Briefing by Ky Luu, Director, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development and Michele Bond, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Overseas Citizen Services on U.S. Assistance to Earthquake and Hurricane Victims In the Western Hemisphere Region

MR. GALLEGOS: Good afternoon. I want to thank you all for coming. Today we have Mr. Ky Luu, the Director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and we have the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Overseas Citizen Services Michele Bond, and they're going to discuss humanitarian response to earthquake and hurricane victims in the Western Hemisphere.

Mr. Luu, would you like to start?

MR. LUU: Thank you. Let me start off by -- last year USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance responded to over 74 disasters affecting more than 173 million people in 55 countries, and this year we're on track for a comparable response.

Within the past seven days, we've had two such disasters occurring in our own hemisphere. Last Wednesday we had the earthquake in Peru and we're still closely monitoring Hurricane Dean, which continues to be of concern.

To the thousands of people affected by these disasters and to the government of these countries, we extend our deepest sympathies. The United States stands ready to assist and is willing to provide humanitarian aid based on the needs identified by emergency responders.

In particular, our hearts go out to the people and the Government of Peru. Likewise, we are thinking closely of the populations of the numerous Caribbean islands which stood in the path of Dean.

We are also closely monitoring the impact of hurricane in Mexico, which stands to receive a double punch from Dean, and in Belize, which was also hit by hurricane force winds. The U.S. Government is prepared to respond should assistance be requested.

Before providing specific details with regard to our response to date, in both Peru and with regard to Hurricane Dean, I thought I might take a few moments just to give some background in terms of how we respond to international disaster assistance.

First and foremost, U.S. humanitarian assistance is provided to support the relief efforts of national governments. One of our requirements is that the impacted governments must accept the offer of assistance by the U.S. Government. The trigger which opens the door to U.S. humanitarian assistance is an official declaration of a disaster by the U.S. Ambassador or someone with chief-of-mission authority within that impacted country.

I would like to stress all U.S. humanitarian assistance is needs-based; that is, our emergency aid is provided in response to specific assessments of the impact of a disaster and the identified needs.

With regard to the Peru -- earthquake in Peru, as of August 21, the official death toll from the Government of Peru is 503 people, with 1,042 people injured. More than 40,000 families have been affected, primarily in the Ica region. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there was more than 300 aftershocks, and some of them with a magnitude as high as 6.0.

The Government of Peru has done a tremendous job in responding to the immediate needs of the communities affected by the earthquake. Senior Government of Peru officials, in particular President Alan Garcia and his ministers, are working in the affected region with municipal mayors and regional presidents seeking to address the problems.

On August 16th, U.S. Ambassador Michael McKinley issued a disaster declaration and requested U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance for Peru. Within 16 hours, the U.S. Embassy in Lima deployed to the most affected areas, which included representatives from the Department of State, USAID Peru, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the Department of Defense's Military Assistance Advisory Group.

Immediately upon declaration of the disaster, we provided $100,000 for local purchase of emergency relief supplies. As our field office reported in based upon their assessments, we increased this support by providing an additional $200,000 and sending in relief commodities valued at 290,000.

Again, based upon reports from the field and assessments that are ongoing, I am announcing today that we will provide an additional $500,000 to be programmed through humanitarian assistance organizations that are working in the affected areas. In addition to the funds, we will also be sending an additional 15,000 blankets that will arrive within the next 24 hours. In total, more than 50 USG personnel have been in the affected areas, conducting assessments and coordinating very closely with the Government of Peru.

Some of the reporting you've seen, I'll just comment on quickly. An estimated 40 percent of Ica's downtown area was damaged or destroyed, particularly affecting poor neighborhoods and adobe houses. Ica now has water and electricity services. However, communications are still down as of yesterday. According to the USAID team in Ica and Pisco are receiving more relief supplies, (inaudible) other affected areas such as Chincha. And therefore we are focusing our assessment efforts within these areas, in the outlying areas, and we anticipate receiving their findings. And based upon these findings, we may or may not be providing additional assistance.

DOD, through Southern Command, SOUTHCOM, is also responding to this emergency. On August 17th, a 30-member Field Surgical Team, from Joint Task Force Bravo in Honduras, arrived in Peru and are carrying out life-savings services. To date, the total USG assistance from USAID and DOD is close to $1.5 million and we may expect this number to increase as assessments are forthcoming.

QUESTION: That's including commodities?

MR. LUU: That's including commodities, yes. Our six-person assessment team will remain on the ground in Peru to coordinate with the USAID mission, with the U.S. Embassy and with the Government of Peru until the needs of the affected populations, the most urgent needs, are met.

Turning attention to Hurricane Dean -- and I'll actually focus first on Jamaica -- according to our assessment team in Jamaica, the damage to Kingston was less than had been feared. However, we expect that damage in the southern areas to be more impacted and we expect these assessments to be forthcoming. I would like to note that we had pre-deployed a six-team member team into Jamaica prior to Hurricane Dean coming through.

Again, I'll just touch on -- in terms of the most recent updates that we received from the field team. They indicate that eastern and southern regions sustained infrastructure damage, while western and northern areas had widespread but less severe damage. Two deaths have been confirmed, 46 roads were affected and six schools sustained damage. On August 20th, U.S. Ambassador in Jamaica, Brenda LaGrange Johnson, requested USG foreign disaster assistance by issuing a disaster declaration. In response, we provided $100,000 immediately for the purchase and transport of emergency relief items.

Also, in advance of Hurricane Dean, we provided $25,000 to the Jamaica Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management to procure relief items. Based upon the most recent damage assessments, I'm announcing today the immediate provision of an additional $150,000. This new funding will support the emergency health work of the Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO, and be used for cure and transport emergency relief commodities, including plastic sheeting, hygiene kits, water systems, and kitchen kits.

Assessments continue to take place in Jamaica and throughout Jamaica. I'd like to note that the close coordination between our assessment team and the government authorities -- yesterday, there were aerial assessments that took place. These took place with the government authorities as well as USAID disaster managers who were in two helicopters, as well as ground assessments. And again, as reports come in on a daily basis, we will review and assess and get back to you in terms of any additional requests made in consultations with the government.

With regard to Mexico and Belize, I know that there are a lot of questions about the situation in Mexico. We had deployed a three-person disaster management team into the Yucatan prior to Hurricane Dean coming through. We had also sent in a three-person team into Mexico City who are working very closely with the USAID mission, with the Embassy, and with the Government of Mexico's emergency operations center.

With regard to Belize, again, we have sent in a disaster manager who was able to get in prior to Hurricane Dean. She actually is working very closely with the emergency operations center and actually spent the night there because she could not get a hotel room. Again, it's too early to report with regard to the full breadth and scope of damage done to both Mexico and Belize. As assessments come in, we will report out to you and based upon the requests made by the Government of Mexico, we stand prepared to provide additional -- I mean, to provide assistance.

Before stopping in terms of our response, I would like to note that with regard to USAID and our assistance within the region, we do more than just respond to disasters. I would like to note that we have ongoing disaster prepares and mitigation programs throughout the region. One of our main programs that I would like to highlight is the RDAP program, which is the Regional Disaster Assistance Program. Since 1998, USAID has provided more than $30 million to create and maintain a network of disaster assistance experts throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. RDAP also trains regional disaster response staff on emergency response techniques, concepts, methodology and technical disciplines, such as assessing water and sanitation conditions and shelter needs. Since its inception, we have trained nearly 43,000 participants and certified more than 4,200 instructors in 26 countries.

Many of these trained individuals have assumed leadership roles in national disaster management organizations and are presently conducting training in their own countries using their own resources. It is partially through programs like RDAP that the governments of Jamaica, Mexico and Peru have been able to prepare and respond as effectively to the current crisis. I will conclude my remarks there.

Thank you.

MS. BOND: Good afternoon. I will give you some background -- some briefing on the actions that we have taken to assist private Americans who are in the affected areas of the earthquake and the path of the hurricane. To address first the earthquake in Peru last week, within a few minutes of the earthquake hitting in Peru, there were consular officers who came into the Embassy in Lima and called in to provide an alert of the earthquake and a report on conditions as they could assess them then. The Embassy stood up a task force to reach out to all registered Americans in the affected area. That also included short-term travelers who had registered their travel plans with the State Department's travel registration program.

On August 16th, as has been mentioned on the day after the earthquake, while there was still strong aftershocks throughout that region, a consular team joined the Embassy group which traveled to Pisco to locate Americans and to provide assistance. The consular team returned to the area on August 17th and remained there until August 20. They visited hospitals and aid distribution centers and they've talked to people that they could find in the streets. They queried the staff of hotels to determine the whereabouts of missing Americans who might need our assistance.

In the event, we were fortunate; there were no Americans seriously injured or killed in this earthquake. The team did help Americans to evacuate the affected area to find urgently needed medicine or to get in touch with their families in the United States. Working with Washington and Embassy colleagues, we have succeeded in accounting for hundreds of Americans who were reported to be in Peru by their loved ones. And the Embassy continues to work to identify and assist Americans in the affected area.

In all today, there have been 288 reports received concerning Americans believed to be in the area, 259 of those have been accounted for. And of the 29 individuals we have not yet located, four are reportedly in the affected area. The others are just believed by their families to be somewhere in Peru. To follow up on one report, the Embassy did work with an American family to determine whether an unidentified body might be that of an American who had been reported missing, even while the family was gathering records that would aid in identification, consular officers continued to track down leads, talking to hotel clerks, taxi drivers. And eventually we located the missing American in an isolated village some hours from the earthquake area. We put him in touch with his family and we were able to confirm that he was fine.

With respect to the efforts that have gone into assisting Americans in the Hurricane Dean area --

QUESTION: Before you go on to that, there is some confusion, at least in my head, because originally there was a report of one American that was killed in the --

MS. BOND: That's right. This is the American in --

QUESTION: Yeah.

MS. BOND: Right. That was wrong. That was premature. The body that had been found was originally thought by the local folks there to be an American. And that is still an unidentified body, but we no longer have reason to believe that it's an American. There are no Americans missing or reported missing who correspond to that body.

Okay. With respect to the hurricane, I want to note that we have information on our website -- it's called Hurricane -- the Know Before You Go -- the Hurricane Season. We've put those out for you all. And that provides very useful information for people who are planning to travel into a hurricane area whether or not there's a hurricane predicted for the time they're going to be there. It gives some extremely good tips of actions they should take so that they'll be well-prepared in case they find themselves dealing with a hurricane.

When it became apparent that Hurricane Dean would become a powerful storm targeting the Eastern Caribbean, we issued a Public Announcement which posts in the affected region could disseminate as a Warden Message to registered Americans. And again, that would include Americans who are temporarily traveling in the area and have registered on our website.

We have since issued a Travel Warning for Jamaica and Public Announcements for both Mexico and Belize. We have been -- we began early working with the embassies in the affected region to review their hurricane contingency plans and to identify actions that needed to be taken in advance of the storm. Embassies have disseminated warnings and information through their wardens and their networks of contacts in each country. This includes reaching out to hotels, resorts, hospitals, airlines and other organizations to find out how many Americans they have in their location, what their evacuation or contingency plans are, and to help us disseminate guidance.

We also identified in advance of the storm where we would need people on the ground to assist before and after the hurricane passed that particular area. Embassy Kingston sent consular officers to Montego Bay and to the Cayman Islands, and they are now assisting now that the storm has passed by, assisting Americans there who are interested in leaving.

Mexico has sent teams to Cozumel, Cancun and Playa del Carmen to -- again, to locate Americans, identify their needs and provide assistance, as appropriate.

Here in the United States, we stood up a task force in the Department and extended the hours of our call center in order to field inquiries from American citizens concerned about loved ones traveling in that area or living there. That task force can be reached at 888-407-4747. That's our standard call center number.

That's all I've got. Happy to take any questions. Yes.

QUESTION: I have a question for you and also a question for the gentleman from USAID. So as of the way things stand now in terms of Mexico, are you -- is it accurate to say that you're still in the process of trying to reach Americans now that the storm seems to have been passed?

MS. BOND: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: And you don't -- you don't know that everyone's been accounted for? You're still --

MS. BOND: Well, that's certainly true. But there was a lot of information that was, you know, put out in advance and --

QUESTION: So you feel that you kind of got a good leg up before the storm came, sort of?

MS. BOND: In cooperation with the Mexican authorities, who also were very well organized and well prepared.

QUESTION: Okay. I just have a question of what you were saying about some of the conditions for U.S. aid to -- from USAID to go to a place. I understand what you're saying, that it needs to be designated a disaster or a specific event, but what -- could you explain more about what you were saying about the government having to accept --

MR. LUU: There are really -- before a disaster declaration is issued, okay, it does have to satisfy three criterias internally that we put into place.

Number one, that the event or the crisis is of such a magnitude that the host country does not have the capacity to fully respond. Number two, that that impacted government is accepting of our offer of assistance. And number three, that it's within the interests of the U.S. Government to respond. That third component is always satisfied, is always within our U.S. interest to be able to provide humanitarian assistance.

QUESTION: On the issue of -- that the government has to accept the offer of assistance, I mean, are you working with the -- I mean, I know you have your assessment teams on the ground, but is your assessment team working with the government to -- for them to decide where their priority needs are? Because I remember during Hurricane Katrina, there were lots of offers of assistance from around the world and in some cases, the U.S. Government said, "Well, that's very kind of you, but what we really need is this." So are you conditioning aid to these countries based on what you think they need now?

MR. LUU: No, no, no, we -- that's why we provide assistance based upon the recommendation of the impacted government.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. LUU: If they assess a situation and say that they need water bladders and they don't have water bladders in country, we remove them from our warehouse in Miami. So it's not -- the condition is that they make -- they provide us with what their needs are and we also assist --

QUESTION: But you don't impose -- you're not imposing it now, is what you're saying?

MR. LUU: No, no, no, no. We want to target -- so, you know, sometimes, it's cash assistance for a local purchase that may go through the local Red Cross, it may go through a nongovernmental organization. Sometimes, it's quicker for us to be able to bring in commodities from our warehouse than to go through the procurement process because it's not found locally. So it's an ongoing discussion that we have, but it's not conditional as if we will provide X, take it or leave it; that's not how we work.

QUESTION: Thanks.

MR. LUU: Yes.

QUESTION: Yeah, with respect to the hurricane season in Mexico, there's always been talk that we would not allow Mexican trucking in Texas, for instance, and the area, unfortunately, around Cancun where this hit is a tourist mecca. Now are we, in a sense, getting the infrastructure and the helicopters, things that the Mexican Government ordinarily would not have available and of course, Mexico is a lot more prosperous than Belize -- are we bringing in the helicopter support and other type areas? For instance, our U.S. Coast Guard actively worked correctly during Katrina. In other words, are we lending a whole division of those helicopters and personnel to both the Mexican Government and the Government of Belize?

MR. LUU: Again, I can speak with regard to USAID's office here and again, as I said, our assistance is based upon the consultation with the government and on their acceptance and request of assistance. With regard to aerial assets, that sort of thing, we do have a representative that is now at NORTHCOM and I know that there are discussions that are taking place again on how to lead that for them to be able to discuss whether there were requests made. Again, that is something that we coordinate, but that's not something that we take the lead in.

QUESTION: I also have a question concerning the earthquake in Peru. A very famed group which is local to here, that's the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Assistance Teams, they are going to Peru, but the government there has not requested that they actually bring a lot of people -- they think that their personnel people are adequate -- but to lend the communications gear and other immediate assistance. So does that qualify? In other words, you can have too much equipment or too much infrastructure that you bring in at one location; whereas, in rural areas, areas where assistance could be needed and should be needed, how thoroughly, for instance, are you willing to work with both situations? Is it for days, weeks, months?

MR. LUU: I'm glad you raised Fairfax County because we do have -- our search -- urban search-and-rescue capacity, our standby capacity, we have standing agreements with Fairfax County and with LA County. And actually, on Saturday I went out to Fairfax to watch three of their team members deploy.

And with regard to the request made, I mean, again, it's the credit of the Government of Peru. They have strong capacity. They were able to get their teams in place. They were able to remove debris from some of the main roads in order to allow relief supplies to get to the affected areas quickly. I believe the last I heard was initially when this unfolded it took about eight hours to get -- to drive from Lima down to the affected areas. It's been down -- reduced down to five or four hours now.

We had asked when -- immediately after the earthquake hit, we stood up and put Fairfax County on notice, depending on the damage, depending on the request of the Government of Peru. They were ready to deploy. Because that request was not forthcoming, what we did was that we knew that there was a UN -- an UNDACT team, which is the UN Disaster Assistance and Coordination Team that was ongoing that was deploying. And what we've had with our office is we've been supporting the UNDACT team by developing these modules that will support them at the field level. They supply communications. They supply generators. They supply food. It's to allow them to work in the field in that type of setting.

And the three team members that deployed from Fairfax County were the ones that were bringing the module to support the UNDACT team. So if you look at it in terms of our assistance right now in Peru, we have our own USAID team on the ground, supporting the government, assessing the situation. But we also, through Fairfax County, are supporting the UN team in terms of coordinating their efforts. So I think that, you know, as things -- as information comes in, we're fairly confident that we are targeting our assistance in the most appropriate and effective manner.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) on Peru on the amount of help in many -- how much -- because you said 1.5 million, but how much of that is money and how much is goods and other things?

MR. LUU: For USAID, we have put in, to date now, $800,000 in cash assistance, 290,000 in terms of commodities and transport, okay. With regard to the DOD, the field hospital, with regard to the numbers of the support, I'd really have to defer to them in terms of calculating what that assistance is valued at. But as far as cash assistance, to date, it's 800,000.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) news that the U.S. Navy Comfort would go back to Peru to provide medical assistance. Do you have any update on that?

MR. LUU: I don't have an update on that.

QUESTION: Can you talk in like the general sense about Americans traveling to Hurricane areas that are likely to be affected by the hurricane season. I mean, I know you can't stop all Americans from traveling and kind of just to refer to your Know Before You Go, I mean, what is -- obviously, the State Department is required to help Americans and that's part of their mandate abroad to help Americans in times of stress. But would you advise against traveling to hurricane, you know, areas that are -- that the weather service says are likely to be affected by the hurricane? I mean, right before -- I mean, some Americans live there, but a lot of them are taking trips at a time where it does put a strain on the U.S. Government that you might not be able to help all Americans in these areas if more and more Americans are traveling there.

MS. BOND: Well, the concern would not be that it puts a strain on us, but that it puts them in danger --

QUESTION: Not that it's a strain, but that you may not have the resources that are needed to help them.

MS. BOND: What we strongly recommend is that Americans pay attention to the information that is available to them so that they can make smart decisions about what they're going to do. We do put a lot of information out on our website. The checklist that we provide makes a lot of sense. If people do -- if they register so that we know where they are and we know how to reach them and send them instructions or information or guidance, that makes a big difference in terms of their being able to make smart decisions if they find themselves in the middle of a big storm.

It's interesting to see that the two disasters that we're looking at this afternoon are different in one critical respect, and that is that the earthquake struck without warning, whereas for many of the people affected by the storm, they did have some time to know that it was coming, and to make some decisions about whether to try to depart or to shelter in place, and, if so, where to go. But our checklist gives people some smart ideas about the planning they could do; what they would have with them if they find themselves sheltering in place.

But the thing about hurricanes is that you can't predict when one is going to come. And even when it's underway, like Hurricane Dean, it doesn't necessarily follow the path that the various smart folks at the Hurricane Center are tracking and predicting that it might. So people who believe themselves to be safe may suddenly find that the storm is veered in their direction, and vice versa.

QUESTION: Do you find in this particular case with the Hurricane Dean that a lot of Americans in tourist areas left before because you had so many resources in place before?

MS. BOND: Yeah, a lot of them were able to leave in quite a number of the areas because we had some advanced warning airlines who were able to lay on some extra flights and take people out ahead of what would have been their departure time. And we had, you know, very close cooperation at each of our posts working with the local officials to get good information and to pass that out to the Americans via hotels or via whatever means we had.

So in many ways, I would say that our work on this particular emergency has gone extremely well. We're very happy with the -- our ability to be able to communicate with people, give them good advice, and also because of the good job that our posts were doing, and especially having people pre-positioned in places that we thought were going to get hit hard. We had very good information. For example, we had somebody out in the Cayman Islands who was able to let us know when the airport closed and what the conditions were and how many Americans appeared to be there and exactly where they were. That's information that you can also hope to get from local authorities, but they have their hands full, dealing with the event. And so it was very helpful that in -- that our posts were able to send people out in advance of the storm. We also sent TDY officers to places like Kingston to help beef up their staff and their ability to respond to inquiries.

QUESTION: So, to recap the information you've given, no Americans were killed and there hasn't been a report of any Americans with injuries, in either of these?

MS. BOND: That's correct, to date.

QUESTION: And one larger question about financing that's available for such disasters: Is there a number for the U.S. Government of money you got in an account that is available for such things? Money always materializes at times like these and I never quite understand where it comes from.

MS. BOND: You mean money to help get Americans out of harm's way?

QUESTION: No, money to aid victims of natural disasters.

MR. LUU: We do have an account, an IDFA account. It's the International Disaster Foreign Assistance account. It is contingency-based. We do have a core appeal that is appropriated each year. However, given an event that is -- of a scope and magnitude that is beyond what's available, we have been able to go to Congress and appropriate additional supplemental funds; as well as within the USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, we have a borrowing authority, which allows us to be able to seek some additional resources from our colleagues within the federal government.

QUESTION: What is the amount of the core account?

MR. LUU: The core account for '07, I believe, was $233 million, but we do have supplementals that are included each year. On average, for the last, I believe, five years, we have been spending upwards of $500 million each year on disaster response.

QUESTION: Just on the supplementals?

MR. LUU: No, no, it's -- the core account is about 233 and, depending upon what we see, whether it's a Pakistan earthquake, whether it's a tsunami, you know, it averages out to about 500 million total, so -- depending on how you do the math.

MR. GALLEGOS: One last question, Joel.

QUESTION: Yes. With respect to both the hurricane as well as the earthquake, both of these two natural disasters were local to where shipping can come in, whether it be commercial transport, U.S. Navy, or other style groups. What is the sea lift capacity to bring assistance in?

MR. LUU: I don't have an answer to that one, sorry.

MR. GALLEGOS: Thanks, guys.

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