Hearing of the, Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management of the House Committee

Interview

HEARING OF THE\, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
SUBJECT: READINESS IN THE POST-KATRINA AND POST-9/11 WORLD

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REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): Thank you, Madame Chair. I appreciate your having this hearing as well, for I live in Memphis, Tennessee, which is a sister city to New Orleans, which suffered greatly two years ago and which is on the great Madrid fault -- New Madrid Fault, which gives it possibilities of earthquakes in the future.

We've had other problems with what we called Hurricane Elvis, but that was a wind shear that came through two years ago and caused one of the greatest urban disasters that went unnoticed by the national media, utilities out for over a week.

I went down to New Orleans on my own dime for the second anniversary of Katrina. This committee was going to meet there and for reasons it was cancelled, the meeting, but I went on my own and visited. There's still much to be done in New Orleans, and of course your plan today is to show what you've done since then to prepare.

I saw a television show, I think it was Sunday -- it might have been "60 Minutes," but one of those type shows -- and they said that less than 10 percent of the cities are prepared presently to respond to a disaster and to have an adequate disaster response plan and evacuation. It might have been the evacuation route.

That's shocking, that only 10 percent of the cities -- and they mention D.C. has some type of little red and white insignia on the street signs; most people don't know what they are. Well, when I went to dinner last night on Pennsylvania Avenue I thought, I know what they are now; I don't know how good the ratings were for that show, though.

And so FEMA and other folks need to make people aware of what's already out there, but also those 90-plus percent of the cities that don't have a plan.

I think I'll wait a bit on my questioning, Madame Chairman, but there was some time ago I had an issue with FEMA concerning ice, and after writing you in July 18 and 19 and among other things being concerned about your lack of response to my inquiries, I received a response to my concern about your lack of response to my inquiries concerning the $70 million waste of ice that went on around this country.

The response was September 10. So in responding to my inquiry about your lack of responsiveness, it took you two months and Chairman Norton's committee hearing on the anniversary of 9/11 to thank me for my being patient. Well, I don't know that I was patient, but when you can't respond to a member of Congress about a $70 million boondoggle for two months it makes me very concerned about every American city's future when they are subject to some disaster, whether caused by wind, rain, act of God or misfeasance or malfeasance by some federal agency.

What happened with that ice -- and I'll wait for my questions -- but the idea that you couldn't drink that ice -- I drank that ice. I'm fine. I want to hear the scientific evidence about the ice. It'll be news to people in Alaska. I drank glacier ice; it was over 2,000 years old. I'm fine. Now maybe it wasn't wrapped in that bag, and I know that your response to say why it wasn't good is because the International Packaged Ice Association said it's not good after a year. Do you think the International Packaged Ice Association wants to sell you some more ice?

Thank you, Madame Chairman.

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REP. COHEN: Thank you, Madame Chairman.

First of all, I want to thank the director, and he has background as a firefighter and I've always had appreciation for their work. And being from Miami, you know with emergency preparedness how important it is to a community. So I'm pleased that you're in the position you're in, and I've heard many good things about you.

Having said that and not wanting to appear frozen in place, I want to go back to ice. Explain why it took two months to respond to my letter.

MR. PAULISON: Sir, I cannot do that. That's unacceptable. You should not have waited that long for a response, and I personally will apologize for that.

And we've put a system in place to make sure that does not happen again. We're putting a tracking system in place; we've hired an executive secretary.

When I took over FEMA, we were 800 correspondences behind and we're pretty much caught up with those, but that is no excuse for that whatsoever. It should not have been that long. It should have been a matter of weeks, not months.

REP. COHEN: Thank you, sir. Thank you.

In your letter to me, you expressed that you tried to find some folks to use this ice and you couldn't find any, and then later, once you decided to make it available to the public, that some people came forward.

The initial efforts to find recipients where there were none found were through General Services Administration, which is the federal government, the seafood industry, the United States Forest Service, and nonprofits.

Did you look to local and state agencies and governments and ask them if they had any need or if they could help in giving notice to 501(c)3s or other charitable groups and their communities?

MR. PAULISON: No, sir. A lot of the ice we could not get certified as potable. I know you said you drank it and tasted it and you're fine, obviously. Well, we couldn't take that change.

The whole system of what FEMA has been using for years with the ice, as we go into our new type of logistics, we are not going to store ice anymore. We are using third-party logistics; we are using just-in-time delivery systems.

So we were -- I know, I am making a long answer; I don't mean to do that. But the answer is we tried to find somebody to take the ice, we gave away 600,000 pounds of it just recently to a concrete company in Memphis who needed to cool the concrete down and used for things like that.

REP. COHEN: And I appreciate that and I understand that, but let me ask you this: I would just think, and maybe I'm wrong -- when you gave out your notice and didn't get any responses -- you only gave it to certain federal agencies in the seafood industry. If you'd have given it to local and state governments and said "hey, put out a bulletin," maybe some people to come forth, and when you finally did make it available, this group did come forward and the 600,000 pounds of ice was used for non-potable purposes.

If there would have been a better distribution system for other commodities -- we're not going to have ice in the future, but there are other commodities to put out notice so it could be used before its shelf life expires, it could have been done and it just seems like that wasn't well thought out.

How do you come up -- you just accept the bag industry's one-year shelf life? Has there been any scientific study on this, or Eskimos that have passed away or something?

MR. PAULISON: No, sir, not that I'm aware of. I don't think there's been a study on the Eskimos eating ice. That has been the standard of a year for that. I know all the stuff that we put out -- when I store ice at my house, which I do for hurricane season, I always throw it out generally after six months. I don't keep them much longer than that.

But the year is an industry standard. I don't know if there's any scientific basis behind that.

REP. COHEN: Being that you accepted the fact that it was non- potable, which I still kind of find difficulty with -- and I'll be honest with you, when I was in New Orleans there was a fellow down there and -- well, I shouldn't really give his testimony away, but he said that he had never heard of any such thing as an ice, you know, expiration date. But if it was an expiration date that you honored, why wasn't it disposed of in Memphis where people could go at first and pick it up, not be fenced in and take it home and drink it?

MR. PAULISON: And perhaps we could have done that. We stored it for hurricane season; we did not have any hurricanes that year. I can't help that part of it.

If we had had a hurricane season like was predicted, we probably would have used almost all of that ice, just like we did the year before. But we did have the corps come in and test that ice, and the corps would not certify it as potable, as usable ice. So that was part of the decision making also. It wasn't just the industry's one- year.

REP. COHEN: I think the ice is behind this -- other commodities maybe in the future, and if you would try to give more notice to folks so they could use it, it might work.

Let me ask you about the formaldehyde down there in those trailers.

DEL. NORTON: Could we ask that you wind up this line of questioning shortly so we can get back with the other witnesses waiting?

REP. COHEN: Oh, we're under the five-minute rule; I didn't see the clock ticking. But if I did --

DEL. NORTON: Well, actually, we took more than five minutes because we're trying to devote as much of the hearing as possible to the plan.

REP. COHEN: Thank you, Madame Chairman.

DEL. NORTON: But we are pleased to have the gentleman ask his questions on formaldehyde.

REP. COHEN: Was formaldehyde in the trailers, is it true that you all, for fear of some type of action against you, didn't want to give notice to the public about the danger?

MR. PAULISON: No, sir. That e-mail that came out from our general counsel, there was literally an eight-hour delay before we took action and started notifying people. It was nothing purposeful to keep people from being told that there was formaldehyde in the trailers. We had already put fliers out; we continued to do that. And what we're doing right now is actually moving people out of those trailers as quickly as possible.

We have CDC that's moving in to do some testing to really give us a "no-kidding, scientific basis, what do we really have?" FEMA's used these trailers for 20 years; it's the same ones that you buy off the lot. We bought thousands right off the lot. So if it's a problem with the trailers, then it's truly an industry problem.

So we stopped sales of the trailers. We're making a very concerted, high-intensity effort to move people out, particularly in the group sites, to get them in hotels, motels and apartments. We are going to make sure that we do everything we can do to move people out of harm's way.

You know, and secondly, we're not going to use travel trailers anymore. If we're going to use any type of manufactured unit, it strictly will be mobile homes.

REP. COHEN: Thank you.

And thank you, Madame Chairman.

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REP. COHEN: Thank you, Madame Chairman.

I just will be brief, but this being the anniversary of 9/11, one of the issues that came up in a previous committee I was on was the firefighters, first responders there who didn't have proper equipment at first when they were on the pile, and folks who have had serious respiratory problems -- some I think have died.

That seems like something that we should have had some planning for. At this point, particularly as a former firefighter, do we have a stockpile of equipment that we could supply if there is a tragedy that doesn't have a shelf life that we could provide to folk and have plenty of those available?

MR. PAULISON: Yes, sir, we do. We have those scattered around the country where we can go and equip either a police or a fire department should they in fact lose their equipment, or should we have to staff another agency with those types of things. And we have those scattered around the country, pre-positioned -- what do we call them -- pods, or something like that. I can give you a description of those, what's in them, and also give you a description of where they are. I can get that to your office, and it won't be three months.

REP. COHEN: Well, thank you, sir.

Just the testimony we've received from the firefighters -- and I read something about some folks this morning, because I was reading about 9/11 -- and that was they should have had the regulators, I think they were, and they didn't.

MR. PAULISON: Yeah, they should have been wearing respirators the whole time they were on that pile, and a lot of them were not. And, you know, another one of those sadly lessons learned from those types of things.

REP. COHEN: And when I went there myself about a month after 9/11, again, just as a private citizen wanting to see it, but Mayor Giuliani was nice enough to give access -- I guess he was nice enough, because I used the mask that somebody told me did me no good.

So while I drank that ice, I also breathed that air. Those masks they gave apparently don't do any good at all, those little kind of --

MR. PAULISON: Yeah, I'm not sure what kind of mask you had --

REP. COHEN: Blue and white, and they had a number on them.

MR. PAULISON: Yes, some of those worked very well, actually, for keeping particulate out if there's something in the air like asbestos or any (type of thing ?). If it's a chemical they don't help, but if it's for particulate, anything you wear helps some. But there are some better ones out there than what you're talking about.

REP. COHEN: I know it's the Corps of Engineers' responsibility, but if a hurricane 4 or 5 hit New Orleans this year, how are the levees, the system?

MR. PAULISON: The corps' description of the levees is they are as good as or better than they were during Katrina. However, they failed during Katrina. The ones that they've rebuilt are much better. The levees that did not fail there has to be some concern since they probably were not challenged.

I know the corps is looking very seriously -- I think there's a plan in place on what the long-term rebuilding of the levees should be and what the cost should be, and I'm pretty sure that's going to be coming to Congress.

REP. COHEN: And the wetlands are real important as a barrier. I flew over those, too, and they've been decimated. Are you involved at all with the efforts to replenish the wetlands, or is that another department?

MR. PAULISON: Yes, that isn't, not that I'm aware of, that it falls under FEMA, but it would be another department.

REP. COHEN: Madame Chair, I got here a couple minutes late and you may have said something, I don't know, but being the anniversary of 9/11, you know, I think it's appropriate this committee be working. It shows the government is working. And FEMA has a high responsibility. They gave government -- and it wasn't you, sir; you get good marks -- but FEMA gave the government a black eye for not being able to respond. You've got a high responsibility and your people have a high responsibility, and you're our team.

I just have to have confidence and will have confidence in you and know that you have such an important mission to protect us if there is another terrorist attack, if there's another terrorist attack, if there is another hurricane 5-level in New Orleans or anywhere else.

And so, you know, we're going to have to count on you, and I appreciate you, and you know, I think back upon six years ago and seeing the TV of the second airplane hitting the towers. I think I read this morning that President Bush somehow imagined he saw the first plane hit the tower, which was impossible because nobody saw that for some time later -- kind of like President Reagan, I guess, being at D-Day. You know, sometimes people get confused. But it was an awful event and a tragedy that we honor and remember today.

And you as a firefighter, I particularly am pleased that you're the head of that agency. And being a Floridian -- I'm a Memphian by birth, and that's my hometown; I've lived almost all my life there. But I spent about four and a half years in Florida at Coral Gables High -- I'm 58. I think you're 59?

MR. PAULISON: Sixty. I'll be 61 in February.

REP. COHEN: Well, you got a few -- I guess Gables played North Miami at some time or another, but I know that you've got experience with hurricanes which I've been through, too, so you'll do your job.

And I thank you for your service, and Godspeed.

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