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[109 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:26747.wais]
S. Hrg. 109-711
HURRICANE KATRINA: MISSISSIPPI'S RECOVERY
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
FIELD HEARING IN GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI
__________
JANUARY 17, 2006
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
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26-747 PDF WASHINGTON : 2006
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
David T. Flanagan, General Counsel
James R. McKay, Counsel
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
Robert F. Muse, Minority General Counsel
Michael L. Alexander, Minority Professional Staff Member
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Collins.............................................. 1
Senator Lieberman............................................ 3
Senator Coleman.............................................. 12
Senator Dayton............................................... 14
Senator Coburn............................................... 16
Senator Pryor................................................ 18
WITNESSES
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Hon. Donald E. Powell, Coordinator of Recovery and Rebuilding in
the Gulf Coast Region, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.... 5
Hon. Mary L. Landrieu, a U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana 19
Hon. Gene Taylor, Representative from the State of Mississippi,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 22
Hon. Brent Warr, Mayor, Gulfport, Mississippi.................... 25
Hon. Edward A. Favre, Mayor, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.......... 28
Dr. Gavin Smith, Director, Governor's Office of Recovery and
Renewal, State of Mississippi.................................. 31
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Favre, Hon. Edward A.:
Testimony.................................................... 28
Prepared statement........................................... 59
Landrieu, Hon. Mary L.:
Testimony.................................................... 19
Powell, Hon. Donald E.:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 49
Smith, Dr. Gavin:
Testimony.................................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 63
Taylor, Hon. Gene:
Testimony.................................................... 22
Warr, Hon. Brent:
Testimony.................................................... 25
Prepared statement........................................... 53
HURRICANE KATRINA: MISSISSIPPI'S RECOVERY
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., at the
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Jefferson Davis
Campus, 2226 Switzer Road, Gulfport, Mississippi, Susan M.
Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Collins, Coleman, Coburn, Lieberman,
Dayton, and Pryor.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS
Senator Collins. The Committee will come to order. Good
morning. Today the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs continues its investigation into the
preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina. The focus of
our 10th hearing is on the status of recovery and rebuilding
efforts in the State of Mississippi.
I want to thank Mississippi's two senators, the
Congressional delegation and Governor and Mrs. Barbour for
their advocacy. I particularly want to thank the First Lady for
taking us on a helicopter tour today. It was very helpful to
hear her firsthand commentary as we viewed the devastation from
the air.
I also want to very much thank my Senate colleagues for
joining us here today. We have six Committee Members who are
here, three Democrats and three Republicans showing this
bipartisan concern. I want you to know that it's very unusual
when a field hearing is held to have more than one senator
present, sometimes two, never six. And I think that is a
comment about our Committee's dedication to the task before us.
I'm also extremely pleased to have with us today Senator
Mary Landrieu from the neighboring State or Commonwealth of
Louisiana. Senator Landrieu has been an advocate for the entire
Gulf region, and I'm very pleased that she could join us in
Mississippi today.
Two weeks after Katrina struck some 4 months ago, Senator
Lieberman and I, as well as Senator Landrieu, were among a
group of Senators who toured this devastated region. We stopped
in the town of Pass Christian, and I'll never forget what I saw
that day. The destruction was unimaginable. The suffering and
the deprivation were heartbreaking. But the courage and the
determination of the people that we met, as Governor Barbour
puts it, ``to build back better than ever,'' were then and
continue to be inspiring.
At the time of our tour 4 months ago, I said that our first
priority and our highest obligation were to help the Gulf Coast
recover from this unprecedented natural disaster. The
cooperation and the candor of those we met with back in
September, and of those who have welcomed us here today, have
greatly aided our understanding of what needs to be done. We,
in Congress, need to hear firsthand the experiences, the good,
the bad, and the ugly, of those seeking Federal assistance to
rebuild their communities.
Today when we toured the region again, the hard truth
remains that the devastation is still beyond comprehension. We
saw row after row of bare concrete slabs where neighborhoods
once stood. We saw wreckage washed up far inland. We saw
bridges, the Bay Bridge in particular, that once connected your
communities that remain still washed away. We looked at the
mountains of debris, and we heard that about two-thirds have
been cleaned up. But there still is so much work to be done.
And when I look at those mountains of debris, I realize that
each contains all that is left of someone's beautiful home or
thriving business.
I know that many people in Mississippi have seen that
America's attention has often been focused on Louisiana, and
that's understandable perhaps in light of the grievous damage
that its residents have suffered, and indeed our Committee will
be going to New Orleans this afternoon for a firsthand
assessment.
But I want to assure you that the losses in Louisiana in no
way diminish the magnitude of the tragedy that you've endured
or the difficulties, frustrations, and uncertainties that
continue to plague your lives. I know that one newspaper
expressed the fear that Mississippi would become the
``Invisible Coast,'' and I want to tell you of our personal
commitment to make sure that all the residents of the Gulf
Coast receive the attention, the support, and the assistance
that they need in rebuilding their lives.
Our Committee hopes, through a series of recommendations,
to improve our Nation's preparedness and response. We have
already tried to be of assistance by sponsoring emergency
legislation to increase the Federal reimbursement for the cost
of the removal of the unfathomable amount of debris that still
chokes too many streets and landscapes. But we appreciate that
the Federal role is far greater than that and that it is a
continuing role. Your needs are great and they are many.
The final report of the Governor's Commission on Recovery,
Rebuilding, and Renewal lays out an ambitious and far-sighted
plan intended to revive your community, to create new jobs, and
to ensure that families will be in real homes as soon as
possible.
In my visits here, I have been struck first and foremost by
the utter devastation that Katrina brought to your beautiful
region. But equally powerful is the commitment of the people of
this region to help one another overcome the crisis, surmount
the obstacles, and rebuild for the future. Working together
with a partnership among all levels of government, I know that
the Gulf Coast will indeed be better than ever. Thank you so
much for welcoming us here today.
Senator Lieberman is the Committee's Ranking Member. We
work very well together, very closely together. And I'm very
pleased to recognize him for some opening remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN
Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thanks so
much for leading our Committee here. It's an honor, as always,
to work with you. I thank the other Members of the Committee
for coming here.
I hope the people here in Mississippi and then later in
Louisiana will take this group of Senators' presence here as
the most tangible expression of the continuing national
interest and acceptance of America's responsibility to help you
overcome the effects of this disastrous hurricane.
I thank Marsha Barbour for greeting us, for taking us up in
that helicopter to see the Coast today. I would share the
reaction of Senator Collins. She and I both came here just
about 4 months ago, a couple of weeks after Hurricane Katrina
hit. And we were stunned to see the devastation along the
Mississippi Coast. Perhaps because the--New Orleans is a great
American city, the focus of a lot of media attention was on it.
It has suffered grievously, of course. But I don't think we had
a real awareness before we came 4 months ago of how badly hit
and devastated by extraordinarily high winds and rising waters
the Gulf Coast of Mississippi was.
And I must say, having just gone up in that helicopter
today, what strikes me is how much work remains to be done. I
suppose somewhere in the impractical recesses of my brain I
thought that coming back here today I'd see a lot more going
up. A lot of debris has been removed. That's real important.
There's still a lot more yet to be removed. In some sense,
perhaps because there's a general impression in Congress that
Mississippi is really organized well to deal with the problem,
maybe I expected to see more rebuilding occurring.
But this is by way of acknowledging what Senator Collins
has said, that we're all in this together. Federal, State, and
local governments. We feel a national responsibility to help
Mississippi get back to better than it was before Hurricane
Katrina. And just seeing the Coast today tells me in a very
powerful, personal way how much more we have to do.
In that regard, there's an intangible factor here, which is
hope. And I hope that we can all reach out, and maybe in some
small way our presence here today will help do that, to give
hope to people who, after a period of time, are going to begin
to lose it about their ability to return to where they were.
And, of course, this just says to us that the basic mission
that this Committee has, which is to oversee the work of the
Federal Government in responding to Katrina, is a critical
mission.
We've appropriated well over $80 billion. And the question
now is how is it being spent and can we move things more
quickly to bring a reality that will raise people's hopes.
I understand--I thank the Members of the Congressional
delegation. Gene Taylor is here. I believe he's going to
testify. Senator Cochran and Senator Lott and the other Members
of the House delegation have been extremely persistent and
effective advocates for Mississippi.
And we understand that you have special problems. That a
number of people in Mississippi, 42 percent of all working
families by one estimate I saw, are low income. And that's the
highest rate in the Nation. That puts a special burden on all
of us to work together to try to raise people up after this
devastation.
Just a final word. Since we've been here, everybody's been
saying thank you for coming. I think we owe you a thank you for
the way in which the people of Mississippi have pulled together
and for the spirit of--for your spiritual strength, really, and
for the hopefulness that I hope you will not let diminish as we
go forward together to make this better. Thank you very much.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
I just am going to very briefly introduce the other
Committee Members by name. To my left is Senator Norm Coleman
of Minnesota. He's a former mayor, has a special interest in
the role of local government.
To Senator Lieberman's right, that's not a usual position
for you, is Senator Dayton of Minnesota. He's been particularly
concerned about the responsiveness of the Federal Government.
To my far left is Senator Coburn, who is a physician by
training and represents the State of Oklahoma. And he has a
special interest in making sure that money is being well spent.
To my right now is Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Senator
Pryor pointed out to me that his State on a per capita basis, I
think, had taken in more evacuees from the Gulf Coast region
than any other State.
And, as I said, Senator Landrieu from Louisiana is also
joining us today as an honorary Member of the Committee.
I'd now like to welcome our first witness. Donald Powell
was named by President Bush as the Federal Coordinator of Gulf
Coast Rebuilding on November 1. His task, and it is an enormous
one, is to develop a long-term rebuilding plan in conjunction
with State and local governments in the entire region. It's his
responsibility to coordinate the Federal efforts and to assist
State and local officials. Prior to this new and very
challenging appointment, Mr. Powell served for 4 years as the
chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
And I want to point out that in the immediate aftermath of
Katrina, Mr. Powell, while still at the FDIC, took decisive
action that helped banks and other financial institutions in
the devastated region resume operations as quickly as possible.
And that certainly assisted consumers during those very
difficult times.
So I want to thank you, sir, for your service and welcome
you to the Committee, and I look forward to hearing your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF HON. DONALD E. POWELL,\1\ COORDINATOR OF RECOVERY
AND REBUILDING IN THE GULF COAST REGION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Powell. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Collins, Ranking
Member Lieberman, and distinguished panel Members.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Powell appears in the Appendix on
page 49.
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It's a pleasure to appear before you today in Gulfport as
the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding to discuss my
role as Federal coordinator, the progress that we have made,
and the challenges and opportunities we face in the immediate
recovery and long-term rebuilding effort.
The State of Mississippi is of great historical, cultural,
and economic importance to this country, and we will make sure
that her citizens get back on their feet and rebuild their
lives. Whole communities throughout the Gulf Coast have been
ravaged by Katrina and Rita, and I'm confident that together we
will see a better tomorrow for our fellow Americans in the
affected areas.
Our job is to identify the priority of needs for long-term
rebuilding by working with the people on the ground,
communicating those realities to the decisionmakers in
Washington, and advising the President and his leadership team
on the most effective, integrated, and fiscally responsible
strategies for a full and vibrant recovery. We will then help
provide thoughtful and coordinated Federal support to the
affected areas.
The President has made it abundantly clear that the vision
and plans for rebuilding the Gulf Coast should come from the
local and State leadership, not from Washington, DC. This is
not an exercise in centralized planning. However, we understand
the importance of being good stewards of the substantial
amounts of money that have been, and will continue to be, spent
on this effort. We will ensure that any plans or strategies are
conducive to the prudent, effective, and appropriate investment
of taxpayer dollars.
In order to rebuild after a natural disaster of this
magnitude, the size of which our country has never experienced
before, the first task is to recover. We have identified two
key areas as critical path issues which must be resolved in
order to move into the next stage of rebuilding in Mississippi.
The first critical path issue is debris removal. After the
Gulf waters subsided, Hancock, Harrison--where we are today--
and Jackson Counties were left with more debris than the 1992
Hurricane Andrew and the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. A
problem of this scale required strong local leadership.
Governor Barbour and the local mayors, in partnership with FEMA
and the Army Corps of Engineers, sprung into action.
Today, I am happy to report that Mississippi has removed 27
million cubic yards or almost two-thirds of the total debris.
There is still a great deal of work to be done, but Mississippi
is on the right track, with the goal of completion sometime
this spring.
The second critical path issue is to support evacuees
through direct financial assistance and temporary housing.
Hurricane Katrina left many of our fellow citizens stunned and
uprooted, and the President believes it is the government's
duty to remind them that their country cares about them and
that they are not alone. Of the 450,000 Mississippi residents
who received disaster assistance following Hurricane Katrina,
280,000 were approved for direct or transitional housing
assistance totaling $745 million. Another $300 million went to
some 115,000 Mississippians for Other Needs Assistance, which
helps with everything from unemployment assistance to
relocation services to reuniting victims with their families.
And finally, more than 100,000 Mississippians received rental
assistance totaling approximately $230 million, which is going
to pay for rent at apartments across the region.
Mississippi has also done an extraordinary job of
establishing and transitioning evacuees into temporary housing.
Today less than 2,000 households remain in Mississippi hotel
and motel rooms. FEMA is already providing more than 31,000
travel trailers to hurricane victims that are residing in the
State. Nearly 11,000 of these families in Harrison County,
8,000 in Jackson County, nearly 8,000 in Hancock County, and
more than 2,500 in Forrest County.
We still have very important work to do on these immediate
issues, but we believe that things are moving in the right
direction. I am encouraged every day by the strong leadership
in this State and its successful partnership with Congress and
the Administration.
As we transition our efforts from immediate recovery to
helping with long-term rebuilding, we must achieve three key
objectives: Restoring long-term safety and security; renewing
the region's economy and creating growth opportunities; and
revitalizing communities.
Congress and the Administration have taken great strides to
restore safety and security to Mississippi. The most important
accomplishment is the $29 billion reallocation legislation
which provides for $10 million for a comprehensive study of
hurricane and storm protection and $620 million for flood and
storm protection projects across Louisiana and Mississippi.
The President, along with the Congress, has also been
focusing on the renewal of the region's economy. Last month the
President signed into law the Gulf Opportunity Zones Act. The
legislation will help revitalize the region's economy by
encouraging businesses to create new jobs and restore old ones.
The law will also create new housing initiatives for workers to
return home and will help finance new infrastructure to get the
region moving again. Simply put, the law renews businesses,
rebuilds homes, and restores hope.
In terms of providing loans and working capital to small
businesses and families, the SBA has also been working
diligently to ramp up its capacity in response to the disaster.
As of January 12, the SBA has approved over $2.64 billion in
disaster loans to almost 38,000 homeowners, renters, and
businesses in the affected region. In Mississippi, the total
has been over $1 billion; 12,000 home loans for $860 million
and close to 2,000 business disaster loans for $170 million.
Workforce development will also be critical to long-term
economic security. The Secretary of Labor and I attended a
meeting just before Christmas with the President, labor
leaders, civil rights groups, and business associations to
discuss workforce initiatives and overall employment issues
facing the region. We tasked those leaders to devise a plan to
prepare the workers of the region for the future of the Gulf
Coast.
We are also focusing on revitalizing communities. The
ravaging winds and waters brought on by Hurricane Katrina
claimed the homes of many along the Gulf Coast. Congress and
the Administration have taken several steps to return old and
invite new residents to Mississippi's neighborhoods.
The most direct of those steps is $11.5 billion in
Community Development Block Grants and $390 million in housing
vouchers allocated to the people of the Gulf Coast in the
recently passed $29 billion reallocation package. Mississippi
plans to use the bulk of its share of the $11.5 billion to
compensate affected under- or uninsured homeowners who resided
outside of the flood plain.
Aside from the housing aid and other public assistance,
nearly 400,000 inspections have been completed in Mississippi
and 48,000 roofs have been temporarily covered by FEMA's Blue
Roof program operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. FEMA
has provided over $1 billion directly to Hurricane Katrina
victims in Mississippi through the Individuals and Households
Program. In addition, 13,800 Mississippians have received $1.8
billion in National Flood Insurance Program claims. These
families are and will continue to fill the streets, schools,
and places of worship that will be a critical component to the
revitalization of this great State.
Another important part of the community is the educational
system. Education is the key to the future and lets every
American reach his or her potential dream. Without education,
we would not have the American ingenuity that has made our
country so successful. Thus far, Mississippi has received $100
million to get its educational system up and running again
since the storm hit. And schools who took in the displaced
students outside the State are being reimbursed up to $6,000
per displaced student in general education and up to $7,500 for
those in special education.
The Administration and Congress have made good on the
promise by helping secure $1.6 billion for the schools that
were hardest hit by the hurricanes. The U.S. Department of
Education is expediting these resources so they can get to
where they are needed as quickly as possible. Thus far, 93
percent of the schools in Mississippi are up and running.
Overall, the Mississippi Department of Education reports that
they have 22 schools that are closed and 12 other schools that
are open on a limited basis. One part of the building may be
under repair, but another part is being used to educate the
State's learners. I applaud those efforts. As my good friend
Secretary Spellings put it, ``The education community's
response to Katrina has been overwhelming. Schools across the
country have opened their doors and hearts to these children.''
Community health is also important. That's why the
Department of Health and Human Services, along with other
agencies, quickly streamlined their processes to help hurricane
victims access the many Federal programs available immediately
to help them get back on their feet, such as Medicaid, family
assistance, child care support, foster care assistance, and
mental health and substance abuse services. More than 40
percent of the storm's evacuees living in a different zip code
from the damaged areas received these types of benefits and
services.
In addition, the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned
Corps, one of the Nation's seven uniformed services, carried
out the largest mobilization in its 207-year history by
deploying more than 1,400 officers to work with State, local,
and private agencies in the hurricane-stricken States. America
is committed to helping our citizens displaced by the storms by
improving our government's outreach and cutting red tape.
Infrastructure is also a key component of any long-term
recovery plan. Federal funds totaling $750 million are being
used for infrastructure in Mississippi for repairs to damaged
roads, bridges, and other transportation uses. I am glad to see
the progress made with those monies here, such as the two lanes
that have been completed from Debuys Road to English Place for
a total of eight miles in the Long Beach-Gulfport region.
And in Pass Christian, two lanes have been completed from
Shadowlawn Drive to Henderson Avenue for a total of 3.7 miles.
The I-90 is the next major thoroughfare to be rebuilt, and it
will help restore the region's transportation network.
Virtually all major freight lines are open, with the exception
of the CSX Transportation line from New Orleans to Pascagoula.
In terms of public transit, partial service has been
restored in Gulfport, Biloxi, and the City of Picayune, with
full service restored in Jackson. The nine airports that were
damaged by the storm are now either fully operational or open,
but may be limited to visual and daytime operations.
The ports along the Mississippi Gulf Coast are also all now
operating in some capacity, and we will continue to work to get
them fully operational. Gulfport was the worst hit of all ports
and has two piers that are back in operation.
In closing, I would like to note that the Gulf Coast has a
strong history of overcoming adversity caused by Mother Nature.
Spanish explorers as far back as the 1500s wrote about how the
area has experienced severe floods. But every time some type of
natural disaster has hit, the people in this region have come
back and come back stronger than before. Failure is not an
option. As the President said last week, ``When people are
determined, they get things done.'' He also repeated his
promise to the region that it would ``not just survive, but
thrive.'' He said, ``we're not just going to cope, but we will
overcome.'' Thank you.
Senator Collins. Thank you very much for your testimony.
You have described your position as being the President's
eyes and ears but not his arms. I thought that was a very
descriptive way to describe your job. Your position was created
through executive order, not through legislation.
Could you tell the Committee whether you feel that you have
adequate authority to coordinate all the Federal resources to
help in rebuilding? You don't really have troops. You have the
power of persuasion. You have the President's confidence, but
you do not, as I read the executive orders, have the ability to
actually order an action.
Mr. Powell. Yes, no command and control.
Senator, I'm convinced, and I believe in my short tenure of
40 days or so that I have the complete support of all agencies
and departments of the Federal Government. I have been in
contact with every agency, every department within the Federal
Government and have experienced great cooperation from the
Department of Transportation, Education, to wherever it may be.
As you said, I have the power of persuasion. And also the
President is committed, everybody knows that the President is
committed to rebuilding the Gulf Coast. I'm convinced that I
can--and with the members of my staff, that we have the
necessary resources to fulfill our mission.
Senator Collins. Would it be easier to do your job if you
had more specific authority over the allocation of resources
and personnel?
Mr. Powell. At times, yes. At times it would be, absolutely
it would be. But I don't think that will restrict me from--I
know it will not restrict me from expressing my views and
thoughts. And I always have a sense of urgency about things,
and I'm not shy as it relates to what I think needs to get
done. And to date, the cooperation is extraordinary.
Senator Collins. You mentioned in your testimony that some
27 million cubic yards of debris have been removed at this
point. FEMA's most recent report to Congress suggests that
there's still some 19 million cubic yards yet to go.
Mr. Powell. Right.
Senator Collins. And as we toured the area today, we could
still see mountains of debris, really widespread cleanup
problems. This was also an issue that has been raised to us by
Mississippi's two Senators and by people in the region, the
Governor and his wife as well.
In your view, is sufficient Federal funding and effort
allocated toward debris removal? And can you give us any idea
of any time line for completing the basic cleanup?
Mr. Powell. I am in constant contact with the local people.
The governor and I talk often. I have visited with four mayors
along the Gulf of Mississippi within the last 10 days. There's
always a certain level of tension and frustration about debris
removal.
The laws that are on the books today sometimes serve as--
there's just tension between the private property rights and
there's tension between the debris and the removal of debris
issue. But--and part of it also is, I think, the mayors'
concern about doing the right thing. I mean, they have also the
tension of getting the debris and they have the tension of are
they going to be audited 6 months from now, 2 years from now,
or 3 years from now. And they want to follow the law.
Empowering people to make decisions in the field, Senator,
is terribly important. The mayors know their communities better
than anybody else. Allowing them to make decisions about hiring
and firing contractors is critically important. So when I sit
and talk to them, I try to facilitate those decisions that will
empower them to make the best decision for their communities.
And there are times that I see we can do it better. But I'm
convinced that, again, as I said, the mayors are the right
people to make those decisions. The State officials are the
right people to make those decisions. And I think the resources
are there. It's a matter of just getting it done and also
complying with all the rules and regulations and laws is mind
boggling as it relates to that in just my short tenure.
Coming from the banking business, I understand and
appreciate that, but somehow we've got to empower those people
to make decisions based upon facts as they see them,
understanding that they're going to make some bad decisions.
But to answer your question directly, as I said in my
testimony, the majority of the public debris will be removed,
and the private issues, the private debris is another issue,
but I think also that will be done perhaps in the late summer
or early fall.
Remembering as I said in my testimony, in Hurricane
Andrew--the three counties here had more debris than Hurricane
Andrew and the 9/11 tragedy combined, and it took them 2 years.
Senator Collins. The March 15 deadline that's been talked
about for removing most of the debris is a very important one
because that's the date by which the 100 percent Federal
reimbursement expires, so I think it's really critical----
Mr. Powell. Right.
Senator Collins [continuing]. That we reach that deadline.
Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mr. Powell, thanks for being here. Thanks for accepting the
President's call to service. It's been a real pleasure for me
personally to get to know you in this work. Somehow I never got
to meet you when you were head of FDIC, so it's been a pleasure
here.
I do want to briefly say that I think Senator Collins
raised some really important questions about the authority of
your office, and we should continue that discussion because,
again, just coming away from seeing what an enormous task it's
going to be, and it's not going to happen overnight, to rebuild
right here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The question is
honestly whether the President needs somebody in your position,
yourself, to not only be his eyes and ears but also be his arms
because Hurricane Katrina, by my estimate, is the largest
humanitarian crisis America's had probably since the Great
Depression. I know we've had terrible hurricanes. We had the
attacks of 9/11. But in terms of the scope of the impact on our
country, I can't think of one larger since the Great
Depression, so I'd like to continue that discussion.
I'd like to ask you a few questions that we've heard from a
local level right here in Mississippi, and my guess is we'll
hear them on the second panel, which includes a couple of
mayors. The first is about the flood maps and elevations, but
probably you're familiar with this question.
And I've now heard two different reactions to the advisory
flood plain guidelines developed by FEMA. The mayors, who will
testify later, have told us, and I presume will again, that
many of their citizens will simply not be able to afford to
rebuild at the base flood elevations, the specific heights
required in FEMA's advisory guidelines. Others praise the new
maps and advisory guidelines because they acted quickly, FEMA
did, in getting them out, and they've given the residents some
sense of standards that they should be building to.
Do you believe that FEMA is on the right track or are you
also concerned about the adverse impact on the ability of many,
particularly low and middle income homeowners, to rebuild?
Mr. Powell. I think FEMA is on the right track, Senator,
but I am concerned about your latter point. But we're not going
to be able to rebuild until those maps get out in the
marketplace.
I think that's the reason the advisory maps were important
for some of these people who are ready to rebuild, and unless
they get a building permit, they can't begin construction. And
the city is not going to give them a building permit until
those maps are out there. So I think it's important those maps
be in the marketplace, but I also share your concern about the
cost associated with rebuilding. And I'm going to look at
some--I think there may be some Federal programs that would
assist some of those folks in that rebuilding effort.
Remember, too, that Congress is going to be looking at the
whole flood insurance issue, which I will tell you probably
that will call for increased premiums. So if the homeowners are
going to have to, first of all, spend more money on rebuilding,
and then he or she is going to have to spend more money on
premiums, so they're going to have an economic double whammy
there. In order--certainty, we've got to give these people
certainty so they can get on with their lives.
We have a meeting right after this hearing this afternoon
in this community that we have invited, through the mayors, the
local mayors, bankers, insurance agents, building inspectors,
code enforcement folks, and we're going to try and bring
clarity to a lot of questions that people are asking. I think
that's my role here to get that done.
But I think FEMA is on the right--they've got to issue
these flood maps.
Senator Lieberman. I appreciate your answer and
particularly your opening of the possibility of some Federal
assistance----
Mr. Powell. Yes.
Senator Lieberman [continuing]. To those low and middle
income homeowners----
Mr. Powell. Right.
Senator Lieberman [continuing]. Who cannot build to the new
standards, and I think we should work together on that.
The other local concern that we've heard, and I presume
will hear again, is this terrible box that the communities are
in with enormous responsibilities, but because of the impact of
the hurricane, there is a devastated tax base. And, actually,
folks turn to us at the Federal level, and I don't have a quick
answer to that. I wonder if you've thought about it.
And is there any Federal role in trying to assist local
communities devastated by Katrina over this period in their
history when they just don't have the tax base to raise the
money to do what they need to do?
Mr. Powell. Community Development Block Grants, there's
some other government programs. Being new in this area, I've
got someone who has done nothing but looking at ways to meet
that need that you're talking about. But, ultimately, the most
important thing, Senator, is rebuilding their lives.
And that's the reason it gets back to debris removal, it's
housing. I told the President it's housing, housing, housing,
which then equals jobs and economic activity into the tax base.
Until these people can begin to live, can begin to rebuild,
which will create jobs, tax base, the economy. These cities
will come back. I know there are some areas that they're
beginning to rebuild.
Senator Lieberman. Do you think that we have ended the
appropriation of Federal money in response to Katrina or will
there be a need for more beyond the $85 billion? I gather the
$25 billion has pretty much been spent, from what I've heard,
and there is $60 billion in various stages of the pipeline.
Mr. Powell. Senator, I'm not sure. I haven't done the math.
Hopefully, that will be enough. The homeowner--what Governor
Barbour is doing, as I mentioned in my testimony, with the
Community Development Block grants will put money in the hands
of the uninsured. I think that's a big, big step, a huge step.
There are different challenges in Louisiana as relates to that.
There's more infrastructure needs in Louisiana. I'm not sure.
Hopefully it is enough.
Senator Lieberman. Fair enough. I appreciate the answer. I
think we've all got to stay involved here. And if there is a
need for more money, then we've got to be willing to work
together to provide it. Because the fresh development today is
that this is unfinished national business, and we've got to
stick with it until it's done. Thank you very much.
Mr. Powell. Thank you.
Senator Collins. Senator Coleman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN
Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and Senator
Lieberman, thank you for your focus, your leadership, your
commitment. It really is extraordinary. This merits that. They
say sometimes you have to see it to believe it. I have seen it,
and it's still pretty hard to believe. The sense we have
amongst us was that there was a bomb and a massive war zone,
and the devastation really is overwhelming.
I thank you for your service, and I appreciate your
perspective that you noted that mayors and the State officials
are the people to make the decisions, we appreciate that.
Certainly the Federal Government, in particular FEMA, took
a real hit in Katrina post actions, and there are questions of
competency. What's your assessment now in terms of local
officials and folks on the ground and their sense of the
Federal effort?
Mr. Powell. I think it's mixed, Senator, and literally it
depends upon the subject matter. I think there's a lot of
frustration. But I think--and as we go forward, it gets better.
I hear a lot of frustration about the SBA. As a former banker,
I can appreciate it and understand that. Having said that, in
talking to the officials at the SBA, I think there's some
constraints that they have on themselves. My idea of that,
again, the more you can put it in the hands of bankers to make
those decisions, they know the communities, they know the
creditworthiness of their people. They can act fast. But the
law didn't permit that to happen except up to $150,000 in some
cases to meet those needs.
I think debris removal is another issue there's always
frustration about. Again, local decisions empowering the people
in the field, and that would be Federal officials also. The
more we can empower those people to make decisions without
checking with someone, the better off we would be.
I used to have the saying in banking, ``a quick no is
better than a 2-week yes.''
Senator Coleman. If there are legislative barriers, if
there are institutional barriers, I would hope, even though you
don't have command and control, that you have the sense that
you can talk to us and others, but don't allow the bureaucracy
to kind of feed that frustration.
Mr. Powell. Right. I will express my views on that.
Senator Coleman. You mentioned CDBG. I just want to touch
on that.
A question was asked about the continued Federal role and
some of the things we can do different. CDBG is a valuable
source to folks at the local level. When you talk about CDBG
funding, are you talking CDBG within the existing process which
has a finite limitation on dollars, when, in fact, many of us
have been involved in trying to increase funding, trying to
avoid cuts, or are you talking about the CDBG process with some
of the Katrina money as a separate pot?
Mr. Powell. The latter. As I understand it, the $11.5
billion that Congress approved for those grants, and the law, I
think, has passed, no one could receive more than 54 percent.
Then working with the Secretary of HUD, that money goes to the
Secretary of HUD, and he develops the guiding principles that
the States can use, what they can use that money for. Again, as
I mentioned, Mississippi has already indicated what they will
use that money for.
Senator Coleman. With all the needs--and obviously debris
removal is something that we were talking about here. As you
look into the future, when it's rebuilt, it's got to be rebuilt
right. The Governor's commission has done an excellent job of
tapping into local perspective in laying out a vision. But
turning that vision into reality is sometimes very challenging.
There are folks at the local level planning, just basic
planning and turning that into reality, and those are the
things which there aren't a lot of dollars for. I mean, you
have got many needs, you have got to take care of them.
Mr. Powell. Yes.
Senator Coleman. How do you help local communities do their
piece, do the planning so that in the end when it's done, it
really is done right?
Mr. Powell. Well, I think the model that Mississippi used,
and I applaud the Mississippi model, is their planning process,
the Governor appointed Jim Barksdale to lead their commission.
It was a centralized effort. And he reached out by issue and
had team members for the issue, be it economic development or
health issues or education issues, and had folks come in. They
had a master plan. I think they did a very good job. But that
was funded by private resources.
So I think cities are going to find, if they cannot get the
Federal Government to assist them in the planning, that it will
be an opportunity for some private charitable organizations to
fund those. And I think the money's out there for that need.
I think, for instance, the City of Gulfport, if they need
some external money as it relates to their planning process, I
think there are charitable foundations that would be willing to
assist them. And I think also there are firms pro bono who
would be willing to assist those communities also.
But the State has one central, one vision, one plan that
they are implementing. And they did it in a relatively short
period of time, and there was extraordinary leadership there.
Senator Coleman. Oftentimes the further you get away from
the event itself, the lesser the outside focus.
Mr. Powell. Right.
Senator Coleman. National, international focus, volunteers,
and private sector--as we look into the future--I understand
this is a very long-term effort.
Mr. Powell. Right.
Senator Coleman. Are those private dollars, foundation
dollars, that outside generosity are still flowing in this
direction?
Mr. Powell. It is. I receive calls, Senator, from time to
time, not like I did when I first started the job, but I
receive calls not only from individuals, but from foundations
saying they want to help. Where are the gaps? Where is the
government not going to meet the needs? What can I do? They
want to send people to help, which is another little bit of an
issue from an ethics standpoint. I can't accept volunteers that
have technical expertise. I talk to them a lot. But that's
important. There are people willing to help. There are
foundations that are willing to help. And they're very genuine.
So I think there's still foundations out there that would do
that.
Senator Coleman. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Senator Dayton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I want to thank
you and the Ranking Member for your leadership on this
Committee and bringing us here today. Thank you very much.
Coordinator Powell, I thank you for taking on this
Herculean task. I understand that you have been here just in
the latter part of this effort to date.
I was told on the way over here that the most popular
bumper sticker right now around here is FEMA, Federal Emergency
My Ass.
Mr. Powell. I've seen those.
Senator Dayton. All right. Well, it doesn't jibe with this
data here, and I'm trying to figure out where is the
disconnect.
You talk about--and I'm not questioning the figures, but
280,000 residents receiving $2,600 apiece for transitional
housing and 100,000 receiving rental assistance, that's $2,300
apiece, 12,000 home loans of SBA, $70,000 a house, 2,000
businesses asked for loans, $85,000 per business. It just
doesn't jibe. And I note here also that the--anticipating the
future testimony of the Mayor of Bay St. Louis, that your life
is already too complicated for those in need.
We had them on a much smaller scale. Up in Northern
Minnesota, the City of Roseau was devastated by flooding. And I
had that perception myself, that these forms, the procedures,
very bureaucratic, very cumbersome, and for people who are
already stressed out, lost their home, lost their business,
whatever, that we need to make this process simpler and faster
for them.
I think it's critical that we get from you, and others that
have been involved here, some really clear specific
recommendations for what in the laws need to be changed and the
regulations so we can clear out as much of that flotsam as
possible for the future because if there's ever a time when our
citizens need government and need it to be there and be
responsive immediately, it's in the face of this kind of
disaster. And I just don't think that it seems that the people
here feel that they're getting that.
Mr. Powell. Senator, I would just add one thing. Empower
the FEMA officials to make decisions. They tend to have
accountability; they don't have authority.
Senator Lieberman. The ones on the ground, you mean?
Mr. Powell. The ones on the ground. I've spent an all-day
session talking with the FEMA folks because that's what I've
been doing, I've been talking to a lot of citizens. I would
talk to the lady in the restaurant. I would talk to the guy
repairing my shoes. I would talk to a lot of folks. And I asked
them about what happened to their homes. Each of them has a
unique story. Some of them are complimentary to FEMA, most are
not. And it's really a time frame. And when you ask--when you
get down and ask them about what their specific frustration is,
it's common sense, Senator.
But the law doesn't allow FEMA to do that, make those
decisions. I understand probably when the law was made, there
were various issues. There's always tension there. But what you
get, you get paralyzed. They're paralyzed in the field from
helping people. And it's terribly important to allow people to
make decisions.
And recognize and understand they're going to make some bad
decisions. But then when you have an auditor or an inspector
general or whatever 2 or 3 years from now, you're very careful.
And what happens, that's important too. It's very important
that we be wise and we be good stewards of taxpayers' money.
We're all taxpayers. And that's, I promise you, part of my
focus. But it's also important to help people and to meet their
needs in a timely, efficient way.
Senator Dayton. Madam Chairman, I would submit that is one
of the cruxes of the challenge we face and one of the--if there
is going to be a silver lining to this enormously dark cloud,
so that we can learn from your experience coming out of the
private sector, see how we can free up so that we can
accelerate the timetable in the future and simplify the process
for the victims of these disasters. And I thank you for that.
The recent issue of the National Journal says, and I'm
quoting here, ``Complaints about the structure of FEMA's waste
contracts''--this is moving away these many tons of debris. And
I was impressed, let me say, in the article about the care
that's going into segregating the hazardous materials and the
like. I think that's something that deserves a great deal of
credit. It means things are going to take longer. But it says,
``FEMA hires the Army Corps, which hires national contractors,
who hire local subcontractors, and that guarantees that the
hauling price will be marked up several times. Local haulers
who are hired directly, critics contend, could do the job more
cheaply. A FEMA official in Mississippi said the recovery''--
well, it starts another point.
Is there some reason that there can't be this direct
contracting that would make it more cost effective?
Mr. Powell. No, sir.
Senator Dayton. All right. I almost stopped 51 seconds
early.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Senator Coburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I want to kind of follow along that line. One of the things
that Senator Coleman and I, as well as the Ranking Member and
Chairman of this Committee, wanted to see was a Federal
financial manager over all this reconstruction. And your answer
in terms of, well, there is no requirement that they couldn't
have contracted directly with local contractors. Who's in
charge? Who makes the decision?
The people of Mississippi would like to have the help, and
not only are there fewer dollars spent on the people of
Mississippi, but the time that it takes--by the time you go
through four layers of bureaucracy in contracting versus the
time you take from one layer. And so my question of the
Administration, who's in charge? Who makes the decision that
we're going to use four layers instead of one?
Mr. Powell. Well, again, you must remember, I'm new here
about 30 or 45 days. Here's my understanding. I think the
mayors are empowered to make those decisions. Now, they may
tell you that's not right when they come up here.
But part of it also is the intimidation factor, Senator. By
that, I'm talking about the intimidation factor, they're
concerned about also when they issue a contract with the
private sector, and then here comes an auditor 2 or 3 years
from now, and they have liability and have money that they owe
back to the Federal Government for mismanaging that contract,
they're going to take the path of least resistance. They're
going to say, I'm going to follow the standard and deal with
the Corps where I'm protected and I have an insulation. Again,
they can answer that better than I as relates to that, but I
told a mayor last week, I said, fire the Corps and get the
private sector. Now, that's easy for me to say where I was
standing. In the field, it's probably there are some other
things that I didn't have an appreciation for and understanding
as that mayor--as he or she takes responsibility for those
actions.
Senator Coburn. In your position--Senator Collins addressed
this a little bit, but who is responsible down here for the
overall Federal expenditures and response in Mississippi?
Mr. Powell. I can tell you who FEMA----
Senator Coburn. No. Who in the Administration is
responsible? What the Senate was trying to do is have one
person that all this went through that the State could look to
and the Congress could look to and the government agencies
could look to. We want a manager here that is making smart
decisions--that could say, you can take help from volunteers,
that you don't have to contract through the Corps, and that
word goes. In other words, to do it on a management basis on
the basis of need and common sense instead of bureaucracy and
incompetency. Who is responsible?
Mr. Powell. Well, it depends again on what issue you're
talking about.
Senator Coburn. That was my whole point, there is not one
person----
Mr. Powell. Right. I mean, because it depends upon
transportation issues, it depends upon health issues, it
depends upon----
Senator Coburn. That's exactly what's wrong with the
response.
Mr. Powell. That recovery as it relates to temporary
housing, I can get specific. If you ask me certain things that
if I don't know the answer, I can find out specifically who is
responsible for that issue.
Senator Coburn. So my question to you, you have not been
charged to be that person who is responsible for the Federal
Government's response in Mississippi? Also, you don't have the
authority to do that and you've not been charged with that?
Mr. Powell. I'm the coordinator.
Senator Coburn. And your authority----
Mr. Powell. I may not have responsibility, but I'm the
coordinator.
Senator Coburn. You have no authority?
Mr. Powell. Well, I have the power of persuasion and I have
the power of the office itself, but I can't--I cannot say,
``Thou shall not do the following.'' I do that.
Senator Coburn. It would just seem to me that the people of
Mississippi would love to have a web site and a person who was
in charge for the Federal Government, and the people in the
Federal Government would love to have a clearinghouse of one
person.
Mr. Powell. Let me be sure, there's a FEMA person that is
in charge of Mississippi. There's a FEMA that's in charge of
Louisiana. And then there are people, depending upon what
you're talking, flood maps, there's a flood map person that's
in charge. There is a debris person that's in charge.
Senator Coburn. I understand.
Mr. Powell. All those.
Senator Coburn. We're running this just like we run the
rest of the Federal Government without any basis in common
sense. And it just would seem to me that the Administration
would want to land the authority and the responsibility in the
same place so that you could have one area where information
flows and people can get answers.
Mr. Powell. Yes.
Senator Coburn. In Washington. And the big answer is that
you can't get an answer to the question. What is the
Administration's answer to the fact that nobody can get an
answer?
Mr. Powell. Well, let me just tell you, if you have a
question for any of the people of Mississippi, I'm going to be
able to answer that question. They may not like the answer, but
I'm going to answer it. And I'm going to find the person,
individual, entity that can answer those questions.
Senator Coburn. But there is not a one-stop shop? There is
not--and there's not a web site up where they can go and find
out, here's the answer to the 100 most commonly asked questions
by the people of Mississippi in relation to this disaster?
There's not a web site up that says here's where our money is
being spent and here's how efficiently it's being spent? And
people can track where their money is being spent. There's no
information out there where they can actually see it, the
people of Mississippi?
Mr. Powell. I think there is--again, I should not be saying
this, I'm not sure it's true, but I think you could find it on
the FEMA web site and the Department of Homeland Security how
much money has been spent toward different issues. I mean, I
got that information.
Senator Coburn. Madam Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Collins. Senator Pryor.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I really don't
have any questions, just a couple comments. And that is that
these are real people we're talking about here, and these are
lives and communities that need to be put back together. And I
would just encourage you and your office to carry the message
back to whoever you need to carry it back to; please try to
straighten things out because we flew over today, 4\1/2\ months
after the storm hit, and I know people in this area are working
around the clock. They're doing the very best they can do given
what they have to work with. And they still have a long way to
go. And they need their Federal Government. They need their
State Government, their local governments to all be working
together and working smart. And my impression is that the
Federal Government is really the problem. And I don't think
it's always been that way at FEMA.
I think back in the days when James Lee Witt ran that
agency, you didn't hear these type of complaints. I mean, it
wasn't perfect, but one thing he did is he empowered people on
the ground to make decisions. And like you said, sometimes they
make the wrong decisions, but he empowered them on the ground
to make decisions. There is nothing in Federal law that says
they can't do that. The way I look at it is, it's a problem for
the leaders in FEMA and probably Homeland Security. And it's a
problem with the priorities that they have and sort of the
culture that's there right now. James Lee Witt had a culture
where he had a can-do attitude. He wanted people on the ground
that had can-do attitudes. They were going to get down there
and work it out and work through it, and they'd figure out all
the audits and all that stuff later. FEMA would come back and
help the cities, the counties, the State, etc. with that as
well. But the idea was to serve people and help people. And I
think somehow or another in the last few years that's been
lost. So I would just encourage you to carry that message back
and work with us. Because I know that our Chairman and Ranking
Member, they're going to work this Committee pretty hard this
year to try to make things a lot better at Homeland Security,
make things a lot better at FEMA, and try to do the right thing
for the Gulf Coast.
Mr. Powell. Senator, I appreciate that, and I will do that.
And just one comment. There are some wonderful, dedicated
public servants in FEMA. I've met them. They have been working
tirelessly. They don't see their families. They don't get paid
overtime. They get paid overtime, but it's reversed back.
They too have frustrations. There are some things, and as
other members of the panel have suggested which I will do,
about some laws that can be changed that will help them do
their job. But there are some wonderfully dedicated public
servants that I have a new appreciation for after sitting down
and talking to them and listening to them. I've spent lots of
time listening to them. I was in Baton Rouge Saturday all day
listening to the FEMA folks, but your point is well taken, and
I will do that.
Senator Pryor. Well, I agree with what you're saying. There
are a lot of fine public servants there because I've met some
of them, too. We've met some of them in the Committee.
Back when folks from Louisiana and Mississippi were
flooding into Arkansas in early September of this year, I met
some of them there, too.
And a lot of these were not full-time FEMA people; they are
minutemen, so to speak. They sprang into action; their heart,
their dedication was amazing. And they had a lot of
frustrations. And that frustration is really unnecessary. And
you come out of the private sector, you know this. In the
private sector if you don't fix it, you go out of business.
And that ought to be the approach that FEMA takes. If they
can't fix it, they need to get new people in there who can.
Thank you.
Mr. Powell. I agree.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Senator Landrieu.
TESTIMONY OF SENATOR MARY L. LANDRIEU, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF LOUISIANA
Senator Landrieu. Thank you. Just briefly. I'd like to
support the comments made by my colleague Senator Pryor. He
couldn't have said it any better, so I won't repeat it.
But having said that, I also want to agree with you,
Chairman Powell, there are some very good people in FEMA that
are here on the ground and have been and are trying to help.
But, clearly, the system needs to be improved substantially.
And I think your ability and the willingness that you've shown
here in Mississippi and in Louisiana to listen so that you can
make some tough suggestions to this Committee would be
extremely helpful to that effort.
I want to thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member for
working so hard in such a truly bipartisan way to fix so many
of the things that are broken or not in place to help the
people of our two States that are suffering the worst natural
disaster. Not to leave out Alabama and Texas, but the bulk of
the destruction, as you know. And truly their effort is without
peer in the Congress. And having known both of these leaders
for so long, I just want to publicly thank them for their
tremendous and sincere spirit and the work of their staff.
Let me ask just a few questions briefly. One, we have a
tendency in Washington, which I think is wrong, to try to say
one size fits all for everything we do. One kind of this, one
kind of that. Everybody's got to use it.
Based on your experience on the ground along the Gulf Coast
from Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama, could you just share with
the Committee your one or two observations of the differences
of the destruction so that this Committee could focus a little
bit, not that they don't, but even a better focus of the kinds
of different strategies that we might need to look for over the
next year particularly as we continue this strong, hopefully
stronger Federal partnership. So in terms of the destruction
between--and I'm not looking at how many houses or anything,
but just your sense of does this one size fit all approach work
or should we have a little different strategy for Louisiana or
Mississippi in certain areas? What are your thoughts about
that?
Mr. Powell. Yes. The uniform notion that I--and I continue
to repeat it--I think that strategy for rebuilding needs to be
a local decision. The President made that very clear to me, and
I agree with that assessment. I think it's very important that
the local people plan their future.
Mississippi is different than Louisiana. I always say West
Texas is different than East Texas. In Louisiana, you have the
levee system. You don't have the levee system per se in
Mississippi or Alabama or Texas. The levee sent--just that
issue itself, one size doesn't fit all. It was overwhelming to
me, terribly complex about the levee system. I discovered
everybody is an expert in the levees, as I shared with you.
But that issue of how to rebuild the levee systems and how
to protect against future hurricanes is very complex. It
involves more than levees, as you know, Senator. It involves
canals, it involves pumping stations, it involves wetlands, the
whole hurricane protection. And Congress has allocated some
money that we need to spend to look at the entire question of
how do we prevent future hurricanes such as Katrina.
Mississippi has unique challenges because, again, that was
the surge--the storm surge that we've never seen before in our
history. So there are unique challenges as it relates to that.
And the cultures of the two States, obviously, are different.
And in Louisiana, you have the levee boards. In Mississippi,
the local governments all have a mayor--and it's more
complicated in Louisiana. So it presents different challenges
as relates to not only hurricane protection, but how you deal
with local authorities. One size probably doesn't fit all
sizes.
Senator Landrieu. And let me just say I appreciate that
because I think sometimes in Congress we look to, well, if it's
working here, why isn't it working there. And I think what I'd
like to observe is the Chairman has quickly appreciated the
differences between the States as the waters have been higher
in certain areas, first from flood surge and second from levee
breaks.
The final question--and I don't want to take too much time.
Have you given some thought on the flood insurance and mortgage
issue, which is so frustrating to people? As you know, the
greatest asset that most Americans own is their home, and
whether your home was $100,000 or $1 million, it was your home.
Mr. Powell. Right.
Senator Landrieu. And it's gone.
Mr. Powell. Right.
Senator Landrieu. And when you are fortunate enough to be
able to collect your insurance, if you had a mortgage, it goes
to the mortgage company.
Mr. Powell. Right.
Senator Landrieu. And you're there then with a house you
can't live in. The plans aren't there. Have you given thought
as this Committee evaluates a better flood control or flood
insurance system of how we could make more universal this
system so that it's affordable to everyone in America? It might
not just be flood, it could be catastrophic loss, which would
cover everyone, share that risk, given the population of the
country, two-thirds live within 50 miles of the coast by year
2015. If you don't live by the coast, you either live on a
mountain that you could get a rock slide or you live in a place
that could have an earthquake. Have you given any thought to
really a real reform of that system so that we could, in the
long run, rebuild out? And that will be my last question. I'll
submit the rest for the record.
Mr. Powell. I've had some initial thoughts, Senator. A
couple of observations. First of all, it needs to be based upon
science. And it needs to be updated. I mean, the world is
changing, and as you know, some of the flood maps have not been
spoken to since 1980s. It needs to be updated. It needs to be
based upon science. And then it needs to be based upon risk.
As you know, the U.S. Congress, taxpayers have spent in
excess of--I can't recall how much money, but the flood
insurance program now is broke. I mean, if it's an insurance
company, it has an insufficient net worth. It's paid out
claims, so the premiums don't allocate and don't cover it. And
we may as a country decide we want to subsidize that, but the
policy should be the same.
Also, I think another crime is that the $250,000 limitation
is not applicable to today. Clearly, there are some homes that
have value in excess of $250,000. So that needs to be looked
at. The entire flood insurance program needs to be reviewed.
And I think Congress has admitted to that. Where did I read or
hear that Senator Shelby or somebody is looking at that on the
Senate side and some others on the House side are looking at
that? Clearly it needs to be based upon science. It needs to be
updated. And we need to look at the current economics of it.
That's very important.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Powell, I want to thank you for your testimony, but
most of all, I want to thank you for taking on a very difficult
task.
I think we're very fortunate that the President tapped you
for this responsibility, and I appreciate all of your hard work
and your dedication, most of all your caring and compassion.
I want to leave you today with a line that I heard on our
tour this morning. What I was told is the Federal Government
gives Mississippi deadlines but not answers.
And I think that sentence sums up the frustrations and the
concerns that we have heard and that you've heard in our
questions today. So I hope that you will continue your efforts
to make sure Mississippi gets answers, not just deadlines, from
the Federal Government. And I thank you very much for being
here today.
Mr. Powell. Thank you.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
I'd now like to call forward our second panel of witnesses.
I have very long, flowery, gracious introductions that I'm
going to dispense with in the interest of time, and instead,
without slighting our distinguished witnesses, I'm just going
to give them one-line introductions.
Congressman Gene Taylor represents the areas in Mississippi
most devastated by Hurricane Katrina and has been a forceful
advocate for Federal assistance to rebuild the Gulf region.
Brent Warr is the Mayor of Gulfport, and he had been mayor
for less than 2 months when Katrina struck.
Edward Favre is in his fifth term as Mayor of Bay St.
Louis, Mississippi, which was devastated by Katrina.
And despite the brevity of my introductions, I'm truly
grateful for you all being here today. And we will start with
Congressman Taylor.
TESTIMONY OF HON. GENE TAYLOR, REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF
MISSISSIPPI, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. Taylor. Thank you. I want to thank such a distinguished
panel for being with us today. Welcome to South Mississippi. I
wish the circumstances were better. I wish the weather was
better for you, but I'm very grateful that 7 percent of the
U.S. Senators saw fit to be here today.
On August 28, a storm of unprecedented proportions, as you
know, hit our area. And I guess the reaction on the part of our
nation certainly could and has to be better next time.
On Tuesday afternoon, I went to our County EOC and saw my
hometown mayor, Mayor Favre, saw the mayor of the next
adjoining town, Tommy Longo, saw the president of our county
board of supervisors sitting on the step of the flooded out EOC
filthy dirty.
Near this television camera is a guy who has taken a stove
out in the street hooked up to a propane tank and was cooking
on a pot that probably holds 10 gallons of something. And I
hadn't eaten that day. And he said, ``Do you want something to
eat?'' Quite frankly, knowing other people were much worse off
than I was, I said, ``No, no, I don't need to eat, but by the
way, where did you all get that?'' They said, ``We looted it.
We stole it from the Wal-Mart.''
And I look at him, and I'm thinking they're kidding. He
said, ``No, we have sanctioned looting of the Winn-Dixie
grocery store, the Sav-A-Center grocery store, and the Wal-
Mart.'' He said, ``By the way, you look kind of dirty. You need
a change of clothes?'' They had a bunch of T-shirts hanging
over the rail for the handicapped accessible ramp. That's the
situation that we walked into Tuesday, to give you just how bad
it was.
So, as Michael Brown was having his staff making
reservations at the best steakhouse in Baton Rouge, this is
what the people in Hancock County are doing.
Knowing that we had troubles, like many of you fortunate
enough to be on the Armed Services Committee, my first thought
is, OK, I need to call the Pentagon. But no phones. In Hancock,
Mississippi, it's a county of 40,000 people, there was one
phone.
Thank goodness the Mississippi National Guard had staged
three or four people. Their one satellite phone still works.
And so I can't call my governor. The phone link is out to
Jackson. I can't call the bases just 20 miles from us, but I
could call the Pentagon with the great help of Lieutenant
General Stephen Blank. Immediately the National Guard is doing
something, calling Admiral Mullin, CNO. Immediately he's having
ships transferred to off the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
But what I have to leave you with is the horrible lack of
communication. Picture yourself in the exact same
circumstances. You're someone people look to to be able to
solve problems for them, and you can't talk to anyone. You
can't call your own governor. You can't call the bases just 20
miles away.
As you saw, the bridges between my county and the adjoining
counties are knocked out. So what used to be a 20-minute drive,
with all the trees being down and the power lines being down,
you don't know that you can get there. And, by the way, there's
no electricity for 180 miles. There's no fuel for that because
the evacuees have used up most of it leaving. And now they are
trying to get fuel to come back.
When you ask FEMA where are the MREs, the answer is--and
let me tell you how close I came to strangling people with my
own hands. The answer every time was, ``It's in the pipeline.''
``Where's the water?'' ``It's in the pipeline.''
Something that Michael Brown never fathomed was the
importance of ice because when you lose your electricity,
what's in your freezer becomes your store for the next week or
so. And what the ice does is allow you to let that thaw out at
a slow rate so that it doesn't all thaw out at once and you
don't have to throw the rest of it away.
It buys you about a week to take care of yourself. Where
you saw people's houses are gone, therefore, their freezer is
gone. There is no electricity.
By the way, the saddest moment of the entire thing, in days
of sad moments, my hometown undertaker comes to me with tears
in his eyes. A guy I've known all my life. And says, I have got
bodies stacked up in my funeral parlor. I've got no
electricity. I'm going to have to start leaving them on the
sidewalk. What can you do?
Now, wisely our head of Mississippi Emergency--by this
time, a few ice trucks had made their way in. They did not want
to sell because there was lots of money to be made hauling ice.
And he sees a truck. No charge.
I know a number of you served in the Armed Services--and,
again, we need to brag on our National Guard. But something
that FEMA entirely missed was that half the Mississippi
National Guard was in Iraq on the day of the storm. The half
that was home had left every stick of equipment they brought to
Iraq in Iraq. So our engineering unit, which did a magnificent
job when they showed up, they showed up about 2 days after the
storm.
They were operating with only two-thirds of the equipment
that they had the day they went to Iraq.
One of FEMA's responses was, ``We're not sending out food
to any more than one location until the National Guard shows
up.'' They didn't know the National Guard was in Iraq.
Not everything went poorly.
But there were still snafus. Again, Admiral Mullin did a
wonderful job of getting a large amphibious assault ship about
20 miles south of here that we could use as a temporary
hospital. He also sent the Navy ship USS Comfort to Pascagoula,
Mississippi, but because of a snafu with the State Department
of Health, the State Department of Health had banned local
ambulance service from bringing patients to the USS Comfort.
Again, that's just insane, and that's something that there
ought to be some sort of Federal law that overrides that, where
if that ship is good enough to take the kids off a battlefield,
it ought to be good enough for things that happen in the
immediate aftermath of a storm.
For days this went on. For days no one could tell you where
the MREs were. No one could tell you where the water was.
Again, there is no fuel, and what little fuel was coming down
is going to the emergency responders. But even they don't know
when it's coming, so they can't ration their patrols.
It was amateur hour with FEMA.
I don't know who got the first string, but South
Mississippi sure as heck didn't.
Because the guys I dealt with, quite frankly, if I'd have
been in a position to, I would have fired on the spot.
So what's the message I want to leave with you?
Communications. By the Saturday after the storm, someone in the
House administration had been good enough to find someone who
is making their way to Mississippi to get me some handheld
satellite phones. You can imagine putting yourself in this
position.
You've got now the second phone in Hancock County, and
everyone has got to tell you something. So every time someone
taps you on the shoulder and you move your head, you've lost
contact. The next thing that happens is that you redial the
number, only to be told by a prerecorded voice that you can't
call that number. That number happened to be the Pentagon. So
it's absolutely something--communications are incredibly
important.
And for those of you who serve on the Armed Services
Committee, I'm thinking what if someone chooses to follow up
with an attack in Korea.
What if the Iranians decide this is the moment to move
because we don't have generators? We don't have gas. We don't
know how many MREs we have. We don't have water. Local
hospitals are knocked out. And I'm told how hard it is to get a
defense hospital in here or a defense mortuary in here. And so
the thing I would really leave your Committee with is we have
to be capable of doing both.
Senator Landrieu raised an interesting point, and this is
to follow on to where we are today with the insurance
companies. I am a homeowner. My house is gone. There are pieces
of my tin roof 25 feet up in the air that I've left in the
trees. My wind insurance company says it was all water. I point
to the tin up in the trees. And they say, we're not paying you
anything.
One of the few things our Federal Government has done very
well is the Federal flood insurance program paid their claims.
The private sector has found every excuse not to pay people.
One of the things that I would ask those of you who serve
on the Finance Committee to consider is we need to change it
and just call it hurricane insurance. Not flood, not wind. If
your house is gone, who gives a flip with whether the wind got
it or the flood got it.
We have to raise the levels.
Right now the cap was $250,000. And for many in South
Mississippi, I never would have dreamt I had a house over
$250,000. I'm now in a position where I have no choice but to
have a house over $250,000 if I want to rebuild. And if people
can't insure their homes against the next storm, there's going
to be a great hesitation for them to rebuild.
Last, I am so grateful to all of you, each and every one
who voted for the package that passed in the days immediately
before Christmas. It did include an unprecedented help for
homeowners who lived outside the flood plain who had wind
insurance but are being told that their companies won't pay,
who suffered damages, that with the help of Senator Lott,
Senator Cochran, we will be able to help them up to the amount
of their insurance or $150,000, whichever is less. But a
decision has been made somewhere in the Mississippi government
that unless a house was 51 percent destroyed, they're not going
to pay those claims. As the people who sent the money, I think
we have the right to say that's not what we had in mind. It
ought to be based on claims, whether the person's lost 5
percent of their house or 100 percent of their house.
This arbitrary number of 51 percent, if you're a senior
citizen on a fixed income, even with a small house, if it took
three feet of water, you're looking at the very minimum of
$50,000 to have the insulation pulled out, the sheetrock
removed, to have it rewired, have your floors done over, at the
very least you're looking at $50,000. And that may well be less
than 51 percent of the value of your home. And if you're on a
fixed income and your insurer is telling you they're not giving
you any money, that's a lot of money. Those are the people we
wanted to help. And I would hope that, again, with a united
voice, we'll get the message to the bureaucrats somewhere that
we need to be helping everyone.
And, again, thank you for letting me be with you. Thank you
very much for your very valuable time being here in South
Mississippi.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Dr. Smith, I realized that I somehow skipped over you when
I was introducing the panel. Dr. Smith is the Director of the
Governor's Office of Recovery and Renewal, which is the newly
created office charged with implementing the recommendations of
the Governor's Commission in guiding disaster recovery policy
and providing training, education, and outreach. My apologies.
Mayor Warr.
TESTIMONY OF HON. BRENT WARR,\1\ MAYOR, GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI
Mayor Warr. Thank you, Chairman Collins, Ranking Member
Lieberman, and distinguished Committee Members, for the
opportunity to speak with you today. I'd like to speak with you
about the challenges the City of Gulfport faces in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mayor Warr appears in the appendix on
page 53.
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It is an honor to appear before this Committee, and I'm
extremely grateful for the tremendous amount of time Congress
has spent reevaluating pre- and post-storm efforts and for the
resources Congress has allocated toward Mississippi's
rebuilding and recovery.
Without question, the unprecedented amount of damage
Hurricane Katrina caused in the City of Gulfport and along the
entire Mississippi Gulf Coast has presented numerous
challenges. While debris pick-up, temporary housing, and
unemployment are a few of the obstacles that we have struggled
to overcome in the months following Katrina, in my opinion, the
three issues most prevalent on the minds of the Gulf Coast
residents today are: One, is my insurance going to pay for my
losses? Two, if not, do I rebuild or sell as is? And, three, if
I put more money into or borrow money to repair my property,
what will it be worth when I'm finished?
South Mississippians are tired and frustrated and we're
looking for answers from the insurance companies and from the
authorities establishing our base flood elevations. We are
ready to rebuild, but only reasonable answers and expedient
solutions to these questions will stimulate our recovery and
ignite our citizens to begin rebuilding their homes and
businesses.
First and foremost, the disaster that occurred on August
29, 2005, was not a flood, it was a hurricane. Therefore,
damages caused by hurricane-driven water that occurred as a
result of Katrina should be covered by homeowners' policies or
wind insurance. The insurance industry must be forced to
recognize, accept, and perform to the commitments made to its
customers, providing adequate pay for losses that occurred
because of this hurricane.
The City of Gulfport is extremely grateful to the Members
of Congress and our Governor for their leadership and
determination to assist those who live outside the flood zone
and did not have flood insurance. The billions of dollars
allocated toward the recovery will be a tremendous help, but we
must caution officials, as the Congressman here said, about
using subjective standards to determine who will receive the
designated funds. While it has been suggested that such funds
will be rewarded only to those residents outside the flood
plain who had greater than 51 percent in flood damage, we
should not forget about those who reside outside the flood
plain that sustained less than 51 percent in flood damage.
Everyone outside the flood plain should be covered for their
uninsured loss, regardless of the amount of damage, since even
the authorities who determine the flood plains were incapable
of predicting the future flooding in these more elevated areas.
Historically, people purchase the amount of insurance
that's required to own a home or a business. Most residents
along the Gulf Coast were operating under the assumption that
if they had purchased all the necessary insurance required to
finance their property, they were covered for hurricane losses.
The thinking was why would someone purchase flood insurance for
property in an area that has never flooded? In our community,
even some of our most experienced citizens that work in the
insurance industry did not possess flood insurance because they
had homes outside the flood zone. Flood insurance was not
required in their area, and it had never flooded before.
However, like many coastal residents, even the local
insurance experts were surprised and completely unprepared when
their homes were destroyed by hurricane-driven wind and water,
and they were even more surprised to learn that they were not
covered for such dramatic damage regardless of whether or not
it was caused by a hurricane.
It's also important to mention those who are suffering
because they could not afford flood insurance. Even though
relatively inexpensive, there are many residents that lived in
flood zones that did not purchase flood insurance for economic
reasons. Unfortunately, we have learned of many instances where
insurance companies that would have covered typical damage from
a hurricane are refusing to pay out claims based on the claim
that they incurred only flood damage.
Hurricane Katrina was such an unusual and unparalleled
event, that people should not be left to suffer the
consequences for outcomes which were unforeseeable. There
should be no debate on what came first, the wind or the water,
because it really shouldn't matter. This was a hurricane, and
insurance companies should be held accountable for hurricane
losses.
While things are getting better every day here in Gulfport,
we still have many questions to answer before residents can
begin to rebuild their homes, their businesses, their churches,
and their schools. These were devastated by the storm's fury.
And on the forefront is deciding how high or at what elevation
residents will be required to rebuild destroyed properties.
Understandably, while it is necessary to build structures
up to protect them from future devastation, setting base flood
elevations too high in our community could render thousands of
residential homes uninsurable or insurable only with dramatic
constraint. Additionally, many homes on slabs cannot be raised
to a higher level, and if they rebuild at their current
elevation, they cannot be insured. If insurance is unavailable
or difficult for residents to obtain, this will deter the
property owners from rebuilding, and this will be devastating
to our recovery.
If you can't insure it, you can't finance it. And if you
can't finance it, it doesn't increase in value. If it doesn't
increase in value, the property will decrease in value.
Property that begins to depreciate leads to the potential of
creating slums, blight, and drug-infested, crime-ridden
communities, eventually leading to the end result of Federal
buyout.
The residents of Gulfport and along the Gulf Coast are
looking carefully at flood elevation recommendations, but these
must be realistic and attainable so that properties will be
insurable and continue to appreciate in value. Our residents
need realistic base flood elevations so that we can begin
rebuilding the thousands of homes and businesses lost in
Hurricane Katrina.
The International Building Code should be adopted as a
standard to ensure uniform building requirements throughout the
coastal area. Recognized as an industry standard throughout the
world, the IBC includes necessary requirements so that
structures are built more safe and sound, producing a higher
quality product and improving public safety standards.
The International Building Code can be used in conjunction
with codes developed in South Florida after Hurricane Andrew to
improve a structure's ability to resist and withstand a
hurricane. However, while enhancing and improving the current
codes is important, we must be mindful of the cost of these
higher standards. Many of the working poor in South Mississippi
were adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina, and we must be
careful not to make housing unaffordable.
In closing, I would like, again, to thank the Members of
the Committee for traveling to Gulfport to hold this hearing
and thank the Members of Congress for not letting the story of
Hurricane Katrina disappear from the radar and for continuing
to search for answers and solutions to our problems. Gulfport
is coming back. Slowly but surely we're beginning to heal.
Answering these important questions about insurance, building
codes, and flood elevations will go a long way in improving the
morale and progress of our city. If instead of seeing a FEMA
trailer on a vacant lot residents could begin to see the sight
of homes and businesses being rebuilt, a sense of hope would be
restored in our community.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to answering
your questions.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Favre.
TESTIMONY OF HON. EDWARD A. FAVRE,\1\ MAYOR, BAY ST. LOUIS,
MISSISSIPPI
Mayor Favre. Chairman Collins, Members of the Committee,
Senator Landrieu, thank you for allowing us the opportunity to
be here before you this morning. And, more importantly, thank
you for allowing us the opportunity to be here in South
Mississippi.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mayor Favre appears in the appendix
on page 59.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf
Coast with the center of the eye crossing near the Mississippi-
Louisiana line.
In Bay St. Louis, almost 2,000 homes received more than 50
percent damage with virtually every home receiving at least
some sort of damage, from either flooding or wind or both. Our
business community was heavily damaged, and I know of no
structure which totally escaped the wrath of Katrina. With very
few exceptions, the entire city was underwater.
Providing simple survival supplies until outside sources
arrived; temporary housing needs, clothing and hygiene needs,
debris removal, denied insurance claims, assuring and
reassuring our residents that everything would be all right.
These and many more issues arose in the hours and days and
weeks and months following Katrina's visit.
The positive attitude reflected by our great people was and
still is nothing short of phenomenal. You won't hear complaints
or gripes or moans or groans or any other signs of self-pity
from our residents.
It's just the opposite. The heart, the will, the desire,
and the optimism of our people is unbelievable. We feel that in
spite of all of our individual and collective losses, we still
have a lot to be thankful for. ``While we may not have a house,
we still have a home, and while we may not have anything else,
we still have each other,'' soon became our official battle
cry.
Questions have been raised as to why the rest of the
country should be responsible for the luxury of some people
being able to live along the waterfront. If you think about it,
the answer is quite simple. There is no area of the United
States that is immune from natural disasters.
Whether earthquakes, mud slides, or forest fires in the
West, tornadoes in the Midwest, blizzards, ice storms, or
floods in the North and the East, or hurricanes in the South,
it's only a matter of time before another natural disaster
affects some part of our country. No single area pays for
another area; we all pay for each other.
Bay St. Louis is known as ``a place apart.'' And while part
of the reason for this designation is due to our small town
charm, the bulk of the credit goes to our people; very special
people in a very special place. In order to re-establish our
status as a place apart, we must not only restore our small
town charm, but also provide the opportunity and ability for
our residents to rebuild. We must make our people whole, and we
must make the city whole. One without the other doesn't
accomplish this goal.
While so much progress has been made since Katrina, there's
still a tremendous amount of work left to be done. Individual
Assistance Funding was approved by Congress several weeks ago.
And I realize the implementation of programs such as this takes
time, but time is of the essence. We must streamline the
process as much as possible on both the Federal and State
levels and make the program work for all those for whom it was
intended. Life is already too complicated for those in need.
Funding provided in the disaster relief legislation for
schools, law enforcement, and fire protection must also be made
available immediately.
Disbursing funds to the qualified needy will not only allow
our people to begin putting their lives and properties back
together, but will also help jump-start our local economy. Our
people will then have the opportunity and ability to stay home
or to come back home.
About 2 weeks after Katrina, as most Mississippi
municipalities did, we adopted our operating budget for fiscal
year 2005-06. In the case of Bay St. Louis, we adopted a
general fund budget of almost $7 million, with absolutely no
way to fund it. Our three primary sources of revenues are or
were from gaming, sales tax, and property taxes. Casino
revenues won't be received until the summer, if then, and will
be considerably less than pre-Katrina amounts.
Even though a number of our smaller businesses have
reopened, sales tax revenue will also be considerably less than
pre-Katrina amounts. Property taxes for fiscal year 2005-06
will be about two-thirds of what was projected and for fiscal
year 2006-07 will be about 10 percent of what was projected.
And fiscal year 2007-08 doesn't look any better. Under the best
of circumstances, it will still take several years for our
revenue sources to rebound to pre-Katrina levels.
My major concern for now and the foreseeable future is
funding for the local governmental entities affected by
Katrina. To date, the only sources of public funding are by way
of loans. To my knowledge, there has yet to be any mention of
grant funding to make up for lost revenues for local
governments over the next 5 to 7 years.
The Community Disaster Loan Program provides funding at the
level of 25 percent of our current operating budget or
projected revenue losses for the next 3 years, whichever is
less. The funds we have received from this program are helping
to cover payroll expenses, but these are only loans, and there
is specific language in the legislation prohibiting forgiveness
of these loans. If the requirements of this program were
amended to allow loans for the greater, which would be
projected revenue losses, this would help our situation, but
what we really need is an amendment to the legislation removing
the prohibition on forgiveness of the loans. We would then ask
for the same treatment afforded a number of other cities such
as Miami and Homestead City and Florida City who have all had
loans from the CDL program cancelled.
The State of Mississippi has also made funds available
through the Mississippi Development Bond Bank to assist local
governments meet some of its current operating and cash flow
needs. We would also ask forgiveness of these loans as we do
not and will not for a long time to come, if ever, have the
ability to repay these debts. We have already asked the State
legislature for legislation to forgive any outstanding State
Revolving Fund loans for any governmental entity affected by
Katrina.
On a local level, we lost about one-third of our employees
since Katrina. We have not yet replaced them. But in some
cases, we will have to do so. Other than salaries, debt
service, and some required expenses, we are dealing only with
Katrina matters. This can't last forever, and sometime in the
near future, we must go back to normal operations, for which we
don't have permanent funding sources.
We need a grant program decreasing annually to cover our
lost revenues over the next 5 to 7 years. Without this, there
will be no Bay St. Louis, no Waveland or Pass Christian or Long
Beach. Biloxi and Gulfport may survive simply because of their
size, but even for them, it won't be easy. We need deadlines
extended to cover the duration of the disaster.
That old saying about a picture being worth a thousand
words doesn't fit this situation. Even 141 days after Katrina's
visit, until you see for yourself at ground zero, it's almost
impossible to fully comprehend the magnitude of the
destruction.
And because of the magnitude of the destruction, we can't
continue to think in terms of what has been done in the past.
Throw out the old rules. In responding to the September 11
disaster, this country did things it had never before done. We,
too, must now respond by doing things never before done. We
must be creative in our approach to solving the problems at
hand.
When President Bush visited Bay St. Louis and Waveland last
week, an extremely important message was conveyed without
saying a single word. His presence alone told us that we have
not been forgotten. Your presence here today conveys that same
message. With all of your responsibilities, you've chosen to
take time out of your busy schedules to be here with us.
Our people are a proud people. We may be down, but we're
far from out. We don't ask for pity. We simply ask for
assistance. And with your help and the grace of God, South
Mississippi will rebound and Bay St. Louis will once again be a
place apart.
May God bless each of you, may God bless the great State of
Mississippi, and may God bless America.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Dr. Smith.
TESTIMONY OF DR. GAVIN SMITH,\1\ DIRECTOR, GOVERNOR'S OFFICE OF
RECOVERY AND RENEWAL, STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
Dr. Smith. I'd like to thank the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for allowing us to
talk a little bit about some of our issues and echo many of
those expressed by local officials, as well as Congressman
Taylor.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Smith appears in the appendix on
page 63.
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Just one thing very quickly on the CDBG Program. The
concern about the 51 percent or greater. We are literally in
the process of looking at all of the needs outside of the flood
plain and coming up with a strategy to go well beyond 51
percent. So I just want to mention that as a policy issue it's
very important to Mississippi.
What I'd like to focus on is housing. Mr. Powell talked
about housing, housing, housing being our issue, and it really
is in many ways. So much of recovery is driven by housing, both
the temporary housing as well as a provision of a suitable
number of alternatives to transition from that temporary
housing to permanent housing. Safe, affordable, high-quality
housing. So I'd like to focus on those types of issues.
One of the biggest challenges facing us within Mississippi,
and I would argue facing people around the country following a
disaster of this scale, is the lack of an operational or a
coordinated long-term recovery strategy. It just doesn't exist
in the Federal Government. Post disaster there's not clear
identification of who's in charge, and that was talked about by
many of the Senators today and other local officials. FEMA has
a role, a very important role, as does HUD, USDA, EDA, and on
down the line. But there's not a central coordinating point
that takes charge and knocks out policy issues. And that's a
fundamental problem facing the State and our country.
What we really need is a national program that's flexible,
that's driven by local needs, and ideally one that is developed
before a disaster ever occurs. It's too late for this disaster,
but I would encourage Members of the Senate to think about that
in terms of long-term housing strategy developed before the
storm ever happens. And I'll talk about that in just a bit as
well.
Probably the greatest problem is a lack of coordination
across Federal agencies, that goes back to the need for this
integrated recovery plan, that goes to the housing,
infrastructure, schools, you name it. But housing on the
Mississippi Coast is just crucial. I want to focus on that.
One of the things that we don't seem to learn is that we
just don't learn from past disasters. There are techniques,
there are approaches out there that can speed the deployment of
temporary housing. There are techniques out there that can
provide safe and affordable housing quickly. We just don't seem
to learn those lessons. And I'll touch on a few.
For example, one is driven by advances in the housing
trade. Now modular housing, panelized housing, other housing
techniques have advanced significantly in the last 5 years. In
the past, it was almost a dirty word. I would make the argument
that if you do it right, that's one option. It's not the
answer, but it's a piece of the puzzle.
One of the things that we need to do, we need to develop
the funding mechanism to do that, is to quickly stand up
manufactured housing plants on the coast immediately following
a disaster where they can be stood up quickly to build quality
manufactured housing. In fact, an ideal goal should be that no
one should ever have to live in a travel trailer following a
disaster. It can be done. It's very difficult. It's
challenging, but it can be done. That should be the ultimate
goal. There's a likelihood that people, some people will be in
travel trailers, some people will be in mobile homes, but how
do we, as a country, figure out a way to come up with better
options than that. We can do that. It's possible.
One way to do that is prestorm agreements with private
sector builders and others to literally stand them up just like
you would any other asset following a disaster. We bring in
water, we bring in ice, and we bring in food. But there's no
reason why we can't bring in housing quickly and put up sites
quickly. There are quality places to live in.
One of the problems with this concept, the concept of a
transitional community that's been talked about by FEMA and by
HUD and others, but frankly, it's not been led by someone. And
it's almost--I would make the argument generally, it may be too
late for the State of Mississippi to take on the concept of
transitional housing where you literally build the appropriate
infrastructure in these emergency group sites that will allow
you to transition those emergency group sites of travel
trailers and mobile homes out and replace them with high-
quality, sturdy, affordable housing. That's a conceptual issue
that FEMA and HUD and others have been bouncing around, but
frankly, in this disaster it really hasn't happened yet and now
we're almost at the point where it's too late.
One of the things also that's a major concern for us is the
idea of getting resolution to key policy issues. The failure to
do that is limiting the quickness of our recovery. In fact, the
mayors have talked about policy issues that we need resolution
as soon as possible. The sooner we can get resolution of those
policies, the quicker we can move forward with rebuilding our
community. I'll talk about a couple that are fundamentally
important.
One is the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, that is a
funding source that can be used inside the flood plain to help
repair and/or elevate damaged housing. Its primary function is
to reduce future losses; however, in Mississippi what we're
very interested in doing is elevating flood-prone homes.
However, if the house is gone, there's nothing to elevate. So a
policy issue for us is to use the Hazard Mitigation Grant
Program funds to pay for the foundation and the destroyed house
upon which it sits. What we're planning on doing, what we'd
like to do and suggest is how we link that with the CDBG money
so that there is a cap for the housing.
But this is a policy issue that goes to the issue of the
tens of thousands of homes that are simply gone in the flood
plain. Until we can get resolution to that issue, we're not
sure--in fact, frankly, if we can't get an answer as to how
we're going to pay for the rebuilding of homes inside the flood
plain, a lot of the mayors and others are in a very difficult
position because the flood advisory maps--while I'll commend
FEMA for this--the flood advisory maps that were created are
one of the most innovative tools to help local governments make
informed decisions.
Unprecedented. And FEMA did an amazing job on that, and we
ought to recognize them for that. However, if local government
officials can't tell the disaster victims how they're going to
rebuild their house to those new flood elevations, then people
are scared. They're terrified. They don't know what they're
going to do. And, again, without having a resolution to that
policy issue, our greatest fear is that these homeowners are
going to sell out. They're going to sell their land and then
they're going to turn it over to developers and others who may
end up building highrises along our coast. And that's
definitely not something we'd want to do. We want to rebuild
Mississippi safer and stronger, but at the same time, we want
to capture that architectural heritage that made it so unique.
So that's a very important policy issue that we're facing.
Another is, when we rebuild housing, we're also looking to
rebuild communities. So it's not just housing, but it's also
damaged infrastructure. And there is a policy--or there is a
program with FEMA known as the 406 Hazard Mitigation Program.
It's really 406 Mitigation within Public Assistance. And,
frankly, historically FEMA has been very focused on cost
containment associated with the Public Assistance Program.
The 406 Mitigation Program has a fund, and it is eligible
if the home was--the infrastructure was damaged, you could
rebuild stronger. Better than it was before the disaster, but
making it less vulnerable to future events. Coupling the
housing policy issue of the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and
the expenditure, a wise investment, of 406 dollars to protect
infrastructure, that will go a long way to rebuilding our
communities safer than they were.
I will throw out one thing just to let you know that there
is a study that just came out and, in fact, FEMA funded it, the
Multi Hazard Mitigation Council just came out with a study that
showed for every one dollar invested in mitigation, it was a $4
savings over the long run. Very powerful lesson, I think, for
all of us.
If I could throw out a couple other issues that we're
facing as well. Housing issues, builders. Availability of
trained work force, provision of work force housing. Adequacy
of construction materials.
Both in terms of materials, just quantity, but also the
appropriate types of materials to rebuild coastal construction,
rebuild better, rebuild it safer. We're also talking about
issues of scale. You know, 65,000 homes damaged or destroyed.
That magnitude, we need a coordinated effort at the Federal
level, and it's just not there. And we desperately need that.
The speed of transition from temporary to permanent housing.
How are we going to get these people from their mobile homes
that are actually on their lots on the coast into a place to
live while they're rebuilding their home. These are all issues
that are unresolved. Affordable housing, rental housing,
critical issues, but again, the answers just aren't there in
terms of the funding that's going to pay for it.
The local community needs--I can't emphasize this enough--
three things. One, adequate building inspectors to help with
rebuilding. Two, adequate grant managers to help provide
funding and help find the money beyond the FEMA programs to
help rebuild these communities better than they were before.
And three, housing counselors that will actually walk
individual homeowners through the process. It's a maze of
programs, and there are a lot of gaps out there, so we need to
blend those resources so we can help rebuild Mississippi better
than it was before. Thank you.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Thank you all for your testimony. Each of you has
eloquently described the needs of your communities and the
challenges that you're facing.
I'd like to ask the two mayors what is the single most
helpful action that the Federal Government could take to assist
your communities in recovering? We'll start with Mayor Warr.
Mayor Warr. I can only pick one?
Senator Collins. There are so many, I know.
Mayor Warr. I think where the Federal authority is there, I
would have to say that the base floor elevations of the
structures, how high a structure needs to be built to be
practical and sustain damage. The recommended base flood
elevations--the base floor elevations that we have right now
for this storm--and FEMA has done, and Dr. Smith is right, an
outstanding job with these recommended maps, but if the
structures were built to those elevations, they still would
have blown away in the storm. This storm is totally
unprecedented and in no way should be used as a benchmark.
Hurricane Camille was a very fine conservative benchmark, and
we've been saying that since the day after the storm.
And going far beyond and making structures be put on what
we call giraffe legs would render them, by our building code,
totally impractical and unusable. We have a 12 to 1 rise to run
ratio in our building code. So if someone were to need a
handicap ramp, so to speak, for their home and they couldn't
afford an elevator, and their home had to be raised a certain
number of feet, they could easily have to have a handicap ramp
75 or 100 feet long. Of course, how would they push themselves
up there in a wheelchair anything that long.
We've studied these maps. And even though they're good in
their advisory, I think that we need to take a few feet off.
And then insure the losses, taking the cap off of flood
insurance and let people buy however much they need and charge
them a fair price for it. And then put a more practical number
on what we call the front, which is on the Gulf, and on the
back, which are the bays and the bayous. A little more
conservative than they were before, but not impractical. That
would be a huge advantage to us and, of course, we need that
very quickly.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Mayor Warr. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Collins. Mayor.
Mayor Favre. I guess summing it up in one word, money. You
know, quite frankly, as I said, I think the key to the entire
coast rebuilding is a combination effort of making our people
whole and making the governments whole. One without the other,
having a city with no people being able to live in it doesn't
do a whole lot of good to have a city and having the people in
an area where there is no longer a city, they're not able to
receive the services and enjoy the quality of life that they
have enjoyed in the past. So one without the other really
doesn't solve the problem. So that would be the key is making
our people whole and making the governmental entities whole.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Dr. Smith, I can't help be troubled as I look at the
calendar and realize that the hurricane season for this year is
only about 5 months away. What is your assessment of
Mississippi's preparedness for another hurricane season when
you're still struggling to recover from the devastation of last
year?
Dr. Smith. Right. Actually one of the issues that has been
lost in all this, a lot of the communities along the
Mississippi Coast were actually considered on a nationwide
basis quite progressive in terms of their flood plain
management policies. One of the challenges with this disaster,
as the mayors have mentioned, is the scale or just the size of
this event. Things were in place, procedures were in place, but
it's--frankly, the scale of it, this is where State Government
needs Federal assistance. And by definition, when a
Presidential disaster occurs, it exceeds the capability of the
State Government to a large extent, but this exceeded it on
several orders of magnitude.
And one of the challenges or one of the issues I would
throw out is FEMA was preparing for catastrophic disasters.
They were doing catastrophic disaster planning; however, they
didn't finish the work. And I'm sure that many of the Senators
are aware of that. Those kind of issues need to be revisited.
On a disaster of this scale, States by themselves just can't do
it. They really need a coordinated Federal level of assistance.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks to this
panel. Gene Taylor, thank you for being here and for your
testimony.
Mayors, I thought your testimony was very compelling, and I
appreciate what you said and promise you that we'll do our part
to see if we can respond on both of the issues you talked
about, the FEMA guidelines and also about the--I was about to
say impossible, but very difficult circumstance you're in
without a tax base.
I want to ask a question of you, Dr. Smith, and I thank you
for being here. I was very impressed by the report of the
Governor's Commission. It contains in it some really stunning
statistics about the poverty rate in the State and about the
particular impact, therefore, that the hurricane has on a lot
of people here. As the report says, many residents of South
Mississippi possessed limited assets on the eve of the
hurricane, so think of where they are now. The report also says
that affordable housing and home ownership are cornerstones on
which the region will rebuild for the long term, and it calls
for investments and housing strategies that target low wealth
residents. It's again a quote.
And I wanted to ask you if you could talk a little bit
about what some of those strategies are and what role you
believe the Federal Government must play in implementing that.
And if there's time, I'm going to ask the mayors and
Congressman Taylor to just add a word to focus on how to create
out of this tragedy adequate housing stock for lower income
residents.
Dr. Smith. Absolutely. In the profession, we talk about
vulnerability of people in communities. One of the things we
don't talk about sometimes is the concept of social
vulnerability. People, as you just mentioned--it's one thing to
be a homeowner that's going to be able to take money out of a
bank account and rebuild their home. It's another for someone
who had no flood insurance whose home was destroyed who was on
a fixed income, be it elderly, poor, whomever, those people we
are definitely, as mentioned in the Governor's Commission
report, we are looking at reaching out.
One of the things that we're doing is using Federal
assistance as far as we can stretch those dollars, both the
CDBG money and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds, to
focus on housing-related issues. Focusing in many ways on risk,
but within that risk, those people of low and moderate income.
We're also looking at reaching out to nonprofits because,
frankly, the Federal programs oftentimes are focused on risk,
not necessarily--the Federal disaster programs are oftentimes
focused on risk reduction and assistance, they're not
necessarily focused on assisting the people that need the help
the most, the poorest of the poor in many cases.
And so we're looking at partnering with our Mississippi
Home Corporation. We're looking at partnering with Habitat for
Humanity and other organizations that don't have the same
strings attached. In fact, frankly, that's one of the
challenges in disaster recovery is how do we help rebuild
affordable housing stock given the constraints of Federal
programs. We need programs that have fewer constraints but
allow us to help those most needy individuals.
Senator Lieberman. Well, out of this tragedy I invite you
from a State and local level to give us advice about how we can
change the housing programs to better meet this need. It
strikes me as we talk about this that the nation was outraged
and, in some good measure, embarrassed about the plight of poor
people in New Orleans who were left behind.
That was very visible. Because this is a very different
circumstance, not a large city, not a Convention Center. You
all worked together to get people to safety. Nonetheless, there
are genuine problems of poor people here as well. And that's
why I asked the question to highlight that need of the Gulf
Coast of Mississippi as well as New Orleans.
Mayors, do you want to add a quick word? I got about a
minute left on my time.
Mayor Favre. From my standpoint, I think we saw or still
see that there's a continuing need for temporary housing or
affordable housing. I think different ideas that have been
addressed included manufactured homes.
Last week up in Jackson it was--what'd they call it--the
Yellow House. A little small house, 300 square feet. Doesn't
sound like a whole lot, but if you're living in a trailer, 300
square feet is roomy compared to a FEMA trailer.
Senator Lieberman. We've heard.
Mayor Favre. You can move a little bit.
And I think once again, just like we said before, it's
going to mean getting creative, whether it's with the
manufactured housing or something else.
Senator Lieberman. Do you want to add something?
Mayor Warr. Yes. We do have an opportunity here to create
homeowners out of people who never have been homeowners if we
do this right. The Governor's Commission on Renewal has done
some exemplary work on designs of homes but that don't have to
be gigantic, palatial homes but that are very liveable,
comfortable, and will appreciate over time if we put them in
the appropriate places. If we look at end fill lots and areas
that have had homes destroyed during the storm. If we go to
faith-based groups, Habitat for Humanity, other organizations
like that that don't have the strings attached, as Dr. Smith
mentioned, we will have a tremendous opportunity to do that and
do it in a right way. We're very sensitive along this community
to not cluster people into groups where then they begin to be
identified as low income areas. I think it's very important
that the persons who live in those homes that have been
provided for a better opportunity have the opportunity to do so
and be the only ones that know that they have that--were given
that opportunity to live in that home.
Senator Lieberman. Mr. Taylor, do you want to add a word?
Mr. Taylor. Very quickly. Think about it, it's the 28th,
29th of the month. People on a fixed income have probably spent
their entire budget on food, rent, and now gasoline's almost $3
a gallon. And they're given the decision to stay in their home
of many years or try to get out on the road, only to discover--
again, for the poorest of the poor, they don't have a credit
card. They're out of money.
And one of the many mistakes that FEMA has yet to rectify
is we ought to have a provision to get some gasoline in
people's cars because if we get them out of the area to go
visit relatives, then we don't have to feed them MREs, then we
don't have to find them a portalet, we don't have to get them a
generator. And they're in a place that's got electricity should
something go wrong health wise. And that really is something I
wish Homeland Security would look at, because whether it's a
chemical, biological attack, EMP somewhere, or a hurricane, you
have to get the folks out of the affected area. And it really
does become our job to get them out of there.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you all. We've learned a lot.
Senator Collins. Senator Coleman.
Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Very great panel. Thank you very much.
A question on the housing. I got a chance to look at what
they call the Katrina cottage last week, about 300 square feet.
I don't know, I think it cost about $35,000. I don't know what
the FEMA trailer costs, maybe Dr. Smith does. Have folks looked
at perhaps looking at the cost of the trailer and some system
that would allow that to be used as a down payment on----
Mr. Taylor. Senator, it's about $19,000 for the FEMA
trailer, not counting the installation.
Senator Coleman. Has there been any discussion about the
ability of those funding to provide something more permanent
and, in comparison, certainly much more liveable?
Dr. Smith. That's right. That was one of the issues of the
Governor's Commission report, and certainly we need to get you
all copies. We'll definitely do that. One of the things in
housing was, again, the ideal goal of trying to come up with
solutions and alternatives to living in travel trailers and
mobile homes. And one was what's called a Katrina cottage, the
300-square-foot home.
The benefit of that is not only is it something you can
move into quickly, but it's built in a way that you add on like
you would see in other literally developing communities where
you can literally add onto that home and eventually build out
onto a lot to a larger home. But that is that transitional
component and that one was one of the techniques that came out
of the planning work where we brought in hundreds of
architects, planners, and others from around the country and
they met and worked with each of the 11 communities. And that
really kick started the recovery process.
Senator Coleman. I know there was an article, I think it
was at the end of the year, early part of the year, I saw a
copy of, I think it was the Biloxi Sun Herald paper, and they
had talked about the comparisons between Camille and Katrina
and noted that a lot of work after Camille--there was a
commission and there was a series of recommendations. And the
conclusion seemed to be that the recommendations made it into
reality. I've looked at the quote. Probably the study
envisioned a really hopeful, positive, optimistic work with
communities to try to put it together.
My question is, perhaps to the mayors, what is it that you
can do to help ensure that those visions have a better chance
of becoming realities? So it isn't just, we look into the
future and there's another crisis and someone says, Oh, they
did all this great work after Katrina, but what happened.
Mayor Warr. I think it's just crucial that, first off, you
have to buy into the vision. You have to understand the people
who have that skill and that dedication and who came here and
gave of their hearts. We saw them do it. And they spent
countless hours of doing so. They have to know better than I do
how to design that home. They do this for a living. They've
done it many times. So I think that we would be selling
ourselves short to not try to take fullest advantage, not
necessarily for ourselves, but for the communities that we're
elected to serve by doing that. They've developed this plan.
They've given us a map. And I think that we owe it to the
people that elected us to try as best we can to follow that
map, pick the best roads, and not be diverted. But it's a
commitment to the plan. That's what we must do.
Senator Coleman. Mayor Favre.
Mayor Favre. I agree completely. And one key to the process
has been the public input from the very beginning. Not only
have we bought into it, but the people have bought into it,
too. Like Brent said, I think we owe it to them, and I think
they're going to hold us responsible and hold our feet to the
fire, to make sure that the recommendations are implemented.
The ones that are feasible.
We've looked at, in our case in Bay St. Louis, quite a
number of recommendations, the vast majority are very feasible,
something that we have all accepted and we look forward to.
Senator Coleman. I think the community buy-in is especially
important. There's been certainly a different reception to the
vision that's been laid out with respect to New Orleans.
And I look at the reception of this vision.
My biggest concern is, I know mayors are very practical,
they've really got this grand vision. On the other hand, you're
worried really about basic stuff now. You've got the debris
cleanup. And then you've got transitional housing, long-term
housing, on the other hand. Mayors, you've got visions of a
vibrant city on the hill that they still want to build. And the
whole piece is an important piece.
So please--time is short in this hearing, but let us know
how we can continue to be of help. I add my voice to Senator
Lieberman and the other Members of this Committee in terms of
being responsive to concerns about insurance and about basic
funding, how we make those things work. So I want to thank you
all for your participation.
Senator Collins. Thank you. Senator Dayton.
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
First, I'd like to take the opportunity to salute my
colleague Senator Landrieu. Since the hurricane, I've concluded
that there are five Senator Landrieus, that's how omnipresent
she has been. And I think the fact that you're here today--
there are others who are waiting for us in New Orleans, and
that's appropriate, too. But your concern is for the whole
region, and you've been just a phenomenal advocate for the
whole region. And I just give you enormous credit for that.
It's a great tribute to you.
Congressman Taylor, maybe you'd like to be the House
sponsor of my Truth in Insurance Act. I say that we need to
separate the insurance cons from the insurance companies. And
they write the policies. They write the fine print. They
interpret them. They decide on whether or not to pay the claim
or not. They handle the appeals. And then if they don't pay,
they pocket that money in profit. So, I mean, talk about a
kangaroo court and a stacked deck.
It's just ridiculous. And among that, without getting too
long into it now, but I would require that they put on a front
page in plain English a disclosure what is not covered in this
policy so people understand what they think they're paying for.
I had a gentleman ride over with me from the airport, said
he paid $1,900 a year for his policy, and then he finds out
he's not covered for wind.
I've got people in Minnesota who found out after the fact
that their home was not covered for flooding. It was covered if
there was a revolution and the revolutionaries destroyed the
home. It was covered if their home was hit by an airplane
crash. Now, what are the probabilities of those occurring
versus flooding. Again, they weren't fully apprised.
The same thing in health insurance. So I think that's an
area of serious need in reform beyond the scope of this
Committee. But I hope we can maybe work together and accomplish
that.
I guess I'd like to ask each of you in turn, going back to
your observations, Congressman--and, again, I thank you for
being such a staunch advocate for your constituents. You
described sort of the first couple of days or weeks of FEMA's
response or lack thereof. Tracking it further to now, we heard
from Coordinator Powell about some of the statistics about
various loans and grants, financial assistance, and that
disconnect with at least what I have heard is the public
perception. Again, anecdotally, I heard on the way over here
that people who called the 1-800 FEMA number would wait for 20
minutes on the telephone line and then just get a recording
giving them an e-mail address when they didn't even have
electricity that they had to follow up, and then they were
disconnected.
I mean, have these things that were maybe apparent in the
immediate aftermath, have they improved? Are we seeing progress
now or are these problems persisting?
Mr. Taylor. Senator, to give you a for instance--2 or 3
days after the storm, I visited a shelter. FEMA employees in
there were very proudly handing out brochures saying to call
this number. There's no phones. And when I asked--when I handed
one back to a FEMA employee, I said, What's wrong with this
brochure? They're looking for grammatical errors. There are no
phones. You need to get people down. This is an area where
people look at each other. That's why we have town meetings.
That's why we all have Congressional offices. And so that took
a long time to address. It's not been fully addressed.
I can assure you that 95 percent of all the work in all of
my Congressional offices are FEMA complaints. We still have
5,000 South Mississippi families waiting on a FEMA trailer more
than 150 days after the storm. That's ridiculous.
I can take you to Hope, Arkansas, and show you 5,000 FEMA
trailers sitting on the old runway there. I can take you to
Purvis, Mississippi, and show you ADA trailers for folks with
disabilities. As the local folks say there are no trailers
available. I can take you to a place called De Lisle, there's
probably another thousand trailers sitting there. I can take
you to Hancock County and show you another 500.
And one of the problems is, again, I think we have to
address this, is that, in this instance, Bechtel got the
contract. It's a cost plus contract. So the more they drag
their feet, the more cumbersome they make the project, the more
additional layers they add to the process of delivering a
trailer, they get paid for it. And I actually got a member of
the Bechtel family on the phone and said, If you're doing this
bad a job in South Mississippi, what in the heck are you doing
in Iraq where I can't see you. And, again, if the
Administration is not going to fix this, then it's incumbent on
the House and Senate to do so.
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Congressman. Mayor Warr.
Mayor Warr. We did run into incredible problems like that,
as Congressman Taylor said. Communications, it was like the Old
West. We had to send someone across the county to ask someone a
question to come back and tell us what the answer was. So it
was totally unprecedented. We've not had anything like this
before. It was bad during Camille, but it wasn't like this.
Really when the coastal counties basically are just put to
their knees, everything is off standard. FEMA didn't come down
here intending to do a poor job. No one did. And the
organizations that typically come in and are the first
responders, Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and organizations
like that, they came in, and they were just as overwhelmed as
all of us were. I think we'd be in error to try to point too
many fingers immediately after the storm. Now, since the storm
and as the processes have been set in place, that's where we
need to start really looking and seeing what our best processes
is. I'm not really giving you a lot of answers, but----
Senator Dayton. Madam Chairman, may I ask the other two to
respond briefly, please, any highlights? Mayor.
Mayor Favre. I think it's been mentioned when the storm hit
and the FEMA response was not there, we realized that FEMA was
spread quite thin dealing with storms from last year and this
year in the Florida area, Dennis, including Katrina, before it
hit us, it hit down in the Florida area and all.
So it was quite thin. But some of the problems, I guess the
major problems we've had is that, first, we have FEMA
representatives at every one of our locations, Hancock,
Harrison, Jackson, all over, yet none of them can make a
decision. They've got to go up the ladder however many levels,
and that decision at times takes time. And then when we get a
decision in a week's time, that decision has changed. So we
have to start the process back again.
Debris removal was talked about. Why is it taking so long.
Because of all of the requirements placed on the debris
removal, whether it's the Corps of Engineers or the private
contractors, by the FEMA requirements. Second thing is the
recordkeeping requirements. We have four of my staff members--
on a very limited staff that we have, four of them spend
virtually their entire days doing nothing but recordkeeping.
That's in addition to the FEMA guy who is doing a great job
with us. But four people just to do recordkeeping. And the
threat, implied or actual, has been there since the first
meetings with FEMA that, be careful, we don't want to have to
do you all like we had to do in Florida last year and the year
before and come back and get $2 million.
We didn't have $2 million before the storm, we sure don't
have it now. So it's the recordkeeping requirements and the
fear of not complying and not getting reimbursed for something
that has caused us the most problems.
Senator Dayton. Thank you. Dr. Smith.
Dr. Smith. One of the issues, frankly, is that I think we
need to take a look at rebuilding FEMA. It doesn't have the
tools they need. The tools are being taken away from them as
opposed to given to them.
At one time they had one of the highest morales, I think it
was even mentioned earlier, among all Federal agencies. Now
they're at the bottom, if not at the bottom. So if you don't
have the tools and you have low staff morale, you're almost
doomed to fail.
And I can tell you, I've worked with FEMA a lot, and I
respect them immensely. And there are a lot of very dedicated
people, but they just need more. They need more assistance.
And on that note, frankly, one of the challenges is we're
not giving natural hazards the respect, if you will, they
deserve. I mean, that is an equal, if not greater, threat than
any threat facing this country is just our vulnerability to
natural hazards.
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
Senator Collins. Senator Coburn.
Senator Coburn. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Just a consensus, everybody believes the cap needs to be
raised on flood insurance, there is no question about that.
On the new FEMA maps, everybody agrees they may be a little
bit tougher than they need to be.
Is that the consensus?
Mr. Taylor. Doc, I've been through this once. I don't want
to go through it again in my lifetime. I'm going to go as high
as they say to go. That's just my personal opinion.
Senator Coburn. Is there a feeling that they may be--FEMA
wants to overreact on this too. They don't want to go through
this again either. And so my worry is that we have overreacted
on the FEMA maps to the detriment of the people of Mississippi
and Louisiana.
Mr. Taylor. If I may. What my concern is, at this point,
they're only recommendations. Some of the counties have
accepted and some of the cities have accepted their
recommendations from FEMA. Some of them have moved in that
direction. Now, my fear is with either a change in
administration or either just a change of heart in Washington,
they go back to those counties that didn't fully implement
their recommendations at some point and say, you can't get
flood insurance. And in that instance, my home county would not
be able to get flood insurance. So someone in FEMA needs to
issue a definitive answer whether or not these are the rules or
just recommendations and they can be willing to live by that
decision. Because they've really kicked the ball back on
probably, easily, a dozen different governing jurisdictions to
make the decision in the case of these cities.
Senator Coburn. So who's going to start their home over
until that's decided?
Mr. Taylor. Like I said, I'm going by the FEMA
recommendation.
Senator Coburn. I understand. But who is going to make a
decision to invest and loan money on it until that is decided?
So that's something we need to communicate back up. FEMA needs
to say, this is the strict and fast rule. No, it's a
recommendation. We will hold you to it, and we're going to put
that down and we're going to stick to it, or it's just a
recommendation.
Dr. Smith. If I could, one of the challenges is, these maps
were created as a means to give the tools, information to local
governments to help them in rebuilding.
They're not required. However, when the new flood insurance
rate maps that are similar to these are done in 12 months or
so, that is going to be required. And, frankly, one of the
challenges facing local governments is if, in order to protect
lives and property, it makes sense to follow the advisory
elevations. However, if you don't have the money to pay for it,
it's going to reshape the entire coast in a truly negative way.
Senator Coburn. That's my whole point, in 12 months if
you're really going to get a definitive answer in terms of
flood insurance and what the requirements are going to be for
the financing for these homes, correct?
Dr. Smith. Well, under the advisory maps, if local
governments choose to adopt them, they will be as if they were
flood insurance rate maps, they could be used for regulation
and they could be used for insurance.
Senator Coburn. So are you telling me they've already given
you the answer?
Dr. Smith. I'm saying the local governments have--at this
point they're given the option of adopting the advisory maps as
for regulation.
Mayor Warr. But in many instances, it's going to be a
dramatic increase on peoples' homes, and they're not going to
be able to practically raise these homes. So if you have
someone who has a $100,000 home and they're not going to be
insured for their loss and there's $50,000 worth of damage, and
if they put--if they go and borrow, which they may not be able
to do, but if they have $50,000 to put into that $100,000 home,
now they have a $150,000 home. If that home is at 14 feet
elevation and FEMA says, well, that home is supposed to be at
16 feet elevation, therefore, it's uninsurable or difficult to
insure, what we call B paper in the insurance market. Bankers
in our community have already said that they're not going to
finance homes that are below the FEMA base floor elevations.
So if a home can't be sold to someone for anything other
than cash, if someone wants to buy that $150,000 home but they
have to pay cash for it, they can't borrow money to get it,
then that home just depreciated the day that decision was made.
And that home now is probably a $50,000 or $60,000 home.
Senator Coburn. One other point I just want to comment on.
People from all across the country, including people from
Oklahoma, were down here helping communities. There's no
question this country cares about the people who received the
brunt of this storm. There's no question about it. But one of
the things you said, Mayor Warr, that concerns me a little bit
is that everyone outside of the flood plains, ``should be
covered for their loss whether they had insurance or not.''
And the problem that I have with that statement is that
sets a tremendous precedent for anything else that ever happens
again in this country. And we have to look forward to the
generations that follow us. And does there not have to be a
certain component of personal accountability? There's no
question this was catastrophic. We as citizens of this country
want to help everybody get back on their feet and do the right
thing. But a blanket statement that says--because the next time
something--a tornado hits Oklahoma and 5,000 homes, we're going
to have somebody say, Well, we did it in Mississippi, we did it
in Louisiana. I didn't have insurance for tornadoes, so you got
to cover me. And so there's this realistic problem that we're
going to have to face, which is what percentage is incumbent
upon you all, what percentage is incumbent on the rest of us in
the country to help you. And I agree with your statement, Mayor
Favre, that it does cost across the country, but not to the
degree that we've seen here. Tornadoes are terrible and have
killed a lot of people in Oklahoma along with massive
destruction, but nothing like what has happened here. And so
that's a question we're going to have to wrestle with that is
important for the future, because we are going to set an
absolute precedent, $150,000 on your home.
Mayor Warr. It is an incredible precedent, and I have
shared your concern. I toil with it continuously, but--and it's
a dangerous precedent, but this is a very unprecedented event.
And the reality of it is, as Congressman Taylor's comment about
creating natural disaster coverage rather than flood coverage,
and just anything that's covered under that is something that
we all share in the overall payment of as we insure ourselves,
I think that's the role that we must play.
This is so far off the realm of what is precedented and
practical. People's lives will be destroyed. Their nest egg
that they've worked all their lives to pay for will become
valueless if we don't step in place and make them whole or do
everything we can to do so. And the CDBG funding that you all
were gracious enough to grant to the Governor, I believe, is
the best tool or mechanism for that. It may possibly need
additional funding to do.
Mr. Taylor. Doc, if I may. Having made this pitch to
Senators Lott and Cochran, and Senator Lott introduced a
companion bill, first, you will have to have had homeowner's
insurance to show that you were trying to protect yourself, but
something you didn't anticipate happened. The second thing is,
it will require those people who accept this money, as a
condition of their contract, to participate in the Federal
Flood Insurance Program from then on. That piece of property,
no matter who owns it, has to participate as a part of that
contract. So I understand your concerns. I share your concerns.
But we're taking steps trying to help those people who did try
to protect themselves and see to it that they're protected in
the future.
Senator Collins. Senator Pryor.
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I know that we're
overscheduled here, so I'll try to keep my questions fairly
brief.
Let me just say this, and if someone mentioned this--I had
to take a couple of phone calls a minute ago. But if someone
mentioned this, I missed it. But in Washington our perception
is that there were really three great heroes down here in
Mississippi and Louisiana. One is the Coast Guard. You all
agree with that, the Coast Guard did a great job?
Mayor Warr. Yes.
Mayor Favre. Yes.
Senator Pryor. Second is the National Guard did a fantastic
job.
Mayor Warr. Yes.
Senator Pryor. And third is the faith-based community.
Mayor Warr. Absolutely.
Senator Pryor. We understand and, again, in this area it
was mostly church organizations, the faith-based community,
with the Coast Guard and the National Guard who really stepped
up and really did everything they possibly could do to meet the
needs for the people down here in this area. So I just want to
acknowledge them today because they've done great things.
Let me just, if I may, start with you, Congressman Taylor.
And that is, you mentioned hurricane insurance or maybe
catastrophic insurance or something like that.
And I really do hope that when we go back to Washington we
will this spring, this year at some point, really try to get a
handle on that because I think you're so right. I think you're
touching on something there that is such a critical need,
that's really been a need for a long time, but you just need it
on such a massive scale right now. So I hope you'll work with
Senators and Congressmen to try to get that done. I'll be glad
to try to help in some way, maybe help shape that in some way.
Just as you've been talking Senator Landrieu and I have been
discussing a little bit and, of course, she has a great
perspective on it from her State.
And the other thing you mentioned is communication. FEMA
just wasn't ready on communication. I think FEMA is probably
the best agency for that, given the fact that they're the
disaster control people and communication systems do go down in
disasters. And they should be ready with a great communication
plan. And one of the important things about communication is
information. The fact that you can share information and you
know what's going on, you know where people are injured, you
know where the water is or whatever the case may be, but
information acknowledges power in that type of situation.
And one of the things that I just want to share with the
Committee is that in Arkansas, you mentioned that we had so
many people from Louisiana and Mississippi in Arkansas. We did
have tons for a short period of time. We still have quite a few
now. But is the--FEMA, I believe it was--I know it was FEMA,
but I believe it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon a group of
folks from New Orleans were supposed to fly in to Fort Chaffee.
It was a processing center. And then they'd be distributed from
there. Well, the governor is there, the National Guard is
there, everybody is there ready to receive. And they wait and
wait and wait and wait, and they never show up.
And finally at like 2 o'clock in the morning, they show up.
And every time the State tried to contact FEMA, every bit of
information they tried to get out of FEMA was wrong. And it was
just so frustrating. And, personally, I think there's no excuse
for that. And, again, I think it's just another example of how
in this Committee we need to be very focused on fixing the
problem. Not to overreact, but fix the problem. And it's so
fixable in my view.
And the last thing I want to say is I think everybody on
this Committee is coming to realize, if we don't realize
already, just the economic devastation that we're talking about
for this part of the country. And for most people, if they're
like me and probably most of us here, our biggest asset is our
home. And if we can't get insurance, we can't get financing.
If the value of our home goes down overnight by 20 percent,
50 percent, 70 percent, whatever it is, if you totally lost
your home, it is devastating to a family. And I don't know
exactly right now, I can't tell you right now exactly what the
Federal response should be in order to help create or re-
establish stability in that market, but I'd love to hear from
you all on that and what our appropriate response, what our
best response is to try to re-establish the stability in the
housing market.
Do you all have any comments on that now?
Mayor Warr. I'd love to speak to that.
That's something that I've been very concerned with. The
first thing that you should absolutely do is take the cap off
the flood insurance and let people buy however much they need.
And the most important thing that we understand is we have to
maintain the ability to insure any--the new flood plain numbers
may be ideal. And for new construction, anyone would be wise
and doing themselves an injustice if they don't build to those
numbers. But there are thousands and thousands of homes that
have been there for many years, decades, that have never
flooded before. And if those homes cannot be insured fully as A
paper in the insurance market, then we've just done exactly
what you say, then we've greatly diminished the value of those
homes. So we need to make sure that flood insurance remains
available readily for preexisting structures that remain below
the base floor elevations recommended by FEMA.
Mr. Taylor. Senator, a quick observation. Natural Hurricane
Hunters out at Keesler Air Force Base and the National Weather
Service pegged the storm exactly where it was going to hit,
when it was going to hit, and how bad it was going to be. And
our local first responders, our policemen and firemen, many of
whom lost their own houses, those folks stayed on the job for
like a month. They were absolutely phenomenal. And, again, I
appreciate your mentioning everyone else, but they need to be
recognized as well.
Senator Collins. Senator Landrieu.
Senator Landrieu. Yes. Just to conclude, I want to thank
Senator Dayton for his compliments, but I also want to say it's
really been a team effort with our Mississippi, Louisiana,
Texas delegations. Gene, you've been phenomenal as well as the
Senators from this State and the other Congressional Members.
It's been really tough, but I can say we're all going to
continue to work together. This Congressman almost spent the
night in a tent outside of the Capitol to prove a point that
his people are really living in a place in a way that they
cannot sustain over time and how urgent it is for us to move
forward.
Mayors, thank you for your extraordinary work in speaking
the truth about how you can't have a city without a people, you
can't have people without a city. And we've got to really honor
that balance between the public and the private sector. And I'm
not sure we've done a good enough job of that.
Madam Chairman, for the record, I'd just like to put in the
record, if it hasn't been, that we lost 28,000 homes in Florida
in Andrew in 1992, which was the worst storm to hit America,
but we've lost 65,000 homes in Mississippi, we've lost 215,000
homes in Louisiana from Katrina alone. That's not counting
Rita, which also hit the western side of Louisiana and the
central side of Louisiana and Texas. So when Senator Pryor
talks about how you restore equity, equity means hope for low,
middle class, and all classes of people to restore their homes.
In addition, for the record, we lost 18,000 businesses in
Louisiana, 2,000 businesses in Mississippi.
And in some situations, these families lost their church,
their home, their school, and their business all in one
weekend. That is the truth for many Gulf Coast families. Now,
our churches are coming back. Our schools are coming back. But
these problems of insurance, flood levels, who gets financing,
how we get peoples' equity back to them so they can send their
kids to college and retire decently after a long life of work
is a very urgent matter.
So I don't want to ask any more questions other than to
thank Gene Taylor for his extraordinary work on coastal issues
for many years, including coastal restoration, coastal erosion.
And the final thing I'll say, as we restore our coast,
which is America's coast, the wetlands, it protects not just
Louisiana, but it protects Mississippi. Its biggest protection
to Waveland, to Biloxi, to the Gulf Coast, protects us from
these storms.
We've let it erode, Madam Chairman, and I hope that we can
really focus on that as well, which is not the subject of this
Committee, but you've been very generous in your time to let me
say that.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
I want to thank all of our witnesses today. We're about an
hour behind schedule, and we have people waiting for us in
Louisiana, so we are going to make a pretty quick exit, but we
stayed because you had so much to tell us. It was so valuable.
You've helped increase our understanding greatly, and I thank
you very much for being here today.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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