
Mr. Serino. One of the things that we are doing is we are
working as a State-led housing task force, because one thing we
do not want to do is come in and, say, FEMA to tell Joplin,
This is the housing needs that you need. We are working with
the community and with the State to see what their needs are
and then what we can provide.
We do not want to come in and say, You need X, Y, and Z. We
want to make sure that we are meeting their needs. And one of
the first things we do is look for rental assistance, look for
renters, what is available for people to rent throughout the
area.
Unfortunately, as you just said, Joplin is sort of the hub
and there is not a lot of rental assistance or even homes to
buy in the area, even prior to this happening. So I think that
is one of the challenges, and then on top of that, just seeing
what is available throughout the area.
One of the things that we looked at was the expedited
debris removal that we have been doing, and I think that has
helped us. Actually one of the first things we do, aside from
rental housing for the short-term, is also look at trying to
put people on their own property, where they are at, and
looking to do that. Getting the expedited debris removal has
actually helped us to look at that.
Also, working with the leaders in Joplin and in the State
is also looking to see what else they need in the area. We have
had our Federal coordinating officer down in Joplin working
with them to determine what is the best way and working with
the people to look at some of the best options that kind of
suit them, and we have been working through a lot of those now.
Senator McCaskill. Well, what is the prospect for the 1,500
people? I know the rumor was that the Chairman had a lot of
trailers in Arkansas, and Joplin is not that far away.
Mr. Serino. I will get the exact numbers of the housing
units that we actually have in Joplin now. In Mississippi,
there is already--there is 117 temporary housing units there
now. Looking to actually bring some more to the area as
necessary, but we are bringing them in at the request of the
State and the request of the cities.
Senator McCaskill. So should I talk to the State about
this?
Mr. Serino. We have been working together. It is the task
force that has been working together to get through these
solutions that we want to get together. We do not want to come
in and say, We are going to bring in 1,500 trailers when that
is not what they want.
Senator McCaskill. OK. I just want to make sure that we
take care of the 1,500.
Mr. Serino. Right. And we have been working on that.
Mr. Maxwell. Senator, I might add, we have plenty of rental
property down in Benton County.
Senator McCaskill. Now, be careful. We do not want to turn
any of these people into Sooie Pig fans. We want them to stay
up on our side of the line, so we have to be a little careful
about having them come down to Arkansas.
Let me ask you, Mr. Masingill, about the Delta Regional
Authority and Birds Point. We are working hard. The entire
delegation has been really united on all of these issues, and
we are particularly united about getting Birds Point rebuilt.
What are you hearing from where you sit about the
rebuilding of the Birds Point levee, is there anything that you
want to share with the Subcommittee about that situation, what
the Corps is telling you, and how quickly can those farmers
expect to be able to get back in production with the levee that
is replaced?
Mr. Masingill. Senator, thank you for that question. The
estimates continue to change. In fact, I would be leery to tell
you, but I have heard estimates as big as $10 billion for a
total impact as it relates to our flooding, Senator Cochran,
along the Mississippi, to anywhere to the $2.2 billion in your
neck of the woods as it related to the New Madrid.
One thing to keep in perspective is that 44 percent of all
the American water that flows, flows through the Mississippi,
and 31 States are touched by the Mighty Mississippi in the
course of this. And it has a huge economic impact and it is an
economic engine. It is a highway for commerce and business
impact in the country.
In fact, if I may touch a little bit on that business
perspective that we talked about a little bit earlier by Mr.
O'Brian, the key thing for us as an independent Federal agency
that tries to do community and economic development in this
part of the region, this is a real opportunity for us, as
Federal Government and stakeholders at the local and State
levels, to take some lessons learned from what we are seeing in
Joplin and that coordination and that planning.
In the midst of this terrible tragedy, we have a real
opportunity to change the model. Our national framework for
response is effective, and our counterparts are working hard
every day to make sure these programs are in place and that we
are utilizing the programs in a very efficient and effective
manner.
But this is a real opportunity to change the model, because
the one thing, from what we see from our perspective, the one
real gap is that focus on business and industry in a time of a
natural disaster. This co-locating is an awesome idea. These
business recovery teams that are on the ground, there are no
mechanisms in place to really elevate that focus, to really put
an attention on creating mechanisms and resources, not new
money, but existing money to put an emphasis on how do we
respond and how do we deal with it.
One quick example. In small, little, southwest Arkansas,
which is part of our region, the Southwest Arkansas Planning
and Development District, is using current technologies, GIS,
to map every business in a multi-county fashion so we have an
inventory of every business in that part of the State, Senator
Pryor, that we know in the course of a natural disaster we have
that information.
Can you imagine what it would have been like if Joplin had
that inventory where we could coordinate both at the Federal,
local, and State levels so we can make these kind of decisions
to really put an emphasis on sharing this information?
SBA does a good job and our system works well for
individual and public assistance, but the one area that we need
to think about ways, not necessarily new money, but with the
existing structure, particularly with our Small Business
Disaster Loans. Those are good, but what we are doing is that
we are putting an emphasis and we are advocating for certain
programs over another depending on what the situation is or
disaster is.
What the DRA is advocating or trying to get attention to,
additional public awareness, is how do we take something like
the Louisiana Business Emergency Operations Center and expand
it in a way that FEMA can use that same type of structure, same
information to coordinate and integrate with the Small Business
Administration.
Or when a disaster happens in the DRA region, they can come
in and say, Hey, DRA, we know that you have 45 local
development districts or COGs or PDDs or whatever they may be
called, that has the ability to touch 3,000 elected officials,
with a delivery system that has already been proven to make
sure that we are utilizing all the local and State and Federal
resources in a coordinated fashion as it relates to supporting,
rebuilding, and making sure that our businesses and industries
that are impacted.
Individual assistance is effective. It is there. It works
for the most part. So does the public assistance for our local
counties and cities But the one thing that needs additional
attention is the system in place to help address our small
businesses. We have seen that in this disaster as it relates to
the flooding.
Senator Pryor. Let me ask a few questions, if I may. Let me
say that Senator McCaskill is correct in that we did have a few
mobile homes and trailers in Hope, Arkansas. We had about
15,500, according to my staff. So it was not FEMA's finest hour
when they did that.
But nonetheless, I think that FEMA, under Administrator
Fugate, has been doing a good job. What I have seen from my
vantage point here is an agency that has been trying very, very
hard to get it right. I am not saying FEMA gets it right 100
percent of the time, but I think they get it right many more
times than they get it wrong. We appreciate FEMA and the
difficult jobs you have.
Now let me ask a question of the rest of our panel about
the disaster declaration process. I know we had an experience
in Dumas, Arkansas 4 or 5 years ago. David, you would have to
tell me. It had a really bad tornado and I do not think we ever
got FEMA to grant a disaster declaration there. We tried and
tried and tried.
It was frustrating because we could never get a real handle
on the criteria. Who was saying no, their reasons, and why it
was difficult. So I am curious to hear the perspectives of the
other four panelists on the disaster declaration process. Can
we streamline it? Can we make it more transparent or more
navigable in some way? Mr. Masingill, I do not know if you have
a lot of first-hand experience with it. Why don't we start with
you and go on down the line.
Mr. Masingill. OK. Thank you, Senator Pryor. It is
interesting that you actually mentioned the Dumas scenario. At
the time, I was still working for Governor Beebe, but I sat on
the board of the Delta Regional Authority on behalf of him with
the other Governors in the region.
One of the things that we recognized during that process is
that although we never received the declaration for several
reasons, and we tried to mitigate that as much as possible.
David was leading the way doing it and still does that today,
and a great job, I might add. Mr. Maxwell, thank you for your
leadership on that.
But one of the things that we were able to do, because the
response framework that we have did not necessarily have
structures in place or programs in place to be as responsive to
business and industry, we had the one plant that makes pet food
that served almost 200 or 300 employees that was going to
relocate.
But we were able to cobble State resources together and
also DRA resources together to help them in that rebuild above
and beyond what they already had the insurance for. But there
was not a Federal mechanism in our response structure to say,
Hey, look, this is an operation that employs almost 300 people
that we have already made investments in when they were an
economic development project, trying to be recruited many, many
years ago.
So we already have an investment in it. But the system in
place did not allow for it to fit into the current structure.
So you took a round--a square peg in this case, trying to fit
it into a round hole in terms of our current system that is in
place to deal with business and industry.
So from our perspective, luckily we had DRA resources and
we were able to use some State resources with Governor Beebe's
leadership, and we invested back into that industry to keep
that up. And the process currently does not allow for that kind
of flexibility.
Senator Pryor. Mr. Maxwell.
Mr. Maxwell. Yes, sir, thank you. I wish Senator Paul was
here for this discussion, because I think we are going to talk
a little bit about the number of disasters and some of the
implications there. Arkansas really does not ask for disaster
declarations from the President unless we think we have them.
Arkansas has our own individual assistance programs, our own
public assistance programs for those that we feel are under the
threshold or the criteria for Presidential disaster
declarations.
We want to take care of our own people as much as possible.
I was surprised this year when we received the denial on the
one request, and I, frankly, will take some of the blame for
that. I think in our zeal to get the assistance out to the
people quickly, we may have gotten out too quickly to do the
preliminary damage assessment and did not show all of the
damage, did not see all the damage.
There was some communication problem. I should have known
that they did not see all the damage or we would not have asked
at that time. But anyway, we eventually got it and we are very
appreciative of the efforts that you, Senator Boozman, and the
entire Arkansas delegation put in on that.
It is the President's prerogative and I really do not want
to meddle in his business, but any--and we have had, actually,
when Administrator Fugate was State Director, he worked on a
task force from NEMA's standpoint with FEMA looking at
individual assistance criteria, and we thought we had an
agreement just about ready and it fell apart.
But I think that is one of the things. If we had some idea,
especially if we have an idea on public assistance, we had that
same sort of idea on individual assistance, we could manage the
expectations of the citizens a little better.
Senator Pryor. Mr. Womack.
Mr. Womack. As Mr. Maxwell stated, under public assistance,
there is a specific set of numeric indicators. We do not use
the term thresholds because they are not hard and fast. But
generally speaking, if you do not meet the State numeric
indicators, or a local government does not meet those dollar
amounts, then it is very difficult to get a public assistance
declaration.
By the same token, if you just meet those thresholds and
there was not an overall heavy impact to the State, you may
still not get the declaration. But the fact that there is a
monetary amount that is tied to each county and tied to the
State, it gives us a better method of determining whether or
not we have a reasonable chance of getting a declaration.
Under individual assistance, Dave and I have been involved
in this for 5 years or more talking about, Do we want standards
based on the community's population, based on the community's
income? Do we want a specific standard that says, If you have
this level of damage in a county and if a State has this level
of damage, then you should reasonably expect to receive a
declaration.
Or do we really want it where the President has the
flexibility to make the decision based on a number of factors?
And that is currently what the Stafford Act says. It talks in
terms of number of homes destroyed or major damage, but it also
talks about all these other factors.
I would tell you that I would like to see more structure to
it, but I would not like to see the structure be quite as
defined as public assistance, and I hope that helps.
Senator Pryor. Mr. O'Brian, do you want to comment on that?
Mr. O'Brian. I think our only comment would be that we
obviously had a disaster of great magnitude and there was
already an existing disaster declaration in the State of
Missouri for the flooding. So it was the decision to tag us on
to that so assistance could begin immediately, which we greatly
appreciated.
That put us about 2 weeks short of the typical window and
it did take a little time to put those other 2 weeks on there,
but we did receive immediate aid because of that ability to
link us into the existing declaration.
Mr. Maxwell. Senator, could I add to that? In our first
disaster this year, we have ended up with over 10,000
applicants for individual assistance. That process went--on
larger disasters, the process goes very smoothly, very quickly.
FEMA is working outside the box with us a lot on flying over
flooded areas to get estimates of the damage, those kind of
things.
We had people going out in boats to do damage assessments.
We tried a lot of alternatives there and it worked well. But
when we get to the smaller disasters, those that we feel are
above, especially after experiencing a really large disaster, I
think the thresholds or the indicators have to go down some
because the State and local governments have lost a lot of
capability after fighting a really large disaster.
Mr. Womack. And you could literally have one small
community, Smithville is the town that got hit the hardest in
Mississippi. Eight hundred citizens lived in Smithville.
Probably two-thirds, three-fourths of the homes were totally
wiped off their slabs. It would be difficult to tell that one
community, you do not qualify for Federal disaster assistance
because the rest of the State was not hit very hard.
So this is probably the most difficult thing, is what
should be the criteria for individual assistance declarations.
Senator Pryor. That is very helpful. Let me ask one last
question then. If my colleagues have any other questions, we
will take those. I want to talk about the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact (EMAC). I would like to hear from Mr. Womack
and Mr. Maxwell about how that has been working. I am actually
getting ready to introduce the legislation to re-authorize the
program. I am interested in your experiences with it and how
that works. So, Mr. Womack, do you want to go first?
Mr. Womack. Well, as I tried to state in my testimony,
because of a great system of mutual aid, both in the State of
Mississippi and with other States under EMAC, we do not have to
rely on Federal resources. In fact, I had a conversation with
Craig Fugate and he said that if they had to deploy Federal
urban search and rescue teams to maybe Tuscaloosa or to Joplin,
they may not have been available for other types of incidences.
And so, I think it works tremendously effectively. In
Mississippi, our reimbursement to other States for Hurricane
Katrina for EMAC-related costs--police, fire, emergency
medical, commodities, equipment costs--was $80 million, $80
million for EMAC services. And it was tremendously,
tremendously effective.
That is another great success story over the last 10 years
since September 11, 2001, is the fact that we have built great
capability at the State and local level and we can deploy that
throughout the Nation. So it is a tremendous system; it needs
to be continued.
Senator Pryor. Good. Mr. Maxwell.
Mr. Maxwell. We have been more of a supplier of assistance
than a requestor of assistance. We have, I think, back in the
ice storm of 2000, we got some generators from Missouri and
Louisiana. In the ice storm of 2004, I believe, or whenever the
last ice storm was, I have lost track, we got some water
tankers from Louisiana.
But we have sent National Guard soldiers to Mississippi and
Louisiana in Hurricane Katrina. This year we sent a search and
rescue team from northwest Arkansas to Joplin almost
immediately, followed up with the paperwork. So it does get
those needed equipment, needed people out there quickly.
And the important thing with your bill and the steady
stream of funding is that we keep improving it. It gets better
every year.
The current Chair of the NEMA EMAC Subcommittee is from
Kentucky, and is a techno whiz, and he is looking at ways to--
our counterpart in Kentucky--is really looking at ways to
improve how we identify where resources are so if there is a
disaster, you can draw a ring and immediately know what kind of
resources that you need are within that ring so you can get
them closest, quickest, fastest.
Senator Pryor. Great. Now, Senator Blunt, did you have
other questions?
Senator Blunt. I just had two more questions, if you do not
mind.
Senator Pryor. Go ahead.
Senator Blunt. Chairman, thanks again for putting this
hearing together and thanks to the panel for sticking with us
for all the time we had scheduled, and that does not happen
sometimes.
But, Mr. Masingill, I am going to ask you about crop
insurance and other things that relate to how the Agriculture
Committee responds to these disasters. And while you are
thinking about that, Mr. Serino, what about the funding for the
safe rooms? And is that available to public facilities
principally?
Mr. Serino. Yes. It is available to public facilities.
There are actually some good stories. We were funded for--in
Oklahoma we funded safe rooms in a school that cost $144,000.
The Federal share was about $110,000 of that. And with that,
when the tornados came through earlier this spring, that not
only did the school department folks went in there, but
firefighters went in there, public safety. Citizens were able
to go in there. Two hundred people were able to go into that
safe room that directly saved their lives for a cost of about
$144,000. Of the Federal share, we picked up about $110,000 of
that.
Senator Blunt. We are rebuilding lots of public facilities
in Joplin, Missouri, and obviously had people that had nowhere
to go and lots of stories about thinking they were going to a
safe place that turned out not to be a safe place. And how
about the funding for that?
Mr. Serino. Specifically in Joplin, for example, we are
actually working with them through that. There will be safe
rooms, for example, in the schools that meet code, and that is
one thing that is important, that these are going to meet the
code, the regulations that are set forth to make sure that they
are, in fact, safe rooms.
And not only are we going to be doing that in the buildings
permanently, but for the temporaries. Some of the schools were
lost in Joplin and with some of the temporary schools that we
are putting up, we are going to make sure that there are safe
rooms in the temporary schools----
Senator Blunt. Really?
Mr. Serino [continuing]. Even for the short term to make
sure that people will have somewhere to go that is safe in the
short term that they will be safe, but also, I think, it is
going to be important for the community to know that there will
be somewhere safe for the children while they are in schools,
psychologically as well.
Senator Blunt. Mr. Maxwell.
Mr. Maxwell. More than that, more than just that the kids
are safe, those school safe rooms can be equipped with either
an electronic keypad or a keybox that the law enforcement or
fire have access to. They can open it up in the evening times
for the community to then go to.
Senator Blunt. Right. Good point. Mr. Masingill, talk to me
a little bit about the government agriculture programs and how
they have worked during crop loss and other ag disasters that
you have seen this year.
Mr. Masingill. It seems from our perspective, or at least
the information that we get back, is that the key point. More
information the better. I think there was an initial point
where if USDA was going to, in this particular case, the
farmers that were going to be impacted, because the government
decided to make the decision to blow the levee, and I know
there was a great deal of conversations and contention with
that.
I think that the final verdict, which we need to get
confirmation on, is that they are going to be included.
Senator Blunt. It was. The Birds Point verdict, for
instance, since that was technically man-made----
Mr. Masingill. Right.
Senator Blunt [continuing]. And Senator McCaskill and I
both worked with the Secretary and he made that determination,
actually at Birds Point, before they blew the levee, that even
when they blew the levee, that the crop--but what if you did
not? Did enough people have it? I mean, in the Delta, you have
such a low water table that some of the upper plains, for
instance, and other places in our State where you would
normally get crop insurance, you may not have it in the Delta.
Is it too late? What did you see happen there?
Mr. Masingill. Well, you are right on point. In fact, some
of the information that has been given to us is that it is
projected that the crop loss in Missouri alone will be over
$42.6 million. That is after insurance payments from this one
piece of information. The domino effect that it is having, the
Secretary might have made that decision, but from the
information that we got back, it was not until a good
separation of time before people at the local level knew that
was the case. The rumor mill was an issue for us, that we kept
on trying to get information, what was the right information,
how do we disseminate that? And then at this point, too, how do
we repair those crop lands? Because now we are seeing from the
river water the damage that we will have on the crop lands for
a long time. What mechanisms can we put in place to help do
that? So that coordination of information was key, and I think
there are still questions about that information now.
Senator Blunt. Well, there is a lot of discussion right now
about all these ag programs. Do you want to say anything about
direct payments or crop insurance, either one, while you are
talking about it?
Mr. Masingill. I am not sure I am qualified to address
that, Senator, but other than obviously agricultural economy in
the Mississippi Delta Region is important. It is still a major
economic driver for our region. The other thing that we have
not mentioned and that is the impact, again, to our inland
waterway ports.
The Seymour Port and others had significant damage to the
dolphins. Those are investments that we have even made in
previous cycles before. So now we have to take a look, it is
like, Well, what do we do now? That waterway channel is a major
economic driver and that infrastructure investment and
protection of that is just as important.
Senator Pryor. Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. I just want to thank everyone for being
here and thank you for all your hard work. They always say,
there is a little tiny silver lining in every cloud, and if you
were on the ground in Joplin in the days and weeks following
that disaster, you saw the silver lining. It was glowing and
that was the sense of community and the way everyone was
working together, including the Federal agencies and all the
municipalities that showed up.
So thank you all for being here and thanks for all of your
work. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding the Subcommittee
hearing.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. I want to thank both of our
Senators from Missouri for being here, and all of our Senators
who participated today. I especially want to thank the panel.
We are going to leave the record open for 15 days, until August
3, it is likely that some Senators will submit either followup
questions. I know Senator Landrieu was trying to come, but she
had a couple conflicts she could not get out of she may have
questions for the panel.
We will leave the record open and all of you will probably
get some additional questions. Thank you all for being here.
This has really been an informative and helpful hearing. With
that, we will adjourn it. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 4:09 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
