when i came to fema, i asked why fema did housing. hud has housing in their name. to get people into something immediately. we work hand in hand. with the tennessee floods a couple of years ago, we were looking at houses lost. a lot of people were being displaced. our great partners from hud got in there immediately with us. we were able to move people from one section 8 housing to another. they never had to go into fema housing. they did not have to move from place to place or program to program. we are able to move them into what would be their permanent homes. moving forward by that and focusing on what needs to be done as we're looking at a housing and challenges as we move forward. next we have infrastructure systems. i am not sure if anyone was able to join us from the corps of engineers. great. it is great to see you. çwe know the corps of engineers goes around the world building things and looking at roads systems, utility systems. it is not just the corps of engineers. it is looking at things we need to reconstruct. how will we do that? how do you wanted

fema can take credit where credit is due.e last several years we have been expanding especially in catastrophic planning with our partners from the greater bay area in catastrophic earthquake response plans we developed in 2008 and 2009 -- excuseç me, 2010. i wanted to set the stage about what we're here today to keep in the back of our minds. the type of event we're talking about could literally provide çdamages inñr theç scope ofç e kinds of implications. 1000 bridges totally destroyedç networks disrupted or dysfunctional for two yearsç, maritime prison for weeks or months. çthe transport of 41 key intersection of highways, taking those 335,000 cars, making it almost impossible for them to move aroundñr, then the restoration of water facilities for millions of people in the area, up to 60 days to try to get back online. then the recovery of the refineries and economic redevelopment and slowing of moving 50 million tons of debris you get the picture. this is why we're here. this is why the city of san francisco has foc

experience tpwhuzz haiti and it was an unusual response to fema. we usually don't respond out of the country. and we did. and i was in the national response coordination center. and craig is off at the white house doing stuff, so they had pow would you and said where is the private sector folks? it's, like, they are not here. what do you mean they are not here? they were not part of our team in the nrcc. i was shocked. it would be an understatement to say i was shocked. we fixed that in a few months where as now we have a private sector representative not only during time of disaster but full-time. we have a detail person there. somebody from target then rotated to somebody from big lots then to somebody with the building trades then one of the company's building management companies now we have somebody from verizon and they come and spend three months working for fema then rotate every three months to another country but are in every one of our briefings and when we activate the people who used to be assign there had from the other companies, the

nancy ward who is our region nine fema director. we have cal e.m.a. here, mike dayton and his staff. chief greg sir and they brought their whole command staff. we have many nert scroll teers. nert was a group that came about from 9/11 i mean -- shows where my mind is. from loma prieta. we have a lot prepared for you and i want to welcome our two chiefs up. joanne, would you like to start with a few words and then chief greg sir after that? >> thank you, anne, for the kind introductions. it was amazing 22 years ago this city in the bay area region experienced the loma prieta earthquake. i was not yet in the fire department. it was about five months before i joined and like anne alluded to, if anyone lived here, they remember where they were. >> i was at a high school when it happened and all of us remember the frightening moments and the aftermath of loma prieta. and it's always fitting when we celebrate an anniversary to take a minute not only to commemorate that but to next on the importance of how the community needs to step up an

for years we gave the impressions that -- i'll speak for fema. we're going to be there. we're going to help. we're not going to be there right away. we'll be there as quickly as we can. and initially, the true heroes in response, as we saw in tusk louisa and saw in newark, new jersey, recently. saw in upstate new york and vermont are the first responders. the police officers, the paramedics, the e.m.t.'s and nurses and doctors and neighbors helping neighbors. talked to a woman in tennessee last year during the floods in nashville, and it was this home that was completely flooded. actually it was a week later, and it was being mucked out or cleaned out by again, lutherans and another, i forget the other name of the other faith-based group. there were two groups cleaning up her front home and she's sitting out this 86-year-old woman saying all these nice people are helping me clean out literally what's left of their home and she said i wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for my neighbor that broke my front window out and pulled me out and saved her life. he was a nice youn

>> i have not done a full review within fema. there were some issues with the test, and that is why you do a test to find out the issues, and i have not yet consulted with lady gaga on how she achieved the results. >> thank you, madam secretary, and mr. chairman. >> gentle lady yields back and recognize the chairman of the cyber committee from california mr. lundlundgren. >> thank you, madam secretary for being here and for your service on the state and the federal level. of course, what we are doing here is in the backdrop of the terrible budget crisis that is facing and the terrible financial crisis that is facing us, and as one of the top leaders in the national defense said a year or so ago that greatest threat to national security he thought was this deficit. so i understand why you have tough decisions to make with respect to budget that you bring to us, and i appreciate very much your emphasis on the risk-based analysis all of the way through. so i will disagree with you some thing, but i understand the tough job that you

he has gone to fema. that's an important effort that fema has undertaken. something that the deputy administrator was talking about. i think the state should bring somebody in there as well. [laughter] yeah, right. i have toe say here in the state we are lucky to have the california resiliencey law and peter who has done a lot of incredible work with the private sector. so once again, so many good ideas, so many things have happened here. just remarkable. state of the art. now, the work that you have to do, we have some questions. my colleague prepared some questions. we don't have a lot of time. we have one mike there in the center, and we had way too many questions. we have 15 minutes or so. but i think maybe the best question to ask, jim, is the last one that we had which is like looking back at the last two-plus decades since loma prieta, you know, what concerns us collectively as a group, you know, most about our current response and recovery capacity and what do we think our greatest stride has been the time as regional community to engage bay area co

fema called the departure a significant katrina recovery milestone. more than 23,000 were deployed in the storm's aftermath in just the new orleans area alone. while they were the only shelter a lot of folks had, a lot were later suspected to have toxic interior materials leading to various illnesses. the best news here is that all the former occupants of the fema trailers have now moved on to a more permanent residence. >>> there is a new jd power survey out on auto dependability. vehicles are more reliable and owners are holding on to their cars longer. toyota well represented among the top brands. scion and toyota made the top five with porsche and cadillac. lexus most reliable. notoriously finicky jaguar among the bottom five. chrysler brought up the rear with ram, jeep, dodge and chrysler named as the least reliable brands. >>> take a good look at the man we are about to show you and ask yourself if you've seen him or if you heard anybody lately bragging about the new rolex they picked up at the airport? this happened at the ft. lauderdale airpor

housing, even if it was a fema trailer. don't think a fema trailer is what we call a trailer. it's not a mobile home. it's like a camper like you go hunting in. we had families that lived in them for three years. 600 square foot. jim, my wife made denny come in one to prove to him that a grown man, particularly one my size or his, that a grown man could not turn around in the bathroom with the door closed in the fema trailer, and you cannot, and it was because we needed a new housing solution and my wife is hard headed. my job was to make people feel like if i went home, we were going to be better than we were. but that is all these people needed was some hope. >> last question, what are the odds of brokered gop convention and what would it be like? >> well the odds are enormously against it, but the fact that it's in our conversation is unusual. i was at the last contested republican convention in 1976. but it was a convention where there were two can dates. and neither reagan or ford had the delegates. but i think if we have a contested convention, us, we republicans would r

on february 16, fema is coming out to roll out their national recovery plan and so they are doing it in san francisco, here in city hall. the mayor is going to be giving the opening remarks that day and in fact i had the opportunity to go to harvard in december and go through the national preparedness leadership institute, which was this fabulous program, and all of the instructors from around the country are saying that san francisco is the lead, that we are the model that should be followed in other places. so fema will be looking to us for direction and i think that it's a way for us to highlight all the great work we've been doing and continue to do. just on a very last note, we will be doing all the 1906 earthquake remembrances that we do every year, so i hope you will join us at lata's fountain at 5:42 a.m., or whatever time it is, some god awful early morning but it's a lot of fun and we will be doing community events during april. april'

pamphlets to change about the national guard and fema and we'll hear from the head of fema.this firm is moderated by governor martin o'malley of ireland and governor not meat of wyoming. [inaudible conversations] >> ladies and gentlemen comic thank you for being here today. this is a meet at the national governors association special committee on homeland security and public safety call to order. to my left is governor matthew mead of wyoming and handbag coach or is that the committee. the briefing books for this meeting were passed out in advance to all the governors here is part of the national governors association meeting. many of those committee hearings are going on simultaneously. so governors are rallying and joining us here. seated to my right is heather heather hogsett, national association special committee on public safety. police he had heard shooting a copies of materials and other assistance. assuming that this committee were up into the press them on the dean attendees and they really want to thank all of the nations agitates general for being with us here in

>> this was the third application for port security grant program awards that we made to fema. we were very successful in receiving three of the projects for approval. this round at three projects on it, the first was forward- looking infrared camera mounted on one of our brand new boats that as soon to be constructed through another grant program. this will allow us to locate vessels, suspects, were victims in the maritime environment that need our assistance for resuce. -- rescue. we can find them and no or low light conditions through the thermal cameras, equipment we would not otherwise be able to afford. the second project is addition to the nuclear detection system program. it will include gamma and neutron detection systems as well as backpack detection systems that we can take off of the boats. devices that will give us instant identification of the radiological substance, telling us if it is nefarious or harmless. also equipped our marine unit with personal radiation detectors that are being utilized in the street department. and antenna systems that will transmit back

. >>> the last of the fema trailers has been removed from new orleans. this is more than six years after flood walls and levees broke during hurricane katrina and caused the city to flood in epic proportions. the federal emergency management agency said the last trailer was taken out sunday. the agency said folks who have been living in that trailer moved into their rebuilt home last week. new orleans once had more than 23,000 fema trailers within city limits. hard to imagine. >> we complain with lights go out for two hours, seven years waiting for your house to be rebuilt. >> it's really good they are into homes and out of those trailers. >> tell us about our weather here. >> not bad, 55 today. we can't really complain in mid- february. we may need the umbrella tomorrow. no shoveling, that's for sure. this is our live weather cam by michael and son and temperatures are falling but it's not that chilly, 50 downtown. winds turned a little bit north, northwest at 7, pressure up a little bit, 30.27 inches of mercury and the dew point stands at about 28 whic

but fema says clearing them from new orleans is a significant recovery milestone.e evidence how slow the recovery is in some ways, 6 1/2 years from the storm the last trailer out of that city. that's unbelievable. but again, a little glimmer of hope for the city, which is great. >>> speaking of weather, i know it's warm all the time in new orleans, isn't it? >> yeah. for the most part. so nice. >> well, here's your thursday forecast, everybody. light rain from boston to d.c. thunderstorms from the carolinas down to florida. and from western texas to the big gulf coast windy with morning showers from l.a. to san diego. heavy snow in the mountains of southern california and arizona. lighter in the northern rockies. and one of my favorite songs of all time. you're hearing it now. ♪ tomorrow >> "tomorrow." you're so sweet, paula. 40s from boise to albuquerque. 33 in fargo. 36 in the twin cities. and 42 in the windy city. 49 here in new york. 67 in atlanta. and 82 in new orleans. annie. ♪ and grin and say >> the sun is going to come out in new york if you're a knicks fa

fema is giving the school $19 million to help rebuild. that's a little less than half of the $43 million needed to complete construction. insurance money as well as local and state funding will help pay the remaining balance. fema recently awarded millions of dollars to help rebuild the elementary school in louisa county and to homeowners in the area, as well. >>> this story might have you scratching your head. despite the warm weather we've seen, the state of maryland says almost all of its snow-removal budget is gone. >> what? >> the state highway administration reports using $30 million of its $36 million budget. where's all the money gone? a baltimore station reports that highway crews have gone out 14 times this winter. but did they get rid of all the salt? also, western maryland has seen about seven feet of snow this winter. >>> colorado can finally start digging out of a mass of storm there. a huge winter storm is moving out of the area, but not before causing all sorts of damage. multiple crashes caused part of the highway. reside

would think that the port of los angeles and what have you would be in regular conversations with fema as to what they think they need most and how it fits within the grand grant structure. >> well, congresswoman miller, really, she convened the hearing we had last week on specific port security, and the issue of 100% cargo scanning did come up, and we do understand that the administration has said at this point it's not feasible. is that something we're even going to continue to strive towards? i know there's a lot of levels. point of origin. you know, the secure port, safe and secure ports initiative. i hear that. i just know the port of long beach in l.a., 14 million of those containers coming in and out annually. i am still very concerned that we're not scanning more than 3% or 4%, and we need to be looking at investing in the technology that might be out there that actually could help us achieve this without slowing down commerce and without, you know, being a burden, because i really am still very worried about those containers coming in and out of our ports and whether or not we

government provided -- almost $1 million from fema. i think altogether there was $3 billion in action put together by congress and other businesses so there were a lot of state and federal things came together. but it became clear that a lot more needed to be done to generate rebuilding on this scale. and the private sector and government secondors to meet needs otherwise not met. we have a great panel of speakers this morning who are leaders and represent different geographic areas that were affected by the loma prieta earthquake and folks on the front line helping their community. s -- helping their communities. and to plan working together. first up is barbra garcia. i first became aquainted with barbra and her work when she was the director of a health clinic that provided services to folks in the watsonville area. she was creative in administering needs to the farming community. this was a group that wouldn't initially qualify for a lot of main stream programs. so we were able to provide assistance to them. after the earthquake ba

with respect to red tape or a bureaucracy, i would say that fema is now turning around applications on average in 30 days or less. there really have tried to cut through that, and with respect to what is reimbursable and what is not i would think that support of los angeles, would be in regular conversations with the month in terms of what they need most and how it fits within the grant structure. >> commerce one miller convened a hearing we had last " weak on specifics for security, and the issue of 100% cargo scanning did come up. we understand that the administration has pretty much set at this point it is not feasible. that is something we will continue to strive toward. i know there are a lot of levels, point of origin, the safe and secure ports initiative. i hear that. 14 million containers come in and out annually and i am still concerned that we are not standing more than 3% or 4%. i think what we need to look at its investment in the technology that might be out there that actually could help us achieve this without slowing down commerce and without being a burden. i am so ver

you hear fema talking about community-based recovery. you see the fire and police people with all the training. you know, none of this existed back then. so a lot of things have changed. technology. i mean, think about it. here we are, we go to an event and everybody says, turn your cell phone on to silent.

now the last of thousands of fema trailers is finally out of there we'll show you that plus, when you called the triple bypass burger, i don't know, maybe you need to have an ambulance on stand by. tonight, the meal that put a man in the hospital triple bypass burger. i wonder what happened to him? t until the end of the quarter to think about your money... ♪ that right now, you want to know where you are, and where you'd like to be. we know you'd like to see the same information your advisor does so you can get a deeper understanding of what's going on with your portfolio. we know all this because we asked you, and what we heard helped us create pnc wealth insight, a smarter way to work with your pnc advisor, so you can make better decisions and live achievement. ♪ they hat' ♪ patrolling and tryin' to catch ridin' dirty ♪ ♪ tryin' to catch me ridin' dirty ♪ ♪ tryin' to catch me ridin' dirty ♪ ♪ tryin' to catch me ridin' dirty ♪ [ mom ] hi, there. why do we always have to take your mom's car? [ male announcer ] the security of a tiguan, one of nine volkswagen models named a 2012 iihs

. >> a year before the storms hit, decab got a fema grant to install six large community tornado sheltere these. but red tape at the state level voided the first bid. it took months to get on track. when a contract was finally awarded late last year, a lawsuit over licensing put it on hold again. just last week, battle over which state agency had jurisdiction to approve the shelters sent the whole process back to square one. ricky is chairman of the decab county commission. >> the magnitude was uncalled for. >> this is the storm shelter that dekalb county was put in. this one in maplesville took a direct hit from the tornado in january. a couple of big trees even fell on it. the more than 100 people inside at the time walked out unscathed. by law, oversight for the storm shelter installation belongs to the alabama manufacturered housing commission. it never card about enforcing the rules -- it never cared about enforcing the rules. now it wants all builders and installers to follow its rules and pay for the appropriate permit. art falkener is the state director of the emergency managen't

you hear fema talking about community-based recovery. you see the fire and police people with all the training. you know, none of this existed back then. so a lot of things have changed. technology. i mean, think about it. here we are, we go to an event and everybody says, turn your cell phone on to silent. then we do that. then we do our email and everything. you know, they gave me a cell phone in 1989 when they gave me the orange vest that said incident commander. and by the way, at that time probably two weeks before the earthquake i wouldn't have known an incident commander from commander cody in the lost planet airman. that's a reference if you're a certain age. but in any case, they gave me the cell phone. remember what a cell phone was like in 1989? it was a sear's die-hard battery. you have to carry this around, charlie. i was like, oh, yeah. ok. it was pretty cool. i tried it a couple times. after about a day of that my shoulders were hurting and everything. i said, this is a repetitive stress injury waiting to happen. so i kind

i want to commend fema. you were outstanding. your communications with the people on the ground, before and after, really was outstanding. in the response of begot afterwards, the public assistance decisions were prompt and great for damage done to public buildings and expenses incurred by municipalities. the challenge that we had with the tremendous devastation in the states, in virginia we were more on the bubble according to the rules of fema. i know that there is only so much resource to go around and so much to you can do, but i am wondering, is that solely driven by money? can you perhaps look again at those categories in terms of when it is appropriate to determine the the state has its own capacity to handle the impact of a disaster or when it would be appropriate to weigh in? >> certainly it was great in our state, but we were denied a couple. i wonder if it is time to take a look to see if there is something more the can be done for those individual systems. we have had to raise a lot of private money and people have do