photographs that i think you've provided, homes have been demolished and businesses torn apart. families displaced across the countryside with no communication with no electricity. the governor said it looked like a bomb went off and i agree. while the response of kentucky emergency management, the kentucky national guardado, firefighters, countless volunteers from all over the country have been both timely and valued. the damage brought by the storms far exceeds the capacity of our local governments and we need state emergency response teams to address. in the west liberty courthouse, it was practically destroyed. we're trying. i've heard countless reports of volunteers from all over coordinated and driving hours to help cut trees and remove

debris, deliver water, take in a homeless family and the like. work is being done with snow on the ground. i want to say the fema personnel were there immediately and they've been helping to coordinate efforts all along, even for the request from the governor for a declaration. the numbers are staggering. a 23 people lost their lives. including 18 in my district. it's not over yet, probably. 222 are in the hospital with injuries. 48 counties were affected by the storms. 29 have been declared disaster areas by the governor. 1500 or so are still without power. 260 without any water service. almost 400 guardsmen have been deployed to secure the areas hardest hit and clear the routes for emergency responders. as i said in west liberty, nearly every building in this

county seat has been destroyed or damaged including the courthouse and city hall. there's no police department or city hall. it will be a set of trailers for the foreseeable future. while my people are resilient, and they are, they are clearly in need and overwhelmed. on monday, as you know, i requested the president to approve a request by our governor for a federal emergency declaration and it seems that fema is working diligently to vail wait the info at its disposal and the president made a disaster declaration last night, thank goodness, to provide individual assistance to seven counties in the region and i want to thank you for that. however, there are a number of counties, notably, mcg gothen and martin, which remain in need of individual assistance and public assistance because the

devastation has torn up the roads, schools, courthouses, beyond recognition. can you, mr. director, give us any indication on when the decision might be made about the remaining counties designated by the governor and president? >> yes, sir, chairman rogers. as soon as president declared we -- and i've done it in several states and it bears explaining. rather than waiting until we have all the information, as soon as we saw all that we had sufficient damages that would recommend in the counties we were in, we were able to get that to the president. the federal coordinating officer appointed by president can add on counties for individual assistance for saw substance without it going back to the president. as soon as we say there's damages warranting it and we expect that to be a rapid process of not weeks, a day or

so, get the information, support it. but we also made a conscious decision with local officials our priority is to get individual assistance turned on first and then we'll do a count for public assistance. many of these individuals are still responding, as you pointed out so trying to go back and find out about insurance and get the cost, for that, we're working with the state on getting back into the public assistance and will -- as soon as we have those numbers we'll process that request as well. we put a premium on the individuals because we know there's going to be an issue about housing and their immediate needs. since we're working closely with the state, and this is the good nugs story as you pointed out. this goes back to investment strategies and homeland security dollars. there's a lot of more capabilities at the state and local level than we've had before. friday afternoon i was in fema's watch as the tornados were hitting and we knew what was going on as far as the initial impacts and we were in contact

with states and said, if you need it ask. it pointed out the resiliency that they have. we got what we need. we'll need you for recovery but we don't have any direct federal assistance to the response. that was the testimony to the local officials, volunteers and national guard. so we focused on individual assistance and the federal coordinating officer will add on counties where we have damaged based upon the request for the state and as we get the public assistance done we'll work that quickly so we can identify and, mr. chairman, that may be where we'll turn on some counties. we're still counting but rather than waiting until we have them all we'll start until we get all the damages identified. >> i can't say anything about praise then, so far, on the effort that fema has done. it's extremely difficult situation because there's no communications. the storm's took out the towers

for communications. telephone, internet, so it's difficult even to contact the county executive or the mayor. besides that, the roads are so clobbered with trees and limbs and damage it's been a remarkable thing that we've come this far this quick but it's a devastating time. i really appreciate your commitment and your rapid decisionmaking but that's all important given the time of year it is, wintertime with devastation as widespread as it is and the human factor is altogether important here. these people are hurting severely and i appreciate the rapid response that fema has devoted to this and look forward to working with you further as we go on down the pike.

>> thank you. >> thank you. and i, too, want to join my colleague's administrator fugate thank you for your service and your important contributions. before i get on to another topic i must tell you, you were talking about the block grant with a continuing focus on -- it doesn't make any sense to me at all. and i am very concerned that efforts such as including urc under a larger block rank could result in decrease in federal funds while the risk of terror events still remains high. and i don't understand. maybe we can have a continuing discussion at another time. how how this is supposed to go to the areas most at risk can be protected. there's other funds for other areas. everybody needs it. but putting it all on a block sends a message to me, cut and

decrease the emphasis. let me turn to indian point. i'm also troubled by reports that the environmental protection agency, the nuclear regulatory commission and federal emergency management agency have ebb caged in ongoing discussions to determine which agency and with what funds would be responsible for a large-scale event at a nuclear power plant. i have to tell you, that sounds like a cartoon which is just too serious to be real. while things are going on and everything is exploding, all these agencies are still deciding who's in charge. as you may know, the indian point energy center is a nearly 40 yooerd nuclear reactor located within 30 miles of times square, evacuating 17 million people in 15 miles is impossible. the governor responds to a possible event it should be planned, practiced and ready for

implementation. so who would be responsible for a large-scale evacuation. god forbid it happens you're still not debating it. are discussions over the best practices for a federal response to a nuclear cleanup being discussed between fema and other government agencies? >> yes, ma'am. evacuation would be state and local supported by the government. that's the local regs that they can order evacuations and we would. >> the reports that the federal emergency management agency, they're incorrect. they are talking about who is responsibilitiable? >> i have not seen those reports. discussions i've been involved in was looking at some of the issues in a post event of what would happen to materials to be cleaned up and the fact that there were different standards

out there for what would determine what was permanently cleaned up. you have regulations for epa for super fund sites. you have protective criteria issued for evacuation decisions. and we were working on what would be the level of cleanup required before people could resume normal and permanent activities. we were also looking at what levels would be set for those that may have to go back in and work in critical facilities if a cleanup had not been completed. in the exercise, we determined that different programs had different standards for cleanup that we wanted to have a consistent approach in a post event and what would be determined as cleaned up versus what the evacuation criteria was. there is also an undergoing review by the nuclear regulatory commission based upon the reviews of what happened in japan but also facilities here to look at what additional actions and protective measures may be required but not having seen the reports, i do know

those were discussions we engaged in. was to make sure that criteria such as super fund were applied to nuclear power plant access and a cleanup phase and how we would apply that so we would not have different standards. one for evacuation or one for clean up which could lead to confusion. >> i thank you for that thoughtful response. i hope we don't have to face that decision. how long is this evaluation and decision-making process going on? >> we've been working on this -- this was an event prior to what happened in japan and picking the criteria we were going to use uniformly across the agencies, that's pretty close to going through the concurrent process where all the agencies sign off on that. i would have to denver to the nrc where they're at in their review process. that's an ongoing process they

instituted after the events there and also looking at other threats that we face with nuclear power plants. our role as fema as part of that is the area outside of the power plant, working with state and local governments on protective measure, evacuations, exercise programs based on the criteria from the nuclear regulatory commission. >> let me follow-up with two other quick -- is my time up? sorry. >> mr. leatham? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and welcome, mr. administrator. thank you for what you do for a lot of people that have experienced real disasters out there. one of which was last summer as you're keenly aware in the missouri river in iowa, for months and months, people were subjected to that -- you usually think of a flood as a one-time event but it went on and on for

months as we all know and it's -- folks there are very concerned about your submission to eliminate the predisaster mitigation program. and your statement notes that the most costly and frequent natural disastrous is flooding and that you're going to maximize the use of your flood grant portfolio to assist in managing risk. could you clarify and translate this into a statement in a way that tells my residents of flood-stricken state and its responders and local officials, you know, what is this actually mean? the risk managing initiative? how is this going to unfold? what does it mean to them? >> we still have in the flood insurance program, the buyout for repetitive loss properties which is one of the things that's oftentimes used to address residential issues after

repeated flooding. it is oftentimes better to buyout rather than repair. we have in that program the ability to fund for elevation. as well as a continuing with a mapping and updates there. so those specific pieces to that are actually targeted towards homeowners and either mitigating the risk by buying out or in the case of floods elevating. in addition, those that were impacted by the floods, the snat has under the stafford act, additional funds but not just the ones using for repair but under 404 they get additional dollars. the season to cut predisaster mitigation was not an easy decision but it was reflected across all of our programs and we looked at other programs addressing similar issues. the fact that we still have about $174 million in backlog projects to be spent. and, again, everybody wants to protect their part of the

budget. my responsibility is to provide recommendations on what we can do with our budget to achieve the goals we had. and we looked at predisaster mitigation. it's a good program, at the cost can we continue to afford that looking at the same funding for other programs? >> it seems to me that predisaster mitigation is cheaper than paying the damage afterwards. there's a school of thought and a lot of very knowledgeable disaster management officials that believe that predisaster mitigation program is on the chopping block because it's been ineffectively administered and that there's a lot of money left lying around and the funds are not expended because of a lack of good projects. rather than basically, a process that was very cumbersome, oftentimes misguided and limited

the projects available. i don't know what you would say to those people that it's more of a management problem than it is a program problem. and it's very difficult to qualify. >> again, no cut is easy. >> have you ever heard those complaints before. >> i've heard a lot of concerns about predisaster mitigation. how the funds are allocated. the difficulties oftentimes in administering the program. and if that was the only reasons then i wouldn't have supported that. we looked across the programs and said we're going to have to make cuts. do we cut everything a percentage or do we take whole programs and keep other things funded at the level they need to operate? we looked at what we do in our other programs and predisaster mitigation and the flood insurance program and the remaining balances in the predisaster mitigation program and the amount of money out there in section 404. so all the areas not saying that mitigation isn't important or

the investment strategy of predisaster mitigation is not also important, it was an area where we had other programs doing similar work and so we made the decision that this would be a program that we're cutting a lot of different things we would zero out. it's not a popular decision. it's not one that i necessarily would like to say i wanted to do. it is something that based upon being pragmatic about my budget and making investment decisions, we cut everything a certain percentage or make decisions about programs to eliminate where other programs provide some if not all of the capabilities that we're looking at in support of the overall programs. >> is there any way to determine what you save avoiding a future disaster? any kind of cost-benefit analysis or anything? >> i've heard people use 4 to $7 for every dollar invested. the problem is there's not enough money and there will never be enough money in

predisaster mitigation to significantly reduce the nation's risk. you got a better chance of getting states to adopt building codes and enforce them. that would save money than using a project by project. but nationally, you're not moving the needle. you can't mitigate building by building. you have to look more systemically. this program did a lot to get people interested in mitigation. it got a lot of people to look at things they could do in their communities for disasters. when you look at what we're funding. very good intentions. what's the bottom line? unless the structure is hit you're not going to see the savings. you may get one or two here. you want to make big changes we need to look at how to reduce the risk not through paying for it, but building better and appropriately so we reduce those costs on the front end. >> thank you, mr. chairman let

me begin by complimenting you on your leadership and establishing a new partnership of the hispanic partners to promote educational opportunities with fema in the field of emergency management. i thank you. you're setting a very, very positive example. recognizing the budget constrapts and everything that you've said in response to some of the other questions, i want to raise my concerns about the national grant program, particularly as it pertains to the ports. already, security funding is down by 57% in this current fiscal year. without a dedicated stream as

has been stated they would have to compete for funding with transit systems, cities, states and there's a possibility that they would not get the attentio need. and study after study has shown that any kind of a terror attack on the ports would be disastrous, not only to los angeles but to the entire country. for example, a study called risk analysis in 2007 says that even if the harbor, referring to l.a. long beach were closed for only 15 days, the authors concluded that cost to the port would spiral to 150 million while the wider economic consequences would be in the billions. so this is something -- an area that we may not want to leave to

chance and to state and local governments. having served in local governments, there's this belief and it could be argued that maritime security is really a federal issue, not a local or state issue. and the focus is always been from the perspective to deal with local -- state and local jurisdictions. so there's also the concern that state governments lack the personnel and the expertise to evaluate maritime risk or determine how ports could be prioritized against other homeland security priorities. so in the event, a worst case scenario that it plays out and that ports do not receive the attention that they need through these grants do not get that

money, given the importance of securing the ports of what would be the backup plan to make sure that they are protected against a terrorist attack? >> i'll make myself popular with a lot of folks when i say this. i keep hearing this that we can't trust state and local governments and ports and transit to work as a team. yet in a disaster, that's exactly what's going to have to happen. but we can't trust and work as a team to come up with funding strategies. i can tell you that secretary nepal tan ycessit napolitano is going to make this a key. we look at the ports as our key transportation assets. the question is if we allocate the money based on each one of these groups, are we building national preparedness or are we doing things in a singular fashion that don't add up to national preparedness?

and, again, i've seen a lot of arguments back and forth. i've seen a lot of money spent. i'm not sure the investment strategy always led to national preparedness. i'm not sure it's always going towards the things we're saying it's going to. i'm not going to single out and stha is one particular area. honestly, you saw the articlesment i have to deal with it. we're buying ice machines. all right? and these programs. is that a national investment strategy? so my question is, if we don't trust states and local governments and ports and transits and citizen corps and everybody else to work together, yet in a disaster that failure will be exploited by terrorists, if giving the funding out individually is what has to happen because we can't work together, then i'm kind of concerned that by the question if we do work in a more leveraged central fashion by bringing people together to work these together, are we really building national preparedness

or merely funded a grant program specific to that concern? but, again, it's troubling to me. i understand the pressure from everybody looking at they don't trust each other. you just said it. they don't trust local officials. they don't trust the state to make it a priority. yet in a disaster, as a nation and a catastrophic event, if we're all getting our grants separately, we're all planning separately, we're all writing our programs separately yet we're all dependent upon each other to be successful, can we drive that through a grant process to make people work as a team and make the prioritizations? but i've been on the other side. and i know the arguments. i know people are looking to protect their interests and i'm not saying that there may not be a better way. but i'm very concerned when the first thing that comes out is we may not be a priority with the state. we may not get the attention we need. we may not be able to do what we were doing if the funding goes

together. because we may not be able to articulate, compete, or get the issue across. yet, if that disaster occurs, and that port is damaged, who's going to respond? all the folks that got the separate pots of money that were planning separately, trying to build a national capability. so i understand the concerns. and ranking member price, i know this is not something that goes over well. but you guys pay me. the public pays me to tell what you i think, not what people want to hear. and i have looked at this and looked at this and been on the bottom of the beginning of this process. and i keep coming back to we don't trust each other so we got to have our own separate pots of money. we cannot depend upon us to prioritize in a way that says these are the investment strategies of the nation. and we have to have the separate money. yet in a disaster we expect all this will come together magically and we'll work well as

a nation. >> thank you. >> mr. carter? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have a question that i'm trying to figure out the answer. dhs seeks to reform fema grant structurement i strongly support competition and procurement process in the direction that you take in the training grant programs concern me because in that it negates the significant investment that congress made in a national domestic preparedness consortium. this new direction would create duplicated programs rather than bolstering the existing programs. i've been told that current backlog in first responder training through the existing program is over 20,000. how does this newly proposed structure for training partnership grants and your request for $60 million to seek to address this backlog and how does it better meet the demaendz

of our first responders? and in considering this, in awarding the funds to this new program, participants have to go through curriculum approval as well as undergo significant costs and time investments which to stand up nut program. will this create a lag in the available training opportunities that we have in place at this time? >> i'm going to have to give you the full report in writing. a lot of your questions get technical. here's the philosophical question. how many homeland security institutes can we afford? and are the programs they're offering, again going back to national add preparedness, do we need and are they interchangeable with other programs? and so part of this was coming back and going we fund a lot of centers of excellence. there are so many centers of excellence out there, i'm not sure what excellence is anymore. i'm not berating anybody? how do we make sure that we're investing in institution that's get the return on the invest

sment based upon as a nation we need and that we have the ability to measure what each one of these institutions do and compare it to other ones. and so this was our attempt to come back and go we recognize congress' authority to specifically say these are things we want to do. there's been a lot of growth here. how do we sustain it, make it more competitive and put more emphasis on is this identifying the training we need for the various disciplines? >> i get your arguments. i know the details, sirment that's why i want to respond in writing. >> you have to evaluate more importantly the question would have to be is somebody making the evaluations of how these centers are meeting the criteria and if i understand this program, the $60 million is to allow others to create new centers of excellence if you want to call it that way. and how do you cut the bad ones

and create the new onesment how do you know the new guys are going to do better than the people failing in their mission if they are failing? i certainly have one of the centers in my state and i'll put it up against anything as far as we were doing it before fema came there and we were doing it since. i feel very confident that the center we have at texas a&m university is meeting the criteria and then some. i would like that evaluation to be looked at and wonder why we're spending other money until we evaluated the old places. >> i think the aggies will do well. they've been a leader in our storm shelter program, everything nearing design of that. so i think that there are those programs that are such prestige and established programs this is not going to be as dramatic as they think. but we do need to look at are we targeting the right types of training we need based upon what the skill sets are? i'll give you an example. there's a lot of folks my age and my profession that are leaving these professions