mr. fugate, i appreciate you being here.i represent metropolitan detroit including the city of detroit also including the northern border with canada. a couple questions. my first deals with promoting inner operatability among communications with our first responders as well as with our federal officials along with our canadian counterparts. let me illustrate that. according to one of our local law enforcement first responders, a few years ago there was an accident on the detroit river. that first responder had a hard time communicating to the coast guard about it, and in turn, none of them could notify their canadian counterparts. as a result of the new law in 2008, fema established a disaster emergency community cations division -- communications division. particularly, how does this division help coordinate response on the northern border or could be used to coordinate response in the northern border in a way that would foster inoperable communications with first responders and their canadian counter parts and the federal

mr. fugate and his wife hail from gainesville, florida. administrator, your entire written statement will appear in the record. i ask that you summarize your testimony, please, and you're now recognized, sir. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman, and ranking members. staff spent a lot of time coming up with a bunch of facts and figures on how we've gotten better, how we've improved under the post-katrina format, and after i kind of read it, i kind of took the approach that hive heard today. we've still got a lot to do. so i want to focus on what i think are the key elements of the reform act and how they played out in the last couple years that i've been here in response to disasters. i think one of the key things that came out of that act was we were able to move away from utilizing only the stafford act as a tool to look at how we prepare, respond to disasters. and that's important because if you look at the stafford act, you must wait until you have a request from a governor. it then has to go through the process of whether the president dec

you again for appearing here today -- administrator fugate, thank you for appearing here today and i look forward to your testimony. we now recognize mrsrichardson for any statements she may have. >> good morning. thank you for convening this hearing. i would also like to think administrator fugate for appearing before the subcommittee today. i look forward to your assessment of the local help present capability to manage response efforts. we're here today because just over six years ago hurricane katrina ravished the gulf coast and was a sobering test of our emergency management system. history reports that fema failed the test and as a nation we learned how to acquit the government was to manage disaster activities. determine who was in charge, who should coordinate efforts, what resources are available, and how to acquire needed supplies efficiently was not done well. in the meantime, the nation watched television coverage of this horrific disaster. ironically, television news crews or able to get to the scene, but relief supplies were not. in response, congress enacted the reform act, and though not perfect, it made changes, stream