National Hurricane Conference
April 8, 2009
Thank you. It really is a special honor to speak to you today and one I have been looking forward to.
Let me start by stating, as emphatically as I can, that I am very, very excited about the future of FEMA and the Department. I think we have a fabulous new Secretary, and outstanding new Administrator-nominee. I have spent a great deal of time with Secretary Napolitano on a wide range of issues and, I am here to say, she gets it. She is going to be demanding, and she has high expectations. Quite frankly, that's exactly what you and the Nation should demand, and expect.
I can further assure you the Secretary is keenly aware of how important the emergency management mission is, at all levels of government, and is committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure our national emergency management systems are poised to quickly and effectively handle any incident, no matter how large.
There is no one more pleased than I that a new FEMA Administrator has been nominated. This is a tough, tough job, and I'm very pleased that we have an equally tough, tough emergency manager coming in to take the helm. As every one of you knows, Craig brings a wealth of knowledge and first-hand experience, especially from the State perspective, and he will be a tremendous leader. Craig, like our new Secretary, recognizes just how critical Federal-State-Territorial-Tribal-Local-relationships are to a successful emergency or disaster response, and that we need to continue to improve and expand our lines of communication and engagement. I look forward to supporting him and his new team in my real job as a Regional Administrator.
It is fitting that the conference is here in Texas this year. With Dolly and Gustav and Ike all having impacts on Texas last year, it is a perfect location to discuss the issues of preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation as well as the lessons learned.
As we know, each hurricane has its own unique challenges. Houston is the largest U.S. city ever to be directly impacted by a hurricane. More than 2 and a half million people were without power throughout the impacted region. That required one of the largest supply efforts FEMA has ever engaged in and I am proud of the effort and response we showed in establishing the distribution center at Reliant Stadium in a matter of hours.
What I think is even more significant than the quantities of supplies we distributed, was how local, state and federal assets were all an integral part of that distribution center.
I recently met with Harris County Judge, Ed Emmitt, and we talked about those first few days following Hurricane Ike. Judge Emmitt spent much of his career as a master logistics specialist, and I was teasing him about not being able to just direct the operation but how he had to be intimately involved. But you know what, I applaud him for that. Much like I applaud FEMA's Assistant Administrator for Logistics Management Eric Smith. Both he and Judge Emmitt sat together at Reliant Stadium and personally directed that operation. I think the Judge even slept there, I am not sure.
Along with the state's Forest Service, you had the three most critical elements, local, state and federal players, sitting together, working together and solving problems together.
That operation says to me just how far we have come in the last few years. And it is where we have to continue going in order to be successful.
I said this to NEMA, I said this to the National Association of Counties and I will say it to you, If we do not plan together, train together and develop policies and procedures together, from the start, we as an emergency management community will never be as effective as we should be. It's that simple.
And that is why I am so optimistic about our future because I know that is how Secretary Napolitano thinks and I know Craig Fugate thinks that same way. Their perspective coming from state government is so refreshing and so important.
Let me just talk a little bit about this upcoming hurricane season and what we at FEMA have in the works and what we are planning.
Preparedness and training are essential to all of our success and we have conducted several courses this spring at the National Hurricane Center on hurricane preparedness, we have five training workshops here at this conference, and later this month we will conduct the Principal Level Exercise which features a hurricane scenario. So I am pleased with the amount of training we are doing.
In our response operations, we continue to work on Gap Analysis to better understand your current needs. We now have 236 pre-scripted mission assignments with 29 different departments and agencies to expedite the response and we continue with regional evacuation planning support to hurricane prone states.
On the logistics side, we are restocked to pre-Hurricane Gustav levels with food and water and tarps. We have established logistics fly-away teams so we can have an immediate deployment of logistics technical specialists to the field and we are securing more contracts that will help with mass evacuation needs.
In recovery, much of our focus has been on housing and the challenges that have come with it. Of course most of you know that we released the National Housing Strategy a few months ago and so now we have a plan to work and build from. The essence of the strategy is greater coordination between FEMA, HUD and states and really addressing states' needs as they see them and what is best for their residents. But a strategy is only as good as the products you have to support it and we are taking strides to help resolve some of those housing issues.
We just awarded four contracts for the manufacture of new emissions travel trailers that will meet FEMA and state standards for indoor air quality, and will be superior to any currently available commercially. We expect the first units to be delivered by June.
We are analyzing Alternative Housing Units that have been erected, for sustained testing and evaluation, at FEMA's Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg, Maryland. These units are being tested for their livability and hopefully will provide answers for better short-term and long-term housing solutions.
And we are establishing a Temporary Manufactured Housing Unit Supply Contract, which will provide FEMA the ability to sustain disaster housing operations in the event of a catastrophic disaster.
Just a few weeks ago I was in Gulfport, Mississippi and it was my first chance to see some of the "Katrina" cottages the state has placed and I was quite impressed. I think we will learn a lot about their livability and see just how viable they may be as future options.
So there is a lot being developed and studied regarding housing, but as I told the Senate in a recent hearing, until we have the courage to have a national dialogue on disaster housing and develop real solutions for real situations, we will continue to fall short in our responsibilities to disaster victims. And the only way we can solve these problems is to bring everyone to the same table, all levels of government, the Private Sector and Voluntary agencies to hammer out answers. We simply cannot wait any longer.
On the mitigation front we continue to do new storm surge mapping in areas along the East Coast and Gulf Coast and that mapping will help us understand storm surge impact. That will allow us to look at possible mitigation efforts to limit damages but also help with evacuation planning.
One area that is so critical but is often overlooked is public information.
We are expanding into leveraging new tools and technologies, and incorporating social media into our outreach efforts through use of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. And while we've made improvements, we can and must do a much better job of communicating to the public about expectations of all levels of government - and the public themselves.
Our public information needs to inform people what they need to do and where they can get help, and who is providing that help.
Because there are so many ways the public gets their information today, we need to continue to seek out communications tools outside the traditional forms of media and communications - and invest in our public information people and technology that will allow us to get the right information to the right people at the right time.
In June, we will be hosting a Conference of state and federal emergency management communicators, and together, as a collective group, we will address how we can strengthen our efforts.
We face many challenges, and many opportunities to improve. But we will never achieve ultimate success until we achieve an ultimate level of joint cooperation and collaboration, and trust.
Once again, I am excited about where we are heading, I am excited about what we can accomplish, and I am excited about the opportunity that now presents itself for all of us to come together and do what's right for those that we are entrusted to serve every day.
Thank you for inviting me to speak with you this afternoon, and thank you for all that you do.
Last Modified: Tuesday, 14-Apr-2009 11:59:37 EDT