- Titled, "America's Disaster Response:
"The Army's Preparedness
For a Complex Catastrophe."
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as well as a member of
the Council of Trustees.
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and the Institute of Land Warfare
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USA relies on its members
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(audience applauding)
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So thank you for your time
and now I will turn the floor
over to Lieutenant General Retired Honore,
the Former Commander in General
of the United States First Army, sir.
- Thank you.
Well, thank all of you for coming today.
We've got a big challenge on our hand.
It's right after lunch.
And the thing between you
and another cocktail party
is this event, but thank you for coming.
It's a serious topic
because as we live in this great country,
and in this world, we are being
challenged by Mother Nature
and by the force of
those who wish to do evil
and sometimes it's just
accidents that happen
that put our nation at
risk and for this mission,
our army, one of our first tasks
is that is to defend under DOD,
the people of the United states,
its territories and its allies.
And under that, come this mission,
military support to civil authorities.
Now, I have a mission here to make sure
a self-imposed mission
that I see unity of effort
as many times as I can.
And I don't know how in
the hell I'm gonna get
a multi domain operations in here,
but I'm saying that's a new buzzword
that we've got to have
in every brief slot.
And I show can't miss mission command.
So y'all help me with that
when you ask your questions.
If you can help us integrate those
because we need to make
sure we, in detail,
have a mutual understanding
of this unity of effort,
because that's one of the outcomes.
Now all of you can think in your own mind
major events that happened
in the history of your life,
where the Department
of Defense and the army
or work with state federal
partners to respond.
Again, our first mission is to defend
the people of United States
whether it's man made
or natural disasters.
There's a term of reference is used
in the Department of Homeland Security
and in FEMA language is
catastrophic incident.
When we look at the Department of Defense,
that language is complex catastrophes.
We're synchronized.
We both know what we're doing.
But you have to understand
the DHS language
is primarily written around the natural
international incident format that is used
to synchronize the activities
across the government
and that's primarily focused
on the United States,
whereas the Department of Defense
have responded and continue to respond
to incidents around the world
through the state department.
And USAID as we saw
with the case in Bermuda
and as well as in Fukushima in Japan,
when you need capacities to
provide and help save lives.
So, while the definitions sound different,
they're more similar than they are.
There's no scene there
and we take our missions
from the Department of Defense,
in collaboration with
in much in discussions,
today will be centered
or could be centered
around what is happening
in the mainland United
States and in the territories
for which we've had a lot of activities
in the last few years.
We look at the series of hurricanes
that have gone back to that
require all of government
as well as if you looked at
that one, we all remember 911
that entire government response.
With that, I'd like to start
off again with that concept
of unity of effort.
And I'd like to start with one
of my mentors, Mr. Damon Penn
from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency.
Damon, would you lead off
with your introduction,
as well as your key points.
- Yes, sir.
Thank you and thank you everyone.
It's real pleasure to be here.
Let me start by restating the obvious
and remind you that all
disasters are locally executed,
state managed and federally supported.
And the reason that's important
is that the state manage department.
And when I was in uniform,
I really didn't have a grasp
of the whole concept of the
governor being in charge.
Because we're DOD, we're
in charge everything.
We got all the stuff and
everybody wants all the stuff.
But I've really come to
appreciate after time has passed
and getting more experience,
how tough it is for
governors to manage disasters
and what role they have to play
in the whole management process.
And then our focus and
my focus in particular
in response to FEMA is
to meet any shortcomings
or meet any shortages
that the governor has
in executing his or her plan.
So the reason I kind of
stayed with the governor
is they have some tough decisions to make.
If you think about this
last storm, we had Dorian
and as it worked his way up the coast,
one of the questions was,
well, my gosh, why doesn't the
governor evacuate the coast?
And you name the governor,
you name the coast.
Well, it's a four-day weekend.
Four-day weekend means
that there are tourists along the coast.
If the governor evacuated the coast,
and we don't have a storm,
the governor's in trouble.
If the governor doesn't evacuate the coast
and you have a storm, the
governor's in trouble.
Tough place for the governor to be.
So just one thing to
leave you with as we start
is that remember that the
governor makes the decisions
because the government has to pay,
and normally governor has
a 25% cost share or greater
than he pays whatever
the federal response is.
So when you think back
about how much it costs
to operate a helicopter,
when you think about how much
it costs to deploy troops,
25% it comes back to the governor.
But I really wanna focus
on catastrophic incidents,
as General Honore just described,
because we have not had
a catastrophic incident.
Katrina was big.
Katrina was complex.
Katrina was not catastrophic.
Think about a couple scenarios
like we have with Cascadia and New Madrid.
We have 100,000 casualties.
You have 250,000 people now
that are directly affected,
and you have a million people
that need some help of some kind.
That is big.
So when I did the math for this,
I just did the math to see
how many doctors it would take
to serve a community that size.
If you take every doctor we have
in the United States right now,
and they do nothing but respond
to an incident of that size,
we still don't have enough doctors.
So think about that as we
talk about a catastrophe
and how big it is.
Also think about with a catastrophe,
how you just can't do more of something.
We're used to if one is
good, two must be better.
Well, sooner or later
you're gonna run out of,
you're gonna get the 10
and you're gonna run out.
So you have to have a
different idea of going in.
So I view a catastrophic
incident as managing shortages.
So instead of managing resources,
now I think our job becomes
to manage shortages,
and something I learned from the army
and that boils down to an
appropriation of assets.
And how you tell the state
now you tell a FEMA region,
this is what you got, figure it out.
Because you can ask for as
many helicopters as you want.
Sooner or later, there are no
more helicopters available.
You can ask for as many medical
care for people as you want
sooner than not, people aren't available.
And then I also think kind of in terms
of what things look like on the ground
because they're much different.
Think about three groups of people.
Think about the people
that we normally associate
with the disaster we respond to.
Think about the other group of people
that are on the other
coast, watching it on TV.
And think about this huge
group of people in the middle
that have some capability
to take care of themselves
and neighbors but need some
kind of direction on what to do.
And a quick example I use is
during the Atlanta ice storms
several years ago,
there was a lady that went around
all emergency managers
in Atlanta and asked,
"How can I help?" and
everybody was too busy for her.
So she went home, she got on
the internet and overnight,
she got something like 20,000 volunteers
that all wanted to help that
all could provide something
and they took food out
to stranded motorists,
they took water and they took heat.
All the things that people
needed while they were stranded.
She organized that on
a PC at home at night.
So think about that
big group in the middle
and what we do with them
and we can talk about them
later if you'd like to.
And then think too of talking about things
are not gonna return to normal
when we talk about a
catastrophic incident.
So think about places that
not only won't get power
for a year, but may never get power again.
Think about communities now
that are gonna displace,
and that's the biggest fear of a governor
is if a community or part
of a community displaces,
how do you get it back?
And that community serves some function
in the whole big scheme of things.
They produce something, they do something.
How do you get that capability back?
So just some things to think about
as we work our way through.
Sir, I'll turn it back to you.
- You want me to just go?
- Yes, sir.
- All right.
Thanks General Honore.
Hey, my name is Bob Sallis,
and I'm on the OSD staff.
Let me start by saying
thank you for your service,
all of you that are currently serving
and those that have served
in whatever capacity.
We really appreciate that.
As Damon talked about, and
General Honore very quickly.
We've had a number of events
over the last couple of years.
Pretty significant events.
Sandy and then of course, Maria.
Two really big events
that the department performed superbly at.
If you look at those
populations out in Puerto Rico,
it's 3.5 million people
affected in New Jersey, New York
during Sandy was about
eight million people.
But that's still not a catastrophic event
and I stick with Damon's theme about that.
But tremendous amount of capability
the Department of Defense
provided in both of those events.
And Maria was about
60,000 military people.
From the total force.
US TRANSCOM flew over 3000
sorties in about 60 plus days.
DLA delivered 10s of millions of meals.
Just if you went through what
the defense department did
in that effort, it's phenomenal
both in Sandy and both
in Maria are tremendous.
But as we talk about catastrophic events,
they can come in different types.
We focus a lot on natural disasters
and we talked about
Cascadia subduction zone
and in the grid and those kind of things.
But we also gotta think
about nation-state challenges
and the evolving geopolitical
environment that we're in
and how we'd be able to execute
all the responsibilities
of the Defense Department
to include responding to
these kinds of events at home.
And as we try to characterize
a catastrophic event,
to me, it's things
that we haven't dealt with in the country.
Mass casualties, mass
sheltering, mass evacuation
in the 10s of millions.
And how would we perform
those functions well,
as federal, state and local authorities.
So as we think through that today,
I think that's great opportunity
to talk a little bit about that.
But again, the Defense
Department has fully embraced
its DSCA responsibilities,
Defense Supported Civil Authorities.
And I know for a fact
that as we have events in this country,
there are significant expectations
and demands on the Defense Department.
And again, across the Defense Department.
And it has been done
exceedingly well over the years.
Several years ago, we had an initiative
in the Defense Department,
it's called the Complex
Catastrophe Initiative.
It was focused on improving planning,
better using DOD capabilities,
leveraging the total force,
enhancing organizational effectiveness,
and then improving doctrine,
training and exercising.
And we went through a
pretty rigorous process
to improve the way that we did business,
but there's always room to improve.
And so as we look at
a complex catastrophe,
we're gonna need to maximize
all the capabilities of the
department at that time.
So it'll be total force.
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines,
Active Reserve and Guard.
And if you look at the capabilities
that are required from
the Defense Department,
it in involves a lot of organizations.
We have the Corps of Engineers,
General Semonite up here,
they do incredible work.
But there's also organizations like DLA
that really provides the
backbone of logistics support
for a lot of these operations.
And then as I mentioned earlier, TRANSCOM.
Significant organizations,
and you shouldn't overlook installations.
Installations play a
critical role in this effort,
and I'll talk a little
bit more about that.
And although we've made great strides,
again, there's opportunity
for improvement.
I think the other thing
that has to be recognized
right off the bat,
when we talk about these
kinds of activities,
even a complex catastrophe.
We operate under a federal
assistant government.
What does that mean?
Local state authorities,
gubernatorial authority,
and then federal authority.
And more than the federal
departments and agencies
who has responsibility.
I won't go through all
the details of that,
but I think it's very
important to recognize that.
And I also think it's
important to recognize,
as you look at our federal partners,
we have tremendous federal
partners out there,
whether it's DOT, DOE, HHS,
and y'all Know what those
acronyms stand for, I know.
But bottom line is these
are great organizations.
But for the most part, they're
regulatory organizations.
There's no operational capability
in the department of transportation
to deal with transportation challenge.
However, they're significantly
helpful with the regulations
in these kinds of events,
and modifying regulations
and lessening some of those challenges
so that we can move quickly across lines.
DOE, tremendous organization.
How do they support?
Really corralling the
private sector to do that.
And of course, General Semonite can talk
about all the great things
that he did in Puerto Rico.
I see Edda out there too.
It's great to see you.
Bottom line is it's a federalist system.
So understanding that.
It's also systems within systems
that they just spoke about this,
federal departments and agencies.
Think about an organization like HHS,
tremendous organization.
They're responsible for
the medical capabilities
and a mass casualty.
They're gonna reach out to public health,
which is a great organization,
but not a lot of capability
to deal with something
like a mass casualty.
So it's gonna be incumbent
upon our defense department
and our medical capabilities.
And you think back to Puerto
Rico, just two years ago
when we had the conference
and five field hospitals on
the ground in Puerto Rico.
A catastrophic event
is gonna tax all of us.
So it's really important that
we work together closely.
So within those systems of
systems in our federalist system,
it's also based on a
transactional process.
Everybody deals with
transactional processes, right?
The challenge with that it's
a request for assistance.
It comes from the lowest level.
From the local level, to the state.
From the state, to our
integrated regional aspects,
and then of course, the FEMA.
Now, of course, we've done
some things to work around that
with top down mission assignments,
knowing that in an event like this,
we're gonna be working very closely
and as General Honore
pointed out a few minutes ago
with the unity of effort
is gonna be very important
that we're all working together.
But based on transactions like that,
we have to find ways
to be more expeditious
and capable in identifying the
formats that are necessary.
So really complex operating environment
from the local state, federal level,
and how the Defense Department
fits into all those different systems
in a transactional process.
So for me, I've identified basically,
five critical challenges.
I think it's five.
I am the only marine on the panel.
So let's just check my math here.
But we do have five critical challenges
that I think impact response.
The first one is coordinating assessments.
That to me is critical,
because understanding theory is a need
and the types of need is really important.
And you think about the
geographic dispersal,
and the ability to do that.
Second is gaining situational awareness.
That's imperative in this.
It's matching the need to the capabilities
in making time decisions.
The third is priorities.
Competing priorities.
It's gonna be priorities
at multiple levels and
a catastrophic event,
whether that's at multiple
counties within a state,
multiple states within a region,
federal entities or ESF partners,
and the National Response System
and trying to reconcile all those.
Next of course is the
requirements generation process
that I talked to.
It's the ability, it's a linear process.
We have to have a means to do it faster.
And I think we've got
some solutions to that.
And then next is
identifying key leadership
critical to an area that
I think is so important.
And as you think about the federal system,
it's important that we
have those partnerships
at every level and do that.
So as I look at those five
areas, challenge areas,
I also looked at what I consider
enduring actions to
maximize the effectiveness
especially in the complex
operating environment.
The first one, it's a no brainer.
You hear it every time you with
somebody about these issues.
It's building partnerships.
But to me, it's not just
building the partnerships.
It's sustaining the partnerships.
That's the key to everything.
It's sustaining partnerships.
Damon and I are brothers.
We spend a lot of time together.
Anytime he needs something,
he knows he can call me.
Anytime I need anything,
I know I can call him
and I can get him instantaneously.
And it's just critical to
sustain those partnerships.
It's really what keeps
things moving in the process.
And again, at multiple different levels,
the Department of Defense has
built tremendous partnerships
throughout the spectrum.
Joint Force Headquarter State,
the status commanders, the DCOs
and you'll hear more
about all that I'm sure.
But it's important that we
maintain those relationships
across functional entities.
Next is expanding our
information sharing networks.
And that's the key operative
word, expanding it.
It's the ability,
the speed of information
is based on trust.
And when you think about
that complex network,
it's critical that we're able
to share information quickly.
That allows us to prioritize
and make big decisions.
The next thing is having
pre identified capabilities
and pre arranged agreements.
And very simply working through that,
it's the EMAC process at the state level.
It's our DOD installations with
their mutual aid agreements,
and their immediate response authority.
It's the work that we've
done over the years
to improve the prescriptive
mission assignments,
and the extra words that
establish the forces
and posture the forces,
whether those forces
are to respond to a disc event,
or CBAN Response Force,
which is not standby.
18,000 military personnel
on standby everyday in this nation,
because of these kinds of
challenges that presented.
And then there's organizations like DLA
that actually have
inter-agency agreements.
The next one is the investments
preparedness that we make.
That is so important everything we do.
It's the planning, training and exercise.
That's what preparedness means to me.
But it also starts at the individual level
and the organizational level.
And recently, in the
department secretary signed out
an emergency preparedness pamphlet.
I'll be glad to give
anybody that information.
But I think it's critical
for all the unit commanders.
And last thing I'll say, is
strategic communications.
What we do in the communications realm
as it relates to disasters, but
in particular big disasters.
Communicating to the
public and knowing FEMA,
having participated in many
press events of the FEMA team,
it's so important that the American people
know what we're doing, those
affected in the community
know what we're doing.
It's also important that
our constituents on the hill
and the members on the hill,
congressional members
know what's going on,
and that we're working closely
with the governors of the affected states.
It's really important.
In my view, there's a lot of capability
is the United States of America,
whether that's private sector
or government capability,
state local sector capabilities.
The challenge, really, in my view,
is how we prepare ourselves,
how we coordinate better,
how we integrate our efforts,
through pre planning and
those kinds of activities.
In my view, that's what
will make us more effective
at a catastrophic event.
So I thank you for your time.
Again, thank you for your service.
- Okay, I'm Lieutenant
General Laura Richardson.
I'm the Commander of Army North
and Army North and Fifth Army
and for those of you who don't
know where we're located,
San Antonio, Texas at the very historic
Fort Sam Houston Installation.
And specifically our command
and where we fit in all of this
is we're the land component command
for things of this nature that occurs.
And so it's my pleasure
to be here on the panel
and have such an August panel here
with all the panel members
and everybody that's here.
So I wanna give a thank
you to them for being here
and recognizing the
importance of this panel
and the discussion and
your questions and answers
that we're gonna have after that.
But what I wanna do
is specifically talk about
what Army North does,
and kind of how we fit in this framework
that's been established
probably close to two decades,
because I think that that's been
some very important
change that's occurred.
Homeland Defense is our
number one priority,
as it is from my higher headquarters,
which is the US Northern Command,
based out of Peterson Air
Force Base in Colorado Springs.
But while Homeland Defense
drives much of our planning
and coordinating efforts,
Army North is also responsible
for providing this defense
support of civil authorities,
and conducting theater
security cooperation
with the armies of Mexico and Canada.
We serve as the nation's
theater army and Army North,
filling both the army service
component command role
as well as being designated
North COM standing JFLCC,
Joint Force Land Component Command.
And in this role, we
are one of the busiest
service component commands.
We don't just talk about being a JFLCC.
We actually do it daily in multiple ways.
And for example, right now
we're the standing JFLCC
for land operations
supporting homeland defense.
We're also the JFLCC for the Title X
support DOD is providing
DHS on the southwest border,
and the support will continue
through September of 2020.
During the recent Hurricane Dorian,
we served as the JFLCC for Title X forces
and capabilities requested by FEMA
and also supported the
foreign disaster response
to the Bahamas.
We also provided Title
X command and control
and forces to to national
security special events
in the last couple of months,
including support to POTUS
and 180 world leaders
participating in the
74th UN General Assembly
in New York City and also
the 24th World Scout Jamboree
which was just really an honor
because it's been since 1967
since the US has hosted
the World Scout Jamboree.
In our theater army capacity,
we set the conditions for operational
and tactical convergence
of land-based capabilities
across all domains in order to
deter and defeat adversaries
and defend the homeland.
There are a number of
key functions we perform
as both are JFLCC and ASCC.
As a JFLCC we receive and prepare forces
and oversee mission execution.
As an AFCC we set the
theater by assessing threats,
conducting specialized
training and exercises,
providing communications
and providing sustainment to land forces.
We set the theater and both our roles
supporting DSCA and Homeland Defense
just a bit differently.
The army has assigned and allocated forces
that Bob mentioned that
enable us to accomplish
both of these missions.
We have an aviation brigade and
air missile defense brigade,
engineers, medical and military police,
CBAN, response forces, sustainment,
military intelligence and signal forces.
Our headquarters also has four deployable
command and control packages
allowing us to provide support
to multiple complex events
or one large event such
as the New Madrid Fault,
which could potentially involve
multiple state responses.
Moving from natural disasters
to those that are man made,
Army North is also responsible
for the training and certification
of 18,000 men and women
who are in the DOD CBAN
response enterprise.
This includes state and
regional CBAN response forces
who can deploy within three to 12 hours
and would remain under
the governor's control.
On the federal side, we have
OPCON or operation control
of joint task force civil support
a two-star Joint Force headquarters,
which commands the defense
CBAN Response Force
and JTFCS commanders in the front row,
Major John Bell Hall.
So if you have questions
for him, he's here
and he'd be happy to answer them.
The DCRF can deploy within 24 to 48 hours
and provides technical search and rescue,
mass casualty decontamination,
medical, aviation,
communications engineering and logistics
in support of the lead federal agency.
Our federal CBAN and response forces
also include two additional reserve
component CBAN command
and control elements
that are prepared to
deploy within 96 hours.
The final core capability
and what I call the tip of the spear
in our operations for DSCA
is our defense coordinating
officers or our DCOs.
As ARNorth stood up and achieved
initial operation capability in 2005,
we created 10 full time DCO positions,
all of them coded to be a
former brigade commander,
and each co located
with one of the 10 FEMA
regional headquarters.
Everyday DCO has a team of mine personnel
that makes up the defense
coordinating element.
And these DCEs, coordinate
federal and military response
and integrate federal military
disaster response plans
with state and regional partners
to improve readiness for any contingency.
These teams have built relationships
and shared understanding
with not only the FEMA region personnel,
but also with state emergency managers
and responders within the region.
And also during a disaster
in addition to their organic team of nine,
each DCE is augmented
with a number of personnel
from my headquarters, and
also have operational control
of a number of regional and state
emergency preparedness liaison officers
who are what we call EPLOs.
These EPLOs are senior
level reserve members
of the armed forces and the US Coast Guard
who provide critical liaison
with their respective states,
regions as well as the National Guard
and any established state JTF.
They also provide the DCE
knowledge of service capabilities
and response to request for assistance.
Through recent responses
over the past three years,
and close coordination
with our Army Reserve
and National Guard partners,
we have honed our processes and procedures
to quickly Integrate
DOD Title X capabilities
in support of the lead federal agency
to ensure unity of effort
and not being late to need.
So I look forward to your questions,
and thanks again for
attending the panel today,
and I'll be followed by
Lieutenant General Todd Semonite.
- Thanks, Laura.
So I am the Chief of Engineers,
and I'm also the commanding general
of an organization called
the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
And today, I'll give you a
little bit of an oversight
as to what we do and how we continue
to step up for disaster response.
Our organization has 35,000
civilians and 800 military.
The military are nine general officers,
command sergeant majors
and 43 brigade commanders,
we call them districts,
but that's the command and
control from mission command.
That's the ethic to be able
to get the mission done.
The 35,000 civilians
give all of the repository
engineer capabilities
we would need to be able
to do these missions.
And again, all different aspects we do.
We do about a $58-billion program a year.
Obviously installations,
we do all nations waters.
I'm gonna talk to you through
on the disasters on the waterways,
and we work also,
we have the authority to
work for the interagency
and do a lot of construction
for the rest of the interagency.
So there's three rural
aspects that we actually work.
I'm gonna walk through those
as to how we support disaster.
First of all, as a DOD element,
if the Secretary of Defense decides
they need some capability down the ground,
Tyndall Air Force Base is a great example.
When the storm hit Tyndall,
the authorities that have
to be done inside of Tyndall
are very different than
what would have to be done
outside in support of FEMA.
So then we activate our teams,
we have a contract management,
we'll bring contractors in.
All of our contracts are pre storm.
So therefore we gonna work side by side,
whatever the services.
If it's cherry point, if it's Matsu,
to be able to continue to take
care of DOD installations.
And it's not just response,
but also when it comes to
things like sea level rise,
what are we worried about on installations
that are gonna be affected by disasters.
How do we do planning and in
real estate actions there?
The second big mission is
a direct linkage to FEMA.
FEMA doesn't want to go
through the bureaucracy
of working through the
chain of command and DOD.
So we are direct report the
FEMA when it comes to storms,
and I'll walk you through
that on the next slide.
And then the third thing is very unknown,
but this is a very, very
specific authority we have
with respect to the Rivers and Harbors Act
of how we want them to run the
nation through our waterways.
So if you look on this slide here,
we'll show you a couple pictures.
Basically, this is the
missions we do for FEMA.
We do six doctrinal missions.
It's like a battle drill.
It's all on the shelf, we
know exactly how to respond,
we have contracts all
around the United States,
to be able to do these
six doctrinal missions.
And we continue to be able to make sure
that the teams are ready to go.
We have 28 trained teams.
As you think through some of these ones,
upper left is temporary generators.
Most of the big cities
will have power go out.
So we have contractors that come in,
put the generators in place.
If it's a big hospital,
to be able to make sure
that we can keep
electricity up and running.
Just below that is
Urban Search and Rescue.
How do we continue to provide support
to state and local officials
for that type of capability.
And then in the middle on the
upper side is debris removal.
If a hurricane comes through
and completely devastates a neighborhood,
and we're talking 1000 houses
completely taken to the ground,
then we come back in and
with our contractors.
We sort it all.
So where does tree removal go?
Where does old refrigerators?
What about mattresses?
What about hazardous waste?
How does all that go away,
so the occupants just have
to take it to the street,
and then we pull it away?
We work for FEMA, FEMA gives
us a mission assignment
and they transfer funds to us.
We're a reimbursement agency,
so we bring our elements in to
be able to take care of that.
On the upper right you'll
see this is infrastructure.
If there is some buildings
that are damaged,
fire station, sewer station,
something we need to do
to come in with contractors
to get a town up and running,
we provide some degree a
temporary infrastructure.
And then in the middle bottom, blue roofs.
There's a lot of times where these storms
have come in the house
will actually be structurally integrity,
but the roof will be damaged.
So we come in with contractors
put on blue plastic.
Puerto Rico, we did 5000 roofs.
Sometimes unfortunately,
they don't have insurance,
that roof could stay on there
for three or four years.
But that roof done with a blue tarp,
allow the rest of that house
to be able to not get damaged.
And then infrastructure assessment.
Right after a storm,
all my bridge is okay.
So we work very closely
with our civil engineers.
A lot of this is tele engineering.
We have cameras, we go
down underneath things,
we look at it, and we give the assessments
back to the locals where possible.
The thing that I'm not gonna
go into a lot of detail today,
but we're mainly talking response.
Most of the time, that
is all funded by FEMA.
There's another whole different phase,
which is really the rebuilding phase,
and then Congress would apply
supplementals to come back in.
So in 2018, we got $17.4 billion
to come back in after
Harvey, Irma and Maria,
and build more resiliency
back into those neighborhoods.
Stronger levees, stronger
grids to be able to make sure
that they're protected.
We're in the process right now
of building that 17.4 billion.
19 hit, and we had Michael and Florence,
we had California wildfires.
Another $3.3 billion supplemental.
So we're mainly talking
about the response,
but don't forget just when we're done,
that people on the stage are done,
these communities
continue to be devastated,
and Congress continues to step up
and be able to apply that money.
Let's go to the next one real quick.
So here's a couple different pictures.
And if you look in the lower left,
the orange colors, they're
kind of what we do for FEMA.
I'm gonna kind of walk you around,
just kind of give you an array
of some of the kind of missions we do.
And then on the lower right,
it talks about this
other authority we have.
So a good example, we do rivers
for the federal government.
You think of it the
Mississippi, the Missouri.
This year is the second wettest
year in the last 124 years.
There are still rivers
that are flooded right now
that have been flooded for
two or three different months.
You might not see it
here on the east coast,
but if you're in the Midwest right now,
you've been devastated
by the Arkansas River,
the Mississippi, the Missouri River.
We continue to manage the water.
We have 715 different structures.
Just think of a river with
like 15 big reservoirs,
almost like 15 bathtubs in a row.
So when the water comes out of Canada,
how do we slowly continue to watch
where are those storms come in?
How much can our reservoirs absorb?
And then how much do we let out?
The more water we let out,
we risk flooding people downstream.
However, we've got to continue
to build capacity in that
for other storms that could come.
And so we've been doing
this for 244 years.
We've got a pretty good understanding
of how to be able to operate those rivers.
But it goes back to talking to
local people on levy safety.
How do you do integrated water management?
How can we continue to be able to do?
We do that under our own authority
that to was given to us through Congress.
But it's very important
we talk FEMA all the time,
'cause they're gonna have
ramifications on flood insurance.
If there's VOD issues we keep coming in.
So just kind of walked in.
I'm gonna start in the upper right there.
Some different kind of things that we do.
And again, it's a lot of
time working side by side
where the people on the panel here,
levy integrity to be able to make sure
the levees are good in West Virginia.
Florence hit down in South Carolina.
You'll see a picture there of
our communications equipment.
We have standalone stuff,
great big gigantic off centers,
about like 18 wheelers that we
can be able to put out there
so if we aren't necessarily
have the right kind of
comms up and running,
we normally send our comm stuff
in the day before the storm.
We try to get all of our people set.
Even in Puerto Rico, we
flew in about 74 people
before the hurricane hit.
So we were there with comms embedded in.
Flood fighting in
Florence, South Carolina.
Matsu.
Matsu is a DOD facility that
shifts ammunition to Europe.
It's a great big kind of a train terminal
down in South Carolina.
Matsu got devastated when
the storm came through
its DOD installation.
So we came back in
under the Corps of
Engineers with contracts.
But here's the unique thing,
especially for those of you
that are in the military out there.
General Richardson had on the PDTO,
in other words, the on-hand
forces that we could deploy.
She had an engineer
battalion at Fort Bragg.
So we brought civilian contractors
to come in to do rail
repair and rebuild wars.
We also brought in an active
duty engineer battalion,
put them underneath the
Corps of Engineer district
to be able to rebuild that capability.
So again, there's a lot of ways
that how do you find synergy
to be able to lean on all
the capabilities we have
to make this happen?
Temporary housing in Irma,
temporary power in Puerto Rico.
The Department of Energy does grid repair.
We do temporary generators,
but on the eighth day,
it was determined that they
could not get mutual aid.
In other words, a lot of states
to be able to bring in
all those small trucks
to be able to rebuild the grid.
So we took a task, it
took us eight months,
but we put in 62,000 power poles
to be able to rebuild
the grid in Puerto Rico.
Dam modification.
We had a dam in Puerto Rico.
There was a private dam that failed.
Temporary roofing,
infrastructure assessment,
a lot of generators in Typhoon
Yutu that we brought in.
A lot of debris management,
the California wildfires.
You don't think about that much here,
but massive wildfires went through
and burned not only all
these neighborhoods,
but it burned all the forest.
About two weeks later, it rained
where normally that vegetation
would slow that water down.
That vegetation was gone.
Now all of those mudslides came down
and continued to devastate
those neighborhoods.
And then finally, Urban Search and Rescue.
So just kind of the things
that the corps does.
Let's go to the last slide.
So this last slide, I kind of
call the wheel of misfortune.
And this is 2018.
And if you look on that
slide all the way around,
these are actual storms
or different events,
52 different events.
The corps deployed 2100 people to this.
It was about $5.5 billion.
So I'm gonna end on just
a couple themes here.
And several of the other speakers
talked about a catastrophic
catastrophe and a disaster.
A good organization can do any one storm
and to be able to handle it.
The challenge that we saw
in 2018, and all of us,
was Matthew came in and really hit.
I'm sorry, Harvey hit
Texas really, really bad.
It was only about 10 days
later, that all of a sudden,
Irma came in whacked the Virgin Islands,
jumped over Puerto Rico and hit Florida.
So while we're fully engaged in Texas,
we're trying to make sure we got our teams
figuring out where's the storm gonna go.
And don't forget, you never
know where it's gonna hit
and where it's not.
10 days later, Maria came
in and whacked Puerto Rico.
So then you take that, combine
it with all the other things.
That's what by just the
complexity of all the events,
and all the teams having to
figure out how to do this,
where it can get to be pretty hard
and you really have to step up.
So three things I leave you with
that all of us have to
think about in disasters,
pre event training and planning.
The more you can do before the storm,
the better you're gonna be.
We do, I have a whole
battalion it's called
the 249th Engineer Battalion.
These are brilliant electricians.
If they've got a week off
in the middle of the summer,
we send them to a city.
Miami is a great example.
We go to see the mayor of Miami.
We say, "What are your
50 most challenged areas
"if you're gonna have the
storm on electricity?"
And he'll say, "Hospital number five
"is my number one priority
for electricity in the storm."
So we take the electricians
down to hospital number five,
we go and evac all these buildings
are wired for temporary generators.
We look and say we need three
Caterpillar-309 generators
and we write a contract right there
for three Caterpillar-309 generators.
We add the Caterpillar,
we give them a contract
and we say, "When we call you and say go,
"you just go, you just get ready to go."
So all of those things are
on contract, are all ready
and again we do the top 50
then the next couple of weeks
we go to another city.
So the more that all of us,
whatever our areas can
think ahead of the storm,
have the plans on the shelf,
and to be able to make sure we
can execute them ruthlessly.
It's a good way to go.
The second one is relationships.
Bob talked about it.
Partnerships, relationships.
You have got to have the
relationship long before the storm,
and that's where all of us
work side by side every single day.
It's not at the senior level,
but it's down on the ground.
So how do we make sure
that we're working with the Coast Guard?
How do we make sure we
know the local mayors?
What's the emergency response plan?
How do all these things
seamlessly fit together?
That relationship is invaluable
when you're in the middle of the storm?
And then the last one is
this aggressive execution.
The bureaucracy is gonna just
haunt you during these storms.
Every time you turn around,
somebody is gonna say no,
somebody's gonna say you
don't have that authority.
Some lawyer is gonna
say you can't do this,
and you've gotta figure out
how to stay within the law,
stay within your authorities,
continue to let local people do the work,
states do the work and when needed,
we come in and do it.
But you've got to put your head down
and break through the BS
or you'll never be able
to do what we need to do
as a federal agency.
So with that, I'll ended right there
and pass to General Hamilton.
- Thanks.
I'm Pat Hamilton.
I'm the Commander 36 Infantry Division,
Texas National Guard.
And I'm at a disadvantage up here.
My big challenge is I'm the
lowest ranking guy on the stage,
but I'm from Texas, so I got it.
(laughing)
Before I came to the
division 18 months ago,
for the four and a half years before that,
I was the director of the Joint Staff
for the Admiral General of Texas,
responsible for coordinating and executing
domestic response support
to the Governor of Texas
and the division emergency management
in the state of Texas.
Wildfires, floods, winter
storms, hurricanes,
border security operations,
which is no small task.
We're still doing and I
developed a great relationship
with Bob Sallis down there and
then counter drug operations.
So it was a lot to say grace over.
Texas does anywhere from
30 to 50,000 man days
of domestic response every year.
And what I wanna wanna
go over real quickly
is let's get left of
the catastrophic event
and look at what does
the National Guard do
within the states prior
to that catastrophic event
to be prepared to get to that?
First of all the guard
is the professional,
domestic DOD first responders
for anything that happens in the state.
That's our job.
The Adjutant General is held accountable
by the governor for that role.
And that's a lot to say grace over,
and a lot of people
don't really understand that relationship.
And so some guard considerations
for all hazard response,
because understand, the state's
emergency management system,
however they have it
organized and developed,
tries to follow in most
cases, to get federal funding,
tries to follow the National
Incident Management System,
National Response Framework.
And so it's really
behooves us as The Guard
to understand that system and
train our soldiers on that,
our leaders on that
so that when we integrate
with the state's division
emergency management, we
know how they're operating.
It's not vastly different
than what we do in the
military for mission command,
but it will absolutely
support unity of effort
when we show up to support
those local first responders.
I'll tell you, it's not a
successful thing to roll in.
If you're an infantry platoon leader,
and think that you're
in charge of something
at the local level, when that
county judge looks at you
and says, "No, son, you're
gonna do it this way."
It's not a good thing to say,
"No, I'm an infantry platoon
leader, this is how we do it."
He'll send you back, I promise.
So in Texas, and a lot of other states
have started doing this.
They've developed what they
call, mission-ready packages.
My comment about an infantry unit
kind of applies during
Hurricane Rita and before,
I guess, before Katrina really.
The states didn't really
have it figured out yet,
what the military could do for them.
And so they would start asking for stuff.
They didn't really know how much stuff.
They just wanted stuff.
A guy named Jack Colley was the director
of emergency management,
Texas in those days,
and he was a former brigade
commander in 1st Cav Division,
pretty aggressive guy.
And he would call and
say I need 22 trucks.
Sir, what do you need 'em to do?
"Well, now I'll just shut up, Colonel,
"I need 22 trucks."
And so we started negotiating with them
and came up with this
process to determine,
based on the gaps that they had
and the emergency support functions,
what we could fill and
how we needed to fill it.
The problem that states have
is everything they do prior
to a federal declaration
or federalisation,
federal funding coming in
is paid for by the states,
and they don't have that much money.
So for us to send a battalion
because we think that's
the right organization
when all they need are some trucks,
we need to be able to
tailor those packages
to meet that requirement
initially for the state.
Once it becomes federal,
it's a little easier.
And that transition
is something I think we need
to think about and work on
within the states and then
when it becomes regional,
it's gonna become really important.
But so those those mission-ready packages
are reviewed every year in
the states all-hazards plan.
I know a lot of states
are going to that now.
So that things kind of change.
One thing that was added
in Texas a few years ago,
and this gets to General
Honore trying to insert MDO.
I got it for you, sir.
Because we had cyber defense
teams, the cyber response.
What are they called?
Cyber protection teams, CPTs.
We got that for structure into the guard.
And so we went to the state
and said we have a capability
in case of a cyber attack to
do something to support you.
And if first, they kind
of played around with it,
weren't sure how that was
gonna fit into the system,
but we got it added into the
mission-ready package catalog,
the cyber defense team
or cyber support team
to go out in case of a
cyber attack on utilities
or some other entity municipalities.
Well, sure enough, recently,
some ransomware attacks occurred
on some municipalities
in the state of Texas.
And because we had those
mission-ready packages
already prepared, the state knew
what capability was there
and was able to employ it to
support those municipalities
who could have lost a lot of money
that they couldn't afford to lose.
And so that kind of
relationship that The Guard
has to have with the Division
of Emergency Management
in a state is absolutely critical.
And so that is probably
one of the best ways
is looking at the state,
the National Guard,
the State Emergency Management System,
and how they do things
to understand what's
the initial requirement
that we're gonna need
to have within a state.
Because sometimes, even
catastrophic events
don't start off as catastrophic events.
They're graduated.
They start off slow, we
do our state response
and they kind of grow.
I think it's also absolutely essential
and this gets into General
Richardson's capabilities
at Army North.
It's essential that we understand
the things that she and FEMA,
the FEMA regions can provide to the state.
One, know who your FEMA
region administrator is,
know who your DCO is, and who
the members of the DCE are.
Those are the guys
that you're gonna be
working with side by side
in the State Operations Center
as you're executing a response.
Who's the federal coordinating official?
Get to know that person.
So the first time you meet
is not in the state operation center
where the governor's looking at you going
"Okay, who can give me what?"
Understand each other's capabilities.
The uploads that General Richardson has
that can go out into the states,
we've brought in numerous times,
representing all of
the reserve components,
all of the components,
but they're reservists
to tell us what the capabilities are
that are within the state.
Because if you transition
to a dual status command,
which I had to do, guess what?
You own all that stuff, and
you gotta know what it can do
and where it is and how you
get it and what it does.
And the uploads are a great resource
to help you get to that.
EMACs.
EMACs are Emergency
Management Assistant Compacts.
Those occur between governors.
They're not just military,
there any relationship,
any capability from one
state to another state
that's an agreement from one
governor to another governor
that says, "I'll provide
you this if you need it."
And they review each other's
all hazard response plans
and they look at what that is,
and then they can execute it
including military capability.
I think when we start talking
about a catastrophic event,
that's gonna create some challenges.
Because those governors
already have agreements
and once it elevates into
a federal declaration
and a large scale federal response,
who's gonna go tell that governor
whether it's the FEMA administrator,
or General Richardson
as a JFLCC Commander,
probably not, I don't
think you want that job.
Who's gonna tell that governor,
"Okay that EMAC you had,
we're gonna nullify that,
"federalized those troops
"and we're gonna send
them over to this state."
That's gonna be a
challenge, a big challenge.
And and I don't think
we've really done anything
like in New Madrid or
Cascadia that exercises that
and what that looks like.
I guess the last thing that
we need to be aware of,
certainly within the state of
looking at other capabilities
is what an EPLS can do this
with all the non-guard entities.
But what does the SRM cycle look like?
Sustainable radius model deployment cycle
look like with the
capability in your state?
You have to have an understanding.
If you're in a leadership
position in that state
of who's going where, who's doing what
who's available and who's not.
Because you don't wanna figure that out
when you're sitting there trying
to pull resources together
to put into the disaster.
And then the last thing
is transition to a dual status commander.
I think it's important to establish
within the state with your governor
and with your emergency management folks,
when you think you need it,
so that you can execute it.
In Texas and we were
just, because we're Texas,
and we have 24,000 or so
people in Texas Guard.
Previous governor couldn't
really come up with a reason
why he needed to have a standing
MOU you with the SEC DEF
for dual status commander.
And in hurricane Harvey,
as we were looking
at how to get more trucks
into the impact area,
300 by 100 mile joint area of operations,
from Rockport to Beaumont in Port Arthur,
we were pulling trucks
from El Paso and Lubbock,
and I talked to the operations director
for the Governor, Reed Clay and I said,
"I think we need to do
a dual status command."
And he said, "Why do you think that?"
I said, "Because there's 100
trucks in Fort Hood, Texas,
"and somebody's not gonna understand
"why we waited a day and a half
to get trucks out of El Paso
"and love it when we got
100 trucks at Florida."
And the light came on and it was instant.
Now we get it.
And so that was executed that day.
Dual status command
went in effect that day
and I became just as
commander that that evening.
And so we can talk about
getting to the other side
of the event as we established
a dual status command.
But I can tell you, Hurricane Harvey
absolutely it was done right.
General Richardson's predecessor,
General Jeff Buchanan
was a JFLCC commander,
had everything lined up,
staged, ready to go and was in office
the next day after I became
the dual status commander,
with all the capabilities ready to go,
and we have staged ready
to go in fall under RJTF,
and we followed those forces in
and then executed the mission pretty well.
So 30 days, 18,000 troops,
hundreds of thousands of cases of water,
hundreds of thousands of meals.
I think 18,000 rescues and
20,000 or so evacuations
all went off without any major injuries.
So with that, I'll turn it over to you.
- Well, good job.
- Genera Richardson, would you segue us
into the role of the reserves.
Some people may not be
familiar with the NDE
that activates our reserve components,
Army Reserves, in the missions.
And introduce our
representative here today.
- That's right because so we're a reserve
component counterpart.
So Major John Pat Hamilton
from the National Guard.
And then I also have Brigadier
General Jamie Charlie
from the Army Reserve and
she's in the front row.
And so we can only have so many.
As you see the table is only set
for certain number of people
that it was important for me
to have Jamie here too
for the Army Reserve
because we can as Pat, General Hamilton
talked through the importance
of at the state level
and also as Damon mentioned too.
The state level is very, very important
in our relationships.
You talk about relationships.
You gotta know and I took
advantage of Hurricane Dorian.
And and we're very thankful
that that didn't become as
bad as it could have been.
Because it definitely
could have done that,
but allowed me the opportunity
since I came in command in
July, then to go to Florida
as the storm was going up the East Coast
and I came into my head
all my command posts out.
They were out, they were functional.
I have my DCOs that were integrated
in the state EOCs and right
there with the region director
and with all of their state FEMA folks
that they needed to be tied in with.
But as I got to meet the
National Guard leadership,
the governors and again,
all the state folks,
as I went into Florida, then Georgia,
South Carolina, North Carolina.
Also activated was Virginia in this storm.
And then we also have personnel
that are located at the
National Response Center
for FEMA in Washington, DC.
So just really tremendous.
The effort, the framework,
the folks that are under FEMA,
very seasoned and very
experienced in all of this
to be able to work with them.
But just see and General Honore mentioned
that the unity of effort
is just tremendous.
It's really not about who
gets credit for any of this.
It's how we can pool all of our resources,
not step on each other's
toes, or not try to get ahead
or not try to get, again
get credit or notoriety.
It's to bring the best possible response
that we can to make sure that we minimize,
mitigate and do what we need to do.
And that's absolutely critical
with our reserve component
of the National Guard,
and then Army Reserve as well.
So, but I wanna make sure
that the audience knows
we have an army reservist here too.
So if you have questions,
please ask them for her.
- Well, thank you General.
That being said, we're going
shift the format a little bit.
I'm gonna ask a few questions.
Then in the last half hour,
we'll push the questions to the
audience that you might have
to get a further deeper understanding
of the operational concept.
Things never work out many
times how you plan it.
When Katrina and Rita and Wilma came,
we had the Mississippi rifles,
the biggest unit in the
state of Mississippi
was patrolling in Iraq.
And Louisiana brigade,
the target Brigade 256
was on mission Iraq.
So as the time passed, the units
that we have to adjust the plan
based on availability of units,
and that was a critical time for our army
to see the quickness that
general bloom at that time,
with EMACs and without EMACs
deployed about 40,000 troops
in the Katrina was a thing of
beauty and a magnificent job.
Today, people are, there's
expectations commanders
that and agencies.
If a storm hit today,
everybody wanna see meals everywhere,
water everywhere, bridges
open, hospitals open.
And then we've got the fat
chef that's running around.
And I don't wanna really do it,
but the next day he's feeding States.
They build an expectation.
And that's a lot different
than what these people on
this stage have to deal with.
Or the CNS and Cooper show up.
Well if the media is there,
where's the military?
Where is our people in uniform,
and their big expectations there?
So to set the stage for
this first question,
I'll read it and I'll kick
it to this panel here,
determine who might wanna answer.
The formal declaration of an
emergency or major disaster
signals response from the
federal government that are made
and manifested additional resources,
capabilities and capacities
be made available
under laws and authority
specifically designed
for the regulation.
For the regulation.
What would the declaration
of the catastrophic incident
signal to the federal government?
What would that mean to DOD as
a component of that response?
And I'll leave it open
to who might wanna take a shot at that?
- Okay, General, I'll take the first shot.
As was mentioned earlier,
kind of the critical part
of a disaster response
is the declaration from the president.
President personally makes those decisions
and if he declares a major disaster,
then the FEMA Administrator
has all the authorities
that he needs to be able to put
the full weight of the federal government
is support of the state and
local responders on the ground.
So a catastrophic
incident is no different.
That immediately puts things into action
for him to be able to make decisions
and get the federal government going.
And that, of course includes
Department of Defense.
One of the things that's different
for a catastrophic incident though
is the process normally works
starting from the lowest level up.
So the defense coordinating officers,
that General Richardson talked
about work for our regions,
and they support the states.
The request normally
originate from the state,
come up and the defense
coordinating officer
processes those and those go back up
for sourcing and processing that way.
Catastrophic incident, we
will start with the top down.
So we have I think it's 42 now
prescriptive mission assignments
that are big mission assignments that say,
I need 200 helicopters.
I need X number of troops
and high water vehicles,
and we can initiate them right away
so that we get things moving.
But it really starts with me
making a phone call to Bob
and saying, "Bob, this is the big one.
"I need everything you have."
And then we follow up with the paperwork.
But as I mentioned,
instead of going from the bottom up then,
what that creates in is a
top down allocation of forces
and then trying to figure out
where they go is a real challenge.
So two parts there.
First part is we kind of mentioned this,
and I think each panelists
talked about this
in opening remarks is most
difficult part of a disaster
is the assessment phase
and trying to figure out what happened,
'cause they always happen at night,
and they always happen where no one is
and the first thing goes
out is communications.
And happens only always
happens on a weekend.
So trying to figure out what happened
and make very early decisions
about priorities on what
goes where is difficult.
And then as General Hamilton mentioned,
how then do you coordinate
all those efforts
with the EMACs that you have,
with the National Guard's
inherent capabilities
that they have in that particular state,
the engagement of the Army Reserve.
How do you then take all of those assets
and figure out to best prioritize them
for what it is you're trying to do.
So it comes to the unity of effort thing.
- So there you go General.
I get you.
- That's right
- So not unit for command
is all about unit of effort.
And how do you coordinate
all of those assets?
So I think that's the most difficult part
of a catastrophic incident,
especially in the early going.
And then just because you
don't hear from somebody,
doesn't mean they're not in the most need.
A big lesson learned for
me for Hurricane Sandy
was Long Island.
Didn't hear from Long Island.
Long Island must be good.
Well, I didn't hear from Long Island
because Long Island
was so heavily damaged,
they didn't have a way to report.
So we're trying to make decisions early on
and they're very difficult.
But another authority now that
the FEMA administrator has
that he did not have back
during Hurricane Katrina
was the post Katrina reform
procurement management.
It's acronym for procurement.
So now, he or she has the
authority to pre position assets
at our own expense,
before a disaster happens.
So as we were working with
Dorian as a most recent example,
in General Richardson was
talking about her ability
to move up the coast and
work from state to state,
we also had the authorities
in to move assets
and DOD assets as part
of that leap frog action
as we kind of move north.
That's a huge difference
from what we had before
and the funding that goes along
with this huge, huge change
to the way business
function prior to that.
But really, for the catastrophic incident,
trying to identify where the need is,
then making a priority for what you have
and deconflicting with
all the assets you have.
That's like math 601 and
I'm a math 101 kind of guy.
- Yeah, sure, I'll add to that.
I think one of the most important things
when this happens is that
it focuses the leadership of the nation
on these events immediately
in a catastrophic event.
And what I mean by that, in particular,
as General Hamilton pointed out that,
the first thing that's gonna happen
is the governor is gonna
assess what's going on
and we'll start immediate dialogue,
the White House with the
President with the governors
to really assess what the needs are.
And that's important because
that provides tremendous focus
to the federal government
what we're gonna do and then obviously,
FEMA has to lead federal
agency and DOD in support.
It really gets the nation focused,
in particular, the federal entities,
state local entities
and how we can do this.
The most important thing
is we spent a lot of time
over the years identifying
the critical capabilities
that are needed, whether
it's a catastrophic event,
or a major event.
And the normal things that we look at,
the immediate needs that are there,
evacuation, shelter, there's
always challenges with power
and those kinds of things
which shut down hospitals
and nursing homes and
those kinds of stuff.
Fuel shortages, and just
the ability to get around
and open airfields and open
ports and those kinds of things.
And then, as David pointed out,
there's little communications.
The nice thing is that
the Department of Defense
understands that and the work
that's been done with FEMA
to identify the capabilities
that will support these areas
where the demand is most needed,
has been pre identified,
and we've translated the
civilian capabilities
that are needed into
military capabilities.
That speeds the response tremendously.
The other thing in the past secretaries
have immediately signed
off on full authority
to provide life saving
licensing and capability.
That gives the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs
the opportunity to source the capabilities
across the services.
Again, this would be a
total force, kind of effort
and if you're familiar
with the global force management process,
that's how we source the capabilities.
And having that full authority
means that combatant command
that is requesting the
forces or capabilities
immediately has access to that,
and that's incredibly helpful.
It cuts down on the time
consuming piece of this
and the work that again, FEMA has done,
developing the capabilities
that we need to provide
is incredibly helpful in
moving these things forward,
and much more effective than
what we've done in the past.
And again, hats off to the
tremendous organizations,
the military capability, but also
organizations like DLA and TRANSCOM
and the Board of Engineers
that are always postured
and ready to respond to this
along with our military folks.
And you can't leave
installations out of this.
Again, our installations
play a critical role
in these kinds of events.
As we've seen in the past, just
in the last couple of years
with Camp Lejeune
nintendo on those things.
They can be affected too.
But in a lot of cases,
if they're not affected,
once they've taken care
of their military members
and families, there
are tremendous resource
in the local community, working
with the National Guard,
working with the state capabilities
and the local capabilities.
And it's all about integrating
that ahead of time.
And whether it's a no-notice event,
or something that we can
plan for a hurricane.
But when we start talking
about these large scale events,
it's the ability to
rapidly deliver capability
to the American people.
And a lot of great work that's
been done by the military,
and our federal partners,
state and local partners.
The adjutant is general
has really built a network
that's gonna be very responsive
and effective in these kinds of events.
- Thank you, sir.
- Can I make a comment?
- Oh, yes, ma'am.
- So in terms of, I
wanted to speak to Dorian
because one it was my
first tropical storm,
very kind of first, but
we really didn't have
to execute a whole lot
on the Title X side.
But Dorian was a little bit different.
Now, we didn't have to employ a lot.
We did a little bit but we
had a lot of stuff ready to go
and that was from the great efforts
that we had of the people
that we already have embedded,
the DCOs, DCEs, EPLOs, given
right there with the leaders
at the state level and
knowing the local plan
for response and that kind of thing.
And then keeping me updated,
and then me keeping my force provider
Headquarters Department of the Army
and then also NorthCOM aware
of how the state leaders were thinking,
how the how FEMA national
was looking at this,
how you know the region FEMA level,
how they were looking at this,
and then how we could posture things
and put them on a prepare to deploy order
which is more so than maybe
what they're already on.
And so all of that seemed
to work really, really well.
I was pleasantly surprised
about how well that was already set up
and already established.
A lot of communication is required.
And I would say that with a
storm, we're lucky in the fact
that I can go up on the NOAA website,
I can look they have great products
and they can tell me what's
generating out there.
What has the percentage of developing
into a low medium or a very strong storm
in how many days right.
So it tells me my lead time.
Since three years ago or two years ago,
2017 with the Harvey, Irma, Maria.
I'm forgetting one.
Nate, there were four of them.
We developed a template at Army North
that actually in terms of capabilities,
what we would deploy.
Decision support template
is what we call it in the military.
What you would deploy out.
D minus five days, four
days, before the storm hits.
For Maria, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands
is the worst case scenario for me
and probably for General Semonite as well.
So we already know that we're gonna be in
on the ground before the storm hits.
Most likely if it's like a
cat four cat five hurricane.
So we don't have to try
to fight our way in there
just to get there.
We're already on the ground
and we can start operating immediately.
I would say also what has
helped in the process too
is DOD in the DSCA X order.
designating NorthCOM is the
DOD synchronizer for DSCA.
And I think that that helps
bring everybody to the table.
So we don't have any outliers and concerns
that it's all about not being late to need
and having what's needed
there when it needs to be.
For Dorian in particular,
I had Title X forces,
804 personnel that were actually out
in what we would call the JOA,
the Joint Area of Operations.
They were out there already in
place, and they were working.
I had 30, about 35 units, about
5000 personnel and equipment
on a 24-hour to 48-hour ready to deploy.
All we had to do was launched them,
give them the order to move.
What you don't wanna do is
you wanna have that ready,
but not being in anybody's face
when they're trying to
handle the emergency.
So that's why it's
critical for my personnel
and the Title X side is just to get ready
and have all those indicators and warnings
from all my people that are already out
and with the state level leaders
and dialing into the FEMA
national call every day,
and having that sense of awareness
and then being able to
posture up as needed
and get things ready as required,
knowing what the
governor's priorities are.
Debris removal, okay.
I got an engineer battalion ready to go.
And then you wanna have it close by
so they're not like coming
from JBLM to go to Texas.
They gotta travel halfway across
the United States on heads
or whatever, line haul them.
So all those kinds of
things that you gotta work
very, very closely with the force provider
and like with the Army Headquarters
or whatever headquarters
you're gonna get that capability from.
I'll tell you as we transition
to the foreign disaster
response to the Bahamas,
and working with NorthCOM
and all the different service components.
That was really a tremendous opportunity
to see the Joint Force in all
its full power, I would say
not just glory, but power.
To see how seamlessly that operation
and how the different capabilities
come to bear to help out.
Obviously, we're normally not in the lead.
We're always generally in support
when you're talking about
Homeland Security-type events.
We're always in support of
the lead federal agency.
So we never wanna take the lead.
So we wanna always enable that operation.
- Thank you General.
Well stated.
A reinforcing point there and you said
the first rule warfare,
you gotta get there.
And deployment does not equal employment.
Because the next day people
wanna see you, they need you.
But you gotta close that time and space
and my hats off to what
General Richardson just said,
because there was a point
in time believe it or not
and the wisdom of the Pentagon,
we wouldn't go nowhere
until after the event.
And now, we've seen the need,
we've had the experience
and the lean forward
and that's making a big
difference and saving lives.
I'd like to go to another question here.
You would please.
Are there op plans that have been prepared
for military projected response
to a catastrophic incident?
And can you describe them,
giving the military deliberate
and subordinated status
to the civil authorities?
And how might we expect
these plans to be initiated
in order to maximize the unity of effort
between the military
and the civil components
that we support?
(mumbles)
- Yeah, well, first of all,
there are deliberate plans
that have been established.
And NorthCOM and PACOM,
we can't forget PACOM
because they have geographic
responsibilities, obviously,
Hawaii and the territories of the Pacific.
Both combatant commands have
established deliberate plans
for DSCA obviously, Homeland Defense
and some other unique
responsibilities they have.
They've worked very closely
in the development of those plans
with state level Adjutant General,
working to identify the kinds of gaps
that we'd see at that level,
also working very closely
with our federal partners
to understand that.
It's one of the first places
in the Defense Department,
where we've actually shared
plans with our federal partners
ahead of time in the development.
FEMA, over the years has been involved
in the development of our
deliberate plans at that level.
And then of course, the component plans
that go below that, but I'll turn that on.
You're the tie that I should
be talking about planning.
But anyways, we should do planning
and we should integrate our planning,
but again, he doesn't do planning.
(laughing)
- So we need to do planning obviously.
The family of plans that exists
and the 3500 is really
the one that for the DSCA
and everything and then we
have the CJCS DSCA X Order
as well as the CBAN X Order.
And so we definitely
have those on the shelf
and not on the shelf anymore.
They're like ready to go
all the time, which is good.
And so you gotta have that
and you have to have those ready to go.
In terms of the planners
and that kind of thing,
if I need to augment I talked
about the DCEOs my DCEs,
the DCO is one person,
the DCE is total of 10.
And then you have EPLOs and
we got REPLOs and we got,
those are worth their
weight and gold as well
that are there with the state
and work with them each and every day too.
But if I need to augment for planning,
for planning purposes I
will definitely do that
from Army North and put
them out where I need to,
I have the as I talked about,
my deployable command posts as well
that go out and then co
locate with state EOCs.
I had one in this last one.
We had three that were out.
I had them at Camp Landing, Florida.
I have my DCE element.
Tallahassee at the state EOC.
I had another element
that was there in the state
EOC with the with Georgia.
And then we moved out another element
to Fort Jackson, South
Carolina to be postured
for the Carolinas and that response
as we seen with the Carolinas,
it'll move across the coast
and just kind of hang
out around Fort Bragg
and rain and do all kinds of stuff.
You don't wanna be late to
need when you're executing.
And then you don't wanna
chase the storm too.
So there's a lot of things
which you gotta exercise with.
You don't wanna react too fast.
It's just a balance and
a lot of the indicators
and as you watch as things are happening.
As I talked about with a
storm, you have a little bit,
you've you've got some warning.
With other type activities,
you may not have any warning,
and you may be reacting to contact
and that's when all that planning,
the exercises that we do,
which was a lot of exercises
at the DOD level with FEMA,
and other federal agencies
down to the state level
exercises that we do
and all the exercises that we
do with our reserve component.
Very, very important,
obviously, and they're not easy.
I mean, they make you, they stress you out
in terms of throwing all
the curve balls at you
to figure out handling multiple
situations at the same time.
But definitely, we scale as required
for the planning that's
required and that sort of thing.
- So with FEMA, we have a nest of plans
that are all synchronized with the regions
and then the region
synchronized with the state.
They have six catastrophic plans
for six different catastrophic incidents
that we update two a year,
and that's how we do the rotation.
Critical part of that is NorthCOM
and their participation in
helping us get things in line.
And we made the same
mistake that people make
when they originally do plans
and we had very large plans
that nobody used.
But we've since adopted a process
where we all have a take-apart plan,
and you can take a way the
pieces that pertain to you
and use them a lot better.
So one of the things we're trying to do
is describe what the critical assets are
in a particular region or particular state
or particular area that may be hit
in a catastrophic instance so that we know
what the most important parts
that they need to be restored
and most important parts to look a are.
And I think we've come
a long way with that.
But I think the biggest single
advancement that we made
in the past few years
working with NorthCOM
is the integration of
transportation command,
TRANSCOM and the trans
feasibility studies.
So everybody makes a big plan
that talks about moving a lot of stuff,
but how much stuff can you actually move?
So when we go back to TRANSCOM
and then they we give them
what our requirements are,
then they come back and
tell us what reality says,
we can actually move.
Then we adjust the plan and
set priorities that way.
So we have all those decisions
made before we get started.
And in one case, in one of our plans,
TRANSCOM said, if you had two less
intermediate staging basis,
you could actually process more things
than you could with the
current plan that you have.
So I think we've come a
long way along those lines.
But think about that and
the other 64 departments
and agencies that are in our government
that all have a part of that,
and what kind of information
that you have to provide.
- Thank you very much.
We've got a couple more questions here
before we go to individual
on this next one.
General Semonite, if
would take the lead on it
if you don't mind.
Can you identify
constraints and restrictions
beyond resources that
would currently impede
preparation for responding
to catastrophic incident?
Can you take the lead, please.
- So sir, there's, I think
the biggest single challenge
we have is not necessarily
laws and authorities
that maybe are too hard to overcome.
It's that many times, well-intentioned
good people don't understand
those authorities.
And so when you think about the rules,
we have a lot of rules and
probably the biggest single area
we get and challenges
with is use of funds.
Everybody's gonna understand.
If you're a soldier,
do you think about ROE on the battlefield?
How do you continue to follow the rules
and be able to do the right thing?
So if we're out doing stuff,
and all of a sudden you are
a compassionate soldier,
and you see somebody that needs help,
you think, well, I'm just gonna go
and give them some help and do it.
And it depends on are you working
under General Richardson's authorities?
Are you working under a
FEMA mission assignment
or what are those?
A great example I'll give you is in Sandy.
Sandy, we ended up having
a couple of big refineries
that got hit really hard in the storm.
So fuel was a nightmare.
And all of a sudden, we
had big public facilities
that needed fuel.
Think of things like
nursing homes or hospitals
to be able to have fuel go there.
So I think Damon, what happened is,
we got a mission assignment in to say,
we want DOD fuel tankers to go out
and to be able to supply DOD
fuel to those facilities.
So the guy driving the hemet, he thinks,
he knows where he's gonna go
and he drives down to the hospital
and he fills up whatever
he's gotta fill up.
It got to the point where
the gas lines were so long
for people to get gas
and they're trying to get their problems
that there was hundreds of
cars in line for a gas station
to be able to get gas.
So now the Hemet driver's driving now
and somebody pulls them aside and says,
"Hey, can you fill me up?
"You're filling up the private hospital.
"Can you do this?"
And that's where we've got to be able
to make sure we stay in our lane.
Now initially, the answer was,
"We're only gonna give
fuel to public entities
"and not the private entities."
But then it got to the
point where at some point,
we got the go ahead to
actually park a Hemet fueler
at a gas station and cars
came by and we gave them gas.
So it goes back to we're
compassionate soldiers,
we wanna do the right thing,
but you just got to be able
to make sure you kind of stay in your lane
to be able to understand you
know how those ROAs go out
and there's a whole business part of this
that you don't need to know about.
But it goes back to at some
point if DOD does some,
DOD is big enough where
they can probably absorb,
lean in forward, but there's other times
where you gotta make sure
that we aren't given exposure
back to the federal government somewhere
where we're doing something
that our heart might say
we ought to do, but it's just tough.
Real estate's a good example.
If somebody wants a blue roof says,
"Hey, I forgot to fill the form out.
"You're doing blue roof.
"You did house number
two, house number three,
"can you can do house number four?"
Well, you actually have to have permission
to walk onto somebody's private
property to do a blue roof.
And it's gotta actually
be signed in a form.
Nobody wants to hear that
in the middle of a storm,
but there is some litigation.
So this is where know the
rules, stay in your lane.
And I gotta admit, and I love
FEMA, but I tell you what,
these guys lean forward something wicked,
and if there's ever even a
chance that somebody needs help,
they will be the ones
that sign on the line,
even if it means that
maybe you're gonna go down
and do something, maybe it's not needed,
but you talk about an organization
that's extremely aggressive in taking risk
and doing the right things
for the right reason,
my hat's off to FEMA.
So, Bob, I don't know
what do you wanna add
any more to that, but
I think that's probably
the biggest single pitfall we have.
- No, I agree with you completely on FEMA
and the relationship that we have
with the other departments and agencies.
And I would point out, as you
just did with a fuel issue,
the department does get
involved in a number of issues
that you wouldn't normally think
of the Department of
Defense being involved in
when it comes to these disasters.
It fundamentally comes back
to we have the capabilities
and because we have the capabilities,
there's great expectations
that very senior levels
in the government, and having worked
for probably the last 10 secretaries,
I can tell you when it comes
to disasters and emergencies,
the president looks to FEMA to lead them,
but looks to DOD
then to be responsive
with its capabilities.
And we will do a lot
of things to help out.
We always find the way the nice thing
about the Defense Department,
I think in OSD, we've
got about 500 lawyers,
and we can always find a
way to get things done.
So thanks.
- Thank you.
If you would, I'd like to
go to our last question.
The core competency of deliberate planning
may be the greatest asset the military has
in preparing for and responding
to complex catastrophic events.
How can that competency be leveraged
from other government
functions and agencies
to ensure unity of effort
while preparing for
and responding to a catastrophic incident?
General, do you want to take the lead?
- Yes, sir.
Well, and I think Mr.
Penn talked about it.
We've come a long way
in our ability to plan
for a really a campaign-type
of the planning event
for the major catastrophic events.
The core competency in the military,
of being able to do deliberate planning
is already taking place within the states
and the integration with
the all-hazards plan
that the state do.
I mean, I've seen it across
the states that I've visited
in my previous job, they
really are getting after it,
because the planners within the military
within that state are helping out.
Army North is also been absolutely amazing
in training their DCOs
to get and their DCEs
to get involved with the state plans,
help them develop those
state response plans.
So the next step as we
have a full understanding
of the state plans and how DOD can support
within a state the all-hazards
response requirements
of getting to a regional
complex catastrophe.
How many people in here know the specifics
of what will happen if New Madrid goes,
the seismic, New Madrid seismic?
Not very many.
So the last time it went was
a little over 100 years ago,
and when it went, the Mississippi River
flowed backwards for about six days.
Every line of communication
across the Mississippi
River will come down.
The impacted number of states I think is,
I don't know, Mr. Penn, you probably have
the more specific on that.
It's several states directly impacted.
St. Louis will be severely impacted,
and the commodities that flow
across the Mississippi River
to the east, including food
and fuel and other things
is gonna go away.
That is a complex catastrophe.
That's gonna involve all of us.
And so I think as we graduate
from where we are now,
and we're at the state,
we're pretty good at dealing
with maybe the state specific,
federal agency response to
a catastrophe within a state
or two states.
Sandy was, well, you can put the whole
eastern CBAN in Texas but
Sandy was a few states.
But I think as we start really
looking at the capabilities,
we have to do large scale planning.
That's where I think the competencies
of the military working with FEMA,
because I think is what, four FEMA regions
involved in Mew Madrid all tied together.
That's where the I think the next step
of that core competency
of DOD working with FEMA,
and what the states can come in
and developing comprehensive campaign plan
for a complex disaster.
- General Richardson, would
you like to add anything
to comment that you did your tour
of the southeast here with the brigades?
- No, I think Patrick
answered it good enough.
Like said, we have folks that we embed
and can augment at any time
and the exercises are huge
and very critical to all of
the agencies that participate
and what it takes in
a New Madrid scenario.
What really open your eyes
when you see how many
different agencies are involved
and at the state and local level
to handle something like that,
as well as the federal level.
- Thank you.
We have about 25 minutes
left of our panel.
And now we get to the exciting part,
where you as members of the
audience get to participate
by challenging the panel
here with questions.
So, who will be the first person
who'd like to ask a question please?
- Sir, right here.
- Yes, sir.
- [Jeff] Jeff Holmes, Tag, Tennessee.
Thank you for the panelists.
Great discussion.
My question is specific to incidental use
of DOD equipment in
support of our citizenry.
There are certain types
of units as we know
that performing their MT-only
mission are very adaptable
to supporting things like
medevac and fly helicopters
and things of that nature.
Sometimes it feels like we're
getting more restrictive
on the ability to use those assets
and with the intent of
letting the local entity
deal with the disaster
as much as practical.
Sometimes they can get
through it with a little help.
But do you see that as
being more stringent
or continuing on a kind of current pace?
That was that's my question.
The more restrictive.
Do you feel like it's
getting more restrictive
of using incidental use authorities
to use military assets in
support of local disasters?
- My view, I don't think it's
getting more restrictive.
I think the rules have always been there.
As you know, as the Adjutant
General for Tennessee,
there's certain policies
that are out there, laws.
You have the ability for the state
to use certain capabilities,
but it's always been
that those capabilities,
there was a reimbursement through the PFO.
So those rules have existed.
I don't know, if you're
talking about a specific issue,
or I think there's an opportunity
when you're out there
training to provide support,
there's immediate response
authority too that's out there.
So it's a combination of authorities.
We'd have to look at the specific ones
as it relates to this specific issue.
But I don't think the Defense Department,
what the Defense
Department does want to do
is use the established
processes that do exist,
whether that's EMACs or the
mission assignment process.
Especially if it comes to disasters,
because now there's a
benefit to doing that
for a lot of reasons, both in the EMAC,
and both in the mission assignment
process that reimbursed.
So there's a funding issue there.
But also the question
becomes, are we using training
to respond to incidents, rather
than using those processes?
Is it a single event kind of thing?
What we've seen is,
obviously, across the board
is employing training as a
response to a natural disaster
when those other opportunities exist,
both at the state level
and the federal level.
And so right now we're working
on that particular issue
to examine how much of that
goes on when it goes on.
And then then obviously
there is a difference
between the state
activity and the federal,
specifically a DOD responsibility.
It's important, as I spoke
before, in the beginning,
it's a federalist system,
and that federalist system
has different authorities
and different
responsibilities to deal with.
- [Jeff] All right, thank you, sir.
- I'm glad to talk more about it,
but we can do that later if you'd like.
- [Honore] Anyone else
like to add to that?
Yes sir.
This one comes up quite often.
Are they still restricted
by the Economy Act?
The restriction which you talked to that
a little bit, because--
- Sure.
I mean, there's there's
lots of authorities.
The Economy Act is really
designed for federal departments
to federal departments
The Economy Act is when, for
example, we get a request,
it could be a request
from another department,
any department asking for DOD support.
If we're asked for that support,
by law it's reversible.
We're appropriated to do
DOD missions specifically.
And so somebody is asking us for support
to do their mission, the
Economy Act is the law
and the guidance that provides
that we'd be reimbursed.
But as a relates to disasters,
I think it's different
than you know.
And Damon's the expert here.
But we have the Stafford Act
and the Stafford Act is established
so that when a state in particular,
when the governor determines
that the state capabilities
are exceeded, that he needs assistance
from the federal government,
then he obviously
provides that declaration
to FEMA and the president
requesting support.
It can be a major declaration
or emergency declaration,
depends on the size and scope.
And if you go through the Stafford Act,
but the great thing about
that is what that does
is begins to flow federal support.
And specifically, it's a
burden sharing issue too,
because we do that, obviously,
to ensure state maintain
some level of engagement in the effort.
So normally, it's the 75 25% split.
And the 25% is the state responsibility.
75 is the federal government.
Just to give you an example, though,
and again, Damon's the expert,
so I keep talking here.
But the number of disasters
that have had declarations
over the last 20 years is incredible.
And so the federal government
has through the DRF,
which is the disaster responsible
and that provides that funding,
and it's pretty significant
amount of funding
that is made available every year.
I think part of the one of
the goals that FEMA's had
over the years is to
ensure that the states.
Again, it goes back to preparedness.
It comes back to the federal assistant
and who ultimately has responsibility
to the citizens of the state.
And when the federal government is needed,
we have the Stafford Act
that allows us to do that.
- And we'll go to the
gentleman on right there.
I think you were next.
- [Chrispa] Yes sir.
Chrispa Hany, Homeland Security,
Remote Sensing Advisor.
I wanna connect the dot on a
couple things that were said.
Damon Penn mentioned, like
Long Island and Sandy.
Didn't know they had the
need 'cause comms were down.
A substitute for comms
is situational awareness.
Situation awareness,
particularly exquisite
not just the lay of the land,
the terrain and the waterways,
but down to the granular human level.
For lines of communication,
are they obstructed?
Are you gonna need heavy
equipment to clear the obstruction
as a bridge out?
That situational awareness
to me in military terms
sounds like a force enabler
or a disaster response aid enabler,
but it's not clear to
me that we're getting,
requesting the right amount,
the right type quick enough
that would be useful to the
most levels of government.
So I throw up part of the question is,
would exquisite situational awareness
rapidly collected and made available
in an address searchable portal be help
the entire response of FEMA,
Army Corps and The Guard
in getting the people the
equipment and the aid material in?
And one example of this would
be instead of an oblique
MGB aircraft or a PA or
something, doing an oblique shot,
flying around looking at some
comprehensive area collection,
geo registered map-ready,
mission-ready vertical,
and four axis oblique
so you can see the roof
and all four sides of any structure
or any road line of communication
or critical infrastructure in the area.
Done within a week, three
inch color done within a week
an address searchable portal
with such a capability,
enable streamlined response in
a way that's more beneficial
for these larger scale disaster
like Harvey in Houston
or Maria, Puerto Rico.
- So good question.
So, yep, situation awareness
is at the center point
of trying to figure out what
the response is gonna be.
But to be honest with
you, I can't wait a week.
I have to know in time then
if we test DOD as an example,
then I still got to go
through the approval process,
they gotta generate the forces,
they have to alert the forces,
they have to put them on the ground,
and then they have to
move to where we are.
And as General Honore mentioned,
we're talking about managing expectations
that's really not within the
expectations of our citizens.
So my challenge for me anyway, in my job
is not getting imagery.
My problem is managing imagery.
I've got imagery from everywhere.
I've got everything the DOD has.
I've got every satellite
that you can imagine
that's available to me.
I've got Civil Air Patrol
that we can fly on specific missions
that can take pictures of
everything that we need to do.
We've got geospatial experts
that can break down everything
that we talked about
and do exactly what you said,
and look at the four sides of a house.
But what does that tell me
about what the need on the ground is?
I've got a neighborhood is flooded out,
the neighborhood evacuated are doing
search and rescue in the neighborhood.
If the neighborhood is
evacuated near the shelter,
then now I've got an issue
where I need to provide
food and water to the shelter,
but not necessarily to
search and rescue part.
So part of the task is
and General Richardson
alluded to this earlier,
is having some technical patients as well.
Because you have assets and
you're ready to deploy them
and what you have, you gotta make sure
you send to the right place,
because you can't pick them up
and move them again in a lot of cases.
But trying to figure out what that is
and what the right balance
is, is what the challenge is.
And you're gonna get a lot of that
from the states and locals.
But there's some processing
that has to happen as well.
Because if you are right
in the middle of a fire,
the whole world is on fire.
If you're watching a fire on television,
somebody's got an issue
but I'll change the channel
and watch the ball game.
So things are kinda different
but situation awareness is everything
but my personal challenge is
processing all of the data
that I already have and not
necessarily getting more data.
- So let me take a swing at
it from two other angles.
First of all, most of the local officials
don't wanna necessarily ask for help
for there's a lot of the
reasons we heard earlier.
And they aren't going to ask
until they really really know
they got a problem and
they're in over their heads.
And then by the time
they get the state in,
and if Mr. Penn gets the notification,
we're already way behind.
If we knew the issue was there,
we would already been leaning forward.
So it's a crisis.
And then everybody wants us
to be there three days ago
when we just barely get the warning order.
So we don't have time to be able
to either deploy whatever else.
So again, I'm more in the execution mode.
So what we do now
and this is into the PhD
level of disaster response.
As soon as the storm starts happening,
this is says intel on the battlefield.
I put my public affairs guys
all up and down the vertical team,
District, Division, I like
having them watching TV.
Us all do, they watch all day long,
'cause the news crews sometimes are there
long before FEMA calls us, okay.
And we're watching some
lady out there saying,
"My house is this or
the electricity is out."
And social media is invaluable right now.
We're watching tweets, we're
watching everything coming in,
and we're able to figure out.
Where's there a problem?
Mr. Penn talked about Long Island.
Staten Island was a
major problem in Sandy.
The way we knew we had a problem in Sandy,
is a principal finally went
on a social media point
and said, "I have not seen
anybody here in four days."
And all of a sudden we're like,
"Hey, let's not wait for FEMA to call.
"Get a generator down
there and figure it out,
"we'll back our way into
the mission assignment.
"But we've got some issues out there."
So what are we doing to be
able to read tweet social media
and you build the picture
backward to a degree
to understand what's the the
intel on the battlefield.
And there are times where we'll
actually say, you need help
get a mission assignment up call us,
but in the meantime, I'm not
waiting to get the paperwork.
I've got a guy with a
generator on the way down there
and sometimes we're risk adverse,
you can't do that in this operation.
You gotta go down there
and if you waste a little bit of money,
driving a generator down
and the hospital is up
by the time you get there, that's okay.
- If I could have one quick comment.
There's an entity out
there that fights harder
for situational understanding
on damage assessment
that any of us do.
It's called insurance companies.
And they will have drones
in the air right away.
Matter of fact, it starts inter responses.
So we have to limit that with the FAA
and put rises up and
doing things like that.
But those guys are fighting real hard
for damage assessments.
And if we can tap into that someday,
that would be kind of cool.
- A quick comment out there.
Is one of the largest
consortiums for insurance
is National Insurance Crime Bureau.
1100 property and casualty
companies for homes and autos.
I think it's out of Council Bluffs, Iowa.
They have a single
Geospatial Intelligence Center in Boulder.
They wanna get up and
fly one of the dilemmas
if it's a big city with
international airport,
controlled airspace like Houston,
is FAA controls airspace
and you need a human mission
authorization to get in.
And you might have the perfect imagery
that both the residents the local,
the city county government need,
but if FEMA doesn't get
grant admission authorization
to commercial or.org entity
to service the insurance companies
and they're also providing that
to first responders for free,
it doesn't happen as quick as it needs to.
- That's not entirely correct.
I don't do.
FEMA didn't decide who
gets into the airspace.
The FAA makes that decision.
We provide guidelines back
for what priorities we have
for things that are other than
the normal commercial flights
that need to go in.
But I'm not the guy that says
who flies and who doesn't.
- He's right.
It's the FAA working in
our version of a chaoc
but I will tell you,
the reason that we
restricted that during Harvey
was because we were
doing search and rescue,
which is way more important
than damage assessment.
- Understood, thank you.
- [Honore] That was a
good run on that question.
Ma'am, please.
- [Audrey] Good afternoon,
Lieutenant Colonel Audrey Brown.
46 Military Police
Command (mumbles) Bravo.
My question's directed toward...
My question is directed
toward General Semonite.
You talked about debris removal.
And I'm just curious, at what point
does it transition to recovery phase
because debris removal,
there's a certain amount of local business
and business that helps
stimulate the economy
and recovery phase.
And I was just curious as to at what point
does it transition into
that recovery phase
where some of that rebuilding
and some of those funds
would go toward the economy?
- So debris removal, I think
what we've worked here,
and as all of us on the panel
probably have been more much
more agile than it used to be.
We wanna be flexible to what
the local entities want.
We have massive contracts
with capabilities.
Every single city in America
is under a debris removal
contract right now.
So if something happens,
those guys are ready to go in,
our teams already there.
A lot of the states though,
and the local entities
like to do it themselves.
And I'll be honest, they might be able
to then hire their contractors
versus our contractors.
There could be a scenario
where our contractors
from state X, and we're over in state Y
and they wanna be able to make sure
all the income is going into their state.
So long before we get
the mission assignment,
that dialogue just worked
at the lower levels,
and then they figure out and sometimes,
the entire state wants to do it.
This is another area where
we've seen in the past
is the local entity, say,
we're gonna sign up and do it.
And all of a sudden, 30 days later,
trash is still on the front lawns,
'cause the contractors get
protests and it's not out there
and so then we come back in
but we normally take
the lead from Mr. Penn
as to what's that architecture,
how do we wanna do it?
And it does get tricky
because at some point,
when you're thinking about
response, where's the debris?
you got to get out of there right away.
What we normally do
is we immediately haul
it off the property line
and there's even times like
we did as a Virgin Islands.
We just, you're on an island.
It's hard to get rid of it all.
So worse that we worked
on it for two years
to be able to get rid
of all the tree debris.
We haul it out in the middle
of the back 40 somewhere,
we'll rent a great big lot,
put all the trees out there,
and then over a period
of two or three years,
we'll continue to get rid of it.
So it kind of stretches
from recovery into response
to long term repair.
Damon, and if you wanna
add any more to that.
- Yeah, you're right.
And the biggest single
challenge for debris removal
strangely enough is being granted access.
And General Semonite and his folks
work through this every day.
You would think that this
would be easy, but it's not.
And then what can you remove
from private property?
What can you remove from public property?
What type of debris is it?
It's huge.
But there's a real success story here.
I'm just gonna give
you a real short story.
The California wildfires.
There was a city over there
that it did burn down 1000 houses.
And we were asked to
come in and basically,
to remove not necessarily the foundations,
but all the debris, take
all of this stuff out.
So if the car's all burned up,
I mean there's hazardous waste issues.
How do you deal with that?
So cars go one place and all
the other stuff goes with.
There was a lady who had
her husband passed away.
And he was cremated and
he was on the fireplace,
right over the fireplace over house
and the house burned down.
And so when we came back in she said,
"I would give anything
"just to have a part of my husband back."
How do we do this?
So there we went out and just
this is kind of an unusual one
went out and found there's actually a dog
that you can hire that
knows the difference
between human ashes
and ashes from a house.
And so we went in and very,
very carefully collected.
I'm not sure we were 100% accurate.
But we were in 80% ballpark probably
and gave that lady back what
we felt was was her husband.
And that's the compassion
that you have to have,
but that cost a little bit extra
and we use the federal
government, the state company
can't just say, "Hey, no way.
"We don't do ashes for cremated people."
No, you gotta be compassionate
because at the end of the day,
we're here to be able to take care of.
And that's what DOD does,
and what FEMA does as well.
It's all about care of
the American people.
- Good question.
- Thank you.
- And over here, sir.
- [Robert] Hey, good afternoon.
Check, there we go.
So my name is Robert Fordham
with Guardian Centers
down in Perry, Georgia.
First off, thank you to the panelists.
Intimidating level of
experience up on that stage
in the disasters you've
all led us through.
I appreciate.
What I would like to ask
about is about training
and preparedness for our
state and local responders.
So we've all heard many of
you today talk about planning,
training and exercises on the front side
left at the boom as an
old DOD guy, myself.
So what do you see in the future
for state and local responders
as our threat evolves
and becomes more complex
and as stakeholders
in the overall response together?
What do you see for funding for that,
because that's one of the challenges
we see across in our space to
where state and local folks
have a hard time, especially if you're not
in large metropolitan cities.
Thank you.
- So I'll try to tackle part of that.
First of all, our first
responders do a miraculous job.
The kinds of things that
they do on a day to day basis
just would baffle you,
if you had a good understanding of that.
Let alone what they do
when we have a disaster.
But you're right, there
is a gap between training
and what they do for individual responses
versus what they do for county,
citywide countywide responses.
And it kind of depends on the state.
There is some grant
money that's available,
but a lot of it gets used for other things
and it's really hard when
you're the guy on the ground
and you're the state guy and
you're trying to figure out
where to spend your rent money.
Whether you spend it on
something has already happened,
or spend it on something
that might happen.
But what we've managed to do
over the past four or five years
and the states have
taken the lead on this,
is do a much better job of
outline what their shortfalls are
and where they think
they're gonna need help
and identifying those
training gaps that they have.
There's several training
centers around the world
around the nation that you can
do some collective training.
There's one in West Virginia,
I can think of off the top of my head.
General Hamilton, where's
the one in that place
I can never pronounce it.
(mumbles)
So it exists, but it's very difficult
for them to get there and
do what they need to do.
The success story in all of this,
though, I think is a Urban
Search and Rescue Program.
So with that, we've got 26 full time teams
that remain trained and we deployed them
throughout the United States to react.
Several of them also have
international requirements
and international agreements
locally here in Fairfax
County as an example.
They went to the Bahamas,
they've got went to Haiti,
they've gone to several
places internationally.
Those teams get some augmentation from us,
but they spend more than we augment them,
just to maintain the readiness
that they need to maintain.
And there's a tremendous competition
to become one of those teams,
which also builds a deeper bench force.
So I think if we can use that
as a model to your point,
I think we'd get get
better overall as a nation.
But really difficult decisions to make we.
- We have a couple more questions.
We've got about five minutes.
General Hamilton if you would,
I'd like to defer to those two questions
and come back to you for closing comments.
Ma'am, on the right, please.
- [Susan] Hi, Susan Greencastle, Ohio.
My question is to what extent
is their pre disaster event
planning, coordination and
communication with NGOs
such as the American Red Cross,
National Church Organizations
and resource rich corporations
for response and recovery unity of effort?
- Great question.
I'll start (mumbles)
But great question.
So in our National Response
Coordination Center,
we've got 122 seats, where we
managed to federal response,
a third of those are for,
two thirds of those rather
are for our federal partners
and our non government organizations.
So Red Cross has a seat there.
Several other, I think
there are 14 other NGOs
that have a seat and they come to us
and every time we activate
and that's where they start.
So they are critical to what we do
and they're an integral
part of what we do.
What we've done as part of
the new national response
for framework that will be released,
hopefully in a few weeks,
you'll see the addition
of a ESF 14 which includes
a much better part of inclusion
for our civilian counterparts and our NGOs
and we had before.
So where we had one person
that will make a call
and talk to industry
over the course of a day
and normally just get a weather update.
Now we've got a team
that does it full time,
and when you see the
National Response Framework,
I think you'll be impressed
with how we really laid that out
and how much involvement that
we have through all levels.
So that's a great question.
That's a deficiency we've
had for quite a while,
but I think we're in the right track
to getting it corrected.
But all of those entities that
you mentioned, as an example,
are what we count on to do feeding.
So I think when we're move a
million meals ready to eat,
or in a million bottles of water,
that's gonna take care of something,
that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Those organizations that you mentioned
are the ones that do long term feeding.
And at the state and local level,
they all have relationships
with the shelters.
Went to a mega shelter in
Texas here a few months ago
and integral to what they were doing
was the built in feeding that they had
from several local organizations
that not only brought the
food and the equipment
but they also brought
other wraparound services
like childcare and it was just
an incredible thing to see.
- [Honore] Thank you, Damon.
We have one additional question.
This will be the last
question from the audience
before we go to some closing comments.
So your question please.
- [Elicott] I'm Major
General Retired Ellicott.
Several of you on the panel have discussed
how important military installations are
to support your operations.
Would you please comment
on the readiness need
for installations down to
armory and reserve centers
to have resilient power such
as micro grids and generators
to power commanding control facilities
support operations and
for you General Honore,
this would enhance your union of effort,
your mission command and to set the path
for multi domain catastrophe operations.
- You gave the best question.
(applauding)
I'll defer to Commander
Semonite on that question
on readiness about centers.
- Okay, so I think the in
terms of our installations
I think we could do better
with our installations,
also with our mobilization,
force generation installations,
our MFDIs as well.
And having those ready
for the the garden reserve
as we're executing
possibly an op plan as well
and having those ready to go.
Having the redundant
systems that are necessary,
there are some in place, but again,
there's always improvement
that needs to be made.
And I would say that as we're
also particularly in the army,
we're modernizing we have our
six modernization priorities,
we've got timing, that's
clearly the priority,
and that's readiness for our army
but we also know that
keeping up our infrastructure
is very hard to do.
And so I think there's always
ways to improve on that
for the reasons that you've stated.
But I think over time, we've
realized the necessity for that
and that sort of thing, and
that has been happening.
But again, there's always
improvements that we can make.
- General Semonite, we'll go to you next
with a one-minute wrap
up, and then we'll go
in turn to all the members.
- Thank you.
Just real quick, sir.
Just on that.
The last several years,
we have done a lot more
on resiliency, though.
It's not just for disaster response.
We're also worried about threat.
If these installations are so dependent
on the civilian energy to be
able to provide utilities,
we could actually lose
a lot of our capability,
but it's a great question.
- I would just say and I know
we're gonna be close on time.
One thing we haven't talked about,
I continue to talk about this
intel piece and our ability
to not have blind spots in these storms.
And so a lot of times the
local people call back up.
I use a term that we use in
the military an awful lot.
Every soldier is a sensor.
You gotta go out, and you
gotta see what's going on.
So we had a bunch of engineers out
cutting trees off the roads
doing a route clearance
mission in these hurricanes.
And if they go by a hospital,
there's no electricity,
and it's in the middle of
night, then write that down
and come back and tell us.
All of a sudden you see a wash
out on the side of the road,
or you see something else.
So you gotta be able to have
our teams that are out there
that are very, very good.
And it's the whole team.
The Federal team, but bring
it back and let people know
because sometimes they're
focused in their lane,
am I only out to do
this particular mission.
They'll drive right by
things that we got to be able
to have an intel on, and
we just don't see it.
So let everybody know that's our work
and continue to be able to
ask questions, knock on doors,
and figure out how do we
have a good understanding
of that requirement early on?
I'll stop there, sir.
- Okay, Mr. Ben.
- Thanks for having me, first of all,
and then I can tell you that
our federal preparedness
and our ability to respond
as a federal government
has never been stronger.
And our partnership with DOD
has never been greater than it is.
That's what gives us opportunity now,
to think about the unthinkable
and think about catastrophic incidents.
So I know we had a lot of negative things,
but those are things
that we can work on now
the graduate level work because
we are working very hard
and we're doing the things
day to day we need to do.
- Thank you, sir.
(mumbles)
- My only comment is
the number one objective
in the national defense strategy
that was written two years ago,
is the protection of the homeland
and the ability to respond
to catastrophic events.
I can think of no more
higher strategic guidance
that we have.
But to boil it down to
something more practical.
I think the fundamentals
are sustained partnerships,
having good information sharing networks
so that we can move information quickly.
Pre identifying capabilities
and having pre arranged
agreements, not at the last minute,
but doing that ahead of time,
and making investments in preparedness
from the individual to the organization
to what we do in planning and training
and it incorporates everybody.
It's not just the Defense
Department's just not FEMA.
It's what we do in our
communities at the local level,
at the state level,
across the federal
departments and agencies,
to the individual families.
And so, with that, thank you again,
and thank you for your
service to our country.
I appreciate that.
- [Honore] General Hamilton
and then we'll General Richardson last.
- So I think that we've
come a remarkable distance
in our ability as as DOD
to respond to incidents
within the States and across the country.
During Hurricane Harvey, or excuse me,
during Hurricane Katrina, Rita, I guess,
Jack Colley the old the
Emergency Management Director
in Texas, General Clark from Fifth Army
decided he was gonna go to
the State Operations Center
and bring capabilities and
everything else with him.
And when he got there, Jack Colley said,
"General we didn't ask for you.
"We don't want you.
"Go back to Fort Sam and
keep on that installation
"until we ask for you."
We've now progressed to the point
where Fifth Army General
Richardson as the JFLCC Commander,
we've established a process
for bringing in Title X
capability to support the states
in conjunction with the
National Guard as a total force
to really be able to respond.
And I think what we did
during the 17 storm season
was the execution of what was a result
of things that happened in Katrina,
that General Honore had to deal with.
So we've come a remarkable distance.
I just think we need to keep continuing
to move in that direction.
- Would you give us a wrap
here, General Richardson?
- I sure will.
And I wanna thank all the great folks
that came to this panel today
to discuss this very important topic.
And thank you General Honore as well
for being our moderator.
As you can see, this is a great
team to be able to work with
and be colleagues with and
that are at the highest levels,
and the decisions that they're making
and how they got a
little bit of an insight
into how they think and
how they operate as well,
and their priorities, and I think
that that's just really tremendous.
I'm very honored to be
able to work with them,
and again, at the end of the day,
it's all about relationships
and the unity of effort
and bringing everything to bear
to counter what occurs in our homeland.
And there could be no greater
opportunity or challenge
or more heroic thing to be
able to do for our nation
and do it in the homeland.
And so, thank you again
for coming out today.
I certainly appreciate
it and have a great day.
- All right, how about
a big round of applause?
(audience applauding)
Thank you all very much.
Thank you very much.
